“You ready to run for it?” he asked.
“Every danged day,” she replied gravely.
He pulled the door open all the way.
2
She felt like she'd walked into an oven and started sweating buckets. It was hot, yes, but the grisly baking of zombie flesh was already done. She was blessed with a medical professional's stomach, but Russ only held out for a few seconds.
Neither of them stopped moving toward the wide opening at the front.
Fire had consumed the room and turned everything-everyone-into ash and ... bits. Black ooze symbolized where zombies had once stood on the dance floor. A heavy blanket of smoldering smoke lay draped over the room, but the fire had burned itself out for the most part. She avoided looking directly at the remains, for fear of seeing them move.
The roof of the building had been taken clean off the front part. Sunlight poked through the smoke trails above. For the first time she had a sense of how powerful the explosion was. When she reached the door, where Russ had already arrived, she stood next to him and took in the scene with awe.
Bodies lay strewn everywhere. To her right, nearest the skeletal remains of the two tractors and the ashy remnants of the undergrowth beyond, the zombies had become goopy heaps exactly like those inside. To her left, the corpses were wrecked, burned, and disfigured, but a few still moved an arm or leg.
The mixture of gasoline, flesh, and random synthetic smells finally made her gag. Her stomach made it halfway up her throat, but she choked it back down.
“This is ... just horrible,” she said in a distant voice.
Beyond those nearest the garage, the condition of the zombies improved. At the outer edge of the blast radius-beyond the house-the crowd of infected remained thick and menacing. The only thing saving them, she guessed, was their erratic movements and lack of direction. They seemed to walk in circles, fall down, roll around on the grass, or stay perfectly still. A precious few walked in her direction across the wasteland.
“Let's get back to the house.”
She heard him, but her attention was focused on the roof of the farmhouse directly in front of her. A figure stood on the peak of the roof and waved at her like he wanted her to come up.
Her eyes watered up because she'd never been so happy to see someone. There was so much wreckage and death around the outbuilding that she expected the farmhouse to be gone, but there it was. And Liam was there, too.
“Liam!” she shouted. “He's up there. Let's go.”
She took off in front of Russ, so he had to follow her across the smoky parking area. She made for the back door of the house on the patio. It was easy to see because the back of the house had been blackened by the explosion. All the windows were shattered, and the hedges and trees were stripped bare. Much of the siding had been blown away, revealing plywood and heavy support beams holding up the walls. The giant blue tarp that she'd last seen on the ground behind the house had been blown into the sky and was now draped over the back side of the roof.
“I'm coming!” she shouted up to Liam just before she lost sight of him.
“I can't wait!” he yelled back.
The house looked like it had been violently torched, though it wasn't on fire as best she could tell.
Russ caught up to her on the patio but they both slowed near a black cylinder making a hissing sound. It was stuck in the hedge and a small jet of fire pointed down into the dirt.
“Is this the bomb?” Russ asked.
“Maybe,” was all she could say as she felt herself float by. It looked like a propane tank from the family barbecue, which would make sense if they were near the patio. If it blew up while they passed, the whole show would end in a flash. It was hard to peel her eyes from it until she reached the door to the house.
Russ jumped up through the window pane of the doorway but didn't fall on the other side. He was on a table, and he slid along the top while broken glass clinked on the kitchen floor below him.
She was ready to follow him into the house when she noticed a plot of ground just beyond the patio. The bare soil had once been covered by the giant blue tarp, but now it was exposed.
The ground writhed in a way that unsettled a deep sliver of her soul. The soil bubbled and fell upon itself like a million worms were fighting each other to escape a Robin. Even from twenty yards away she could make out bits and pieces of what they were.
Victoria grabbed her cross necklace and held it like a talisman as she felt herself drawn over to get a better look. The zombies at the outer edge of the blast zone still stood around like the explosion had confused and delayed them, but that wouldn't last forever. She was right out in the open in full sight of the horde, but there was nothing that could stop her from satisfying her curiosity.
“Where are you going?” Russ called with worry.
“I have to see this,” she replied as if being led aside by a powerful but invisible hand.
The ground looked like it could have once been a good-sized garden, twenty feet across. It had been dug up in many places so that not a trace of vegetation remained. Like everything else nearby, it had been doused by a black film from the fire. It made the grayish skin of the moving things much easier to spot.
“Please, no. Not this.”
A tiny hand grabbed for air from the soil near her dirty running shoes. Little legs stuck out not far away as if a baby had been buried head first.
“Please.” Her eyes were already watery but now she wept.
The more she studied the garden, the more bodies she identified. There were so many of them that it was hard to identify individuals, but something in her brain clicked and she saw the plot of land as one, big pile of dirt mixed with premature baby zombies. The blue tarp had been keeping them from crawling away, or at least kept them out of sight, but now they had daylight and room to crawl.
“Margaret, you ... ” Victoria wanted to cuss at the woman but no word she could think of was appropriate enough for the hatred she felt while standing there looking at the fruits of the woman's labors.
