Dead Train (Book 1): All Aboard

by Spriggs, Kal

  All of the guards seemed paralyzed as their master screamed in pain. Jack sprinted past them, running faster than he'd ever run in his life. His body seemed to react to the unnaturalness of the place, giving him strength to flee. They reached the stairs and none of them so much as paused, running as the horrid screaming followed them, echoing from all surfaces and making Jack's head throb in pain.

  They came out into the cathedral floor and Jack saw a pair of guards standing ahead of them, their faces white with shock. Jack ran at them. He drove his elbow into the throat of one of them, while Sean tackled the other to the floor and began pummeling him.

  Jack ripped the man's rifle away and then shoved both women ahead of him, down the steps and towards the waiting vehicles. “That one!” he snapped, pointing at the biggest of the MRAP's. He dragged McCune away from the limp figure of the second guard and shoved him towards the truck. “Get in, get on the gun!”

  “I don't know how to use it!” the salvager protested.

  Of course not, Jack thought to himself, even as he shoved the women into the open driver's door. “Get in the back, tell me when the ramp goes up!”

  He hadn't driven one of these things in years, but he got it started quickly enough. The screams were still echoing from the cathedral, but now there was a different sound. It was a moaning, angry noise and it seemed to come from everywhere.

  It was the sounds of undead, Jack realized with horror. The sounds of thousands, millions, of undead. He flipped buttons until the back ramp slammed closed and then put it in drive and pulled into a broad turn. “Where are we going!?” Madison demanded.

  “We're going to rescue anyone we can,” Jack snapped.

  ***

  They flashed past the guards at the perimeter, the men too confused to do more than wave at them to stop. Jack slowed down outside the palace and dropped the ramp, “Sean, get out there and grab that code book from Malik's office!” Sean shouted a reply and Jack drove straight to the zoo, dragging the ramp behind him and smashing through the outer gates and then bringing the big vehicle to a swaying halt beside the bear exhibit. As one of the guards in front of it came towards them, he dropped the back ramp, then climbed down, “The Lord Regent wants the prisoners brought out,” Jack began.

  The man frowned, though, staring at him.

  Jack didn't wait, he brought his rifle up and shot the man through his left knee. As he dropped, screaming, Jack put another round through his right hand. That should keep him busy, Jack thought. He ran forward and the other guard raised his hands in fright, “Don't shoot, I... I don't even want to be here!”

  Jack gestured, “Throw your weapons to the side.

  The man did so and Jack nodded at Doctor Madison, who had picked up the fallen man's weapon, “Keep an eye on him.”

  He ran inside. After a moment he figured out the door and then dropped the ladder to the pit. “Drake you still alive?”

  “That you, kid?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Get your old ass up here. Get the kids too, we're breaking out of here.”

  The group came up the ladder, hurrying as fast as they could. “You know how to work a ma-deuce?” Jack asked of the old man.

  “Boy, I've been working a ma-deuce since before you knew you had a dick to play with,” Drake cackled, pausing to cough.

  “Get on the gun, old man,” Jack snapped. He and Madison got the passengers loaded up the back ramp and then Jack climbed back into the driver's seat. He brought up the back ramp, just as he heard Drake chamber a round on the fifty. “Hell yeah!” the old man grunted.

  Thank God for crusty old bastards, Jack thought to himself. They drove out of the zoo and Jack slowed down as he saw McCune race out of the back of the palace. The salvager had a stack of books in his hands and he climbed into the passenger door, the four of them barely fitting. Jack didn't wait for him to latch the heavy door, he just headed towards what he thought was the worker barracks. Yet as he drove that way, he saw several vehicles come tearing in their direction. A moment later, one of them opened fire

  “Oh no you didn't!” Drake cackled. “Get some mother--” He opened fire with the fifty, drowning out his string of obscenities interlaced with coughing.

  Jack didn't have time to stop. If Malik's people had vehicles out, then they'd recovered and their master would have as well. The zombies around the city would be filling the streets. That would be bad enough if they were mindless. Under intelligent guidance, they would be impossible to fight.

