Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After

by E. E. Isherwood

  Here, piles of garbage bags.

  Next, piles of bodies, stacked neatly.

  He had to crawl over a pyramid of beer cans.

  Stacks of large bags of dog food.

  What the hell?

  Finally, he reached the end of the basement. His Grandpa had kept several shelves of old shortwave radios. Liam always assumed it was because of his time back in the war, but he'd never thought to ask. His Grandpa Al had long since passed away, and it seemed a waste of effort to ask Grandma Marty—a woman famous for not touching a piece of technology her whole life.

  “Open the door. Help us, girl!”

  A voice was on one of the radios. Or, more accurately, was coming out of the radio.

  He studied the old-school frequency dial. It was circular with a little arrow that pointed to the various frequencies listed on the slider as it spun past. It looked like something from his Grandpa's days in the service.

  Ancient.

  When he got close, he could read the tiny lettering. The word “Victoria” sat between numeric frequencies. As if Victoria was a frequency.

  He touched nothing but got close to the speaker so he could hear what was happening.

  “I'm so sorry. I can't open the door,” a girl said with a forceful tone.

  “Victoria, is that you?” He was in a dream, why not call out?

  There were clear sounds of zombies. Groaning. Moaning. A distant call-to-arms zombie—he was still working on what to call that one. It sounded like a major infestation of them. Though the language was animalistic, he got the gist of it. They wanted to kill his girlfriend.

  “Liam?”

  It was her. She was in trouble, but he could help.

  “Don't let them in! You have to survive,” he shouted.

  “I know. I'm trying,” she replied, sounding tired.

  He waited while the noises of the infected peaked on the broadcast dial. Whereas it started with lots of people cussing and screaming, it ended with only the sounds of zombies.

  Victoria's voice was distant when she finally returned. “They're all dead now.”

  “I know. You did the right thing,” he said softly. His voice betrayed the happiness he felt she was still alive. He'd helped protect her.

  Liam woke up to see the treads of the tank outside his window. It was daylight, now. And he'd been found.

  “You have to survive,” he whispered to himself, “because I'm pretty much dead.”

  Chapter 4: Homecoming

  Liam had no clue what to make the treads at the window. Was it just passing by? Looking for him?

  His priority was staying quiet, but with the dream he'd just had it made him wonder if he shouted out in his sleep. Grandma had woken up screaming many times on their adventures, which called to question whether her dreams were as bad as his...or his were as bad as hers. She had said she visited Grandpa Al.

  It can't be coincidence.

  He focused on the window above.

  The miniature tank plodded forward, to the left of the window as he looked at it. When it was gone, he ran to the short staircase to the main level of the house. The layout was all different, but the piles of old junk reminded him once again that his dream of Grandma's house was probably prompted by the similarity to this one. Even the wooden stairs were old and rickety, like hers.

  At the upstairs door, he took it slow. The scissors were pointed toward trouble. When the door opened, he was struck in the face by the stench of the dead. He'd grown accustomed to the distinctive odor, though here in the stuffy house it was heavy enough to coat his nostrils.

  He put the sleeve of his jacket over his mouth and nose to defend against the stench. One foot was backing down the stairs when he caught motion outside the window of the well-worn kitchen in front of him. The black drone hovered nearby. Behind it, another type of drone was treading air.

  Slowly, he sank to the floor.

  I'm not going to die in some random basement.

  He drug himself over the linoleum of the kitchen, then onto the wooden floor of the home's central hallway. The front room was darker with 1970's shag carpet and thick drapes pulled closed. As he approached, the smell got worse. His eyes began to water.

  He had no choice. The open windows of the kitchen wouldn't allow him to stay there, and the lack of exits in the basement was a deal breaker. The darker living room was the best of a bunch of crappy options.

  When he got in the room...

  He'd seen a lot the past many weeks. Broken bodies. Horrible images of death. The captives in the cages. Zombies destroyed in the worst possible ways. But here he saw something that took his breath away...

  An ancient man sat in a big cushy recliner. Compared to the chair, he was tiny. If Liam had to guess an age, he'd put the man right at one hundred.

  Next to him, in a smaller chair, was a younger-looking elderly man—also dead.

  “Why are you showing me this?” he whispered through his jacket sleeve. After he'd said it, he wondered who he was asking.

  His belief in God had waxed and waned over the last few weeks. It was strongest in the presence of Grandma Marty but had flagged as he was exposed to more and more degradation in the Zombie Apocalypse. Victoria helped bolster his belief, but now she wasn't around, either. It was disconcerting to think his belief ultimately came down to whether or not those around him believed.

  However, the sight of the two dead men in the otherwise normal-looking living room did nothing to inspire belief in a higher power. Just the opposite, in fact. These two men had given up...

  He wanted to look away, but he was drawn to them. Made himself look at them. It couldn't be coincidence he'd seen three suicides in a row...

  Don't let this be you, Liam.

  It reassured him. He would never allow himself to reach that low that he'd take his own life.

  “Fight!” the triplets had told him.

  Hey, at least you don't have to climb out of a grave today.

