About two hours later, another case arose. This time, we were better prepared. He was a young guy of about twenty, tall and burly with a broken leg. His face was beaten to a pulp. Someone whispered that the Green Guards had beaten him up during the raid when he’d tried to stop them from seizing his sister and mother. Not only did he fail to save them (they were in another car), he’d nearly died. Maybe he’d given his Cladoxpan to his family or he’d been too weak to stop someone from stealing it. Either way, the kid was the next to transform.
First, he begged. He stood in the middle of the car, leaning on a makeshift crutch, and summoned all the dignity he could. Like a beggar in the subway, he pleaded for someone to give him a drink of Cladoxpan. Everyone—including me—either glared at him or looked away, tightening their grip on their own stash.
I was briefly tempted to share with him, but self-preservation kept me from opening my mouth. If my calculations were correct, I had enough Cladoxpan to survive for about five days—if I rationed myself severely. That would have to last till I got back to Gulfport or at least found a helot patrol. Sharing with this guy would cut that time in half, and along with it, my chances of survival. With a broken leg, the guy was doomed anyway. Even he knew it. Any Cladoxpan he drank would be wasted.
When he saw that his pleas weren’t getting him anywhere, he tried to steal it. The kid had once been brawny; under normal conditions, he wouldn’t have had any problem. But given the condition he was in, even an old man could’ve taken him. The most brutal sort of Darwinism was in force: only the healthiest, youngest, and strongest survived. After a few sad attempts and a few punches, the poor guy gave up.
Defeated, he slumped on the floor in agony. With a rosary in his hand, he prayed quietly as tiny veins burst all over his skin. From time to time, he writhed in pain from a cramp. His tremors became so severe he could no longer hold his rosary. After forty minutes, the string of wooden beads slipped through his fingers, and his hand contracted into a claw. His eyes were completely bloodshot. The kid raised his head and, with every ounce of control he had left, shouted, “Please!” His heart-wrenching cry stirred my soul.
Without stopping to think, I stood up and grabbed the hammer someone had hung on a nail by the door. Before anyone could stop me, I walked up to the kid. He sensed my presence at his side; his now-sightless eyes pointed in my direction.
“You sure?” I asked quietly.
The kid nodded and grabbed my pant leg. Maybe he was afraid I’d change my mind. His lips had nearly stopped obeying him, but he managed to whisper an almost unintelligible “Thank you.”
I picked up the hammer, took a deep breath, and brought it down hard on the kid’s occipital bone. He went limp, like a cow on the slaughterhouse floor. I hit him three more times to be sure he wouldn’t rise from the dead.
Covered with blood, I slumped back to my corner. Everyone in the car stared at the corpse in silence. No one would meet my eyes, but they didn’t reproach me.
As the train rattled on, I furtively wiped my eyes. The blood on my face mixed with my tears, forming ornate ribbons down my cheeks. I looked like a psychotic clown, but I couldn’t stop crying.
I’d killed a man. A living man. The fact that he was about to become an Undead didn’t mitigate my pain. I was a murderer. As the train rolled on, I realized that even if I survived that hellish journey, part of me had died in that boxcar.
37
THE WASTELAND, SOUTHERN TEXAS
DAY 1. 17:50 HOURS
We were the only ones left.
The train stopped five times; at each stop, they unhooked a car. Ours was the last car, so I suspected we wouldn’t be traveling much longer.
I rummaged through the belongings of fellow passengers who’d died near me. In one woman’s purse, I found a blank notebook and a lot of useless stuff, including a tube of pink lipstick. Pink lipstick? On a deportation train? Then I remembered that Jews had taken the most startling things with them, such as violins and lamps, en route to Nazi concentration camps. I don’t know why, but I put the lipstick in my pocket.
