by Spriggs, Kal
That was something of an exaggeration. Most of those bodies were too decomposed to rise. But Tim blanched anyway as he thought about it. The undead were drawn to sound and light. Any place they holed up would have to be a fortress... and more and more of the undead would gather every day. They would pile themselves in to fill a moat, they'd pile bodies on top of one another until they scaled a wall. They'd beat on doors and windows until their bones shattered or the barriers did... and then they would kill every living thing they came across.
"We can't stop here, Tim," Jack said softly. "There's too many of them. We're headed to the only safety we'll be able to find."
"That's assuming the Free States transmission isn't a hoax or some nut," Tim growled.
"Yeah," Jack nodded, "But they've had a few other people on, so if they are nuts, there's at least a few of them together." The shortwave transmission came on in the evening, and the Free Western States claimed to be survivors who had banded together, a number of enclaves across Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho. They said that they held out, that any who came in peace were welcome.
Almost everyone had heard those transmissions and they were how Jack had been able to make the train work. Most survivors they'd come across were only too eager to join them on their journey. Not all, Jack thought as he remembered more than a few holdouts who'd sneered at the very idea. But the ones who had stayed in touch after the train had left, their transmissions had been ones of dwindling supplies, of growing desperation, reports of increasing numbers of undead... and most ended in silence.
Short-wave transmissions from across the east had been going quiet. A big enclave up in Maine had been holding out for months, but they'd gone silent only a few days ago. Jack pointed up at the map of the United States taped to the back wall of the cab. "We hear anything from Chattanooga?"
The town in Tennessee had been a bastion. The combination of mountains and good organization had kept the town in a good state. Many survivors on the eastern coast had headed there and Jack had originally planned to head his train that way... but too many train tracks were out in the Appalachian Mountains. Their scouts hadn't been able to find a route south through Kentucky, not short of backtracking all the way to Virginia at the least... which had meant he'd had to turn the train north and go through Cincinnati.
Tim looked away, "Nothing."
"They said they were having some issues with their generator..." Robert started to say.
"That was a week ago. If they haven't got a replacement and checked in by now..." Jack shrugged. "It doesn't look good, does it?"
Their policy with their own scouts was that they gave them three days to check in. Anything after a week and they just assumed that they were dead. It didn't pay to send people to search for them. The scouts had rail cars or trucks with rail wheels that could transit quickly, that should be able to outrun anything that they couldn't fight.
A city didn't have that.
"We keep moving," Jack said. He pointed at the map, "So, tell me about St Louis."
"Alton is north of the city," Tim spoke. "Team Two said the bridge is still up, but it's not a rail bridge, so we'd have to unload the train, move across, and try to find alternate transportation."
Jack nodded. It wasn't the best option, it would either leave them entirely on foot in close proximity to millions of undead, or if they got lucky they could put together some kind of convoy on the other side of the river.
"What else?"
"Merchant's bridge is up and so is MacArthur," Robert said, pointing at the two railroad bridges they'd circled on the map. Both of them were at the center of town. "But Team One didn't get close enough to look at them, not before..."
"Before they died," Jack finished for him. Sam Robb had lead Team One. He'd volunteered to lead his team into St Louis. He and his team had reported clear tracks and seeing both rail bridges still standing. They'd also reported growing numbers of undead... and then a last, panicked call from Sam had ended in screaming.
The train could bull through a few hundred bodies, but Jack didn't know if it could push through thousands or tens of thousands. If enough bodies clogged the tracks, could they derail the train?
Three million undead, he thought to himself. Yet those three million zombies would come at the sound of the train, anyway. If they had to stop, to move the survivors on foot across the Alton bridge...
"We need more information," Jack said. He glanced at Tim, "Call Team Three and Four, have them head back this way. Is Team Two headed back?"
"Yeah," Robert nodded.
"Have them see if they can get a better picture of things down there. We're not going to push in, not yet, but we're going to have to send someone back into St Louis." Jack frowned and pointed at an antenna symbol drawn on the south side of St Louis, "There's some survivors there?" He didn't remember any transmissions from St Louis.
