Trail of Tears

by Derek Gunn

  * * *

  Phil Regan sat in a corner of the first carriage and shivered. He had made his way up this far by offering his help to the wounded early on. He had rightly identified that this would be the safest place if they were attacked but the number of people flooding forward threatened to ruin everything. Everyone was forcing their way ahead of the thrall’s attack and the change in weight distribution threatened to derail them if something wasn’t done.

  He stood up suddenly as he had a thought. Ian Phelps looked at him curiously but was too frightened to move. Regan merely nodded and headed towards the carriage door. The engine compartment would be safer than here. If the train was in further danger of derailing then he would be able to uncouple the carriages and save himself. He should have thought of that before. He struggled to make his way to the door and forced the people back, telling anyone who would listen that he had to get forward to help make the train go faster. Even in their panicked state the concept of the train going faster seemed to get through and people moved aside.

  Regan opened the door quickly and rushed through. He turned immediately and drew the small slide across the wall, locking it and then turned towards the engine. It was cold here and the wind pulled at him as if it intended to drag him beneath the wheels of the train. He gripped the rail firmly, ignoring the chill. He had left his gloves inside but he would need his hands to climb across the short distance anyway. Smoke from the funnel flew back around him making him cough, and he was forced to get down on his hunkers and make his way forward under the trail of smoke.

  He saw three figures in the main area of the engine but he couldn’t see any way to get to them. The sides of the engine were sheer with no hand holds that he could see. In fact, the only way he could go getting forward was over the loaded fuel in the main compartment. The amount of fuel was surprisingly low. He was sure it had been a lot higher than that when he had supervised the loading.

  He looked down at the coupling beneath him and saw a metal lever coming from the engine body into the coupling mechanism. He jumped forward on to the engine side and reached down, his hand easily grasping the lever. He was about to pull on the metal when the train suddenly veered to the left as the track took a sharp turn and he lost his footing. His leg slipped down between the engine and the last carriage, and he snapped out a hand to stop himself from falling. His leg struck the ground and he felt a terrible pain as his ankle folded over on itself. He cried out and almost fainted, but the smoke swirled around him and made him cough, forcing his body to remain awake. He clung tightly to the thin railing but his hands were so cold and he didn’t have the strength to pull himself back up. His damaged ankle struck the ground again and pain surged through him.

  Surely it couldn’t end like this. He was too important. He felt his hand slip slightly and then his frozen fingers betrayed him and he was falling. Suddenly a hand gripped his and he was being pulled back up. Someone was shouting at him over the wind but he couldn’t hear. He mumbled something about coming to help and then he felt darkness swirling round him.

  * * *

  Patricia Lohan took her station at the window and watched the single light from the approaching jeep. Behind her the carriage was filled with men, women and children. Lucy and Lizzie stood with her. There was nowhere else to go. Lucy was small, diminutive as she preferred to be called. Her cheeks were full, probably because she was always smiling. Her face was framed by brown hair cut short with the ends curling slightly under her chin. It was her eyes, though, that were most striking. They were the colour of ice reflecting a pale blue sky and they hypnotised her every time she looked into them. They were in the third to last carriage and the next two carriages were so packed with panicked people they were better off where they were.

  She looked over at Lucy, holding her handgun awkwardly but her jaw set firmly regardless. Lizzie was terrified but refused to say anything and Patricia’s heart was bursting with pride. Since her own stand in the auditorium no one had said anything bad to her about her love for Lucy. She had imagined taunts and disgust if her secret ever got out and now she realised that everyone had their own worries. What was how she chose to live her life to them? All those months moving about secretly had been wasted. She could have spent those months with Lucy and Lizzie. And now time had run out for all of them.

  Patricia pulled the XM8 into her shoulder, the shoulder feeling tight and sore under her bandages. She tried to ignore it and took aim. She used the pain of her wounds to keep her focused. People were already firing, and her finger itched but she held off. The jeep was still too far away and she knew that many of the people would be reloading when they should be firing. Lucy yelped as she pulled the trigger and the automatic bucked in her hands, the bullet being pulled high over the target by her inexperience.

  Too many people had ignored Harris’ insistence to practise with weapons. She would have ignored it herself if she hadn’t forced herself in order to make a good example. She thanked God now that she had gone. The jeep bounced closer and she fired a quick burst, grinning wolfishly as the remaining light turned dark. She could see a thrall trying to balance himself as he brought a weapon to his shoulder. Oh my God, she thought. That’s a bazooka. She lifted her aim slightly and sent another three round burst towards the approaching vehicle.

  The jeep swerved violently towards the carriage, smashing into the side and sending the thrall with the bazooka flying out of the jeep and under the wheels of the train. Sparks showered and metal screeched and then the vehicle flipped and tumbled like a cast aside toy. A huge cheer erupted around her. She wanted to tell everyone to stop celebrating, that there were two others vehicles to take care of before they could breathe easy. But then Lucy turned and threw her arms around her and she allowed herself a moment in the chaos to enjoy what they had done. A moment later someone was shouting and the sound of another .50 calibre erupted from the other side of the train. She reluctantly let Lucy and Lizzie go as she crossed to the carriage. She could already hear the screams and she offered up a prayer.

