These Dead Lands (Book 2): Desolation

by Knight, Stephen

  “Move your ass, kid!” Guerra growled.

  “Hector, take it easy!” Ballantine snapped back. When both he and Jacob were on the ground outside, he swung to his right and formed up on Robinson. Viewing the world through his night vision goggles, he was shocked to see the remaining railcars were skewed all across the track. To his left—to the north, he knew—the remnants of Chicago still burned, consumed by great fires that provided the NVGs with all the light necessary to turn to the night into a cloudy day. He could see almost everything. No shadow was too deep for him to see through, which was a welcome surprise. He paused long enough to turn toward the front of the train, and there he saw the engines were on their sides. At least one of them was puffing great clouds of oily smoke, which told him there was a fire inside its engine compartment. Captain Bellara had been prescient in his determination that whatever managed to bring the train to a halt would be enough to ensure it never rolled again. This consist was as dead as the Titanic.

  He faced forward and hurried after Robinson. The two passenger coaches behind the one Ballantine and his troops had ridden in were at right angles to each other, their wheels completely departed from the track. The heavier flatbed cars hadn’t fared any better, but not all of them had hopped the rails. The car hauling the C-RAM for instance was almost perfectly configured, though without an engine to provide motive force.

  “Okay, kid, here you go,” Ballantine said. The Navy guys were already on the car, doing whatever they needed to do to get the big gun operational.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Jacob said. “Can I let go now?”

  “Sure thing. Take care getting up there.”

  Jacob released his hold on Ballantine’s rucksack, and turned toward the flatbed railcar. He put his laptop on it, then hauled himself up onto the vehicle. Ballantine paused long enough to give him a boost, ensuring he didn’t fall off and crack his skull open.

  “Ballantine, let’s move!” Robinson called from the darkness.

  “On it, LT.” Once Jacob had gathered his feet beneath him and stood up, Ballantine turned and looked back at Guerra and Stilley. Reader, Tharinger, and Hartman had formed up on them and formed the rear of the procession. Guerra was at the front, but he was merely hobbling along. Even while towing Jacob after him, Ballantine had essentially left the staff sergeant in his dust.

  “Guerra, can you continue?” he barked.

  “Don’t fucking worry about me, Ballantine,” Guerra snapped back. “Get on with your mission!”

  Ballantine groaned and pressed on. He caught up to Robinson in three long strides, and he followed her as she padded toward the cars containing the vehicles. The troops there were in some disarray, but the vehicles themselves had weathered the derailment just fine. They had all been chained down. It would have been a new dimension to the nightmare if Ballantine had rolled up and discovered all the vehicles on their sides after having been thrown from their trailers, but from his vantage point, all looked well.

  The troops guarding them hadn’t fared as well, however. Several of them were injured, and while the railcars were in fairly good condition, they’d experienced sudden deceleration. The men, who hadn’t been chained to the deck, had flown until they’d hit something. Ballantine didn’t need to hold an advanced degree in rocket science to understand that striking the bumper of a five-ton truck was going to result in substantial injury.

  “Man, all these guys are fucked up,” Robinson said.

  “We can still start the offloading operation,” Ballantine said.

  Robinson turned to face him. “These men need our help, Sergeant.”

  “So do those civilians who don’t have weapons and training, LT.” As if to underscore his statement, rifle fire cracked up the line.

  Robinson snarled in her throat and made her way to the first vehicle-laden railcar and climbed aboard. “Paulick! Captain Paulick, where are you?” she shouted.

  Ballantine climbed up onto the railcar and turned, waiting for Guerra and the others to catch up. A female soldier lay on the car’s surface a few feet from him, moaning as she held her mangled leg with two equally mangled arms. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Hang on, soldier. Help’s coming,” he told her.

  “I can’t feel my body,” she said, her voice small.

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Can’t feel my body, but I can still move,” she replied. “I think I might’ve busted my legs.”

  “Hold on, all right? Medics are making their way down.” He keyed his radio. “Lance One Six, this is Crusader One Seven. Over.”

  There was a long pause before he heard a response. “Crusader, send it.”

  “Lance One Six, you still with us? Over.”