I guess the will to survive, to see another dawn, is the trait we humans value most. The lipstick must have been a symbol for that woman, the way Lucullus was for me. She’d told herself that this nightmare would end someday and she’d want to look beautiful again. She’d be someplace safe and happy, where her biggest concern was having pretty lips. Just then the woman’s body started wobbling on the floor, bumping against my shoes, in time with the train rumbling down the tracks. What good was her symbol now?
Only twenty people remained out of the original one hundred and fifty. Over half were crushed to death, died of thirst, or were killed when someone tried to rob them. The rest had succumbed to TSJ when they ran out of Cladoxpan. Most people’s reserves had only lasted six hours, and we’d been traveling for nearly twelve.
I was in pretty good shape. With the Cladoxpan hidden in Lucullus’s basket, I could hold out for several days. I didn’t know how much the other survivors had left. Enough for a few hours? A month? It was like a poker game; you kept your cards close to your vest. You didn’t know if the guy in the corner was glaring at you because he was terrified you were turning into an Undead or because he was turning into one. If it weren’t for the basket, I’d have been dead hours ago, lying in the middle of the car.
I didn’t understand why they dropped off each group so far apart. At first I assumed it was to keep us from ganging up on the guards and taking control of the train. That may have been partly true. Most likely, they didn’t want us to transform into Undead all at once. It was easier to deal with one or two Undead, even a dozen, instead of hundreds all at once. We weren’t people to them, just monsters. Maybe they were right.
I wasn’t proud of the things I’d seen and done in that train car, but if I hadn’t done them, I’d be dead. I was determined to fight to the end.
The train slowed down. The click-clack of the wheels finally stopped. The sixth stop for the sixth car. Our turn.
Its brakes screeching, the train came to a complete stop. Our journey of hundreds of miles was over. Inside the car, the silence was absolute, except for the flies buzzing around the swollen bodies and the hollow cough of a very sick man. They kept us waiting in there for five long minutes. The tension was unbearable.
“Why don’t they open the fucking door?” a guy sitting near me muttered.
“Maybe they don’t open the door,” murmured a guy in his fifties, the oldest survivor. “Maybe they park the train car and leave, then collect our bones on their next trip.”
“Shut the fuck up, goddammit,” snapped the first guy. “They gotta open the door.”
I hoped with all my heart he was right. I figured the Green Guards were scouting the area for any Undead. Finally, with a screech, the door opened for the first time since we’d gotten on. But the Green Guards didn’t look inside.
“Everybody out, goddammit!” cried a distorted voice. “Man, what a stench!”
“Don’t get too close to the door, Tim,” said another voice. “There may not be anyone alive in there.”
“Should we toss in a grenade?” Tim sounded unsure.
That comment spurred us survivors to move toward the door. Nobody wanted to die like that.
I squinted and shaded my eyes. The light was glaringly bright, even though the sun was setting. After twelve hours in darkness, my eyes were very sensitive. I took several deep breaths to clear my lungs of the stench inside the boxcar.
Then I saw why the Green Guards’ voices were distorted. They were wearing gas masks. I understood why. The smell of the overheated car full of dead bodies, vomit, and shit was overpowering.
“Hey! You have to unload that car!” one of the guards said, pointing his assault rifle.
“Whaddaya mean?” asked the guy next to me. “It’s full of corpses. There’s just a few of us left. That’ll take
all day.”
“You have one hour, you sons of bitches,” said the guard, cocking his rifle. “Move your ass if you wanna live. Let’s go!”
Like automatons, we organized into pairs and started clearing the bodies out of the boxcar. As I held the feet of a pregnant woman and dragged her off the train, I wondered why we were doing it. Why didn’t we jump the guards and grab their weapons? Why didn’t we fight? The answer was obvious—we wanted to live a little longer, even ten minutes more. Breathe that wonderful, clean air. Survive.
We piled all the bodies by the side of the road. We were at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. A single train track stretched out of sight in either direction. There was also a double track for about a half a mile to let two trains pass each other. Our captors had chosen a very desolate place to get rid of the last car.
