by Bryan James
The train’s caboose housed a large 25mm gun behind a steel plated wall. A man in army fatigues was manning the gun, and he waved at me urgently as the train pulled away. I didn’t stop to think about why he didn’t shoot me. I leapt down from the platform, onto the tracks. My feet took each wooden tie with increasing urgency, and I knew this was it.
They were coming for me, and if I missed this train, I had nowhere to go.
Fifty feet.
The train was moving faster, picking up speed. A car engine roared somewhere in the distance, and gunfire rang out.
Thirty feet.
I pumped my legs, and they responded, moving faster and harder.
Chips of stone and splinters of wood flew up from beneath my feet as a spray of bullets hit the ground. Somewhere in my ears, the muffled buzzing of a minigun answered the volley.
Twenty feet.
I didn’t think I could keep up this pace. No man could have ever run this fast.
Ten feet.
It was impossible, but I could hear the soldier shouting encouragement. More gunfire tore into the ground near my feet, then dinged off the hardened steel plating of the train.
Five feet.
The train was accelerating. I couldn’t keep this up. I had to jump.
My feet left the ground, and I was in the air.
I drifted, sure that I would hit the ground again. That I would roll to a stop and watch the small rectangle of the train’s caboose leave me for dead.
My hands found the edge of the metal plating, and a large hand found my arm. I pulled myself up, and welcoming hands were lifting me forward, even as bullets pinged off the thick steel.
I fell to the dirty metal floor and gasped for air. My blood was fire and my chest was a pool of lava. A smiling round face appeared over my own, and said something. But I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own speeding pulse.
I looked up at the man—the kid, I realized—in the fatigues.
“If you ask me for my fucking ticket, I think I’ll have to kill you.”
TWENTY
The train moved through the night at a steady pace. Empty farmland and deserted suburban space flashed past the windows as the world seemed to disappear behind us.
I sat staring at the emptiness outside, holding Kate’s hand softly, neither of us speaking. Ky was snoring in a row of seats behind us, Romeo seated comically next to her, with his head lolling to one side.
“Rhodes doing okay?” I asked after a short silence, taking a sip from a bottle of water.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Bullet grazed his shoulder while we were hiding in the coffee shop. But he got us across that roadway just in time. They shot up that store pretty good right after we left.” She leaned back against the seat, her face worried.
“What happened in the mall? With Rhodes?”
I stared for several seconds at the darkened landscape outside, watching the moonlight filter through the groupings of trees and buildings that flashed by. The movement of something that could have been a person or a zombie was brief on a small dusty road in the middle of a field of soybeans.
“What happened? Life. Death. Family. He… had a memory.” I was guessing, but I knew I was right. When those teenagers in their trendy shirts broke through to the front, something triggered him. I knew the feeling.
She just nodded seriously, and tightened her grip on my hand.
“What about with you, after Rhodes got downstairs?”
“We couldn’t wait for you, obviously. So we hit the emergency exit, went down a floor, and found the street. We followed it through a couple intersections, and lucked out when we found one of their machine gun nests. The gunners were drinking beer on the other side and Rhodes… took care of them. After that, we were able to get within visual distance of the army’s position.”
“How’d you get so far into their controlled area?”
She shrugged, making a slightly confused face.
“I’m not sure. They were really disorganized, and no one was paying a lot of attention to the rear. I overheard a couple guys talking about taking out a big herd to the west, and feeling like they only had to worry about stragglers. I guess the army had done a lot of cleanup work in the area already, and was moving to consolidate their forces further west when the militia decided they wanted the train. But at the end of the day, we just lucked out. They were focused on the army, and they didn’t have the training or the organization to watch for us from behind.”
“They certainly had enough of both to shoot our plane out of the air, that’s something.” My voice was sarcastic, and I resented that good men like those pilots had to die at the hands of anarchic criminals.
The United States of America was not dead. It was not gone. It was fighting for its life, and I was going to take that fight to the enemy, or I was going to die trying.
She didn’t say any more, and we sat in peace, happy to just be safe and together.
Several more minutes went by, and my eyes started to grow heavy.
“You want to hit the sack?” she asked, reading my mind.
I smiled and nodded, rubbing my eyes and following her past the sleeping teenager and rubbing the dog’s head as he opened his large brown eyes briefly, then closed them again in contentment.
For our assistance, Gaffney was only too happy to cede us one of the only cabins on the train, located in a sleeper car four cars from the front. We made our way past the galley, and through several passenger cars, all crammed with civilian survivors. In the rear, the bulk of the troops were holed up in actual cattle cars and boxcars designed for freight. What vehicles they could bring were loaded on equipment cars close to the caboose.
It was an impressive construction, the train. Steel plates were attached to most windows, able to be opened and close with the turn of a simple crank. The front had been retrofitted with a special attachment to clear small debris—and human bodies—from interfering with the train’s progress, and each car had been outfitted with a top mounted minigun, complete with raised edge armored walls.
