Then again, while he deeply missed having the internet, he didn’t miss trying to fix the constant paper jams from the university’s printers, especially those jams that happened on the nights when a paper he hadn’t started writing was due the next morning.
But Brett missed school and learning. He missed sitting in class and having the luxury of listening to a lecture. He couldn’t have known what would happen back then, but looking back now, he wished he had paid more attention to his professors instead of constantly checking his watch to see how much time was left before class was over.
To remedy his nostalgia for things lost, Brett had become pretty active on the train. He regularly helped the older folks teach classes for the children and realized that, had everything not been destroyed with the outbreak, he likely would have been a teacher after graduating college. Sometimes the others would let him teach the classes for them all by himself. He had a knack for it and tried to make learning fun and interactive, beginning each class with ice breakers and group activities.
He was good at making the kids smile, and he thought about that a lot, especially after meeting Mark.
The boy had come into their lives the same day they found their sister rotting in their grandmother’s backyard. Brett felt there was a divine hand in all of that, given that Mark reminded him of Faith in many ways.
It was because of Mark that Brett sought to bring some happiness to the children, to salvage the tattered remains of their childhood innocence as best he could. While he would never get things back to the way they used to be, if just for a couple of hours a day, he hoped he could help them forget what they had lost.
In the short time that had passed, Brett had come up with an idea, one that he was counting on to be a catalyst to make things better for the long haul. Morale was constantly low, which was unsurprising considering that everyone’s families and friends were zombies.
But this particular time hit Brett really close to home.
Haven.
He’d always thought of her as strong, resilient, almost more like a parent than a sister, being forced to fill the role of the two they had lost.
But in the last few weeks, she was reminding him more and more of Faith before she ran away… tragic, sad, hopeless, fearful.
He didn’t recognize Haven anymore, and he had to do something to bring her back, to make her smile. His idea would kill two birds with one stone—cheer up Haven and boost morale for the passengers.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Brett whirled around.
Johnny B. stood there, a pudding cup in his hand.
“I’m… putting up flyers,” Brett answered hesitantly, realizing that Johnny B. wasn’t exactly the type of person who would appreciate his idea.
The other man chuckled and tilted the pudding cup toward the flyer Brett had just taped to the window. “Uh, yeah. I can see that.” He squinted to read it. “‘Game night?’”
“Yeah,” Brett said. “We used to do them in college.”
Johnny B. took a bite of pudding. Brett’s stomach growled loudly, and he remembered that hours had gone by since he started the flyers, and he’d missed dinner.
“Didn’t get enough at dinner?”
Brett sighed and thumbed through the small stack in his hands. “I didn’t eat dinner.”
Shaking his head, Johnny B. crunched the empty pudding cup into a ball and began to walk away. After several steps, he gestured for Brett to follow him. “Come on. I’ll find you something.”
Not only did Johnny B. hand him two pudding cups, a snack bag of Doritos, and some homemade beef jerky from Mitch’s farm from his own personal stash, but he surprised Brett when he gave him a dusty Parcheesi board game and a box of UNO cards he’d discovered on the train early on.
And perhaps even more shocking was when Johnny B. sat with him for over an hour tearing paper into thin strips and writing various words on them for the game night later. But he threatened to feed Brett to the zombies if he told anyone. Couldn’t tarnish his tough guy persona.
Brett was a little nervous his idea wouldn’t be well-received by the passengers, or that anyone would even show up, and it would just be him and perhaps his unexpected ally, Johnny B., to play UNO and Parcheesi together. He’d spent hours trying to make flyers, and he wholeheartedly wanted tonight to be a success.
As they dumped the folded-up papers into a plastic bucket and shook them, Brett felt a smile form on his lips.
He had a good feeling about tonight, that maybe things were going to start looking up from here.
“What the bloody hell is that?”
Colin made a face as Houston jumped up and down, waving his arm around like a lunatic.
Laughter erupted throughout the dining car.
“Jockey on a horse!” Brett blurted out, leaping to his feet and jabbing his finger in Houston’s direction.
Colin looked at him with surprise. “How you got that from all that,” he said, gesturing to Houston, “I will never understand.”
Brett grinned, and his eyes met Kennedy’s. She smiled back at him and nodded.
More people had turned out than he expected, the car fully crowded. Maybe they could make this a regular weekly event, something to look forward to, Brett wondered. He had worked really hard to make this a memorable occasion, hoping to get people to laugh and for a couple of hours, forget the misery they’d endured in the previous months. He’d even managed to get his hands on a small assortment of candy, which everyone passed around to share, popping a Sour Patch Kid into their mouths and closing their eyes as they savored the bittersweet candy, their nostalgia transporting them to better times.
Perhaps what made him the happiest though was that Haven had joined them. While still heavily bruised and medicated for the pain, she’d insisted to come out and support him.
“You’re up!” Brett called out to Kennedy when it was the girls’ turn to go.
It was boys versus girls, and right now, the girls were killing it. Brett didn’t mind. Winning wasn’t everything, although judging by the competitive looks on his two teammates’ faces, Houston and Colin would disagree.
