Victoria gave a little laugh as they started walking again. “You talk like Liam and I are going to save the world. We're just a couple of random kids. We aren't important. We can't be.”
“That's where you're wrong. To some people you two are the most important people in this world. They are counting on you—like I'm counting on you—to take it upon yourselves to take action. Stand with the light. Fight the dark. Save the world.”
“What makes you so sure we can?”
“Because if everyone waits for the perfect heroes to come along, the world dies waiting.”
To underscore her point, Liam walked out the front door with a monotone announcement. “Mom and Dad have gone to your house Grandma. If you can believe it, they went to rescue me.”
Marty was looking at Victoria to see how she would handle the news, and was pleased to see a new look on her face. Resolve.
Am I a bad person for manipulating her?
Deep in her subconscious, Al was smiling.
2
Liam, Victoria, Phil, and Marty were all sitting comfortably in Liam's family room. The house itself was a modest ranch-style dwelling with a small floor plan. Therefore the family room was quite cozy with all four sitting together. Grandma had found the recliner she favored. Liam and Victoria were sitting next to each other on a small loveseat, though they remained separated by a few throw pillows. Phil sat by himself on the large couch. They all shared a visible weariness after their days of being on the move. The problem of Liam's missing parents had been the subject of much discussion the last several minutes.
Phil summed up the situation. “We know your parents left two days ago in your mom's car and headed into the city. We have no way of knowing whether they made it to Grandma's house and thus we have no way of knowing if they are on their way back. The only practical question is whether they would wait there for you to return or if they would assume this is where you'd go. Did you leave a note at her house saying where you were going?”
It seemed so obvious now, but he admitted he never thought of leaving a note because he never dreamed anyone would go looking for him. He was only thinking of Grandma and himself.
“Well, is there anywhere else they might look for you?”
Liam wondered about other members of his extended family, some of whom lived near Grandma's neighborhood in the city. Were they still alive? Did they also go looking for her? Maybe there were a dozen family members in her house right now, all asking the same question about where Liam would have taken her. Would it be obvious? Liam admitted it never crossed his mind to take her to see other family members—even those who lived relatively close to her.
“Any family member who knows me would probably agree the only place I would go is back home. My friends might be under the impression I would try to get to their houses—we kind of all discussed how we'd band together if zombies came—but if they knew I was with Grandma...they'd probably assume we died on the way.”
“OK, so for now we have to assume your parents are going to come back here. Which means we have to decide what we're going to do in the meantime.” The question hung on the air for a long time.
As they all sat together, the only sound to be heard was the soft tick tock of the analogue wall clock hanging near the kitchen. It reminded Liam of Grandma's clock hanging on her wall, and how it used to make him nervous to sit in the same room with her and always be aware of that clock ticking. Mocking his inability to interact with his oldest living relative. Fighting zombies and running from gunmen weren't nearly as hard as finding a common frame of reference with the old woman, at least before the collapse. Now they had plenty to talk about, and all of it was as important as life and death.
“Grandma, what do you think we should do?”
She let out a quick puff of air, like she'd been holding her breath waiting for his question. “Well, I think we have to stick to the basics. Take things one day at a time. We need some food. We need to rest. We need to get cleaned up. We're all covered in filth—look at poor Victoria—and we're all exhausted. The day is getting on. We should use the time to rest and look at things anew tomorrow morning.”
Phil was in agreement. “I'm going to bring our gear into the house and pull the truck into the garage. No use making it known we have goodies for people to take. After we get some grub I recommend we discuss security of the house overnight, go over some safety protocols, and have a basic plan of escape.”
He did a double-take when he saw everyone was eying him like he was nuts. “What? I'm a police officer. It's in my blood.” He gave a little laugh at that, but then was serious, “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but this is dangerous. If a bad guy comes through that door you can't call the police anymore to take care of it—OK, you folks can because I'm in your house—but you get what I'm saying don't you? The only way to stay alive now is to be prepared, all the time. I told you earlier the bonds of civilization are coming off. Bad people are going to be coming out of the woodwork looking to capitalize. Our only hope is to—”
He stopped to consider his next words. Liam figured he was going to say something like “stick together” or “stay positive” or some other platitude.
“—kill potential threats as they present themselves.”
Everyone remained silent for a few moments, the reality sinking in.
Victoria said, “Are you saying we have to go around killing people? I have no problem killing zombies, but people?”
“Imagine yourself captured by a registered sex offender who lives down the street. He knows the police will never come around again so he decides to have some fun. If you don't have a gun on you, and you can't run or get away, you're probably in big trouble. But if you have your gun on you, and you know how to use it, you can defend yourself. But here's the problem now. If you point your gun at him and tell him to get lost, what do you think he'll do next? Go home and cry in his pillow? If he didn't have a gun the first time, you can bet he will be armed the second time he goes out. I'm a sworn officer of the law—well I was—but the way I see it we have to accept the law is gone. The only thing that matters is survival. You have to kill threats immediately once they are clearly identified.”
