Wasteland in Red Square

by Josh Matthews

  “What the hell was that?” Yuri asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  The sleeping car swayed gently. “That.”

  What had started as a gentle rocking motion became more intense. The realization struck Slava.

  “Clear these things off the sleeper! Now!”

  ***

  “Colonel,” Boris called from the top of the tender. “You have to see this.”

  Svetlana crawled up the coal pile and joined Boris on top of the tender. For the first time in dealing with the demony, she felt true fear.

  Most of the surviving horde had attached themselves to the three sleepers, covering the cars like locusts and rocking back and forth. With each sway, the cars tilted more to starboard. Svetlana had underestimated the intelligence of the ravagers. This wasn’t a swarm attack. The demony were trying to derail the train!

  “We have to detach the engine.”

  ***

  Antoine felt the rocking motion. At first, he attributed it to the train’s speed, until it became more pronounced. Moving over to the window, he watched as the ravagers swarmed the sleeping cars, trying to derail them. No Hell Spawn attacked the last five cars of the train. He wouldn’t have time to evacuate everyone from the center, but at least he could save a part of the train.

  Rushing to the rear door, Antoine pulled it aside, knelt down, and lifted the iron plate that covered the gap between the dining and stock cars. The cut-lever sat along the edge of the dining car beneath his feet. He grabbed it and yanked up. The coupler lock lifted and the couplers disconnected. A series of pops sounded as the brake lines detached, followed by a ripping noise as the protective covering between the two cars tore apart. Once separated, the last six cars fell behind the rest of the train. Everyone inside those cars would survive the inevitable derailing, but would be left vulnerable to attack by ravagers.

  ***

  “Something strange is going on,” Matthew shouted down to the others.

  “What?” Melnikov asked.

  “The ravagers have swarmed the sleeping cars and are rocking them.”

  Ustagov raced over to one of the windows and twisted his head to get a better view. “They’re trying to tip the train over! We have to uncouple the engine!”

  “No,” argued Neal. “That’ll strand us and leave us at the mercy of those things.”

  “If they derail the engine, we’re all screwed.” Ustagov shifted his gaze to the captain. “Do it.”

  Melnikov rushed to the door leading to the sleeper cars, with Matthew moving along the roof to cover him. Melnikov lifted the iron plate between the two cars and yanked up on the cut-lever, disconnecting the couplers. The command car jerked forward as the steam engine, running at full speed, pulled away from the rolling stock, knocking Melnikov off balance. He grabbed the door railing as the protective covering tore apart around him, exposing him kneeling in the open doorway.

  “Watch out!” yelled Matthew.

  Melnikov glanced up. A ravager on the edge of the sleeping car had spotted him, shifted its position, and lunged. The captain moved back. The Hell Spawn reached out with its right claw and dug its talons into Melnikov’s chest, pulling him out of the doorway. The two crashed onto the rails to be crushed beneath the rolling stock.

  At that precise moment, all Hell broke loose.

  ***

  The sleeper and dining cars tilted farther to starboard with each rock of the ravagers until the port wheels lifted several inches off the tracks. They teetered for several seconds. The weight of the Hell Spawn swarming the starboard walls became too great and the three cars tipped over. The lead sleeper toppled first, crushing more than twenty ravagers beneath it and churning up rocks and dirt. The eight Russian soldiers inside were tossed about. Those not killed outright died when the second sleeper clipped its rear end, spinning the first one hundred eighty degrees and snapping it in half. With its structural integrity weakened, the car collapsed, crushing everyone or spewing their bodies across the tundra.

  As the first car derailed, the ravagers on the remaining two jumped clear to avoid being killed, scattering like cockroaches. In the second sleeper, Werner and Ian felt the car going off the tracks. Werner grabbed onto the framing for one of the bunks. Ian rushed into the corridor and placed his back against an interior wall. When it fell onto its side, both men were showered in shattered glass. The car shuddered as it collided with the lead sleeper. Werner bounced around, slamming repeatedly into the bed frame. Ian slid across the wall and dropped into the adjoining cabin, grabbing the windowless frame at the last second. In some of the other cabins, Russian soldiers screamed for help. After five seconds of sliding along the ground, the sleeper came to a stop.

  Being preoccupied with clearing ravagers off the side of the train, Slava did not realize they were about to derail until the sleeping car toppled over. He reached out to grab hold of anything. Instead, he was thrown against the roof and knocked unconscious.

  In the dining car, Antoine had anticipated the derailment. He dove into a pantry on the port side and yelled for the others to hang on. The diner rolled onto the dirt and slid for several seconds before coming to rest at a twenty-degree angle to the tracks. Because of the warning, and being the last car to derail, those inside suffered minor bumps and bruises. For a moment, everything went eerily quiet. Then, two sounds penetrated the silence: the moans and cries for help from the wounded, and the ravagers swarming in for a second attack.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “There it is!” Iosif pointed to his left.

  Jason stepped over to the port side of the cab and leaned over the side. Off in the distance, the Hell Gate shimmered above the tracks. At this distance, it appeared no larger than a baseball. He could not tell if any Hell Spawn guarded it.

