Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (19 page)

A “sproing” sound from above accompanied movement of
the drain. It detached from where it came out of the wall near the
roof and swayed away from the building.

“Oh God.”

She let herself slip down the tube a few feet. The loose pipe
swung out, then flew back against the wall, clanging loudly. After a
short drop, she found another bracket. It caught her hands—she
cried at the pain as she stopped. It put her between floors two and
three.

“OK, steady. You can do this.”

Her feet gripped the rough bricks, and she let herself descend a
few more feet. It put her next to the window on floor two. Movement
caught her eye in the windows near the spout, and she froze.

A pale face in the dim light bobbed into the center of the closest
window, as if sensing she was close by. She assumed the zombie
couldn't see her—she couldn't tell if it was a man or
woman—because it wasn't trying to break out the glass.

She held herself still, but the pain quickly became unbearable.
The pipe wasn't big enough to hug and hold herself, so most of her
grip was coming from her hands. She shifted her feet, looking for
something where she could dig in her toes to take some of the weight
off, but it was useless.

“God, give me the strength.”

The zombie loitered. Another was further down the row of windows.

Her palms started to slip. The anxiety and adrenaline of the
moment betrayed her.

First, and inch or two. She fought it.

The zombie was still right there. Searching.

Another inch slid by. Her feet searched in futility, while her
hands continued to loosen.

“Go away,” she willed it.

It looked right at her. She closed her eyes, putting all her
effort in holding perfectly still. Despite all her prayers and a
phenomenal effort, she began to slide. There was no way to stop it.
She opened her eyes and was disappointed to see the zombie watch as
she slid out of its view.

Banging started on the glass above as she held on as best she
could the rest of the way down. She was going fast enough that the
next set of brackets caught her by surprise. It was so painful she
let go of the pipe and fell the last ten feet to the decorative
shrubs surrounding the building. Though she landed on her feet, she
collapsed in a heap when she touched down.

She froze on the ground. If she blended in with the foliage, maybe
the zombies would lose track of her. If they were at the windows on
the first floor, she would be mere feet away. She was unwilling to
move so she could look in those windows. Instead, she studied the sky
and listened.

More laughter taunted her from the camp, but it was countered by
screams from inside the research building. She was certain the zombie
she'd seen on floor two was banging away at the glass above her.
Would it break the window, then come tumbling down? Would the group
on floor three break through the classroom door and do the same? It
seemed unlikely, but as Grandma Marty would say, not impossible.

She thought she heard the chirp of continuous machine gun fire
from far away.

That's what I need here. A machine gun crew to kill everyone
inside the building.

Except for Hayes, right?

She was mostly sure she didn't want him shot.

Well, maybe just a little.

6

“Get up. Run!”

The resolve was there, but doubt, too. Where could she run that
would have help? Though she was willing to scream bloody murder while
up in the building, now she wondered if it was right to go to the
camp and rile everyone up in the middle of the night. She needed
somewhere that had soldiers, ready to help. She only knew one place
where she was absolutely sure she could find such people.

After a few deep breaths to steady her nerves, she deliberately
got up and began to jog directly away from the building. Her desire
was to avoid getting too close to the windows so as not to cause
zombies to jump out to grab her, but once she was far enough away,
she realized she'd done something just as dangerous. She was now
visible to every zombie looking out the windows on all three floors.

The tinkle of glass urged her to run faster.

Are they free?

She ran.

Her goal was the outer defense wall. It had to be close, as she’d
heard shooting from that direction from time to time since she’d
been on campus, but she hadn’t the time or will to go check it
out.

Until I need it in the middle of the night!

The Whitaker building was out of sight now, and she rounded the
corner of another building when she fell hard to the concrete
walkway.

She’d tripped over something, and had skinned up the pads of
her palms. But that was the furthest from her mind when she saw two
men standing in the darkness nearby.

“Help! Zombies! In the Whitaker research building.”

It felt great to unload the important information, but when she
got to her feet she got a better look at the two men. In the
darkness, it was hard to make out details, but they each wore some
kind of face mask—of a skeleton head. They wore black boots,
black pants, and black shirts. Somewhere in the shadows, she sensed
the metallic aura of battle rifles.

Instead of running to help, the two men strolled to her. By the
time she’d found her feet, she was in a new kind of danger.

“Well, well. Lookie here. She made it out. That’s a
first.” The voice came from the taller man.

“Yep. That’s new. What do you think our orders are,
now?”

The tall man laughed maliciously. “Have fun?”

Victoria took a step back and tripped—again—on the
obstruction on the ground. This time, she got a better look at it.

At him.

One of the security guards had been placed in the shrubs, but his
legs stuck out onto the path.

“What...what do you guys want? I need help in the building.
The zombies are going to flood the park.”

“Missy, don’t ya think we know that?” short guy
laughed as he stood above her. The white skull face stared down at
her.

“You guys let them all out. But why?”

Short guy roughly pulled her to her feet. His strength frightened
her. He let go, but tall guy was almost next to her. Both men quietly
chuckled, like they were in on a joke she didn’t know. She
stood with her hands on her hips, hoping it conveyed some kind of
defiance. And...

“This is the point where we reveal our grand plan, right T?”
the short one said.

“You know it, C. We’re going to spill the beans and
then she goes off and reports back to Hayes.”

The tall guy looked at the short guy, like he’d said
something off-script, but turned back to Victoria in a moment.

“Or, this is the point where we use the dead of night to
have some fun with our date.”

The short man was now directly to her side. The tall guy stood to
her front. Her options were nearly gone.

She leaned to begin running, but short guy grabbed her arms from
behind and guffawed. “Not gonna happen, girly girl. We didn’t
wake up today, you know.”

