“Hello,” he said softly in his weak voice. “Who are you?”
“It’s Val! We’ve got to get out of here now!”
Moses, through a glorious display of strength, placed his hand on the ground and pushed himself up to his knees. His arm shook under the weight of his torso. Val wrapped her arms under his chest and lifted.
“Why’d you have to be so big?” she said through grit teeth.
Together the two walked down the wall towards the entrance. Several times Moses stumbled but Val helped him back to his feet. After much struggle they came to the zombie perimeter.
“What hurts?” Val asked.
“Everything,” he replied. “My skin burns.”
“Mine too,” Val said looking about to make sure no zombies saw them.
“This burn seems like disease or chemicals.”
“I think it is. I bet Zalac detonated a chemical bomb here or something. All the zombies are dead from some mysterious thing.”
“You should not have come for me.”
“You shouldn’t have wandered off alone. Don’t you know you’re blind. That was very dumb of you, Moses. Don’t do it again!”
“I doubt I’ll have the chance to.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Val looked around again for foes. “You ready to move?”
Moses stood again and stretched out his hand for her to take. The couple wandered as quickly as they could back through the city towards the train yard. Val fought off the minimal resistance they came across. Moses tried to help but managed only in overexerting himself.
As they neared the train yard, the number of enemies increased. Val took Moses into a nearby building for fear they would attract the attention of too many. Val took Moses up a flight of stairs where they could overlook the railroad tracks. To Val’s excitement she saw several uninfected people down by one of the sets of tracks. Judging how one held his hand and one missed a leg, they had to be Val’s decrepit party.
“We’re quite a clan, you know?” Val said to Moses. “Connor’s all torn up. Carlos pretty much lost his hand. Sara’s pregnant. It’s amazing the easy ones don’t completely overwhelm us.”
Moses made no reply. Val searched for a way down onto the railway tracks without attracting too much attention.
“There’s an alleyway over here,” Val told her companion. “I bet we could sneak down undetected.”
Moses still made no reply and Val noticed his eyes were closed. Even though he was blind, they usually remained open.
“Moses,” Val said shaking him. “Stay with me. Don’t you leave me.”
Moses woke and tried to sit up. “I feel awful,” he moaned.
Val knew for him to mention his pain, it must be excruciating.
“I think we’ve got some painkillers with the supplies,” Val said trying to lift him up. “We just need to get down there.”
He groaned and used the window ledge to pull himself up. They stumbled their way down to the tracks as the sound of gunfire echoed through the alley. Once at the first set of tracks, the screech of the queen shot through the air.
“I hoped they killed her while we were gone,” Val said.
Moses tried to make a reply but lacked the strength.
Val readied her sidearm. A wave of undead came charging in from the north side of the train yard. Val grabbed Moses’ hand even tighter.
“Time to go,” she said yanking him forward.
He responded to this unexpected jerking by immediately tripping on one of the train tracks. His hands shot out before him to stop his fall and were rewarded by several gashes. Val opened fire on the few closest zombies and grabbed Moses by the shirt.
“Get up,” Val screamed, “get up!”
Moses magnificently rose to his feet again and stepped over the track. Val thought his tolerance of abuse must be legendary.
With almost comically high strides, Moses found the strength to step over railway tracks to follow Val’s leading.
Sara and her team saw them coming and Sara sent Andrea to help them. Sara’s team had bunkered down in an old style locomotive. A passenger car and a boxcar sat silently beside it.
With Andrea’s help, Val managed to get Moses to the train. The others covered their approach with a barrage of bullets. Everyone who could spare the energy helped pull Moses into the boxcar. An exhausted Moses collapsed onto the boxcar floor and they shut the large door locking him inside.
Afterwards, everyone moved into the engine.
“So this thing runs?” Val asked.
“Yes, if we can figure out how to run a locomotive,” Ian said.
