LZR-1143: Redemption (18 page)

“The r—… holy shit.”

Instinctively, I turned around, and looked past the edge of the car as the train slowed slightly, preparing for a slow movement through the herd.

The wide gorge through which we were moving opened up slightly at the next turn, and the interstate was a clear, wide strip of pavement here. The river churned slowly beyond, white caps on the choppy water. The tracks were slightly elevated, but only separated from the closest lane of the highway by a small rise and a thin strip of grass, and I watched as the front of the train wound slowly toward the massive herd like a snake winding through the grass.

I couldn’t count high enough to estimate their numbers. But for at least the entire length of distance that was visible into the night horizon, they were there.

Four lanes of concrete. Hundreds of feet of median and shoulder, and property on either side of the road before it dropped into the river or met the tracks. For miles.

Full of the dead.

They swarmed over the space, knocking against each other in a sickly, undulating rhythm, slowly moving forward. Westward.

I climbed slowly down the ladder, sealing the hatch behind me.

People were glued to the windows in the cabins, and I made my way slowly to the dining car. Over the intercom in the train, Gaffney’s voice came on in a crackling, calm announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please don’t be alarmed. The train is slowing as we approach the herd, as we cannot risk high-speed collisions with large numbers like this. Rest assured that all mechanical systems are operating normally, and we will be clear of this group within thirty minutes. Please stay indoors, and keep all movements to a minimum. Thank you.”

“That’s right, folks, remember that they’re just as scared of you as you are of them…” I muttered, opening the door at the end of the hall. A small boy looked up at me as I passed.

“Just kidding, buddy,” I muttered, shutting the door and moving on.

TWENTY-SIX

The train shuddered periodically, and each small twinge left us all cringing with anticipation. The bodies tried to press against the armored sides. They tried to climb and to tear into the beastly metal creature that paraded so many meals past their hungry mouths. Tantalizingly close, like choice cuts of meat under glass, we must have looked the part, eyes wide, faces scared, dim backlighting from the interior of the train making our tasty humanity all too apparent as we rolled slowly through the most horrifying freak show imaginable.

I couldn’t count high enough to guess, and I couldn’t guess well enough to count. They were just there. Everywhere.

I stood behind Kate, who shadowed Ky, all of us pressed against the glass—glass that was nearly ten feet above the bodies below but that felt suddenly insufficient. The train moved confidently through the mass of bodies, and the occasional shudder as a single body somehow made it through the plating near the wheels, or as the hundreds in front were pushed to the sides like errant cows, shunted to either side of the tracks like livestock, was the only indicator that the train was meeting resistance. Thousands of tons of equipment and people and supplies lent strength to the massive diesel engines that powered the machine forward.

Gaffney had come through ten minutes prior, voice confident and eyes slightly wild. He had never seen a group so big. In comparison, the herd that destroyed the militia in Boise was a speck. An insignificant gang of misfits.

The tracks clicked by slowly, and not a voice rose up. Faces were pressed against glass as the train went around a slight bend in the ravine, bodies hitting the armored sides and spinning off, back into the crowd. A child on the opposite end of the car began to cry softly, whether in fright or as an indication of the tension in the small space, I didn’t know.

There were so many. So many dead and meaningless. So many people, now reduced to malevolent flesh and moving bone.

Kate drew in a breath as a murmur of hushed speech and whispers rippled through the assembled mix of military and civilians clustered together. On the highway only fifty feet from the train, a large tour bus moved slowly through the herd in the opposite direction, trying to push thousands of bodies away as it struggled forward. Headlights shot into the crowd of bodies, illuminating their agitation and motivation as they pushed and crawled toward the machine.

Whoever was in that bus had the wrong idea about staying inconspicuous.

We watched, helpless, as the train slowed even more to handle an abrupt curve, and the bus started to rock slightly from side to side. Then, it slowed.

Inside, the internal lights illuminated. Packed with nearly thirty people, all looking scared and confused in the fluorescent lights, all of them were looking and pointing at us.

I cursed.

I knew what was coming next.

The bus driver’s eyes were locked on the train. In the midst of despair and desperation, I knew what he would attempt. And I knew that he would fail.

“Major, we’re going to have a problem,” I said into my comms, watching as the bus rocked as thousands of bodies pressed against the sides. A window near the driver cracked, and I watched him jump, my acute vision picking out the stark, raving fear on his face.

“Say again,” said Gaffney, voice tense.

“We’re going to have a problem in about one minute if we can’t go a little faster.”

The bus was turning now.

“I’m sorry, you’re garbled. Say again all after ‘problem.’”

It was accelerating, now, moving perpendicular to the interstate on an intercept course.

“God damn it,” I heard him say before hitting ‘transmit’ on my own mic.

“Never mind,” I whispered softly, as the voices in the cabin rose from a slightly worried hum, to a severely concerned garble.

