“They're still looking for something back there. They won't tell me what, but it would make sense they're looking for whatever was in those coffins that got broken open.”
Liam, unable to formulate a proper reply to the girls, turned instead to Victoria. “I'm sorry, I couldn't stay in there. Someone broke open those coffins. The thought—they must have taken the bodies right out of those boxes and threw down everything else.”
Noting the girls nearby, he continued, “And these three seem to believe my dad has some involvement in all this.” He swept his hand between the tanks and the drop out room. “As if he could have desecrated graves like that.”
Victoria turned to the other girls, but didn't say anything.
Pink spoke to the whole group. Her voice and mannerisms were more reserved than her sisters. “I want to say something. You guys wouldn't believe where I've been if I told you. I've seen zombies crush the life out of one individual and I've seen them swarm over whole crowds. I've, like, seen them scrunch themselves into small metal ducts, and I've seen them spread out across vast open spaces. I—” She choked up, and as she did so, Blue moved back to comfort her. “I'm OK. I saw those sick people slither out of a tipped barge on that muddy bank. I thought that's where I was gonna die...”
She'd been talking while looking down, but now looked over to Liam. “But those two...came along and pulled me out of that mud. They could have kept on driving and left me for dead, no questions asked. But they stopped.” She smiled weakly at Liam. “And...I've been watching him every minute since then. He hasn't said a mean thing about anyone, even that icky captain guy. He treats his girlfriend with respect. He got us this far into the mine. He helped us find you.” She pointed to Black. “I don't think he could have anything to do with the people who, like, released the plague and stuff.”
Black stepped closer to her, and spoke quietly. “That's not what I'm saying 'sis. He may be a good guy, but his father, and those three in the other room, aren't. We gotta be Valkyries—just like the name on that train engine. Strong. Fighters. Independent. We can't be anywhere near him or them, or those guys are gonna get us in trouble. Maybe hurt us.”
The two looked at Blue, as if she carried the most important vote. Liam couldn't see her expression as she was turned the other way, but he heard her soft voice. “He rescued me too. I was dead.” She paused a long time. “As good as dead, I think. And Cairo was a flurry of activity with the military and people digging in to protect the town. I didn't see any Snowball people there, so they weren't the ones rebuilding. But I've not seen Liam or Victoria do anything that suggests they aren't honest people. I think he's telling the truth. At least he doesn't think his father is involved in spreading the plague.”
Better than nothing.
He felt he should be doing a better job of defending the Patriots, but he had no evidence beyond what he already believed to be true. His dad would never align with any group that released biological weapons upon mankind. He'd been in the presence of two men who had every opportunity to lay blame on the Snowball movement, and both admitted it was someone in the U.S. Government who released the plague to kill the Patriot march, not the other way around. But of course he wasn't recording his conversations to be able to prove it.
Black, still conversing with her sisters, asked, “All right, so then do we stick with these people when we get out, or get the hell out of their sight? I vote we run.”
The question hung on the hot, dry air.
2
The three men stormed out of the drop out room.
“Any of you kids have food? I'm starving.” It was Dave.
Clarence was a few steps behind. He ignored the question. “We've got to go.”
“Did you find what you're looking for,” Liam asked.
Clarence stopped nearby. “Nothing's left. They took the bodies somewhere. We have to get back and report our findings.”
“Can we come with?” Victoria asked. When she saw Liam look at her, she continued. “What? I want to stick by the guys with the guns.” She left it at that.
Clarence ran a finger over his lips while he considered her request. “We'll get you out of the mine. I don't want it on my conscience I let five kids die, but you should consider being more careful—stick with some adults. Things are dangerous now.”
Liam laughed internally at the towering irony in that statement. As if they only just now realized the danger because some older fellow pointed it out. He wanted to reply with all the dangerous things he'd survived since the sirens, but he knew it wouldn't help their plans to escape. It turns out, in this case, they did need the help of adults. Or lots of kids with guns, though none of those were nearby.
Victoria coughed, and Liam thought he detected a hint of a laugh within.
“Yeah, so we'll help you get to the surface with us, but then you're on your own. We, uhh, have somewhere to be.”
“A secret meeting, huh?”
Clarence turned to Victoria. “Yeah, something like that.” Then he motioned to the entire group to circle around him. He pointed to his third man. “Travis here has an idea.”
Travis began. “When we came in, we had a map of the entire mine. We took it from one of the offices up top. It was a large roll with many pages. I threw out what wasn't on our route so I could keep this one.”
He pulled out a folded square map that was about four feet across. He showed it to them, then walked to a nearby tank chassis so he could lay it flat on the angled front hull. They all drifted to stand in front of the display.
M60 Patton. That was the model of the tank stenciled in white lettering beneath the turret. Instead of the traditional white star of the US Army, it carried a big white “V” on the side of the turret.
Travis began by pointing to his map. “This is how we came in. If you came in through the front door, you probably came the same way.” He showed them the series of tunnels, noting they were all clogged with family sedans right now.
