by Gwynn White
The survivors made short work of the advancing stragglers, but the rest of the tide was now enveloping the train.
The shooting intensified, already very close behind them.
As they walk-ran along the train, so did the undead. Screams of people who got caught. Curses of men and women. The frantic cries of children. The drone of a surging pack of angry, feral, zombies.
Some who jumped off the train to escape jumped right back on as they realized what was heading their way. But many people who had abandoned the train had the same idea as Liam. They were gambling their lives on being able to cross the smaller river to their front. They were all much faster than he was, even the children.
Don't look back.
He was shocked to realize there were fewer and fewer shooters behind them. They finally ran out of ammo. They'd been in a shooting gallery all morning.
He saw several officers and a few of the remaining gang members and their families in a tight group ahead of them, running for the bridge. Finally, he saw the engineers and their family. Everyone left alive from the train was making for the only direction suitable for the very young, the very old, or the slow.
They reached the midpoint of the train and saw most of it was now empty, save the scattered few who chose to stay put. For the most part, those were hiding and appeared unwilling to shoot and call attention to themselves.
They walked as fast as Grandma could go with two people to help her along. A half-carry, half-drag arrangement. Even so, as he approached the Valkyrie, Liam dropped Grandma's weight onto Victoria and told them to continue without him for a minute, and he climbed the side of the diesel. He was happy neither asked questions. Victoria kept the pace, moving Grandma toward the bridge.
He rushed to where the engineers and crew stowed their gear. The item he had spotted earlier was still there. He grabbed it, tucked it into his waistband, and ran back outside and along the railing. He ran forward, hopping to the dead train engine at the very front. Once he reached the absolute front of the entire train, he flew over the handrail, hanging on just long enough to slow himself so he could deftly drop the last few feet to the ground. He willed himself to ignore the noise of the infected wave approaching him.
He pumped hard as he ran toward the two women. Victoria and Grandma were entering the nominal safety of the near side of the bridge. He was relieved his diversion didn't slow them down significantly. He knew what he did was reckless, but it felt right and necessary.
He closed the distance. Waiting in front of him, just on the cusp of the bridge decking, were a good number of the remaining police officers and gang members from the train. One man stood out from the whole group, a shirtless guy with a pair of bandoliers filled with vibrant red shotgun shells over both his shoulders, forming a distinctive “X” on his chest. The shotgun itself lay over his shoulder, and he was waving Liam in while puffing on a fat cigar.
Never look back!
He sped across the last fifty feet of rail before the bridge and entered the protection of the men and women standing their ground with a thunderous boom. An explosion of gunfire that almost made him soil himself. Some of the zombies were much closer than he thought possible, given his speed.
The fusillade bought some breathing room, but the end was already written unless they could all get over to the other side. He wasn't about to suggest both sides start shooting each other ...
He caught up with Grandma and Victoria and they continued dragging her over the bridge, passing all the survivors left from the train. There were several he recognized as the “new people” from the pit mine. He noticed lots of kids saved from the Arch grounds, now universally in tears. There were a few older people, though no one even close to Grandma's age. And a group of nuns was there. Where did they come from?
The trio was near the midpoint before the Arnold Police told them once again to stop. He and Victoria had started carrying Grandma, without realizing it. They set her on her feet, but her body had gone limp, so he eased her down to lie on the bridge.
“Grandma … ” he began. Her eyes were closed. A light seemed to have gone out of her face.
“Grandma! Wake up!” He flopped down next to her, completely at a loss what to do.
Victoria knelt on her other side, reaching for her wrist and neck—searching for a pulse.
“I can't tell if she's breathing,” she announced in a steady voice.
Liam sat useless as she tried CPR under the press of the battle nearby. He held Grandma's hand, willing her to come back. Time seemed to fizzle as his vision clouded with tears.
Finally, when he found his focus, Victoria sat limply—covered in sweat from exertion and tears from crying. She gave him a sad, stunned look. “I'm so sorry. I think she's gone.”
“What? No! No! No!” He didn't know who to blame. The police blocking them? The zombies? Himself? He was a fool to take her into the Zombie Apocalypse ...
Victoria's demeanor changed like the Missouri weather. She wiped the tears, cleared her forehead of sweat and grime, and got a serious look in her eyes. Her sadness turned to anger, and unlike him, she had a target already picked out.
“They. Are going. To pay!” she said tersely to him as she got to her feet.
She shouted above all the other noise, surprising him and encouraging him at the same time.
“You stupid bastards! She's dead because of you! You could have saved her! Can't you see that? We're all going to die for your worthless rules. The plague can't be stopped. Look!” She swept her arm back toward the train and the advancing undead. “It's here right now, and you're standing there with your hands in your pockets! D—” She paused, then let it fly. “Damn you all!”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She collapsed beside Grandma, crying profusely. Obviously spent.
Liam felt … nothing. Much like after his first encounter with Angie. At that moment all he could do was hold Grandma's hand one last time. The screams of men, the concussion of guns, and the deathly buzz of the zombie horde were all distant background noises.
