by Spriggs, Kal
“There's some refrigerated train cars in the train yard there, too,” Sean McCune said. “I saw them on our way in. We could put any food and supplies we take in them.”
“Have to be quick,” Wachope said, “in and out...” he shook his head, “I don't see a way to get it easy.”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded, “we'll shelve that for now. How are we on fuel?”
“Plenty of diesel,” Tim snorted. “We found five cars of it on a side track. We tested it, still good.” Diesel tended to stay stable for longer than more refined fuels like gasoline. Which was another reason they used the train, since the engines ran on diesel. “We could add all five to our train...”
“No,” Jack shook his head, “same problem as the garden cars. I'd love to have that much fuel, but we couldn't defend it, and it would be a serious fire hazard anyway.” He frowned. “I suppose we could put one towards the back end.”
“I'm just worried that fuel is going to get scarcer as time goes on,” Tim said.
“It might,” Jack nodded. He looked at Paul, “How are things holding up.?”
“Pretty good,” the older man said. “The...” he trailed off, trying to find the right words. He's getting worse, Jack thought to himself. The tumor in his head had been affecting his speech more and more, especially over the past few weeks.
“Wheels, motors... that's it, motor bushings on Engine Three have about had it,” Paul said after a moment.
“Can we fix it?” Jack asked.
“It'd be a full... full,” Paul closed his eyes, frustrated as he tried to find the words. “Full work, full take-apart... full tear-down of the engine. We could do it at a maintenance yard, but not here.”
“Okay, we might have a solution to that,” Jack said thinking about the book with train start codes. There was no guarantee that it held the codes for every train they came across, but it might let them unlock some of them.
“I've got the reloading press set up,” Paul went on after a moment. He pulled the small notepad out of his front shirt pocket and squinted at it. “Just doing the heavier calibers, but we should have our sharp-shooters back to... to full load, soon enough.”
Sarah Brockman came over to the group, “Doctor Madison is evaluating my patients. Paul, that means you too.”
“Sounds nice,” Paul nodded genially. Jack knew better than to take that as acceptance. He hadn't actually agreed to go, after all, he'd just acknowledged the sentiment.
Sarah gave the old man a glare. Clearly she didn't trust him to see the doctor either. “Right now everyone is stable and no one is too injured to travel. Cat,” she nodded in direction of Tim's pregnant wife, “is pretty far along and Doc Madison agrees that it would be best if we were stationary for the birth.”
Jack let out a tense breath, “I wish I could guarantee that, but if Malik's goons come searching for us, we're going to have to move.”
“Until then,” Sarah replied, “it would be best to stay here.”
Jack didn't argue. Not just then. But in the scheme of things, he knew that when faced with the decision between one life, or even two, versus the lives of everyone on the train, he would have to make the hard decision.
“Alright, food, fuel, ammo...” Jack looked around at the group. “Did someone find razor blades again? You guys look less scruffy.”
Tim smiled, “Better, we found some soap and Paul rigged up some pumps for showers, seeing as we have the extra fuel for the moment. We're pulling the water from a well at the end of the side rail, plenty of good clean water. We're washing clothing, too.”
Jack's skin itched at just the thought of a shower, much less clean clothing. His stomach growled at the thought of food, too.
“Okay,” he said. “I'll have to, uh, inspect those showers. Then I'm going to need to get some food and sleep. This afternoon we'll talk over a reconnaissance plan and start planning on how we'll get through St Louis.”
He saw worry and fear on most of their faces, but that was expected. Some part of Jack was terrified of going back to that damned city. But this was what they had to do. They had no choice.
He just hoped he could make them all see that.
***
“They have no choice, Lord Regent,” First Sergeant Orial snapped out in clipped words. “Our scouts have confirmed every bridge north and south is out. They can't go much further north without running into Chicago and to the south...”
