Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (41 page)

“But you released the virus to kill citizens. Why are you
after my family!”

“Settle. Settle,” she said calmly. “If you want
to reshape the world as an ideal image, you have to ensure you're the
one controlling all the clay. There was too much deadweight in our
government. Too many payments to keep people quiet. To keep them in
line. Do you know my group has been paying off politicians since the
Founding Fathers' time?”

Liam's head wobbled with the foreign-sounding history lesson. As
far as he could tell, it had nothing to do with his mom and dad's
deaths, or his grandma's.

She sighed tightly. “What I mean, my young Mr. Peters is
that it became too expensive to control the world. We're using this
as an opportunity to scale back our financial obligations—our
bribes if you will—and start over with a smaller, but more
powerful, cadre of politicos.”

His blank looks were working.

“Dammit. Don't you see? In order to control a politician,
you have to own him. When my predecessors started this game back in
the early 1800's, money was plentiful and politicians were few.
Today, it's the opposite. Those same families have controlled the
levers of power for too long. They've become complacent, even in
their bathtubs of money. We're going to start over with fewer
politicians.”

“And fewer people,” Victoria spoke with great sadness.

“Yes, the Quantum Virus was unexpected, as I said. But,
since I'm now the head of Homeland Security, I'm in line for the
Presidency. Lots of room out here for the few left in the line of
succession to find themselves in accidents,” she chuckled. “And
once I'm President of the United States, none of this will matter. If
there are only a handful of people left, we can rebuild the whole
world.”

“You are beyond insane,” he finally said.

“Don't use that word!” she shouted, sounding exactly
like an insane person. “The United States was an engine that
drove the world with money. My peers and I shaped the world using
that money. We told politicians what to think. We told them when to
fight wars. When to sell. When to buy. And we were very good at it.
We
took the United States to the pinnacle of civilization.”

He put his hands on his ears. The words drove him mad. It couldn't
be something so base as money. Zombies were
not
created as a
debt-eraser for a group of rich people. His mom and dad didn't die
for greenbacks.

“So, what, you're like the Illuminati, or whatever? I've
seen the movie,” Victoria's voice passed through his hands
because she was so close. He loosened them so he could hear the
reply.

“We have many names. If anyone hints at revealing our true
name, they and their entire family are murdered outright. Sometimes
we set nations at war to exterminate those families.”

“Like saying National Internal Security,” he
challenged while dropping his hands.

“The NIS is one of our fronts, yes. And you will die for
saying the name. Mark my words.”

Her calm demeanor frightened him to the bone. Here was someone
willing to kill the people he loved right in front of him, but also
kill the entire world around all of them. There was no limit to the
level of…

“You're evil,” he said flatly.

“What? You think I'm 'he who must not be named?'” she
said dramatically. “Hey, what about this? Have you heard the
initials RF?”

He looked at Victoria and saw no recognition.

“Aww, damn. You must not read horror books.”

He took serious issue with the statement but didn't care what she
thought about his depth of literary knowledge, positive he'd read
many more zombie books than her. Her frustration at not being able to
goad him was seemingly tiring her to their conversation.

“Anyway,” she said, “I'm not the devil if that's
what you're thinking. God doesn't exist.” She pointed to
Victoria's cross on her necklace. “And praying will get you
nothing but disappointment.”

“But you
are
the devil,” Liam replied. “And
the only way ultimate evil can exist is if ultimate good is out
there, too. If the world were controlled by evil, it would always
look like this.” He pointed out into the broken world as he
said it. “God may not be a person, but God works through good
people. I've seen it. And I
know
a group of evil men and women
like you could not have run the world for so long and not messed it
up sooner.”

“Actually, Liam, they did.”

Jane had come up and joined them from the hold.

4

“Tell them I'm not crazy, Jane.”

“Oh, you are. But that doesn't mean you're a liar.”
She turned to Liam and Victoria as she came up next to them. “Douglas
and I were deep in their ranks before all this happened. I saw
firsthand how they could nudge legislation, or pay off a foreign
country to keep oil prices low. I've seen how they contract hits on
people and prune back family trees. But the thing that turned us
off—made us risk death day after day—was their relish for
the chaos. I'd been brought up my whole life thinking we were doing a
necessary duty to the world—pushing it in the right direction.
But the reality was just the opposite. The world was being ruined by
what we'd become. The final straw was this virus. We could have
easily put out a warning that saved a lot of lives. Instead, we let
the world get bitten.
Some
of us even enjoyed the result.”

When she was done speaking, she faced Jane. “You killed
Douglas, didn't you?”

“I picked him up at your family business, where you dropped
him off. He's floating somewhere close I'd expect,” she said
with a girlish giggle.

Liam expected her to cry or show some kind of emotional distress,
but she seemed outwardly serene. She swiped at her brow, then dropped
her forearm to her mouth so it blocked it from Elsa's view.

“Good luck,” she said in a low voice. She said
something else, in a whisper, which sounded like “I love you
Clara,” but it made no sense.

Before Liam could reply she'd reached behind her and pulled out a
boxy-looking pistol. The sound was deafening as she fired multiple
times at Elsa.

Elsa dodged the first volley and slid across the deck back into
the driver's compartment of her boat, along with the man. He watched
her skin-tight uniform as she dove, wondering if he'd ever outgrow
looking at such things. Jane tried to follow, but the gray drone
intercepted her.

He and Victoria both dropped to the deck at the moment the
confrontation started, but the women were so fast he was able to
watch nearly the whole thing before he thought to get himself flat.

The drone was about thirty feet away, to their right. When she was
about halfway to the boat, it oriented on her and unleashed hell. Its
twin guns lit up even as Jane tried to knock it out of the sky.

More guns cracked behind them. The Secret Service agents fired
their rifles at the drone while poking out the top of the stairs.

