He got a cold stare in return, but nothing further was said.
He knows.
2
Liam guided the Marines to the main building, introduced the newcomers to the guards, and then was told to stay put on the main floor. He and Victoria mingled in the bustle of the crowded room, but he felt very much alone.
“It seems odd they wouldn't take us upstairs. Maybe they aren't here for you. Uh, sorry. They aren't here for us.”
Victoria talked to him, but he had trouble focusing. The volume of chatter in the room had exploded once the Marines came and went. His belly was temporarily sated, but the venison didn't sit very well. Taken together, he felt oddly out of sorts.
He tried to calm himself as he leaned against the rear wall of the large room. Slipping out was an option, though other Marines now patrolled around the building. He could see them through the big ground floor windows.
“I uhh, don't know. Should we try to get away? Where would we go? Won't that look like we're guilty?” After a moment he said, “I need a minute.”
Victoria pulled up a piece of wall next to him. “Thanks for chasing that guy down. He seemed like an OK guy up until that point.”
Liam reoriented. He'd been absorbed with his own problems, and ignored hers. “You said he pushed you down when you tried to take him to check in. I saw that part. What was he talking about before he pushed you?”
“He mainly asked about the camp. How long it had been here. How many people we had. Was it safe to bring his kids. Stuff like that.”
“Did he ask about supplies or security?” Liam's ill-feeling was not improving.
“No, but he did ask where the creek water came from. I told him I didn't know. I've never been up the creek.”
“It sounds like he was probing for information. I've read about this many times in my zombie books. Survivor groups will scout each other to find strengths and weaknesses. Many times it's a prelude to an attack if they think they can take the weaker group.” He paused to think for a moment before continuing, “But how big would their group have to be to consider taking on an entire valley of people like this?” He fanned his hand out over the tents sprawled outside the windows of the building.
Neither of them answered for a long time. Liam's stomach still danced, but started to improve. He no longer felt like he was going to embarrass himself by getting sick.
“I guess it's a good thing the Marines showed up when they did. Maybe they chased off the group which sent the scout?” She always searched for the positive.
Liam's nerves were rattled by the appearance of the Marines, he was tired from his brisk run, and he'd generally been in a bad mood since Grandma was taken. As a result, he sought the negative in everything. “I guess that depends. What if the group is strong enough to take the Marines too? Maybe the Marines are the bad guys...”
Victoria pulled herself off the wall, turned, and appeared ready to chastise him. But just then someone called for him from up the stairs.
“Liam Peters! Front and center in the council chambers!”
Victoria's demeanor softened. Instead of the admonishment he thought was coming, she instead just gave a long sigh. She reached in to give him a hug.
“Good luck.”
She held him for a moment before she pulled back. He was relieved that instead of leaving she took his hand and led him to the stairs.
We're in this together. Thank God.
His stomach, and his will, hardened for what was coming.
3
When they reached the top the stairs, the Lt. Colonel was huddled with a couple of the council members. They motioned him over. Camp security guards and Marines formed two separate cliques on opposing sides of the room, as if wary of each other.
The colonel spoke first. “I don't recall asking for the young lady.”
Liam was ready for that. “Where I go, she goes.”
Liam felt eyes drilling into him. They could of course toss her out and there wouldn't be anything he could do about it. His mind spun down a network of possibilities from there. Would he refuse to cooperate? Was he putting her in danger? Could he fight? The small pistol on his hip was rubbing him as if in reminder...
I must be going crazy to even think I have a chance against Marines.
“Then let's get right to it. I'm told you know where to find Douglas Hayes.”
Liam felt his face flush. He may also have felt a dumb look on his face as he stood facing the military man.
“Liam? Do you know where he is, son? It's vital we find him.”
“You want to find him? Why?”
He glanced at Victoria, but she shared the same look.
“As I was telling your camp leaders here, we want to find Mr. Hayes because he's a vital link in solving the mystery of fighting this outbreak of...” He didn't want to use the Z word, Liam knew authorities believed it trivialized their condition. “...plague victims. Hayes and his team have been conducting their own research the last several weeks and have gone off on their own. They've taken a lot of equipment and personnel from legitimate government researchers. Some would say he stole those resources. We also know he's been rounding up test subjects outside the purview of his bosses. An Army Colonel at a camp near here was asking questions about Hayes' methods.”
Liam felt sick again, but not because of what he ate. This was confirmation of what he already suspected about Hayes and his intentions with Grandma. He didn't know which was worse though, an out-of-control government bent on researching the outbreak no matter how many people they had to kill during trials, or an independent and secretive group of researchers doing the same, beyond the control of the aforementioned all-powerful government. Either way, there was no excuse for the piles of bodies he'd seen at Elk Meadow, or what they did there.
Maybe he could finally get some answers.
“I want to help you, colonel. I really do. I will if I can. But Marines blew up my parents' house. Didn't Hayes order that?”
The LtCol studied him for a moment and seemed to reach a conclusion.