Nidal Malik, Lord Regent under the Hand of God nodded in reply. His people had destroyed every bridge all the way down to Memphis, Tennessee. Down there, though, that was past the lands that their God claimed. They can't get that far, he thought to himself, and that would be hundreds of miles outside of their path. They were more likely to go north, to try to get through Chicago, but if they tried that they were as good as dead.
That was the central holding of Meslamtaeda. His Emissaries, like the Hand of God, had spread out from there, taking over cities within his claimed lands, fighting the emissaries of false gods for those lands.
But not the water, he thought with a shudder. Even Malik didn't dare go near the deep rivers or lakes, for the things that lived there now. His master hated the things there, but despite his awesome powers, he did not fight them.
Despite the Hand of God's powers, he could not ignore his injuries from Jack Zamora's attack, a whisper of doubt came from the back of Malik's mind. He refused to consider that. The Hand of God was powerful, vastly powerful. He would heal from his injury soon enough.
“They must plan to go north, across the plains, to Kansas City or possibly to the north, into Nebraska,” Malik muttered, staring at the map. Neither he nor Orial ever considered that Jack Zamora's survivors would go southwest. The thick trees and rolling hills of the Ozarks were a barrier, to be certain, but it was the things that lurked there that made them discard that thought. Not even Malik, with a host of the holy undead, would dare to march to the southwest.
“We must make it seem an option,” Malik said. “Leave the set of tracks on merchant's bridge open, with some token barricades. The same with the Alton Bridge. Draw them in.” It would be better if they chose to cross the Alton Bridge on foot. Some part of Malik feared their train. He understood that it was fragile, but it was also hundreds, thousands, of tons of moving steel. Captain Carney had spoken of ways to derail it, but Captain Carney was dead. Besides, Malik needed some way to capture it intact, to use the men and women aboard the train, to break them all to his will so they would serve Meslamtaeda.
Otherwise, without some victory, the Hand of God may demand my soul over the injuries he suffered. Nidal Malik had not dared to visit the Hand of God after he had recovered his wits and pursued the escapees. Especially, he had not dared to report that Jack Zamora had escaped alive or that Malik had lost another twelve of his warriors in the pursuit.
“If they take the tracks, we can stop them...” Malik fumbled through maps of the city, finally finding one to his liking. He spread it across his desk and then pointed at a rail bridge leading across the Missouri River. “There,” he said. “We block them in, use the buildings to either side to kill those who will not surrender and then take the rest of them.”
“What about Alton Bridge, the I-70 Bridge, Merchant's Bridge, and MacArthur Bridge?” First Sergeant Orial asked nervously.
“One of the non-track bridges would be perfect, but we won't be that lucky,” Malik grunted. “They would have to go on foot and we could hunt them down with our trucks. If they come south to MacArthur Bridge, then they'll have to swing through the entire town to reach the north area, and they'll still have to take the one set of tracks to get to the northwest. We'll position a barricade there and a token force, but I want our heavy weapons and most of our people either in place at the ambush point or ready to move there quickly. I want our lookouts in position so we see them coming.”
“And the holy undead?” First Sergeant Orial asked.
Malik licked his lips as he considered it. With the powers giv
en to him by the Hand of God, he could control them in great numbers. Not nearly so many as the Hand of God, but still in the thousands, perhaps the tens of thousands, so long as the bindings were strong.
And the bindings were the problem. They didn't know when Jack Zamora's people would come. It could be today and it could be in a month. The longer that Malik kept his undead in position, in the sunlight, the weaker his bindings on them would become. It was not a concern that had bothered him before, as to why sunlight weakened his master's bindings upon the undead, or even why the undead grew weaker the longer they remained in sunlight, over days, weeks, and even months.
Now it ate at him, just as the thought of the Hand of God's wounds ate at him. If his God was all-knowing, all-powerful... then why was his power limited? How had his highest Emissary been injured? And how was Malik able to have his doubts and not be sought out and punished for them?