Just as it looked like she might survive the open-air crossing,
Jane fell heavily to the metal. The gun skittered across the deck,
into the water. Blood saturated the back of her shirt as she lay
face-down. Where moments before she was vivacious and energetic in
her efforts to kill Elsa, now she was wide-eyed and dead.

The drone swung its guns toward the Secret Service agents, firing
all the while. But Jane had scored at least one hit. One of its
blades was noticeably erratic, and the whole unit tipped as the other
three fans compensated. The guns were also firing wild, which gave
him no reassurance as he kept low. To his surprise he was on top of
Debbie, ensuring she wouldn't be struck by a bullet.

The one time I don't want to be the hero.

But that wasn't necessarily true. He'd protect anyone…

Except, maybe, her.

Once Elsa was out of sight, he was able to eye the drone as it
took more damage from Ben and his partner.

The problem was the remaining drones. Even as they beat the
junkyard dog into submission—knocking out a second fan
motor—the surviving drones closed the distance with the agents.
A volley of gunfire sent the two men back down into the hold.

“What do we do?” he wondered.

Victoria's face was blank. When she saw him protecting Debbie, she
scooted up next to him to help.

“We pray.”

He heard and then felt the turbine wash of one of the drones as it
hovered above them. Its single gun faced the stairwell. If it looked
down, he'd be dead.

One of the smaller drones hovered over the steps when it exploded
in a shower of sparks. It fell straight into the hold.

He heard a distant pane of glass shatter. That noise was followed
a moment later by the whip-smack of a gun shot and ricochet from the
chassis of the metal hulk above them. The thing turned and let loose
with its gun onto what Liam guessed was the bridge of the barge
towboat attached to them.

From such distance, he couldn't see the identity of the shooter.

In the commotion of the firefight, Debbie became animated. In
seconds she seemed completely awake. He and Victoria were both on top
of her, so she could only turn her head side-to-side.

“Get OFF!” she said as she squirmed.

“Be quiet. You want to get us killed?”

“
Us
killed? What's happening? Where's my mom? She's
supposed to pick me up,” she said in a slightly whiny voice.

“She's in a boat speeding away from here,” Liam
replied. The powerful engine of the big watercraft echoed off the
barges on the other side of the river.

“You guys win the battle, but not the war.” Elsa's
voice came from the little unarmed drone she'd used to communicate
with them. “The launch vehicle is already out of the tube. You
have to clear out of there. Jump in the water. Swim away. Take my
daughter and I may let today slide.”

He looked at Victoria. At Elsa's daughter. Finally, they looked at
the metal roofing of the hold below.

“Are you thinking what I am?” he asked her.

“Use this boat to ram this girl's failed mother?”

“No, I hadn't thought of that. But I like where you're
going,” he said with a sliver of humor. “We need to move
this barge so we can save the people below.”

“Where can we take them to get away from a nuclear missile?”
Victoria asked.

Debbie grunted in pain. “Can you please get off? I know
where we can go. My mom told me to report if they ever moved this
barge. There's only one place she didn't want it. That's where we'll
be safe.”

Liam pulled back a little. “And where might that be?”

Jasper had used the distractions at the front of his boat to crawl
across the barges back to where he'd left his rifle. The lips and
lids of the varying types of barges in the flotilla provided the
cover he needed. He avoided looking into the cargo box filled with
bodies. The smell was enough to keep him moving.

Once Elsa showed up he knew his only chance was to punch through
her drones if he was going to have any chance of stopping her. When
he finally had the gun in hand back in the captain's perch, he waited
until the inevitable gunfire before he was willing to risk his
position.

He watched the young woman get felled by the dark drone, then
watched the two Secret Service agents pepper it with enough lead to
knock it down. The scene was a flurry of flying robots hovering
around the deck of the boat, some with guns, some not. He selectively
fired on those he felt were the most threat to the kids lying on the
deck and left the SS men to fend for themselves until he knew the
others were safe. The
Elma Jean
had enough surveillance tech
he could hear the discussions on the front side of the barge—200
feet away.

He already knew why he didn't like Elsa, but once she explained
who she was, he thought about putting a bullet through her brain and
ending it. The thing stopping him was the ICBM she claimed to have
launched. If he knew his math, they didn't have much time to get to
safe ground. The North Dakota to Illinois routes was measured in
minutes. And he didn't know when the missile cleared its hatch.

When the firing stopped, he was happy to see the three kids
running his way.

“Toss off the lines,” he shouted down to them while
pointing to the heavy ropes linking them with the next row of barges.
The boy skidded to a stop, turned around, and ran forward again. The
girls continued until they reached the cleat at the back.

“Fire her up,” he ordered Bill.

The delay gave him a moment to see where Elsa had gone.

“She's staying close,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Her daughter is still here,” Bill replied.

“Of course,” he thought.

The gunfight was fast, but deadly. One woman was dead at the cost
of a few drones. It was some kind of miracle those kids managed to
lay right out in the open and not get swept by all the gunfire.

The two girls came in the hatch, followed a second later by the
boy.

“This is Debbie,” the boy started before he was inside
the room. “A missile is heading for us! She knows where to go.”

“Well, all right then.”

She pointed and Bill nodded gravely.

“There's an ICBM heading for us,” the boy said.

“You're Liam, right? This boat has excellent hearing. I've
heard everything spoken down there.”

“You've been up here the whole time?” Victoria asked.

John pointed to the bodies in the nearby barge. From up in the
bridge they could all see down into the cargo area and what was
inside.

“I had to be sure what I was dealing with. I followed Liam
and this other girl when they brought those older women.”

Victoria smiled at Liam like she was proud of him.

“I'm here to kill Elsa,” he said with a stoic voice as
he and everyone else felt the towboat accelerate.