As much as she didn’t want to let go of his hand, Kennedy folded her hands together in front of her. “I want you to know that I don’t condone what he did to Haven. Hell, I want to kill the bastard myself. But as the leader of this train, I can’t just put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. I have to lock him up and decide what to do from there. There has to be some kind of rule of law here. We’re in the United States of America after all. We don’t always get it right, but we get it right a lot more than most of the countries I’ve been deployed to. That’s what makes us great, what makes us strong. We can’t lose that. We can’t become animals. And I understand that we are almost at full capacity, and soon we’ll be popping at the seams. But we can’t stop helping people. We have to keep our humanity.”
Someone knocked at the door, and both Kennedy and Colin rose to their feet. She wiped at her eyes once more.
“Can you tell I’ve been crying?” she asked him.
Colin smiled. “Not at all,” he whispered. As he walked to the door, he paused and turned to her. “Hey, anytime you want to vent or have a good cry, you know where to find me. It will stay between you and I, you have my word on that,” he promised her solemnly. His hand hovered over the doorknob. “And in anything, you can count on me to back you up. For what it’s worth, you have my support, one hundred and ten percent.”
She nodded at him appreciatively. “Thank you, Colin.”
Johnny B. was standing on the other side of the door when the Scotsman opened it. He gave Colin a sarcastic greeting, then looked at Kennedy. She knew he could tell that she’d been crying, but she motioned for him to not pry further.
Late that night, as she sat at her desk surrounded by old coffee cups and maps and ledgers and blueprints for a better future, she absentmindedly ran her fingers along the lines of her palm. And even though hours had passed since he’d left, Kennedy could still feel the warmth of Colin’s hands against it.
Stewart strode down the length of the train with a confidence he’d been lacking for many years. He swung his backpack over one shoulder, feeling the hefty weight of the bottle inside it pressing against his spine.
Kennedy didn’t have to order him to do anything. For the last week, he’d been readily volunteering to stand guard outside Cade’s cell. When he talked to the others about it, he would pretend that being Cade’s babysitter was the most boring, unappealing assignment a person could ever be given. And that kept folks from signing up and replacing him.
Not that anyone wanted to watch Cade. People were afraid of him, and rightly so. But Stewart didn’t fear him anymore.
As they conversed more and more each day, Stewart found himself genuinely looking forward to their time together. Cade spoke to him as though he was an equal, and that was something Stewart had been missing for a very long time.
Today, Stewart was sneaking in a bottle of Buffalo Trace whiskey. It was one of the things he grabbed from a house they’d slept in during the first month of the outbreak. Lydia had found it later and chastised him for an entire afternoon about wasting space in his pack for liquor when it should have been food.
There was about half of a bottle left. He tried to savor it when he could, on the days when he really needed a drink.
But today, he didn’t need one at all; he knew Cade would greatly appreciate the gesture, elevating Stewart’s friendship in his eyes.
Besides, it would be nice to throw a couple back and “shoot the shit” as Cade called it.
“Hey, man,” Stewart announced when he got to Cade’s cell.
“Hey, brother.” Cade eyed the backpack. “What you got in the bag?”
Stewart smiled and opened the door. Then he brought the pack forward and unzipped it. “Check this out.”
“Holy. Shit.” Cade’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Right? I’ve had it for a while. Been saving it.” He opened the front pouch of the backpack and took out two plastic cups.
Cade straightened from a slouch and waited for Stewart to open the bottle. “I haven’t had that stuff since way back when. My uncle was from Kentucky and always brought it over. He and my dad let me try it when I was in the sixth grade. It burned going down, but I liked it.”
Stewart raised an eyebrow. “Your dad let you drink in middle school?”
Cade nodded. “Sure, why not? It was the only thing we could bond over. Usually he was too busy beating the shit out of me. And that was when he was sober.”
“So he was nicer to you when he was drunk?”
“Absolutely,” Cade told him. He scraped at his wrists in annoyance, his fingernails tearing off the scabs that had formed over the last week. Holding up his hands to the dim lightbulb, he assessed the wounds on his sore, raw wrists.
Stewart noticed and began pouring him a cup. “I wish I could take those off for you.”
“Yeah, I know you do. That asshole, whatever his name is, makes sure to keep these cuffs as tight as possible.”
“He’s definitely an asshole.” Stewart couldn’t hide his contempt for Kennedy’s henchman, Johnny B.
When Stewart handed him the plastic cup, Cade licked his dry lips. He tilted his cup to Stewart. “Cheers to that.”
They downed the cup’s contents in one gulp. Stewart bent down to pour more whiskey into Cade’s cup then sat down on the floor opposite him.
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, savoring the liquor before Cade cleared his throat. “So what are they planning on doing with me?”
Stewart hesitated. Not because he was forbidden to reveal anything to the prisoner, but because once Cade was gone, it would just be him and Lydia again.
He swallowed another sip. “They’re throwing you out at the next stop.”
Cade grinned. “Well, that’s a good thing. I can’t wait to be out of these fucking restraints.”
Stewart swirled the whiskey in the cup pensively. “Yeah, it’s a good thing I guess.”
