“Sir,” he moved closer to him, “we'll make a deal with you. You can make your call, but you have to give my friends access to your stockpile.”
“Son, I'll do ya one better. You take me back home, we forget this little business with the bloodwork, and I'll take you and your girl with me.”
“I don't know that she'd go with me at this moment,” he volunteered quietly. His mom's look was neutral.
He'd never seen Victoria so angry. It didn't seem possible she would leave him, not really, but his lack of experience with girlfriends could be a multi-volume novel. He could be missing something very obvious in all this.
“I'll tell you what...” Liam and Hans argued the terms, though everyone seemed satisfied at the compromise.
Everyone save Victoria. She stood underneath the crooked branches of a magnolia.
Hans would make the call when they got back to his home. But before that could happen, he knew what he needed to do to make things right with his girlfriend.
“Mom, will you walk him back? I need to take Victoria for a walk.”
She smiled a knowing smile.
Chapter 9: White Flag
Marty's dream had gone on for too long, she decided. She walked down a long rock-hewn corridor filled with cars and trucks—abandoned apparently. The tunnel was wide enough for two lanes of traffic, but everyone was faced the same direction. That was the way she walked, candle in hand.
“Al?” Her voice was weaker than she intended, but this dream had her chilled to the bone. She even felt the cold, which was new for her sleepwalking.
Sleepwalking? Is that what I've been doing?
The votive candle fit snugly in her hand, though the wax was beginning to drizzle down the sides as it burned. She dared not disturb it, however, as she had no way to relight it. To lose light here would be a nightmare within a nightmare.
“Al?” she called a bit louder. “Where are you?”
Lately her lucid dreams were happening without Al's presence. That's when she saw the young girl. But then he'd returned as they stood in her ruined backyard. Until… Something had come down the alley, destroying the neighborhood. Was Al gone, too?
Far behind her, she heard the solitary moan of one of the infected.
The word “Vombies” popped in her head. Where had she heard that before? Someone called these things a combination of zombie and vampire. It was on the edge of her awareness, but it wouldn't appear.
“See Al, my memory is anything but special.”
A breeze from ahead washed over the tiny flame. It flickered, and appeared in danger of being extinguished, but she cupped her other hand around it to shield it.
On she went.
The cavern became larger, like she was exiting the highway of cars, and entering an underground hall full of them. The light reflected from the chrome and glass of an unknown number of vehicles, but they went on beyond the reach of her tiny light.
“Al, please. I need to wake up.”
Could she? Why didn't she think of that before? Prior to her, eh, vivid dreams—which started about six months ago—she had the ability to rouse herself from sleep by recognizing she was dreaming while inside her dream. She'd mastered the skill over a lifetime of nightmares—mostly revolving around that little garage.
Maybe that garage has been destroyed.
She searched her thoughts. The last dream she could remember with Al, something had been coming. Something that destroyed the other garages and outbuildings along the alley. Maybe it finally took care of the dark place that she was unable to ever truly leave behind. Why else would she stay in the same house after her husband died? After the neighborhood lost its value. After she should have downsized.
If the garage was gone, maybe she was free. Perhaps Al was a vestige of that prison, and without the weight of the accident with baby Victoria tying her down, she was moving on.
She admitted it was the thinnest of theories.
In the large cavern, she was given no hints about what she should do. So, she walked on.
Car after car passed, though these were different than the ones in tunnel. Where those were intact, these were all ravaged and bloody near the windows. She'd seen it many times before—infected had broken the glass and got inside, or the occupants had gotten out.
The mix of cars and trucks gave way to all trucks. They looked like the type a power company would use to fix the lines. They each had a rectangular back end that had an arm with a bucket the workers would use to rise up and fix the transformers on telephone poles. The weak light hardly disturbed the trucks as she walked by.
“Metropolitan Power and Light,” she said aloud.
She had to be somewhere other than St. Louis. The local power outfit was called AmerenUE. Several members of her extended family worked there over the years.
“Where am I, Al?” If the direct approach didn't work, she thought she could coax him out with a question.
It took her many minutes to cross the room. The wind sheer against the candle increased the further she made it into the parking lot of trucks, and to compensate she had to shield the flame with her hand in an ever-tighter, and painful, semi-circle. She lost the ability to see much beyond the sides of the trucks right next to her, but she was compelled to continue.
Eventually she came to a low wire she had to step over. She continued for a few more feet before she came to the conclusion she was through the truck park. But ahead…
Nothing.
There were no trucks. No reflections. The light didn't reach anything.
She spoke a short prayer, asking for guidance.
She heard a sound on the wind.
“Marty?” A man's voice, very faint. It could be Al, but she couldn't be sure.
“Al? This is Marty, yes!”
“Grandma Marty? Is it possible?”
“Yes, Al. I'm here!”
The man's voice was still hard to hear. The wind was tossing the light from side to side, making it difficult to see anything at all. She kept looking at her hand to focus on protecting the light, but it ruined her night vision.
