by Mike Kraus
The end of the second day of work brought renewed hope to the trio as they sat around a small fire just outside the lead locomotive, rewarding themselves for their hard work with a night of rest. Marcus stroked Sam’s back as the dog laid sprawled out in front of the fire, dozing with an expression of ecstasy on his face.
“How much more do you figure we have to go before it’s done?” David’s question was the most he had spoken since the end of his argument with Rachel. Looking at Marcus briefly, Rachel cleared her throat and took a sip from her bottle of water.
“I think we’ve done all we can for laying out the ties. That was a hell of a job, by the way; we should all be proud of that.” Marcus nodded and smiled in agreement as she continued. “Now that the damaged ends of track are gone, we have to decide how to put down more of it. The way I see it, since we don’t have nearly enough ties out there, we’ll want to use the longer sections of track over the shorter ones.”
“The disadvantage,” Marcus interrupted, “is that they’re much heavier and harder to handle than the shorter pieces.”
“Exactly. So that’s what we have to decide. I think the longer sections will offer us more stability when we actually try to get across them, but it’s going to take a while to put them in. If we use the shorter sections without having more ties, though, then I think that has a much greater likelihood of falling apart when it comes time to test it out.”
Rachel looked at David, whose gaze was transfixed on the flickering fire. “What do you think, David?”
David blinked several times and took in a sharp, quick breath as he looked up at her. “Sorry, what?”
“Are you all right, David?” Marcus put his hand out on David’s shoulder, feeling the man pull away ever so slightly at the touch.
“Sorry, yeah I’m fine. Just distracted, that’s all.”
Rachel tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “What’s going on?”
“Right now we have no way of contacting Leonard and Nancy, assuming they’re still alive and made it to the sub. The only satellite radio uplink that I know of was in the APC, and that’s long since gone.”
“Doesn’t the train have a radio of some sort?” Marcus resumed stroking Sam’s fur, keeping an eye on David as he did so.
“I assume so, but that’s just a standard high power transmitter. The range on that will be limited to a few hundred miles, if we’re extremely lucky and can boost the power, too.”
Rachel closed her eyes, imagining how far such a transmission range would get them. “Damn. That’s a decent distance, but not very far.”
“Especially when you’re trying to coordinate a nuclear launch.”
“Well,” Marcus said, trying his best to be cheerful, “it shouldn’t come to that, right? Bertha’s going to make the need for more nukes something to not even worry about.”
“One can only hope so.” The dread and uncertainty that permeated David’s words was lost on neither Marcus nor Rachel. As the group fell silent, Marcus lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. As he fell quickly to sleep, a thought tickled the back of his mind, making him feel even more nervous. If they couldn’t reach Leonard and Nancy to tell them to launch the missiles, then they would also be unable to reach them to keep the missiles from launching.
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
1:22 PM, April 23, 2038
Nancy had not slept soundly for the last two nights in the medical ward. Despite the extra blankets and pillows provided to her by Commander Krylov, every time she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help imagining the waters just outside the hull, pushing inward with a frightening amount of force. When she was able to sleep, it wasn’t soundly, and she found herself waking at the slightest noises. While the normal disturbances were the creak of the hull, a crewman walking down the corridor or the doctor periodically coming to check up on Leonard, the latest agitation came from the sound of rubber tapping along upon metal.
Nancy opened one eye, searching the room to find the source of the noise when she saw Leonard’s empty bed. Springing out of her cot, she looked frantically around the room to see where Leonard had gone.
“Whoa there! What’s wrong?” Leaning up against a wall, Leonard had crutches under his arms as he balanced on one leg. He hobbled back towards her, moving slowly as he was still growing accustomed to this new way of getting around.
“You shouldn’t be up!” Nancy rushed to his side and put her arm around him, but he shrugged her off, giving her a smile as she watched him walk around the room.
“It’s okay, Nancy. I’m just getting used to these damned things. Are you all right? You jumped up pretty quickly there.”
Nancy sank back down on the cot and held her head as she was overcome with a wave of dizziness. Leonard sat down next to her and leaned his crutches against the wall. They slipped almost as soon as he let them go, clattering to the floor out of reach. Leonard sighed and shook his head, laughing softly to himself. He patted his right leg gently, smiling at Nancy as she looked at him in concern.
“This sure has turned out to be one interesting trip we’ve taken. I have to say, though, that I didn’t expect to lose a leg along the way.”
Nancy started to smile but stopped, feeling bad about it the second the corners of her mouth started to turn upward. Leonard took her hand and grasped it tightly. “Don’t be afraid to laugh, even in the face of all of this.”