“Alright, ladies. I need ya,” Kennedy said, and immediately, she had the attention of all of the women in the car. “I’m terrible at this, so bear with me.”
She selected a folded scrap of paper from a bowl and opened it.
“Oh, geez,” she muttered. “How do you even act that out?”
Mark, always wanting to help, scurried over to look at the paper. “Okay,” he started. “I have an idea.” He whispered something into her ear, and she slowly nodded in agreement.
“I like it.”
“Hey! You’re not supposed to help the enemy!” Johnny B. scolded him, but his grin showed he was only half-serious.
Kennedy folded her hands in front of her and then pretended to draw something out from between them, feigning surprise as she did so.
“Uh… reading a book!” one woman guessed.
Kennedy shook her head and tried a different action, nibbling at something invisible.
“Fortune cookie!” Haven shouted, but quickly sank back down in the cushioned chair when her broken ribs protested. Brett looked over at her. She seemed calm, her face peaceful and content as she relaxed next to Mark.
“Yes, girl, yes!” Kennedy whooped and jumped up and down before grabbing another scrap of paper from the bowl. When the timer was up, she high-fived some of the women on the team, including Haven. “Boys, take note. That’s how you get it done,” she announced to the men as she went to sit down.
When she passed Johnny B., she patted his shoulder. “At this rate, we could win with our eyes closed. Go get ‘em, J.B.” She paused and turned to him. “And remember, we got kids in the room. Keep it PG.”
He grunted and begrudgingly stood up, selecting a paper from the bowl. After he read it, he looked up mischievously and took a couple of steps back. Clearing his throat dramatically, he burst into a fit of laughter
when the other men began to shout insults at him in jest.
“Oh, I got a big surprise comin’ your way, just you wait,” he yelled back.
“Come on, you big oaf. This is serious,” Colin grumbled, eyeing Houston from the side as they both waited to beat each other to the answer.
Johnny B. put his hands in front of him and moved them up and down.
“Churning butter!” Mark exclaimed excitedly, practically knocking Haven over. “I saw that when we visited the Amish for a school fieldtrip!”
Haven’s eyes were wide, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. “Ummm…”
Mark tugged on her arm. “Did I get it? Did I win a point for the boys?”
Brett raised an eyebrow at Haven, then nodded. “Yep, ‘churning butter;’ that’s exactly what he was doing.” Whatever was on the paper in his hand was something Johnny B. had written himself the day before. Brett chastised himself for not reading through them to be sure they were appropriate.
“Yes!” the boy said to himself victoriously.
Haven shook her head in distaste and rolled her eyes.
“PG!” Kennedy hollered.
Johnny B. sighed heavily. “Aww, come on!”
“You heard me,” she replied. “Pick something else!”
He scratched his head as he pulled out another paper.
Without warning, he pirouetted across the floor, laughing hard as he added in some clumsy spins for effect.
“Oh, Lord,” Kennedy groaned. She covered her eyes with her hand. “I just can’t watch this.”
“Ballerina!” Mark yelped. “That was easy,” he added turning to Haven.
“That was painful,” she corrected him, wrinkling her nose. Mark giggled and immediately went back to focusing his attention on Johnny B.
In spite of the tremendous sadness that had encircled her life, watching Mark affected Haven in ways she couldn’t have imagined possible after so much loss.
She promised herself then and there that she would do everything she could to make sure Mark’s future would not be defined by monsters and terror, and that he, like the rest of her family, would live a good, long life.
He was being followed; he knew it.
Cade dodged behind a thick oak tree trunk and slid the magazine out from Stewart’s gun. He only had four bullets left.
Making it out of the tunnel had been a close call, and he’d barely escaped with his life. In fact, he couldn’t really give himself the credit for his own escape.
When he hopped off the train, he could hardly see anything. He didn’t have a flashlight, only precious seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Once they did, he almost wished he hadn’t left the train.
Less than twenty feet from him, clusters of zombies flooded the tunnel.
He remembered what Stewart had told him, about the zombies following the train and eventually catching up to it whenever they stopped for a couple days at a time to get supplies.
Right now, it didn’t matter that he had four bullets remaining; the creatures would be on him by the time he finished firing the last shot.
He dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the train, the rocks and metal on the tracks cutting into his flesh. Not caring, he moved quickly and used his shoulders and elbows to wedge himself deeper between the tops of the rails and the track bed.
Smaller rocks scattered from the rails and thumped against his face as the first of the zombies shambled by. Cade was certain they hadn’t seen him. Any noise he made hiding beneath the train would have been drowned out by the cacophony of their moans.
He heard gunfire and lots of yelling, and for a moment, he considered attacking whoever was outside. Cade had fixated on his hatred of Haven, fueled by unadulterated, insatiable rage, for so many years. But now, finding this train had taught him to focus on something else.
Patience.
Their time would come. Her time would come.
Right now, he had a chance to escape captivity.
The engine car at the front of the train began to move, the couplings between the cars compressing as the throttle was gradually applied.
