“Sam, I'm sorry.” He hugged her. “I didn't think. I'm sorry.”
She dried her face off a moment later. “I know. I'm sorry I cried. Eddy and me are used to finding ourselves in stressful situations with you, but this is too much. We can actually die out here.”
Eddy look at Sam then Isaac. They sat there for a moment; each thinking about the fact they just jumped two stories to a train raised two stories above ground. On the ground, former classmates and professors waited hungrily for them to make a mistake. Somewhere out there in the city, or in Sam's case, across the state, their families worried and struggled to survive, assuming they weren't already zombie food. A tear dropped from Isaac's eye as he thought of his family. Eddy might have cried, but his mother passed shortly before he started attending Illinois Institute of Technology. He'd promised her he'd finish school then have a good life, a promise he still planned to keep.
A map of the mass transit system, showed the green-line running on elevated tracks for a couple miles south of the university to a train station. The station sat at ground level. Isaac knew the tracks stayed elevated at least that far because he'd ridden the line to that station several times, and he was fairly certain the tracks rose back up after an intersection or two. Sticking to the tracks would let them cover a good distance and limit how many encounters with the undead they would likely have.
“Sam, you'll be happy to know the next part of the plan doesn't involve any jumping.” The comment got him a small grin. “We just follow the tracks. Should keep us above them, and maybe out of sight is out of mind.”
In front of the train, metal tracks laid in the bottom of a half-tube of concrete stretched ahead of them passing within about fifteen of rooftops and windows. Clean slate gray concrete stretched out in front of them. No zombies walked along its elevated path. Below the track evidence of the world ending abounded. Pools of blood and left over bits dotted the grass and streets. A few of the ash skinned undead, with their blood red or browning wounds offering stark contrast, milled about, searching for warm flesh to eat.
The rounded silver roof of the train reminded Isaac of the roof of the dorm they had just jumped from. Above them the metal roof gleamed in the morning light. It still looked much higher than it had in the instant before jumping. The train itself was a standard aluminum, box subway train. The windows were nothing more than face-sized cutouts filled with one-inch plexiglass. A lever, a couple of buttons and a few gauges made up the whole of the conductor's controls contained in a phone-booth sized room with a locked door between him and the general passengers. Many of the trains that had passed the dorm in the days leading up to when things stopped had been four cars long, which as far as Isaac could tell was about standard for the system. For whatever reason, this train only had two cars; though it appeared to have had more at some point during its endless loop around the dying city.
No one wanted to go first, sliding off the train to the concrete track below. They couldn't have said why. It may have been partially from the incredibly stupid jump they had just made, or because of the lack of a clear destination once they started down the path the doomed train had followed. While they bore no serious injury, they were shaken physically and mentally. And they knew that more such trials lay ahead.
“Isaac, you still have family in the city right?” Eddy's voice sounded calm. It had a soothing effect on Isaac's overworked brain.
“Yeah. They lived near the southern tip of Lake Michigan, but I'm thinking they may have headed out of the city, somewhere.”
“To where?” Eddy asked. Isaac opened his mouth to answer and stopped. “You don't know, do you? Any family in the country?” Isaac shook his head and folded his lips down in his signature 'I'm thinking too much' frown. “OK. So, we go to your parents' place and see if they left a note. Once we have a better idea what's up, we can come up with a plan to try to check on Sam's folks.”
Sam wiped another tear trail away and nodded. Isaac looked at the ruined landscape of the university spread behind his friends. He nodded.
“Shall we slide off the side at the same time and save the who-goes-first debate?” Isaac asked after a moment.
All three of them dangled their feet over the side of the train's roof. If they turned and used their arms to hang off the side, the drop was less than two feet. Even Isaac, who normally couldn't jump if you scared him out of his wits, could have reached the ledge if he'd jumped from the concrete rail. Their feet hit and planted. “See, no jumping.”
THUMP.