  “How far is it?” he asked.

  “It’s about six miles from here,” answered Iosif. “Another ten minutes, probably—”

  “Jason!” yelled Sasha. “The rest of the train is in trouble.”

  Jason scrambled up to the top of the coal tender, with Jeanette and Father Belsario behind him. From their vantage point, they watched the four cars derail until clouds of dirt obscured the crash scene. Only the armored train remained visible a thousand feet behind them.

  “We have to go back and help,” said Jeanette.

  “No.” Jason slid down the coal pile.

  “They’ll die if we don’t.”

  “They’ll die even if we go back,” snapped Jason. He softened his tone. “Our best chance of helping them is to close the portal and kill the Hell Spawn.”

  When Jeanette protested, Father Belsario placed a hand on her shoulder. “As heartless as it sounds, he’s right. Closing the portal is the most important thing.”

  “You’re right.” Jeanette’s gaze fixed on Jason, her eyes pleading for forgiveness. “Sorry.”

  Sasha leaned into the cab again. “Save the group grope for later. We have company at two o’clock.”

  Jason moved over to the starboard side of the cab. Ten ravagers charged them from a thousand feet out.

  ***

  “Why are we slowing down?” Vicky asked. “And what was that noise?”

  Sook-kyoung ignored the questions. Instead, she made her way through the stock car. When she opened the forward door, she gasped. The derailed rolling stock spread out for several hundred feet in front of them. Cries of help came from inside the wrecked cars. Despite the cloud of dust hovering over the site, she detected movement in the dining car.

  Something dropped onto the platform at the other end of the stock car. Sook-kyoung, Vicky, and Gaston spun around and raised their weapons. Instead of a ravager, Luther stood in the center of the opening. “Shut that door and come here.”

  “Why?”

  Luther walked to the center and spun around to face the other door, his broadsword drawn and ready to attack. “We have a dozen ravagers bearing down on us.”

  ***

  Barzukov had been provi
ding his comrades with a blow-by-blow description of what he witnessed from the cupola, including the derailment of the four forward cars.

  “Did anyone survive the crash?” Klimenko asked.

  “I can’t tell. There’s too much dust.” Barzukov leaned from one side to the other, trying to get a better view. “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “The ravagers are swarming the derailed cars. If anyone did survive, they won’t last long.”

  “How many are coming toward us?”

  “None,” said Barzukov.

  “We have to help them,” said Haneef.

  “Are you nuts? If we let those things know we’re here, they’ll come after us next.”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” barked Klimenko. “Once they kill off everyone else, they’ll come after us anyway.”

  Haneef knelt by the heavy machine gun and unfastened the weapon from its mounts. Klimenko walked past and tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t waste your time with that. We’d have to set it up outside where we’d be exposed.”

  “What will we fight them with?”

  “This.” Klimenko opened a locker and revealed a pair of flamethrowers. He offered one to Haneef. “Have you ever used one of these before?”

  “Never.”

  “Then today’s your lucky day.”

  Klimenko helped Haneef strap on his flamethrower before donning his own. The two men made their way to the rear of the car and exited onto the platform. Haneef used the access ladder to crawl to the roof. Klimenko leaned back inside.

  “Barzukov, stay here and keep an eye on the prisoners.”

  ***

  Ian dangled from the windowless frame of the cabin he had nearly fallen in to, his hands bleeding and throbbing from being sliced open by shattered glass. Something moved up behind him. Ian braced himself for death. Instead, a Russian lieutenant with blood streaming down his face from a gash across his forehead grabbed Ian under his arm and lifted him up to the interior wall.

  “Thanks, mate,” said Ian.

  “You okay?”

  Ian nodded. “How many others survived?”

  The lieutenant yelled something in Russian and received three responses. He excused himself and made his way forward, careful not to fall into the empty cabins.

  From two cabins down Werner called out. “Ian, is that you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “I could use some help here.”

  Ian crawled toward the cabin. He found Werner dangling from the bed frame. Lying prone, Ian wrapped one arm around the shattered window frame and reached down with the other. “Come on, mate.”

  Werner took Ian’s hand in his left and pulled himself up enough to clasp the door jamb with his right. Once he had the leverage, Werner climbed up onto the interior wall. He tried to catch his breath.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Werner shook his head. “I’m banged up and bruised, but nothing’s broken.”

  The lieutenant came back with two other soldiers. “I have one man up front with two broken legs. We’ll have to come back for him. Right now, we have to get out of here.”

  “What about the ravagers?” Ian asked.

  “Let me check.” The lieutenant stood up and stuck his head through one of the shattered window frames along the port wall where the bars had been torn off. A blood-curdling screech emanated from outside. The lieutenant’s body stiffened. A second later, his head fell through the window, bounced off the interior wall, and rolled into one of the cabins. The body dropped beside Ian and draped over a section of interior wall. A ravager stuck its head through the frame where the lieutenant had stood a moment ago. Five more dropped through a gash in the port wall at the front end. Three of them slunk into the cabin that held the soldier with the broken legs; his screams echoed through the sleeper. The other two spread out, eyeing the remaining humans.

