Saffron became dizzy at the excitement. Standing after so much time off her feet made her head spin. Now she was in real danger.
“Why should I care?”
The instinct to die fought the instinct to live.
“You have to live. You have to take care of them.”
“I'm sorry, momma, I can't. They've been lost.”
On her knees now, her hands gripped the sun-warmed metal to remain stable as she watched below. But the wind increased. Dangerously so. It beckoned her. It wanted to see her fly.
“I could just tip forward and be done with it.”
“No, turn around. Stay alive. There is hope.”
“Ha!”
She looked once more below, though her eyes swam in white streaks. The black dots of the copters cavorted with those in her vision. There was nothing to be gained in watching.
All she could do was slide herself on her knees. A little at a time, she turned to move back to the lamp.
When she faced the proper direction, the wind became a tornado. In front of her, causing the grief, was a dark angel.
Inside the windshield, a man gave her a thumbs up sign.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
Time faded out once more.
Chapter 7: Distractions
Liam knew he was asleep. He'd drifted under with the rhythm of the boat on the river. What he didn't know was how he got to this place.
The cityscape was from his video game, World of Undead Soldiers. It wasn't unusual to dream about the game—he played it all the time. For the past six months or so, he'd been having gaming dreams so much he considered cutting back his game time, though that was a short-lived hope once the light of day caught him. Until today, he hadn't had any gaming dreams since the sirens...
The game wasn't known for complicated story lines or missions. Often it simply came down to how well the characters could aim and how fast they could reload their guns.
He had a gun. A combat shotgun.
“My favorite. Oh yeah!” The thing had some heft to it. The folding stock was retracted, making it easier to carry, but less accurate to fire. With some effort, he extended the stock and pressed it against his shoulder as a test.
“Nice.”
He searched himself for ammo and was pleased to find a mag pouch hanging off his belt. He didn't know how many shells were in there, but he guessed about fifty. That was the limit in his game.
It didn't seem safe to remain in the middle of the road, so he trotted over to the nearest skyscraper entrance. From there, like his game, he'd assess the landscape and determine his next steps.
The changing perspective allowed him to look up and see the building across the street was on fire in several places, mostly near the top.
“Eye-candy, put in there by the game developers.” It really did feel real, but he saw the little details that were inserted to make the city more dynamic and interesting. The fires, the torn sections of roadway as if bombs had fallen—or sewers had collapsed, and the bodies…
A body lay just ahead. It was propped against the outer glass of the front facade of the building. Blood was smeared in a short streak behind the man's head. Cautiously, he approached the victim. He was dressed as a businessman. There was a hole behind his head, in the glass. It was a telltale sign of what happened to him.
“Zombies always die by a shot to the head. Is that a universal truth?”
They also die if you blow them to bits. Or dip them in acid. Or freeze them and then break them apart. Or...
Yes, there were many ways to kill, but on the open streets, by average people, there was only one realistic method.
Destroy the brain.
He moved on to the edge of the building, and could see down the next street. His mission came into focus. A big yellow school bus hunched on flat tires at the next intersection. And yes, he lamented, it was surrounded by a couple dozen zombies. They pawed at the door and left sickly reddish brown streaks wherever they touched the clean yellow exterior.
“Why does this seem so familiar?” His game had many types of missions for players to challenge themselves. Some required attacking the zombies to force the way to rescue. Others demanded the player survive for a period of time against an ever-growing horde. The most complicated required stealth. Getting around a city crawling with zombies was something he knew a little about…
“There are always weapons up in the buildings.” The game allowed players to carry one weapon at the outset, but others could be picked up on the map. If this was a dream meant to mimic the functionality of Undead Soldiers, he'd have to go up into the burning building.
He broke the glass next to the dead man. In moments, he was inside and in the staircase. He clicked on his flashlight—players always had one available in the game—and made it to the first floor without incident. It wasn't long and he was overlooking the bus from a corner office.
“Could I shoot them from up here?” He judged he had 50 shells. Their effectiveness was reduced at his current distance. He was maybe thirty yards from the bus. He could hit them, but not be sure he'd damage the heads. That would be a necessity.
He stood and watched, wondering what his next course of action should be. Go up the stairs to find any number of rifles, compound bows, or fire axes, as he'd do in his game world, or go back outside and distract them, kill a few, and make it into the bus just to see what's inside. From there, who knows. He'd learned it was best not to overthink the scenarios. After all, the game was designed to be played by kids, and they didn't have the same game problem-solving skills as a sixteen-year-old.
He felt mildly bad for feeling pride in that statement, but it had to be true.
Nearly about to turn around, he saw movement across the intersection. Someone was crouched behind a column under the building across from his own. The person wore all-black clothing. He couldn't make out anything more.
Studying the scene, he noticed someone else on the diagonal corner. And a third could be seen below the remaining building on the other corner.
In a flash, he realized what was happening.