  He silently laughed, but the day was young. Anything could happen.

  Finally, as he was on the verge of looking away, he saw something important. It was the cause of such devastation on the bodies of the dead men.

  The double-barreled shotgun had fallen between the two chairs. And there on an end table was a box of twenty-five shells. It was worth the smell and the fright to get a real weapon.

  He was already on his knees, so he crawled to the gun and pulled it from its cranny. He tried to watch both men, assuming they were going to wake up and attack him—even without a good portion of their heads. Neither moved a dead muscle.

  When he had the gun, he got the shells, then moved across the room and sat up against the wall. The smell was ripe, the drones were somewhere outside, and he felt his day was looking up.

  The shotgun had been chopped. Rather than the stereotypical hunting shotgun, it had been made to look like a rap gangster's weapon. The chamber broke open so he could feed in two side-by-side shells, then he snapped it shut with force. He set it over his legs, using it as a substitute comfort blanket.

  Then, he waited.

  A shadow passed over the front windows.

  If a round came through the glass, he tried to imagine where he would run. Maybe he would jump in the chair with the old man and use him as a meat shield. He was positive something like that had been done in the zombie books he'd read. He got lost in thought, asking himself if he had it in him to pull the decaying corpse on top of him...and the drone was soon out of sight.

  I have to get out of here.

  2

  Armed as he was, he risked getting closer to the windows to see what was happening outside.

  On the front side, the house abutted the main street which was now the outer perimeter of the Forest Park refugee camp. On the far side, there were a string of urban flats with the taller medical buildings behind them. In the daylight, he saw the line of cars and buses blocking the intersection, but also the amount of work that went into boarding up each house along
the street. Cars had been wedged in the narrow corridors between each house, further reinforcing the defenses.

  After establishing his bearings, it was clear he'd run too far and was now on the north edge of the park. He was closer to the west side, but it was a beneficial error because it put him nearer to Victoria's campus and dorm.

  He crept back to the kitchen so he could see the backyard, but he was pretty sure one of the drones was still back there. The ominous hum kept him on edge.

  The glass door shattered, and something slammed into the wall near his shoulder.

  Though he was already on high alert, it caused him to freeze in panic.

  While he watched, a mini tank crumpled the aluminum storm door and drove itself right into the kitchen.

  The black drone was behind it.

  Run!

  He spun around and ran for the front room. Another gunshot hit a lamp next to him as he ran. He felt the splash of glass on his right arm.

  The door to the outside was ahead of him. An array of possibilities scrolled across his eyes.

  Fight the drone with the shotgun. Not likely.

  Run parallel to the Forest Park perimeter. Get caught by the air drones.

  Run toward the perimeter across the street. Get shot by the defenders.

  The door took a few seconds to unlock and open. The front screen door was also locked—the owners must have bolted the place down—giving the tank drone extra time to crunch through the kitchen table and chairs. He could hear it breaking those things apart.

  When he made it onto the front stoop, he had to make his choice.

  It wasn't a hard decision. He ran across the street.

  It was the only scenario that didn't directly involve mindless drones.

  Liam waved his arms in a regular pattern as he fled into the street. His shotgun was in one hand, but he didn't point it at the defenders. The hope was the humans over there would see him and, most importantly, not shoot him as a zombie.

  “Help,” he shouted as he ran.

  The gunfire background noise of the city was ebbing low at the moment, giving him a chance to be heard. The street was several lanes wide.

  Much to his surprise, the defenders didn't welcome him. Gunfire came in his direction.

  “I'm not a threat,” he shouted. But he also turned, and got very low. Now he was running down the middle of the street, in full view of the defenders and the drones.

  Smooth move, Liam.

  He looked back to the house. Two drones had come over the top of the house and were in pursuit. The tank drone was probably still inside, though he imagined it storming out of the front part of the house like some kind of mechanical Kool-Aid Man.

  Ahead, he saw an incongruity in the pavement. A chance at escape. Already running, he ran as fast as his feet could carry him.

  When he reached the sewer lid, he slid down and got to work lifting the circular piece of iron. As any number of books and movies would attest, all he had to do was lift it and start his climb down. There was no way the drones could follow, nor could they remove the lid if he shut it behind him.

  But, he was betrayed by TV. The lid was heavier than he imagined, but it also didn't have any hand holds for him to grab. Instead, it had a series of small holes. He would need a big hook to lift it.

  Torn between running some more and struggling to get a couple more fingers in so he could keep trying—he never even budged it—he felt the blast of air currents from a drone. It was the black one. The white one was nearby but seemed to be satisfied to stand off from the action.

  Liam put up his hands, then stood. If he couldn't sneak down the drain, and he couldn't make it to the living people in the blockade, he wasn't going take a bullet while lying down. The drone didn't seem vulnerable to a shotgun blast, which was just as well since he left the gun lying on the ground. A part of him hoped whoever was controlling the drone would see him surrender, and not order it to kill him. The gun on the bottom was only five feet away, pointed at his neck.

  Right where I got hit with the tag from the other drone.