  “Crusader One Seven, Lance is with you. What’s your SITREP?”

  “Lance, Crusader is at the rear vehicle cars. Vehicles look good, but we have multiple casualties here. We’re going to commence our operations, but there are a lot of folks who need help back here. Over.”

  “Crusader, got the same thing up front. Getting my team ready to dismount. Will come back to you. Lance, out.”

  With that, the channel went dead to be replaced by several other voices as the remainder of the Guard began coordinating their responses. Ballantine looked up as Guerra and the rest of the lightfighters mounted the railcar. They all wore their night vision gear, and weapons were at the ready. More rifles cracked in the darkness, just isolated shots. That told Ballantine the train wasn’t under direct attack … yet.

  “Okay, team, let’s start getting these vehicles ready!” Ballantine got to his feet and indicated the wounded soldier lying a few feet from him. “Guerra, you ensure the medics attend to this soldier. The rest of you, let’s get these vehicles unchained and ready to roll!”

  The troops went to work, removing the MRAPs and trucks from their restraints. Some of the vehicles were already occupied by Guard troops who had been sheltering in them during the ride. That caused for a bit of discomfort, as they weren’t really keen on Ballantine’s people setting about their work without authorization. Some of them were happy to let the lightfighters do what they wanted as they had fallen Guardsmen to tend to, but some were reluctant to let Ballantine just take charge of their vehicles.

  “What orders do you have?” asked a beefy sergeant first class. He was older than Ballantine by a good ten or fifteen years, and despite the traumatic derailment didn’t appear duly motivated to step out of the MRAP Ballantine wanted to commandeer.

  “Look, guy, the train’s not going anywhere. All the engines are on their sides.” Ballantine pointed to the front of the train where a glow was beginning to brighten. For certain, one of the locomotives was on fire. “We need to get these vehicles on the ground, now!”

  “Under whose authority?” the NCO shot back. He wasn’t wearing night vision goggles. “Anyone see Captain Paulick?”

  “Lieutenant! Need you over here,” Ballantine shouted in the darkness.

  Robinson appeared a moment later. “What’s the problem? Get this vehicle offloaded, Ballantine!”

  “We need orders, Lieutenant,” said the sergeant sitting in the MRAP’s front passenger seat. “No one’s moving any vehicles without the permission of our commander or someone higher!”

  “Sergeant, the train has derailed,” Robinson said as if speaking to a child. “We need every operational ground transport off, right now!”

  “Get me official orders and I’ll allow it,” the sergeant said. “We have wounded up here, and we need to tend to them first!”

  “So do that,” Ballantine shot back. From some of the forward railcars, rifle fire snapped with mounting intensity. Ballantine nodded his head toward the sound. “Hear that? We’re running out of time. If I were you, I’d put on your goggles and tuck in your rifle, because shit is getting more real by the second.”

  The Guardsman sitting next to the sergeant elbowed him. “Come on, Lewis. Let’s get the trucks off the train, huh?”


  “Where’s Captain Paulick?” the sergeant in the MRAP asked. He wasn’t going to budge. Just the same, he grabbed for his rucksack and pulled it open.

  “Captain Paulick is dead,” Robinson said. “He was thrown from the train, then cut in half by the wheels when they left the rail.”

  The sergeant looked shocked. “Uh—what?”

  Metal skidded across metal. Ballantine looked down the length of the railcar and saw Stilley, Reader, Tharinger, and Hartman wrestling the ramps into position. Once they were in place, the vehicles on the railcar could be offloaded.

  “Don’t know you, Sergeant, but you need to unass right now,” Robinson told him.

  “I don’t think so—”

  Ballantine stopped listening to the back and forth conversation when he heard Everson’s voice come over the radio. “All Crusader, this is Devil Dog. Over.”

  “Devil Dog, this is Crusader One Seven.” Ballantine stepped away and looked right and left. More Guard troops were approaching the railcar, and he believed he saw Bellara among them.

  “Crusader One Seven. C-RAM is up. Radar has detected a substantial opposing force coming toward the train from Chicago. Navy expects to go to guns on them in three mikes. We really need to mount up. Over.”

