by Cross, Amy
He turns to me.
“What's wrong, little brother?” he continues with a grin. “Something on your mind?”
I blink, and then I look around. We're down by the river near our family home, but something feels very wrong. I used to spend time here with Joe when I was younger, and with Martha too before she moved away, and I used to feel like I was more at home here than anywhere else in the world. This time, I feel kinda itchy, like I shouldn't be here and maybe something's really wrong.
“What is that look on your face?” Joe asks. “Are you about to crap yourself?”
I look at the light dancing on the water, and then I turn to him again.
“Ah, damn it,” he continues with a sigh, “I know what's happening. You're not supposed to be here, are you? Not yet, at least. It's not your time, Thomas.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean it's not your time to come over here.” He chuckles. “I guess you've got even more crap to put up with, huh? Well, say hello if you meet anyone I might know. Although I doubt there's much chance of that happening.” The light from the river is really getting overwhelming now, to the extent that I can barely see Joe's face at all. “Say, little brother,” he continues, “do you feel something humming? Ah, never mind. I'll see you around. Sorry, I know you might want to relax, but I meant what I said just now.” I can't see him at all now. “This just isn't meant to be your ending.”
***
“Thomas!”
Gasping, I open my eyes and see that someone's leaning over me. I feel a sudden burst of panic and then I sit up, and then I look around and see that I'm on the ground near the train tracks, and there's debris and broken wood and metal all around me.
“Thomas,” a familiar voice says, “can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Turning, I see that Elizabeth is kneeling next to me.
She reaches out and touches the side of my head, and I immediately flinch and pull away as I feel a brief flicker of pain.
“Sorry,” she says, “I just... I wasn't sure you'd ever wake up.”
“What happened?” I ask, looking around again and then seeing that the rear few carriages of the train have slipped the tracks. “Where -”
At that moment, I remember the explosion. Patterson's soldiers were lifting Carter's body, and there was a landmine underneath. As soon as the pressure was gone, the landmine exploded and the whole world seemed to vanish in a vast flash of blinding light.
“It took a while to dig you out of the wreckage,” Elizabeth explains. “At first, we thought we'd lost you. Everyone else is okay, though. The children, I mean. Polly and the other kids are alive. Shaken, but alive. We've moved them into the front engine for now, to try to keep them from seeing too much.”
I turn to her again.
“Carter,” I say after a moment, “she...”
“She's dead,” she replies. “I know. I'm sorry, Thomas, but we found some pieces. There's really not much left of her.”
“What about Patterson?” I ask.
“He's dead too.”
“We've thought that before.”
“We didn't have his remains before,” she replies. “Or part of them, anyway. He and some of the soldiers took the full force of the blast, but there was just enough left for us to be able to identify them.”
“No,” I stammer, filled with a sudden sense of panic, “you can't be sure of that. We thought he was dead before and -”
“We're certain this time,” she says.
“He could still be -”
“Here,” Toad says, and I turn to see him holding the charred remains of Patterson's head. He turns the head around, showing that the rear section has been blasted away, with only part of the brain remaining. “If that's not proof for you,” he adds, before dropping the head, “then I really don't know what else to show you.”
“You were out for a few hours,” Elizabeth adds. “We're still trying to figure out what happened. Why did the rear of the train explode?”
I stare at her for a moment, before turning and looking over at the what's left of the final carriage. There's really nothing more than a pile of mangled wood and metal, and the next couple of carriages have also come partially off the track and have been left tilted at angles. I glance over my shoulder and see that the front carriages seem to be more or less okay, and a moment later I spot two men trying to separate the damaged carriages.
“We can't get going again until the damaged section has been removed,” Elizabeth explains. “Apparently the carriages aren't all the exact same type, so it's going to take a while.”
Stumbling to my feet, I feel unsteady for a moment as I try to remember the final moments before the explosion.
“Carter's dead,” I whisper.
“We figured that,” Elizabeth replies.
“She set him up,” I continue.
“What do you mean?”
“She was waiting for Patterson,” I tell her. “She must have been standing on that landmine the whole time. She probably hoped to lure him closer and then sacrifice herself to kill him. When that didn't work and she got shot, she managed to fall without releasing the pressure on the landmine, and that's where she died. I guess she knew that Patterson would want to get close at that point and see for himself that she was dead. And she was lucky that the soldiers just happened to move her at that point and...”
My voice trails off as I remember the exact moment of the explosion. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I swear that – for a fraction of a millisecond – I saw a smile spread across her severed head.
“Patterson had the cure with him,” I continue, “which means it's been destroyed now.”
“Then we lost,” Elizabeth points out.
I hesitate, and then I take the envelope from my pocket and tear it open. When I pull out the piece of paper inside, I see that it's exactly what I expected.
It's some kind of chemical formula.
“Do you think that's it?” Elizabeth asks. “Do you think someone can recreate the cure just from that?”
“She told me to only give it to someone I trust,” I reply. “Let's just hope that happens someday.”