  While he marveled at the ruthless efficiency of whoever was controlling the drones, he didn't immediately hear the nearby gunfire. Only when bullets started to snap off the outer shell of the drone did the threat present itself.

  He ducked back to the ground.

  The drone rotated, so it faced the park defenders back at the intersection. They were only a hundred yards away. A bullet whizzed by—missing both him and the drone. Danger was everywhere.

  In his haste he forgot to grab the box of ammo for the shotgun, so he only had the two shells he'd loaded earlier. Unsure if he was doing the right thing, but unwilling to do nothing, he picked up the shotgun.

  More pings hit the drone; it returned fire with a few quick shots.

  Liam did the only thing he could think of that might help. He aimed for the drone.

  The white helicopter shot one of its tagging arrows at him as if to defend its black mate. It hit him in the meat of his shoulder and hurt much more than the last one.

  Now angry and scared, he focused on putting the two rounds in the most vulnerable part of the floating menace next to him. He couldn't identify a definitive weak spot in the workings, so he just aimed for what he figured was the backside.

  He pulled the first trigger and felt the powerful recoil. The target erupted in a flurry of sparks.

  When he pulled the second trigger, he was a little bit off target, but it tore into the upper mantle of the drone and also probably struck the rotors. It was hard to tell because he was hesitant to look directly at it as he fired in such proximity.

  The black drone dipped a couple of feet after the second shot, then recovered. A smell of burnt electrical components washed over him. It also stopped firing.

  The white drone repeatedly fired at him, but the little arrows were more of a nuisance than anything.

  He ran for the blockade.

  3

  As he ran for the people, several dogs sprang out from among the houses on that side of the road and made directly for him. In happier times the wild dogs might have been looking to him as a playmate. Today, he wasn't so sure. At the lead was a wicked-fast dark-brindled Greyhound.

  He concentrated on avoiding the bodies of zombies that had been shot while keeping a good pace across the open roadway. Though it might have been unnecessary, he waved his hands from time to time, to signal he was intelligent. All it took was one nervous shooter. He'd read that trope a thousand times.

  The black drone continued to sputter where it was, and the white drone followed him for a short time, continually punching him with tiny tagging spears. In a matter of seconds, the Greyhound caught him, and he believed the dog was going to jump on him and attack, but it decelerated at the last second and paced him. The other dogs surrounded him, but they didn't attack, either. He felt as if they were conducting escort duty, though he recognized he was in full-on panic.

  A few dogs yelped as the drone fired tags at them.

  Moments later, as he neared the intersection manned by the people of Forest Park, they waved him in between two of the large vehicles. The dogs trotted down the street, rather than follow him, leaving him to wonder about what the strange pack represented. The drone went after the dogs.

  Above, several men and women aimed rifles back into the street, but they held their fire. He simultaneously hoped they'd fire on the drones, but not on the friendly dogs. He was too winded to make suggestions either way as he ran through the makeshift gate.

  “Close it up,” a clear male voice called out.

  Liam ran twenty yards beyond before stopping behind the barricade. The wreckage of another black drone littered the street and provided a suitable resting point. Though he only ran for a short distance, he'd spent it all on the last sprint. He was breathing hard and was hunched over when a man about his dad's age found him. He wore a blue baseball cap with a C on it, and had a cheerful face bracketed by a dark, full beard.

&n
bsp; “You got lucky, kid. We nearly shot ya.”

  “Yeah...I noticed.” He picked off the tagging darts. There were ten of them, all on his right side, and back. “Did you see those dogs?”

  “Streets are full of dogs. You know how many people let their dogs go? They thought they was helping 'em out. But, yeah, them dogs was acting real strange. Happen to you a lot?”

  Liam shrugged, not sure himself.

  The man helped him pull the darts while he spoke. “And those droids been sweepin' nearby for a couple of days. We saw 'em down the streets toward downtown. This is as far west as they've been, so far as I know.” He moved in front of Liam so they could talk face-to-face. “But this is the first time I've seen them bother a healthy person. That's why we shot it.”

  “What about this one?” Liam pointed to the broken drone on the ground.

  “Dunno. My shift started a couple hours ago. Heard there was a shooting here last night. Something about sneaky zombies.”

  He'd said it with something Liam read as incrimination.

  Though he was covered with dried blood, which had blackened and cracked all over his chest and hands, he still wore the suit jacket and carried a now-useless shotgun. If he pretended to be a zombie, he figured he'd have no problem being a convincing specimen.

  “I'm not a zombie. I promise.” He set the shotgun on the ground. “And I'm not a threat, either. I just came here to find my girlfriend.”

  The man laughed. “This is about a girl? Well, why didn't you say so?” As Liam stood up straight and continued to catch his breath, the man called back behind him toward the roadblock. “Hey Sue, this boy is here on a count of a girl.”

  More laughter. And a few cat calls.

  “We had Black Widow here last night,” one man cried out.

  Liam felt his cheeks redden, mostly from anger.

  “Don't take it personally, kid. These people haven't had much to laugh about. We lost a heaping of good folks overnight. Helping you find your girl is something any of these people would rather do than shooting at those dead things, ya know?”