But he couldn’t tell her that yet. Didn’t want to come off as too excited about joining their camp.
The first car on the tour had been completely gutted of seats, leaving stockpiles of ammo, clothes, canned food, and various other goods in their stead. Boxes of winter clothing took up one corner, but most of the room was packed full of non-perishable food.
Colin tapped a box and heard what sounded like uncooked pasta rattling around in the cardboard. His stomach growled loudly, and he cleared his throat to try to conceal it.
“This cabin is guarded at all times.” Just as Kennedy said it, Colin noticed that a guard was posted outside of the car as they made their way to the next one. “Supplies are precious. I’d like to trust everyone on this train, but people aren’t their normal selves nowadays. It’s a necessary precaution to make sure no one takes more than their fair share.”
The next five cars housed the passengers. Some were actual sleeper cars with eight separate cabins per car and a bathroom located at the end that also had a small shower. Colin wondered if the showers worked. After food, scraping the layers of grime off his body was at the top of his priority list.
Other cars had been cleared of seats, much like the supply car, and had cots and improvised bedding to include sleeping bags, mats, cushions, thin blankets, and pillows in rows. These cars almost reminded him of mini refugee shelters. People sat on the bedding and looked up at him when he walked past, but their expressions were forlorn and haggard.
“We have enough space to house a hundred passengers comfortably,” Kennedy explained as they made their way past the lodging cars. “The train can hold more, but it’s different when they’re actually living on it versus sitting in a seat taking a trip somewhere. And we keep finding new survivors. We want to help as many as we can, but it’s already cramped, and those who don’t have a cabin don’t like it much, as you can see from their faces.”
Colin remembered how he’d always wanted to live on a train; he couldn’t understand why anyone would be less than thrilled for the same experience. He scratched his head, reminding himself once more to curb his bubbling boyish enthusiasm. But regardless, he thought that the passengers who complained should simply be grateful they were on a giant metal beast like this with Kennedy and her crew to protect them from the undead.
“We keep a couple of cabins open for families so they can all stay together. It’s rare we find more than one survivor at a time, but every once in a while, we get lucky and come across a family,” Tucker told him. “In the near future, we’re hoping to rig up some additional cars to this train and make more room, but we haven’t gotten around to it just yet. It can be pretty dangerous if you don’t have enough manpower and the know-how. Say, you don’t happen to know anything about trains?”
“I know that I love them,” Colin replied in earnest. “But beyond the basics, can’t say that I do. Wish I did.”
“Damn. Well, we’ll find someone eventually.” He nodded at Kennedy encouragingly.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Until then, you’re doing a great job keeping the old girl running. So,” she continued, turning to Colin, “in the meantime, we are going to gut out some more passenger cars and turn them into makeshift housing. I’d rather have the space than the seats. No one really sits on this train with all the other passengers like they did in the pre-rotter days. People just want to be left to themselves. We try to minimize the space for storage so that we have more room for survivors.” Her face brightened. “Luckily for you, you’ll be sharing a cabin with Jeremy Higby in the third sleeper car. He’s on guard duty right now, so I’ll introduce you to him later. He came up with the idea of spearing the rotters. Sharp kid; you’ll like him.”
Tucker laughed heartily. “Ah, I see what you did there. ‘Sharp’ kid. Spears. You get it, Colin?”
Colin felt a wash of different emotions all at once. At first, he was grateful to have an actual cabin and not a cot jammed in with countless others. Immediately after, he wanted her to reconsider, to place him somewhere away from everyone. Alone. The last time he got close to someone, it ended poorly. Haven’s face flashed into his mind, and for a moment, he forgot his eagerness for the train and wanted nothing more than to be off of it.
“Thanks for offering me a cabin, but I’m fine sleeping in one of the seats out there.” He didn’t make eye contact with her and shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.
Kennedy studied him, watching his expressions change from excited to anxious to downright uncomfortable. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen a metamorphosis of emotions flit across his features.
