There was nothing. He was impressed to see the big holes in the wall where the drone had shot at him earlier. Now that he knew it was aiming for the tag on his backpack, it made sense why the shots were too high as he crawled down the hallway. If he had stood and run, the shots might have been closer to his body...
He crawled to the first hole in the wall, while Denise held fast near the top step. She wore his tan Yuengling shirt, thought it was now sickly red. He was bare-chested again, making him wonder if he kept doing that to show off.
Yeah, I subject myself to insane situations so I can flex my muscles and impress the ladies.
It was funny to him because he wasn't a bodybuilder. He was a runner. Perhaps he'd do it for Victoria, but not some random country music singer.
He stifled nervous laughter.
The hole revealed nothing. He could see down one row of the pet store's aisles, but he couldn't see much else.
Something was in front of the next whole, so it was useless.
The final hole in the wall was a bit higher. He could see the windows at the front of the store, but couldn't be sure the tank drone wasn't elsewhere in the store. The only way to be sure was to walk out there.
Liam wondered if he could outlast the drone if it were there. It didn't make sense to have a drone sit inside the pet store unless it knew for certain he was there. And, if it knew he was there, it could have easily killed him down in the cages. That meant the drone was likely not there.
He stayed low in a crouch, but walked from one end of the store to the other, using the back row to look down each aisle. The drone wasn't visible. A large hole in the front facade suggested the entry and exit point.
When he got back to Denise, he let himself talk a little louder than he had before.
“I think we're clear. I don't see the tank drone or the helicopter drone.”
“There's more than one? That's horrible.”
“I think the floating one tags zombies, and the other goes around shooting them.”
Though he couldn't rectify the difference between the blue tags and the red ones.
A distant beeping sound resonated from the streets outside. It was the tank, and it was far away.
“We just have to avoid any drones, if we want to get out of this place.” He meant the city, but right now he would be happy to leave the building behind. His bare chest was an itchy, drying mess of blood. A pool of water was high on his list of requirements for the day. Or a hot shower...
“First, if you come up to the front, we can find you a gun.”
She smiled and followed.
They both stayed low. There were several men on the floor, surrounded by pools of fresh blood. The blue arrows made him think them through. The red arrows were for living, animated creatures. That's why it was shot at him but hit his backpack.
The blue tag was for dead people. As in, no longer moving. These men were tagged after they'd hit the floor. That's why all the arrows pointed toward the window.
He searched the room for the red tags. They were all sitting in a neat row on the checkout counter like they'd all deposited them there. He could visualize the drone going by, shooting tags at the men inside the pet store. Mystified, they pulled them back out, gathered to compare notes, and were taken by surprise when the tank drone arrived.
But if they took out the arrows, how could they be targeted?
He looked at the red arrows with the purpose of solving the mystery. The only way they could be targeted after the darts were removed was if the darts deposited something inside the victim. The dart itself was secondary.
When he looked at the tip, he didn't see anything obvious to suggest there was something attached, but he knew there was. There had to be.
It made him sad to do it, but he took off his backpack and emptied it. Whatever was on the dart, it was probably still inside the pack. He couldn't take that chance.
He transferred what he could to the pockets of his jeans, and tossed the backpack out the front window. He half-expected it to be shot by a waiting drone but breathed a sigh of relief when it harmlessly fell to the ground. Around him, the store had been ransacked and gutted, but there had to be some sort of doggie baggie, yuck yuck, he could use to carry his stuff.
Denise made noises near the back of the store. He heard the clank of metal. It sounded like someone had dropped silverware on the hard wooden floor.
He walked in her direction, searching for a bag, and wondering to himself whether Victoria liked country music. They'd never spoken of music, though it was something he was fond of talking about before the sirens. It was one other thing, besides gaming, that he did pretty much all the time. It would be cool to roll into Forest Park with a big country music star on his arm. Extra points if Victoria liked country music.
He had a smile on his face when he rounded the corner.
A bloody knife was on the floor.
His country music star was already dead.
Chapter 3: Tracers
Liam ran like hell. Straight out the front of the pet store, into the street. He didn't care about zombies. The death rattle of the country singer snapped something in him. It made his suffering through the dog kennels and his fight with the tank drone seem irrelevant.
He'd failed to anticipate she'd do something like that. She'd asked for a weapon as soon as she could, but he assumed she needed it to defend herself from both zombies and the sick men who had abused her.
But she used it for a much darker purpose. He didn't want to envision the level of sadness he'd have to endure before he'd consider ending his own life. Also, he pushed down the suffering she endured with the other women in those cages...
So he made for the exit as fast as his feet would carry him.
He turned the corner and ran the street with the Foxes' tipped tour bus at the far end. He had his rifle in his hands, ready to fire. As before, the zombies on the street stood around looking at him, but they didn't move from their positions. When he reached the big converted tour R/V, the chains around the feet of the zombies explained the why of it. Though he was nearly out of this horror scene, he stopped to look back.