“The engine’s a Shay,” Carlos said excitedly. “They were very well built. And,” he added in a high tone that mimicked his excitable personality, “not only do we have a tender but it’s full of coal! The boiler is half full of water so we just need to top it off, get a fire started, and we’re on our way!” Carlos made a funny upward motion with his good hand as he added, “Zing!”
“Hey look! I found someone to run our locomotive,” Val said pointing her thumb to Carlos.
“What?” Carlos asked. “I really liked trains when I was a boy.”
“Apparently,” Val added.
“So we need water?” Sara asked.
“Water and fire,” Carlos answered. “Put the water in there. We’ll need as much as we can find. I’ll see if I can get a fire started.”
“Andrea and Ian, you find water,” Val ordered. “I’ll keep the zombies off us.”
“And if the queen comes back?” Andrea asked.
“Well then, I guess we’ll all die,” Val answered hastily. “So don’t take too long!”
Andrea jumped down off the train and scanned the buildings.
“There’s the ocean. Or there was a grocery store awhile back,” Andrea told Val. “But the two of us won’t be able to carry much! Should we all go?”
Val looked out one of the train windows and shot an approaching zombie to delay making a decision.
“So Carlos,” Val asked, “this is an absolute need? We can’t just coast on half a tank and find more when it runs out?”
“I suppose we could,” Carlos answered. “There’s no telling where we’ll end up. It could be the middle of nowhere with no water and then we’re back to walking.”
“Do it! I’d rather just get out of here and take our chances!”
“Ok,” Carlos knelt down to look into the firebox. He had been so excited about the old style train, he’d forgotten his hand. “Maybe someone else should start a fire. You know, someone who has two intact hands. Oh and does anyone have any matches.”
Val rummaged through her backpack and threw him a box of matches.
“Great,” Carlos said picking them up. “I hate to be a pill but could someone find some firewood or lighter fluid or something?”
Val sighed. “So what, your hand gets scraped up and you become completely helpless?” Carlos couldn’t think of a good reply. “Andrea, shoot off some of the wood off one of the train cars and bring it.”
Andrea jumped down to comply but a zombie jumped on her.
In a single shot, Val killed the zombie and sent its body sliding across the tracks.
“What the hell people?” Val complained. “Can you guys not do anything without me?”
Andrea ran to the boxcar and shot off several wooden pieces and then gave them to Carlos.
As they prepared to leave, the number of enemies increased. They left Moses locked away in the boxcar while everyone else defended from the engine. Sara stood in the center seeing with her hidden eyes. Like a fortuneteller, her arms shot out in the direction of new arrivals. With Sara’s leadership, the locomotive was a bunker. All but Carlos peered out an opening and shot down all who approached.
Ian saw the queen dart from one building to another. But the noise of the guns kept Ian from informing the others. In a dull moment, he glanced down to Carlos and saw a raging fire. Carlos tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a shovel
. Carlos then pointed to the tender and made a scooping motion with his one good hand. Ian took the hint and started shoveling in coal to the flames.
Soon an excited Carlos almost danced when he saw the gauges rising indicating pressure building up in the boiler.
“We’ll be underway soon!” Carlos said in a voice somewhere between a Russian conductor and a maniacal villain.
Everyone felt relief when the engine jerked forward. The noise of the train's departure filled the train yard.
The sight of them departing enraged the queen into an attack. Sara turned and pointed both her arms to the queen’s approach. Sara quickly grabbed one of the larger guns and started firing at the beast.
“Shoot out her legs!” Val screamed.
The queen charged into the engine but couldn’t budge the enormous machine. Her assault did managed to knock several people to their knees.
Everyone turned their barrels towards the beast’s tree-trunk legs. Bits and pieces of her left leg came splattering off but she still clung to the front of the locomotive as it moved.
“We’ve got to get her off,” Carlos yelled above the chaos. “I think the boiler would survive a grenade if we could detonate it close to her.”
“You willing to try?” Val asked. “I think we still have some timed grenades left.” Val looked out the back and saw dozens of zombies charging from the edges of the train yard towards the locomotive. “The grenades are in here,” she said throwing him a pack.
