by David Tyne
As I awkwardly sat beside the guy who would've been my new classmate, neither of us really knew what to say. All I could think to ask, was the only question in my mind that had no logical answer.
“...What now?”
This made him smirk, almost admiring my optimism. “...Zombies, huh. That's just not fair.”
Hearing that term forced me to cringe. I always associated ‘zombies’ with the shuffling green baddies in video games. Arms outstretched, hungry for brains, those ridiculous tropes that could never truly exist…
None of those ideas were appropriate, not with this situation. We saw it first-hand, how Leo managed to slaughter five men in the blink of an eye, and still maintained a running speed that was just shy of matching a high-powered train.
"You don't think... this is happening all over, do you?” I blurted out.
Ian tensed up, realising the gravity of what I was asking. Scotland, the UK, Europe... Our homes, everywhere we had ever been, everyone we had ever met, our families and friends. They could all be dead, or much worse.
Upon receiving no answer, I still felt compelled to break the sulky tension. If nothing else, it would keep us both calm to talk about what was going on, rather than suffering in silence.
“I have to go home. My mum’s in by herself today, she lives in Danderhall... I'm pretty sure that's where this train is heading.”
Ian shuffled a bit upon hearing this, sitting upright to fix his matted hair. “I hadn't... really thought about it. My mom and dad won’t be too happy to see me, they sorta kicked me out last night—”
He recoiled back into his seat, realising the perspective from which he was talking. After what we'd just seen, our troubles from yesterday were not even on the same scale as those of today.
“...Right. Bigger picture,” was all he could add.
The train exploded with colour as it burst out of the dark tunnel, finally exposed to the blinding mid-day sun. It wasn't just the sky, though — we came out beside the motorway, where crashed cars and motorbikes heaped together and created a glistening bonfire of metal, reaching for at least a dozen car lengths.
Between the flickering gaps, we could almost see the burning city we’d just narrowly escaped from. The crumbling rooftops were being investigated from above by a couple of plain-black helicopters, clearly hesitant to land anywhere near the ground.
Along the train tracks, vacant shapes resembling human beings wandered dangerously close as we whirred past. Slowly, their shoulders turned to reveal ghoulishly-contorted masks of faces, occasionally smeared with gore and speckles of red.
“So it's real, huh?” I said without thinking.
Neither of us were aware of how stupid these words sounded, as Ian nodded sheepishly in affirmation. Until that point, I thought I could still pretend that this was all one big dramatic nightmare.
Unfortunately, I had been nothing but fully present since the train station... Maybe that's what seemed so off. Any normal person would’ve cracked after the shit we saw in that city. Most probably had, and we just didn’t know it yet.
As we turned to confront the horrific scenery outside, Ian spoke to my faded window reflection without turning his head. “Danderhall. That's where I live, too. I know it's weird to ask, but I've been going through some... stuff, with my parents, and... I mean, I don't know how safe it'll be out there—”
“Sure, I'll come with you. It's probably not far away from my place, at least.” I answered before he could finish, forcing a smile for the first time since the interview.
Neither of us had mentioned it, but we helped each other escape from that hell hole... We owed our lives to each other, and besides, I didn’t trust my chances going alone.
I didn't have too many friends back home, other than my neighbour Millie. Her family would probably check in on my mum, which left Ian as the only loose end on my part. He smiled as insincerely as I had, glazing over into that empty stare once the window reminded him of what was waiting for him on the other side.
After about fifteen or twenty minutes of silence, we were both still resting in our individual booths. Trying to shut out the frightening world beyond the train’s metal walls, the sound of a sudden commotion filled the next carriage over. We both exchanged the same look of dread, flipping upwards to guard ourselves. Slowly and unsurely, we shuffled towards the closed cabin’s door.
Grasping the handle, I nodded to Ian and he returned the gesture. Just like we rehearsed in the university, I counted to three. “One... Two... Thr-”
My whisper was interrupted by a large mass throwing itself against the other side of the door, knocking me onto the ground. I braced my own startled fall, gazing upwards with horror as I met the cold, grey eyes of Leo's late wife.
7 | I’m Not A Killer
"Get down!" Ian snapped, and I gladly obeyed as the snarling shell of the woman swatted the air above me.
If she wasn't attacking like one of them, I'd be able to tell she was deceased by her scent alone... I’d never been so close to a dead body before, and the rotten-hospital stench was already overpowering.
Done with admiring the view of a corpse bent over me, I let Ian smack her back through the doorway and we both scuttled down the aisle to reach the far side of the train. Unfortunately, we’d forgotten that this was the last carriage, and the rear door was completely locked.
"Of course it is," I muttered.
"Not the time!!" Ian didn't appreciate my whimsy. "Check that red box!" He guided my attention towards a latch hidden underneath a nearby booth's seat, marked with a green 'Only Open In Case of Emergency' sign.
Well, I certainly hope that this qualifies.
Breaking the seal, I found three large capped flares and a tiny mallet-shaped tool made from a heavy metal, which was probably used for breaking glass. Tossing a flare to Ian, I turned my attention to the wheezing carcass currently trying to crawl over each seated row.
