Knights of the Apocalypse (A Duck & Cover Adventure Post-Apocalyptic Series Book 2) (21 page)

TWENTY-TWO

Those that survived the end of the world
awoke to a great opportunity. A lot of people had died and that was sad, but a
lot of the people that died were the people that had stopped many dreams from
coming true. Security guards, loan managers, traffic cops, the Federal Aviation
Administration—people and organizations that were there to say, “don’t
touch that,” “you can’t go there,” “you can’t afford that,” “you need a license
to fly,” and various other party-poopers had lost their power when everything
blew up.

Despite the bombs, dreams were coming true
everywhere. Financial woes were no longer an excuse not to drive a Lamborghini.
And, since there was no one left to suspend a license, there was no good reason
not to drive it at two hundred miles per hour. If you wanted to fly, you only
had to get in a plane and try. If you felt Washington’s portrait needed
finishing or that he might cross the Delaware faster with an Evenrude, all it
took was a tube of paint and a little time.

But, even though the world had become every
survivor’s oyster, there was one dream that still eluded many.

There wasn’t a little boy on earth, before or
after it blew up, that didn’t want to drive a train. Through the eyes of a
child, it was the perfect job. You got to go fast. You got to push buttons and
pull levers. You got to yell at everyone and tell
them
what to do. And you had to yell. An “all aboard” spoken with an inside voice
was useless. You had to yell. But more than anything, you got to pull the
whistle.

Jerry’s inner little boy pulled hard on the
cord that diverted steam from the boiler to the train’s whistle. White steam
burst from the pipe and the train screamed. Jerry grinned and imagined what
Erica would think when he told her he’d stolen a train to save her. She’d
probably scold him for bragging, he decided. He pulled the whistle again and
leaned out the door to smile at two of the mountain men that were standing
outside.

They looked disappointed and he couldn’t
figure out why. They had the train. They had an army. They had a chance.
“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Kyle said.

“Yeah,” JJ added. “It’s nothing.”

“What the hell is wrong?” Jerry asked again.
“We just stole us a train and it looks like someone kicked your dog.”

They said nothing.

“C’mon, the plan worked perfectly.”

“Yeah, well, so what?” JJ said. “It’s easy to
steal a train when it’s standing still.”

“Right,” Kyle said. “Try stealing it when
it’s moving. Then you have something to toot your horn about.”

“Why would you try and steal it while it’s
moving?” Jerry asked before he realized what they were getting at. “Oh. Look,
you guys shouldn’t feel bad. You’ve got your own train now!”

JJ and Kyle looked away.

“C’mon, Kyle,” Jerry said.

Kyle spit on the ground and kicked at it with
his boot.

“JJ?” Jerry said. The man wouldn’t turn.
“JJ?”

The big guy finally acknowledged his name.
“What?”

“You want to blow the whistle?”

“What? No, I’m okay.”

“Come on. Come up here and blow the whistle.”

JJ gave up the pout and smiled. “Okay!” He
fell rushing up the steps of the train.

“Watch your step, now,” Jerry said and gave
him a hand into the engine. He let the large man past and pointed at Kyle.
“You’re next.”

Kyle smiled.

JJ grabbed the cord, took a deep breath and
was about to blow the whistle.

“JJ, wait!” Jerry yelled.

The large man let go of the cord like it was
a hot stove. “What?”

“You can’t blow the whistle without yelling,
all aboard!”

JJ leaned out the door and yelled. “All
aboard.” Kyle began to hop with excitement. JJ laughed, ducked back in the
engine and pulled the cord. The whistle screamed. JJ screamed along with it.
Kyle screamed, too.

JJ gave the whistle three long blasts before
he was willing to let go. But the screaming didn’t stop. It came from
everywhere.

Jerry stepped to the engine’s door and
watched as the entire mountain man community emerged from the woods. They
screamed like a train whistle and rushed towards the engine. They waved what
guns he could supply. The rest waved crude weapons and tools, but it was an
army unlike any the kingdom had ever seen. They were so excited to see the
train that Jerry could barely hear Kyle yelling at him from the ground.

“Hey!” He started to wave and the motion
caught Jerry’s eye. The man looked concerned.