“Cooperative play!” He had three helpers in the game with him. Together they were challenged to secure the bus. Now it all made sense.
They came out shooting. He watched the one across the street he'd seen first, as that one was directly in his line of sight. He too had a shotgun—
“A girl!”
The player was using a female avatar. Not uncommon in the game. Whether it was an actual girl was less clear, though doubtful. He looked at his own body to see if he was an avatar, but felt relief that he was really him instead of his in-game avatar.
The rules of this place were nebulous.
She led with a shotgun, rattling off six shots with great precision. She only missed one of her targets on the third shot. She put it down with the fourth. She fired slugs. They ripped great holes in the heads of those she targeted to die.
When she ran out of shells, she ran down the street to his right, reloaded, and then began moving back toward the zombies. The small crowd of them around the bus pulled itself apart as the zombies individually pursued the three killers on the three corners of the street.
“I should be down there.”
Not knowing what else to do, he squatted down at the door of the office and aimed upward into the glass, intending to make a hole so he could shoot down. He ticked off the safety, then let a round go.
“Crap!”
It put a small hole in the window, but it didn't shatter apart as he'd hoped.
He got back up to look at the girl below. He wondered if, here inside his dream, the girl was Victoria. It would make sense he'd dream about her, since she was literally feet away from him on the boat. But the girl definitely had black hair. It was both darker and longer than Victoria's. He couldn't see her face to be sure.
She had made a lot of progress. More zombies lay on the ground behind her, and he could only marvel as she swung a fire axe at a charg
ing businesswoman. She let go of the axe as it, and the zombie, fell to her side.
The other fighters were similarly dispatching their cadre of infected. One of them had a sword. The last one had a baseball bat with spikes on the end. She swung it and twirled it in her hands like an expert baseball player showing off in the batter's box.
He saw his reflection in the glass. His mouth hung open.
The girl below swung her shotgun by its heat shield at a small male in a bright blue ball cap running toward her. He could almost hear the thunk sound through the thick glass. The hat, thick with blood, popped off his head and fell to the ground.
She ran back toward her building, reloading. A few zombies trailed her.
“I need to get down there.”
He ran through the building, retracing his steps. He stepped out of the broken front window and turned to run toward the bus. But when he came around the corner, the action was over. The girl wasn't anywhere to be seen. None of them were.
It was irrational, but he worried they were inside the bus. In the game, all the players had to be on the victory point in order to end the game in a victory—kind of like capture the flag. If one of them was missing, and the game ended, it was considered a loss for all of them.
“I'm here!” He kept his shotgun out, but he ran as fast as its bulk, and the heavy ammo pouch, would allow. In moments, he arrived at the outer layer of dead zombies. Each had a grisly entry and exit wound from the high-velocity slugs.
The going was tough as he closed the distance to the bus doors. He became aware of the blood stains on the sides and the glass on the doors was smeared to the point he couldn't see inside.
Somehow he knew the doors would open.
No one was in the driver's seat. A sign on the top riser said, “Watch Your Step.” He ascended the few steps and peeked over the railing so he could see into the seating area.
“Liam?”
“Grandma?”
He rose to the main floor, and looked down at the tiny form sitting in the first seat. She looked as small as the school kids that should be on a bus like this.
“Oh, it's good to see you again. You always rescue me.”
There was some truth to that statement. He had rescued her from Hayes and Duchesne, but he got the sense she was talking about something different.
“This dream is very odd, Grandma. What is this place?”
She looked at him for a long moment, her head tilted a little to the side. “Liam? Is it really you? You've never spoken here before.”
He returned the confused look, thinking that he'd never been here before. Instead of an answer, he looked into the back of the bus. The three players were there, just as he'd expected. They were huddled in the last row of seats, talking to each other.
“I—”
He did a double-take. One of the figures had turned her head, he was sure they were all girls now, to reveal a blue bow.
“I think I'm in your dream.”
He turned back to her, but she was gone.
Looking up, the girls were gone.
Thinking of his game, he realized the match had ended.
The screaming in his head was real.
2
“Liam! Wake up.” Someone shook him hard.
“I'm up. I'm up.”
The boat had slowed on the river. He got off the fiberglass floor and looked where Victoria pointed.
A large mud flat ran along the riverbank. It was about a hundred yards wide from shore to open water and ran for a mile in each direction. Up the river, a barge had run aground and tipped in the deep mud, allowing its contents to escape. A hundred zombies spilled out and were waist deep in the quagmire along the muddy bank.
Victoria pointed to a small figure struggling in the mud, well downriver from the bulk of the zombies, and nearly half way across the flats—heading for the water. Several infected struggled in the mud near the figure—they were leaders of the slow motion escape. The animated figure waved arms in the classic symbol of “I'm here. Save me!”
Liam's instincts kicked in.
“We have to save her.”
“Her?” Victoria mused. She looked again, as if to confirm his observation.