If the train passed over him without any protruding parts mangling his body, he would be left on the tracks completely exposed, vulnerable to the masses of undead.
He leaned his head back as much as he could, trying to see how many cars were left before he would be visible.
Staring up at the undercarriage of the train, Cade noticed two thin pipes running parallel to one another.
Without hesitation, he shoved the gun in the waistband of his pants, reached up, and looped one arm and leg around each of the pipes, hoisting himself above the tracks until he could no longer feel the rocks digging into his back.
He let the train carry him for several miles, further and further away from the throng of zombies following them from the tunnel. He patiently focused on one point of the undercarriage, clearing his mind of any distractions, until his muscles grew too weary to hold him any longer. In one fluid motion, he unhooked his limbs from the pipes and dropped to the tracks, keeping his arms and legs pressed tightly against his body and away from the rail wheels as they rolled past him.
That was how he got away.
The idiots on the train would probably be kicking themselves if they knew they’d been a crucial component of his escape.
Days had passed since then.
Cade had crossed through forests and small towns on foot, staying away from densely populated areas to avoid the undead and save ammunition. He now only had a couple of bullets left and a railroad spike as weapons.
He knew where he was going, what he needed to do; the land navigation skills he'd picked up in the military were paying off ten-fold.
He kept the walkie-talkie turned off for most of his journey to conserve battery, only switching it on to a specific channel when he was confident he was close.
But now he was being followed.
He leaned against the trunk of the tree and exhaled slowly. He had two options. He could either make a run for it, or he could step out and face them.
Unfortunately, the choice was made for him when crackling from the walkie-talkie blared unexpectedly, its loudness unrivaled in the stillness of night.
Out from the sides of the tree trunk appeared two zombies. They reached for him, lunging forward suddenly when they saw him.
With lightning-fast speed, Cade sank the railroad spike into the first one, grabbing it by the back of its head until its eye exploded against the sharp end of the spike. He spun around and gouged the other in the nose, grunting as he shoved the spike up into its brain.
Several more trickled out from around the trees, and he was forced to retreat until he came to a paved road.
They pursued him with a laser-like focus, half-jogging after him while swiping at the air with clawed fingers.
Cade was going to cross the road and disappear into the other side of the forest, but a group of zombies emerged from the trees.
He edged backward, then turned around suddenly when he felt something press against his calves. A dusty Chevrolet Impala sat idly on the gravel just behind him.
Cade leapt atop it, hoping the higher ground would give him some advantage. Jumping from the hood to the roof, he braced himself as the first wave of zombies collided against it, grasping at him with feverish white eyes and black, broken teeth.
Their bent fingertips scraped at his boots, jagged nails on the leather. He leaned down and stabbed into their skulls, delivering sharp, powerful blows, but there were too many.
Some grabbed onto his leg, and he landed roughly on all fours. He aimed Stewart’s gun at the two whose mouths hovered inches from his flesh. One shot hit the first zombie squarely in the forehead. The other bullet ripped through the second creature’s eye, leaving a gaping, oozing hole in its wake.
Out of ammunition, Cade quickly rose to his feet and put the gun back into his waistband, then resumed spearing their skulls with the railroad spike.
He had just yanked the spike out of yet another skull when the heads of the zombies nearest him exploded.
Jolting in surprise, Cade stared at them in confusion until his eyes were drawn beyond them.
A handful of men stood several yards behind the undead, and his right-hand man, Cliff, grinned at him and held up the walkie-talkie.
“Hey there, boss.”
Cade gave him a half-smile and let the spike fall to his side.
“Nice of you assholes to finally show up,” he mumbled under his breath.
When the zombies had been dispatched, a circle of fetid corpses surrounding the Impala, Cade stepped down and joined them.
“We thought you forgot about us,” Cliff quipped after the two exchanged a handshake. “Did you get her?”
Cade’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Things didn’t go as I expected,” he began, fixating his eyes on something unseen in the distance. “But I’ve got a better plan, and I’m going to need each and every one of you motherfuckers to pull it off.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I’ve read this story so many times,” Mark groaned as they browsed the sole bookshelf in Brett’s improvised classroom.
Haven ran her fingers along the spines of the books on the top shelf and pulled one out. Its worn pages and torn spine creaked as she opened it. She leaned down and inhaled, her eyes closed. There was something special about an old book, how the pages were crisp and yellowed with age, how the scent made her nostalgic for a time she’d never known, but had somehow lived.
“Are you smelling the book?” Mark asked, his face perplexed and a little disgusted.
“Haven’t you done that before?” When he shook his head, she added, “Maybe it reminds me of going to the library as a kid. My grandma would find me hours later sitting in a secluded aisle surrounded by piles of books.” She tucked the book under her arm. Like Mark, she’d read most of the books already, but since she had nothing better to do than sit around and recover, she was going to read them all over again.
Mark selected a book off the shelf and pressed his nose against the pages. “I don’t smell anything.” He put the book back and turned to her, squinting to read the title of the book she held. “What did you read when you were a kid?”
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 22