Someone slapped the plexiglass in front of Isaac. He about jumped back onto the roof even before looking to see the shredded face and chest of the zombie slapping the glass, trying to get to him. Three more threw themselves at the window in front of Eddy who had been laughing at Isaac for being startled so easily. Eddy nearly slipped off the tracks when he saw the zombies splattering gore on the window as they worked their jaws excited about the meal they could see but not reach.
“Not so funny now is it, tough guy?” Sam asked as she grabbed Eddy's shirt front and pulled him upright.
They quickly left the stalled train behind, never bothering to look in the driver's compartment to see if the conductor was alive or dead. It wouldn't have mattered if the conductor was alive because they had no way to get the poor person out except to open the passenger compartment and deal with the monsters inside. Although, throwing the things that startled them to a splattering and back breaking meeting with ground some two-and-a-half stories below might have been remarkably therapeutic, it just wasn't worth the risks. Their dance with lady luck had been in their favor so far; no sense in pushing things.
***
Mike broke his own rule and made Joseph stop the truck and wait two miles from the rest stop to wait for Boyd. His soldier's instinct told Mike that Sgt Boyd was someone dependable, someone that would be good to keep alive and kickin' in this world of constant death. Joseph to his credit spent a large part of the two hours singing along to his recently acquired music collection.
“I took the credit for your sick and simple needs./We were about machine, a new technology./And now I understand that Super Nova scene.” Well, he tried to sing along, but without the power of the Internet, he guessed wrong at a lot of the words.
Singing along and stretching out to prepare for a long haul behind the wheel kept Joseph occupied for most of an hour. After that he started getting antsy.
“Mike, we shouldn't be sitting here like this. It's bad enough that we are going to have to keep driving over night. This isn't like you.”
Mike knew Joseph was right. The group sitting at the rest stop knew it too, and they planned to leave for a new rest stop by midday tomorrow. Unless you were in a defensible location, which usually meant a large building with heavy walls, multiple exits and a large store of food and water, you just didn't sit in one place long enough for a horde to surround you. Once you're surrounded, that's it; you're stuck. Joseph worried prematurely; nothing, alive or otherwise, wandered within a mile of them. Yet that Mike willing sat there, waiting for a stranger to join them, disturbed Joseph.
A bit more than an hour later, they were back on the road, Joseph trying but failing to keep up with Sammy Hagar, only partially because he and Mike had agreed to keep the speed below forty miles an hour.
Chapter 14
Wind, Wolves and Dryads
Lily had pushed the four wheeler as far as the half-full gas can would take her. The rugged ATV allowed her to cover several times the distance she could walk each day. Plus with her pack strapped to the rack across the back of the seat and wheel wells, she rested her back and shoulders from carrying additional weight. Just a year without a serious backpacking trip let her shoulders and back forget the weight of the backpack that sat on her shoulders virtually every weekend from the time she was twelve until just before she moved to Washington. Almost eight years of wearing more than forty pounds on her back, looking for lost hikers or just wandering the hiking trails, all lost in twe
lve measly months.
I got soft. This one trip should more than fix that!
Lily yawned with the open maw of a lion. Her eyes closed as the yawn drew on and on. The ATV sputtered for a second then smoothed back out.
Looks like you're sleepy too.
As if in response, the ATV sputtered again, stalled and died. Lily blinked twice and looked around her. Now was not a good time for the ATV to die nor for her to be yawning and sleepy. She had ridden through the night, chancing getting further lost in the wilderness, because a pack of wolves began following her the previous evening. Apparently she passed too close by a den or the pack was just starving. They kept a safe distance from the ATV, but shadowed it for many more miles than Lily would have expected. As dawn grew nearer, the pack slowly closed their standoff. Lily hadn't seen one in a couple hours, but she had wanted to travel steadily until at least nightfall to try to outdistance the animals. Wolves when hungry or threatened can coordinate attacks to bring down animals several times their individual size. Moose and elk were the large animals that wolves commonly teamed up to take down. But she had heard rumors online of wolves tackling bears for entering their territory; while not the norm, it certainly wasn't out of the question.