Banging on the window of the control room, he pointed to the girl, hoping it was understood what he wanted. In a moment, the door opened and Blue came out.
“The captain said we can't get involved. It could be a trap. He also said you shouldn't be standing out in the open like you are.”
That got his attention. He looked around, suddenly aware he was standing hilariously upright on the back of a huge bullseye on the river. He began to crouch, but reconsidered.
“We can't leave someone to die. Why did the captain slow down—” He decided to yell to the captain directly. “Why did you slow down if you weren't going to save her?”
“She is very persuasive.”
Liam could only assume he was talking about Blue. He studied the look on her face. He imagined he saw an agreement there.
“All...right.” He let the words drawl out of his mouth, while he thought of a response.
They were about twenty-five yards from the edge of the mud flat. The current wasn't as strong toward the shallows. He saw how it was going to play out.
Sitting down, he took off his shoes and socks. Then, with some embarrassment, he took off his jeans. Then his shirt. He thanked the fates for putting him in boxer briefs today.
“Don't leave without me.” He shouted it to the captain, but was looking at Blue. He couldn't quite figure out how she and the captain fit together.
He looked at Victoria, aware he was almost naked, smiled, and then jumped feet first over the side. It only took a few strokes to reach the beginning of the muddy bank. He easily made it ashore, but was disheartened to see how far his hands and feet sunk into the loose mud where it transitioned with the water. It was the consistency of very wet play dough.
Once he was on the edge of the mud field, his struggle began. The mud was hungry as it chomped at his feet and refused to let him pull his legs back out.
Speaking aloud, he tried to calm himself. “How did she get that far in the mud?”
The girl was making forward progress, but the mud got deeper the further she went. The last ten yards for her would be up to her waist if she let herself sink down too much.
Liam took a different tact. He let himself fall sideways so he could get his whole body on the muddy surface. It worked to an extent, though it was almost as difficult to move himself forward. In an instant, he was covered with dirty mud.
“We've got ya!” he shouted to the young girl. She too had become a filthy mess. Her clothes were caked with the mud. Wherever she'd come from, she'd been in mud there too.
“Help me. Don't let me die.”
“You and me both,” he replied to himself.
The infected were closing the gap. They too were covered in the mud, making it difficult to identify their sex or occupations. A couple had long stringy hair, suggesting they were females. All of them were hideous crawling through the viscous mud.
The boat behind him revved its engines, though he couldn't tell what it was doing. A few moments later, he heard Victoria call his name. When he turned around, he could see the boat had gone upstream and was now drifting back down, closer to the mud than when he jumped.
Victoria threw a spear toward him. Her intentions were good, but she evidently thought she was going to hit him with it, so she underthrew it. Instead of reaching anywhere close to him, the thing splashed in the water and sank.
He sighed.
“It's OK,” he shouted back. He was shocked how tired he'd become from just the short distance he'd made it into the mud. He turned his attention back to the girl. She'd stopped. They looked at each other at the same moment, and he saw the exhaustion.
“I'm not going to let them get you. Keep moving. I will too.” They were about twenty feet apart. The handful of zombies struggled behind her. One had fallen behind
. It appeared as if it had sunk so far in the mud it would never get free. A gangly little man made the best progress toward its prey. It flailed and flopped on the surface, much as Liam was doing. There wasn't much time left.
He pushed himself forward, though it struck him he had no weapons.
“Maybe I can hurl harsh language at them,” he joked.
The boat was revving up again. He heard a splash, but he was too close to the girl to turn around now.
“I've got you. Just a few feet more.”
He was tempted to tell her not to look back, but it seemed silly to say now. They could both hear the angry moans of the sick chasing her, though only Liam could see them.
As she closed the distance, he had a piece of inspiration.
“I want you to get out of the mud if you can. Lay on top of it. And slide toward me.”
She did as he instructed, while he did the opposite. He dug himself into the mud so he was standing in a muddy pit up to his thighs.
“I'm going to pull you and then let go,” he shouted.
She said nothing, but her eyes told him she'd heard.
The last few feet were a struggle for her and Liam hoped she wouldn't look back, but when their fingers touched, Liam did as he promised. He grabbed both her hands and pulled her toward him and then kept her going on top of the mud for another five or six feet. It was enough to get her out of immediate danger.
And himself into it.
3
When the girl slid by, she nearly ran into Victoria.
“Victoria!” She had jumped over the boat just like he'd done, but instead of showing up empty-handed, she brought their one remaining spear.
She had stripped down to her underwear, the same as him. Despite all the danger, he found himself looking at her body. During her struggles through the mud along the path he had taken, she noticed his dumb looks.
“Eyes forward, soldier!” She smiled, but it was grim.
Liam assumed she was going to toss the spear to him, but she kept coming until she was next to him.
“What are you waiting for? Get out of here. She'll need help to the boat.” There was no ambiguity in her statement.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 99
