“Well, what are we gonna do?” Jeremy asked again, his voice cracking.
Zach considered the question. What would Dad do? He’d fight, right up to the end. Just like he did on the bridge. He swallowed hard, gritting his teeth even harder. He allowed himself a few moments to get himself back under control again.
First thing: they needed to get themselves untied. Then they could look for their father and Trish.
“Jeremy?” Zach asked.
A sniffle. “Yeah?”
“Can you reach your knife?”
“Maybe.”
“Good. I want you to try.”
“What are we going to do?”
“First we’re gonna cut ourselves out of these ropes. Then we’re gonna go look for Dad and Trish.”
“What if we don’t find them?”
“We’ll find them.”
“Promise?”
I can’t promise that. “Yeah, I promise.”
Another sniffle. “Okay.”
“Jeremy?” Zach said.
“Yeah?”
“Everything is gonna be okay.”
Jeremy nodded. “Okay.”
Zach smiled at his brother. “Now get that knife and cut us out of these ropes.”
Chapter Fourteen
Holy shit, Jasper thought as he neared the scene of the derailed and overturned train. Before him cars lay in upheaval, smashed against each other and twisted up like pretzels. Around the wreck, tall grass grew waist-high, with small saplings springing up randomly between the long grass blades. Blooming wildflowers sprouted randomly within the grass, as if in direct contrast to the devastation. Where the train struck the ground, large swaths of the tall grass had been torn out, exposing bare, brown patches of meadow-dirt.
And all around the decimation, the deadheads scurried about.
Jasper killed the engine to avoid drawing attention to himself as he watched them at work. They limped around the scene of the crash, meandering around the wrecked passenger cars.
Then something caught his attention. After scanning the length of the train, he noticed one of the passenger cars lying upside down. It was twisted up badly, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. Around it, dozens of the infected gathered. They moaned and screamed, tearing at the metal exterior with their fingernail-claws.
Something inside was drawing their attention. The thought of his mythical fair maiden in distress quickly flashed through his mind. He considered that maybe someone had survived the crash, but then dismissed it. It was a pretty unlikely fairy tale.
For a brief moment he considered riding off, simply leaving the scene behind. He had solved the mystery of where the deadheads were going, after all.
Or had he?
He still didn’t know if that passenger car held survivors. And if it did, then helping them was the right thing to do, no matter how dangerous. Had he been alone so long that he’d lost his humanity? Maybe living and dying didn’t matter to the rest of the world, but Jasper didn’t intend on betraying his conscience just to buy himself a little more time alive.
Like Chuck said: a man can’t be afraid to die.
Determined to find out what was in that train car, Jasper fired up the motorcycle and sped toward the wreck, the engine whining. The railroad track blurred as the speedometer climbed. The wreckage loomed larger as he approached. It took a while, but finally the deadheads noticed him.
This was exactly what he wanted.
The first carrier broke from the crowd, sprinting toward Jasper in a pair of dress slacks and a sweater vest. More quickly followed. They really weren’t afraid of anything. Bicycle, motorcycle or freight train, they’d charge it all with the same ferocity and lack of regard for their own safety. The deadhead in the lead screeched as it ran, arm hanging limp, eyes bulging from sockets set deep within a face nearly black with dirt and grime. Not even the engine could drown out the sound.
Jasper sped toward the deadhead. To anyone watching it would have looked like a game of chicken. Keeping his hand on the throttle, he reached behind his shoulder and retrieved the baseball bat from the holster attached to his backpack. He held the bat out, level with the thing’s head, veering away from it just before they met.
The bat smashed the deadhead’s face, Jasper’s momentum snapping its head backward, sending it to the ground in a heap.
“Fuck yeah!” Jasper howled, the sound barely audible over the buzz of the motorcycle’s engine. Jasper called this game deadhead tee ball, and he’d gotten pretty damn good at it over the years.