I slip the piece of paper into the envelope, and then I put the envelope itself back into my pocket. My hands are trembling slightly, and I can't stop panicking as I realize that I might just be in possession of the only existing cure.
“This is going to take hours,” says one of the drivers as he wanders over to join us. “The coupling on this train is unusual. Mr. Bloom had it strengthened so that there's essentially a metal support that runs all the way along the underside of the carriages. That's not gong to be easy to get off, if we can do it at all.” He shrugs. “We might have to start thinking about spending a night out here.”
“I don't like the sound of that,” Toad replies. “I'm going to come and see if I can help.”
“By all means,” the man replies, stepping past us and heading up the slope. “Call of nature. I'll be back in a moment.”
“What about Charles Bloom?” I ask, turning to Elizabeth.
“He's dead.”
“How?”
“I...” She pauses. “Things got pretty chaotic when the last carriage exploded. I...” Another pause. “I shot him,” she adds finally.
“For real?”
She nods.
“Well,” I reply after a moment, “that's too bad. I'd have liked to have told that asshole exactly what I thought of him.”
“Hey!” the driver shouts suddenly, and I turn to see him waving at us frantically from the top of the slope. “We've got a problem!”
I glance at Elizabeth, and then we both scramble up the slope. When we reach the top, I'm about to ask the driver what's wrong when I spot movement not too far away.
Lots of movement.
Zombies.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of zombie, are shuffling this way.
“Bloom said something about a beacon,” I whisper, “and about re-directing somet
hing. He must have meant the zombie herd.”
“I thought they were being sent to Boston,” I reply.
“Looks like they're coming this way now.” She turns to the driver. “How long is it going to take to get the train running again?”
“We're talking hours,” he replies. “Even if we just focus on separating the engine at the front, that's a massive job.”
“We don't have hours,” I tell him. “At that pace, the zombies are going to be here in thirty minutes at most.” I look past him and see movement in the distance, and I realize that more zombie are coming from the other direction. “It looks like we're surrounded,” I add. “We have to get out of here right now.”
Elizabeth
“There's no way to do this in time!” the driver yells as he pulls again on one of the metal pins connecting the train carriages. “Only the engine unit is undamaged, and the connection to the second carriage was bent out of shape by the explosion!”
“We need to find a way,” I reply, before turning and seeing that the first zombies are starting to appear at the top of the slope. “They're almost here!”
“We've got these,” Toad says, clambering out of another carriage with several guns in his arms. “There must be a couple of thousand of zombies heading this way. There's no way we can shoot them all, but we can buy ourselves a few minutes.” With that, he thrusts one of the guns onto my hands. “Elizabeth, I don't suppose there's any chance you've ever used a machine gun before, is there?”
“I don't even -”
“You just keep your finger on the trigger, and you blast the nearest zombies until you run out of ammunition. Which won't be long.”
“But -”
“You just do it,” he adds firmly. “Don't think about it. Don't question the morals of it. Just shoot the zombies. If you get any doubts and start worrying, remember those kids back there in the main part of the engine. The more zombies you shoot, the less chance of the kids getting killed.”
Realizing that he's right, I watch as he hands another gun to Thomas, and then I turn and see that a few of the zombies are coming down the slope now. Glancing over my shoulder, I see that more are coming from different sides. I guess there must have been several herds in the area, and Bloom decided to draw them all here at once. I've tried fiddling with the device he used, but there seems to be no way to cancel the signal. He must have disabled the whole thing.
“What are you waiting for?” Toad snaps, as he raises his own gun. “Take positions and open fire!”
He and Thomas hurry to the other side of the train, leaving me standing alone with the gun in my hands. I watch the zombies for a moment, and then I realize that some of them are only about ninety seconds away. Raising the gun, I aim at one of the creatures in particular, and I watch for a moment as he stumbles toward me. He looks like an oldish man, with not much hair, and he's wearing a tattered red shirt. His mouth is hanging open and -
Suddenly I hear Toad and Thomas opening fire, and I realize that I need to do the same. Flinching, I pull the trigger.
Immediately, a burst of gunfire takes out several of the zombies. Struggling to control the gun properly, I turn and spray more of the creatures with bullets, and I'm shocked to see that they're dropping fairly easily. The sound is intense as the gun continues to blast more and more zombies, and the gun is shaking so hard that it's almost jumping out of my hands. Somehow I manage to keep my aim straight, however, and for a moment I feel a sense of relief as I realize that I'm mowing down several zombies every second.
And then, suddenly, the gun falls silent and I realize that I'm already out of ammunition. At almost exactly the same time, the other guns also run out.
“That's bought us a few minutes,” Toad says, hurrying back round and passing me a rifle. “We'll use these to pick off any that get too close.”
“Okay, I've got an idea,” the driver says breathlessly. “There's a connecting pin at the rear of the second carriage, and we might be able to use that to separate the front of the train from the damaged section.”
“Then do it,” Toad replies.
