Final Dawn: Season 2 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series)

by Mike Kraus

  Marcus finally caught up with the train, and brought the APC alongside the last car, keeping his gaze fixed on the path ahead with only a few glances at the train to his left. He shouted back to Rachel as they grew even with the car. “We’re at the back of the train now!”

  “Keep us steady!” Rachel slung her rifle around her neck and under one arm before feeling around the back of Bertha for the door release on her side of the rear compartment. David’s eyes grew wide as he realized what she was about to do, but his protestations were lost in the wind as Rachel popped the door. The right-hand door on the back of the APC swung open hard, smacking against the side of the vehicle before settling down into a steady swinging motion. Keeping her right hand on the inside of the closed left door, Rachel hung half of her body out on the back of the APC, keeping her rifle in her left arm as she squinted against the blowing winds.

  The next five train cars appeared the same as the last, though once Marcus pulled even with the seventh, all hell broke loose. The side door of the seventh car rolled open, revealing a pack of creatures jammed inside from stem to stern like sardines in a can. Marcus and Rachel stared at the creatures, watching as the pack slowly turned their heads to stare back at the APC and the people inside. With a snarl, three of the creatures pulled themselves onto the roof of the train car and leapt out at the APC.

  Anticipating their move, Marcus had already started to maneuver the APC, bringing it hard left toward the train as he continued to accelerate. Two of the creatures missed the vehicle entirely while the third barely managed to scrape the top as it went flying past, landing with its brethren in the trees. Before more of the creatures could try to get on board the APC, Marcus had already moved up beside the next train car and was continuing on.

  Though the APC had moved away from the creatures, that made no difference to the beasts. A dozen more creatures poured out of the train car, clinging to the top of the train as they struggled against the wind to move forward toward the armored vehicle. Though the creatures were strong, they weren’t prepared for the savage wind and vibrations on the top of the train cars, and more than a few of the creatures slipped and fell. Some tumbled onto the ground, escaping unscathed, while others fell between the train cars, their bodies making a sickening squeal as they were torn apart by the train wheels.

  “Any advice would be appreciated!” Marcus yelled as loudly as possible. The creatures on top of the train were gaining on the APC. Worse, though, was that more of the train cars were opening, revealing more creatures that began to chase after the vehicle. The more train cars they passed, the more creatures came after them, making Marcus exceptionally nervous.

  Several more creatures had tried to jump onto the armored car, and though none had succeeded, Marcus had come dangerously close to crashing into the trees or the train on more than one occasion as he slid the APC back and forth. With each maneuver, Marcus saw that the creatures were getting cleverer as they started timing their jumps to get closer to the APC. With no clear strategy in mind, Marcus hoped that Rachel and David would implement whatever plan they had before the creatures managed to take them down.

  Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

  6:02 AM, April 21, 2038

  The buzz of a plane engine far overhead distracted Leonard from the sight of the powerful submarine making its way toward the docks. He looked up, holding a hand over his brow, to see a small airplane swooping in toward the APC at a dangerously steep angle. The sight of an aircraft not only functioning but airborne was a strange one, and both Leonard and Nancy found themselves frozen in a mixture of curiosity and fear.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Nancy shielded her eyes as the airplane circled around overhead, passing in front of the sun. Leonard nodded slowly, knowing that Nancy’s unspoken assumption had to be true.

  “How the hell did he get a plane up in the air?” Leonard wondered aloud, remembering the twisted and overturned aircraft at the Whitehorse airfield. “None of them worked, unless he found one we missed.”

  “I don’t know, but we need to get moving, and fast!”

  From inside the cockpit of the small aircraft, Samuel coughed heavily as his head spun. He swallowed five pills, three of them painkillers and two of them stimulants. Despite his blurred vision and shaking hands, he held the plane steady enough to make out both passengers in the APC. Though he couldn’t see the faces of the occupants of the armored vehicle, there was no doubt as to their identities. After passing just a few hundred feet over them, Samuel pulled back on the stick, turning the plane up and to the side as he passed over the bay. Heading back to land on the beach that was near the dock where the APC was, Samuel didn’t notice the large black shape passing below in the waters.

  In the control room of the Arkhangelsk, watching through a periscope, Commander Krylov saw both the APC and the plane passing overhead. He shook his head in confusion, trying to discern who the people were that were suddenly all gathered around his ship. He pulled back from the periscope and stared off at the bulkhead for a few seconds as he ran the possible options through his head. Moving swiftly to his chair, he pointed to a man standing nervously nearby.

  “Bring us up!” The command was short and harsh and he barked at the crewman who jumped into action. A few seconds later the Arkhangelsk began to rise, surfacing as she slowly continued to make her way to the end of the docks. From Leonard and Nancy’s perspective, the sight of the Arkhangelsk showing her full length and girth was a sight unlike any they had seen before.