Liam really wanted to get a tank started, roll over all those cars, and then just keep going up and out of the spiral of death. He tried to listen, though exhaustion took a toll on him, and the heat wasn't helping. Victoria's hand was on his back, propping him up, he imagined.
“And then we all came into the room blocked by those dump trucks.” He pointed to the room on the map. “You can see it actually has four entrances. The first is the one blocked by the trucks. The next is the one with the blue door, where we all went through. But the next one goes deeper into the production part of the mine, while the last one—across from the blue door—is where we think we might be able to escape.” He turned, pointing to the sisters. “Did any of you see survivors when you came in?”
Black, the one in the mine the longest, said the only two people she met after the initial sprint into the pit were the soldiers guarding the computer room. Everyone else must have found refuge in some of the chambers closer to the entrance. At least, that was her best guess.
Blue and Pink saw the same number of survivors as Liam—one. And he was homicidal.
“OK, so maybe we'll get lucky. If no other survivors got into that room, and if none of the infected followed them in, we might be able to escape through there.” He jabbed his finger at the room. Liam noticed it was near the edge of the sheet. A dotted line continued beyond, signifying the system joined another map sheet.
“And what's beyond that room, huh?” Black asked.
“Well, that's just it. It's literally off the map. But look here.” He held up the map, folding it in such a way he could look at the tiny text of the map up close. “Right here. It says 'to original mine and opening.'”
Liam saw it. They all did. Plain text and clear meaning. But he didn't like the middle part of the plan.
“So, I see where we are. I see where we need to go, but how to do we get past all those zombies sitting outside the door of the computer room now?” He explained where they'd left the horde.
Travis looked at Clarence, sharin
g the question.
For a long time, Clarence looked at the map as Travis held it, then he took it for himself to study it. The group began drifting apart, as if to wait for the word when they'd be summoned once more. It wasn't long.
“I'd never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad we found five healthy kids. You guys are going to save all our bacon on this.”
I'm not going to like this.
3
Liam was right. As was typical for planning during the Apocalypse, the plan sucked. But, he allowed that it did make sense if they had any hope of surviving the horde of zombies now lounging with the dead machine guns.
He held both of Victoria's hands with his own. “You ready for another crazy plan?”
“There isn't one piece of the plan I like. I especially don't like the part where we separate. Please promise you'll come back to me. I can't bear to think of doing this alone.”
The sweat pouring from her forehead wasn't just from the heat. She shared his nervous energy and anticipation. But, saying something positive was crucial because there was no way to sit out the escape. No rescue was coming.
“Do you remember when we first met, and I was as nervous as a new kid on my first day of school?”
“Of course. You made Grandma run over my hand and then you stammered through the next five minutes of conversation before you settled down. I thought it was kind of cute how nervous you were.” She giggled softly, allowing the humor in.
“Right, well I never told you what it was that calmed me down. Can you guess? It's something on you.”
She shook her head no, but looked down at herself. “I'm wearing all different clothes—thank God—so I'm not sure what it could have been.”
Liam saw his opening. “Thank God you have one thing on the same.” He pointed to her silver necklace. “This necklace. I can't explain it. When I saw it that first time, it made realize you were one of the good guys in a world gone bad. I couldn't possibly be intimidated or nervous around someone like that.”
He smiled broadly at her. “Though I'm still not positive what I believe. I believe there has to be a God out there, but I'm beginning to think maybe he isn't very interested in the mess we've created here.” He pointed to the nearby room. “Nobody who believes in God could have ripped those bodies out of their graves like that. I think we're dealing with true evil. Though they aren't demons or devils with pitchforks. They are people who have gone rotten.”
Their eyes locked.
“Look, my point is that you and your faith were a big reason I was able to survive this far. I need you to keep that up. Keep inspiring me to look for God in all this. I need to believe this isn't all for nothing. If you can do that, I promise you I'll never stop trying to get us out of these crazy situations.”
He thought she was going to lean in and kiss him. But before he could embrace her, Black interjected. “What kind of bullshit are you feeding each other? God? An all-powerful being pulling the levers and waiting for prayers just so he can answer them? Do you hear yourselves?” She laughed with definite malice.
Victoria shot back, “So what do you believe? If anything?”
“I don't believe there's a man in a chair up there, lording over all of us. I don't believe there's anything up there. It's just us. You, me, the people who released the plague. The people fighting it. Maybe this is good versus bad, but not God versus the Devil. That sound ridiculous.”
She pointed to her sisters. “We were brought up to think for ourselves. Take responsibility for our own choices—good or bad—and not blame them on others, or expect others to fix our problems.”
Blue nodded, though Liam thought he saw a flicker of disagreement in Pink's eyes. Still, they were getting nowhere with a religious discussion inside the Mine of Death.
“Hey, guys. Can we save this for another time? We have a job to do.” He hated to cut off Victoria as she appeared to be gearing up for an argument, which he was prepared to see through to the end, but not right now.
He pulled Victoria away from the others and after a brief pause for her to catch her breath, he kept her occupied with her new job.
“So we need to go in there and get some of those wooden boxes, you ready? I can't do it without you.” Something about them freaked him out.