“The problem is, someone needs to hold it manually while the engine pulls away.”
“Show me,” Toad says.
“You don't understand,” the driver continues. “Someone has to hold it until the engine is fully clear, because it's only going to be once it's clear that the pins at the front can go back to the original positions. But by that point, the engine will be picking up speed.”
“Show me,” Toad says again. “I can lift this pin thing and then I'll catch up to the engine.”
“You'll have to run,” the driver says. “Fast.”
“I can do it. I'll -”
“I'll do it,” I say, interrupting him.
“You only have one foot!” he replies.
“Sure, but...”
My voice trails off as I realize that he has a point.
“We don't have any time to waste arguing,” the driver continues. “I'll show you the pin, and I'll explain how it works.”
“I can do it!” Thomas tells them.
“No offense, kid,” the driver replies, “but this pin is heavy, and I'm not sure you could do it.”
“I can help!”
“Then who'll take a rifle and pick off any stray zombies that get too close?” the driver asks. “You might not like it, but you've got a job to do on the train itself. Now get into position!”
With that, he and Toad hurry through to the second carriage.
“I don't like this,” I reply, looking around and seeing that more and more zombies are lurching closer. “We've got about two minutes until they get here.”
“Then I guess we need to get into position,” Thomas replies, climbing up onto the engine and then reaching out to help me.
I step forward, and I'm about to take his hand when I realize that there's one other thing that I need to do first. I hesitate, and then I start limping toward the next carriage along.
“Elizabeth!” Thomas shouts. “Where are you going?”
As soon as I reach the carriage and peer inside, I see Toad being shown the pin.
“I'll come with you!” I call out.
They both turn to me.
“To the farm, I mean,” I continue, feeling a rush of relief. “I mean, I... Once we get to New York, and once we've found my father, I'll come back to the farm with you. If that's still what you want.”
He stares at me for a moment, before nodding with a faint smile.
“And Toad,” I add, “I -”
“Save it for later,” he replies before I can finish. “There'll be plenty of time once we're back underway. Now go shoot some zombies.”
I want to say something else, but then I realize that he's right. As the driver gets back to showing him how the pin works, I rush around to the engine and let Thomas help me up, and then we both take up our positions with a clear shot of the approaching zombies.
“We're surrounded,” I point out. “Even when we get going, how are we going to escape?”
“I guess we'll have to get used to the feeling of running over a few bodies,” Thomas replies, before suddenly raising his rifle and letting off a shot.
Startled, I turn just in time to see a zombie collapse to the ground with its head having been blown apart.
“Just testing my aim,” Thomas adds. “This thing's slightly off. To the left.”
Hearing footsteps, I turn and see the driver climbing back up into the front of the train, where his colleague is already waiting.
“Is this going to work?” I shout. “Are you sure Toad can -”
Before I'm able to finish, the train shudders and starts to pull forward. For a moment there's a heavy grinding sound, and when I look down I realize that we're still not moving. I turn and look at the next carriage, and through the open door I'm just about able to make out the sight of Toad straining to lift some kind of metal lever.
“He needs help,” I stammer, “he -”
Suddenly the engine lurches forward, and slowly but surely this part of the train begins to crawl along the tracks, leaving the second carriage behind.
“There!” Thomas yells, raising his rifle again and picking off a zombie that was about to climb up into the carriage and attack Toad. “Keep an eye out for them!”
“Why can't he run?” I shout.
“Just a few more seconds!” the driver shouts. “The entire coupling mechanism needs to -”
Suddenly a scream rings out, and I turn to see that a zombie has somehow made it up onto the side of the engine. With more of the creatures getting closer with each second, this particular zombie has managed to climb into the drivers' section and is trying to grab one of the two drivers. Meanwhile, the children are screaming.
Raising my rifle, I fire twice, hitting the zombie in the shoulder. The creature falls away, but then I spot another trying to climb onboard so I turn and shoot that one as well.
“Okay!” the first driver yells. “Tell him to get back here! We're picking up speed!”
I turn and look toward the second carriage, which is now getting left further and further behind.
“Toad!” I scream, cupping my hands around my mouth. “Run!”
Almost instantly, I see him leap out of the carriage and start running along the tracks. There are several zombies in his way, but he uses his rifle to knock them aside and then he keeps running. Another zombie is stumbling onto the track ahead of him, so I raise my rifle and fire, instantly blasting the creature and sending it slumping down. Toad jumps over its body and then uses his rifle to knock yet another zombie out of the way, but the engine is getting faster and I'm not sure he's going to be able to catch us.
“Behind you!” Thomas yells, and I turn just as he raises his rifle and shoots past my left ear.
Turning, I see another zombie falling away from the side of the engine.
“He's catching us!” Thomas shouts.
Startled, I turn to see that he's right. Toad is racing along the tracks, and he's gaining on us now that there aren't any zombies directly in his path. I raise my rifle, in case I need to fire any more shots, but then I grab a metal railing and reach out to grab Toad's hand and help him up onto the train.