She wasn't about to dance with a pack of five, determined wolves for any reason if she could at all avoid it. A little loss of sleep for safety came out a pretty good deal to her mind. So she had ridden for nearly twenty straight hours. In that time she covered more than one hundred miles. Nearly three times what she covered in the first three days of walking. Of course on the winding game trail that barely translated to fifty miles headed Southeast.
The ATV's starter clicked and ground as she held the button to start the vehicle again. The tank hissed at her as the gas cap came off. No doubt about it, the tank was empty.
Lily stretched as she climbed off the blanket-padded seat. Even with the extra padding, the seat frame numbed her butt and back. Although, to be fair, sitting on the most comfortable chair in the world for more than twenty hours would have done the same thing. She scanned the area around her as she continued to stretch and encourage the blood to return to the numb parts, even if it meant putting up with pins and needles for a few minutes afterward. Very little moved in the undergrowth around her. The mix of pine, oak and ash didn't completely block the sun, but it did mute the harsh light, filtering it through a screen of young green leaves that swayed every now and again from wind and animals moving. Between the undulating shadows and laser-like beams of sunlight, most wildlife could creep and avoid notice.
Mechanically Lily unfastened the straps securing gas can next to her backpack. The hardened plastic weighed nothing when she lifted it from its resting place, and there was no tell-tale sloshing to indicate any fuel remained. She unscrewed the cap anyway. Peering inside, she could clearly see the bone-dry bottom of the can.
Lily lifted her eyes and for the first time looked at the area where she stopped. It looked too much like everything else from the last week. At least she was pretty sure it had been ten days since she stumbled into the forest. Light undergrowth surround the mix of Evergreens, Ash and Oaks that stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. Some of the trees practically climbed one another, creating easy cover for anything that knew to use it. To her right the ground sloped steadily upward toward the western ridge of a mountain range she couldn't name. On her left the ground was flatter, but did have a downward slant she could easily see when she stopped to pee. A few hundred feet further along the game trail the ATV required her to use she could see a small runoff stream bed that cut deeper each spring when the snows melted. She had passed dozens of such beds today alone; a few even had the barest trickle of water in them.
Only the weak but steady hum of insects and occasional rustle of leaves broke the otherwise perfect silence. Normally Lily welcomed the distinct lack of sound, especially coming from the city where the hustle and bustle of human life created its own loud and unrelenting symphony. Cities now shared the same silence, forced upon them by—she didn't want to think of what had forced the grizzly silence upon the world.
Lily shivered. Not so much from the cool temperature as from the distinct impression of something watching and stalking her. Tired as she was—she hadn't stayed up for two straight days since the last hiker she'd been part of the effort to find a year ago—she knew she had to keep moving. She released the bungie cord holding her pack to the other rack. Wanting only to curl up and sleep in front of a crackling fire, she slung the backpack on and looped the AR-15 sling over the shoulder straps.
Walking stretched her stiff legs and back, and as her blood started pumping, the fog in her brain lifted some. It gave her enough focus to avoid walking in a circle or missing a step and hurting herself. Tree trunks, shrubs and rocks repeated in her vision. She couldn't find any distant landmarks to navigate toward. The best she could do was to keep the late afternoon sun to her right and keep moving toward what she hoped would eventually be a road.
Lily girl. This is STUPID. This is exactly how people get lost. You need rest and to figure out where you are.
Lily paused a moment to rub some warmth into her goose-pimpled arms. More trees and some dense underbrush lay before her in the dimming light. The game trail she followed on the ATV turned or ended some time ago, and in sleep-deprived state, she had missed it. Fortunately the now rapidly setting sun remained to her right. She faced a simple choice: stop and rest, or wander the woods in the dark while exhausted and chance making the same mistakes she criticized those lost hikers for.
That's a no brainer, girl. Rest at least.
Even with the sun still partially up the air took on a chill that promised an overnight freeze. Lily decided that the comfort of a campfire was worth potentially drawing attention to herself. Besides she was fairly certain she was at least another hundred miles from anything resembling a town or city. Or a road for that matter.