"Some nutjob," Tim snorted, "Nadal Malik; he calls himself the Lord Regent. He claims he has an army of hundreds and he'll protect anyone who recognizes his divine stature."
"Raider?" Jack asked.
"I don't think so," Tim frowned. "Sounds more like the strictly delusional type. We've never heard anyone else on his radio and he's pretty sporadic."
"Doesn't take much more than a high powered rifle to take someone down. Team One didn't have time to tell us what went wrong..." Jack thought out loud. "He transmit anything around the time we lost Sam?"
"No," Tim shook his head.
"Well, keep an ear out. If it was normal survivors, I'd be willing to see if we could get people over there, but..." Jack shrugged. He wasn't about to risk fighting people they'd need to try to get to someone who sounded crazy and might be dangerous.
Though if I could get him to make some kind of disturbance on the right part of town, Jack thought to himself, and that would sure be convenient... At this point, it didn't bother him to think of using someone else as a diversion for the undead, especially not when that person was probably already unhinged.
"Okay," Jack nodded at the others, "I've got to go spread the news." He turned to step out of the cab, but then froze as he saw the small chalk board on the door. The numbers 953 were written on it. He smudged out the last two numbers and corrected it: 936.
As he stepped outside, he told himself that the tears were from the wind stinging his eyes.
***
"Do you ever notice," Doc Cedeno shouted, "that they don't rot?"
"What?" Jack demanded. He looked over at Doc Luis Cedeno. He wore combat fatigues, not a lab coat, but the brown-haired man still looked more like someone's kindly uncle than a multi-degree professor. Two of those degrees were information technology and accounting, but he also had teaching certifications in physics and biology. Jack liked bouncing ideas off the man, who seemed to have plenty of brain cells to spare for any problem.
"The undead," Doc Cedeno waved a hand at his operating table. The corpse of the old man fought at the restraints and snapped broken teeth at them. It didn't stop, nor had any of the other zombies that Doc Cedeno had collected for investigation. "They don't rot. When I take a sample, there's no bacteria, no fungi. I can't understand it."
"I dunno, Doc," Jack said. He found it vaguely interesting in a sort of "things are trying to kill me and I'm way out of my league, but that's a random fact that I don't need right now" sort of way. "How we looking on fuel?" Technically that was more Tim's job, but Doc Cedeno had a better head for the exact numbers.
"Oh, we'll make the rendezvous point, no problem," Doc Cedeno waved a hand. "And from what your scouts reported, we should have plenty of fuel there." He walked over and tapped on the zombie's chest which seemed to have no effect on the zombie's mindless attempt to escape.
Their next rendezvous point wasn't far and Jack wasn't really worried about fuel, not just yet. They'd found dozens of trains along their route, pulled aside on split junctions, most parked out in the middle of nowhere. Those trains had provided fuel, food, and other supplies and Jack had ta
ken to using them as rendezvous points for their scouts. They'd meet up, everyone would refuel and restock, and then they would roll out again.
Most times they would pause for a day or two, everyone would get a break. Their next spot wasn't far, only twenty miles. The train could have traveled there much quicker, but they kept the speed down so the advance team could sweep the tracks ahead of them for raiders or anything that the scouts might have missed.
Ten miles an hour was normally sufficient to outpace zombies. It was also easier on the passengers and kept the noise and vibration down enough that people could sleep.
"How did this happen?" Doc Cedeno grunted.
"What do you mean?" Jack asked. Sometimes he wasn't certain that the professor was entirely in the real world anymore.
"This," Doc Cedeno waved a hand through the air, "all this. Billions dead... the dead rising, how did it all happen?" The professor looked back at Jack and for a second, his eyes had an odd light. "How have we come to this?!"
Jack spoke slowly and kept his voice level. Luis wasn't particularly unstable, but everyone on the train had their moments of crazy. That was just a way of life, now. "Doc, you know as much as I do, right? A billion dead Chinese from their civil war gone nuclear. Hundreds of millions more when the Russians and Indians got pulled into it... a few hundred million more North Koreans, and terrorist attacks in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles."