One look around told me we weren’t the first group they’d unloaded there. The ground was littered with sun-bleached bones and scraps of clothing and shoes. A mountain of mummified bodies watched us with grinning skulls. I felt their empty eyes follow me, accusing me of being a coward, of wanting to stay alive.
Bones were scattered a long way across the plains. I suspected that, when the train left, coyotes and other scavengers would feast on the new corpses, dragging the bones in all directions. The TSJ virus didn’t affect them. It provided them with food in abundance.
After we’d dragged off the last body, we collapsed against the charred remains of a van. One of the Greens Guards tossed us a few boxes of army rations.
“There’s fifteen gallons of water in that drum,” he said, pointing his rifle at a metal barrel some other guards were rolling off the train. “And here’re some army rations. After that, you’re on your own. Don’t ever come near Gulfport again. Is that clear?”
“This is murder,” murmured one of the three surviving women. “We’re in the middle of a fucking desert. In a few hours, TSJ will transform us into Undead, and all you can do is give us a few gallons of water and some snacks to tide us over till then. How can you live with yourself? I hope you burn in hell!”
“Shut up!” shouted the guard. “Be glad I don’t put a bullet in your head. You’ve been exiled. If it were up to me, I’d kill every one of ya. I’m just following orders.”
“How kind of you,” I muttered. I was starting to sweat again. I didn’t know if it was from the stress or the virus attacking me, but I didn’t want anyone to see my stash of Cladoxpan. I’d have to wait to take a drink.
“Let’s get ’em,” the Latino guy next to me said under his breath. “On my signal.”
“What’d you say?” I asked, barely moving my mouth. I didn’t know what he was planning.
The man at the end of the row, closest to a Green Guard, sprang to his feet and ran at the guard, who barely had time to raise his gun. The guy plowed into the guard, and they fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. The guard’s gun went off and one of them was hit, but I couldn’t tell which. Then all hell broke loose.
Half of the deportees threw themselves on the guards, trying to grab their weapons. The surviving Latin Kings must’ve hatched some plan in the dark train car, and they were trying to carry it out. But they hadn’t shared their plans with the rest of the survivors. Like me, half a dozen other deportees were confused and frightened. Some hid behind the wrecked van while others joined the surprise attack. Some just stood there, not knowing how to react. When the first burst of fire from an M4 cut one of that group in half, the rest scattered. I had to think fast.
The guys’ plan was brave, but stupid. Instead of focusing on the train engines, they’d gotten in an unequal fight with the Green Guards, who’d had time to bolt the engine doors and take their positions. On the roofs of the locomotive, a Green Guard was quickly setting up a massive machine gun. I could guess what would happen in a matter of seconds.
“Take cover!” I yelled and threw myself into a ditch full of rotting corpses.
The machine gun opened fire, filling the air with heavy lead hornets. The helots out in the open twisted around in a dance of death as the bullets ripped through them. A Green Guard was also hit by friendly fire. After a minute, the failed revolt ended as quickly as it had begun.
“Damn! Those motherfuckers gave us a scare!” said a voice from behind a gas mask.
“You alright?” someone called down from the train.
“McCurry and Wyatt are screwed! Carlyle, you asshole. You shot Wyatt!”
“He stepped into my line of fire!” replied the guy on the roof of the locomotive. “It wasn’t my fucking fault!
“We’ll discuss that later,” the first voice said with authority. He must’ve been the boss. “Make sure they’re dead, then let’s get out of here. This place gives me willies.”
From where I lay at the bottom of the ditch, I heard the Greens checking the bodies one by one. A couple of times they fired their rifles at close range to finish off the wounded. I grabbed a corpse and dragged it on top of me, then buried my legs in a pile of bodies. All I could do was lie still and pray.