The trap was nearly perfect. The one side of the street had seven or eight zombies tied to the building and some of the parking meters near the curb. At first glance they appeared to be threatening—as if they would cross the street. The zombies set up near the tipped R/V kept a wandering survivor from running in that direction. Left with few alternatives, a new arrival would see the “safe” sign on the wall and run to and through the mysterious door, to safety.
Only it wasn't safe. It was, as Denise said, Hell.
Victoria said we'd all be killing each other. We'd become bad people to stave off the worst people.
It was all coming true.
He skated by the remaining zombies and the R/V. A whole new stretch of city opened up in front of him. He could see to the west for many blocks as the hot afternoon sun shone in his face. Far ahead he saw one of the floating drones, but he didn't see the land-based model. For the first time, he considered that there could be several of each kind.
The middle lane of the five-lane avenue was dubbed the “suicide lane” by his older friends who could drive. It was the only lane where you could go either way, making it instantly dangerous. He chose that one and leaned into a jog again.
The rhythm of running returned, and after the first block, he felt comfortable with what he was doing. His heart slowed down from his panic, and he forced himself to take deep breaths to support his oxygen levels.
I'm going to run straight through. No more detours.
He made it two more blocks before he tripped on a small rope someone had strung across the road. He saw it as he approached, but ignored it because it—when he was ten feet away—was positively on the pavement. It was just past a small four-door subcompact that had been abandoned in the middle of the lane. His eyes were drawn to the car, and at the last second the rope sprang up.
He tumbled ha
rd, and it knocked the wind out of him.
As he struggled to figure out what was happening, he heard the footfalls of someone running. Several someones.
Something smacked him on the side of the head…
When he woke up, it was nearly dark. Several propeller-driven aircraft buzzed above the city, but the cracks of gunfire nearby were of more concern.
And something burned on the skin of his neck.
I've been bitten!
He put his hand on the painful patch and was relieved and distraught to feel the familiar shape of a needle. Not a bite. While he was out, another drone must have hovered by, noticed he was still alive, and tagged him. For termination.
Getting to his knees took some effort. His head spun, and he felt as if he'd been kicked in more places than just his head.
He'd been relieved of everything. He'd been attacked by thieves this time. No rapists, murderers, or cannibals. In the hierarchy of evil, he figured he'd gotten off lightly.
It took him a few minutes to collect his thoughts, then snake his way to the nearby derelict car. The metal hulk would give him a piece of safety from which to consider what to do next. Part of him wanted to find a place to spend the night, but an angry part of him wanted to continue his run—no matter what. Victoria was still only an hour away.
And each second I waste out here, the more danger she's in.
That probably wasn't true. Deep down he knew she was as safe as anyone could be in the city. She was probably eating more cookies in her dorm room, wondering when he'd be back. If all had gone to plan, he assumed he'd have been back well before dinnertime. Now the sun was almost down.
Gunfire.
He also heard the familiar beeps of the droid tank. It was backing up, somewhere nearby.
The ground shook beneath him. A powerful explosion had gone off, to the north. A few seconds later he felt a dull shockwave of air.
The high-rises of St. Louis were many blocks behind him. The city was too small to have many, in the first place. He was now in a less-crowded section of the city with two- and three-story buildings along the street. Ahead he could see what appeared to be a larger seven- or eight-story hotel. Beyond that, more of the same stretched westward until he'd reach the much taller row of hospitals that lined the eastern edge Forest Park. He couldn't see them yet, however, because he was looking up a large hill. The street would take him up the hill that in a previous life had given his dad fits when he ran marathons in this town.
I can do this.
His fingertips felt the soothing cool of the car. Then they pushed him off into the sunset run.
2
Unencumbered with anything besides his shoes and jeans, he felt light and fleet. It was disappointing to lose another of his dad's guns—he lost “Moses” two weeks ago—but he didn't have that far to go, and despite his emotional and physical exhaustion, he felt good enough at the moment to assure himself he could make the jog to Victoria.
In a couple of blocks, he started to see some zombies on the ground. Shot in the head with a high-powered gun, just like he'd seen done by the drone tank. If he took the time to search the corpses, he was sure there were little arrows stuck to them.
More planes flew overhead. They conducted a ballet in the sky much as they had done many weeks ago above the Arch. Somewhere, out in the city, he imagined Jason and his Tiger tank driving frantically to avoid the ire of those birds above. His mom made the best decision possible when she abandoned the tank inside the lobby of the skyscraper. Until the planes were gone, tanks were more or less useless.
His mind drifted as he ran, though he shook his head roughly to try to keep himself focused on all the dangers around him.
Zombies, for starters.
Emotionless drones, for a second helping of fun.
Random falling bombs, for dessert.
And that didn't include the things he couldn't predict, like dog cages full of captive zombies.
