Dead Train (Book 1): All Aboard

by Spriggs, Kal

  "Yeah," Tim nodded.

  Jack turned and walked away. It had taken a lot more than he had expected to tell his friend. In fact, going into St Louis with a small scouting team scared Jack more than he could say. His earlier words to the contrary, he very much remembered the rain of blood in Cincinnati and the things that dragged men screaming into the Ohio River

  "Jack?" Tim called out after him. Jack turned, and Tim went on, "Don't you dare die and leave me in charge, you hear me?"

  Jack snorted, "It's the last thing I want to do, trust me."

  ***

  Sean McCune glowered at the Captain as the officer rolled up. He spat on the ground, "This is bullshit."

  "You're one of the best salvagers we've got," Brian Gnad said, "We're going to need you--"

  "Larry and the others are about to get it on with the nursery women!" Sean protested. "With the booze and condoms that I found!"

  "I'll tell them to save a few for you for when we get back," Captain Jack said.

  "Right, like that's going to happen," Sean snapped. "We found baby formula. Do you know how happy those women will be!?"

  "Don't worry," the Captain smiled, "maybe we'll rescue some appreciative women in St Louis."

  "Not unless they're zombie women," Sean muttered to himself.

  He ignored the look that the Captain shot at Brian. Brian was the head of Team Two. Sean had worked with and for him more than a few times since joining the train. Brian had a good head on him and he let Sean do things his own way, which was why Sean didn't normally mind being selected to help him out. Besides, normally it meant he'd have opportunities to find valuables that had good trade value.

  But he didn't see how they could find anything more valuable than what he'd found today.

  "He's got a great nose for salvage, Captain," Brian said. "We'll want him on our team. He's a natural knack for survival."

  "If you say so," Captain Jack nodded. "Are we ready to go?" The officer was always so proper. Sean respected him, sure, but the man needed to let go a little. A few shots of whiskey and some women would be good for him, too.

  "Yeah," Sean said sullenly. He'd already gone over the rail truck and its supplies and weapons. Brian “Bubba” Gnad had customized his rail truck extensively. It didn't just have the normal set of equipment, it also had a full doppler radar set, five different sets of radio antennas, and a whole lot of weather-tracking gear. Sean didn't understand even a third of it, but Gnad was a good boss to travel with. Not only did he cut Sean slack, but with his radar he was able to provide warning for storms and severe weather. Not that he saw that whole rain of blood thing coming in Cincinnati, but that sort of came out of nowhere...

  Sean looked around at the rest of the team. Normally scouting was a three to four man team, but the Captain had brought two others with him, both of them military.

  He recognized the woman, Lieutenant Baxter. She handled a lot of their radio stuff. She looked pretty good, in his opinion, but she'd never given him the time of day. Hardly a surprise, since she always seemed to be nose in a book or some bit of electronics.

  He was a bit fuzzy on who the other military one could be. Most of the army fellows wore uniforms, but this man wore a patchwork mishmash that looked like nothing that Sean had ever seen. He also had more guns, knives, and hatchets slung on him than Sean really thought practical. Sean only carried one weapon: that was the basket-hilted broadsword that had saved his life more than a few times. It was great for chopping off limbs and leaving zombies in pieces.

  Sean didn't mind more people along, normally that meant more eyes to watch for zombies. But five meant that he'd have to share the back seat with the other two and their gear.

  And dollars to donuts, he thought glumly, the non-military one is going to get stuck in the middle.

  ***

  Chapter Seven

  "The garage here is clear and it's still locked up tight," Brian Gnad said. They'd pulled off the tracks at a small rail crossing just north of the city. Jack and the others had climbed out of the truck while Brian and Sean had checked out the abandoned garage behind the gas station. Jack could see the bridge from here, just past a big industrial area that was marked as a steel mill on his map.

  Brian's team had checked out the Alton Bridge on foot so as to not draw attention. It seemed smart to do the same thing in St Louis itself. The rail maintenance truck's diesel engine was loud and the sound would carry in the otherwise empty city.

