“If you close it, we might not be able to open it again,” she said, worry creeping into her voice.
“There’s a handle on this side too.”
“Yeah, but are you tall enough to reach it?”
“If I’m not, you can stand on my shoulders.” He let the stairs go, and there was a loud clunk as the staircase locked back in place. “There, the city’s safe once again. I tell you, I’m becoming a regular superhero.” He used his knife to scratch a mark on the closest wall so they could find the stairs again later.
“A superhero, hmm…” she said, mulling it over. “I’ve got it. You can be Gorilla-man.”
He frowned. “I was thinking of something cool, like Black Phantom or Ultra Strike.”
“Too late. Once you get a superhero name, it sort of sticks with you. Nope, you’ll forever be known as Gorilla-man.”
“All right, but if that’s the case, you’re my sidekick, Banana-brains.”
She giggled. “At least I have brains!”
He turned and studied the tunnel. If he had his bearings correct, it ran roughly east to west.
“Which way?” she asked.
He pointed left. “Mount Weather should be that way, about sixty miles.”
“Sixty miles!”
“Yep.”
“That’s too far for us to walk.”
“Which is why we’re going to see if we can find some wheels,” he said, helping her off the landing.
“Maybe we can find that electric car we left under the Naval Academy.”
“Maybe.”
“But not likely.”
He shrugged.
“You’re basically saying that we’re going to wander around until we find something? Is that it?”
“Since when has wandering been a bad thing?”
“It’s not?”
“Wandering is simply taking a trip without knowing the destination.”
She furrowed her brow. “But what’s the point of a trip if you don’t know where you’re going?”
“That, darlin’, is the point.”
She puckered her lips. “I’m not buying it.”
He chuckled. “Come on. We’ve got some wandering to do.”
They started down the long dark tunnel, shining the flashlight on the smooth asphalt track. The walls had been coated in a shiny black substance, not quite paint—more like a thick epoxy. The only sounds were their footsteps and the occasional drip of water. They walked for nearly an hour without finding so much as a bicycle. Thankfully, the tunnel was also free of bloodthirsty infected mutants. When they came to a landing that had been sealed shut with explosives, they stopped to take a quick rest break.
Samantha pulled out a couple of bottles of water and handed one to him.
“How many times do you think we’ve been walking in the dark like this?” she asked.
“I don’t know. A few, I guess.”
“I remember the first time.”
“Oh?”
“We were on a highway, late at night, after you crashed our van.”
“That isn’t quite the way I remember it, but go on.”
“We were being chased by a pack of giant dogs that wanted to eat me.”
“Because you’re so delicious.”
“Obviously.”
“And I told you I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “That’s right.”
“And nothing happened to you, did it?”
“No, but it was pretty scary.”
He glanced over at her. “Are you afraid now?”
She looked around the tunnel, knowing full well that it was littered with dead bodies and crawling with unspeakable creatures.
“Not really.”
“Because you know I’ll take care of you, right?”
“No. Because I know that we’ll be together, no matter what.”
Her words were obviously spoken from the heart, and he didn’t dare risk spoiling it by saying something stupid. They clicked off their flashlights and sat for a few minutes, sipping water and listening to the faint whoosh of air circulating through the tunnel.
“It’s not as dark down here as it was before,” she said. “I can see all the way to the bend up ahead.”
Tanner turned and looked. He could see the curve as well. But there was certainly no light to speak of.
“It’s our eyes. They must be adjusting to the dark.”
“Let me see something.” She covered the flashlight with her hand and used the filtered light to study his eyes. There were dark inky blobs forming in the sclera. “Your eyes are turning yucky.”
He dabbed at the corner, expecting to see traces of the black ink. There weren’t any.
“It means the blood’s working.”
“What about me?” She tilted the flashlight so that it illuminated her eyes. “Any black stuff?”
To his surprise, he saw that both eyes were as black and glossy as the tunnel walls.
“A little.”
She nodded. “It’ll go away eventually, right?”
“Sure it will.”
She clicked off the light and leaned back to rest on her hands.
“I don’t feel any different. What about you?”
“I don’t have a burning desire to eat brains, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good, because I think you’d be a scary zombie.”
“Rest break’s over,” he said, tossing the bottle over his shoulder.
Samantha quickly capped her bottle and stowed it in her pack.
“Superheroes don’t litter.”
“No? Well then maybe I should turn in my cape.”
“So you can litter?”
“Litter, steal, smash in a few heads, whatever. I’m not good at following rules. You know that.”
They climbed back off the landing and continued their journey with the flashlights off.
“Maybe that’s your superpower,” she said.
“What? Smashing heads?”
“No. Doing all the hard things that it takes to survive.”
He grinned. “So, that would make me Survivor-man? I like it.”
