Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (5 page)

In spite of all the danger, he was so tired his head was rolling
side-to-side with the motion of the car, his eyelids vacillating
between open so Liam could stare, and closed so he could drift off.

“A couple AR-15s.”

“A couple hunting rifles with really good scopes.”

“A pump scattergun and one automatic.”

“Lots of handguns.”

“Beaucoup Ammo!”

“Left a ton of older guns back in my safes.”

Liam looked at the two ladies and was surprised to see them both
slumped over, asleep. Just that fast. He fought hard against the draw
of sleep; a fight he was losing until the car lurched to a stop—he
was wide awake again. Phil put the car in park and looked back at the
trio, but settled on Liam because he was awake.

“I've got to get Bill out. I'm going to drag him into the
woods, well off the roadway, and lay him down. We really don't have
time to dig a grave, but I'll try to get back to him if I can.”

“Do you need any help?” Liam looked around and saw no
other cars or people in the area, so he figured it was safe to get
out.

“No, I'll be quick. I need a moment alone if you take my
drift.”

Liam had seen death more than he cared to admit over the past few
days. Angie. Captain Osborne. Officer Jones. Now Officer Billy. To
say nothing of the thousands upon thousands of people walking around
with a plague that brings the dead back to life.

Phil walked around to Billy's door, opened it, and pulled his
friend out. He gently dragged the dead man down a slight hill until
he was well into the woods. Liam couldn't see much after that.

Victoria and Grandma slept on.

3

Liam must have drifted off while waiting for Phil to return Soon
they were moving again, heading south. The direction Liam needed to
go to get home. He could hear voices on a near-silent radio up front
with Phil.

When Phil saw Liam's eyes were opened he started up. “I've
got my police scanner. Sorry if it woke you. You said you lived in
Barnhart, correct?”

A quick nod in the affirmative.

“A call came over the scanner that all available Arnold and
county police are to meet at the interstate overpass in Imperial—near
your home—today at 3 p.m. Something big's going down. I think
we need to check it out before we take you home.”

Liam really just wanted to get home in the most direct path he
could and avoid further entanglements, but he didn't want to seem
selfish when there were so many desperate people outside his window.
To be polite he merely said “sure,” and left it at that.

A few minutes of driving and Phil turned the car abruptly to the
left into a small strip mall parking lot. He pulled up to a parked
Arnold PD car as if he were going to talk to the occupants. They were
facing his direction, so he maneuvered so his window was closest to
the other driver. “This is Maple's car. I'll ask him what he
knows.”

Phil pulled the car up next to the police cruiser, but quickly let
out an “Oh shit!” He reached down and pulled up a
semi-automatic pistol. Liam imagined he was going to take the gun and
start shooting whoever was inside the police car. Instead, Phil moved
the car a few feet ahead and took three shots at the rear tire,
blowing it out. He then sped out of the parking lot, continuing
southward. Liam's ears were ringing as he looked over his shoulder.
He could see several men pour out of the police cruiser—none of
them were Arnold PD. A couple tried firing handguns, but they were
too far away. Liam had never been so happy to see a police cruiser
out of operation.

“Wow. Did you know who was in that car when you pulled up?”

“No. But I should have known. I saw the driver wasn't Maple,
and did the only thing I could think of—short of killing them
in cold blood. Those boys could have been out for a joy ride and
innocently found the car, or maybe they killed Maple to get his car.
Maybe the car was abandoned; like I dumped mine. Maybe they thought
I
was a bad guy trying to jack their ride. There's no way to tell
anymore who are the good guys and who are the bad. Even the good guys
guarding those bridges became bad in the eyes of those on the other
side of the roadblocks. Good and bad are just empty words out here.”

Phil drove on a few blocks and pulled off the road behind a small
building. He put the truck in park and looked back at everyone. “I'm
sorry guys, but we need to regroup. I've realized we all have to work
together on security if we're going to survive. I don't think I'll be
dropping you off and heading off on my own like I thought either...”

No one seemed anxious to argue with a police officer about
security.