Victoria got up and left the room. She wasn't crying, but Liam knew why she was upset. “You couldn't have known, but looters did capture her in the Arch. She was unarmed. She ran up all the steps, all the way to the top, to keep them from nabbing Grandma and me. It was dumb luck she was rescued by the police. I told them where she was so they could keep their eyes open for her.”
“Oh hell. I'm sorry. I need to go apologize.”
“No. I'll go. Thank you Phil. She won't hold it against you. But I'll go talk to her.”
Phil leaned hard back into the sofa, looking even more tired.
As Liam got up to find Victoria he let the words tumble through his mind.
Kill threats immediately.
This dilemma is addressed in many different ways in a plethora of zombie books and movies, but there is no consensus. Letting bad people escape to fight another day almost always results in a more dangerous fight down the road. Killing bad guys without a trial never sits well with people of good conscience, but it does eliminate the short-term threats. One method keeps people safe. The other defers the danger. Liam thought he knew which was which, but as he walked in the hallway of his boyhood home he realized the choice wasn't so simple.
There's no blueprint for the apocalypse.
3
He found Victoria in his room, poking around at all the little tchotchke's he had on his desk and shelves. She even found his messy nightstand, with a few personal effects littered about.
“You know I was just joking when I said I'd show you my retainer!”
She looked back at him and smiled weakly.
She's exhausted.
“Phil feels terrible about his example. He said to say he was sorry for causing you any pain.”
“It's OK. He's right of course. That's what's so tro
ubling to me. If I had a gun up in the Arch, I would have killed those guys with it. I'd have had a choice. But I never dreamed I'd become a murderer. Is that what we must become to survive? Murderers?”
“You wouldn't have been murdering those thugs. It would have been self defense. That is NOT murder. Big difference.”
Victoria moved to sit on his bed. “Love the superheroes bed spread.”
“Uggg. I'm so glad I put away all my dolls. Oops! Did I say that out loud?” He noticed his books near his bed and had an idea to change the subject. “You know, I'm sure we have a Bible somewhere around here. I could probably get you one that has the Old Testament, as well as the New if you'd like?”
Her reply surprised him. “No, I think I prefer the one you gave me. It's just perfect Liam.”
Liam sat down next to her. He still wasn't bold enough to put his hands on her, even though they'd briefly kissed earlier that day. It warmed his heart she wanted to keep the Bible he had found for her, but he felt compelled to revisit the murder question because it was so important for both of them.
“Seriously Victoria, murder is completely different than self defense. You can't hesitate if someone is truly intent to do you harm. Please don't ever hesitate to save yourself if you can.”
Liam thought back to the early days of this crisis, when he froze several times, unable to adjust to the threats right in front of him. It almost cost him his life more than once.
“But if all we do is go around killing bad people, doesn't that make us bad people too?”
That was the ethical dilemma. If you kill out of necessity to prevent evil from doing harm to you and your loved ones, does it eventually catch up to you—make you evil? Does it depend on how many people you kill? For what reasons? Does it become easier the more you kill? That was his real fear. That killing would become routine and expected. That's why he preferred to think of zombies as a distinct species—no longer human. Deep down he knew that wasn't true though. And if what Grandma said about a cure was true, it meant maybe even the zombies could be brought back. That could present some moral problems.
“I think we have to watch each other and support each other to make sure that doesn't happen. You and I have both looked deep into the gaping maw of the zombie world. I think we both know we are going to have to do more killing. We have to be ready for it. I'd kill anyone without hesitation who tried to do harm to you.”
He didn't say it to impress Victoria with his bravado, so he was surprised she took his hand in hers and said “thank you.”
As they sat there, Liam tried to think of something to change the subject to something a little less heavy. Victoria beat him to it. “Phil seems like a nice guy. Kind of intense, but I guess that's the kind of attitude we need to survive this mess. He seems to have a connection with Grandma now, which is also good. I hope he stays with us.”
“Me too. He's definitely better than teaming up with a juggler or a writer. Someone who can't protect us.”
They laughed a little at the thought.
“If the world really is going to hell, as Phil says, the next few weeks are going to be really important to our long-term survival. Phil would be a great addition to our team, but we're going to need many more Phil's on our side to survive. When I wasn't playing computer games I was reading books on zombies, and most of those had good information on how the world would be changed forever if zombies swarmed the Earth. Single people and small groups had the most trouble surviving. Evil people are using the chaos to build their own teams of bad guys. Like finds like. It's the same in nearly every book I've ever read on the subject. No one survives on their own for very long. We have to stick with larger groups of people who—and this is the key to the whole thing—know what the hell they're doing.”
“You should lead our group, Liam.”
“Uh, no. In case you didn't notice I'm only sixteen. And I—”
“Wait a minute! Grandma said you were fifteen!” She was smiling broadly as she said it.