Kennedy recognized the look of loss well, the permanent kind of loss where you didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye and then had to live with the realization that you never would.
She hoped that after death, a place existed where she could be reunited with the family that had been taken away from her too soon… that she would be able to tell them how sorry she was for not doing more.
Colin had lost, that much was certain, but this was a loss that tortured him, as if what he lost was still out there, and he couldn’t find it.
Or maybe he had left something behind that was meant to be lost.
Kennedy shook her head, chiding herself for psychoanalyzing someone who was practically a stranger to her. He could deal with whatever emotions he had as long as he checked them at the door before going out on a rescue mission. They couldn’t afford to be distracted out there.
“I keep all of my able-bodied people in the cabins so they’re well-rested,” she insisted firmly. “I don’t want someone going out for supplies worn out, not only failing to keep his ass safe, but those of his team. And since you’re one of those able-bodied folks, you’re sleeping in a cabin. It’s not negotiable.”
“Trust me when I say that’s the best option,” Tucker whispered to him. “Those other cars with the cots stink.”
Colin shrugged. There was no point in arguing. And in any event, he had a feeling Tucker was right.
“So what exactly do your ‘able-bodied’ people do?” Colin asked them.
Kennedy held up three fingers. “There are three different categories passengers fit into on this train, and each one is valuable in its own way.”
Tucker guffawed. “Lord knows she doesn’t take to slackers.”
Kennedy nodded in agreement. “I want to help everyone I can, but at the same time, it takes a lot to keep this mission going. So unless you’re sick, you’d better be pulling your weight in some way.”
“She’s even got the old folks helpin’ out. Lettin’ them teach the little ones,” Tucker added.
Colin approved of this. “There’s a lot you can learn from those old folks.”
“Absolutely. They’re just as important as we are. I like to think that everyone on here can bring something unique to the table.” She leaned against a window and lifted her forefinger. “Category one, or Team Alpha, as I like to call them—you are out with me and the boys getting supplies. You are hitting up suburban homes, towns, and cities. You are heavily armed. You take no shit.” Tilting her head slightly, her gaze wandered over Colin’s body appreciatively. “You fall into that category.”
Colin straightened and crossed his arms, his chest puffing out a little. “Makes sense.”
His eyes wandered to something behind Kennedy, the slightest of movement at the base of the window. He moved closer to her, laid a hand on her hip, and gently nudged her aside. He stepped back when he saw bloody fingers reaching for them, mottled fingertips with broken nails skimming across the glass.
“That,” Kennedy rapped on the window gently, “brings me to the second category—Team Bravo,” she elaborated with a smile. “You saw the people on the top of the train with the long spears, right?” He nodded. “Well, whenever Team Alpha goes out for supply runs, the train stays put until they get back. Being as trains are pretty noisy, they draw a big crowd from our rotters fan club, so Team Bravo walks up and down the
top of the train and gets rid of them without having to get close and without needing to use a gun.”
Colin was confused. “I thought the zombies… rotters… couldn’t get onto the train.” He leaned over to the window and eyed the creature with suspicion, but it was so far below them, it didn’t have a hope of reaching the window with enough force to break through.
“In theory, once everything is all locked up and secure, they can’t. The windows and doors are too high off the ground without some kind of platform. But at the same time, if we have a massive horde piled against it, or worse, blocking the tracks, we could be in trouble. So we try to take care of them as soon as they get close enough for one of those spears to jab them in the head.”
“Like I said earlier, you can hear the train from a way off. And because we move pretty slowly to conserve fuel, we sometimes get a bit of a… following,” Tucker went on.
“A ‘following?’” Colin’s tone was skeptical. “Even if you moved at a bloody snail’s pace, this train would easily outpace those things.”