  “Devil Dog, how big is the OPFOR?”

  “I’m told it’s ‘substantial.’ To me, that means more than we want to try and dance with,” Everson replied. “I’m on the C-RAM car, and everyone who’s seen the radar returns looking spooked as shit. I’m going to be leaving here and returning to the passenger car—this system is loaded up and ready to shoot. Over.”

  “Roger that, Devil Dog. We’re underway here, will advise. Crusader One Seven out.” Ballantine turned and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lightfighters, shake a leg! Heavy reeker formation inbound!”

  Bellara was at his side a moment later. “Why the fuck aren’t these vehicles moving?”

  Ballantine pointed at the NCO in the MRAP. “Ask him.”

  The sergeant in the vehicle affixed his NVGs to his helmet. “I need authorization to move these vehicles, sir—”

  Bellara pushed Ballantine and Robinson out of the way and grabbed the soldier by his harness and tried to yank him out of the MRAP. It didn’t work; the man was strapped into the seat. This only infuriated Bellara.

  “You stupid son of a bitch, get out of there and tend to your people!” he shouted at the recalcitrant NCO. “Orders from Colonel Jarmusch are to offload every operational vehicle and get them ready for the road! Now get out! Get out right fucking now!”

  The sergeant sighed and unfastened his safety harness. “You could have said that right away, sir,” he said as he climbed out of the MRAP.

  “I’m telling you now. You have wounded all over this railcar, and I want them ready for evacuation ASAP!” Bellara said. “Once you’ve got your casualties squared away, assist with the offload process! Get your men integrated with my company, and prepare to roll out!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bellara slapped Robinson on the arm. “Where the fuck is Paulick?”

  “Dead, sir,” she told him.

  Bellara grunted and shook his head. “Okay. This is all on me, then. Ballantine, get this done.”

  “Yes, sir. Uh, about Jarmusch …?”

  Bellara nodded. “He’s onboard. We’re in a shit situation, and he knows it—”

  The C-RAM roared, ejecting a great gout of flame into the sky. White-hot tracers rocketed across the black landscape, slanting down toward their targets that were still more than half a mile away. Many of the rounds disappeared in sparking explosions, but some of them ricocheted off the terrain and tumbled erratically through the night sky. The illumination they generated revealed the enormity of the zombie advance to Ballantine. There were a good three or four thousand reekers heading their way, shambling down streets and through parking lots and the occasional open field. They were picking their way toward the front of the consist, where the burning locomotive lay.

  Like moths to flame …

  “Holy shit,” Robinson said, her voice quiet with dread and awe.

  Bellara turned as the C-RAM ejected another salvo. “Yeah. Yeah, we need to get these vehicles on the deck. Like now.”

  It took twenty minutes to offload the trucks, MRAPs, and the tankers. Both of the HEMTs were full of diesel. Bellara instructed Ballantine and his team to take four MRAPs and two five-tons forward to the passenger coaches and assigned one extra soldier for each vehicle, including Robinson. Together, the lightfighters and the Guardsmen would load up as many civilians as possible while Bellara and the remainder of his company oversaw the rest of the unloading operations. With the remnants of Paulick’s unit under his control, the captain had more manpower to throw around, so it wouldn’t take terribly long to free up the remaining vehicles. Ballantine himself drove one of the HEMTs, more out of curiosity than need. He’d never horsed around one of the big tactical trucks before, and while its mass ensured it wouldn’t move quickly, it was reasonably surefooted on the grass strip next to the train tracks. Like most modern Army vehicles, it was dumbed down enough to where anyone with training or just common sense could handle it, complete with an automatic transmission and power-assisted steering. Its Detroit Diesel engine wouldn’t win any stealth awards and the big, eight-wheeled tactical truck lacked air-conditioning, but that wasn’t a problem for the moment. A cold front had settled in over the Chicagoland area, bringing with it ambient temperatures in the high sixties.

  If not for the fucking zombies and all the wounded, be a nice night to kick back with a beer.