“The world is chaos now. My area of operations is the entire state of Missouri, but I can only control what's directly in my line-of-sight these days, and even that's getting hard to do. My bosses sent me out with minimal intel and frankly it's a miracle we found you here. What I do know about your house is that yes, it was Hayes who ordered the strike. But what we can't figure out is what kind of clearance he had to authorize said strike.”
He closed the distance to Liam and spoke a little quieter.
“We sent another unit to investigate what could have rated a full-blown strike. We should have sent a team to gather information on a target prior to wiping it off the map. Now...” He shrugged. “The official report, brief as it was, stated there were no obvious signs of contagion beyond the uniform standard of infection everywhere else. That's a fancy way of saying there were plague victims, but no research facility or high value target.”
He drilled into Liam's eyes.
“Son, do you know why he'd select your house?”
Where do I begin?
Aware that he'd already told a white lie when they first met, he had to explain why he lied initially, then he laid out their first meeting with Hayes under the Arch, his strange interest in Grandma, and the subsequent kidnappings, escapes, and firefights which summed up their give and take relationship. He also mentioned Victoria's capture and shooting by Hayes. He finished with the bombing of his boyhood home.
“So, the reason Hayes blew up your neighborhood was payback? Can it really be that simple?”
“I don't know, sir. He warned me the planes were coming—said he owed me one because I spared his life earlier—so on the face of it the whole thing seemed like a waste of resources. But he did kill a lot of my neighbors.”
“I'm sorry, son, I really am. You're a better man than me. Someone shoots my girlfriend or wife,” he tossed Liam a wry smile, “they get a dirt nap. Is there anything you can tell me about hi
s whereabouts now that he has taken your grandma? I think we both want to find her.”
Her?
Liam had been pretty forthcoming in his storytelling, but he did leave out one significant detail. He made no mention of the age factor and how Elk Meadow had revealed the link between the virus and very old test subjects. He wondered if the LtCol already knew about that. The answer would reveal whether he was looking for Hayes, or for Grandma.
“He picked her up in an unmarked private helicopter. It could have been from a TV station, a hospital, or maybe some government agency. I can't tell you which.” Liam ran the scene over and over in his head, and those were his best guesses about the origin of the helicopter. In other words, he didn't have a clue.
While waiting to see how he reacted, Liam realized something else. The LtCol was here, looking for him. Somehow his name had been associated with Hayes. Which means Hayes must have put him in his reports. Reports accessible by this Marine. But how did they know he would be here, in this camp? It seemed too convenient. Too lucky.
Liam's natural fear of the government, inherited from his father, was red-lining.
The LtCol wasn't telling him everything.
I really wanted to trust you, too.
4
Liam was relieved he wasn't under arrest, which was where he figured he'd be by this point in their conversation. The LtCol continued to ask questions, but none of Liam's answers led to any new revelations about where Hayes and Grandma might have gone. He even told him about the paperwork they'd found referencing “Riverside” downtown, but it was deemed not credible. “I can't go all the way downtown on a hunch.”
Liam willingly shared almost all of what he knew, minus what he witnessed at Elk Meadow. Liam couldn't be sure, even now, whether this man knew about the significance of his grandmother. He intended to keep it that way.
“Don't you have any way to track people?”
Like you tracked me.
The LtCol was hard to read, but he thought the man's eyes might have widened at the suggestion. His response was less helpful.
“If we had a way to track him we would already have found him. He has to be accessing our network, but we don't know how. I'm in the dark here, and I don't like it. The only clue I have in this whole mess was an early report from Hayes' team from underneath the Arch where he mentioned your name. We followed that lead and found your street blown to hell. We realized Hayes had authorized the strike order and we wanted to know why. We dug into more of his movements and discovered through our signals intelligence Hayes had been at this camp. It was a long shot to find you here, but we ran right into you. Amazing good luck. The trail can't go cold from here. You have to help if you can.”
Liam wondered if there were any leads he overlooked. He'd been thinking about Grandma since she took off in the helicopter, but to no avail. Should he tell him Grandma had his phone? If they could trace his phone to her location, would they immediately go collect her? Would they let him go too? Would they bring her back? Probably none of those things. His mind drifted as he tried to solve the puzzle.
Victoria pulled him toward the big glass windows overlooking the camp. The LtCol made no effort to follow.
“Liam, are you there?”
He snapped awake. “Hi! Yes, I'm just trying to think of what to do next. My mind isn't cooperating though. Do we have any hope of finding her on our own? More importantly, do we trust him?”
For a brief moment he thought of asking his parents. He'd been on his own long enough in this carnage he'd almost forgotten they were still around to help. Did he think of himself as a son or as a boyfriend these days?
No. I'm a survivor first.
The word sounded harsh, like metal on a grindstone. But better to be harsh than dead. So many others had given up, succumbed to the plague, or were caught by the zombies. Others were captured by their own government and used as guinea pigs. The man in the room with them was part of that government, no matter how well-meaning he might be.
He didn't need to ask his dad. He already knew what he'd say.
Trust no one from the Federal Family.
