“Victoria!” he shouted with all the breath he had left. He knew she wouldn't come in to rescue him, but it felt right to say her name. The feeling of defiance grew inside of him and Liam looked right in the man's vacant eyes. The hungry orbs looked back at him for a moment but then they opened wide-almost like the zombie man was surprised.
Black fluid leaked from behind the zombie's ears and fell in a stream onto Liam's face. The smell was even worse than the man's corpse-tacular breath, and he screamed in horror like a little kid.
“Oh, shut up, Liam. I wasn't going to leave you.”
“Sabella,” he exhaled in relief.
She pushed the zombie from his chest, then grabbed his shirt behind his shoulders and dragged him on his back all the way inside the house. He had a front row seat to watch as bodies poured over the hedge in all directions. The knife felt feather-light and useless in his hand. The door shut just as they closed in on their downed prey.
“Block the door, hurry.”
He didn't need to be told twice. He pushed the large wooden kitchen table, so it was in front of the door. The very next instant, he wiped furiously at the goo plastered to his neck and face. Fists and arms came through the glass of the door, but he remained a bit hidden by the drapes. Still, the zombies had a clear shot at living flesh and were excited at the prospect of capturing one.
While he moved more furniture in front of the door, making it harder and harder to force the door open for those on the other side, the glass started to break on several nearby windows. He yelped at the noise but remained on task. Sabella was doing something with the rescued grill, though he had no idea what could be so important.
“Girls, back upstairs. We're going outside. Go!” She ran into the kitchen and began rifling through drawers and cabinets.
“You're coming, right?” he asked her. For some reason he thought of Victoria and her heroics weeks ago at the Arch. She willingly sacrificed herself to save others-something he should have thought of doing-and now Sabella appeared to be preparing for a similar action.
“Ah ha!” She came running out with a bottle of liquor, which made him sad. This wasn't heroism-she appeared to be giving up. Drinking oneself to death was pretty common these days. While he was thinking it over, she threw the bottle to him and instructed him to hold onto it. Then she gripped the propane tank she'd yanked from underneath the grill. It had a black tube attached to the top that was several feet long.
When they went up the steps, windows on the ground floor started shattering all over the house. It was as if someone had alerted the zombies to the fact someone was inside the house. Suddenly, everyone wanted in.
Sabella made it a few steps up and started to drag the canister. He was unsure if he should help her because he didn't want to be sexist, or anything like that.
“What are you waiting for? Help me get this damned thing up the steps, will ya?”
The paper-white cylinder of propane was heavy. The two of them were able to carry it side-by-side, but it took extra time to get it all the way to the second floor. They then ran into Wilder's room because it was closest to the stairs. They made it to the window facing the outbuilding.
“Crap.” Sabella pointed up. “There's no access to the roof, here. You said you climbed in from the roof?”
“Yep, but I came in from the front. Follow me.” He almost kicked Wilder on the way out but had to focus on holding the heavy canister. They went past the body of the reverend in the hallway and went into the room where he first came into the house. He closed the door when they were all in, not sure if the zombies were inside the house. Wherever they were, putting an extra door in their way was always the right thing to do.
“Through here, then climb to the top. We should be able to see the other building.” Quieter, and to Sabella alone, he mentioned a minor detail he'd thought of while looking out the window, earlier. “If those guys are as bad as you say, they may shoot us for being out there.”
The girls were already out and standing on the front side of the roof. She put her foot out the window but stopped to address his concern. “I need you to stay with them on this side-out of sight. Once I do my thing I'll come back over the peak. If they do shoot me ... ”
She looked at him, suggesting with her eyes that he was being given a responsibility.
With a head nod he added, “What are you going to do?”
“Ha, they won't know what hit them.” Her smile was grim, but her eyes lit up like she'd just had a brilliant idea.
4
They worked the propane out the window and together set it upright on the flat area above the porch. Sabella pulled out a knife and tinkered with the tank's hardware along with the liquor bottle. By all appearances, she was going to make it blow up, but standing outside gave him a lot more to worry about.
Her daughters sat on the roof near the window where the pitch wasn't as steep. They watched in silence as the zombies stood around in their massive dust-swept herd. He whistled a bit because he was awestruck by the size of the horde but otherwise kept his fascination to himself.
If he pretended the zombies were normal humans, he could imagine the field was one big block party with revelers standing around talking. Some areas were thick with people, while others were less crowded. They clumped together like high school cliques at the prom. Only the zombies closest to the house were agitated and mobile. Those beyond that inner ring were largely motionless, like they were waiting for something.
It was tempting to think of the farmstead as the center of the crowd, but he was convinced they were more tightly packed toward the river. That was the core, and somewhere in that direction Grandma Marty was in danger. He thought back to talking to her by that big waterfall. His directive was to get her and Victoria to Colorado where they would somehow find the physical version of the Quantum computer.