“Well, my birthday is in a couple weeks...” He realized again that without records to back him up, he could say anything about his own past, including his age. But he wasn't a chronic liar. Intentionally deceiving Victoria wasn't something he wanted to do with any regularity.
Apparently, she was just enjoying a little good-natured ribbing at his expense.
“OK, let me re-phrase that. In case you didn't notice I'm only fifteen.”
“Then you are much too young to be a leader.” She turned on him and pushed him backward on his bed, then she threw her arm across his chest and pulled herself near his face. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, a big smile, and then laid her head down on top of his chest. She held him tight as she asked another question. “Liam, do you think the world will ever get back to normal? Will we always be fighting zombies and each other? Was there anything true about that agent's speech?”
Liam's instinct was to say no. The world would never be the same again. If St. Louis was any indication, humanity had crossed a threshold from which it could never return. The zombies alone were bad enough, but the real destruction was from men and women who were scared and angry at the changes taking place around them. If people had unified in the face of the zombies it would have been easy to dispatch them, contain the spread, and maintain a semblance of the old world. Instead, gripped by fear, humanity embraced the chaos, worked against each other, and only looked out for themselves. The zombies were merely feeding on the already dead flesh of society.
He lost himself in thought for a few minutes, but when he was getting ready to answer her he realized she had fallen asleep. He couldn't see her face, but he could hear her breathing and knew she was out. He was content to let her lay there, enjoying the faint scent of her hair. He could also smell coal dust—she was still covered in it.
After several minutes he decided to try to roll her over and turn her so she was laying correctly on top of his bed. She stirred, but allowed him to reposition her. He wished he could lay down next to her and drift off to sleep as well—sleeping next to a girl was high on his bucket list—but he still had some things he wanted to do in his house.
He was successful getting her where he wanted, and took a light blanket from under his bed and gently covered her. She was still in her cocktail dress, and he didn't want her exposed legs and arms to get chilly. As he did it, he remembered it had only been four days since he found Grandma lying asleep on her bed, and he performed a similar service. When she woke up the following day, it began a series of adventures which ended on that bridge across the river this morning. What adventures awaited them when Victoria woke up from her slumber?
Please world, let her sleep through the night.
4
Liam grabbed some clean clothes, and on a whim decided to pull his favorite book—Earth Abides—off the shelf and carry it with him. He'd read a hundred books on zombies and the end of the world; Ish was still the survivor that impressed him the most. He didn't face zombies, but he walked into a world gone mad, just like the current real world was losing its mind. Life imitating art?
I can think of worse books to be in.
With one last look at Victoria, he closed the door and returned to the family room. He found Grandma and Phil talking about the house and the surrounding neighborhood. She didn't live at the house, but had visited many times, so she knew the basics. They were currently discussing geography of the area.
“This subdivision is pretty old, so most of the houses are small ranches with plenty of room between them. I have no idea how many houses are in the neighborhood. Maybe fifty? I usually only drive to this point on the street so I can't tell you what's up the hill. Liam, can you help describe the area to Phil?”
“Sure, Grandma. Well, the rest of the block is a lot like what you see out our window. Small houses with lots of trees, and forest surrounding the whole neighborhood. I guess we are a pretty poor neighborhood, with lots of pickup trucks and fishing boats parked in the driveways. What more
do you want to know?”
Phil explained the most important factor was the proximity to and access from the interstate. On that point, the area was a mixed bag as far as Liam could explain. His subdivision dumped residents onto a main east-west controlled access highway called “M.” Highway M went east for less than a mile and hooked into Interstate 55. It was the next exit south of Imperial, where they'd met Mark with his water station. Driving west on M took the driver through a lot of woodsy areas on the way to a couple small towns as well as the county seat. It was decidedly rural, though there were some modern developments along the route—mostly single-family homes in large subdivisions for people who commute to St. Louis proper.
“So your subdivision is right off a major transit corridor that ties into the same highway where half of St. Louis is now escaping?”
“That's bad, huh?”
“Well my house was inside a town being burned by the same crowd, so yeah, that does give me some concern. But thanks to guys like Mark helping people up the highway, these folks might not be as hostile to us as they were to those closer to the roadblocks across the river.”
“Or maybe the looters and pillagers are still in Arnold and are stripping it of value before moving on?”
“Pillagers?”
“It's from a game I play. You can rob and destroy cities, just like real life it turns out.”
“Sounds like a fun game.” But Phil wasn't laughing.
Grandma took the opportunity to speak up. “Those people are going to be desperate, no matter where they've come from. They're going to be looking for food and water especially. Maybe a place to stay once it gets dark outside. They're going to be looking for houses with lots to offer. Liam, do you want to show Phil here what you're dad has been doing downstairs?”
“How do you know about that?” He was pretty sure she had not been in their basement in the past decade.
“Your dad told me on one of his many visits. I don't think he was too worried I'd tell the world about it.”
Siren Songs: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 2 Page 7