It was all well and good, finding a box of goodies to defend yourself with like they did in the horror movies. As she crept closer though, I felt a pang of guilt upon remembering who she was. What I was about to do, to someone’s wife. Someone’s mother.
"Daniel, now!!" My new friend shouted, encouraging me towards a despicable act. Time was running out, and I was paralysed by the prospect of 'murdering' this poor woman.
She was clearly disoriented, in her erratic state. Probably had no idea what she was actually doing. "I... I can't..." I managed to choke out, my jaw breaking the mold that was holding me speechless.
"Oh, for God's sake..." Ian exhaled, realising that he would have to step in as he un-cupped his flare. "I'm sorry!" he bellowed as a violent-red light exploded over the carriage walls. He brought his sparkling rod down forcefully, plunging directly into the eye socket of Leo's dearly beloved.
A pained shriek escaped her cold, dead lips as the rest of her body went into spasming shock. Her limbs crumpled into a messy heap on the floor, only an inch away from our feet.
We watched her carefully for a second, half-expecting her to leap up and sink her teeth into the nearest target. Once we were convinced that she was dead for good, Ian slid down the wall alongside her.
His darkened eyes glared upwards, with a grim look of betrayal... although mostly exhaustion. "You nearly got us both killed. Stage fright, really?"
Holding a tight knot in my lungs, I gripped the shaking sides of the train as we hurdled through some empty factory district. It felt like the walls were closing in, and our velocity kept moving faster and faster with no signs of stopping. It was blinding like claustrophobia, but Ian kept pressing me for answers.
"...Did you think she was alive, or something? Even if she was, she just tried to kill us! Who cares about people like that?!" The question was legitimate — I would’ve been dead, if Ian hadn’t swooped in. This wasn't some kind of game.
"I know that she... she was already dead..." I paused and turned away, trying not to breathe in her lingering stench. "This is just sick. I
'm not a killer, neither of us are… So why was that so easy for you?!" I threw his anger back at him, acting like a child. I wish I hadn't insulted him for saving my ass, but the words were already out, and Ian took it hard.
"You think that... was easy? I’m in fucking bits, Daniel. Self-defence doesn’t cut it, I just did what you forced me to do." He pressed his hand against the wall, pulling himself up into the faint glow of the red flare. "It's my choice to keep on living, no matter what — no one else can take that decision away. You wanna know what makes killing so 'easy' for me?"
He turned his head to cast a blood-red shadow across the entire carriage, rattling closer with each passing jolt.
"...Because anyone, anything that strips me of my free will doesn't deserve my sympathy. It's as simple as that."
I could recognise the weight behind each of his words, as though he was referring to his way of life in general. Even though I had only known him for a couple of hours, it was obvious that this ‘Ian’ had been hiding until now.
Just a few minutes prior, he was cripplingly-shy and unable to form a sentence without stuttering. As soon as his fight-or-flight mode kicked in, his desire to live outweighed everything else. It almost scared me, how seamlessly he could change personas.
Despite his attitude, I totally understood how he felt — our mere existence on this planet was a virtue. If someone tries to take it from us, erasing our life’s purpose, there's a very primal, very 'human' force that will strive to defend itself at all costs.
I just needed to flip the switch, and thanks to Ian’s pep talk, I was fully prepared. Luckily, it wasn't a moment too soon.
"No! Stop it!! Go away, I want mummy!" A high-pitched voice screeched over the speaker system of the convulsing train. Moving on plain instinct, I jammed my thumb into the eye socket of the woman lying at my feet. Feeling around, I heartlessly yanked out the flare which was now in full-burn and covered in her sticky-red gore.
Bursting right through the next cabin’s door with Ian at my side, I was appalled at how so much had happened without us hearing more than a single scream.
Torn bodies littered the carriage, some of the moving ones chewing on the stomach contents of a poor fellow passed out between the seats. The other corpses grunted vacantly from their final resting places, either on the brink of dying or already waking up to their colder reality.
The only logical explanation was that someone else had been infected, just like Leo’s bitten arm. They kept it to themselves, while the majority of the passengers were busy blaming us for the train's early departure.
There was no sign of anyone alive enough to be broadcasting their voice throughout the whole train, however… I assumed that the only survivors would be at the front end of the train, away from this bloody mess.
The walls seemed to be rocking even harder as I quietly tip-toed over each dead passenger, tiny mallet in hand. As the first one twisted its head and groaned in response, I recalled what Ian said. Stepping right into a swing, my weapon busted the underside of the corpse's chin straight up through his jaw, literally dropping it to the floor.
I was more shocked at how bloody it was, than how normal I still felt after assaulting the man. He didn’t seem to feel pain, still snapping his top row of teeth in my direction.
"You missed the brain… Filthy casual," Ian teased, striking the still-moving body hard into the floor while I finished the job.
It was important for me to remain cold, detached during the murder. I couldn't make stupid jokes like Ian; any spare energy went into constricting my muscles, stopping myself from shaking in cowardice.
Moving straight forward to the fresher targets, I whispered "I'm sorry..." to appease the small part of me that remembered my victim was a fellow human less than five minutes ago.