  * * *

  Harris rushed through the shattered carriages, trying to ignore the carnage. The last three cars were already torn apart; people lay dead, wounded or just so shocked by the violence that they merely sat and cried or looked blankly ahead. He didn’t have time to help any of them though—not if he wanted to protect the carriages ahead.

  He looked out through a tear in the carriage wall and could see two jeeps. One of was a few yards ahead of the other and running further out from the train as it avoided the various obstructions ahead. It didn’t seem to be firing at the train though. Had they run out of ammunition? Jesus, he hoped so. But then the reality hit him. The engine, he thought as his heart thumped harder. Carter is going for the engine.

  The nearer vehicle swerved out to avoid a wooden pole but was already on a return arc. The thrall in the bed of the jeep was already checking his load and taking aim on the carriage ahead of him and Harris ran faster. People thronged the next carriage as they fought through the mass of bodies to make it to safety. But there was nowhere to go. The door between carriages was so narrow that only one person could fit through at a time and no one was prepared to organise the retreat. Harris ran through the people ahead of him, pushing them aside, firing his XM8 into the air to get their attention.

  “Everyone down on the ground, now,” he shouted and most dropped so quickly he thought they had already been shot. Screams filled the air and then the bullets ploughed into the carriage from the jeep outside. Harris scrambled over the bodies around him and leaned out the window, firing at the jeep from behind. The heavy chatter of the .50 calibre stopped as bullets sprayed around the thrall. The thrall swivelled the gun back towards Harris and he dropped to the floor as a hail of bullets tore the window and surrounding wall to pieces.

  Harris heard a second .50 calibre erupt close to him and the bullets directed at him stopped. He looked up and saw Warkowski draw level with his carriage as McAteer caught the jeep ahead
. Harris had never seen Warkowski so focused on anything. Somewhere on this train his wife and child sat huddled and scared and he was doing everything he could to make sure Carter and his minions didn’t get near them.

  McAteer’s jeep passed quickly and Harris was up and running before anyone else reacted. He could see snatches of flame from the two heavy machine guns as they exchanged fire. For once whole sections of the train were spared from fire but Harris knew it wouldn’t matter if Carter caught the engine compartment. He pushed through the crowds, shouting and forcing his way through, ignoring everyone and everything. He had to get forward.

  * * *

  Conor Ricks watched from his bed as frightened people flooded the infirmary carriage. He tried to rise but Emma held him down and shook her head. She took his left hand in hers; it felt so awkward with two fingers missing but Amanda had told him that losing only two fingers to frostbite was a blessing. He had tried to unbuckle his restraints during the journey when he heard of Emma collapsing. His wounds had proved too much for him and he had fallen unconscious with his hands outside his blankets. If Amanda hadn’t checked on him when she did he would have lost the whole hand.

  With both of them requiring rest and neither prepared to obey her orders Amanda had put Emma alongside him on the stretcher. She had stormed off muttering something about them deserving each other. When they arrived at the train, Amanda quickly took his fingers off. he hadn’t even felt it at the time. Now he felt an insistent throbbing in his hand that kept sleep at bay. They had little medicine to spare and much of what they had was packed away. Amanda had some people rummaging through the supplies but it was proving more difficult than they had thought with the panicked survivors filling every spare inch of the carriage.

  Ricks was more worried about the thralls than the pain in his hand though. The dull chatter of machinegun fire and the screams of his friends were drawing closer and he was useless. Emma rose to calm the people flooding the infirmary, but they were too panicked and she was pushed aside. Ricks lost sight of her among the flood and he cried out her name. The infirmary carriage was the second to last before the engine itself and it was already over-crowded with the wounded and their relatives. Injured people lay everywhere and many of them were being trampled by clamouring people.

  He could see Amanda shouting but her voice was lost in the frightened shouts. Amanda was suddenly struck by someone and she fell beneath the sea of bodies. Conor forced himself to his knees, ignoring the pain as his wounds stretched against their stitches. He reached over to his side and gripped Emma’s XM8. It was strange holding the weapon with his left hand covered in bandages but he took a firm grip with his right hand and angled the barrel up into the ceiling. Three rounds exploded. The noise was so loud that the panicked mob stopped briefly but there were so many people pushing behind them that they began to move forward again. Conor fired another three rounds, drawing the barrel down slightly so the bullets angled just over their heads.

  “The next person who moves will join the wounded here,” he tried his best to sound tough but his head was swimming from rising too quickly. He held the weapon steady though and that spoke volumes.

  “Emma, Amanda,” he called with only a slight tremor in his voice. “Are you alright?”

  “Here,” he heard Emma call as she pulled herself to her feet, wrenching her hand away from someone who reached out for her. He saw a flurry of movement to his right and someone lifted a limp body and began to approach him. He could see a splash of blood on Amanda’s head as she was carried by a man he didn’t know. Screams persisted behind them and the train’s motion meant that people were jostled repeatedly, but Conor planted his feet far apart and remained steady.