“We will station our armored trucks on the far side of the river,” Malik answered his First Sergeant's question, pushing his own to the back of his mind. “And I will send small bands, ten or twelve undead each, to rove that area. Even if we lose the bindings on them, they should still be of use in ferreting out any scouts.” He tapped at the ambush point and several large buildings in the area. “We'll marshal ten thousand of the holy undead here. If our show of force does not force their surrender, then I will break their will with a show of force.”
“Yes, Lord Regent,” First Sergeant Orial nodded
Malik looked over the map, wondering what else he should do. This was not what he had trained for. Manipulation of people; that was what he knew. The crafting of words and the fulfilling of desires. Those came to him. Even reading the map gave him a headache. Yet he knew the principles of combat well enough. Not as well as Carney had, but he knew that focusing weapons and equipment at a strong point would be the best method to defeat an enemy, rather than trying to be strong in all areas.
Perhaps we should attack them, he mused. He still had three armored trucks and six armed Humvees. He could load up all of his people and send forth a wave of undead ahead of them.
Yet he recoiled from the thought. His men would need strong leadership to face such opponents, especially with how they had already suffered grievous casualties. Two of his men hacked to pieces. More of them shot and blown apart. They would need him to strengthen their resolve... and that would require him to put himself in a position where their enemies might shoot at him.
Malik was not a coward, not really, but he had been shot before. He'd been paralyzed, without the use of his legs, as a result. Only the powers of the Hand of God had restored him. And Malik didn't know if those powers would extend outside of this place... and if they didn't, he could not guarantee control over the holy undead. They could easily turn upon his people if he lost that control.
No, he thought, here we are strong, here we are powerful. They must come to us.
***
“Captain,” Johnny Woodard muttered, “we can't do this. They've got serious weapons, they've got time to dig in and if they want, they could just tear up all the railroad tracks and we aren't going anywhere!”
Jack had gathered most of his fighters for this planning session, as well as Tim Kennedy, Robert Brockman, and Paul Montandon.
“I realize that,” Jack said. “But I don't think that's what Malik will do.” He paused to consider his words. “The man wants power. He want to control things. He won't want to destroy the train and kill everyone on board, just anyone who won't surrender to him.”
“That's going to be a fair lot of us,” Woodard grumbled. The big, dark-skinned man looked more than a little angry. The very thought of someone working with the undead seemed to anger him just as much as their nascent plan to go on the attack against larger numbers.
“He can try...” Jack said, “But he's not a military tactician. He's going to make mistakes. Like he did with underestimating us from the beginning.”
“You're talking that group of undead you fought when you first got to town?” Josh Wachope asked.
“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “I'll bet they wanted to look like heroes, sweeping in and saving the day. Instead they looked like amateurs. If they hadn't been in control over those zombies, I'd be willing to bet that they would have been overrun.”
Jack saw thoughtful expressions on the faces of his people.
“They're undisciplined, too,” Lieutenant Stephanie Baxter said. “The two guards I took out, they were more worried about being caught fooling around on duty than actually looking for a threat. I'd be willing we put a big scare into them, too, after how many the Captain took down on his escape.”
Jack snorted a bit at that, “Most of them were due to Kevin Drake.”
There were murmurs all around. Things like “would have loved to meet him” and “damned fine man.” These men and women fought zombies, but they were all soldiers at heart and they all understood the courage that Drake had exhibited... and most of them had seen far too many cases of it over the past few months.
“So,” Jack said. “What I propose is that we send in our scout teams, see what we can find out about defenses they're setting up, and then we hit them hard. Like Lieutenant Baxter said, they're undisciplined, probably shaky after losing so many people. We hit them hard enough and their liable to break. At that point, we raid their main base of operations, we evacuate everyone we can, and we blow out of that town.”
“That's your plan?” Sean McCune asked from the back.
“Yeah,” Jack said, “that's my plan.”