Louder, the voice broke through. “Marty. Don't take another step. There's no bottom.”
It was not Al's voice.
2
Marty woke in a bed, with the nearby sounds of heavy artillery. Rather than worry about that, she tried to capture the gist of the dream before it faded. It made her think of staying put. “Don't take another step,” the voice had said. Stay in Cairo? Is that what her brain, memories, or whatever, were advising her to do? It sort of made sense.
More loud noises brought her out of her reverie. The kids were awake, too, and they all sat at the front window watching the light show. Outside, very close, guns fired over and over.
“They're shooting on the other side of the levee.”
It wasn't a kid. They weren't teens at the window.
“Where am I?”
A nurse came out of the darkness. “Hello ma'am. You're in the Cairo community center. This floor is reserved for people of your, ah, age.” She smiled, but her eyes said it was too early in the morning and she wasn't yet ready to suffer stupid questions.
“What's going on out there?”
There were three large windows, and though the lights were off in the room, there was some light leaking in from the hallway. But even if there were no lights on, the light from the battle would have illuminated everything. It was like the paparazzi were outside the window snapping photos over and over.
“They're giving it to the zombies. The Army, that is.”
She looked outside again and saw something in the sky light up and send a finger of light down to the ground. As she watched, it moved for several seconds before turning off. Another beam followed the first, like it was a pattern. A dull chatter came through the window each time the light went on and off. It was a counterpoint to the reports of the big guns.
“Tanks. Planes. Artillery. They're sending those things to hell,” the nurse offered
. She looked at all the people standing at the windows. It had to be the middle of the night as they were all in their bed clothes. Marty used the light of the guns to sweep the room. There were a dozen beds, like a communal hospital ward.
Or a crazy house.
I'm not crazy!
She argued with herself for a time, before realizing how crazy that was.
I don't want to be crazy.
“Those are Paladins. They got the big stuff here to protect us,” one of her male companions said from the window.
Things seemed to be well in hand, so she let herself drift back to sleep. She wasn't sure which reality was the nightmare anymore.
When she woke, it was daytime. But the activity and buzz in the room was just the same as she'd left it last night. People were still at the window.
“What is this all about?” She was a little perturbed, but she chalked it up to lack of sleep. She hated hospitals because half the time the nurses didn't tell the patient when things were going to happen. The other half of the time, the nurses didn't even know. It made her anxious on the best of days.
She got out of bed and cleaned herself up a bit. She was in hospital scrubs, which further darkened her mood.
“Lord, give me strength.”
Her prayer was so she could stand up. Always a gamble with her back and all the exertion she'd endured lately. She was secretly happy someone had parked a rolling walker by her bedside. The old Marty would have taken it as an insult, but now she needed it to get to the window. She was compelled to know what was happening…
The windows were crowded, but the others gave her room to wheel up to the glass. She was unsurprised to see she was, by far, the oldest person in the room. It had been a long time since she'd seen a peer from her age group. The one-hundred and older set was dying off.
Outside, there were people running too and fro, like a bad movie. There was no order to it. The building she was in was several stories high and was apparently a focal point for many of the runners.
“Where is everyone going?”
“Oh, mercy me,” said one lady with her at the window. “No one knows what's going on. We just know they left us.”
“The nurses? I saw one last night,” she thought about it for a second, “though I haven't seen one this morning.” She'd only been awake for a few minutes, but her experience told her a room full of elderly would require at least one nurse, around the clock. Probably two or three if the retirement community was an accredited facility.
“No, not in here, though you're right. I've not seen any, either. No, I'm talking about out there.” She pointed down. “They said the Army stopped shooting the zombies.”
The sounds from last night were gone. She'd not thought about it, though it should have been the first thing she noticed after such a violent overnight.
“Maybe they stopped them all?” Marty knew that wasn't right. Her dreams were weird, but often gave her clues she would later recognize. Conveniently after the fact, she lamented. But the dream of something coming down the alley seemed to fit. Whatever “it” was, the Army had fought it outside Cairo and the battle was over. Or…
She turned it over and over.
Or, the Army was defeated.
What could defeat the U.S. Army? Zombies wouldn't have a chance against guns and bombs.
The other woman turned from outside to look Marty in the face. Her old blue eyes focused from behind her spectacles. “Are you all right?” She said sympathetically. “You look lost.”
“I'm fine,” Marty responded. “I'm confused how the Army could have lost against the zombies. Last night I heard them give them all they had. The light show kept me up.”
“Yeah, that was something, wasn't it? The Army didn't lose, my dear. Oh no, it's much worse than that. They've abandoned us.”
For the first time in her life, she was glad to have a sturdy rolling walker. She leaned hard against the brakes on the handlebars, while she assimilated the horrible new data.
3
It took a lot of begging and cajoling, but Marty managed to get dressed, go downstairs, and make it outside. Several nurses tried to stop her, but she was adamant on leaving.