  Yet it also provided speed in case they did draw attention. And Jack didn't know if they could do this without encountering at least a few zombies. If they could kill the mindless undead quietly, that was one thing, but if they had to go to firearms...

  "You didn't go into the city?" Jack asked of Brian. When the man shook his head, Jack sighed, "Okay, here's the deal. I want you to stay here with your truck."

  Brian opened his mouth to argue, but Jack raised a hand. "Look, I want you ready to come pick us up if we need it, okay? The four of us can handle scouting, but I want someone that I can count on to get us if we get into trouble. Stay on the radio and just be ready to come get us."

  They'd have to move along the tracks, checking those out along the way. Normally they could repair light damage, some undercutting and erosion of the embankment and that sort of thing, it just took time. The same went for clearing cars and other debris off the tracks.

  But in the city, that would draw attention. If they came across some serious obstacle, Jack didn't know what they could do. They'd have to back up through Springfield, Illinois or nearby, then take another track down, and that was assuming that one or both of the bridges was even passable...

  "Let's go," Jack said. He patted down his gear and then stepped off, walking along the left side of the railroad tracks while Lieutenant Baxter fell in on the right side, her military radio in the pack on her back, the headset fed up into her helmet.

  Jack hoped the batteries lasted the rest of the day. The military radios all used special batteries, though there were some adapter packs that they could use, those only used disposable batteries. They were low on both items and the special batteries tended to take less and less of a charge. The CB radios that the train and rail maintenance vehicles carried were more reliable... but they didn't have encryption, which was why Jack had fitted out all of the scout vehicles with spare military radio sets. Of course, it being military gear, it was temperamental...

  But if we're dealing with raiders, he thought, we don't want them to hear our transmissions.

  Jack looked back and saw a scowling Sean McCune behind him, while Warrant Officer Tom Knighton walked along behind Lieutenant Baxter. As always, Jack had to fight a smirk at the sheer number of weapons that the former tanker carried. The pump-action Remington Jack approved of, but the over-under double-barrel shotgun seemed silly, as did the scoped Remington 700. The three weapons and all their ammunition seemed more than a little excessive, two slung across Knighton's back and the pump action shotgun dangling from a friction strap on his front. Not only that, but Knighton carried a host of blades: two machetes, three big combat knives, along with at least three or four grenades.

  Jack didn't fault him the latter. Grenades tended to shatter bone and leave corpses too damaged to rise. Jack had seen more than a few soldiers finish themselves off with grenades rather than risk rising as undead. Hector Chavez was only the latest to do so.

  Jack had tried the very thing himself, once, but a zombie had fallen on the grenade just before it went off. Someone had pulled Jack to safety only seconds later. There were days that Jack regretted that.

  Walking down the tracks, the weight of his body armor, helmet, and gear on him, Jack felt an odd sense of dread grow in his stomach. The humid air clung to him and as he began to sweat. It beaded on his skin and soaked his uniform and through his gear.

  He hated the heat, the gear, and the watchfulness, but there was nothing else for it. He had to make the decision about whether to risk the lives of almost a tho
usand survivors by coming through the city. He wasn't going to leave it to anyone else.

  They moved fairly quickly down the tracks and soon enough they drew near the river. The tracks ran past a number of storage tanks and alongside a rail yard with a number of train cars and even a couple of locomotives drawn up. Jack wondered if he dared to have his people search them, but several of the train cars had doors wide open, with contents spread across the ground.

  So far, they hadn't seen a single zombie. With the intensely hot summer day and the silence, it felt more like a nature walk than anything else. His team kept quiet as they continued, all of them used to the dangers of the undead.

  They left the industrial area behind. Now it was a small town, the train tracks running practically through the back yards of a number of houses. The tall grass and weeds, some of it almost hiding the houses, swayed a bit in the breeze that didn't seem to reach them.