I grabbed Kate by the arm, and nodded toward the sleeping car. We needed to stop that bus.

We sprinted through the car, stopping only long enough to grab our weapons from our cabin. We rattled through the crowd that was now watching the bus push through the creatures along a side road approaching the train. The headlights shot through the forest of bodies, creating a flickering, disco-quality light show for the onlookers.

I slammed the code into the keypad and threw the hatch, listening as a small alarm sounded in the cabin and several men shouted in fear as the order to remain indoors was violated.

Kate followed to the roof, and in the distance, several cars up, we saw soldiers moving forward to man the gun emplacements.

Good. Gaffney was competent and he was paying attention.

As I moved forward, the smell hit me.

Then the sounds.

It was like wading through a charnel house, weeks after the climate control had failed in the midst of a mid-summer heat wave. The stench of rot and refuse was so thick, I could taste the fabric of the creatures’ clothing, drenched in blood and gore. I swallowed the vomit that rose in my throat, and pushed past, reaching the end of the car and using the two thick chains stretching between the two cars to pull myself forward.

Below, bodies threw themselves toward the train, spinning off or getting trampled from behind. Limbs spiraled into the crowd behind as the press of flesh forced awkward positions against the large, heavy machine.

The cacophony of more than a million bodies, moaning in hunger and frustration from the dried and disused windpipes, rose into the cold night.

Ahead, the bus had slowed, having reached an area where the bodies were packed too tightly to proceed. Only twenty feet separated the flat, glass front of the bus from the train tracks, and the lights inside the bus illuminated the frantic movement of the people trapped within. It pushed forward, intent on reaching the train.

Why did they have the lights on? The creatures were enraged with hunger and the possibility of a meal. They turned from the train, attracted to the stronger light and movement behind. The herd seemed entirely focused on this attraction, as the known quantity of the train rumbled past.

We were nearly even with the bus, and the troops that Gaffney had sent to the roof were paralyzed. I was sure they were given shoot on sight orders, if the bus was approaching the train, but it had slowed, bogged down in the masses of undead. Regardless, they were still a danger. If they reached the train, that bus could derail the entire machine.

They would keep coming. They had no choice.

I saw one of the gunners sight the minigun.

He was making the hard decision—the right decision.

There were thirty people on that bus, but there were thousands on this train.

The driver looked up. He saw the gunner on the train.

He said something, frantic, head turning to his passengers, as the bus shot forward, pushing over several writhing bodies as it searched for salvation.

The rain of tracer rounds fell into the front of the bus like a meteor shower, shearing the front window from its housing and shattering the frame closest to the front of the vehicle. The driver disappeared in a mist of red as the bus shuddered to a stop.

The people inside were screaming. I saw a flash of weapons rising up from the seats, and I watched as the creatures at the front of the bus pawed at the wide gap now left in the vehicle, as it was now open to the air and to the attackers outside.

The people in the bus were screaming as we drew even with it, moving past at a slow, stately pace.

It was like we were riders in the most horrific amusement park ride ever invented.

We turned, watching as the passengers flooded toward the small hatch on the top of the vehicle, as they pushed against one another in anger and fear. Panic overtook them all, and the front of the bus disappeared under a wave of zombies, pushing and tearing at the shattered glass and crawling, one on top of the other, scrambling on hands and knees and over heads and undulating hands and arms into the bus.

The gunshots started to ring out, only serving to excite the creatures more. Some fell, inside the bus. Others surged forward. Several people had made it to the roof, and clutched weapons and packs. They waved at the train, yelling and cursing over the sound of the herd below. One woman clutched a young child, and simply wept.

The train moved forward, inexorable.

In the bus below, they continued shooting. Several men, closest to the front, turned the guns inward, firing into their companions in panic, seeking to get closer to the hatch, closer to several more minutes of life. Their companions fired back. The bus exploded in blood, in screams of pain, and the creatures took them all.

On the roof of the bus, one man walked slowly toward the front of the machine, where several zeds had used the backs and heads of their surging companions below as steps to clamor for purchase on the roof. They were pulling themselves slowly up, and I watched, prepared to see the man fire toward the creatures.

Instead, he raised a single arm, extending a middle finger toward the train as if in salute.

I watched as he slowly pumped his weapon, and I was confused, seeing the outline of a carbine with a thicker stock.

Then, I screamed into my microphone as he leveled the weapon toward the last few cars of the train as they moved past in slow motion.

“Grenade!”

My voice was lost over the roaring thunder of a loud explosion in the rear of the train.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Kate and I flattened our bodies against the galvanized steel walkway, grabbing the chains on either side as the train shook slightly. Impossibly, it continued forward, slowed only slightly by the impact. We rose up and ran several cars back, trying to avoid looking at the remains of the bus, and the swarm of creatures pushing it over into the waiting arms of so many more.