Easy enough. But where do you go from there?
Victoria looked at him, patiently waiting for him to make up his mind. In turn, he focused on her emerald greens. He hardly noticed the bruises and blemishes around them. Did she know what he was thinking now? Liam knew she did. He saw an almost imperceptible head shake.
Things were only going to get more complicated. It was no longer possible to offload the problems of being a kid onto the adults in the room. The new world had no respect for age, and it mercilessly penalized stupid people of all ages. Liam resolved not to be stupid.
He looked to make sure no one could overhear them. “We can't stay here with these people. If these Marines know we're here, it won't be long before Hayes knows. He may decide to decimate the valley simply because he can. We can't be responsible for that...” His thought trailed off as he looked out at the camp he'd begun to consider his new home. His parents were here somewhere, too. He suddenly had a deep resentment for Hayes, the government, the military—and whoever started this zombie plague. It was an inconvenience of the highest order.
He inwardly chuckled at the lunacy.
Victoria picked up where he left off. “OK, so we need a plan. We need to walk out of this camp where no one will find us. Do you and I run off? I was joking before, but this seems like the time to try it. We need to regroup and figure out how to find Grandma.”
Can we do it without the Marines?
Liam honestly couldn't answer that. He couldn't trust them. But could he use them just as readily as they would use him? He looked over at the LtCol, now engaged in quiet conversation with members of the Boy Scout council.
Liam knew what had to be done, though he didn't have a clue how to make it happen. “How can we get out of this room, get out of this camp without being seen, and have enough gear to survive?”
It was somewhat rhetorical, but Victoria answered him. “Getting out of this room is easy. We just tell them we need to collect our gear. Then we head back to our tent, grab some supplies, and disappear.”
“Just like that?” Liam knew there was nothing “Just like that,” anymore.
“We'll, I admit there are bound to be some kinks. Let's hear your plan, Mr. Smarty.”
They both shared a conspiratorial giggle, a little louder than intended. It caught the attention of the LtCol.
“Have you two thought of anything that may help my search? I really need to be moving on.”
The council members became visibly agitated. “Moving on? We thought you were here to protect us.”
Soon the LtCol was overwhelmed with questions.
He tolerated none of it. “Listen! I'll only say this once. We are US Marines. Not your personal security guards. We're here on a mission to save humanity. We need to be Charlie Mike as soon as possible. We're leaving.”
Their mission is my mission: saving people.
And then the way forward presented itself.
He was going to help the Marine Corps after all.
5
The chaos in the room grew as more people came from downstairs. The guards on the stairs either heard the LtCol say he wasn't staying, or other Marines on the lower floor had spread the message they weren't sticking around. However it happened, the result was madness.
Liam briefly considered trying to sneak out right then and there, but knew that was stupid. Better to play it safe.
They returned to the main discussion.
“Colonel, I think I have a way to help you find Hayes and my Grandma but you have to take us along. Victoria and I are going to grab our gear and go with you in your vehicle, if that's all right?”
The LtCol appeared distracted by the raised voices in the room, but he had the sense to detach one of his Marines—a burly-looking man with several stripes on his arm.
“Jax, keep an eye on our young friends and make sure they aren't harmed
as they gather their gear.”
With that, he redirected his attention to the council. The message was clear. Get lost. But not too lost.
Victoria gave him a troubled look as they walked out of the room. The trio moved down the stairs and out into the tent city. Word was spreading almost before their eyes.
Cries of “The Marines are leaving!,” “They aren't here to help us!,” and “Make them stay!” permeated the desperate campers.
He walked hand-in-hand with Victoria, hand clasped very tightly as the energy built around them. Jax, who wore the name Jackson on his uniform, seemed unconcerned with all the fuss, but he had deftly moved his weapon from his back to a place under his left arm. Not openly hostile, but easily accessible.
Why'd we get the bad-ass professional?
Closer to their own tent, Liam checked the distance between them and their overseer and decided to share his plan in a quiet voice. “I'm going to get in our tent first. Then you tell him,” he nudged his head backward to Jax, “that you want to join me in the tent before we leave.” I'll take it from there.
Victoria nodded.
Several people watched Liam and his two friends walk into their section of the camp. Some nodded. Some were openly hostile to the Marine. Apparently word had spread well ahead of them that the Marines were abandoning them. Many probably didn't know the Marines had even arrived.
Liam didn't wait for an invitation from Jax to go into his tent. He just whipped open the zipper and plunged in.
He got right to work with his pocketknife on the back nylon wall; he ripped it partially open so he and Victoria could sneak out the back and get a head start on a run. He knew they would be seen eventually, but the woods were thick not far from their tent—so they'd have a chance to lose any pursuit. No way Jax would shoot them.
Liam reflexively gulped.
No time for doubts. Victoria said her part and climbed in. She zipped the front zipper, then saw what he'd done to the back panel. The course of action became obvious at that point.
Liam whispered, “Follow me out the back and run like hell. We're going for the MRAP over the hill.”
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 11