The tall guy, standing in front of her, growled. He moved so he
was inches away from her. “Our orders were to terminate you and
your boyfriend inside that freak show. The zombies were supposed to
do it for us, nice and neat, but I’m going to enjoy
interrogating you.”

Short guy held her upper arms, as if pointing her to the tall guy.
When her hands were on her hips, she’d gotten her hand on the
screwdriver handle. She’d stuck it down her jeans, but put it
through one of her belt loops, so it was convenient to grab.

The man behind let go of one arm and rubbed one of her spaghetti
straps off her shoulder while he whispered in her ear. “I’ll
interrogate you from back here—”

She didn’t wait for the punchline. The screwdriver came out,
and she held it like she would hold a sword by the hilt. Then, with
the lower half of her arm, she swung it like a metal pike—aiming
for the voice and face of the man hovering near her shoulder. She
knew she landed the blow when he let her go. He took the screwdriver
out of her hands.

“Ahhhhh!” short guy screamed. Like her a moment
before, he tripped over the feet on the ground. His voice was loud
and angry, but he was definitely on the ground below her.

She ran in the confusion. With a burst of speed, she dodged tall
guy and ran back the way she’d come, putting the corner of the
new building between herself and the NIS assassins.

Run, girl, run!

She sprinted along the short end of the building, then turned left
to run along the back edge of the same building. She hoped the men
were behind her, though she also wondered if she’d gotten the
guy good enough that he wouldn’t follow her at all. Put a
screwdriver into the face of a zombie, and they’re done for. It
should work the same for a living human.

A couple of gunshots rattled the night, from ahead. Her only hope
was finding the wall.

Although…

“What if they just kill the guards?” she said to
herself as she paced her run.

There were a lot of variables in play. How many were there? Why
were they here? Would they follow her into population?

On the last point, she was fairly certain they would. If short guy
survived her screwdriver strike, he’d be hungry for revenge.
Hayes said they were built that way. The only consolation was that
even if they caught her, she’d at least drawn first blood from
them. Whatever they were going to do to her tonight, they were never
going to let her go.

Her stomach swooned at the thought. The NIS men were there to kill
her.

“We see you little girl. Run, run, run, but you can’t
hide.”

“And you’re going to wish you hadn’t knifed my
associate. He’s pretty pissed,” tall guy said with a
hearty laugh. He sounded very close.

There was nothing for her to do, except run for her life.

Running was one thing Victoria knew she could keep up for a long
time, even in the Apocalypse. Her good jogging shoes were
comfortable, her pacing felt good, and because outrunning bullets was
ridiculous, she continuously made swerves and turns to keep trees,
statues, gates, and buildings between herself and her pursuit. She
headed for the wall.

“You can’t get away, hot stuff,” a sing-songing
man called to her.

To her surprise, a gaggle of students stood in front of one of the
dorm buildings. Part of her was desperate to mix in with them and
disappear, but she couldn’t trust that the men behind her
weren’t watching. If they saw her go in, the presence of some
students wouldn’t stop them. They might even kill them all,
just because…

None of them had weapons. They stood in the low light of a few
lanterns with dreary eyes and colorful pajamas.

She passed them without comment. Only select buildings had
electrical power, and none of the courtesy lights on the walkways
were functional. If she wasn’t seen, the men might assume she’d
gone into the dorm…

She called back once she was past them. “Get back in your
dorm, you idiots!”

She rounded a corner of an administration building and felt her
stomach muscles clench at the sight of safety. Ahead were the large
fires kept up by the men and women on the barricade surrounding the
park, the university, and the hospitals. There had to be dozens of
people. Surely it was enough to fight off two men, one of whom was
wounded?

Most stood on car roofs and rested their weapons on large shipping
containers, facing outward.

“Help!” she croaked. Her throat was hoarse.

The butterflies skittered across her tummy. She wasn’t safe,
yet.

She picked up her pace. She ran across a large grassy space
sitting on a gentle hill—once a pleasant place for students to
study in the shade—and onto the street behind the barricade.
Now that she could see how it was constructed, she judged she had
aimed for the best possible place.

The line of containers and other debris was on the near side of
the intersection, giving clear fields of fire out into the night.
Someone had designed fifty-five gallon drums so they could be placed
on top of the containers and burn brightly, toward the street beyond.

Altogether, it made her feel the people knew what they were doing.

Victoria clapped her hands, hoping to get their attention.

She heard snaps behind her. It reminded her of someone banging two
pieces of wood together.

Ahead, a defender stood stiffly, then dropped to the ground.

Then another.

“Help!” she shouted, this time with more force.
“You're being shot at!”

It took entirely too long for the people to get it. Another couple
people fell, including a woman who she judged to be the closest to
her on the wall.

“They’re behind me!” her voice broke at the word
me.

She jumped behind a parked car off to the side of the barricade.
She had reached her goal but brought trouble with her. The people had
been ambushed from behind and were now hidden among the cars of the
blockade, just like her.

She heard the zing of bullets on the frame of the vehicle.

“We told you, little girl, you couldn’t get away. The
people of this cowbell town can’t help you.” She knew the
voice was Tall Guy.

“I owe you one eye, you little bitch. I’m gonna
collect from you.”

As emphasis, several more shots pinged off the car she was using
as cover.

They know exactly where I am.

Across the street, next to the wall, she saw shapes moving inside
an old time gas station building. Several ran out the back door,
which she could see from her perspective, but a large hedge blocked
it from most everywhere else.

“I’m over here,” she said with a tremble of fear
in her voice. If her voice carried, they should hear her, even though
she wasn’t yelling. “Help!” she said a little
louder.