“No, it’s like I said. Once your name is set, it can’t be changed. You’ll forever be Gorilla-man, just like I’ll forever be Princess Banana-brains.”
“That’s funny, I don’t recall the princess part.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, placing a hand on his. “I won’t make you call me Princess.” She smiled. “Your Highness will do just fine.”
Their big discovery came ten minutes later, but it wasn’t the armored electric cart they had been hoping for. It was something much bigger.
The train consisted of eleven cars, each seventy-five feet in length, and each painted ghost-white with no markings other than an identification number. It had been built narrower than a conventional tram to avoid infringing on the driving tracks that lay on either side, leaving the tunnel to act as a two-lane road with a subway running right down the middle.
“Is that a Metro train?” asked Samantha.
“Can’t be. We’re too far down. It must be some sort of emergency transport system.” Tanner stepped up onto an oversized metal bumper and peered through the front window. “I can see the driver’s booth.”
“Do you think you can drive it?”
“Of course, I can. I can drive anything.”
“Let me rephrase that. Do you think you can drive it without killing us?”
He waved the question away. “The real question is whether or not the batteries still have any juice left.”
“Even if you could get it running, it’s facing backwards.”
“Hmm, good point. Let’s go check the other end to see if there’s another control booth.”
As they came around the side of the train, they saw that one of the heavy glass doors had been pried open and now lay cocked at an angle. Tanner peeked his head in. The inside of the car was very utilitarian with molde
d gray seats and deep overhead bins. Like many trains, doors at either end of the cars allowed the conductor and passengers to move freely from one car to the next.
He climbed up and pushed aside the broken door.
“Let’s walk it to make sure no one’s inside.”
“Sure,” she muttered. “What could possibly go wrong with walking through a spooky ghost train?”
He ignored her grumbling and proceeded into the train. As they reached the end of the first car, they found a large trunk bolted to the floor, directly opposite the lavatory closet.
Samantha stared at it warily. “Fifty cents says there’s a dead body inside.”
“You’re on.” Tanner flipped the lid open. Inside was a collection of emergency supplies, including a marine first-aid kit, Tyvek disposable jumpsuits, flashlights, protein bars, bottles of water, and a box filled with assorted hand tools. “Better than a body,” he said, digging through the supplies.
“What’s this?” she asked, picking up a black pouch about the size of her hand. The label on the front read Avon NH15 Compact CBRN Escape Hood. She opened the pouch and found a shiny vacuum-sealed bag inside. A picture on the front showed a man wearing the hood, square filters covering his cheeks and a clear plastic shroud over his head.
“It’s a respirator to filter out poisons in the air. Probably only works for a few minutes though.”
“Still, we should take a couple of these.” She looked down at the trunk. “Really, we should take some of all of this.”
“It’s not stealing?”
“I don’t see why it would be. The supplies were put here to help people, and we’re people.”
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me.”
Tanner opened his pack and began stuffing in escape hoods, Tyvek suits, some water, and a handful of the protein bars. Samantha did the same, rifling through the first-aid kit to grab suture supplies, blood stopper bandages, and a bottle of Betadine.
Once they were finished scavenging, they continued exploring the train. Other than the broken door and a few cracked windows, it was in remarkably good shape. When they finally arrived at the far end, they discovered an identical control booth overlooking the front of the train.
Tanner set his backpack to the side and slid in behind the controls.
“Let’s see if we can get this thing moving.”
“Do you really know how to drive a train?”
He shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
“You say that a lot.”
“And I’m usually right, aren’t I?”
She thought a moment. “Not really, no.”
He looked back at her and grinned.
“Better hold on.”
Samantha turned sideways and wedged herself in the control booth’s doorway.
Tanner took a moment to study the controls. There was a panel with an assortment of buttons and gauges to one side, but directly in line with the front window was a speedometer, a thick controller handle, and a lever. The handle had a knob on top, which he instinctively wrapped his thick fingers around. There was a springiness to the handle, and he pushed it down a few inches. When he tried to turn it, it clunked toward him in three stages.
“This must be the speed control.”
“A gas pedal would have been easier.”
“Maybe, but this one has a deadman built in.”
She shook her head. “I think you’ve been living around zombies too long.”
He grinned. “A deadman switch cuts the system off if something happens to the driver. Let’s say I had a heart attack.” He pretended to collapse onto the controls, and his arm flopped off the handle, popping it back up. “See? As soon as my arm comes off the handle, the train stops.”
“Given the way you eat, that’s probably a good thing. What’s the lever? Some kind of brake?”
“Must be.” He exercised the handle and the lever together, but nothing happened.
