by Tufo, Mark
We don’t have time to congratulate each other. Rounding the rear corner of the engine are the night runners that left the other door—a quick look shows that the glass panel is devoid of pressed faces. Snatching up my M-4, I drop the empty mag and fumble for a fresh one, jamming it into place and flicking the bolt release. Mike scrambles for his rifle, quickly shoving rounds into the small magazine, and kneels beside me, aiming down the length of the locomotive. I unleash a torrent of bullets, burst after burst, while Mike sends single, high-powered shots down the walkway. Night runners topple, some falling on the pathway itself, others stumbling against the railing, motionless just before their momentum carries them over the side.
Then, all of sudden, there is silence—except for the faint sound of the continuing tumult in the depot behind us, and the ringing in my ears from Mike’s shots within the enclosed space. Bodies litter the walkway and the side of the tracks. Some feebly attempt to crawl away from their pain, but most lie still. Small wisps of steam rise from the cooling bodies; blood drips and flows in oozing streams off the walkway. The side of the engine is splattered with dark liquid, some of the larger messes dripping downward. Small clouds of smoke drift about the cab, which is filled with the smell of gunpowder, of torn and released bowels, and the iron scent of blood. Spent shells glitter faintly on the floor.
Mike quickly scrambles to the other door.
“It looks clear on this side,” he reports.
My adrenaline is at a peak, but starting its decline. I hear him, but continue to scan the area through my scope. I pop a couple of rounds into those moving until they are still. With shaky hands—the result of coming off an intense flow of adrenaline—I replace the mag. Finally convinced that we are, in fact, clear of night runners for the moment, I lower my weapon.
“Well, that was a little sporty,” I state.
“I get the feeling we probably didn’t think that one all the way through,” Mike replies.
“Why were you kicking me, Ponch?” Trip asks. Rising, he looks around and says, “Oh.”
“How’s it looking? We ready to roll?” Mike asks.
“Your guess is as good as mine. There are still night runners, whistlers, and zombies about, and I have no idea where, exactly. But, I think it’s as safe as it’s going to be,” I answer.
We spend the next few minutes clearing bodies from the doorway and along some of the walkway. We don’t clear it all, as we have no idea how long our little respite will last and we need to get moving. The further away we can get, and the sooner we get there, the better. I keep watch while Mike hops down, his boots hitting the rocks with a crunch. He scrambles over to the switch, staring at it for a few moments. I see him nod as if coming to a sudden understanding. Reaching down, he grabs a lever and lifts it, moving it in a 180-degree arc. At first it resists, but Mike puts his weight behind it and the track slowly moves to a position that will take us to the next set of tracks. He then runs over and climbs aboard as I set the train in motion.
In our haste to clear the door, we had forgotten the two bodies inside the cab. Still moving slowly, I keep an eye on the tracks ahead while Mike moves to take care of them. The next couple of switches lead us to the main tracks, so there’s no longer a need to stop and adjust them. The stench inside is getting to me, threatening to bring the energy bar back up.
“Jack, you should see this,” Mike states.
I turn and notice that he’s studying one of the bodies.
“Yeah, that’s a night runner…or was,” I respond.
“No, look at what it’s wearing.”
I look closer. It’s wearing deeply stained jeans that are tattered at the hems; the stringy ends come halfway up its shin. The top is equally ragged, but I can make out enough of the letters: Abercrombie & Fitch. While maintaining our course, I continue studying it, seeing nothing that would spark Mike’s interest.
“Okay, I’m at a loss here. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“The shirt…the wording, man.”
“Yeah, we have those stores back in my world…or had, I should say.”
Then, the dawning light of comprehension flashes in my head. Everything else we had found here, while the same in regards to form and function, was named differently.
“That pretty much verifies that the night runners came from your world, or at least this one did,” Mike states. “If I have the chance, which I hopefully won’t, I’ll have to look at the zombies and see if it’s the same.”
We work our way slowly out of the expansive train yard without encountering any more creatures. Coming to the main lines, we exit and pick up speed. We travel along another set of tracks beside us and gradually leave the city behind. The train doesn’t break, but chugs along with us like a friend, itself seeming desperate to leave the carnage behind.
We have no real destination in mind, other than to put distance between the city and us. Mike and I considered using the maintenance truck, as it would allow us to travel away from the tracks if needed, but reached the conclusion that the train was a safer haven—for the moment, at least.
We pass a single set of tracks that head off into the distance, the tops of its rails shining when the bright moonlight hits them just right. We travel a few more miles, all of us weary from the long day and night and from the adrenaline rush. My eyes feel gritty from lack of sleep and I fear that they’ll close on their own soon, leaving the train at the mercy of the tracks. I notice Mike’s head droop a few times before jerking back upright.
“What do you say we stop and call it a night?” I ask.
“Sounds good to me, man. I don’t think I can stay awake much longer.”