Returning the bat to its holster, Jasper gripped the handlebars tightly and maneuvered the bike out and around the group of deadheads now chasing him. Revving the engine, he roared off. By now the carriers inside the train car had come out to investigate, as had most of those still ambling about in the field.
His u-turn complete, he charged back at the crowd again. “Come on, motherfuckers!” Zigzagging between them, Jasper took the bike through the sparse crowd. Their collective screaming had now become a shrill symphony, the horrific chorus threatening to drive him mad.
Ignoring the sound, he drove the crowd back and forth, like a macabre basketball game. By now the entire mess of deadheads wanted him for dinner. With enough figure-eights and circling he grouped the bulk of them together like a herd of cattle.
Piloting the bike through the crowd one more time, so close to the things that fingers brushed along his arms, Jasper emerged out the other side one final time.
He sped away from the wreckage, drawing the carriers behind him. They followed, arms outstretched, mad with frustration. Jasper now played a game of cat and mouse with his herd, speeding ahead and then waiting until they caught up before taking off again. Over hundreds of yards they followed, some slower and some faster, but all of them followed. Their blind predictability almost made him laugh, but the sight of a small girl in a tattered dress quickly sobered him up.
Eventually the wreckage grew small in the distance as he led the deadheads further away. He slowed the bike, making a tight u-turn before coming to a stop. He faced the crowd, looking for a way back to the train car. The horde now blocked the way, having spread out wide as they followed.
Only one path remained: straight through them.
Jasper peeled out, leaving a trail of dust and gravel behind. He shifted through the gears, racing toward the tightening crowd. He veered around the first two, but the further he made it into the throng the more difficult it became to avoid them. They closed in, fingers curled, teeth bared, desperate to catch their prey.
He opened up the engine, pushing it as hard as it would go. The speedometer climbed steadily as he raced through from the band of deadheads. They closed in, dragging themselves along, hungry and determined. Head down, Jasper streamlined his body, the wind whistling past his ears, drying out his eyes. The deadheads loomed, arms outstretched, fingers grasping for purchase. He felt hands on his legs, on his back…
And then he broke through them, leaving the horde behind and screaming toward the train. He didn’t dare look back. The faster he got back to the train, the more time he had to see just what was inside. No matter how fast he went, it wouldn’t amount to long.
He crossed the distance between the horde and the train car quickly, slowing when he made it to the overturned train car. He brought the bike to a halt, glancing behind. The pack pursued, but still far enough away. Or so he hoped.
Leaving the engine running, Jasper dropped the kickstand and hopped off the bike. He retrieved his father’s pistol from a homemade shoulder holster before stepping inside the car. Near the back a deadhead crouched, clawing at something lying beneath the twisted metal. At the sound of Jasper’s footsteps it turned, hissing, its black eyes piercing. It sprang to its feet and dashed toward him.
Jasper fired a single shot, blowing a hole in the thing’s chest. It fell in a heap, twitching. Holstering the pistol, Jasper quickly made his way through the debris and toward the deadhead’s object of interest. He stepp
ed hesitantly over the reeking, filthy body, ready for it to lash out the moment he came near. Thankfully it remained still.
Once at the end of the passenger car Jasper dropped to his knees. There he found what the thing was after: a bearded man, trapped beneath the remains of a seat and behind some twisted metal. At first Jasper thought the man was dead, but then he moaned. Not dead, but definitely injured. For a moment he wondered if moving the man might kill him, but then he remembered that was old world thinking. There were no paramedics to wait on. You picked a guy up and you dragged him off. Then he either lived or died.
With the seconds ticking away in Jasper’s mind, he searched for a way to extricate the man. Removing some of the debris, he yanked hard on the broken seat that had protected the man from the deadheads. It gave way, but only a little.
He pulled again. This time the metal bent a little more. He locked hands with the man and heaved, but the man didn’t budge.