  Upon seeing Ian, the ravager that had butchered the lieutenant curled its lips back and exposed its fangs. Ian shoved the barrel of his FAMAS into its mouth and fired off seven rounds, vaporizing its head and propelling the carcass backward off the train. Before the body hit the rails, Ian yelled, “Let’s go!”

  A ravager pounced on one of the soldiers, driving the talons of its right hand through his shoulders and pinning him to the interior wall. The demon used its other set of talons to slice open the Russian’s left side, spilling his intestines across the interior wall. The second soldier removed his Makarov from its holster and fired three rounds into the Hell Spawn’s chest. It collapsed onto the eviscerated soldier, its talons still embedded in his back. Shifting his aim, the Russian emptied the rest of his magazine into the face of the approaching ravager. The demon mewled once and went limp across a door frame, the weight of its upper body dragging the carcass into the cabin. Still clutching the Makarov, the soldier lay prone across the door jambs and crawled as fast as possible toward the end of the car.

  Werner also headed for the rear exit, slowing at every jamb to navigate the opening so he didn’t fall into a cabin. Ian moved up to the roof of the sleeping car where the interior wall ran above the doors, allowing him to scurry toward the rear exit with ease. When he reached the end, he crouched on the interior wall, aimed his FAMAS at the door, and grabbed the handle with his left hand. As he opened it, he half expected a ravager to lunge. The last sleeper sat thirty feet away, and there was nothing between the two cars. Ian swung himself outside. Planting his feet on the door railing for support, he leaned back inside and held out his hand to Werner.

  “Come on, mate!”

  Werner quickened his pace, pulling himself along the interior wall. He was crossing over the last door jamb when a ravager plunged through the window above him. The two fell into the cabin. Ian winced when he heard Werner’s body thud against the shattered glass and metal of the cabin wall, and puked when he heard the ravager sink its teeth into his friend’s body. He backed out of the car. Before Ian could slide the door shut, the sole surviving Russian called out.

  “Don’t lock me in here.”

  The soldier was twenty feet from the exit. Ian waved him on. Behind him, the three ravagers emerged from the first cabin, their faces and claws covered in blood. The one that had been shot in the chest had regenerated and fixed its gaze on the Russian. All four raced toward him.

  “Move your ass!” Ian aimed his FAMAS and fired a three-round burst into the face of the nearest ravager. It flipped onto its side, the body slamming into the ravager behind it, slowing it down. The soldier crawled faster. Ian shifted his aim onto the third ravager, which raced up the uninterrupted stretch of interior wall, and fired. Anticipating the attack, it jumped to one side and moved in on the soldier. Ian switched aimed and emptied the remainder of his magazine into the Hell Spawn. It cried out and collapsed onto the wall.

  As the soldier neared the exit, Ian reached in and yanked him to safety. Behind the Russian, the fourth ravager closed in for the kill. It lunged toward the open door.

  ***

  Slava vaguely heard the screaming and gunfire around him. His senses spiked, however, when something grabbed his shoulders. His hand felt around for his FAMAS as his eyes popped open. Instead of staring into the face of a ravager, Yuri stared back at him with a sense of relief.

  “You’ve been out a full minute,” said Yuri. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I feel like it.” When Slava moved, every muscle in his body ached. As Slava struggled to his feet, he realized he had been lying in a pool of blood, demon body parts, shattered glass, and twisted metal. A section of the cabin roof had broken away, exposing a three-foot wide hole partially buried by dirt. The only thing that had saved him from being torn apart like the rest of the cabin was the mattress that had landed beneath him when they derailed. Rolling onto his hands and knees, Slava attempted to stand. His left leg throbbed, causing him to cry out.

  “Is it broken?” Yuri asked.

  “No. It hurts like Hell, though.” Slava put pressure on the leg and winced. “It’s spr
ained, that’s all.”

  Above them, yelling and gunfire mixed as a group of ravagers ripped their way through the wall of the sleeper and attacked the Russian soldiers in other cabins.

  “We have to get out of here,” said Slava.

  “What about the others?”

  A terrified scream came from the adjacent cabin. “It’s too late for them.”

  Slava bent down and used his hands to shovel dirt out of the hole in the roof until he cleared enough away to fit through. Slava rolled onto his back and stuck out his head. Ravagers swarmed the four derailed cars. He didn’t see any on the ground. It was a long shot, yet they had no other choice.

  Slava pushed back inside the cabin. “Where’s my weapon?”

  “It fell out while the car slid along the ground.”

  “Shit.” Slava thought for a moment. “Follow me.”

  “Where are we going?” A burst of automatic weapons fire tore through the bulkhead above Yuri’s head, forcing him to duck.

  “Any place but here.”

  Slava crawled out and stood with his back against the roof of the sleeper. A three-foot-long section of metal pipe sat in the debris field ten feet from the wreck. Slava rushed out, picked it up, and dashed back against the sleeper, praying none of the Hell Spawn spotted him. They had not.

  Yuri emerged through the hole and climbed to his feet. “Where to now?”

  “Which car has the most armor plating?”

  “The prison car at the end of the train.”

  “Then that’s where we’re heading. Stay low and move fast.”