by Brant, Jason
Jones started to stir as McCall finished binding his hands behind his back, but his eyes appeared cloudy and distant. Evans looked like he wouldn’t go along with being tied up, but he relented when William took careful aim at his nose.
After securing Evans’s hands, McCall sat them on opposite sides of the aisles. He fished through each of their pockets, finding spare bullets and a handful of gold coins. Neither of them seemed to appreciate the irony of a criminal having his possessions taken.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jones said to McCall as he took the coins from his pocket.
“After the things I’ve seen today, there ain’t nothing you could do that would scare me. Now sit there and keep your mouth shut.”
Karen managed to get the mother back into her seat. She took the woman’s hand and pressed it against the cloth covering her wound. Her skin had taken on an ashy appearance. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah,” she said with a thin smile.
“Keep your hand right here, Sarah.”
McCall walked a few rows behind Jones and Evans and collapsed in a seat. William continued to stand in the aisle, the pistol always at the ready in his hand. Karen half staggered to the seat across from McCall’s and sat down, feeling aches and pains in every muscle of her body.
Mad Dog looked over at her with a weary expression. “What a shitty day.”
“Jones told us he killed you.”
“I don’t die so easy.”
Slow, steady thumps came from behind them as the moaners began pounding on the door of their train car.
Chapter 5
Mad Dog wanted nothing more than to sleep for several days.
His eyelids began to feel weighted the moment he sat in the chair and he now wondered if he’d made a big mistake. Sleep was all he could think of, but he feared that getting some shuteye could lead to his death. The old man seemed strong and alert, but he wasn’t a killer. Every one of them would be dead before William figured out that they were in a war against walking dead corpses.
Karen looked as bad as he felt. He wanted to let her doze off for a while, but he needed some information from her first. Though it felt like they’d been on the run with each other for a long time, he’d only known her for half a day. He knew nothing about her, or the situation they now found themselves in.
“What did I miss while I was taking a little nap back there?”
Karen gave him a small smile. “Those two are trying to get to the Tartarus. Why, I don’t know.”
“The river?” McCall asked. He didn’t like the sound of that. His experience as a sheriff told him that if two criminals were plotting something, and casing a train from different cars, they had to be up to something big.
“Being exhausted isn’t making you any smarter,” Karen said. The smile remained.
“I’m sorry, but what is that sound?” Ethel asked from behind them. She remained with the boys, trying to get them to play little games with her; anything to keep their minds off their gravely injured mother.
“The moaners,” McCall said with a matter-of-fact tone.
“The what?” Sarah sat hunched in her seat, still holding the piece of cloth to her wounded shoulder.
“It’s a stupid name he calls the cannibals in the car behind us.”
McCall was too tired to argue with her. He sat in silence instead, trying to figure out what his next move would be. Ever since he went on the run, he always tried to think a few moves ahead. His muddled mind didn’t seem to want to cooperate right then, but he tried to push through.
“The cannibals? You aren’t still sticking with that story are you?” Sarah asked.
“The four of you are the only threats I’ve seen so far,” William said from the front of the car.
“I’m not a threat to you, old man,” McCall said. “Unless you turn into one of them.”
He could see Karen watching him out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
“Who are you?” she asked him.
“You were just calling me stupid, and then ask me a dumb question like that?”
“I know your reputation, you fool. But it doesn’t match the man that I’ve been fighting alongside. You’re no killer.”
McCall didn’t respond.
“Drop the charade,” she said.
“The what?”
“Would it hurt you to read a book once in a while?”
“Don’t have time to read. I’m too busy killing people.”
“Right. Or because you’re too busy coming back and saving me from a horde of dead flesh eaters,” Karen said. “You got away, but you came back for me. Why? What kind of murderous outlaw does that?”
McCall rested his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. It had been a long time since he spoke to someone without having to hide behind his ‘Mad Dog’ guise. He found that he struggled knowing how to interact with people without trying to intimidate them. Everyone in the car, outside of Evans and Jones, watched him.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t come back for you. I wanted the gun you had.”
The look on Karen’s face told him right away that she didn’t believe him. And why would she? That had to be the worst lie he ever told. He had worked for so long now to protect his image that he never expected someone to see through it so easily. These weren’t ordinary times though.
“It’s a lie isn’t it?” Karen asked.
The door at the front of the car opened and Andrew’s head popped in. He looked around the cabin, taking in the situation before walking the rest of the way inside. McCall felt immense relief at the sight of the little man.
“Did we win?” Andrew asked. He readjusted his glasses, frowning at the cracks in his lens.
“Come on back, Andrew,” McCall said, glad to have the attention shift away from him. “I don’t think we can win in this situation. All we can do is keep not losing.”
“What does that mean?” Ethel asked.
Andrew skittered past Evans and Jones, doing his best to avoid eye contact. He took a seat in the row in front of McCall and stood on his knees, turning back to him.
“Yeah, I don’t understand. They’re tied up. How is that not a win?”