“I'm not going to waste away in a bed when so much is going on,” was her war cry.
But she wasn't going to walk to the levee on her own. Fortunately, age had its privileges. An older black gentleman wheeled up in a green six-wheeled motorized cart. To her eyes it was a golf cart, though it said John Deere Gator on the side.
“Where ya goin' ma'am?” He had a canvas boonie hat and wore a bright red buttoned shirt. Despite the heat, he seemed relaxed. A direct contrast with all the crazy people running around the town.
“I want to see over the levee.”
His eyes widened. “Really? You sure that's a good idea? I heard the Army's gone n' left us. Could be trouble there.”
“Please. I have to see. I need to know what to do next.”
“Got big plans, do ya?” He was friendly, and didn't even protest when a couple of young women hopped in the bed of his vehicle.
“Where ya girls going?” he repeated to them.
“The waterfront. Boats are leaving.”
“Really? That seems kinda dumb. Where can ya get to that's safer n' here?”
Neither girl responded. Marty couldn't turn her head enough to look back at them, but she judged they were college-aged. She frowned that anyone could survive this long and not have a plan for saving themselves. It pained her that her own plan was so nebulous, but, in her defense, she had to depend on others for almost everything she did. Those girls, so young and strong, were free to save themselves. All they needed was some proper foresight.
“Take the girls to the levee first, please.” She wasn't sure if the man had decided which destination to hit first, but he seemed happy enough to listen to her request. If the girls had thoughts on the issue, they didn't reveal them.
Don't let anyone push you around.
She didn't want to say that out loud, but she felt sorry for the girls. They were letting themselves flow with the situation, instead of controlling it. If they were trying to escape, they were going to the one place where that would be most difficult. The places closest to the zombies. Did they even know?
Without looking back, she asked, “You girls from around here?”
“No, we came up from Memphis. Rumor said this was the only town with any protection from those devil thingies.”
“You mean zombies,” the man suggested.
They didn't reply right away. “You think they're zombies? Aren't those pretend?”
“And devils are more real?” he answered.
“Well, they're in the Bible at least. That makes them real, right?”
Marty inwardly shrugged. She'd heard every interpretation of the Bible over the years. Some got it right. Some not. It wasn't her place to judge. Whatever they were, the girls were letting themselves get dragged closer to them, and they didn't seem to appreciate the danger.
“Sir, what's your name?” Marty asked.
“Name's Duncan Franks. I used to live here in town, but started farming a piece of land over'n Missouri a couple years ago. Came back when it all went to hell. Turns out I was smart. Got my family to safety, anyway. And here I am going toward the danger, huh?”
The girls spoke with each other in hushed voices while sitting in the Gator's bed behind her. The transition from pavement to gravel signified their climb up the levee embankment on the north side of town. In moments they would see over the top and she would have a sense of what her next step was going to be. The girls chatted hastily the entire way up, but fell silent as they neared the summit.
Marty watched as Duncan weaved through several other vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians standing on top of the big levee. They went about a hundred yards to the west before he picked an open spot and parked his Gator so it faced north—toward the open fields and water-filled pit that protected the town.
It was a smoky
moonscape. Far across the fields, some trees near the interstate were still smoldering from fires that had stripped them to bare toothpicks in the earth. Closer in, the field was littered with thousands of bodies of the infected. It reminded her of pictures of trenches the First World War. This was a true no-man's land, because the things out there weren't men. They were dead, certainly, though the field writhed with movement as the zombies that weren't beheaded tried to crawl, or grasp their way toward the town. A rare zombie even found it's feet, though it seemed they walked in circles—shocked at the violence of the night. Even a zombie suffered when it's head was rearranged by such violence, she assumed.
Nearer to her, she could barely see into the trench the Army had taken such pains to build. The check dam near the river had been blown apart with explosives, and the water of the Mississippi mingled with the water passing in front of the town from left to right. She couldn't see the water because the builders had displaced the soil to a big berm along the southern bank. It seemed to provide a very formidable barrier to climb. The Army placed a small metal bridge over the waterway—it was the only way into town from the north.
Everyone was lost in their own thoughts at the scene. Even the two girls were mute.
A few screams rose up to their right. Pointed fingers extended toward the source. Marty's eyes followed them and saw a hand slapping on top of the berm—the last defense—repeatedly.
“Something's trying to get up the berm. How is that even possible,” she asked rhetorically.
Townspeople, anxious to do something after such a shock, began shooting.
The hand snapped back, out of sight, possibly hit.
A few cheers rose up.
Marty was struck by the mood. It was festive at what was clearly a victory against a large number of zombies, but subdued that their saviors had abandoned them in the dark of night. They were on their own. She wondered if the people were properly scared now.
The scattered cheers turned to disappointment.
Then they turned to confusion.
The hand on the berm was holding up a shirt. It was like a dirty white flag of the dead. Could zombies surrender?
Since the Sirens: Zombie's 2nd Bite Edition: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Books 4-6 Page 41