“Come on, goddammit!” Jasper yelled, tugging as hard as he could. Clothing ripped and the injured man moaned again before popping free. Jasper fell backward, landing hard on his backside. The man’s eyes opened, but they were cloudy and distant.
Standing, Jasper took hold of the man again. “Up on your feet,” he commanded, pulling him the rest of the way out and to his feet. Though confused and shaky, he stood, leaning hard on Jasper for balance. Jasper guided the man’s arm around his own shoulder, bearing most of his weight.
With time running out, they made their way through the overturned train car and out the door. Once outside, Jasper checked up on the pack of carriers headed toward them. Three of them had broken away from the pack and were now way too close.
With no time to make it to the bike, Jasper lowered the injured man to the ground. Retrieving the baseball bat like a sword, he ran toward the carrier in the lead. He drew the bat back and let it go with a major league swing, connecting with the deadhead’s mouth. Teeth broke and lips split as its head snapped back. It fell to the ground in a heap.
Then movement flashed in out of the corner of his eye. A moment later he lay on the ground, the bat knocked out of his grasp. The ambushing deadhead clawed at Jasper’s face. Shoving it away, Jasper pulled the pistol and fired, punching a hole in the thing’s gut. It crumpled where it lay, motionless.
The third deadhead came hard and fast, shrieking. Still on his knees, Jasper leveled the pistol and squeezed off a shot, missing entirely. Cursing, he aimed again before squeezing off another shot. The carrier’s throat exploded in a mist of red, its maniacal screaming instantly silenced.
With the closest threats down, the horde closed in. Jasper ran back to the man still lying on the ground and helped him back up to his feet again, half dragging him to the motorcycle. The man winced as Jasper helped him sit. His eyes fluttered, but he remained conscious. Jasper sat down in front of him. “Hold on to me and don’t let go,” he shouted, guiding the man’s hands around his waist.
Leaning forward, he folded up the kickstand and took off. The bike dipped for one frightening moment before balance returned. He heard the deadheads behind him, their chorus of screams like a million fingernails on a chalkboard. Cramming fuel to the engine, Jasper ratcheted up through the gears, goosing the speedometer ever higher.
The screaming died off behind him, now subdued by the engine’s hot buzz. It took a few moments before Jasper realized they weren’t going to die after all.
Another day, Mr. Death. Another day.
“No offense,” Jasper said, “but I was hoping you’d be a chick.”
The man returned only a moan.
Giving up on conversation, Jasper sped away feeling better about himself than he had in a very long time.
Chapter Fifteen
Dave came to, feeling as if he’d been run over by a truck. Dried blood from his busted nose coated his lips and chin. He opened his eyes, his vision doubling and blurring before finally coming into focus. He searched for Annette, but he could find no trace of her. Only a massive pool of her congealing blood remained.
“I’m sorry,” a woman said. Her eyes implored him.
Dave forced himself into a sitting position. He glared at Peterson. “Where is she?”
Peterson returned the stare. “She’s not your problem anymore.”
“Where is she?” Dave repeated.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Dave sprang to his feet, launching himself toward Peterson, driving his shoulder into the gunman’s stomach. The two men collapsed in a pile, Peterson on the bottom. Dave scrambled to his knees and straddled the man’s chest, driving both fists into Peterson’s nose. Blood flew as cartilage snapped.
Peterson howled. Bleeding freely, he struggled to get to his rifle. Dave kneed Peterson’s crotch, smashing his testicles and forcing him to drop the weapon. With Peterson stunned, Dave brought both fists down on the man’s mouth. Peterson’s lips split as his front teeth disappeared in a bloody froth.
Using his bound hands like a vice, Dave picked up the rifle and jammed the barrel beneath Peterson’s jaw, clamping his mouth shut. Sitting on the butt of the rifle to keep it in place, he hooked a finger on the trigger and pulled.