At least they can't walk, she thought with sick relief. The thought of baby zombies running around the world like feral kittens scared her almost as much as their big brothers and sisters. She wasn't sure she could kill one of the little things, no matter if they were zombies.
Russ screamed for her to come back. She turned to go because as much as she hated his mom, there was no reason Russ had to know about the graveyard. However, before she left one of the tiny figures actually stood up and took a few wobbly steps in her direction. Victoria took in every detail of the terrible monster as it held out its arms and steps over its brothers and sisters, but it was too much to take when it voiced a pint-sized growl.
Victoria closed her eyes in fear and her stomach used the distraction to sneak out of its prison. She spun around as her body heaved wildly and got away from the flesh pile and stumbled back onto the patio.
She tried to stay clinical to remain calm. “If the babies died in the womb, would they try to kill their own mothers?” It was a horrible scenario to contemplate.
Victoria cried openly as she came through the window.
“What? Why did you stop?” He strained to see what was behind the house.
She whipped her head to see if the babies were visible, but they were just a bit too far to the left.
“I thought one of the dead bodies was Liam,” she said in an unconvincing voice.
Russ gave her a sideways look. “You saw him on the roof.”
Oops.
“Well, I, um, can't think straight with this gasoline smell, you know?” It was kind of true. The gas remained heavy in the air, but it had dissipated since they left the garage area. Still, she was glad he seemed to accept that.
“I'll get you to him,” he said. “Please don't cry.”
She smiled at him and gave a thumbs-up sign. Russ turned and walked deeper into the house. Seeing Liam again would take the edge off her horrible discovery, for sure.
She trailed behind him toward the front room of the house but skidded to a stop on the ash-covered wooden floor. He'd paused to see something around the corner.
“Survivors,” he said with a half-turn back to her.
He lifted his shotgun, aimed at something she couldn't see around the corner, then started to fire. She swore her hearing was going because the gun didn't seem that loud. As Russ stepped forward, out of view, she made her way along the wall, so she could peek around, too. A large number of infected were already inside the house. A couple had small flames popping and hissing on their clothes and skin, while seven or eight others were untouched.
The young boy was fearless as he aimed his gun and fired at the zombies. He even knew to aim for the head. While he cranked out four or five shots, she pointed her shotgun to a different part of the living room and made her way toward the first one. By an unhappy coincidence it was a teenager about the same age as her. She was one of the two on fire.
Margaret's shotgun was powerful as it kicked into her shoulder. She'd aimed for the zombie's head as she fired but looked away at the last instant, so she didn't have to watch the horrible damage she'd inflict on it. That small deviation took her aim off her head so when she fired it ravaged the side of her face, ear, and hair, but didn't put her down. It continued its advance, forcing her to waste a second shot. Her eyes never left the target.
The second blast put it down for good. It was a horrific wound that she hated to inflict, but it was now life or death.
The gun was an automatic. It fed in the next round and she pointed it at the next nearest zombie. It was a man dressed in blue jeans and a blue and red plaid shirt. He could have been her father. Without hesitation she fired the gun. It was impossible to miss at such range and it went into the man's face with an intense roar and a sickening thump.
Russ worked his way over to her as she downed a couple more. It took a few shots for her to realize the zombies weren't swarming over them from inside the room. Unlike most other encounters where they would see their prey and make directly for it, this time they seemed listless and disoriented. Already somewhat disheartened over the need to eviscerate heads with the shotguns, that feeling increased when they had dispatched all of the infected in the room without breaking a sweat. It was a true fish in a barrel situation.
“Hey, that was pretty easy,” Russ said, echoing her thoughts. He didn't seem to mind the setup.
“I guess the bomb confused them, same as us. That wasn't a fair fight.” She knew that wasn't true, but she couldn't help giving human qualities to the things that had once been humans. Much as she might pretend to make her cat Sprinkles talk like a human using her own voice, she assigned humanity's rules of fair play to the zombies. They weren't human, any more than that cat. Therefore, what she just did was both fair and necessary. Each and every zombie would have to be killed before she and Liam would be safe. There was no right or wrong about how it was done.
“Let's go upstairs,” she said with a sigh. “I want to get away from death for a few minutes and get back to my boyfriend.”
3
When she got up the steps she halted at the sight of a man dressed in black lying in blood far down the hallway. The grip on her gun tightened as she passed the first room. A fat guy was on the floor in another pool of blood.
“So much for getting away from death. This place is horrible.”
“My mom didn't do this,” Russ stated defensively. The boy took a long time to look at the big man inside the room. “She couldn't have.”
She'd seen Liam alive, so whoever did this was of less concern to her than the survival of her guy. Arguing with Russ would get her nowhere.
“Let's just get to the roof,” was the best she could offer.
Russ hesitated for a half a minute before he left the doorway of the room with the dead man.
By trial and error, they checked the other rooms but didn't find a way onto the roof. They made it to the last door in the hallway and found it locked.