“Liam, don't fuss over me. Save Victoria,” is what Grandma would say to him.
He looked up and saw the lead police officer walking a few steps closer toward where he and Victoria were comforting Grandma. His men called out to him, warning him not to get too close. Liam found that ironic. Grandma would have laughed at that too.
Inwardly he had to keep trudging along.
What do I do now?
For the first time in a long while, he was out of ideas.
18
Shadow Government
Marty woke up with an exclamation of incredulity. She was lying next to a large frozen waterfall. Not frozen in ice. Frozen without motion. The ground under her body was lush with green grass, and there were several trees and bushes in her vicinity, but the primary feature was the waterfall tumbling into a crystal clear natural pool. Around her on all sides was darkness.
Her amazement multiplied when she looked up. Beaming down from the heavens were a nearly infinite number of stars. To her eyes, they had to be part of an elaborate illusion. She swore she could see each one clear enough to see planets spinning around them. The number of visible points of light was beyond reckoning.
Her husband or angel—she wasn't sure which—was sitting cross-legged, not far from her. “Hello, Marty. You've made it to the end of the line.”
“I'm dead?”
“Why do you always think you're dead? No. I'm pleased to say you still aren't dead. I meant you made it to the end of the rail line.” He chuckled a little and continued. “You passed out while you were running with your two young friends. I don't think they realized you had surpassed your limits. They now believe you're gone.”
“I get mistaken for dead a lot these days. I'd hate for poor Liam to think that, though.”
“It's no wonder you're so loved. You never think of yourself.”
She couldn't help but think of her deceptions of not telling Liam about Angie or about shooting
the robber. She was feeling guilty for her sins of omission.
“Don't trouble yourself with minor things like that. You made legitimate decisions to protect your great-grandson. Though, looking at how hard he tried to save you just now, I think your plan backfired.”
“I think he wants to prove to Victoria he can protect me.”
“Perhaps. But maybe he wants to prove to you that he can protect you.”
“I guess we all lose. We're all going to die, aren't we?”
“You mean eventually? Yes, I'm afraid you're all going to die. But are you going to die today? That's less clear.”
He stood up, offering a hand. Her body was strong in this place, so she was able to take it and be on her feet in a flash. He guided her to the clear pond.
“What is this place?”
He walked slightly ahead of her and answered while looking up at the majestic waterfall. “Do you know what makes you so important?”
“No, I've been kinda busy lately to be introspective.” She gave a tired laugh. Her body might be refreshed in this place, but her mind was still saddled with the death and destruction of the last four days.
“Ha! I love your sense of humor.” He pointed to a section of froth on the frozen waterfall, very near the bottom. “You see that drop there? Right there! That's Earth.”
“I think I'm hallucinating. Planet Earth is in a waterfall?”
“Actually, it would be most accurate to say you're looking at a type of chart of all the planets in the universe. Not to scale, of course.”
“Now, let's get a little closer.” As he said it, the “waterfall” seemed to magnify, so the Earth was about the size of a marble among an untold number of similar marbles. She watched him move his fingers over a very faint ghost keypad, manipulating the waterfall. “Ah, there we go. Now, do you notice anything unusual about your planet?”
She looked at the multitude of worlds, succumbing to distraction at the beauty and wonder of it all. Some looked very much like Earth, verdant and cloud-filled. Others were desert worlds. Some appeared to be gas worlds, shown with slightly larger marbles. Looking up, the planets seemed to stretch to infinity. But most of the orbs had a bright light around them; an artificial background glow which seemed to make them pop out from the waterfall itself.
“The Earth doesn't have that white glow behind it. Many of the others do.”
“Most excellent! Yes. Yes. That cosmic glow represents many wonderful things. The underpinning science would take me a human lifetime to explain with mathematics—and perhaps some philosophy.”
“Oh dear. I don't have that much time left in my life.”
“Au contraire, my Martinette. You are just now reaching an age where you can appreciate what I'm about to tell you. A younger person doesn't have the maturity to reach this place at all. That maturity is what makes you so special.”
“Is that a polite way of saying I'm an old and worn-out woman? That's what I feel like when I come here.”
“No! Not at all. I wish I had more time with you, but demands have been placed on both of us. Your attention is needed out on the bridge. I have a whole universe to manage.” He pointed to the waterfall as if that explained everything.
Seeming satisfied, he touched his floating keypad and swiped the waterfall away and replaced it with an overhead view of herself lying on the bridge, surrounded by a stunned Liam and a distraught Victoria "speaking in tongues" with foul language. An officer in black was moving closer as his men yelled at him. Panning out, the scene showed the police on one side of the bridge, armed but not shooting, and the infected attacking mercilessly toward the survivors of the train on the other end.
“You have much to do. The first baby step you must take is to carry a tool with you out into the world. That aid will help you get off this bridge. Your next steps must be to establish a connection with the two most important people in your life. I'm impressed how fast you developed the link with Liam—the green car on the bridge was his memory, probably from one of his books, if I had to guess. And the last cosmic leap you will take is establishing the light behind your planet on the waterfall I showed you.”