Victoria nodded her head, then the whole group went into the drop out room and began dragging out the broken caskets. They put them in a pile very near the first row of tanks outside that room. Liam absolutely refused to touch anything else in the pile of artifacts left by those who desecrated the graves in the first place. None of the others seemed willing to test that taboo either. When they were done, they had a pile eight feet high with about twenty wooden caskets of varying quality.
“You ready, folks?” Clarence looked at the kids.
No one said no, though no one said yes, either. He took that as his cue.
He handed a lighter to Liam. “Give us twenty minutes to get to the doors, then light this pile.”
“Good luck everyone.” Then, with as much humor as he could muster, Clarence ended with, “Don't leave without us, huh?”
The girls might have laughed. Liam did not.
We need you guys. You have the guns.
4
Liam's brow dripped with sweat as he tried to light the fire. A small flame danced in the husk of one of the coffins. He prayed it would spread soon to the rest of the pile of kindling so they could ensure the plan would work as it was intended.
As he blew into the flames, he checked the shoes of his companions. Victoria was the most prepared. She wore her snazzy yellow running shoes she'd gotten back in Cairo. Blue had a decent pair of sneakers as well. Pink had a mangled pair of tennis shoes—she managed to keep them from being removed from her feet by the grabby mud. They looked like hell, but at least she could walk in them.
Black's shoes were the worst. Her boots were two sizes too large, and went half way up her shins.
Liam caught her attention, then nodded at her feet. “Nice boots.” He forced a smile, but his concern was deadly serious. Anyone without good shoes would have trouble with a plan that included running for your life.
“I came into the mine with no shoes. My watch isn't the only thing I took from Timothy.”
The fire began to catch. There was no going back. He threw some larger pieces on the fire and the dried wood caught and spread like mad. In just a few minutes, the fire had exploded over the entire pile.
Job one, done.
Far across the cavern, they waited for the next phase of their escape to kick in. And, almost as if they'd planned it, two men came running out of the dark tunnel and jumped up onto a tank, and then climbed inside. Even from hundreds of yards away, their fear was palpable.
“Where's the third one?” One of the girls spoke, but he couldn't tell who. His entire focus was on the opening.
The last man came running out of the tunnel, but he was chased by one of the fast zombies. The man ignored the tank, perhaps sure he couldn't make it to safety. Instead, he ran for the fire. In moments, the black hole belched out more of the dead. They weren't running, thank God, but there were so many, it probably wouldn't matter.
The signal fire turned out to be superfluous. The running man—he still couldn't tell which one—brought in all the zombies anyway.
A slice of panic cut through Liam. He steadied himself by looking at the fire, then he turned to the girls.
“We all know what to do. Let the zombies get into the room, let them get close to us, then get lost in the tanks and run out that door.” He pointed behind him, to the door currently full of zombies.
Victoria gave a weak smile. She'd picked up a stout metal bar that had once been attached to a coffin. The other girls just stared at the doorway behind him, each holding their own hand-to-hand weapon.
His spear felt totally inadequate for what he needed to do, but at least it was something.
When he reached the halfway point across the room, Liam was sure it was Clarence.
The slightly older man had slowed down considerably. He was clutching his waist as if he had a bad cramp. He turned around once, then changed course to try to jump on one of the large Abrams tanks. He managed to scramble up to the main deck, but he was unable to get the hatch open before the running zombie bounded up and sprang onto the deck with him.
He pulled out his sidearm and managed to put the zombie down with two shots. Then he crawled to the top of the turret, opened the top hatch, and fell inside. The portal was closed as the faster of the walking zombies found the tank and started banging on the exterior.
The wave continued to wash around that tank. It headed for Liam's fire down the middle corridor of the room.
“We got this,” he said, mostly to seem brave.
“Just zig zag through the tanks and make your way back to safety. Easy!”
He knew that was a lie, but what else could he say. “We're all gonna get caught. Nice knowin' ya!”
He started to scream and yell at the zombies, ensuring the greatest number continued to push into the big space. For the plan to work, they needed the zombies to move toward the fire so there were fewer of them on the side with the exit.
Where did all these zombies come from?
He'd seen zombies get out of some of the cars while on the way in, but the numbers had swelled. Now if he cared to count them, he'd wager they were in the thousands. Almost every one headed their way.
They let them get to within about fifty yards. Close enough they were spotted. The zombies ramped up their moaning when they saw fresh food. They were off-the-chain loud with hunger groans and shouts. Liam felt his stomach quiver in fear, but he caught himself before he lost control.
To Victoria he shouted, “I love you!”
She replied, “I love you too, Liam. Don't stop running!”
They each took off to the right. Victoria went into the first column of tanks while he ran on the outer wall for another twenty-five yards and then stopped.
This is where I may ruin my shorts.
He waited. He could see Blue running in the opposite direction from him along the outer wall. Her job, like his, was to get the zombies to follow them up the columns of tanks so they'd get as far into the room as possible. Then all the runners were going to cut back to the door by running on the outer wall near the last row of tanks. He and Victoria had gone right. The sisters all went left.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 110