“How far are we from the next stop? I don’t even know where we are, being as I don’t have a window.” He gestured to the bleak gray walls around him.
Looking at his watch, Stewart mouthed a few words.
“What’s that?” Cade asked, not hearing him.
Stewart shook his head. “I’m just trying to remember where we stopped last. It’s always the same routine. Kennedy knows where to go, who to meet. We’re probably nearing the panhandle. Florida-Georgia border.”
Cade was inwardly intrigued, but his expression remained neutral. “What do you mean?”
Shrugging, Stewart replied, “We go up and down the same route, north to south, stopping before we get to D.C. and Orlando. She doesn’t want to risk going into the big cities yet.”
“Seems a pity. Major cities like those would be full of supplies.”
Stewart gawked at him. “Yeah, but also rotters. It’d be a suicide mission. She wants to wait for the hordes to starve and die down.”
“Could be a while,” Cade told him.
“Maybe. And we don’t have a while. We’re running low on food. Each time we bring on more people, it gets worse for the rest of us.”
Cade studied the man.
There it was.
This was his in.
“You the only one who feels this way?” he probed, hoping to learn more.
Stewart laughed sarcastically. “No. More like half the passengers on the train.”
“You guys aren’t surviving off canned food though. She gets fresh shit; I’ve had it.”
“Yeah, there’s this guy not far from the fuel storage terminal at the Columbus, Georgia stop. She trades fuel for meat and whatever produce he has on his farm. And he’s got a lot. We have canned food and bags of rice and beans, but the Cannon farm is a goldmine for us. We couldn’t get that stuff otherwise.”
“Hmm,” Cade mused. “Seems like a pretty decent set up. How often does she stop?”
Holding out his fingers, Stewart recounted the names of the stops from memory. “It’s the same ones every ti
me. She’s been meaning to venture out further, but it’s risky. She goes with what she knows. We stop at the Cannons’ on our way up, then again on our way back down.”
Cade grinned.
Stewart noticed and frowned. “Why do you care?”
“I just want to know when I can expect to have these cuffs taken off, that’s all,” Cade replied nonchalantly. “Pour me another,” he demanded, deciding to change the subject for the time being.
As Stewart went on about women, booze, and the privileged life he’d led before the outbreak, Cade sat there and appeared to be attentively listening.
But he wasn’t paying attention to the trivial stories the pathetic weasel of a man was telling him, hoping to impress him. It had already taken all the patience Cade could muster to hide his disdain for Stewart’s flagrant weakness.
Yes, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
He had gone from leader to prisoner, all because of the same person who continually managed to get him in trouble.
He ground his teeth in anger.
Haven.
That stupid bitch complicated everything.
He was going to have to figure out another way to get what he wanted.
And right now, all he wanted was the train.
“I’m telling you, Lydia, this guy… He’s progressive. He wants to change everything about how the train is run. He wants to make it so that we take care of our own and stop taking in leeches like the… Irish guy… or whatever he is… and the family who joined us a couple weeks ago. He’s on our side, sees them bleeding us of our food and water, what’s rightfully ours. We got here first.”
Stewart set his tray down on the checkered table cloth, his voice barely above a whisper. They were sitting at their usual corner away from everyone else. They didn’t exactly have any friends on the train, but after the conversations he’d had with Cade, Stewart felt confident he had found a kindred spirit.
“Stewart, what exactly is he going to do? The man is in shackles. Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia responded, rolling her eyes without even attempting to conceal her annoyance.
“That’s the thing. We’ve been talking. A few of us.”
Lydia leaned back in her chair and threw up her hands. “Please don’t tell me you’ve become the mastermind of some idiotic plan.”
He winced at her words and shrugged, his confidence immediately deflated. He wished he could sink into the chair and disappear. Did she always have to insult him, like he couldn’t do anything right? If it wasn’t his looks, it was his intelligence. If it wasn’t his intelligence, it was his masculinity. He couldn’t win.
She poked at her food disinterestedly, jabbing at it a bit more viciously than necessary. “I can’t believe this is the slop we’re eating now. And what the hell is it with these portions?” She slammed the fork down rather loudly, causing the other passengers in the car to look up. Scowling, she muttered, “Everyone is so damn nosy.”
Stewart started to put the dishes back on the tray. He’d suddenly lost his appetite and just wanted to be alone.
She watched him neatly organize his cutlery on the tray and shift out of his chair. “Alright, tell me. What’s this ‘top secret’ plan you have?”
He didn’t look up.
“Come on, spit it out,” she insisted, pushing at his arm. “Any conversation is better than suffering in silence as we eat this garbage.”
He sighed and met her eyes. “I don’t think we should talk about it here. People might be listening.”
“Oh, Stewart, for fuck’s sake. No one cares. Or they’re too dumb to do anything different from what they’re told by Kennedy. You could probably shout your plan from a megaphone, and it wouldn’t change a thing. They’re all sheep. Just tell me.”
He fidgeted and looked around. When he was satisfied that no one was paying attention to them, he turned back to his wife. “We’re talking about overthrowing the leadership here. Making the train safe again. Making sure we don’t take on more survivors so the rest of us can have enough.”