  Water poured off of the deck, rushing back into the sea as the black mass surged to the surface. Unlike the submarines that Nancy and Leonard knew from books and movies, the flat deck of the Arkhangelsk made her look more like a surface vessel than one designed to travel under the water. Rows of circular indentations were located in the fore of the ship, marking the locations of the missiles that were nestled safely inside the mighty vessel’s hull.

  The sail of the Arkhangelsk—sometimes referred to as the conning tower—slid majestically out of the water and Leonard caught sight of the periscope hatch closing as Commander Krylov ordered the device to be lowered. Finally, as the Arkhangelsk began to reach her waterline, the tail rudder appeared out of the water, completing the iconic image of the majestic craft.

  Trembling in fear upon seeing the Russian submarine laid out before them, Nancy grabbed Leonard’s hand. “What do we do now?”

  Leonard and Nancy both stepped out of the APC and watched the submarine move toward the docks. Leonard took a deep breath, having completely forgotten about the small plane that had buzzed over them before flying off again. “Pray that they have someone on board who speaks English.”

  Nancy’s nervous chuckle was cut short as the sound of an explosion came from directly behind them. A high-powered gunshot came next, followed quickly by another explosion. The second explosion erupted out of the back of the APC, causing Leonard and Nancy to duck down low as they spun around, looking for the source of the shots.

  Out of sight, hidden in an outcropping of rocks at the far end of the docks, Samuel breathed heavily from exhaustion, having run several hundred feet from where the plane landed in the sand to a vantage point where he could clearly see Leonard and Nancy. With his hands still shaking from both the run and his body’s overall weariness, he had missed his first shot, but was determined not to miss any more.

  The shot landed as Commander Krylov popped the hatch on the Arkhangelsk’s sail and began to climb out. Instinctively he kept low as he exited the submarine, motioning to a crewmember below to hand him a pair of binoculars. At the sub’s slow rate of speed, it was easy for Krylov to get a fix on the man and woman who were crouched behind an armored vehicle, taking cover from a hidden shooter a few hundred meters away.

  So focused as he was on Nancy and Leonard, Samuel didn’t notice the submarine until a low rumbling horn sounded as the Arkhangelsk’s collision alarm sounded. Pressing the button manually, Krylov hoped that he would be able to get the attention of
the people on the docks so that they would cease their fighting. Nancy and Leonard held their hands to their ears as the horn rattled them fiercely, so loud that they thought their eardrums might burst. From behind the outcropping of rocks, Samuel ceased firing momentarily and raised his head, a puzzled expression on his face as he saw the Arkhangelsk sliding up toward the dock.

  “You’ll not get away this time!” Convinced that the submarine had been arranged by Leonard and Nancy as a last-ditch escape—and thoroughly unaware of how ludicrous that idea was—Samuel resumed his firing on the APC, trying to scare Leonard and Nancy enough so that they would run from their hiding place. The constant impact from the explosive rounds shot from Samuel’s rifle kept Leonard and Nancy pinned, though they knew they couldn’t stay there for long. Samuel was getting closer to them with each shot, and though none were direct hits, the spray of concrete and hot metal fragments from the bullets was becoming dangerous.

  As Leonard and Nancy continued to take fire from Samuel’s position, Commander Krylov directed the Arkhangelsk closer to the port, bringing it within a dozen feet of the thick wooden planks. The water was just barely deep enough for the submarine to avoid bottoming out, and with the tide about to start going out, they wouldn’t be able to remain in position for long. Staying low in the sail, Krylov watched the two individuals trapped behind the armored vehicle. They didn’t appear to have military training, as the woman was holding tightly to the man’s waist as they both kept huddled together, trying to present as small a target as possible. They were also unarmed, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Krylov, and which automatically made them less of a threat in his eyes than the individual firing upon them.

  Looking back toward the landward end of the docks, Krylov caught a glint of sunlight from the shooter’s rifle scope, though it was hard to make out the individual’s entire body. If he was going to try to get the two trapped individuals onto the Arkhangelsk, he would have to try to distract the shooter with some return fire.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  6:00 AM, April 21, 2038

  This is suicide.

  Scarcely half an hour ago, Marcus had been walking through the woods. Listening to the wind and insects had taken him back to his camping trip on the night the bombs fell. Now, horrifying screams from just a few feet away made him cringe, and though he wanted to simply close his eyes and drift back into his memories, there was too much work left to do. As Marcus fought against himself to keep his eyes open and to stay with the fight, a familiar feeling washed over him. It was the urge to run, to take the APC through the trees, over the hill and away from the creatures, reminding him of when he had driven away from the overpass and thrown caution to the wind.

  Unlike the last time, though, Marcus fought against the urge to run. He took a deep breath and willed his heart rate to slow. He pushed the thoughts of fleeing to the edges of his mind and focused on the singular task laid out in front of him. The survival of himself, Rachel, David, Leonard, Nancy and the rest of the world was hanging in the balance of what would happen in the next few days. Allowing the scales to be unfairly tipped toward the enemy was not—could not—be an option.