Karen eyed McCall for a few more seconds before answering them. He knew she wouldn’t forget about her questions, but at least he would have some time to try and think of better lies.
“Those two assholes in the front have something planned for when we reach the Tartarus and the things in the car behind us will eventually break down the doors and join us in here. Both options don’t bode well for us.”
Evans turned around and sneered at her. “The things I’m going to do to you... ”
She ignored him and turned her attention to the conductor. “When will we arrive at the river?”
“An hour or so – maybe a little less. We’re going quite a bit faster than I should be running her, but I figured the faster we can get to Sheol the better.”
“Sheol?” McCall asked.
“It’s the last stop. A town on the edge of the desert,” Andrew said.
“Do you think we can hold them off until we get to the river?” Karen asked McCall.
“Them? Please stop acting like we’re all stupid,” Ethel said. “There is nothing more than a deranged man back there.”
McCall stood up, hissing at the pain in his joints and back. His days of being on the run were coming to an end, and not a day too soon. Always looking over your shoulder and trying to stay a step ahead of the law was a young man’s game. He’d rather leave it to fools like Evans.
“Listen up. Yesterday I watched a young deputy get sick, die, and come back to life in a matter of minutes. Shortly after that, he decided to eat his uncle alive. I don’t have any answers for you beyond what I’ve seen. These things are tough to kill, but they’re stupid, and they absolutely will not stop until we’re dead.”
He took his time and looked everyone in the eyes individually.
Karen stood up beside
him. “Two men wandered into the streets of Gehenna, right outside the saloon where I worked. They started eating a woman right there in the dirt. They bit a few people that tried to help and shortly thereafter those who were wounded began exhibiting the same behavior.”
“Bullshit,” William said.
“Within a short period of time the entire town began turning on us,” Karen said, ignoring him. “That tells me that there were more than those two men infecting everyone. They also had arrows and a tomahawk sticking from their bodies, so they obviously had a run in with some Injuns. I don’t know how far spread this is, but all of Gehenna is gone.”
McCall watched Jones turn around and glare at Karen as she spoke. He figured Jones to be the brains of their duo. He seemed more alert and open to the situation at hand. Evans wanted nothing more than to pillage and plunder. He was the sort of man that made you cross the street when you saw him coming.
“There are, or were I guess, thousands of people living there. That means there are now thousands of those things walking around and each of them can infect someone else. The odds of us out running this plague are almost nonexistent.”
Karen spoke in a manner much more elegant than McCall was accustomed to, but he got the gist of what she said. They were in deep shit. Even if they managed to get to this town, Sheol, what could they do there? An army of moaners followed them and it would only be a matter of time before they caught up.
Not only that, but the arrows and axe stuck in their backs did indicate that they had come from somewhere else. If this didn’t start in Gehenna, where did it come from? How many other towns had already fallen? Did this come from the East or the West? Were they heading in the direction the moaners had already come from? Perhaps Sheol had already been lost.
“Ain’t there an Injun reservation close to the Tartarus?” McCall asked.
Karen didn’t answer him right away. She looked over his shoulder, staring out the window behind him, her face falling in despair. “You mean that reservation there?”
Every head in the car swiveled at once and looked out the windows. Carnage reigned in every direction. Bodies littered the desert, soaking the dry, packed sand with rivers of blood. Moaners roamed freely, staggering along like insects among the bodies.
The reservation had been decimated. McCall couldn’t see a single living person. Everything that moved had the same odd gait he had seen in Gehenna. Body parts were strewn haphazardly about with pieces of bone jutting from their stumps. The infected fought over legs and arms, snapping at each other as they tried to get a bite of flesh.
Thuds came from the front of the train. McCall pressed his face to the glass and looked down. Pieces of torso and severed limbs flew past as the train thundered forward. The dead wandered onto the tracks only to be mowed down like so many blades of grass.
Ethel screamed. Most of the others gasped as they stared out the windows in horror.
“I told you!” Jones looked back at Evans in vindication.
Evans said nothing. His stone-etched face betrayed no emotion, though his eyes remained glued on the chaos outside. The boys wailed incoherently behind McCall. He barely heard them as he watched the scene unfolding out the window.
Many of the moaners stopped their gnawing when the train rushed past, distracted by the foreign sound of the engine. Most of them teetered around and slowly chased after the locomotive. It reminded McCall of the simple behavior he witnessed in Gehenna. Lights and sounds seemed to get their attention, unless they had fresh meat to feast on.
“We’re in deep shit,” McCall said.
He couldn’t help but wonder how far the moaners had spread. Were they heading in the wrong direction? Initially, he had only wanted to escape Gehenna. While it was true that they didn’t have a choice in that matter, he couldn’t help but question if they had only delayed the inevitable.
The moaners had obviously come from the West, but the question was how far? Could they break through the infected area and return to civilization on the other side? Were they only heading deeper into Hell?
Karen must have been two steps ahead of him. She stood and marched to where Jones sat and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. “Do you have any men waiting for us at the river?”
“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” he said.