Stewart shrank back a little and fidgeted in his chair, waiting for the next berating comment.
Surprisingly, Lydia didn’t say anything; in fact, she seemed intrigued.
Encouraged by this, he continued, “He knows Kennedy has limited support from some passengers. And even with those loyal followers, it wouldn’t take much to change their minds.”
“Bullshit,” Lydia interjected, her face reddening. “I’ve been trying to change their minds for a long time, and nobody listens. Ever since those new people came, it’s getting harder and harder to convince the others.”
Stewart reached for her hand and was pleased when she didn’t pull it away. “Look, Cade is smart. He’s the leader we’ve needed for a long time. He has a plan. It’s going to benefit all of us.”
“What’s the exact plan then?” She leaned in close to him.
Stewart glanced at a couple walking past them, then pressed his body against the table corner until his lips met her ear.
When he moved back, her mouth was twisted into a crooked smile, and her eyes, normally a dull brown, burned with excitement. It almost turned him on… almost, until he realized that excitement wasn’t for him.
“I love it,” she hissed. “Kennedy is soft and stupid. Her days as our leader are over.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Ma’am,” Grady interrupted, clearing his throat. “We have a problem.”
Kennedy looked up from where she stood with Johnny B., Jackson, and two others, a large map of the country laid out in front of them on her desk. The train was noticeably slowing down.
“Why are we stopping?” she asked Grady.
“We’re in a tunnel.”
She leaned over the map again. “I don’t see a problem. We go through tunnels all the time.”
Grady shook his head. “The tunnel isn’t the problem. There’s something blocking the tracks. A car.”
She straightened and glanced at Johnny B. “That’s… odd.”
Normally, nothing impeded them on their route. If an unlucky rotter happened to find itself on the tracks, the train would plow over it easily, pulverizing its body into ground meat beneath the rail wheels.
“Never had that happen before, ma’am,” Grady agreed.
She folded the map and tucked it back into a drawer. “Can we shove the car off the tracks with the cow plow?” The cow plow, formally called a pilot, was the device mounted on the font of the train used to deflect anything on the tracks that could derail it.
“Tucker thinks if we ram it, it would just get stuck to the train. We’d end up having to move it off the front anyways, and at that point, who knows how much damage we would have done to the train or the tracks.”
“Alright. Tell Tucker to hit the front light. If we’re gonna move the car, we need to be able to see what’s in that tunnel. I’m not having folks wandering around in the dark blindly.”
“Roger that,” Grady answered.
Johnny B. pulled on his shoulder holster. “We’re getting low on fuel and don’t have time to dick around.”
Kennedy nodded. “I know. I was hoping we would make it to the next fuel stop tonight and go out first thing tomorrow morning. We need supplies, and I want to get Cade off the train.”
“I still don’t understand why you won’t throw the bastard off while the train’s moving. Or let me finish him.”
“Trust me, part of me wants you to. But that’s not how we do things. We’ll let him off at the next stop—”
“This is the next stop, so does that mean we can set him free in a dark tunnel with no flashlight?”
Kennedy gave him a look. “No.” After she put on her gloves, she checked the magazine in her Glock. “Go get the team ready. We don’t know if the car even works. If it doesn’t, we’ll need enough people to push it off the tracks.”
Kennedy and Johnny B. got off the train first. Aside from the beam of light flooding the tracks in front of them, everything on
the sides and behind them was hidden in darkness.
The damp tunnel walls seemed to close in on them, and Kennedy took a deep breath to pull herself together.
Something didn’t feel right.
Holding a flashlight in one hand and her gun in the other, Kennedy nodded to Johnny B., and they stealthily made their way to the vehicle sitting on the tracks before them with Grady, Jackson, Colin, and Jeremy following suit.
Jeremy had never been on a supply run with them, but he’d received enough training that Kennedy decided it was time to let him join Team Alpha, when needed.
The car was a white Toyota Camry, but the exterior was so filthy that it looked more like a dark gray, even with bright lights shining on it.
“Check it, J.B.,” Kennedy ordered. Her back was to him, and she shifted her gun from side to side, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness around them.
Following her lead, the others formed a full circle around the vehicle, their weapons raised in anticipation of any threats.
Johnny B. wiped the dust and grime from the driver’s side window and peered inside. “No living or dead in here.”
He pulled at the door handle, but found it locked. Lifting his rifle, he slammed the butt of it into the glass, fragments shattering and crumpling to the ground. Kennedy flinched, hating how the noise amplified and carried in the tunnel.
Reaching into the car, Johnny B. unlocked the door and got into the driver’s seat. There were no keys in the ignition, so he ripped away the plastic cover on the steering column.
After a few minutes had passed, Colin poked his head in.
“You need help in there?”
“Shut up,” Johnny B. shot back. “I think we’re going to have to move this thing ourselves. It’s dead as a doornail.”
Kennedy had been quiet since they surrounded the vehicle. While the others were staring ahead, her eyes were fixated on the train. She strained to focus her vision.
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 20
