The Breaking of Liam

“We’ve got to go.” The first intelligible words I heard. Liam. His voice was low, but deadly calm. He grabbed my shoulders and raised me up, but I recoiled from him. He didn’t seem to notice. “Simone,” he said. “We’ve got to go. We can’t stay here.”

“I still have my gun,” Simone said.

I turned, saw the gun still locked in Liam’s hand and stifled a scream. Morgan’s body lay behind me. I couldn’t turn around, so I had to look at Liam’s face, blank as blank could be.

“The map is gone,” he said, “But I remember the way. Come.”

Simone started after him, and so did I. And then I glanced back. Morgan’s body lay crumpled, just off the road. Blood pooled around his head.

I vomited onto my shoes.

Liam turned around, dead eyed. “Keep up.”

Keep up? Rage welled up inside me. “Keep up? You just shot your brother and you’re telling me to keep up? You… you psychopath!”

Liam’s face twitched. His mouth opened and clenched shut. He turned around and kept walking.

“Hey!” I followed after him. “Hey!”

Liam spun around. His face was almost purple, so contorted he could hardly be recognized. “What do you want me to say?” he ground out. I could hardly hear him over my own pounding heart. Again, a little louder, “What do you want me to say?”

Simone grabbed me from behind. “Stop it!”

I didn’t care. I wasn’t even in my right mind. “I could kill you!”

Simone clamped her dirty hand over my mouth and restrained me. Liam turned around. His shoulders formed a hard line, a wall between us, and he marched on. Simone pushed me forward, after him.

“Stop,” she whispered in my ear. “Just leave him alone. You don’t understand.”

Something about her words clicked in my mind. My anger dissipated to a low burn, and I followed after Liam.

My legs pumped in an effort to keep up with Simone. My mind reeled in unintelligible patterns. My stomach ached from vomiting. I would keep up. I would.

The sun began to set. Liam pointed to a house in the distance, and we made it just as the sun slipped behind the hills. We had the last few twilight minutes to make sure the house was empty. It was.

But for safety, Liam packed us into a tiny, windowless room. Simone, then me, then him against the door. The air was stifling, reeking of my own sweat and that of my companions.

We were silent. There was nothing to say. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. Beside me Liam was rigid as full rigor. His breath rasped in and out.

I huddled close to Simone so I didn’t have to touch him.

Then, like a rupture, I heard a tearing groan come from within him. He slumped against the door. His cries hissed through his teeth, until even that could not contain them, and he sobbed like a baby.

Strong Liam, so broken, terrified me but I could not comfort him. I would not. Instead I grabbed Simone’s hand as if she could reassure me. She did not. She pushed my hand away and climbed over me to Liam. She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her lips.

“Liam,” she whispered, “Liam.”

He stirred. She grabbed his head and cradled it in her arms, stroking his face. He clutched at her hands, weeping. She cried too.
And I just lay against the wall. Every part of me hurt, but I would not cry.

And then, as quickly as it came, the storm passed. Liam jerked away from Simone. She held out her hand to him, but he ignored it and pressed himself against the wall.

“Kayla.” His voice came, low and rough, out of the darkness. “Kayla, if this should happen to me or Simone…”
“No!” I sat up. “No!”

He reached across and grabbed me by the arm. His fingers dug in to my soft flesh. “I’m serious. You can’t let that happen to Simone and you can’t let that happen to me, just like I won’t let it happen to you. Understand?”

Admit it. You wouldn’t mind having the chance.

Like I could say that to him. I was afraid of him. He was a monster. “Understood,” I squeaked. I burrowed down against my pack. My shirt was damp, sticking to me with sweat. My stomach turned with… with what? Fear? Grief?

His hand was still on my arm, but his fingers loosened and gentled before dropping away. Simone crawled back and lay down between us. She whispered in my ear. “Don’t worry, Kayla. I can do it.”

Her words, tinged with resignation, chilled me right through.

I didn’t really sleep that night. I dozed. The house made too much noise, though it may have been my imagination. There were creaks, moans like that of the undead, groans from Liam. Once I thought I heard footsteps. Liam lifted his head and listened for a long time, but the footsteps never came closer.

Thunder crackled, louder and louder. Then rain rattled on the terra cotta tiles of the roof. The tiny stream of air under the door turned moist, carrying the scent of trees and fields. Out there, things were still living.