The train strains against its momentum as I apply the brakes and bring us to a halt. What I’m pretty sure are the fuel tank indicators are nearly at the halfway mark. I have no idea how long that will last at idle, or how far it will take us. I could look in the manual and find out quickly enough, but I doubt I have the energy. Manuals are boring enough without already being exhausted. With that in mind, I shut the train down, plunging the cockpit into gloom with only beams of silver light penetrating through the windows.
“Do we set a watch?” I ask.
I know that we should, and feel reluctant to rest without doing so, but we’re exhausted and will need our energy for the coming day. We can’t afford to blunder around with tired minds. That leads to taking shortcuts, and that usually doesn’t end well. For one night, we’ll have to place all of our trust in luck.
“Do you think anyone can get in?” Mike asks wearily, laying down on the steel decking.
“No,” I answer with an equally tired voice.
“Good enough for me,” he responds, rolls over, and falls asleep.
* * *
I wake with a start, my hand scrambling to find my carbine. The light in the cab tells of a night spent in a coma, and surviving it. My dreams were filled with my kids in trouble and not being able to reach them. There was a wall between us that I could not get around, and I heard them screaming on the other side. I knew Lynn was in there with them, or perhaps also trying to get to them. The fear and dread in my chest was as bad as I’ve ever felt, and the helplessness—anger, frustration, fear; all filling the entirety of my being.
Those feelings carry over into the waking world. There is indeed a wall that I can’t find a way around. The fact that I woke in this world, again, is depressing. I am angry at being thrust into this place, against my will and away from Lynn and the kids. It’s like being mad at the wind, though. Scream, swipe, and punch away—it won’t do anything except make one even angrier.
I feel so lost and angry that I want to go outside and punch the train and swing at the air…hit everything that is this place. I take a few calming breaths, reassuring myself that I’m whole. There’s nothing that I can do about being trapped here except press ahead and hope that I find a way home. I need that. Each morning that I wake and find myself here only makes it worse. Helplessness is not a feeling with whi
ch I do very well.
Daylight pours in through the windows, heating up the interior. The sour smell of the two dead night runners hangs in the air like a physical presence. Nearby, Mike stirs. Looking over, his eyes betray his stress and fatigue. I’m sure mine exhibit the same. I’m also sure that he feels the same way I do; we’re both tired of this place and want to see our loved ones. Without a word, we open the doors and remove the bodies, tossing them to the gravel between the tracks.
“A rather unceremonious end to something that used to be human,” he comments.
“Yeah,” is all I can muster as I look at the bodies below, lying twisted and torn.
Cradling his rifle, Mike sighs heavily as we continue our mutual contemplation of the night runners.
“Jack, I know we’re not lifelong friends—but is there something you want to tell me?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling my heart jump.
A conversation that starts that way has never been a good one to have. It dredges up memories of everything I’ve done since childhood, poring over every action to see if there is anything I’ve done to warrant such inquisitiveness. Or, put more correctly, to see if there’s any way the person asking could know about them. My reply is more of a stall to stave off the actual question that I suspect is coming.
“Back there,” Mike says, pointing with his thumb down the tracks, “when the night runners were aboard and I was about to open the door. They looked at you and kind of flipped out just before you nodded for me to go ahead.”
“No they didn’t,” I reply.
“Come on, man, you know they did. You couldn’t help but notice. And the timing of it…” Mike states, leaving the last part unsaid.
“I gave them a fierce look. I have a pretty fierce glare when I want to,” I respond, really unsure of whether to tell him the truth or not.
Continued avoidance of the secrets we’re both carrying could erode the slim margin of trust we have for each other, especially as we both know the other is carrying them. On the other hand, if Mike had knowledge of my secret, it could harm the bond we have. It all depends on how he takes it. I know he has a few of his own, yet I don’t trust him any less for not sharing. It’s just that he has secrets he’d rather not share, for his own reasons. Just as I have mine.
Mike sighs again, shakes his head, and turns to walk away.
“Mike, look,” I say, reaching out to grab his arm. “This isn’t easy for me to say, as, well, I don’t know how you’ll take it. But, I guess it’s time you know a few things, since we seem to be stuck in this miserable hellhole together.”
He turns back, looks intently at me for a second, then nods. “I’m listening. I’ll let you know if I like it or not.”
“Fair enough.” I pause for a moment, unsure of where to start. “Give me a few seconds to sort through my thoughts.”
I really don’t know how much to say. The sun beats down on my shoulders as it climbs into a cloudless, mid-morning sky. The heat of its touch adds to my discomfort. I’ve never been one to share; doing so makes my stomach clench. I don’t know why. That’s just the way I’m built and it’s been that way ever since I can remember. I guess that’s why I can also appreciate Mike keeping his secrets. In a way, that’s a bond in and of itself—that we’re alike in that manner. Trust has never been an easy thing, for either of us I imagine.
“Okay, well, here goes. Long ago, in a land far, far away….” I start. “Okay, that was lame. I have the ability to communicate with and understand the night runners.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. They talk in picture images that I can ‘hear,’ so to speak.”