  He tore past the farm worker barracks, “We'll be back for you!” He shouted, not knowing if they understood or even if they'd have any will left to hope for rescue.

  In the gun turret, Drake cackled as he laid down fire on the pursuing trucks. Jack drove as fast as he dared, the tall vehicle swaying at every corner.

  Bullets slammed into the side and rear and Jack could hear the passengers in the back screaming in panic. He swerved around abandoned cars and the entire vehicle swayed. It wasn't made for speed, it was made to defeat underbelly explosions.

  They didn't have time to make for the Alton Bridge. “Did you get it?” Jack demanded.

  “I think so!” Sean shouted in reply.

  Merchant's bridge was their best option, then. Jack drove on instinct, hoping he remembered the map right. Behind him, he heard a crash and in his side mirror he saw one of the pursuing Humvees had erupted in flames and smashed into the side of a building. “Nice shooting!” Jack shouted.

  “Burn and die you--” Drake rattled off some more gunfire, “...sucking, mother...” he erupted into a coughing fit and cut of another burst.

  The bridge, Jack realized, and then they were driving over an empty lot underneath it. Ahead of them and off to the side, he saw an access ladder, set up high so it couldn't be easily climbed. Jack drove right up to it and parked.

  “Up!” He shouted. “Everyone, climb up!”

  He pushed the others into the back, pausing only to swing the locking bolts shut on the cab doors. He pushed the others back through the access way and then up through the turret.

  McCune was already climbing, either he knew what Jack intended or else he'd decided enough was enough and he was getting the hell out of here. “Start up the train!” Jack shouted up at him.

  “Let's go!” Jack snarled at the others, “Climb!”

  “I ain't going no further,” Drake rasped. He lapsed into a coughing fit.

  “It's one ladder,” Jack reasoned with the old man. The others had started to climb, all but Doctor Madison who stood waiting. Brave woman, he thought, I really hope I get her out of here and that monster doesn't eat her soul.

  “I'm not a runner,” the old man coughed and spat to the side. “I didn't run back in Nam, I ain't going to run now.” He bent over in another fit and Jack looked around nervously. He could hear the moaning rising throughout the city. The zombies would be headed this way soon, drawn by the sound of the truck and the bright lights. I should have shut it off...

  There wasn't time, not now. “We have to go...”

  Gunfire crackled at them and Jack ducked down. Drake slid down into the turret and got behind his fifty. “Go!” he barked. “I got this!”

  Jack frowned, “Old man...”

  “Come and get some you bastards!” Drake shouted. For just a moment, Jack saw him as he must have been. Not withered and frail with age, but strong and full of vigor. Jack snapped out a sharp salute and then moved to the ladder, pushing Doctor Madison ahead of him.

  ***

  Kevin Drake felt fifty years younger as he held down the butterfly trigger of the ma-deuce and scythed through a group of advancing zombies. He was shouting and laughing, and cursing his weak lungs as he did so.

  Forgotten were the decades of seeing the vet clinic, of them turning him away or offering him pain-killers, while his body withered. Forgotten was the pain of burying his wife. For a moment, for a golden moment, he was back in the prime of his youth. He was alive again and it had taken the end of the world
to bring him to this point.

  One of the enemy gun trucks fired in reply and the harsh clangs of rounds striking near his position signaled that they were walking the rounds in. Drake's lips drew back in a manic grin, though, because as they fired, he saw where they were.

  He wasn't in St Louis, not anymore. He was back in the jungle. He was fighting the enemy that had killed so many of his friends in a war he'd never really understood. And he loved it. This was what he'd been good at, this was what he had loved.

  He ignored the rounds tearing through the air around him and lined up his fifty and then cut loose with a seven round burst. The enemy truck went silent and he cackled, “Got you, that one was for--”

  A burst of gunfire from the side cut him off. Drake fell down in the turret, suddenly weak. He grasped for the grenade that he'd found in the turret. The hard, egg shape fit in his hand and he pulled the pin, squeezing hard to hold the spoon in place.