No one seemed particularly happy at it, but he saw grim nods all around. It wasn't like they had many choices, after all.
***
Chapter Fourteen
Jack, McCune, and Knighton slipped into the east part of St Louis late the next day. They moved in small rushes, leap frogging from cover to cover. All three of them carried rifles, this time, since the enemy they most feared was the living.
They worked their way through an industrial area, drawing closer to the river. As they reached a grain silo, they paused. Jack didn't need to check his map, this was the spot he'd picked out to oversee things. Jack moved over to the stairs to climb to the top.
The metal steps seemed to echo loudly despite Jack's best efforts at silence. The cramped machinery space at the very top didn't offer much in the way of amenities, but he fed the radio antenna out the window and then checked his watch. He still had some time.
Jack pulled out his binoculars. The grain elevator gave him a decent view of the city, all the way across the bridges and into parts of the downtown, though the distance had to be at least ten miles. He almost wished he'd brought a telescope, but then again, he was here more to coordinate and plan than to see individual things himself.
Jack checked his watch again and turned on his radio. “All Reject Elements, this is Reject Six, report.”
“Scout Team Two,” Gnad reported, “We're in position.”
“Scout Team Three, in position.”
“Scout Team Four, in position.”
“Scout Team Five... we're getting in position. There's a group of shamblers in our path, we'll need time to get around them.”
“Roger, keep me advised. In the meantime, other teams, report in,” Jack said.
Brian Gnad went first, “There's no one on Alton Bridge, the entire span is clear. Two of my people went across. But they noticed the road past it looks a little too clear and they've spotted movement in that area.”
“Team Three confirms that the north track on Merchant's Bridge is still open. There's a couple of guards and a bit of trash over it, but nothing more than that,” Team Three's leader reported.
“This is Team Four, standby, we have movement...”
Jack held his breath for a long tense moment. What he was afraid of was that Malik would have armed patrols out and about on this side of the river. If his scouts couldn't get a good idea of what things looked like, then Jack couldn't put together a plan to face
this threat.
“Okay, sorry about that. There was a mounted patrol, three armored trucks, looked like Humvees on steroids,” Team Four's leader said. “Weirdest thing, they drove right up to a group of zombies and the zombies ignored them.”
The Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, Jack thought to himself. Apparently Nidal had a third one of them to replace the MRAP that Drake had blown up. “Roger, they're using the zombies.”
“Unnatural,” someone hissed over the net, but Jack didn't argue.
“We're near the MacArthur Bridge. They've put together a more serious barricade here, with some kind of checkpoint. That was the mounted patrol driving through, headed back in the city. Looks like three or four guards at the barricade, maybe a machine gun of some kind, we can't really tell.”
Jack considered that. It seemed like the defenses for the bridges were stronger the further south they went. Did Malik know their intention to go south... or was he trying to sucker them into going north?
“This is Team Five,” Team Five's Leader spoke in a loud whisper. “We're in position, but there's a band of zombies down below us. I've got eyes on the MacArthur Bridge. There's something of a barricade there, looks like three guards. That lookout you reported is up in the building overlooking it, too. There might be more of them up there, I'm not sure.”
“Roger,” Jack replied. “Alright, all scout teams, go ahead and withdraw.”
“Not yet,” Team Five's Leader whispered. “Does anyone have eyes on the central part of the city?”
Jack brought his binoculars up, “Roger, Team Five, this is Reject Six, I have eyes on.”
“There's movement in the streets, lots of movement, you see it?”
Jack frowned, for a moment, he didn't know what the other man meant. The distance was so great, that he couldn't pick out individual detail... only a general sense of movement. Then he realized what he was seeing.
It was a massive tide of undead, flowing out of the center of town, headed to the north. It was an army of undead, thousands, maybe tens of thousands. They were heading north, a vast sea of undead... and if Team Five hadn't spotted them, then Jack might well have led his people into that mass unknowing.