“They must be through here,” she said. The problem was that she didn't want to knock on the door or make a lot of noise, even if they'd just shot up the room downstairs. Liam had to know she was coming, right? He'd be along to unlock it.
Without asking, Russ whipped up his shotgun and squeezed off a round into the door handle.
Victoria jumped back in shock and her adrenaline made her run a few paces before she caught herself.
“Are you crazy!” she shouted.
“I'm opening the door for you,” he replied in a loud voice to account for the blast. He kicked at the door and it easily popped open.
A bunch of junk was piled in the corner, but the open window made it clear that was where they needed to go. She stuck her head outside and saw Liam walking down the steep part of the roof, rubbing debris out of his wild hair. His face was blotched with soot, and his shirt and pants were soaked with god-knows what.
But he was alive.
When he saw movement at the window, he trotted over to help her out of the dormer. She didn't really need the help, but it felt nice to have a boy dote on her. Liam was always a gentleman, and after her time with Margaret and those men, it was the antidote to their venomous advances.
“Victoria,” he yelled, too loud. “Am I glad to see you. I thought I heard gunshots in the house. Was that you?”
“Heya Liam. That was us.” She replied in a quiet voice because she wanted to talk to him alone.
“Ears,” he said, while pointing to his own ear. “I can barely hear.”
Rather than try to explain anything, she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a bear hug. Her eyes watered at the reunion, and his firm hug in reply, but she was aware of several people sitting on the roof nearby. An exotic-looking woman walked along the sloped roof to the window. Russ hovered at the window but seemed reluctant to come onto the roof with her.
She separated from Liam and spoke while looking directly at his face, so she could articulate her words for him. “I was so worried about you.”
Tears streamed from her eyes, but she didn't care.
He gently touched her cheek and wiped a tear.
“You have no idea,” he said, still quite loud. “I thought you were dead until I saw you running below. I can't believe anyone could have survived down there.”
The new woman pulled at her shoulder a little on the rough side. “I'm glad you made it. Did you see my daughter over there? Did anyone else make it?”
“I, um, don't know. Me and Russ hid in a back room when the bomb went off. I didn't see anyone else when we ran back across.”
“It was a gas tank,” Liam corrected.
The woman's hair blew in the wind as she seemed to think.
“Who are these people,” Victoria asked, pointing to the woman and two girls huddled nearby.
“They were trapped with me. They helped me escape.”
The standing woman replied. “He's being modest. He came into the room where that fat pig was getting ready to abuse my girls and took care of things.”
“I saw a man covered in blood in the other room. Liam did that?”
“Some of it. A lot of it was my Leah,” she nodded toward the oldest-looking girl, “but without him we'd be in bad shape.”
“And the priest?” she asked of Liam.
“Not a priest. A reverend.” He pounded his ear as if trying to get it working again. “He made me kill him. He was ... sick.”
She expected a detailed response, but he appeared distracted by his hearing loss. She figured he would tell her when he was ready.
A moment or two later, his eyes hardened when he saw something behind her.
“What is he doing here?” his voice wasn't as loud, but it was angry.
Liam had last saw Russ when his mom pushed him out the front door of the farmhouse. He had no way to know what happened since then. She grabbed his arm as he started to go around her.
“His mom is dead. He wasn't a part of all this.�
� Her grip on his arm was tight, but he didn't fight her. It may have been because he immediately believed her, or the sight of the shotgun in Russ's hands. She watched as the two stood facing each other for a long moment, but Russ broke the impasse by setting the gun down and showing his empty hands.
“I'm so sorry,” Russ replied with emotion. “I had no idea she would throw you out. I didn't know what went on up here. Mom never let me leave the main floor. I swear.” He sat on the floor inside the room, out of their sight.
“But my mom is dead now, so don't worry about me,” he pouted.
Liam looked at her with a question in his eyes but ended up only shaking his head.
She heard the boy crying inside the room and that seemed to make up Liam's mind.
“Fine,” Liam said to her. “It doesn't much matter because we're all trapped together. I'm glad I have you back.” He tried to pull her back into his arms.
The last thing she wanted to do was push him away, but time was critical, so she grabbed one of his hands. “Liam, you have no idea how thankful I am to see you, but we have to get inside.” She spoke with haste. “The zombies are confused, or whatever, because of that explosion. This may be our only chance to get away.”
Liam craned his neck and scanned the fields around them. “We're still surrounded. How are we going to get out of here?”
“Girls, follow me,” the dark-haired woman said.
“That's Sabella,” Liam added. “She's driven to protect her daughters, as you can see.”
Sabella climbed through the window by Russ, then helped her two girls go through as well.
“Maybe she knows how to get out?” Victoria said while still holding one of his hands.
“It wouldn't surprise me. She's the one that started the fire to get to her daughter over where you were.”
“That wasn't you?”
Liam cupped his hand so only she would hear. “She thought I was just a dumb teenager.”
“We went over that,” Sabella shot back from inside the room. “I was wrong.”
Liam stopped using his hand to shield his voice and just smiled. “We sorted it out. I did get the propane tank for her.”
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 186