The gravel alongside the ditch crunched under someone’s feet. I held my breath, overcome by the stench of those corpses. After a few long seconds, the guy walked away. I exhaled in relief. Then I realized I’d left Lucullus’s basket next to the shot-up van. My heart stopped. If they found it, they’d kill my cat and take my medicine.
The minutes passed slowly, very slowly, as the men climbed back on the train. Finally the engines roared to life, then the train lurched forward and chugged away at a snail’s pace.
I lay among the bodies for another five minutes, until the sound of the train faded in the distance. When I didn’t hear anything, I pushed the bodies off me in disgust and crawled out of the ditch.
The train was just a black spot receding on the horizon. The sun was setting, casting a spectral, bloodred light across the landscape. There was no one in sight. If anyone else had survived the massacre, they didn’t want to be seen.
I stumbled up the path, stepping over still-warm bleeding bodies. A couple of the dead didn’t have any serious head injuries and were starting to shake in spasms. I’d have company soon. I had to get out of there.
Lucullus’s basket was right where I’d left it. I picked it up, said a silent prayer, and opened it. At the bottom, Lucullus was still curled up; under him was all my stuff. I took a small sip of Cladoxpan and dug around for the compass. I knew which direction to head in, but could I last long enough to get where I needed to go?
I fashioned a backpack out of a dead guy’s coat and packed it full of rations and the contents of the basket, all but Lucullus. The water drum was too heavy to carry. I searched the bodies and collected half a dozen bottles and canteens. One of the bottles even had a little Cladoxpan left in it, which I poured into my thermos. I filled the other bottles and canteens with all the water I could carry.
I drank my fill of water and washed up. I was still wearing the elegant Italian suit I’d worn to work two days before, but now it was torn and covered in blood, dirt, and all kinds of bodily fluids. I threw off the ripped sports coat and grabbed the army jacket off a corpse to ward off the cold night air.
As night fell, I headed southeast, following the railroad tracks. I was weak and wrung out with a long road ahead of me. On top of that, I was racing against the clock.
38
THE WASTELAND
DAY 2
I woke up with the afternoon sun hitting me squarely in the face. Every muscle in my body ached. I knew I had to keep moving, so I walked all night, until exhaustion and the cold finally got the better of me. With no moon to light the way, I nearly broke my leg.
After that, I decided to sleep through the hottest hours of the day and climbed into the skeleton of a bus. I hesitated at first. What if rattlesnakes, scorpions, or a dozen other critters, real or imagined, were hiding in that bus? Common sense prevail
ed when I heard coyotes howling close by—they were the real threat. I didn’t know if coyotes attacked humans, but I didn’t want to chance it.
I drank some water mixed with Cladoxpan and pried open an MRE ration. I tried to get Lucullus to eat something, but he was too weak to chew. I was sure his tail was infected. I was worried that if I didn’t find some antibiotics soon, he would die. Even more pressing was transportation. When I took stock of how much Cladoxpan I’d consumed in twenty-four hours, I realized my reserve would only last five days. Six, if I stretched it. It would take at least three weeks to walk to Gulfport.
I climbed out of the wrecked bus and started walking. I felt strangely elated and free, the way I did at the start of the Apocalypse when I had only myself to rely on. Lucia’s face rose up before me. I loved her with all my soul, but at that moment, she and I were on different paths. I prayed she was OK and that I’d find her again.
After two hours of walking, I stopped suddenly. In the distance, surrounded by a dense grove of leafless, dwarf trees, was a one-horse town next to the train tracks. My heart raced. I took the gun out of my bag and checked the magazine. I took out two bullets and put them in my pocket, with a shudder. If things went wrong, one of the bullets was for Lucullus. The other was for me.
I approached the town very cautiously. The station platform was littered with bodies, skeletons, and cast-off clothes. It must’ve been one of the stops where the Green Guards dumped their miserable human cargo. My senses on high alert, I plastered myself against a wall and picked my way through the wreckage.
The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z) Page 22