“Look out that window, idiot. That’s death out there. Death for all of us. We need to know what’s waiting up ahead. Can we expect any help from your asshole friends?”
“I said I’m not—”
She slapped him in the face.
“You stupid bitch! When I—”
She gave him a straight punch to the nose. McCall heard the bones crunch.
“Goddamn it!” Jones’ voice took on a nasally tone. Blood ran out of his nostrils.
“Do you have people waiting for us at the Tartarus?”
“Yeah, we do,” Evans said from behind her.
McCall stood and took a few steps forward, making sure that he could reach Karen if they tried anything on her. Their hands were tied behind their backs, but he still considered them dangerous. He had been in the same position not that long ago and he managed to escape.
Karen whirled around and turned her attention to Evans. “How many? What are they going to do when we get there?”
Mad Dog watched Evans closely, trying to understand why he would tell them anything. The chaos surrounding them didn’t seem to bother him, so why offer any information?
“Six men, all heavily armed. They’re going to—”
“Shut up, you damned fool!” Jones stood up in his seat.
William’s attention had been fixated out the window, but he finally turned around when Jones jumped up. “Sit down.” He pointed the pistol at Jones’ gut and waited. The criminal stood in silence for a moment before sitting down.
“My husband is in Sheol,” Sarah said. “Do you think it has gotten there yet?”
“I don’t know,” Karen said. She never took her eyes from Evans. “We need to find out what’s waiting for us at the river first.”
“Tell me!” Sarah tried to get to her feet but failed. Her blood loss had weakened her far too much to be moving around. “Is my husband dead?”
McCall looked back at her, trying to determine if she had already begun to crack under the pressure. He understood how that could be possible – it wasn’t every day that you saw walking, cannibalistic corpses.
Her boys stopped crying and gaped at her, shocked at her sudden anger.
“Is he dead?” She screamed it, her voice breaking. The hand covering her wounded shoulder raised to her temple and pulled at her hair.
“Our two girls live past the river. Are you saying that they might be gone?” Ethel pleaded with McCall to answer her.
Everyone bombarded them with questions – except Evans. He kicked Karen in the stomach and bound out of his seat. She flew back into William, knocking the pistol from his hand. Mad Dog spun in time to see rivets of blood running down Evans’ fingers. The wire that bound his hands had created a deep cut in his wrist when he had used it to saw into his skin.
Working the wire into the meat of his one wrist must have created enough space for him to slip his other hand through. The pain must have been excruciating, yet he never showed an ounce of discomfort. His teeth pulled back in a snarl as he raced toward the back of the car.
McCall didn’t have a chance to react before he was knocked over by Evans’ shoulder. The impact to his chest sent him out of the aisle and sideways across one of the seats, banging his head against the window. He quickly rolled off the seat, landed on his feet, and chased after the sadistic criminal.
Evans never broke stride as he shoved Ethel out of his way, her fragile body crumpling to the floor. He kicked the back door in mid-stride, breaking it in half down the middle. Three moaners stood between the two cars, snarling as the broken door fell against them. The door to their own car hung by one of its hinges behind them
One fell over and promptly we
nt under the heavy train, dismembered in an instant. The two others grabbed at Evans, trying to pull him to their ever-hungry jaws. Evans pushed both backward into the car behind them, grabbed an unseen handhold above the door, and pulled himself onto the roof and out of sight.
More moaners made their way through the door, Evans forgotten, and stalked their new prey.
Chapter 6
Karen struggled to breathe from the kick to her stomach. Her abdomen quaked in agony, the skin struck by the toe of Evans’ boot burned and welted. She’d fallen on her ass where she now sat, and watched as Evans knocked aside McCall and Ethel before smashing through their only line of defense.
The people from the other car, or at least what she used to consider people, flowed into the room in their odd gait. A blood smeared face of a boy came through first, stumbling toward Ethel in short steps. Karen was reminded of the teenager that had warned them when they first boarded the train.
She tried to push her memories of his young, fresh face and naivety from her mind as she watched McCall crash into the boy. The child, his skin a pasty grey, flew from his feet and slammed into the seats behind Ethel. The old woman tried to get up, but her frail body didn’t respond fast enough as more of the infected flooded the car.
The one-eyed face of a middle-aged woman came forward, puss seeping from the empty cavity, and descended on Ethel. She sat in her seat, unmoving, and gaped at the monstrosity coming her way. Fear appeared to encapsulate her as it bit into the flesh of her frail forearm. The pain pulled her out of her trance and she slapped frantically at the mangled face, knocking droplets of blood and gore free from the eye socket.
McCall grabbed the creature’s shirt and flung its body toward the back of the train. Two more fell upon him before he could react and he fell to the floor, doing his best to shield his face and hands from the gnashing teeth. Blood pattered the floor beside his head as he pushed one of the faces away, trying to keep the tainted fluid from falling into his mouth or eyes.
“No!” Karen heard herself screaming as she watched McCall go down. She stepped forward and nearly twisted her ankle as she stepped on something hard. Her eyes darted to the floor and she spotted the pistol William had dropped.