Peterson’s brains exploded out the top of his head, the sound of the report deafening in the back of the truck. Prisoners screamed as blood and brains coated them. The truck lurched as the driver slammed on the brakes, sending Dave and the other prisoners tumbling.
Lying on his side now, Dave heard doors open, followed by footsteps on the concrete as both men approached. He eyed the rifle and considered picking it up, but stopped short. There seemed little point anymore. Just as well to get it over with.
He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
Chapter Sixteen
“I can’t reach it!” Jeremy said, struggling for the pocketknife.
“Yes, you can,” Zach said. “Just try really hard.”
Jeremy sighed. “Okay.” Taking another deep breath, he pushed down hard against the ropes tied around his chest, shoving his hand into his pocket. The tips of his fingers touched the knife. “Wait, I can feel it!”
“Keep trying.”
Jeremy pushed harder, squirming against the ropes. Another inch, then another, and then his thumb reached the knife. He eventually slid the pocketknife out of his front pocket. “Got it!”
“Okay, good. Now back up against me and hold onto it tight. Get it close to my hand and I’ll open the blade.”
Jeremy nodded, scooting himself so that his back touched his brother’s. Once in position, he held the knife tightly between his fingers, allowing Zach to pry open the blade.
“Now hand it to me,” he said, “and sit still while I cut these ropes.”
“Okay.”
Zach got a grip on the knife and began sawing at the ropes that bound them.
“Hurry up!” Jeremy exclaimed.
“Hold your horses,” Zach said, channeling one of his father’s phrases. Thinking about his dad threatened to make him cry, but he pushed the pain away. He had to be the strong one.
He worked the ropes with the knife, slicing through each band that held them. Within minutes, they were free.
“What now?” Jeremy asked.
“Now we look for Dad.”
“What about the carriers? We don’t have a gun or anything.”
Zach took a deep breath. Jeremy was right. They had no protection, no food, and no water. One problem at a time, he thought. That’s what Dad would do.
“Our packs are probably still back at the train,” Zach said. “When we go look for Dad we’ll look for the packs too.”
“What if we don’t find them?”
“I don’t know!” Zach snapped. Jeremy stopped, his lower lip trembling. Instantly Zach regretted the outburst. “We’ll figure something out, okay? We always do.”
“But that was when Dad was here.”
“I know,” Zach said. “Remember what Dad always told us? He said he wouldn’t be around forever and that’s why h
e taught us the stuff he did.”
“Don’t say that, Zach. He’s not dead.”
“I know. But he’s not here right now, so we have to remember the stuff he taught us until we find him again, okay?”
Jeremy nodded.
“So here’s the plan. First, we go back to the train and look for Dad. Then we look for our stuff. Then we look for Trish. Got it?”
Jeremy nodded again.
“And if you see any carriers you stick with me and do what I say, okay?”
“Okay.”
Zach gripped his little brother’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” Zach replied, though he didn’t feel like he could guarantee anything. “Let’s go.”
* * *
After a cursory glance outside the house, they exited through the front door. Cautious, they crossed the cracked, weed-strewn street running in front of the house and headed back to the railroad tracks.
Zach couldn’t remember a time since the outbreak that they’d been out on their own without their father. He also couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt more alone. As piercing shrieks echoed in the distance, turning Zach’s skin to gooseflesh, he was glad to have his little brother there with him.
They crossed overgrown lawns and subdivision streets, looking over their shoulders as they doubled back the way they’d come. Eventually they found themselves out of the residential area and near the scene of the crash.
Suddenly Zach gripped Jeremy’s arm, pulling his brother to the ground with him. “Get down!”
He pointed toward the front of the battered train lying a couple hundred yards away. Two carriers ambled about near the overturned engine, small figures in the distance. “There’s two of them up there. You see ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay down.”
“Okay.”
Zach looked up and down the train cars. Finally he pointed to an overturned passenger car near the rear of the train. “I think that’s the car we were in.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember the number.”
Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands Page 5