Val quickly reloaded her weapon and started firing into the approaching horde.
Carlos tore through the bag with his good hand and produced the grenade. He looked at Sara, who held out her hands signifying he should give her the grenade. She pulled the pin and at the perfect moment, she tossed it towards the beast and it exploded on top of her. Startled, the queen lost her grip and fell on the side of the tracks. She scrambled out of the way of the wheels but one of her arms got caught and was immediately severed by the wheel. The monster let out a hideous cry that shook the train yard.
Carlos opened up the engine to full speed. The wheels spun frictionless for a moment but soon the whole train jerked forward into a greater speed.
Val, Ian, and Andrea climbed over the tender and into the passenger car. Only one zombie managed to make it in. Val shot it through the head and tossed its body out one of the windows. Ian and Andrea jumped onto the boxcar but found no way to unlock the large sliding door now that the train picked up speed.
When they returned to tell Val, they found her already way ahead of them. She swung a large axe she found in the passenger car to cut out a door into the front of the boxcar. With a little more work, she made a doorway and stepped inside to find Moses.
Val knelt beside him and checked to see if he still breathed.
“I dropped the coats,” Moses said faintly.
Val laughed softly. “It’s ok, Moses. I’m sure everyone forgives you.” She lifted his head into her lap and felt his forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“I feel like I’m on fire,” he whispered.
“Me too. I think we’re covered in chemicals.”
“I am strong-” Moses said.
“Like an ox,” Val laughed but then realized he hadn’t finished his sentence.
“In belief. He has never done us wrong.” For a moment, only the sound of the train knocking against the tracks filled the boxcar. “There is so much left for you, Valerie. But for me, only one thing remains. I think it’s for this that she hates me.”
Sara poked her head in the gaping hole in the front of the boxcar to say, “Val, I need to talk to you on the roof.” As quickly as she arrived, Sara left.
“It’s kind of surprising,” Val said, “that she’s able to move around the train so well. She’s very pregnant these days.”
“When you have a moment,” Moses said, “send her in. When Sara and I are done, come back to me, Valerie. I want to die with you.”
“Oh, Moses.” Val wished she could stay with him but curiosity beckoned her.
Outside, Val climbed up to the top of the boxcar and found Ian, Andrea, and Sara waiting for her.
Sara’s hood whipped against her bald head in the wind. “It’s up to you,” Sara said when Val climbed onto the roof.
“What’s up to me?” Val asked afraid of what Sara meant.
“We’ve come to a decision point. We won’t be free of this queen unless we totally cripple her. There is one way to do this.”
Val stared at the blindfold on the woman she’d started to hate.
“One of our party has to die,” Sara said firmly.
“Maybe it should be you,” Val startled herself when she heard her voice actually say it.
“Maybe,” Sara replied in a slightly different tone. “I wouldn’t mind dying.” The wind blew back Sara’s hood. “But let’s be serious. The most obvious choice is the man downstairs. He’s about to die anyway. It could be his one last act of service.”
“Or me,” Connor said from the edge of the boxcar. He’d managed to climb up the ladder on the side of the train car but then was unable to pull himself up. Val went to him and pulled him up. “I’m the cripple. It makes sense.”
“Connor, shut up,” Val ordered. “Sara, you’re telling me there’s no other way?”
“That’s right.”
“And how do I know you can be trusted? Your leadership so far has been lousy at best.”
Sara pulled off her blindfold. Even from where Val sat, she could see Sara’s eyes were terribly bloodshot and yellow. The red veins shot through the dingy orbs like lightning. “Val,” she said very solidly, “I would not lie to you about something like this. I know you think I’m a monster for suggesting not saving Moses, but I swear to you I’ve only done what needed to be done for the best of the group.”
“Was leaving Moses to die alone best for the group?”
“Yes! You saw the destruction and disease there! I couldn’t let the whole group go in there! I thought Moses was completely used up but now I know he has one more act of service. I couldn’t see it until now.”