Phil requested Liam sit in the front passenger seat to help be his
eyes and, he admitted to everyone, he needed someone checking his
work. The other thing he did was place an AR-15 in the front seat
with Liam. He threw several loaded mags onto the front floorboard.
“If you need to fire it, try to stay lower than the window
frame. Bullets will still come through the metal part of the door,
but they have a much better chance of deflecting or at least slowing
down compared to going through an open window right into your head.”

Liam had fired an AR before, as his dad was something of a “gun
nut.” However, he was far from an expert shooter with the long
guns like this. Some people had a steady hand and a dead-eye when
they used scopes on rifles, but Liam admitted he was kind of
“twitchy” and found it difficult to concentrate and
remain perfectly still when he had to shoot long guns, such as
hunting rifles. He wondered out loud how twitchy he was going to be
when the targets were for real.

“Just take your time and pretend you're firing at paper
targets. Aim center of mass, then put three shots right there. Oh, if
you encounter any zombies—add one to the head. But I warn you,
it ain't like the movies. Getting a headshot from any distance can be
very difficult if you don't shoot guns regularly.”

“Victoria and I shot dozens of zombies in the head with our
Rugers when we were on the train. It isn't really that hard when
you're up close. Zombies don't move fast. But as I said, we were only
a few feet away for most of those kills.”

Phil smiled. “Good. Now listen up. I've spent my whole life
on the streets as a police officer. Almost twenty years. Not in the
toughest jurisdictions mind you, but I've still seen and done a lot
of ugly crap over the years. But none of that compared to the pain
and trauma of losing the two loves of my life. My wife and daughter.
And to a senseless car accident.”

He paused as if he'd lost his train of thought for a few moments.

“My point is that life is full of curves. That was always
the case. But look at things now. Even when you think you're looking
right at something you are 100% sure is what you think it is, you
need to look again. Have your buddy double check you. Check your
buddy's work. Do it again. Take nothing for granted.”

Another long pause. Liam turned to the back and smiled as he saw
Victoria.

“Once law and order is removed from the equation of the
street, you're going to see the worst in people. Without those few
police officers making it clear the unspoken rule of “civil
society” is still in effect, people are going to be quick to
throw off the pretenses of lawfulness. That's why looting happens so
fast. Once there is a whiff that law and order is AWOL, some kind of
message goes out and finds every criminal in the area and invites
them to make things worse. Unless I'm calling things really wrong
here, I don't see law and order returning anytime soon. Maybe never.”

Phil hunkered down in his seat after a quick check
out the front window.

“This is the absolute most important piece of advice I will
ever give you: the concept of law and order is just an illusion. In
the past, when order existed in our normal lives, the people who
broke the law and did terrible crimes were very much like suicide
bombers. They made a decision to murder, rape, shoot people in a
movie theater, or whatever—knowing that for a period of time no
police officer could possibly stop them. If you were willing to die
in the act, no depravity was beyond reach. As a police officer under
orders from politicians with a particular mindset toward guns I
couldn't talk about this in my official duties. But privately I told
everyone I knew it was their civic duty to carry a sidearm with them
at all times. Movies. Church. The dentist. You are your own security.
Police only show up after the suicide bomber has detonated himself.”

“Here's the bad news. Whereas previously only a suicide
bomber would go out and test the limits of depravity, in today's
world there is a neon sign on every street corner saying 'Law and
Order has been terminated. You are on the honor system.' That means
you no longer have to be a suicide bomber to conduct activities that
aren't in harmony with the law—either written law or just plain
decency. Murder is easy and has no consequences now. The suicide
bomber no longer needs to detonate. And it won't just be the
down-on-his-luck guy who fancies a molotov cocktail at the parish
church, it will be groups of college-educated men and women throwing
bombs through windows of entire neighborhoods simply as a statement
against the very system of law and order they simultaneously hate and
desperately need. Society itself becomes suicidal in the absence of
law and order.”

“Are you saying it's the law of the jungle now?”