“You know how we picked you up?” Kennedy questioned. “We were on a supply run. We do those regularly. Every time we do, we have to stop for a bit. And all the rotters that have been following this mobile Happy Meal finally catch up to us. Sometimes it’s just a small group, and sometimes it’s a decent-sized horde. While Team Alpha is out, Team Bravo handles the rotters that make it to the train.”
Tucker pointed above them to the ceiling of the car. “Ya hear that?”
Colin listened, the sound of heavy boots clanking against the metal roof drawing closer.
“Watch,” Kennedy instructed.
Colin observed in fascination as a long wooden spear jutted down swiftly. The grisly fingers disappeared from the window, leaving a streak of blood in their wake. The tip of the spear flashed past the window as it came back up, clumps of blood and hair stuck to its sharp edges.
“Pretty cool, don’t ya think?” Tucker watched the spectacle proudly as if he was seeing it for the first time.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Colin agreed, equally impressed.
“Team Bravo is made up of our able-bodied folks who don’t have hand-to-hand combat or weapons training, but are still capable of defending the others. Now that we are setting up the train to be a long-term solution to house survivors, I want to start holding trainings for Bravo so we can move them up to Alpha.”
She pushed away from the window and started walking again. “Team Charlie is the last group, basically the remaining people on the train who aren’t necessarily equipped to deal with the rotters, but can still pick up other useful tasks to keep everything running efficiently. As Tucker said, the elderly help take care of the kids and hold a daily ‘school’ session for them. We don’t have too many seniors left. Hard for them to survive out there. But the ones we do have, we take good care of them and try to make them feel like they have something to contribute, something to keep them busy.” Kennedy smiled wistfully. “Also, it’s a real treat to have them around. Once they die, all their history, their stories, everything they lived through, goes with them. We enjoy learning from them, and somehow, they keep us sane, reminding us of all the struggles this country has gone through and how it still managed to get back on its feet time and time again.”
He hadn’t known Kennedy for very long, but his instincts told him that her heart was in the right place. There was no doubt in his mind that she loved her country, wanting only to save it from this scourge and reclaim its greatness again. Colin couldn’t know for sure, but it was likely the rest of the world was drowning in the outbreak just like the States. As he listened to Kennedy talk, hearing the passion in her voice, he felt a pang of regret that he wasn’t in Scotland doing the same.
“We also have a few cooks, and when I say that, don’t get excited,” Kennedy quipped, cutting into his thoughts. “We’re not serving up five-course meals like the Ritz. It’s nothing fancy, but it keeps us alive. Then we’ve got a weekly roster for a rotating cleaning crew, and finally, people who keep tabs on our inventory and figure out the best way to use our resources. Accountant types.”
None of that sounded fun to Colin, and he was thankful to be on Team Alpha.
“Now on to my most favorite car of all,” Kennedy declared. “You wanted to know what all of the supplies from Home Depot were for?” she inquired as they crossed over the last of the sleeper cars.
“Ah,” he answered and nodded slowly in the affirmative. “The mystery of the gardening supplies. Yeah,” he added in jest. “Yeah, I’d really love to know what you needed them for since I nearly got my arse bitten off because you wanted to turn me into a flower-potting granny.”
“Ain’t it great?” Tucker chimed in behind him. “Home Depot used to be my favorite.”
“If I never get to see the inside of another Home Depot again, I don’t think I’ll have any regrets about it,” Colin replied, ruminating on their adventure in the parking garage.
The car they entered next was entirely different from any of the other ones he had seen, and he was taken aback by its cheerfulness. Sun streamed in from the glass domed ceiling with a thin panel of lights running through its center to keep it well-lit at night.
Colin turned in a semi-circle to take in his surroundings. The views surrounding them were positively breathtaking. He could see the landscape fully, the trees, the sky, a glistening blue lake sparkling so majestically that it was almost as if it had been sun-kissed with diamonds.