“What is it, Kyle?”

“I still get my turn, right?”

Jerry let Kyle have the honor of yelling the
official all aboard and announcing their departure. He did it with enthusiasm
and the army of woodsmen loaded into the rail cars.

Jerry pushed the throttle forward. The wheels
spun several times before finding purchase on the rails, and the engine lurched
forward. There was a loud bang as it pushed into the car ahead of it and the
sound was echoed many times as those behind caught up.

He gave one more blast on the horn and they
were on their way. He looked out the window and wished he had an engineer’s
cap.

TWENTY-THREE

They stumbled through the dark as fast as the
beams from the flashlights would allow. Erica fell several times over the rail
ties and broken rock. Every time she hit the ground, Chewy rushed to her side
and tried to help her up by placing her large head under her arms.

Brae tried to move them faster. “Hurry.
They’re sure to get the lights back on soon.”

“That was you?” Erica said. So far, running
was all she knew of the escape plan.

Brae’s answer was interrupted by shots from
the guards. The girls turned to look back down the tunnel and saw several beams
of light scattering along the walls.

“C’mon,” Brae grabbed her hand and pulled her
faster down the tunnel. “It’s just ahead.”

They ran along the tracks for another minute
before veering to the right into a side tunnel. It was smaller than the
American in height and width. Brae ducked under a barricade that had been
erected to protect tourists and moved into the dark.

Erica hesitated to follow.

She still couldn’t see the guards but they
were closing in. Once the lights came on, they would be caught.

Brae’s hand extended from the darkness.
“C’mon, Jen. It’s okay.”

Chewy nudged her forward and Erica ducked
under the barricade. The dog followed.

The tunnel lowered quickly. Erica found
herself crawling over fallen rock. Brae was kicking up so much dust that the
beam from her flashlight was almost useless.

The dust choked her breathing. The walls were
too close. She couldn’t see Brae. The guards were getting closer. She could
hear their footsteps now. She didn’t have much time. She had to get out. She
had to get back to the main tunnel. She thought she could hide and escape
later.

“I can’t do this,” she said and turned back
toward the tunnel. The earth shifted beneath her as she crawled. She could see
the guards’ flashlight beams dancing on the wall outside the side tunnel. She
had to hurry.

The lights came back on. The guards were
there. There were several of them. She was staring right at them and they at
her. Erica froze. Chewy stood between her and the armed men.

“Come out of there,” one guard said. He
raised a pistol at her to make his point. “Now.”

The gun went off as one of Elias’s knights
collided with the guard and knocked him from view. The bullet ricocheted off
the wall not far from Erica’s head and careened into the dark corners of the
mineshaft. The knights jumped the guards from behind and got the upper hand,
but gunshots filled the tunnel with chaos. Elias appeared at the end of the tunnel
and saw Erica.

“Go,” he said and waved her on. “We’ll hold
them here.”

Erica turned and crawled towards Brae’s
shouts. It wasn’t long before she saw the flashlight beams trying to cut
through the dust.

“Jen? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she yelled into the dark.

A hand reached out and grabbed her own. Brae
pulled her deeper in to the tunnel. There the dust had settled and Erica could
see again. Brae hugged her and smiled. “I thought we’d lost you.”

Erica didn’t know what to say so she just
shook her head.

“It’s this way. Stay close. It can get
confusing.”

The sounds of the struggle faded quickly as
Brae led her down a series of tunnels that broke off from the main passage.
They worked their way through the dark for five minutes before Erica noticed it
didn’t feel so dark. It was coming from somewhere besides the flashlights. She
could see Brae without shining the light on her.

“Is this it?”

Brae moved to the side of the tunnel and
leaned against the wall looking up. “This is it.”

Erica rushed to her side and looked. A few
feet off the ground was the entrance to another tunnel. Dug not by hand but by
a trickle of water from above, the tunnel ran at an angle towards the surface.
Somewhere in the distance above, she could see sunlight. Her world got bigger,
and for the first time since entering the mine she wasn’t focused on her
breathing.