  Wait, some part of him whispered, wait until the right time... just hold on a little longer.

  ***

  Drake's shouting and gunfire cut off just as Jack climbed onto the tracks. No more than twenty feet away, he saw the engine for one of the trains blocking the tracks. He shoved the clustered people ahead of him, “Get aboard!” he shouted. They didn't have time.

  He climbed into the cab and found McCune trying to read the book in the dark. Jack fumbled around and found a flashlight on a hook by the door. He shone it on the book and McCune gave him a nod, “Thanks, Captain.”

  “Is this going to work?” Jack demanded.

  “I hope so,” McCune growled. Jack knew that Paul had taught most of their salvagers the basics of how to start engines, but he didn't know if the process would be different with the digital start system.

  McCune found the page he was looking for, comparing it to the number on the console. “Here we go,” he said, typing in a seven-digit number. A moment later, the console went live. “Yes!” McCune shouted. The diesel engines stuttered to life behind them as he brought them up.

  “Get us the hell out of here!” Jack snapped. He stepped out of the cab and gestured at the others. “Stay low, hold on!” He pushed past them, even as he heard distant gunfire and heard clangs as bullets struck the bridge superstructure or the train. McCune would need some time to bring the diesel-electric generators to power. In the meantime, Jack ran along the side of the train, checking each car, making sure that the brakes were disengaged and that there weren't any chains or blocks to prevent the train from rolling.

  Now and then he shot a glance over the side. He could see movement down by the truck, flashlights and armed men. They were running out of time. He saw they'd hooked up cables to the rear ramp and they would pull it down. From there it would only take them a minute or less to come up the ladder.

  Jack brought his stolen rifle around and fired off several rounds, but in the poor light, he wasn't sure if he hit anything. Some of the men below fired up at him and he had to duck back. Someone opened up with a fully automatic weapon and bullets whined and bounced around Jack. Okay, he thought, that was a bad idea.

  ***

  Drake didn't know how he was still alive. His entire body felt cold and everything had gone distant. He didn't know where he was anymore, whether he was bleeding out in the back of a big armored truck in the ruins of St Louis or if he was lying in the fetid jungle. All he knew was that he had to hold onto the grenade spoon, just a little longer.

  It was too hard, though, he could feel his fingers slipping as they lost strength.

  Even as he thought that, a soft golden light filled the air above him. His eyes widened as the woman appeared over him, smiling, and her expression gentle. She was the source of the light, glowing with a light that seemed to ease his pain. She reached down one hand and her strong, warm fingers closed over his hand and the grenade in it, keeping the spoon in place. She gave him a confident smile and Drake couldn't help but smile back.

  He heard a shout and looked over as the ramp door came down. Armed figures came up it. Drake looked up, but the golden woman was gone, now. He didn't know if he'd imagined her or if she'd left after helping him to hold on for a few more seconds.

  Now is the time, he seemed to hear a woman's whisper in his ear. This was why he had lived so long, he realized. This moment was how he'd survived so many years when the doctors had given him months or even days at best.

  Drake let out a final rasping breath and relaxed his grip on the grenade. The spoon flew free and he smiled. Take that you bastards.

  ***

  Jack looked down over the bridge as he heard a powerful explosion, followed by a rattle of secondary detonations. The MRAP was in flames and burning men ran away from it, screaming in pain.

  Drake, he realized. He said a silent prayer for the old man even as he ran back to the engine. “Get it moving!” Jack shouted as he climbed on-board not sure of McCune would even hear.

  The diesel engines rumbled to a higher pitch and the entire train shuddered as the electric motors began to turn. The entire bridge groaned as McCune fed power to the train. The movement began slowly but it built quickly enough. There was no gunfire now and Jack walked down the platform to the engine cab. The mother and her teenagers crouched in the cab with McCune. Doctor Madison and the other woman were crouched by the door.