Block after block passed by. He struggled up the urban hill and took in the view on the other side. The sunset was a brilliant orange and pink and was much more vivid than any sunset he could recall seeing in his life.
The world is on fire, and it looks beautiful.
Someone fired a gun—close by—interrupting his appreciation of the sky. The pavement snapped near his feet.
“Die you zombie scum!”
He had no time to argue. He sprinted toward the other side of the street doing the zigs and zags he'd seen a million times on TV.
Another shot chased him.
“That's right you little shit, run and hide. We're gonna get ya,” a deep male voice called out.
With no choices, he ran between two buildings. If the shooter was directly behind him, he'd be an easy target with no way to jink side-to-side. Another shot did follow, but he heard no ricochets or whizzing, so he began to think he had a chance. As he approached an eight-foot chain link fence blocking the alley, he sprang to the top, more or less carefully climbed over the top, and dropped to the far side. In two more seconds he had the corner of the building between himself and the bullets.
His breathing was heavy, forcing him to lean over to catch his breath.
This is where they get you. A million books on zombies say this is it.
What he didn't know was whether he would be shot for looking like a zombie—his upper torso was still covered with the dried blood of the dog cage zombies—or would be killed by a zombie for looking edible. The mosquitoes of July swarmed him, adding the final insult.
He was in an empty parking lot behind another brick building. A law firm name graced the one intact window on the entryway to the little office; papers were strewn about inside, and some had been tossed out the door, too.
Not knowing what else to do, he went inside. In the failing light, he could view the reception area with no problem, but a pair of hallways led away into the darkness.
The place had been ransacked, as he expected, but he was sure there had to be something he could use as a weapon. The reception desk was a coven of destruction, but he did find a sharp pair of scissors.
Better than my fists.
Feeling the smallest bit more self-assured, he tried to get deeper into the place. The nearest hallway turned out to be the restrooms. Nothing useful would be there; he didn't even have to go.
The other hallway went to the offices, and he intended to try the nearest when he remembered a zombie movie where something like this came up.
“Hey, any of you jerks hiding in here?” He said it loud enough to be heard in the hallway and attached offices.
The seconds counted by. He was beginning to think the coast was going to be clear, but the ugly moan of a zombie started from somewhere at the end of the hallway.
Then a soft pounding on a door, like someone with mittens was hitting it.
A minute went by with the same constant sound before he was willing to chance walking into the hall. Much like his earlier experience up in the Arch, it was sometimes safer to go with the direction where you know there was a zombie, than the one where you aren't sure. If the zombie wasn't on him already, it might be stuck behind a door.
The first office had an open door. Like the front of the establishment, everything had been tossed carelessly within the room. Even the desk had been put on its side. The computer looked new and fancy, and very broken. The only thing that was remotely of use was a coat rack with a suit jacket tangled up in its arms. Everything was on the floor, but he got busy unhooking the jacket and put it on. It was very tight, and he was almost ready to take it back off, but he figured it would be better than nothing right now. To be mistaken for a bloody zombie would be far worse than an ill-fitting suit coat.
I don't even know how to tie a tie.
Fortunately, there wasn't a tie.
The coat rack almost had the right length and heft to fashion a crude spear, but he quickly deduced it would be way too heavy. That got him thinking, though, and he searched the room for alternatives.
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He settled on a stout wooden chair that probably had been used by clients anxious to sue for luxuries of the Old World. It took him three tries to swing the chair over his head and break it. When he finally managed that feat, he pulled out a leg. It felt about right, but it wouldn't make a very good spear. It still had some of the seat attached. It did make a fair club he could swing.
The scissors went into his pants pocket, then he picked up the club and swung it around the room to test it. He discounted his prior failures of swinging weapons and made himself believe this time would be different.
He walked back out into the night, with mismatched clothes and weapons.
“I'm coming home, Victoria,” he said with quiet certainty.
He ran some more.
3
Each building on the avenue had a small parking lot behind it, complete with dumpsters, abandoned cars, and the occasional zombie. Things were spread out so he could see what was coming up. That's how he saw the helicopter drone emerge from a building up ahead and shoot a tag at a couple of zombies loitering nearby.
Then it vectored for him.
Once more, he turned to the left. He ran to an abandoned pickup truck and slid underneath.
He listened for the drone to arrive. Gunshots were constant, though most of them were far away.
I need someone to shoot this drone.
The whirl of the blades sent air under the truck. The drone was somewhere above. He moved as far to the other side of the undercarriage as he dared. In the twilight, he expected to see the flash of aircraft lights, but the drone didn't seem to need them.
The wind shifted, and he sensed the drone was on the move. He returned to the center of the truck, waiting for what he'd need to do next. His club was useless. The scissors were a joke.
After a few moments, he felt the air blowing up through the legs of his jeans. He angled his head so he could see behind the truck, and the drone had nearly landed on the pavement behind him. A small tube on its underside pointed at him.
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After Page 5