Nancy tried to force a smile as she stood up. “You really shouldn’t be up and around right now… if you were in a hospital, they’d make you—”
“I’m not in a hospital, am I? Besides, I’m not going to be much use to you all if I’m lying around with my foot in the air. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
Leonard pushed himself up on his good leg and stood at the edge of the bed, one hand on the upper bunk as he watched Nancy closely. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks as she felt overcome with sorrow for Leonard and the position they were in. Leonard held out his arms and she hugged him tightly, trying to fight the steady tide of emotion. A few moments passed in silence before she pulled away, only to have Leonard hold her shoulders and look her closely in the eye.
“We’re almost done with this, Nancy.” Leonard’s voice was an island of calm stability. “Just hang on a bit longer.”
The door to the medical ward slammed open and two crewmen rushed in, out of breath and with red faces. Nancy quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and collected the crutches from the floor, giving them to Leonard who tucked them under his arms. After taking a deep breath, the first of the two crewman tried to explain something to Leonard and Nancy, though a combination of poor language skills and having run nearly the full length of the ship made him difficult to understand.
“Commander! You come! Hurry!”
The two crewmen ducked back out into the hallway and resumed their run, their footsteps echoing down the corridor until they were heard no more. Nancy and Leonard looked at each other and Leonard shrugged and began to hop forward on his crutches. Nancy put out a hand to stop him but he shook his head and kept going forward, moving faster with each step he took. “It sounds like they want both of us. Let’s get moving.”
Though Leonard had to slow down as he and Nancy passed through each bulkhead, he virtually flew down the corridor, swinging his leg to get as much speed and momentum from the crutches as possible. Just as his arms began to burn from the exercise, they arrived at the command deck. Commander Krylov was seated in a chair in the center of the room studying a sheet of paper while the rest of the crew worked dutifully at their stations. The atmosphere on the command deck was different than it had been over the last few days; more electric and alive. Nancy and Leonard could sense anticipation building in the crew for some unknown event.
“Commander Krylov? Some of your crew came to the medical ward and said you wanted to see us?”
Krylov straightened in his chair and swiveled around at the sound of Nancy’s voice. “Ms. Sims. Mr. McComb? What on earth are you doin
g out of bed?” Krylov rose and hurried to Leonard’s side, helping Nancy ease the injured man into a nearby seat.
“Thanks for that.” Leonard said hoarsely. Out of breath from their mad dash to the command deck, he gasped loudly for a moment, feeling the blood pound through his heart and injured leg. Krylov started to call the doctor over, but Leonard refused, holding his hand up and shaking his head. “No, I’m fine. What did you want to see us about?”
Krylov kept a nervous eye on Leonard as he addressed the pair, somewhat worried about whether Leonard might collapse to the floor. “I’m terribly sorry that the request for your presence was delivered in such an apparently urgent manner. I just wanted to show Ms. Sims some new satellite imagery we obtained so that she and you could give us your opinions of it, Mr. McComb.”
Krylov picked up a laptop and held it out for Nancy, who took it and sat down next to Leonard. The two of them looked at the satellite imagery on the screen, unsure of what they were seeing at first. “What are we looking at?”
“This is imagery from forty-five minutes ago at the canal, where we’ll be crossing in a day or so. Zoom in on the lower half, and tell me what you see clustered on and around the bridge.”
Leonard tapped a few keys and the image changed, magnifying the location Krylov specified. A bridge was visible, stretching high over the canal. Four lanes wide, it was not empty or filled with vehicles, as Leonard and Nancy were expecting, but instead it was filled with bodies. Thousands of creatures packed together as they streamed across the bridge. Creatures were spread out across every square inch of visible land on both ends of the bridge, and from a series of images taken a few moments apart, it was clear that they were moving rapidly northward as they disregarded every obstacle in their path.
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry
11:17 AM, April 24, 2038
“One… two… three… lift!”
Rachel, Marcus and David all grunted as they strained to lift the thick steel track on top of one of the wooden ties that had been laid down in the gravel. With Rachel at one end of the beam and Marcus and David at the other, they worked to slide and push the track onto the edge of the tie before stopping. Frequent breaks had been a requisite part of their work considering that each of them was still dealing with the injuries they had sustained, but the work was moving along smoothly, though not as quickly as they had hoped.
“Nice job guys… let’s get this one hammered in.” Rachel smiled at David and Marcus who were leaning against each other, groaning from the efforts of their exertion. Each of them only had the full use of one of their arms, so they fell in naturally to helping one another, working to support and brace each other as they moved the heavy equipment on the tracks. Hefting a long-handled hammer into the air, Rachel motioned toward a pile of spikes on the gravel. “Who wants their fingers pinched?”