He focused hard and tried to reach out his mind to Grandma but didn't hear her reply. Victoria had to be closer, so he tried to talk to her in his head, too, but that also failed. As best he could figure out, it only worked when the three of them were relatively close by. The last time they used the telepathic whatever-it-was-called, they had one river separating them. Now they had the river and miles of zombies between them, assuming Grandma was still somewhere near Cairo.
“This is what's going to happen.” Sabella interrupted his thoughts, but he was glad to stop thinking about the impossible odds of finding one old woman in the broken-down world.
“He and I will pull this up to the top, then he'll come back down. You will all wait right here.” She looked at Leah and Susan with a tight-lipped smile for each, but she stopped on him. “Your job is to keep my girls safe.”
What about my girl?
He wondered how he'd gotten caught up with such responsibility, but she did save his life, just as he had saved hers. As far as responsibility went during the end times, they were practically family.
“Let's do this,” she said.
“Good luck, mom,” Leah added. She pointedly avoided looking at Liam.
“I love you,” Sabella replied.
“Come back down soon,” Susan peeped. She was constantly on the verge of tears. He guessed both girls felt that way, but the older one hid it better.
She smiled widely, then turned from them. He grabbed the handle of the canister with her and they started up the twenty or so feet to the top. Just short of the summit they paused and crouched down as if they'd planned it. He used his shoulder to brace the propane tank while they sorted out their next moves.
“I think I have a problem, Liam. I won't be able to throw this like I thought.”
Sabella was a shapely woman of about average height and weight, but unless she was made of muscles like Elsa, there was no way she could toss the tank far enough out into the crowd to make a difference.
“You want it between the house and the other building, don't you?”
“Yeah, I let myself get caught up in the excitement. I really wanted to b
low the crap out of those zombies and storm over there and get Elise. But that's kinda stupid.”
He peeked over the crest. Nothing had changed. The men and women appeared to have settled in on the roof of the metal building, and zombies banged on the base of it just as they were doing to the farmhouse. By his reckoning there was no rescue possible for anyone.
“I think it can work. If we make it, at least you can be with your daughter. They have guns to protect her.”
If they don't shoot us, first.
He squinted because he thought he saw Victoria on the roof over there. She had a black top similar to Victoria's, but her hair wasn't as dark. Most of the women sat in a circle surrounded by the people with guns, so he couldn't see everyone, but he was pretty sure she had to be up there.
“So how do you want to do this?” he asked.
Sabella shifted and took a knee. “I'm sorry, Liam, but this is hard for me. My husband left me years ago and I've been kind of pissed at men since then. We got caught up in this place and my opinion hasn't gotten any better, except for you.”
It was Liam's turn to shift uncomfortably on the slope of the roof.
“But with you, my biggest problem is that you're just a kid-I mean a young man. Younger than my Leah. It's, uh, hard to look at you as help out here.” She didn't sound embarrassed.
He took a deep breath. “I get that a lot. If you think it's hard for you, imagine what it's like for me. I read a ton of zombie books and a lot of those stories have actually helped me figure things out in this apocalypse, but it is pretty routine that people don't trust me. I once had access to a whole truckload of guns being given away, but they passed over me because of my age. I really could have used one, too, to protect my grandma.”
“I'm sorry for your loss,” Sabella replied.
“No, she's not dead,” he said with a quiet laugh. “She's out there, somewhere.” He pointed east over the endless horde.
“Oh, well, I'm sorry she's out there,” she said.
“Me too,” he replied.
“I'll try to look at you as a young man, but please don't take it personally if I mess up.”
“I promise I won't.”
“Well, I was hoping you'd have some ideas on how to do this,” she replied while biting her lip with an anxious smile.
He looked over the top again. He could throw a baseball and hit the other building with no problem. The flat gravel lot below would make any explosion more effective at knocking down the zombies in the open space, so maybe they didn't have to throw it that far. On the other hand, getting it to the middle would ensure both ends would get equal destruction.
“The girls should be inside, ready to run across,” he suggested.
“Are you kidding me? Run out there with those things? They aren't leaving this roof.” She turned and looked at the girls sitting on the roof below.
“It will just be us?” he asked.
“No, just me,” she replied. “I'll grab Elise and be back before the zombies recover.”
He was torn between competing directives. Staying there and protecting the girls appealed to his sheepdog sensibilities, but he also wanted to go and find Victoria in equal measure.
Liam decided to let her call the shots, for now. If, by some miracle, he spotted Victoria, he was pretty sure he'd cross the parking lot no matter what the motherly Sabella told him to do.
5
Sabella was ready to go but he hesitated. There had to be something else they could do to prepare for the crossing. Search the house for guns. Craft spears and clubs from the wood furniture. See if there was a basement where they could fall back. Use the phone.
The phone!
“Hold on. I might be able to call someone.” He shifted on his feet, still propping up the cylinder with Sabella's help, and got the phone out of his pocket. The plastic bag he'd used as waterproofing came out with big rips. The phone was soaked from his swim in the river and it finally had enough of his abuse.
She commented when she saw his disappointment. “Unless you have someone flying a helicopter nearby, there is no one that could have helped you.”