  The train built up speed, headed east, back to temporary safety. Jack stood to his feet as he watched the dark city withdraw. I will return, he thought to himself.

  ***

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jack dismounted from Brian Gnad's truck in the dim morning light and walked over to the train. He was more than a little tired. Brian, Lieutenant Baxter, and Warrant Knighton had met them on the far side of the Mississippi.

  The group was too big to fit in the track truck in anything resembling comfort. Jack had rode back to the train clinging to the side, his feet on the runner boards. He felt wind-whipped and battered. He hadn't slept, hadn't had a thing to eat, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw the nightmarish thing from under the cathedral in St Louis.

  At least they'd been able to send radio warnings ahead.

  “Status?” Jack asked as he found Josh Wachope and Tim Kennedy at the front of the train.

  “We're about to send the scouts up north,” Josh said.

  Jack stared at him for a long moment. “North?” Jack asked. “Why the hell would you send our scouts north?”

  “Well, we can't go through St Louis,” Tim responded. “So we're going to have to find a way across the Mississippi or the Illinois, which means north.”

  “No,” Jack shook his head. “We're going through St Louis.”

  “Jack,” Josh Wachope said, “You told us they have at least fifty armed men. They have heavy weapons, they have some kind of monster... you even said they're controlling the zombies. We can't go to St Louis.”

  “That madman has five hundred men women and children, by my best guess. We aren't going to abandon them,” Jack said. “We're going back. We're going to get everyone out that we can, and we're going to kill Malik and every one of his people.”

  Josh caught him by the shoulder and pulled him back towards the train, away from the group that had gathered around them. “Jack,” he said in a low voice, “you're tired. You've been through hell. But you have to understand the situation. People here are scared. Bad enough to face fifty well-armed soldiers. But this stuff with undead following orders... this monster you said you saw...”

  “I saw it,” Jack snapped. “They all saw it too,” Jack waved at Sean McCune and Doctor Madison, and her surviving patient, Colline. “I'll probably see that damned thing in my nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  “Okay,” Josh held up his hands in a placating fashion. “Fine, we've all seen some crazy shit. Anyway, don't you think it's best we avoid the whole situation? We go North, we cross the Illinois River, work our way around any big cities, then do a straight shot out west...”

  “We already s
couted north, Josh,” Jack said tiredly. “All the bridges are out. Unless you want to try boats... remember how that went in Cincinnati?” Josh looked away. “This thing, this monster isn't going to go away. Malik's people have trucks. If we abandon the train, if we go on foot, they'll be able to run us down. Besides, Josh, I'm tired of running, aren't you?”

  “Yeah,” Josh nodded, “but there's the women and children to worry about.”

  Jack's gaze went to where Doctor Madison was talking to Cat, Tim's wife. We got her a doctor at least, Jack thought. “We'll find a way to protect them. But we won't be safe with a man like Malik in power there, not with the resources he has.”

  “Fine,” Josh nodded. “I'll back your play. But this is going to be messy. People are going to die.”

  Jack thought about Kevin Drake. People have already died.

  ***

  “We've finished stripping the train here and we've got a lot more resources in general, but there's still work to be done,” Tim said. “We've food for another two months, maybe less. We found a couple of cars full of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Brockman had the idea of rigging up some kind of garden cars, so we can grow some food as we travel.”

  Jack considered that for a moment. “No,” he said, “it's more cars we'll need to defend. It's already hard enough with the numbers of capable fighters we have. If we add enough cars to matter, we'll be stretched too thin.” Beside him, Josh Wachope nodded in agreement.

  “Okay,” Robert Brockman nodded. He didn't seem upset that Jack had knocked down his idea, but he normally wasn't. Jack saw his gaze go to his wife, Sarah Brockman, who until now had been their medical chief. She was a physical therapist and see seemed thrilled to have a real doctor to put in charge.

  “Any more medical supplies?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing of note,” Tim shook his head. “We were hoping you'd have some good news there.”

  “If we take down Malik, he's got a bunch of medical goods,” Jack said.