Kennedy began walking backward like a true tour guide and gestured around. “This is the observation car. It gets lots of sunlight, and for the winter, it’s pretty much our only hope of growing food. We have a limited supply of multivitamins, but they can only do so much, and there aren’t enough for everyone on the train. When spring rolls around, my goal is to use whatever we grow in here to jumpstart gardens at each of the stops we make with the train. Picture this: ten or more hidden gardens near the train, ripe and ready for us to harvest so we don’t have to hunt for as many supplies in zombie-infested towns and cities. So all of those bags of soil, the seeds, the tools… all of that will hopefully provide us with a better long-term way to feed folks good, healthy food.”
It all made sense to Colin now, and he felt badly for complaining the whole time they were on the supply run. “This is incredible.” He stared at Kennedy, truly awestruck. “You came up with all of this by yourself?” She was already a genius for using a train as a mobile camp for survivors. But to improvise it so that they were actually growing and sustaining a food source while moving? She was bloody brilliant.
He noticed her blush a little at the compliment. “Well, I can’t take all the credit—”
“Don’t let her fool you,” Tucker interrupted, holding up a hand to stop her mid-sentence. “It was one hundred percent her.”
Kennedy shook her head, still smiling, her cheeks almost as red as her hair.
Tucker glanced from her to Colin and back again, his lips curling into a huge, wordless grin.
“We’re going to take some plastic water bottles and fasten them to little poles, filling ‘em with water and sticking them upside down into the soil. That way the plants stay irrigated, real gradually, and we don’t waste water. Did I mention you could take showers here, too?”
“Seriously?” Colin blurted out. He was so impressed with the ingenuity and intricacies of train that words befuddled him.
For once, things seemed to be looking up.
“I mean, there’s a roster, and you are limited to one shower a week, but it’s better than nothing. In fact, it ain’t so bad at all. We’ve even got a little kitchen that cooks up hot meals.” Tucker rubbed his hands together. “Speaking of, it’s getting close to dinnertime, and I need to make the announcement over the loudspeaker. But we’ll finish up this tour right quick. Wouldn’t want to miss showing you my favorite car, for obvious reasons.”
“Tucker here has a real good appetite. Gotta keep an eye on our rations with
him around,” Kennedy joked lightheartedly. She motioned for Colin to go ahead of her before following the men to the next stop on the tour.
The surprises kept coming.
Moments later, Colin found himself in a car that almost looked like it came from another era.
Dark cherry wood panels lined the ceiling just above thick drapes tucked back neatly from the windows. There was burgundy carpeting, unlike the passenger and sleeper cars they’d passed through before which had rather uninviting metal flooring, and although it was old and stained and faded, it added a certain warmth to the room. There were tables on either side of the aisle, and each had four wood chairs with patterned upholstery. Small old-fashioned lamps rested above the window in front of each table, casting a cozy glow.
He felt like he was walking into a fancy restaurant from the early twentieth century.
“I know what you’re thinking. This car doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest. I don’t know how this one didn’t get updated like the other dining cars I’ve seen in my time, but for whatever reason, they kept it as is. I’m sure they re-did the carpets, but for the most part, the wood paneling, and even the lights, are the originals.” He leaned against the entryway. “I’m full of old, useless facts now that it’s the end of the world and all, but dining cars became a commonplace addition to long-distance trains in the eighteen-hundreds. Before that, it was pretty depressing. You’d have to grab a bite in transit at some cruddy little railroad stop, maybe get some coffee, stale bread, and cold beans. Sounds real tasty, don’t it?” Colin chuckled along with him, but as hungry as he was, the idea of bread and beans didn’t sound too terrible. “By the late eighteen-hundreds, elegant fine dining became synonymous with eating on a train. You could even get lobster—can you believe that? Nowadays, Amtrak and the likes of them don’t offer too much in the way of five-star cuisine. You walk up to a metal counter, get some chips and a sandwich that’s been sitting out for too long, maybe a can of soda and a cup of ice. Things have really changed.”
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 9