“Maybe you need to turn it on.” She stepped closer and examined the panel. In the upper right corner was a large green button with the word ‘Start’ printed on it. She pushed it, and a loud click sounded. Headlights immediately flashed to life, lighting the tunnel ahead. Seconds later, overhead lights turned on throughout the entire train. “That’s something, but I still don’t hear the engine.”
“That’s because this baby’s electric.” Tanner pressed the control lever down and pulled it back one position. The train immediately began to ease forward.
“We’re moving!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.
He let up on the brake lever, and their speed increased to a few miles an hour.
“Is this as fast as it’ll go?”
“In low gear.” He pulled the controller down another notch, and the train sped up to ten miles an hour. He immediately downshifted back into the lower gear. “Better if we take it slow for now. There’s no guarantee that the tracks are clear ahead, and we’ll need time to stop.”
“Speaking of which, hit the brakes to see how long it takes.”
Tanner pushed the brake lever all the way forward, and the train slowed, finally squeaking to a noisy stop.
“What was that? Five seconds?”
“About,” he said, stifling a yawn.
“That means as long as we stay alert, we shouldn’t hit anything.”
Tanner released the brake, and the train started to move again.
“Sounds right.” His eyes began to droop, and he leaned forward as if suddenly too tired to support himself.
She shook her head. “It’s not going to work.”
“What’s not going to work?” he said, straightening back up.
“Your plan to have me drive while you take a nap.”
“I didn’t ask you to drive.”
“You didn’t have to. You’ve done the same trick half a dozen times. Cars, rowboats, school buses, and now this train. It’s always the same. You pretend to be sleepy, and I volunteer to drive. Then you curl up somewhere and snooze away.”
“I see. And do you know how to drive a car?”
“Better than you.”
“How about a rowboat?”
“Yeah, so?”
“What about a school bus?”
She began to see what he was getting at.
“Fine,” she said with a growl. “Move out of the way. I’ll drive.”
He smiled, sliding out of the way.
“Okay, but only since you insist. If you need anything, I’ll be right over there taking a nap.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, “same as always.”
After driving for nearly an hour at little more than walking speed, Samantha concluded that the main corridor routed along a lazy S shape, stretching many miles from tail to tip. She had seen a few intersections along their path where smaller tunnels branched off, but none had been equipped with tracks.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she said, looking over at Tanner sprawled across a row of seats. “How will we even know which tunnel goes off to Mount Weather?”
He sat up and stretched. “Easy. We’ll read the sign.”
“And if there isn’t one?”
Tanner stood up and came over to stand beside her.
“Even if there isn’t a sign, we’ll know the turn when we see it.”
“And you know this because…?”
“Think about it. This train was built to evacuate bigwigs from the city, and the only place that makes sense for them to go is Mount Weather. That means that the tracks have to lead out there. All we have to do is find the intersection and switch over to the other track.”
“I see. And you know how to switch tracks, I suppose?”
He smiled.
“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “How hard could it be?”
“Exactly.”
They drove on, slow and steady, for the next twenty minutes. They passed several small bands of infected survivors clustered on various landings. At the speed they were moving, the infected could easily have leaped onto
the train. But none did. Instead, they stared dumbfounded, as if the vessel were some kind of alien transport.
It wasn’t long, however, before Tanner and Samantha saw a collection of tents blocking the tracks ahead. Even though they appeared to be constructed from soldiers’ ponchos and boot strings, there was little doubt about the identity of their inhabitants.
“What do we do?” she asked, gripping the controls.
“What do you mean what do we do? We stop.”
“But they’re infected.”
“So are we, darlin’.”
“We think we’re infected—we don’t know for sure.”
“Well, we’re about to find out, one way or the other. Go ahead, bring us to a stop.”
“All right,” she said, not sounding convinced. She pressed the brake lever forward. By the time the train stopped, the front of the lead car was barely fifty feet from the squatters. Samantha killed the lights. “I hope you’re right about this.”
“You and me both.” Tanner stood up and grabbed his shotgun. “Come on, let’s go say hello.”
“No need,” she said, her voice trembling slightly as she looked out the windshield. “They’re coming to us.”
They watched as a group of infected shambled toward them. A big man led the way with a pipe in his hands. Tanner hopped down from the train and walked around to meet them. Samantha waited a few seconds and then reluctantly followed.
As the infected drew closer, they slowed, eyeing Tanner as if confused by what they were seeing. The man with the pipe grunted, and a middle-aged woman shuffled forward with a pained stiffness. She was short and husky, and her hair had been shaved off, leaving only a few ratty clumps hanging from her scalp.
“He wants to know what you are.” Her voice was crackly, like she came from a long line of witches.
“Other than good-looking, you mean?”
Her mouth turned up into a smile, and he saw that her two front teeth were missing. She stepped closer and leaned sideways to study his face.
“You’re not one of us. But you’re not like them neither.”
Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) Page 16