They didn't know they were terrorist attacks. For all that Jack knew, someone in the US government had freaked out and nuked the three cities to stop zombie outbreaks. The results, though, had been plain enough for most people to see. Mass hysteria and a complete breakdown of society. It had been a slow, but steady crumble after that as people didn't go into work and as undead outbreaks spread. Food and water became matters of survival and those who died from starvation or thirst or disease... well, they rose as undead, too.
No one knew what caused it. It wasn't a virus or contagion, not that anyone had been able to identify. The dead simply rose, and the undead sought out the living, any living creatures they could find, to kill. The more people who'd died in an area, the faster they rose. In major cities, especially out east, it happened almost instantly. Even in smaller cities, like back in Springfield, it could happen in just seconds.
The military had been extremely effective at containment at first. The problem was, they used up a lot of supplies. Jack had been there as they started to run out of bullets and fuel. Smart commanders had shifted to using melee weapons and conserving ammunition, but fuel had been the hardest part. Without fuel, units were stuck to moving on foot and they couldn't power generators. Without power from generators, they'd lost radio contact with other units... and the collapse had continued from there.
Besides, the tiny five point five six millimeter bullets didn't do much against the undead. Headshots didn't stop them, you had to destroy the zombie's ability to move and attack. Grenades, rockets, and explosives worked well. Driving over them with heavy vehicles, crushing them with heavy equipment, that was the best way.
That's why we're on a train, Jack reminded himself. Trucks, even tanks, could get stuck in piles of bodies. The train had far more mass, it could carry far more people... but it was also limited in the routes they could take.
"Yes," Luis Cedeno said after a moment, "you are right. It just seems so... strange. And some of the stranger rumors..."
"What, like the portal to Hell over Chicago?" Jack snorted.
"Exactly that," Doc Cedeno nodded, his face intent. "And blood raining from the sky in Cincinnati. We all experienced that, Captain."
Jack scowled, but it was as much for the use of his rank as the reminder about Cincinnati. In his mind, he didn't deserve the title. Jack didn't command a company, he never had. He'd been a combat engineer. He'd fought in wars for his country and he was proud of his service... but he sure as hell didn't feel worthy of the rank, not anymore.
"There could have been any number of explanations..."
"It was blood, Captain," Doc Cedeno said, his face intent. "Blood, raining from the sky."
"Do you want to go back and investigate?" Jack snapped.
"Of course not," the professor snorted. "I'm just saying that strange things are afoot."
Jack gave the man a level look, "Doc, there's millions of undead roaming the countryside. Tell me something I didn't know."
***
Chapter Two
"Tell me, tell me," Nadal Malik hissed, "why are these apostates coming to my city?"
"They're not, they're not, I promise!" the whimpering captive gasped.
"Are you certain?" Nadal demanded. As the young man nodded his head shakily, Nadal stepped away from the makeshift torture rack. The old metal bed-frame worked well enough for the task, to be certain. It was easy enough for someone to carry the frame and its occupant right out of the building, too. Not that he had to worry about disposal.
"Captain Hudson," Nadal barked.
"Lord Regent?" The former military officer came forward. He and Captain Carney acted as Nadal's main enforcers. They'd all escaped from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth together, they and a handful of others had formed a core gang. But now, now they were far more than a gang.
"Cut him down, take him below," Nadal hissed. Ever since his injury, he hadn't been able to do much more than rasp. He'd suffered that injury in what he had thought of as a holy crusade against infidels... but now he realized that it had merely been delusions.
Now I have met the true emissaries of God, he thought to himself.
"You said you'd let me go," the young man pleaded.
Nadal cocked his head and turned around. "I did, didn't I?" He smiled, then. He nodded at Captain Hudson, "Captain, cut him down. Bring him with us. I need to meet with the Hand of God."