  Hartman had the lead MRAP, and the rest of the column formed up on his as he drove to the passenger coaches. There were plenty of dismounted military surrounding them. Whenever the C-RAM ripped a salvo through the night, the individual soldiers’ shadows grew long and tall in the light given off by the weapon’s six-barreled gun. One of the locomotives was fully involved with fire now, emitting a huge greasy plume of smoke that roiled as it climbed into the still air.

  “Devil Dog, Crusader One Seven,” he said over his radio. Beside him, Lieutenant Robinson sat cradling her rifle, her face turned toward the distant fires of Chicago and the much closer columns of the dead. Individual corpses were visible now, heading toward the wrecked train. Several had deviated course, drawn toward the C-RAM’s explosive plume. They were inside the gun’s effective range.

  “Send it, Crusader.” In the background of Everson’s transmission, Ballantine heard an array of startled voices, cries, and shouted orders. Clearly, the old man had made it back to the passenger coaches.

  “We’re rolling up to your pos now. Four MRAPs, two five-tons, two HEMT tankers. I want you to start staging the dependents and get them collocated in the lead MRAP. Help transfer Sergeant Martin. We have enough bodies to drive, but that’s about it. Have the medics start picking out the injured they can save. Good copy on that?”

  “Roger all,” Everson replied immediately. “I think I see your vehicles approaching. Drop the ramps on those MRAPs. We’re coming out now.”

  The column ground to a halt beside the derailed cars. Ballantine set the parking brake but left the engine running. “How do you want to do this, LT?” he asked. When Robinson didn’t turn away from looking out the window in the HEMT’s passenger door, Ballantine leaned across the wide cab and shook her shoulder. “Hey, Lieutenant! You with me?”

  She turned back to him then, and the NVGs hid her eyes from view. Just the same, Ballantine was certain he’d see nothing but mounting terror in them. The dead were coming, and they had to stop.

  “With you, Sergeant,” she said, and her voice was strong.

  “We have to load up. How do you want us to do this? I’d like to put as many civilians in the MRAPs as possible, and shooters in the five-tons. We can carry some on the tankers, too—none of the reekers are going to be shooting back, and we might need guys cleaning the dead off if they manage to get a hold of us.”

  “
I’ll ensure some of the troops make sure the dead don’t make it close enough for us to worry about,” Robinson said. “I agree, try and get as many of the civvies in the MRAPs. We’re going to have to lash everything we can carry to the trucks and tankers. Make sure we have enough food and water and everything else we might need. No telling how long we’ll be on the road.”

  “Roger that. So you’ll oversee security, then?”

  “I’m on it, Sergeant Ballantine.”

  “Hooah.”

  With that, Ballantine bailed out of the HEMT and slammed the door closed as soon as his boots were on the ground. He made his way toward the passenger coach as the C-RAM hurled more hate toward the horizon, blasting a long, arcing stream of large-caliber rounds through the air. It looked almost like a pulsing laser beam, and the intensity of its illumination was so strong it threatened to overwhelm his goggles.

  The rest of the guys dismounted and headed for the coach. Guerra was among them, not allowing his tweaked leg to slow him down for an instant as he hobbled along. Ballantine caught up to him and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Guerra, stay out here,” he said, raising his voice over the mounting gunfire. “You’re fucked up, I think you should stay with the vehicles.”

  “I’m good,” Guerra replied.

  “The fuck you are! Get back to the lead MRAP, make sure no one fucks with it! Get off that leg!”

  “It ain’t the leg, it’s the ankle,” Guerra said. “Carl, I’m good. Really.”

  “Then prove it by doing what I told you to do, man.” Even over the noise of combat and his earphones, he heard Kenny shrieking away. He saw him a moment later, wrapped around Diana like a cheap coat, screaming his head off. Diana struggled with him as Everson appeared in the coach’s door. The older man supported Martin as he slowly eased his way down the boarding stairs, where one of Bellara’s medics waited for him.

  “Martin will drive,” Ballantine told Guerra.

  “What? The man’s got a busted leg, for God’s sake!”

  “Yeah, his left leg. His right is fine, so he can work the pedals,” Ballantine said. “Just long enough for us to get out of here. That way we can have shooters on their guns.”