Luring the mindless monsters out one-by-one through the narrow walkway, Ian let me handle the next few reanimated cadavers. I managed to dispatch the elderly with unreliable ease, but it took our combined strength to outmanoeuvre the faster ones.
Being stuck on a train with so many obstacles made it simple, but I couldn’t let the confidence get to my head. The memory of what Leo managed to do, all on his own with plenty of open space to work with… Facing any of these creatures outside would be a death wish.
I thought we were making good progress, until we reached the end of the train and realised that we hadn't encountered a single living person. "This feels bad," Ian grumbled under his breath. "H-Hey... doesn't the train feel like it's going... a bit too fast?"
Before I could reply, the conductor's door swung open to unveil the little blonde girl we'd saved at the train station, all alone in the control room. Tugging on her bloodied floral shirt, Leo’s daughter seemed to have locked herself inside and unbolted it when she heard our voices.
Behind her tear-struck face, the console controlling the train was giving off all sorts of flashes and warnings. After a moment of inspection, it became obvious from the multitude of blinking red lights that the situation was far past recoverable.
"Mister... Do you know how to drive a train?!"
8 | Shelter
I had a dream. I knew it couldn’t be real, because it showed what happened after my successful interview. Something like a video clip of myself, travelling home in safety and telling my mum all about the university I was going to attend.
She was so proud to hear that, as neither her nor my step-dad were able to go when they were young. In a way, I was doing it more for her benefit than my own. My own purpose was making others happy, starting with my family.
After the movie reel came to a close, I was dragged back into the darkness. A pitch-black world where Leo, his family and Ian had been disembowelled in the streets of Edinburgh by ravenous cannibals.
The dead outnumbered the living by hundreds. Everyone still struggled, barely clinging onto their lives. The more my companions kicked and screamed, the worse their condition became.
I would have tried to help them, but they looked so... fresh. All of that red, it looked good on them. Tasty, juicy... Just one bite, I told myself...
----
I jolted upwards, banging my head immediately on the charred, metallic remains of the train's control console. “Oh, thank God...” I whispered to myself, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead.
Massaging the lump growing out of my skull, everything around me was tilted on its side and eerily silent. That was when I finally noticed; my surroundings were very different from what I last remembered.
The rear carriage of our train lay severed across the tracks, somehow in front of the conductor’s shattered window. It must’ve flipped over from the back, twisting around the chassis of yet another upturned train as smoke billowed upwards from the wreckage.
Bits and pieces of our earlier struggle sliced through my mind, razor-sharp and painful to recall. Ian and the little girl were desperately trying to remove us from a collision course, heading straight towards a stationary train on the tracks.
We must have failed, I realised as the faint scent of raw electricity twitched my nose towards the console. Moving from one priority to another, my head whipped around to check whether any of the dead were still on-board.
Judging from the sheer lack of movement, it appeared that I was the only person still kicking on the entire train. My hiding spot was barely concealed under the last of the sun's light — it must’ve been around seven or eight o'clock.
It was that moment when I noticed my mobile phone had been subtly buzzing its usual merry tune, on a loop between the cracks of the smashed window. Someone had dug it out of my pockets, placing it there from the outside.
I'd forgotten about the many alarms I'd set last night for my big interview... This one was supposed to be telling me that it was time to get on the train and go home. So much for that, I half-chuckled to myself in the smouldering cockpit.
The thought of calling for help had never even occurred to me, during my frantic our escape. The longer I dwelled on that
option, the more redundant it sounded. The military were beyond their capacity as it was, dialing 999 wouldn't have solved anything.
I was sure that there were countless people, family and friends that I would've contacted on that train ride, had I not been distracted by the rush of undead passengers. Pressing the phone to my ear as I attempted to call my mum, the service was obviously not available through my provider.
I didn't feel shocked, or even upset... it was exactly as I expected. It was never going to be that easy, dealing with mass riots and nation-wide panic at the same time. If I wanted to make sure that she was safe, I’d have to make my way home as swiftly as possible.
Brushing the harsh truth aside for the time being, I reopened my phone's menu only to see a curious flashing icon on top of my dashboard app. Clicking it open revealed a note that was named “FROM IAN – WAKEY WAKEY” with a frowny face.
I'd caught the message just in time too, as my weak battery was minutes away from dying. Upon reading the following lines, I was relieved to see that he must be okay somewhere.
“couldnt wake u. they were coming soz, locked door so ur safe 4 now. me & beth r gonna head up 2 the shop 4 help. follow the tracks if u want. hang in there dude.”
I guessed by 'Beth' he meant Leo's little girl, which only gave me concern about what he meant by 'help'. Was he planning on coming back, or did something else happen?
I wasted no time jumping out of the window, landing on both feet more flexibly than I would've without the adrenaline rush. Should've taken note of the exterior first, in hindsight — the rhythmic buzzing of my phone had accumulated a rather large number of music fans. Die-hard ones, by the looks of it.
Checking my pockets, I was relieved to see that Ian had left me one of the flares to defend myself with. I thought it was wise to use the item there and then, while there was still enough sunlight left to avoid attracting any more of them.