With a grimace, Marcus leaned down and held one of the spikes vertically over a hole in the rail flush with the wooden tie, keeping it at arm’s length and turning his head away. With a flourish, Rachel raised the hammer above her head and brought it down on the spike. Splintering the wood as it traveled forward, the spike dug a full inch into the wooden tie before stopping. Marcus pulled his hand away and stood up as Rachel brought the hammer down again, delivering several more blows to the spike before finally stopping. She let the head of the hammer fall to the gravel near her feet and drew her arm across her forehead, looking at the dark cloud cover above.
“Just a few more to go, and we’ll be ready to test it out.” As each length of replacement track was pulled on to the ties, Rachel continued to attach the two together with railroad spikes. Compared to a professional job, the work was sloppy and sub-par, but it was enough that even David’s attitude began to improve.
The normal passage of time marked by the sun was non-existent thanks to the storms, and by the time Marcus glanced at his watch, it was nearly midnight. He, Rachel and David were all exhausted as they walked the length of the track, pointing out the small and large flaws and strengths in the work they had performed. While the replacement rail wouldn’t hold up to repetitive travel, the three agreed that, if their luck held, it might just allow the locomotives and a few of the train cars to pass before giving way under the stress.
Marcus and David collapsed on the ground near the locomotive. Their heads hung to their chests and sweat dripped from their faces, falling to the dirt with the tiniest of splashes. Rachel stood over them for a moment as she surveyed the rail before she sat down next to them, taking a proffered bottle of water from Marcus. The three sat quietly for nearly an hour as they rested, watching Sam wander around the newly constructed rail as he sniffed what seemed to be every piece of gravel and every inch of wood, iron and steel. Finally, after they had recovered a bit from the day’s work, Rachel pushed herself up to a standing position and looked back at the train just behind them.
“What do you say, guys? Can we get the cars uncoupled and test this out tonight?”
Marcus’s first instinct was to laugh, lie down, and go to sleep. With a sigh, though, he took Rachel’s outstretched hand and stood up next to her, helping David up along the way. The three stood together for a moment, looking at the makeshift railroad and the massive train that they were hoping the rail would somehow support.
“Well,” David said as he walked toward the locomotive, “time to find out whether we’re going to fail or not.”
The couplings holding the train cars together were simple to unlock and, together, David and Marcus unlocked the one between the third and fourth train cars, leaving the locomotives and three boxcars connected in the lead group. As they worked on the coupling, Rachel pored over the controls in the lead locomotive, trying to learn them well enough to start the lead engine up. Without warning, the locomotive engines came to life, causing David and Marcus to jump away from the train. They ran to the lead locomotive which had already started inching forward, pulling themselves in through a side door.
“Were you going to warn us about that?” Marcus shouted over the sound of the engines as Rachel worked the controls frantically.
“Sorry! A little busy here! Did you uncouple the cars?”
“They’re disconnected and we’re ready. How far will we go, though? Just to the edge of the repaired track?”
Marcus, David and Rachel all grabbed frantically for handholds as the train lurched forward. Rachel jabbed at several buttons, but it was no use. “I think the train’s in an automatic startup cycle! I don’t know how to stop it!”
Unburdened by the hundreds of tons worth of boxcars it had been towing previously, the train accelerated quickly down the track, speeding toward the repaired section at a much faster pace than Rachel had planned. She had hoped to move the train slowly along the repaired area while David and Marcus walked on either side, checking to make sure the repairs would hold up under the train so that they might have a chance to fix any problems as they came up. The train had its own agenda though, and the power of the locomotives all working in unison drove them forward inexorably with no chance of stopping.
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
2:28 PM, April 24, 2038
As Leonard stepped through the bulkhead, Nancy kept her arm outstretched, preparing to catch him in case he tripped. While he had shown remarkable improvements over the last day, Nancy was still concerned about the fast pace Leonard was forcing upon himself after such a major operation. Refusing to listen to any of her arguments, though, Leonard insisted on being allowed to exercise vigorously, mainly by walking for hours through the vast corridors of the Arkhangelsk.
Since last seeing Commander Krylov, Nancy and Leonard had spoken little about the satellite imagery of the canal, though it was weighing heavily on both of their minds. When Leonard finally stopped to rest and eat, Nancy took the opportunity to discuss the situation with him over a bowl of suspicious-looking stew.
“How far do you figure until we’re there?”
Leonard looked up at the
wall clock and shrugged. “A few hours maybe. We should get an hour or two of sleep if we can beforehand. Krylov’s probably going to want us up there with him while we go through the canal.”
“Any ideas as to why they’re all traveling north? There had to be hundreds of them.”
“Tens of thousands. And that’s just what we could see. I’m guessing they’re heading to the same place as the ones we saw on the way west, starting at Samuel’s compound.”