  This is still suicide.

  “Marcus! GO!”

  Rachel screamed at Marcus again and his eyes snapped open. With his foot planted firmly on the accelerator, he pushed the armored vehicle to its limits, racing against the train which he could swear was increasing in speed as well. Rachel’s hastily constructed plan was, in Marcus’s own words, “suicide,” but they had no other realistic option.

  The first part of the plan required that they get in front of the train, which was a monumental challenge in and of itself. The train was exceedingly long, and though Marcus was driving as fast as possible, the minutes stretched by agonizingly slowly as he fought with the armored vehicle, trying to eke out speeds at which it had never been designed to operate. At last, though, the lead engine appeared in the distance, and Marcus shouted back to Rachel to alert her to the fact.

  “We’re approaching the front! Get ready!”

  Though they were not yet in front of the train, the next part of the plan had to be put into motion before they actually got there. Sitting on the bench seat with his computer on his lap, David struggled to both stay upright and actually see the computer screen through all of the bouncing he had to endure. Looking at a blurry, real-time satellite feed, David had zoomed in on the area where the train and the APC were, hunting along the train tracks for a suitable location for the next part of the plan.

  “There!” David jabbed a finger at the screen, sending waves of rainbows rippling to its edges. “We’re five minutes out from the first bend, and it looks like it’ll take the end about seven minutes to reach the same bend. We’ll only have a three minute window, though, so we can’t screw this up!”

  Rachel was still holding on to the interior of the APC’s left rear hatch door as she hung half her body out the back, watching the train pass by. “Okay, Marcus, get us to the front right now! We’ll hit the button in thirteen minutes!”

  This is suicide. The thought hadn’t left Marcus’s mind, but he obeyed Rachel’s instruction, moving the APC forward even more until they were driving alongside the track about twenty feet ahead of the train.

  “Hold on!” Marcus took a deep breath and eased the vehicle onto the tracks, wincing as it bounced and bucked violently going over the rails. Rachel eased herself back into the APC just before they crossed over, though she was flung back out. Barely catching herself on the door in time, she scrambled to get back in the vehicle as she watched a cluster of creatures gather on the top of the lead train engine. The creatures pushed each other back and forth as they watched Rachel regain her foothold and pull herself partway into the APC before sliding forward on the bench seat.

  “How much longer, David?”

  “Two more minutes! We’ll have a half second burst and then we should be good to go.”

  The next two minutes were the longest of Marcus’s life. He fought desperately with the steering wheel to keep them on the tracks, but each railroad tie they passed over threatened to throw them off course. Keeping the tracks centered between the wheels of the APC was a monumental task, and Marcus could feel himself growing wearier by the second. Just when he thought he couldn’t handle the situation any longer, David shouted from the back compartment.

  “Get ready! I’m starting the countdown! Three… two… one!”

  Marcus grimaced as David counted down, not sure what to expect from the enormous weapon sitting just behind him. As much as he thought there might be a loud explosion, a horrendous blast or some other type of powerful sound coming from Bertha, the only initial indication that something had changed was Rachel and David shouting with glee. The next indication came in the form of a terrible set of cries from the creatures as the nanobots in their bodies were overpowered, giving off a bright white glow before shutting down completely, taking the creatures with them.

  The creatures on top of the boxcars were the first to go, falling off to the sides like ragdolls to land on the ground or be crushed under the train’s wheels. The creatures crowding the boxcars went next, falling out like firewood as the train vibrated and shook back and forth. The train itself, though, didn’t slow down, cutting the celebration short and leading to Marcus’s next shouted question.

  “Now what?”

  The smiles on David and Rachel’s faces melted away as they realized that a crucial part of their plan—actually stopping the train—hadn’t come to fruition. They had killed the creatures on board the train, but it was still traveling at a breakneck speed toward its destination. Unless it was stopped or derailed, it would more than likely reach the coast, bringing more supplies to the nexus that was nearing completion.

  Rachel took a deep breath and slid towards the back of the APC. Reaching out, she grabbed onto the left hatch and swung it closed again before locking it into place. “Slow us down, Marcus! Put our ass right on the
nose of the train!”

  Marcus complied without hesitation, letting off of gas ever so slightly. The train slowly began catching up with them and Rachel readied herself, cinching her rifle tight on her back and taking several deep breaths to try to steady her nerves. When the APC was just a few feet from the nose of the train, Rachel looked at David, who suddenly realized what she was about to do.

  “Rachel… don’t you dare!”

  Ignoring David’s plea, Rachel flung herself from the back of the APC, leaping as high into the air as she could. The distance between the train and the armored vehicle was small enough that she landed on the front of the train without incident and managed to quickly find handholds and footholds to steady herself with.

  “What the hell?” Marcus looked in the rearview mirror, shocked by what he saw, and did a double take, convinced at first that he was hallucinating. He watched Rachel complete the short jump, landing hard on the front of the locomotive before he turned back around to focus on not running off of the tracks.