This is an excerpt from my recent novel, We are the Living.  I have to admit that, of all the characters, I loved Liam the most.  I said to him (because authors talk to their characters sometimes), “I’m sorry, but you are going to be wrecked by the time I’m done with you.”  But will he redeem himself?  Well, I can’t tell you that, can I?
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“They’re Overrunning the Barricade”

A scene from We are the Living, which is to be published this summer.  In this scene, the main characters have caught a ride on a military truck out of Paris, which is now overrun with zombies.  They stop at one of the military barricades for night, intending to carry on the next morning.  The scene is from the point of view of Kayla, the lead female character. To my gentler readers: this scene contains strong violence.

We were stopped in the middle of a two-lane road, and warm, humid air. There were the shadows of a few large buildings nearby, maybe a chimney. It was the industrial outskirts of the city, the very last of Paris. The only light was the blinding spotlights set up at the roadblock. Trucks, like the one we’d come in, were clustered around. The white light silhouetted a few soldiers.
Liam and one of his new soldier friends walked us across the road, up to a troop-carrier with a canvas cover at the rear of the roadblock. Again we found ourselves rolling out spare clothes and trying to get ourselves comfortable on the hard metal truck bed.

“They can’t expect road-blocks to keep a mob of infected inside the city,” Morgan whispered as Liam settled down beside him.

Liam sighed. “There are patrols around the border. But you’re right. There’s no way they can contain the whole city. Go to sleep, Morgan. We’ve made good progress today.”
I lay my head down and cuddled up to Alex, my back to Morgan and Liam. I heard a click and looked back. Liam had popped the magazine out of the pistol.

“How many rounds?” Morgan asked.

“Full mag minus one.”

The lost feeling crept in again. My father owned guns, and I’d seen him shoot them, but they’d always scared me. I’d always refused to shoot. I bit my lip and pushed my face into Alex’s shoulder. I hoped to God I could keep that policy.

***

I heard a yell, and a chatter of gunfire. Liam was up before I’d lifted my head. Light shone, green through the canvas cover of the truck, then a square of brightness as Liam peeked out the back.

His hand closed around the pistol in his waistband. “Infected,” he hissed.

I never saw what was coming toward us, and for that I was grateful. Liam told me later what he’d seen—a wave of infected rushing toward us, unmindful of the gunfire and the bodies falling around them. The rattle of small arms was joined by the deeper clamor of a machine gun. The zombies came on, undeterred. As long as they could stay on their feet they still moved.

I, cringing in the corner of the truck bed, still heard a scream even though my hands were clamped over my ears. Then came the ringing report of Liam’s pistol and Morgan’s yell. A disfigured face gaped at me through the gap between the canvas and truck before Liam’s gun barked again. The head exploded backward and out of sight.

“They’re overrunning the barricade!” Liam cried. He lunged toward the canvas flap.

Morgan grabbed him by the jacket. “Don’t you dare go out there!”

Liam staggered back, and steadied himself. He stood taut, gun ready. Something scrabbled on the metal behind me. I whimpered, crawled toward the middle. The barrage of machine-gun fire faltered, stopped, started again. An assault rifle chattered, just on the other side of the canvas and metal and something splattered against the side. There was a low, animalistic moan. Again, scrabbling, like claws or nails on the side of the truck. The gunfire beside us stopped. The machine gun stopped. A garbled scream. The canvas at the back of the truck bowed toward us in the imprint of a head and clawing hands. Liam turned toward it and shot straight through the fabric, right between the pits where the eyes were. The green canvas turned brown as it slid down the side and out of sight. Another moan, then, silence.

In the quiet, a soft patter started on the canvas. Rain.

Still Liam stood. Morgan crouched beside him. Alex slowly rose to his feet. Liam held out his hand. “Don’t.”

We waited. The drizzle became a downpour. I watched with dull eyes as the dark smear on the canvas ebbed downward. It was still quiet.

Finally, Liam eased the edge of the canvass away and peeked out. “Oh, God.” He pulled his head back in and pressed one hand against his chest. He’d gone pale against his grey-blue jacket. He sucked a slow breath through his nostrils and shut his eyes. His body steeled, and he opened his eyes. “Morgan, come. Let’s make sure it’s clear.”

Morgan’s eyes were huge in his pale face but his jaw was just as tight as Liam’s and eyes every bit a stern behind his glasses, even though I could see his hand shaking as he rose to his feet. They jumped down. I heard Morgan say something, and Liam reply. Their footsteps departed.

“E-Everyone’s dead,” I said. “The infected got them all. They’re all dead.” I grabbed for Alex’s hand, as if it were an anchor, because my world was split in two, so far from my control.

“Kayla, we’re alright,” he breathed in my ear, but I could hear the strain in his voice. His fingers were clammy.

I took a shuddering breath. “For how long?”