We moved through the rattling train to our cabin, and squeezed into the small space. Our packs lay on one of the bunks, and I was too tired to move them, choosing instead to lean against the wall closest to the door, my forehead pressed against the cheap imitation wood.
“Who would have thought that our nation might be saved by Amtrak?” I asked, amused as a piece of wallpaper came off in my hand. But as I looked over to Kate, my voice caught in my throat.
She had removed her thick, armored jacket, and was pulling her thermal layer off over her head. The soft skin of her back bunched slightly as she worked the shirt over her arms, and carefully folded it and placed it on the other bed. She leaned over slightly, working the fastenings at her waist, and allowing the tactical pants to slide to her feet, stepping out of them with a deep breath of relief.
Somewhere, she had found matching lace underwear.
Women.
“I’m sorry,” she said distractedly. “I didn’t catch that.” She was leaning forward against the glass, staring as the first small hints of daylight were starting to ignite the western sky.
“We’ll have to shut the blinds,” she said, still watching the sunlight.
Behind her, I was losing my own heavy clothing, struggling with the boots as she stretched, putting her lithely muscular arms above her head and exposing the rounded corners of her shoulders and the taut muscles in her lower back. She stepped up on her tiptoes and I watched her calf muscles tighten, then her hamstrings, and then finally, the muscles slightly higher.
I threw my boots to the ground, and she smiled as I put my arms around her waist, pressing my stomach against the soft, rounded curve of her lower back and pulling her close. Her skin was warm and smooth against my own.
“Did you hear me?” she asked softly, turning her head slightly to the side. Her breath was warm on my face.
“I heard you,” I said, moving my hands down along her stomach and acro
ss her smooth skin, searching. “We’re definitely going to have to close the blinds.”
The soft ring of her laugh was in my ears as I kissed her.
TWENTY-ONE
It was almost unreal, the feeling of moving across the western expanse in a train. I had never really taken a real train, I realized, bemused as I stared at the ceiling from the warm comfort of the small bed. Commuter trains and subways, sure. But never a cross-country trek or an alpine discovery tour. I had always wanted that escape—that blissful knowledge that you’re trapped on a large object moving far too fast to stop on a moment’s notice. That type of permanency was a thing of the past in the modern world that existed right before the fall. I had always wanted that.
But this wasn’t bad either, I thought, smiling as I looked at Kate’s sleeping form next to me.
The blinds were drawn to shield us from the sun’s rays, and I knew it was just my imagination, but the room felt uncomfortably hot, even though I couldn’t see more than a sliver of sunlight through the thick felt curtains that closed behind the blinds. I shifted in the bed after checking my watch. We had managed to sleep for more than eight hours, and it was nearly four in the afternoon.
Perfect adherence to our nocturnal, vampire-esque schedule.
Kate stirred, and I turned my head, intending to go back to sleep. My eyes started to drift closed, and then I heard it.
The light, deferential tapping on the door.
Deferential meant it couldn’t be Ky and Romeo. They’d be in the room already.
I willed them to go away, closing my eyes and wishing it to be so.
Knock knock.
Again, light and deferential.
Balls.
I tried to extricate myself from Kate’s various limbs, but she was like a sleeping spider monkey, and there was an arm or a leg everywhere. It took me two more knocks to get out of bed and onto the floor. I stumbled to the door and cracked it open just enough to speak at a whisper. A ray of sunlight blasted through the small space, and I winced in pain, my eyes flaring as if someone had shined a spotlight directly into my cornea.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. McKnight?”
“No, Mr. Potato Head,” I started, then took a breath. Confusion wafted from the other side of the door.
“Yes, what’s up?”
The voice was very young. Late teens, tops.
“Major wanted to see you if you’re up, sir. Are you… I mean…” It seemed to just occur to the boy what might be going on inside the room. What I wished was going on right this second.
I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the warm bed, where an incredibly long and alluring leg was flopped out of the bed like a sexy dead fish.
“Yeah, okay. Give me ten,” I said, and shut the door.
My clothing wasn’t hard to find, and I truly wished for a washing machine as I grimaced at the flakes of dried blood. The material was Teflon coated, and repelled most major spills and… stains… but it didn’t protect from everything.
I grabbed the specially designed wrap-around sunglasses and slipped them over the balaclava as I left the room. I felt absurd, dressing that way in the afternoon—inside—but it was necessary. Any sunlight on the skin was starting to burn in noticeable ways—actual dermatological damage, complete with rash and blistering. I had first noticed it on the airplane, when I had my face cover off. The side effects were starting to accelerate, and I wasn’t sure what was next.
At least the strength wasn’t fading, I thought, as I slid the door shut and made my way toward the front of the train. Outside, the countryside was stunning. Even in the midst of what I knew was the likely end of an entire era of humanity, if not humanity itself, I found myself awed by the sheer beauty of the western countryside. Rivers and plains met snow-capped mountains in the background, and fields of wheat, unattended for months, still swayed slightly in the afternoon sun.
What a place.
It was worth fighting for, this world.