“That’s the problem with you! You see people as things to be used up. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be human. We’re like means to an end to you.”
“Val, let’s speak alone.”
Val looked her in the eyes and seriously thought about saying no. But eventually Val yielded and the two women climbed down into the passenger car.
Sara fell to her knees before her friend. Sara wept for an uncomfortably long time before speaking.
“Would you hold me like you used to?” Sara asked.
Val looked at her stoically. “No.”
This made Sara cry more. Sara doubled over as best she could with her belly and shook with tears. “Val, help me! I hate what I’ve become. It consumes me and haunts my dreams. But I don’t know what else to do! A decision like this is awful. I know! I know better than anyone! Don’t show it. I very intentionally don’t show it!”
“What don’t you show?”
“You accused me of seeing people as a means to an end, but nothing could be more wrong! I make great efforts to put on this face of being callous. Because inside I’m dying every time something happens to one of us. If I showed everyone that, I’d be even more of an outcast. They’d never speak to me again if I said half the things burning through my mind!
“You see a corpse, zombie or human, and barely notice it. You move on so easily. Your mind intentionally misplaces the unpleasant. It graces your thoughts so lightly.
“But me? I feel them. Ever present. Walking around like shards of dream. I see a zombie corpse, and if I care to know, I can retrace every grief-stricken step that led them to where they rot. I see them human. Alive. Beautiful. I see them walk through the years of their life picking up hope and placing it in their hearts like a child would do with a bag of pebbles. And then like lightning in the rain I see them in the present. Lying rotting in the street. Their hearts torn out bleeding dreams. The a
nimated physical representation of that person’s soul gone forever. Sucked off the face of the planet never to return for all of time. Everything that that person is, represents, and embodies - truncated.
“I see their death through my waking eyes! Over and over and can’t become desensitized to it. I would give anything to look away but I can’t. Like torture I’m forced to watch the zombies come around the corner. She screams but no one hears. She cries out, ‘Mommy, stop! Stop trying to eat me!’ But no one listens. No one tries to save her. The dead charge her mercilessly. She struggles and kicks but they’re far too powerful for the little girl. She can’t get away! The blood spurting out! It never should have been like this!
“I alone lie with her as the years pass. In my arms, her bones turn slowly dull. And long after she has slipped into the world of the forgotten, I console her. In solitude I lie still firmly pressing her skull against my breasts. Weeping and crying, ‘I remember you.’”
Sara unwrapped her head from her arms, for she had covered her face with them. She breathed deeply again and calmed herself down.
Turning to Val, Sara continued in a much more rational tone. “Yes, Val, I’ve had some personal differences with Moses! Yes, I recommended you not saving him for the benefit of you and the team. But I’d never throw away something so precious as his life without very specific purpose. This monster you hate is a ruse.
“Putting all of that aside, I thought you’d been in leadership long enough by now to realize leadership is sacrifice. Of yourself? Sure. But that is a lesson all too easy. It’s the sacrifice of others that’s difficult. I hate it more than you, but the time has come for Moses to be sacrificed. For the good of the group. Even more, for the survival of the group. And you have to do it. You’re the leader. You hold onto him and we all die.”
Her speech finished, an exhausted Sara sat down on one of the benches.
Val stood for a long time moving to the sway of the train car. With her thoughts collected, Val came and sat beside Sara. “Tell me, would he have died anyway?”
Sara did not answer. The motion of the train car lulled Sara into closing her eyes.
“Moses wants to see you,” Val whispered.
“I know. It’s the conversation I’ve been trying to avoid but it’s inevitable.” Sara opened her eyes. “I should go talk to him, but I’m so tired.” Sara looked out the window at the splintered bayou. She hadn’t noticed when they exited New Orleans. The barren trees passed by like years in the halls of time. Something caught her eye and she sat up to let her head follow it. There passing quickly out of sight stood a bison knee deep in the water.
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