“I'm saying it's worse than that. The law of the jungle
allows for continuation of the species. It works well when times are
good and the system is well-oiled and everyone knows their place,
even though it may not be the most advantageous code for individual
weak members of the tribe. The strongest warrior and the weakest
elder can coexist when times are good, even under the law of the
jungle. A system is in place that rewards the strong and penalizes
the weak, but it doesn't outright kill the weak for sport. Imagine
the law of the jungle with no societal restrictions of any kind. The
strongest warrior suddenly has every incentive to kill all the
weaklings, including the young—so he can amass his own
resources and treasure to survive a little bit longer. Cooperation is
gone. Order is non-existent. The only constant is chaos. In that
setting, even the law of the jungle would be the height of civility.”

“So what are we looking at if the law of the jungle is
beyond reach?”

“What do you call a world where the dead are walking around
in broad daylight? What do you call a world where a man would burn
your house to the ground because he could? What do you call a world
where a man would shoot you dead simply for wearing a certain color
uniform? What do you call a world where the police are the bad guys
and the criminals run roughshod over the law-abiding?”

Phil paused his monologue dramatically.

“I call it Hell.”

4

After the lecture on security, Phil pulled the SUV back onto the
road. Liam was riding shotgun, and was as alert as his tired
condition would allow. They were close to the designated bridge over
the highway. Very few cars were on the roads in this more rural part
of town.

Nothing could have prepared them for the scene when they reached
the highway interchange. There were no cars on the highway. Only
people. Lots and lots of people. They consumed all six lanes of
traffic on both north and south-bound sides. All of them walking
south—away from St. Louis.

Victoria was the first to speak up. “How is this possible?
That must be the whole city walking out.”

Phil slowed the truck to take it all in. They were all gawking
like schoolkids on their first zoo field trip when a man ran up to
Phil's window.

“Hey! You might want to get that car off the bridge. Some of
those people down there might be tempted to come up here and take it
from you.”

“Thanks.”

“I'm going to pull the car well off the road so no one can
see it, but if anyone wants to get out now I plan on walking back and
talking to these people on the bridge.”

Liam volunteered to get out. He looked at the women.

“I'll stay in here dear. I'm comfy.”

“And I'll stay with her. We'll keep each other company.”
Victoria gave Liam a smile as she said it. A bright ray of sunshine
after the problems they'd been having.

Liam looked at Phil before he got out. “You think I should
carry the AR?” He was looking at the AR-15 expectantly.

Phil took a few seconds to consider, “No, it would better to
keep your sidearm handy, but hidden. Be ready to defend yourself, but
don't make yourself a target. There are desperate people down there.
They might see a young man with a rifle over his shoulder as a juicy
mark. Don't worry, I'll be back in a couple minutes.”

Liam stepped out, and the SUV sped off. He was mesmerized by the
impressive number of his fellow man down below on the interstate. He
looked behind him and saw the wave of mankind pushing well down the
highway and over a small rise about a mile away.

I wonder where they're all going?

As he was standing there, gawking, the same man was once again
giving a warning. “Hey. Howdy there. My name's Mark.” He
hung his hand out for Liam to shake.

As Liam became aware of the hand, he blinked his eyes as if to
wake himself up. “Oh, hi. I'm Liam.”

“I know. We're all exhausted. But I recommend you move over
here to where we have our little operation. You don't want to be
alone and looking down into the crowd like that. It freaks some of
them out. And these folks are already freaked.”

“No doubt.” Liam followed him from the middle of the
bridge to a point a bit further toward the western edge. There were
about twenty or thirty people doing various tasks up on the bridge
decking, all of it related to water. Some were pulling big water
containers on bicycle trailers. Others were pushing some kind of
garden cart with more containers. Then there were static containers
filled with water sitting directly on the bridge. Several people were
either filling them up, or draining water into buckets. Those buckets
were being dropped over the side of the bridge. Liam walked over to
the edge and could see where the buckets were going. The crowd below
was using the water to quench their thirst. They looked road-worn but
shouted up thanks with real gusto. He had to admit it was almost
festive.