  Jack took a sip of water from his camelback and kept an eye out for movement. At this point, he didn't know what he expected, either raiders or zombies or something. He just knew that the silence couldn't continue, couldn't go on much longer.

  They left the small town and now they walked through more chemical storage tanks and then open fields, many of them choked with weeds taller than Jack.

  The first zombie shambled out of an irrigation ditch, dripping water, its gray skin sunken and sodden.

  Jack reached back and drew his machete. It wasn't really a machete, it was an over-sized blade he'd purchased overseas, a bastardized child of a kukri and a bowie knife, twenty-four inches of steel blade with a full tang grip.

  As the zombie shambled forward, Jack timed his swing with skill honed from dealing with hundreds of the things. His first blow took the zombie's outstretched arm off at the elbow. As its other arm came around, he repeated the blow, then took the zombie's head off with a single, brutal chop.

  The zombie stayed on its feet, both bloodless stumps flailed the air blindly. Jack sidestepped it and hacked down into the undead's knee, splitting the joint and sending the creature to the ground. He stepped behind it and hacked through the other leg. Jack stepped back as the zombie flopped on the ground.

  He then turned and did a quick three-sixty. He saw no other movement. "Clear?" he asked in a low voice.

  "Clear," each of his team responded in turn.

  Jack pulled out a rag and wiped down his blade. He reached back over his shoulder and sheathed it in a smooth motion. He remembered back when he was a platoon leader, how his guys had laughed at the way he'd strapped it to his back. He remembered how awkward it had been to get it sheathed and how he'd practiced drawing it...

  He remembered the first time he had killed a man with it, how his rifle had locked back on empty just as the screaming terrorist had rushed him from the side. Jack remembered the feel of the man's skull splitting like a ripe melon as the blade cleaved through. Jack remembered the sick feeling he'd felt in his stomach and how bright the red blood had looked in the desert sun. He remembered how it had taken him two or three tries to sheath the blade after the firefight.

  Right now, Jack felt not much of anything as he turned his back on the helpless zombie and continued walking down the tracks, headed towards St Louis.

  ***

  Three hours later, Jack called a halt and settled to his haunches. He puffed a bit, winded more than he should be. Too much time on the train, he thought, not enough exercise. He'd set a brisk pace, a standard four miles an hour by his estimate, and they'd come most of the way to their first target.

  But the heat and the weight had begun to take their toll. Lieutenant Baxter hadn't complained, but she'd swayed a bit when he signaled a halt. Warrant Officer Knighton looked a bit winded, though he hadn't complained about the weight of his additional weapons.

  Sean McCune had a sour look on his face and the civilian stretched his legs and scowled at the three of them. Jack wondered if it had been a mistake to bring the man along, but Brian was right, McCune was a natural survivor and he had a nose for finding good salvage. They might need both to get through all of this.

  Jack pointed at the overpass they'd stopped under and at a rusted maintenance ladder that led up to the top. He tapped his binoculars and the others gave him nods in response.

  They should be less than a mile away from the bridge. They were back in industrial yards, though, and he couldn't see anything from down here. He grounded his rucksack and then moved to the ladder. Climbing in gear was something he'd been doing a lot over the past few months, but not after marching for twelve miles. His legs ached and his arms felt weak as he climbed, but he ignored that and continued up. He paused at the top and did a quick scan for any movement, but the overpass seemed clear.

  Jack pulled himself over the railing and then flopped onto his backside. He sucked down some more water and fought to catch his breath. This, he reminded himself, was why you went mechanized and not light.

  He, stood again, did another quick scan of his surroundings, and then pulled out his binoculars. He could see the trestle bridge easily, now. The three trestles looked intact. Merchant's Bridge, he thought, everything looks good. Yet as he stared at it through the binoculars, he realized that something was wrong.