It took both of them to lift the massive
animal, but the girls helped Chewy into the tunnel first. The dog worked her
way up the slope with Brae and Erica right behind her. Several times the
mastiff began to slip but Erica was there to catch her. Erica grunted a few
times as Chewy’s excited tail caught her in the face. There would be bruises.

It was farther to the top than it looked, but
the women persisted in their climb and reached a cave on the side of Galena
Mountain. There had been no sign of their pursuers. Even if the guards had
emerged victorious in the battle with the knights, the path they had taken was
so dizzying that Erica doubted they could follow.

Brae must have felt the same confidence. “I
think we can rest for a bit.”

Erica pushed her way past the girl. “Fine,
but I get the seat near the door.”

Brae smiled and let her through.

Chewy followed and set her head in Erica’s
lap once she had settled in. The dog, winded from the climb, panted. It looked
like she was smiling.

Erica smiled back and looked outside the
cave. The outdoors had never looked so good. She took deep breaths of cool air
free from mining dust and held them in as long as she wanted. The fresh open
air revitalized her more than any amount of rest could. She realized she had
been quiet for some time. “Thank you, Brae. Thank you for coming after me.”

“We girls have to stick together now, don’t
we.
”
The woman smiled. “Besides, it was Hannah’s idea.
She followed you right out of town and didn’t stop until she found a way to
save you.”

Erica looked at the dog in her lap. Her big
brown eyes always looked sad. It was the nature of the wrinkles on her coat.
Now they looked up at her as she scratched Chewy’s head. “Thank you, girl.”

The mastiff let out a small woof and pushed
her head farther into Erica’s lap.

“Besides, I couldn’t leave you there,” Brae
continued. “You mean too much to Jerry. Did he ever tell you how we knew each
other?”

Erica shook her head and Brae smiled
sheepishly.

“I don’t blame him for that. It must have
been awkward. Meeting the ex always is.”

“The ex?”

Brae nodded and then put her hands up in
defense. “Don’t worry. It was a long time ago. We were over way before the end
of the world.” She laughed at this. “But you know how it is. Girl meets boy.
Girl loses boy. World blows up. Girl finds boy in a post-apocalyptic kingdom of
dorks … it’s the classic tale.”

They both laughed at this.

“What I’m saying is that Jerry and I were a
lifetime ago. But when you have a history with someone, you just never lose it,
right?” This drew a thick silence. “When he showed up with you, he just looked
so happy—like me and Shane. I lost everybody, Jen. Everybody. Jerry is
the first person I’ve seen since the Crappening that I knew before. And I want
him to be happy just because I can make a friend happy. I miss that feeling.”

Erica smiled. She felt the sting of a tear at
the corner of her eye and wiped it away.

“Don’t you start
crying!
Then I’ll start crying and we’ll be here all night like a couple of old
girlfriends. We’ve still got a walk ahead of us before we’re really free.”

“Where to next?”

“There’s a place in the forest—Shane
and I agreed that if there was ever trouble, and we were separated, we’d meet
there.” Brae moved to the front of the cave. She
pet
Chewy on the head and looked out onto the mountain. “I’d say this counts as
trouble. The boys will meet us there.”
 

“Brae? I have to ask about Shane.” The king’s
words about the prisoners had stuck with her and she had to know. “You told me
he was working in the mines to earn his citizenship.”

“That’s right.”

“The king told me there were no innocent men
in the mines. No volunteers. Nothing but criminals.”

Brae looked sad and sat on a rock across from
her. “He killed a man. He killed a man protecting me.” She hung her head. “He’s
in there because of me.”

Erica reached out and put a hand on Brae’s
arm. “Don’t …”

“No. I … I was being selfish and silly. Like
I always was, and … he saved my life. But they found him guilty. I couldn’t
leave him, so I did what I had to so I could stay here and find a way to save
him right back.

“I’m sorry I lied about it. It’s hard to tell
people your husband is a criminal.”

“Don’t apologize. Besides, it sounds like
he’s a hero to me.”

This made Brae smile. “He is. He really is.
He’s my hero. He’s my stupid knight in shining armor.”

Erica stood and Chewy jumped back onto her feet. “Then let’s go see our
knights and get the hell out of this screwed up town.”