He knew she was right. Hours ago, he had a V-22 Osprey which might have saved him, not to mention what resources Grandma Rose could have given him. Sabella had no idea what he'd been through to end up on the farmhouse roof, and he doubted she would believe him even if he was utterly honest.
“You talk to your girlfriend and your grandma in your head? Yeah, right, kid,” she'd laugh. “You fought off assassins, used a dummy of your grandma in a bicycle trailer, rappelled down a skyscraper hotel, went up all the stairs in the Arch, drove a tank, were attacked by drones ... ” and on she would go. He couldn't prove any of it. Maybe if Victoria was around to back him up.
“No, I don't have a copter, but I figured dialing 9-1-1 was worth a try,” he said. Not the truth, but not really a lie, either.
“Look, I know this doesn't have much of a chance, but I can't do nothing, because my baby girl is over there.”
“No, not much of a chance,” he echoed.
Sabella huffed with impatience.
“All right,” he said quickly. “We'll give it a try. It can't hurt.”
He outlined what he would do, and though he never expressed faith it would work, they were at least going to give it an honest effort. In the back of his head he wondered how big of an explosion would result. If it was big enough, it might get some attention from the military back toward Cairo. Eventually they might be rescued, but someone had to know they were there.
“Thank you,” she said. “Your mother would be so proud of you. I hope to tell her someday how you saved my family.”
That stung, but he didn't sour the moment by telling her that was an impossible request.
What would he say? “Sorry, my mom was tossed into the river tied to my zombie father. Thanks for mentioning it.”
Instead, he kept his mouth shut and got a firm grip on the propane tank. Sabella nodded, then cranked open the top valve.
“Let's just get this over with,” he said while trying to sound positive.
“Together?” she asked. They stood and lifted the tank between them and walked over the ridge of the roof and went down the steep slope. They were in clear view of the men and women on the far side. He knew because they started pointing and waving.
When they had the tank to the edge of the house they set it back down.
“I hope this works,” Sabella commented. Then she took a knife from her pocket and put a big cut in the rubber hose. Gas hissed out at what he thought was an alarming rate.
“Won't this blow up in our hands,” he said while fighting the panic.
“I don't think so, but let's toss it and duck down to be safe.”
They picked it up as they stood on the roof two floors above the patio. With several firm swings they got the metal tank in motion.
“3, 2, 1, throw!” he shouted.
The tank flew out of their hands and had a good trajectory.
“Down,” they shouted at each other.
While it was in the air, they both fell to the roof and covered their heads, fearing an explosion. He held his breath and closed his eyes as tight as he could to be safe. Sixty seconds went by without the big boom, but he was sure he heard men laughing.
“Why didn't it explode?” Sabella asked as she sat up next to him.
Liam had a clear view of the white tank. He didn't expect it to go to the exact middle, but he hoped it would get close. Instead, it barely cleared the hedge around the patio, putting it maybe a quarter of the way to the far building. A female zombie bore the brunt of the cannister. The professionally-dressed woman's head and neck were indented and bloody where the heavy tank impacted, and she fought to get out of the hedge where she'd fallen.
Sabella pulled out the liquor bottle, popped the top, took a swig and offered it to him.
“In my book, you aren't too young for this.”
“No, but thanks,” he replied.
“Okay, but this is your only chance. It's going to be gone in a sec.”
He was curious about the white-label on the bottle, but he knew enough about drinking to know it could impair his ability to save Victoria, and nothing was worth that.
“Nah,” he said.
“That's probably the right answer,” she said with a chuckle. “Don't tell Leah I offered this.”
He smiled back to her, aware that a couple of men continued to laugh and wolf whistle at Sabella.
Rather than take more swigs, she put a dish towel into the open end and then used a small lighter to fire it up. Without fanfare she tossed the flaming bomb down to where the propane tank had fallen. Again, they both fell to the roof, expecting a big boom.
After several moments of waiting, he peered down to see a pitiful little fire at the edge of the hedge. A few zombies were aflame, and there was a four-foot stream of fire coming out of the broken propane hose, but it wasn't blowing up as they hoped.
Together they watched the fire spread in the bushes and jump on a few more zombies-their clothes seemed to catch fire easily-but it was clear they'd failed in their primary goal of making the propane tank blow up.
The men guffawed as if watching pure comedic gold.
“I think we need a gun to rip it open,” he suggested in a dispirited voice. “Or maybe we can direct those laughing guys over there to shoot it. They have the guns.”
“No, let's get back over the roof. We have to think of something else.” She started up the shingles and he was quick to follow. When he made it to the crest he turned around and had a better view of what they'd started.
“Um, Sabella, you better look at this.”
6
He stared down for a couple of minutes because it was like watching the spread of a plague in real time.
The shrubs at the end of the patio burned feverishly, now. Fire spread rapidly on the wind and jumped around while he watched. The jet of flame from the propane hose shot through the bushes and went into the crowd. As one zombie entered the piercing flame, he or she would catch fire and then move to avoid the stimulus. That would open the space for others to walk in and get burned. It became a vicious cycle.
Zombie Escape Page 9