Several pine trees clumped close together in a half circle, providing a partial break against the breeze working its way out of the North. Lily made for the wall of trees, picking up a couple of sticks along the way. When she reached the lee side of the trees, she cleared a good sized patch of ground by pushing the dried pine needles and leaves into a pile. She dropped the small handful of sticks on top of the pile. After breaking a couple of branches off a nearby felled tree, Lily was able to build a supply of wood to last all night.
***
At Mike's insistence Joseph pulled into the rest area some thirty miles after SGT Boyd stayed at the traveling trading post. He couldn't help but wonder how quickly people had come to that, establishing their own trading system. The world hadn't even been officially declared dead by the governments and powers that be, not that their opinion mattered to all that many people. It still seriously messed with him because two weeks ago—Jesus it had only been two weeks since that other life—everything had been completely normal, complete with him nearly getting screwed out of another job.
Joseph stopped trying to wrap his head around how quickly the world had fallen on its head, and instead turned his attention to pulling into vacant rest area. After seeing the other one so full, seeing the road and now this place both empty scared him. Not in any way he could put his finger on, but it made him uneasy just the same. With the lot being empty, Joseph drove the bus on autopilot, thinking more about why Mike would want to stop so soon.
Clouds hung heavy and dark, advancing slowly Southeast. The heavy bus took the wind in stride, leaving Joseph largely unaware of the bitter wind cutting down out of the North. A strong gust rocked the bus slightly as Joseph turned off the ignition and opened the door. He immediately shut the door. The unexpected arctic blast made him happy he kept his leather jacket on the back of the driver's seat.
Stupid. I should have it on anyway.
When he opened the door the second time, Mike and Walter had their jackets on and stepped off the bus with Joseph. He looked the bus over as the other two men stretched and scanned the area
. Spatters of rust-colored blood slowly dried to the yellow paint of bus. Dozens of bloody hand prints tracked along the sides of the bus like a macabre kindergarten finger-paint mural. For all the blood and chunks of gore, the bus's body remained solid, no real damage.
“What's with the stop, Mike?” Joseph asked, following his companions in taking advantage of the opportunity to stretch. “Figured a Marine like you could go whole days without having to stop for mere mortal things like bathroom breaks?”
Mike took the bait, smiling. “I can. But figured a kid like you would have to go about every twenty miles.” Joseph grinned. The banter started when they first met, but now held little or no animosity. It seemed to mean Mike accepted him more as an equal.
“You two boys may be joking about the restroom, but I'm gonna go ahead and go. I'm not as up for peeing out the back door as I used to be,” Walter said walking toward the ready-formed concrete building.
“Hey, make sure you check the stalls. Don't want one sneaking up on you with your pants down,” Joseph called after him. “Alright, Mike, seriously, what's on your mind? Stopping twice inside of an hour isn't like you at all.” Joseph turned to Mike with a hardness to his look that took them both by surprise.
“You didn't even slow down for that group trying to flag us down back there. You ok?”
Joseph jerked back like he'd been punched. He blinked for a second. “Seriously?” Mike nodded slowly. Joseph thought back over the last two weeks. He'd tried a half dozen times to help people he didn't know, more than once at risk to himself and Mike—at the grocery store, Walter and Stacy, the cadets at the military surplus store, the Army guys on the way out of Roswell. Only twice did he intentionally, calculatingly leave someone behind: once as they tore through Brownsfield (that hurt him inside, he still couldn't face that, one day he would), and again some fifteen or twenty miles ago. A large family in two vans ran into some difficulty or stopped to rest; that's where a group of zombies caught them or a couple of their own turned, Joseph couldn't say which. By the time their bus cruised by, a dozen zombs surrounded the family. Two people ran into the road, blood soaking their clothing, tears streaking their faces. Joseph swung wide and kept steady on the gas, leaving the family to their fate. He never even noticed Mike readying a shot gun or Walter moving toward the rear door.
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