The small grenade had struck the overlapping plates of steel armor between the last two cars, and the plates were gone. Smoke rose from the cabin of both cars, and screams were pouring out of the shattered windows closest to the blast. The windows were too far from the ground to afford the creatures below any entrance, but their grasping and clutching hands were catching on the now-exposed window sills, resulting in several being dragged along for a measure before getting ground against the rest, or having a limb ripped off.

Passengers were streaming out of the caboose into the next car, and I squatted down over the blast area, watching as the coupling began to disintegrate from the impact. Pieces of shattered metal were starting to fall to the ground below, and the weight of the caboose was pulling the coupling apart at the joints.

“Move faster, people!” Kate shouted, and before I could grab her, jumped to the roof of the caboose and down to the smoldering floor of the car. I cursed, following her down, and dodging a family of four bolting into the safer car.

“I hear something!” she yelled, taking a breath and ducking into the now smoke-filled caboose. I started to follow, then glanced at the metal coupling between the cars. It was nearly gone, and the connection between the two cars relied on the chains between the cars intended for handholds and to support wiring and communication. I swore and followed her, knowing that if those connections failed, we were dead—stranded in a damaged car in the middle of a hungry pack of the undead.

The smoke burned my lungs, and my night vision failed in the bellowing darkness. I tripped on something, and hoped it wasn’t a body. Kate’s voice shot into my ear from my comms.

“Family here, I need help!”

I shot forward, yelling.

“Which room?”

Outside, I heard the unmistakable metallic clutter of the joiner between the cars failing and shattering to the ground. The car drifted back sickeningly, then snapped forward again abruptly. We were on the chains, now.

I flew into an open door, crouching down and finding Kate leaning over two small children. The father lay prone on the ground, and the mother was leaning against the wall.

“We have less than a minute before this thing is on its own. We have to leave, now!”

Kate grabbed both children, one in each arm, and herded the mother toward the door.

I shot past, picking up the father and carrying him into the hallway. We coughed through the billowing smoke, as the fire from below the car started to lick up the walls outside, and into the hallway. Reaching the gap between cars, I cursed loudly. Nearly six feet separated the two cars, and the armor plating that had been protecting the gap from zombies getting between the cars was gone.

The herd pressed in, bodies falling into the space with regularity, hands and arms grasping in air.

“No time,” I yelled over the noise of the tracks, as several soldiers appeared at the doorway on the other car. “We’re going to have to throw them!”

As I spoke, one of the chains connecting the cars at roof-level snapped loudly, and the car lurched. The chain spun into the air and slammed against the car as I ducked.

Kate hunched over, dodging the pin wheeling arms of a corpse that flung itself through the gap, and was instantly pulverized by the heavy wheels. She grabbed the youngest child by the arms and pivoted on her left leg, heaving the child forward. The soldiers on the other side grabbed her from the air and pulled her in.

I reached down and grabbed the next child, pulling her to me as two more zombies struck through the small railing next to me, hands grasping for flesh before getting pulled away.

Her body was so light, I had to adjust at the last minute, fearing sending her to the roof. She sailed over the gap, and the soldiers put her quickly into the hallway behind them, hands reaching out to help her through.

Kate and I each grasped an arm of the mother, whose eyes were wild with fear as she looked to either side of the gap. Creatures pushed into the space and were crushed, but they didn’t stop. The smell of their crushed, rotten bodies was heavy in the air.

A second chain popped as the smoke from the car behind us increased, spilling into the night air.

“Okay, no time,” I yelled, then we swung her out, throwing on the silent count of three. Her body was flung into the air, and started down. Suddenly, the train sped up and the angle of her descent changed. She screamed as the soldiers grabbed her arms but her body fell into the gap between the cars, legs dangling inches from the ground. The soldiers struggled against the momentum of the train to pull her up. An arm darted in from the herd outside, and grabbed her leg, pulling her further. Then another arm. The soldiers were bent double, their grips slipping away.

“Fuck,” yelled Kate, and looked at me.

“Go!” I said, picking the father up in a fireman’s carry and nodding toward the other car.

She leapt over the woman’s form, landing and turning, arms shooting out to grab the flailing form of the helpless woman and pulling her to safety in one strong pull, even as the bodies of the creatures below were shaken off and pulled under the last car.

I bent my legs, ready to jump forward with the weight of the father on my shoulders. As I pushed against the car, the last two chains popped and I flung myself into the air, feeling the whisper of air near my left cheek that was the remains of the chain on the left side flashing past.

My feet hit the thin platform of the car, and arms snaked past pulling us into safety. As I unloaded my charge onto the floor, I turned, watching the caboose slip away slowly as the train increased speed, and the herd thinned slightly as we reached the edge of the mass of creatures.

They swarmed over the smoking and flaming car like ants on honey, bodies flooding against the now small-appearing vehicle as we fled, leaving the shambling, rotting bodies behind us.