  His lips pursed in a frown as he realized that there was a train stopped on the bridge itself. Not just one, either. There were two trains, one blocking each set of tracks. He didn't see any signs of damage from here, but that didn't mean much. If those trains were digitally locked like the many of the ones they'd encountered, then moving them would not be an easy job. In theory, their three locomotives could push another train, but that would take time and who knew how the other side of the river was?

  He turned his gaze south, but he couldn't see the other railroad bridge from here.

  Jack bit his lip as he considered the situation. It was nearly noon. If they went to Merchant's Bridge and took the time to look it over, it might take several hours. If both trains proved unmovable or the tracks were damaged, it would waste the rest of the day. Yet MacArthur Bridge was a full five miles or more south. It would take another hour and a half or more to reach there and it lay in a denser part of the town.

  There's also more tracks leading out of there, with the main passenger and rail terminal just on the other side of the river. That would give them more options, more routes, and more destinations.

  Jack pulled out his map and ran a finger along the line. One set of tracks led right past a couple of hospitals downtown and then down to the south, towards the Ozarks and Fort Leonard Wood. If MacArthur Bridge still stood, if those tracks were intact and not blocked...

  He thought about Tim's pregnant wife and the injured on the train. Even some basic medical supplies would help tremendously. They might even find doctors or other survivors holed up...

  He tucked his map back into his cargo pocket and climbed over the side of the overpass and down the ladder.

  At the base, he took a moment to catch his breath, then nodded at Lieutenant Baxter. "Get on the net," he said in a low voice to her. "Tell them that there are a couple of stopped trains blocking the Merchant's Bridge tracks, we're going south to MacArthur Bridge."

  ***

  The rail had shifted over to a raised steel truss section as they drew near the MacArthur Bridge. Jack was feeling exposed and nervous about it as they passed over a section of interstate and paused. It was good in that they could see any potential problems and there were no signs of zombies on the tracks.

  It was bad because they still hadn't seen a sign of Team One's truck. If the scout team had been killed by zombies, the truck should have remained in place. If they'd been killed by raiders, on the other hand...

  The area between Jack's shoulder blades itched and he was nervously aware that a single man with a high powered rifle could kill them all. He brought up his binoculars and stared at the bridge. He didn't see any damage. Nothing blocked the tracks.

  "Well, sir?" Lieutenant Baxter asked.

&nbs
p; "Looks good so far," Jack replied. The entire place felt too quiet. Worse, he didn't see any zombies. The mindless undead normally gathered in groups, but there almost always were stragglers where one would get caught or tangled in something or would mindlessly find itself trapped.

  Jack saw nothing of the kind. He didn't see any bodies, not even those of the dead too damaged to rise. He swept the binoculars around towards the city skyline, but he didn't see signs of survivors on the upper floors. No flags or fires. No one signaling and no painted signs for rescue. It was as if the entire city were dead.

  No, he thought to himself, it's as if the entire city died too quickly...

  Even if some survivors had only held out for a few days, there were often signals or signs. Here there was nothing. There were burned out and wrecked cars, signs of fire and destruction, areas where he could see barricades where police and National Guard had held out momentarily...

  The more he looked, the more he saw signs of absolute destruction. He swept the binoculars around and looked down the highway, where in most cities, you would see a trail of cars where people tried to flee the city. Here, though, both sections of highway had clusters of wrecked and parked cars facing in both directions and nowhere near the expected numbers. It was as if no one had time to flee.

  And there were no bodies.

  "I'm getting a bad feeling about this," Jack said softly.

  "Do we turn around, Captain?" Knighton asked.

  "We should," Sean muttered. "This ain't right. It's like everybody died all at once."

  "Yeah," Jack said, "that's the problem. The benefit, I guess, is that we might find more supplies that we need." He chewed on his lip in thought. The thing that really bothered him was that Team One's truck was nowhere to be seen. Zombies wouldn't have moved the truck off the tracks. It might be possible that Team One had pulled off somewhere and been overwhelmed, but they should have stayed on the tracks.