Captain Hudson flinched at that, but Nadal ignored it. Hudson had been sentenced to prison for rape and murder. He had never been interested in any more than his own personal pleasures. Nadal had hated him in prison, but he had used him, used the dark man's own petty desires for pleasure to his own ends. Manipulation of him had been simple and with the gifts from the Emissaries, it was even easier.
Nadal swept out of the room, without even a slight limp, despite his old injuries. That had been the first of the Hand of God's gifts. The first among many.
He stepped out of the interrogation room and walked down the marble-floored corridor. The former Museum of Art had been a perfect location for his palace. His men had been able to clear the grounds of undead and its close proximity to the former St Louis zoo had provided both animals to act as food sources and pre-made cages and fences to hold prisoners. The open park lands around them had proven perfect to sow with crops and as he walked down the corridor, he could see laborers at work in the fields, pulling weeds by hand.
Normally, Nadal would have left the interrogation to Captain Carney. The former intelligence officer was perfectly capable of such interrogations and he had a far more impressive torture area. But Nadal had wanted to gauge the prisoner's responses himself.
It was a short walk down the stairs and then out of the foyer to where his vehicle awaited. Sergeant Manning opened the back door of the heavy-framed stretched SUV. "Lord Regent."
Nadal just nodded at the man. The weak-willed cretin served as his driver, but Nadal didn't trust him for any important tasks. As he settled into the seat, he nodded at Captain Hudson to put the prisoner in the vehicle. Nadal settled back as he stared at the young prisoner. "You say there are hundreds of survivors on the train?" Nadal asked.
The young man nodded, "Yes--"
Captain Hudson hit him in the back of the head, "You will address him as Lord Regent."
"Yes, Lord Regent," the young man flinched. "I'm sorry, Lord Regent."
Nadal closed his eyes. Hundreds, he thought, the Hand of God will be most pleased. Nadal had almost six hundred people in his domain. His men had captured many survivors as they sought to slip through St Louis. His men had encoun
tered groups of ten, sometimes even twenty or thirty, but never had they been able to take hundreds, not all at once.
"Have they heard my message?" Nadal asked.
"Your... your message, Lord Regent?" The young man didn't seem to understand.
Nadal sighed. He had hoped that by speaking on the radio of the gifts that he'd been given, that others would hear and come to him. So far, that had not been the case. Perhaps he needed more broadcasting power.
The stretched vehicle rolled to a stop and Nadal climbed out, followed by Captain Hudson and the prisoner. The former Basilica of Saint Louis had been dedicated to a false religion, but Nadal still appreciated the structure's beauty. That was why he had dedicated it to the new Faith. He nodded at Sergeant Manning. "Keep the vehicle ready, I shouldn't be long."
"Yes, Lord Regent," Sergeant Manning saluted.
"Christ!" The prisoner shouted, "Zombies!"
Nadal looked over to see a dozen or more of the mindless undead. They stood watching the group, their dead faces blank. Nadal felt no fear. He patted the pendant he wore, another of the Hand of God's gifts. A moment later, the undead turned and shuffled away.
"They are of no consequence," Nadal rasped. He led the way up the stairs. The prisoner seemed stunned into silence, obviously in awe of Nadal's authority over both the living and the dead.
The four guards at the top of the steps saluted him as he approached. "Has the Sacrament begun?" Nadal asked.
"Yes, Lord Regent," First Sergeant Orial snapped. The tall, olive-complexioned man was one of Nadal's most trusted subordinates. Unlike many of his people, Orial truly appreciated the glory that the Emissaries brought.
"Well, we don't want to interrupt," Nadal smiled genially. "No need to announce my arrival, I'll go straight in and then down to the lower floors." First Sergeant Orial returned the smile and held the door open as Nadal led the way through.
It took his eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dim light beyond. His smile grew broader as he saw the cluster of men in black robes, standing in silent ranks before Captain Carney. He listened with an absent ear as he led the way to the stairs. "...drink of the blood of the sacrament, for only then will you be bound to God..."