“I want to believe I'm important to whatever,” she looked around her, “this incredible place is, but you can see what's going to happen just as I can. There's no way, short of a miracle, I'm going to survive the day.”
Al smiled. “My dearest Martinette, have I got a surprise for you. I'm not only going to get you across that bridge, but I'm going to change the course of your entire life in the process.”
“You're talking in riddles. What exactly is the tool you're going to give me?”
“It's something, my gregarious friend, for which you are well-suited. A message,” he said in a friendly voice.
He whispered something in her ear. Then he whispered it again. “Your planet's future depends on your ability to remember this information.” He gave her a tooth-filled smile and winked exactly as she would have done.
No pressure.
Grandma started coughing.
He and Victoria screamed in unison. “She's alive!”
Grandma tried to speak, so they leaned in close. “Call out for Beth Ramos.”
“Beth Ramos? Who’s?” he started to ask. He didn’t finish the question. He would have done anything she asked of him just then.
“Beth Ramos! Looking for Beth Ramos!”
She whispered again, “Louder.”
“Where's Beth Ramos! We need her!” He yelled as loud as he was able into the din of the chaos. He faced the group from the train, assuming Beth was one of the women she'd been talking to back on the flatcar.
The lead officer of the police blocking the bridge, who looked to be about forty, well-tanned and muscular, walked the remaining distance to where Grandma was lying. Another officer from the vanguard ran up to be by his side, asking, “What are you doing, Sarge? You can't mingle with them. You might get sick.”
Liam spun around to face them. Victoria angled that way as well.
“She's calling out for Beth Ramos.” Sarge said to his officer.
“You're kidding me.”
He went down on one knee beside Grandma. “Why do you want Beth Ramos?”
He leaned closer to hear her weak voice over the volume of gunfire in the battle nearby.
“I don't know what this means, sir, but I was told to ask for Beth Ramos, and then give a message to the person who answered the call. I guess that's you?”
The officer nodded.
“Well, the message I'm supposed to give you makes no sense to me, but maybe it will to you. 'Darcy and Jokie Bunny want you to save these people'.”
“WHAT? How—” he choked up. “What's going on here?”
Liam, bewilderment on his face, looked from Grandma to the confused sergeant and then to the other officer, who put his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder.
“Beth was Phil's wife. Darcy was his daughter. Jokie Bunny—I don't know.”
“Jokie—” The sergeant struggled to control his voice while a lone tear hugged the side of his nose. “Jokie Bunny was Darcy's lovey, a stuffed toy rabbit. No one could possibly know about that rabbit. Darcy slept with it every night. We figured she couldn't live without it and made her keep it in her bed because we didn't want it to get lost. But we did let her take it out one time. She went with Darcy when my wife took her to stay overnight at a friend's house. It was going to be the first time we let her sleep away from home.”
A deep breath as the sounds of battle continued to ride high.
“My girls never made it.” He fought the tears, but not very successfully.
The other officer jumped in. “Phil's wife and daughter were in a terrible traffic accident this past winter. We all went to the funeral in support. Is that how you knew their names?”
“I was told by,” she took a deep breath, “what I believe was an angel.”
Phil lifted his tear-stained face and stared at Grandma for several long moments. Perhaps deciding i
f she was crazy.
“No one could have known about Jokie Bunny. No one. I believe you, ma'am.”
With a wipe of his tears, he stood up. “Billy, bring up the men. We're going to fight at the front of this group. Let's bring them across. To the hell with orders. We can't let these people die while we watch and do nothing.”
“You got it, Sarge.”
Billy ran back to his mates and began rounding them up.
Phil used his radio to instruct those on the far shore. He called out certain leaders, requested certain weapons, and finished with “—and enact our plan Badrovik as soon as we're all across. Out.”
Phil stood up, brushed the tears from his eyes and said, “Get your grandma across the bridge. I'd like to talk to her when we're all safe on the other side. If my wife and daughter—however it's possible—want me to let you guys across, by God, you're going to own this bridge.”
Billy's group arrived, ready for the evacuation effort. As they reached Phil, he yelled, “OK, guys, let's spray those sickos with a lead shower—Go! Go! Go!” He took off with them into the crowd of people clumped on the dangerous side of the bridge. Cheers went up with the survivors when they realized what was happening. Before moving, Liam saw the zombies had made it into the front edge of his people. The burn line between the living and dead hovered at the bridge's edge.
The Arnold Police funneled the survivors back, putting themselves nearest the fighting to fend off the blood-slick attackers as they continued to swarm toward the officers and remaining armed men from the train.
The vanguard of officers became the rear guard as they retreated across the bridge, expending ammo at a horrible rate. They were experts at the head shot—the only shot that seemed to down the infection instantly. Of course, any good student of zombie literature knows that. These guys didn't disappoint. Only a precious few fell to the murderous onslaught. Some fell through the railway ties, or off the side, to the water below. Zombies always followed them down.
