Last Fight of the Valkyries (31 page)

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, sharing 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.