  “Fools,” he spat at the crowd. “She’s the only one who can help the wounded. If we lose her we’re finished.” He looked out over the frightened faces as Emma came up beside him and eased the XM8 from his hands. Things had calmed enough for one of the nurses to take Amanda and lay her on the floor to examine her.

  And then bullets tore through the walls and everyone screamed again and surged forward. Conor threw himself at Emma and they both rolled to the ground as the crowd’s feet trampled them. He shielded Emma with his body as the bullets tore through flesh and wood with equal distain. The noise was unbearable and the pain surged though his body each time he was struck by a booted foot. Then one struck his head and all went black.

  * * *

  Philip Warkowski grunted as a bullet struck him. The heavy .50 calibre slipped from his hands and he dropped to the bed of the jeep. He didn’t feel any pain at first but strength evaporated from his legs. He tried to rise and then a wave of pain rushed over him making him stumble back down. The jeep swerved and he was sent crashing into the side painfully where he struck his head.

  He saw McAteer look back towards him and shout something but he couldn’t understand the words. There were only the two of them left in the jeep after the others had followed Harris so there was no one else to take the .50 calibre. He struggled to rise again but something was keeping him down. He looked for the wound but his heavy weather gear was too bulky to see anything. He could see a dark stain spreading across the fabric low on the left side though but how fast he was bleeding he didn’t know.

  He struggled to rise again, using the mount for the machine gun to support his weight. He could still move his right leg and used it to anchor himself. He dragged his left leg across the bed of the jeep. Every movement was agony but the thrall jeep was tearing the crap out of their jeep now with a hail of bullets. McAteer was screaming at him to shoot back and trying to avoid the stream of bullets tearing through the air towards them. His hands were slick with blood and it made gripping the cold metal difficult. He tried to wipe his hands on his jacket but the jeep was swerving too much to allow him to remove his hands.

  Suddenly he heard McAteer cry out and the jeep veered violently to the left. He held on for as long as he could but the vehicle hit something and began to roll. He was thrown into the air as the jeep continued to tumble beneath him, pieces flying everywhere. The last thing he saw was the thrall in the jeep ahead. He watched it swing the .50 calibre back towards the train and the chatter began again. Then he hit something hard and everything went dark.

  Chapter 24

  Tanya Syn sat once more in the pens and looked out. She had been caught last evening as she wandered near but not too close to the pens. She hadn’t wanted to appear eager to be caught and skirted the camp, trying to steal food from the thralls. It would have been very easy to steal the food; the thralls were lax in their patrols. It had been necessary to make enough noise for them to notice her.

  She’d been roughed up a bit by the thralls but no one thought to inform their superiors that she’d been caught. In fairness, who would want to be put back into the pens after they’d escaped? They suspected nothing. They had found her knife but not the razor blade she had hidden in her bra. It wouldn’t help her escape but it felt good to have something she could use as a weapon.

  She spent the first few hours searching every inch of the pen and finally came to terms with the fact that Mark wasn’t here. It was cruel luck indeed that kept them still separated. She had spent the last two hours keeping a close watch on the pen on the opposite side of the square for any sign of her son. So far she hadn’t seen him but the pens were huge so that was not so surprising—heart breaking, sure, but not surprising.

  Tanya noticed that the pens were very different from before. For one thing everyone was off the serum and it created a different dynamic. People were restless, angry, bored and it made for an excitable atmosphere. Fights broke out frequently, people stole food and blankets from others, and pockets of people formed around the pen where different groups huddled together for warmth and protection. Mini fiefdoms sprang up with people buying their inclusion into these protected groups with food or sex. It appeared that humans could not help dominating each other, even in their most desperate hour of need.

  He
r thoughts kept straying to Mark. How was he coping? What had he been forced to do to survive? She felt so helpless here. She wondered for the hundredth time if she would have been better off back with Josh and the others. She was surprised to learn that she missed Josh more than she had expected. At first he had been a means to an end. A well-intentioned means, yes, but nothing more. Her thoughts had been for her son exclusively. If this man wanted to help then that was fine, but that was as far as it went.

  She had never experienced much kindness from others in her life, and certainly not unless they benefited. Josh was different. He had not asked for anything from her. From the beginning he had helped because he could, and she had treated him badly from the start. She realised, now that she had time to think, that she had been hoping to force Josh’s hand into rescuing Mark and herself. And all she managed to do was get locked up in the wrong damn pen, cut off from the only person who bothered to help. And she had left her daughter alone with him. Was she mad?

  Surprisingly, she wasn’t as worried about Jillian as she thought she would be. She had no doubt that Josh would look after her. She had always been able to read people. It hadn’t made a lot of difference when she picked her partners though. For that she had no excuse. She was a sucker for the bad boy. So she was never surprised when things went bad.

  But Josh was different. She recalled how he treated her between missions back at the cave. The easy way he talked to her and not at her. Most surprisingly was the way Jillian had taken to him. She never liked any of the men Tanya had taken home before the fall. But she had taken to Josh almost immediately. She’d even taken his side in a few arguments against her mother. She knew that he would die before he let anything bad happen to Jillian. She was using him, she knew. Using him to save her other child.