“And you can talk back to them?”
“Well, yes, kind of. I can startle them at first, but they mostly ignore anything I do after that. If anything, it only seems to irritate them more.”
“So, if you can hear what they’re saying, then why don’t you know what they’re doing at all times—what they’re planning?”
“Well, that’s where it gets tricky. This is all new to me, to be honest. When I open up to them, I can tell where they are—but they can pinpoint me and hear my thoughts just as easily…or so I imagine.”
“Ah, so it’s not really a superpower, then.”
“Not really. The knife cuts both ways, so I’ve learned to shut that part of my mind down, like there are two separate compartments in my head.”
“Have you always had this ability? Or did it change with exposure to the night runners or the virus that created them?”
“Sort of. I was engaged in an MMA bout with a night runner; I was scratched and some of his blood seeped into the cut. I was sick for a while afterwards, and then woke with this shit in my head.”
“And the outcome of that match?”
“I’m standing here.”
Mike just nods.
“I’m guessing that explains the world-record high jump in the boxcar, and your ability to see in the dark.”
I just nod, verifying his assumptions.
Silence descends over us, just two guys leaning our elbows on a metal railing, staring across sun-drenched, open terrain. There are faraway hills in the background, the bushes of the prairie eventually giving way to trees. The two decaying bodies below us are forgotten as we retreat into our own minds. I’m wondering what Mike is thinking, but also wandering back to my own world. My vision of reality has been torn apart by finding myself in this place, and finding out about Mike’s world. I’ve always believed that different ones could exist, but actually being in one can stretch one’s resources past the limit. And with all three known worlds filled with these creatures stretches that limitation even more. Reality blurs with fantasy to the point that I find it difficult to distinguish between them. In one world, even filled with night runners, it was easy to say “this is real; this is not.” Now, I don’t feel like I have a clue.
Mike turns to me. He looks like he’s on the verge of saying something, but hesitates. He finally takes a deep breath and asks, “You ready for this shit?”
“No.”
“Can’t say I blame you. My story has another monster thrown in the mix.”
“You’re kidding, right? I figure we had all the goblins and ghouls covered.”
“How about a vampire?”
“Stop yanking my chain, Mike.”
“Really? Vampire is where you draw the line? We’re dealing with night runners, zombies, and whistlers, but vampires are off the table?”
“I’m sorry, man. I guess that maybe I don’t want to believe in them. There’s already so much going on. Tell me.”
“I was bitten by one.”
“Wait! What the hell? You’re a vampire?” I subconsciously move away.
“Half-vamp, I guess. Let me get the common myths out of the way. I can obviously deal with sunlight, I can see myself in a mirror, and I’m perfectly fine with garlic.”
“You suffering from heat stroke?” I try to joke with him. I guess it didn’t go over very well, as he pulls out his knife and hands me the hilt.
“Cut my arm. Not down to the bone, just enough to draw blood.”
“Mike, I’m not going to do that.”
“Either you do or I do, and I’d rather it was you so you don’t think I pulled a fast one.”
“Fine. I’ll do it, but it proves nothing.”
I pull the blade along his skin, gently at first, and then with a little more force until I see the skin part and blood starts bubbling up. For a minute or so nothing happens, except blood sluicing from his wound. The blood running from the cut slows, becomes a dribble, and then quickly stops. Mike wipes the blood away with his sleeve. There is only a thin red line where I cut him. As I continue to watch, the line fades until the slice is fully healed.
“What the fuck, Mike?” I look at the blade, wondering if I’m being played somehow—but to what end?
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m stronger than I was. I can control a zombie or two from clo
se range, and the kicker is, I get to watch my family and friends die of old age as I wander the earth, much like Longinus.”
“Fuck, Mike, I thought I had it bad.”
“I’d say we both have a case of shitty sickness symptoms.”
We may have stayed in place like that forever, both staring at each other, if it weren’t for Trip waking and rejoining the living, coming back from whatever world he dreamed up. He comes down in between us, plunges his hands into his pants, and scratches his balls with a fury. And, like that, the spell is broken.
“I was hungry,” he says.
“Jack, have you noticed anything odd about some of the zombies that we’ve come into contact with? I mean, like they were enhanced somehow?”
“I’m not from your world, so I’m perhaps not the right person to ask. To me, it seems like some of them have been a little too intelligent for zombies—at least the way I think of them.”
“Well, where I come from, there are smarter ones, but not to the extent that we’ve seen here. The ability to react in a rational way, to preserve their own life—that’s not like anything I’ve ever seen.”
I let the words settle in my mind, trying to come up with a reason. It could be that the smarter ones were native to this place; folks who lived here and were turned. Maybe their genetics were different enough for them to retain that part of themselves.
“Mike, what do you think would happen if a zombie bit a night runner?” I ask, merely speaking my thoughts out loud.
From the corner of my eye, I see Mike turn his head sharply toward me, staring. A moment passes.
“Fuck you, Jack!” he mutters, and walks back into the engine cab.