Major Gaffney had taken up residence in a very unassuming third class car, and was seated at a simple bench staring at a map and speaking on a large satellite radio. He smiled widely as I approached, and signaled abruptly to a lieutenant near him to lower the shades in the car. As the last one fell, I slipped the head cover off and put the sunglasses back on. Still squinting in the bright cabin, I sat down across from the slight man, noticing the scar along one side of a thin, weary face. His dark eyes were untouched by the smile he gave.
“Mr. McKnight, a pleasure. We’re sorry about the crew of the plane, but we can’t tell you how much we appreciate the support. Without the time you bought us, and the ability you gave us to redirect that onslaught of undead, we wouldn’t have gotten loaded up. You really saved our asses, there.”
I shook my head.
“It’s not me you need to thank. Those pilots and that airman did an amazing thing back there, getting that bird up and firing like they did. Those men are the heroes, not me.”
He cocked his head slightly, then nodded. His eyes were curious, but he moved past the moment.
“Well, regardless. It was a tough slog through the city. I’m sure you understand we couldn’t wait—”
I interrupted him curtly.
“Listen, Major. I was getting a great sleep on in my cabin, and between us men, I had a hell of a bedmate. So if we’re just going to chat, I’d just as soon…”
“There’s a truck on the tracks.”
I stopped as he spoke.
A truck.
On the tracks.
Always something.
“Okay, so… I’m sorry, but… what?”
“A large tanker, to be exact. About seventy miles ahead. We’re going to need to stop and move the tanker.”
“How do you know?”
“Satellites,” he said, and held up his phone. “We have good comms with Seattle, and they’re relaying directly from the Pentagon.”
“So, how do I fit in? I would rather sleep while you take care of it.”
He simply stared, then glanced at several of his men while I watched.
“Well, you have certain gifts that my men lack, and… well, none of us have had the vaccine yet, so…” He seemed to think I should be intuiting the answer to my own question.
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, yawning. “You want me to go outside, move the truck, get back on board, and we all get hopping on our merry way. And if I get chowed down on, I just brush it off and keep on truckin, right?”
His face was serious, as if thinking he had offended me.
“Well,… I suppose…”
“How do you know there are any of those things around?” I asked. “Maybe a couple of your guys can jump out, move the truck, and get back on board, easy-peezy?”
“Satellite,” he said simply.
I watched as his eyes flickered, as if unsure of himself. His face was tired, but he was earnest and serious.
“You’re not WestPoint, are you son?”
His eyes widened slightly, then looked over his shoulder once as if concerned that his other officers would hear. Then, smiling as in a sense of sudden defeat, he shook his head.
“No. Hardly. Idaho State. I was an accountant when this thing started. We’re in… We were in the Idaho Guard. I guess it’s all just big Army now.”
I nodded, standing up.
I had long ago surrendered to this hero thing. I didn’t mind the work. It was the attention I didn’t want.
“Give me a twenty minute warning. We’ll see what we can do.”
He cocked his head slightly.
“We?”
I laughed loudly, startling him and his men. Rubbing my eyes, I slowly let the smile fade away.
“Yeah, boss. We. You see if I’m able to get away with pulling a lone ranger. You met my girlfriend?”
I looked down at the table, where a small box of incredibly unhealthy sugar cookies lay open and on its side. I grabbed the box, and turned away.
“Oh, and Major?”
There was a pause, and then a short response.
“Yes?”
I gestured out the window, pulling my balaclava back over my head.
“We’re gonna have some weather.”
He looked as if to stare through the window, but then realized that the blinds had been closed. He looked back to me, confused.
I was like a damn portable rain dance. Wherever I went, there they followed. Air or land, train or plane.
Glorious.
“I can hear the thunder,” I said shortly, rubbing an ear unconsciously.
“Huh,” he said, staring at the wall, as if trying to see through the thin metal and cheap carpet lining the cabin.
I grunted as I stuck a dry cookie in my mouth through the small opening in the mask, and opened the door.
TWENTY-TWO
Lightning flashed in the distance, and the low, vibrating pitch of thunder pealed in the distance. The plains stretched out on either side of the black iron tracks that curved off into the distance, and fields of long, dry grass swayed in the heavy wind. No rain was falling yet, but the scent of the impending moisture was heavy in the air.
“I’m just saying that if I were gay, that’s who I’d choose.”
I slipped as I tried to move the last car out of the way, pushing too hard and stumbling as the rear end of the small hatchback fell heavily to the ground, nearly missing my foot.
“What? You disagree?” Her voice was light as she hung from the running board of the large tractor that was attached to an even larger tanker-trailer, stretching across the tracks at the lonely intersection.
Ahead of us, a long string of cars was stopped, doors open to the elements, some suitcases and clothing strewn in the muddy ground and across the gray cement of the aged roadway. In one direction lay the onramp to a large interstate. In the other direction, the telltale features of a small town, silos and the outlines of several larger buildings close on the horizon.
Nearly fifty of the creatures lay on the ground around us, heads and torsos destroyed.
We were coming to enjoy the destructive power of the new weapons, even as we were coming to appreciate the scarcity of our remaining ammunition.