The engine wheezed again, only this time it was followed by the steady thrum that signalled success.
'Yay,' River said, punching the air with fake enthusiasm. 'You okay, you look scared?'
Saul simply nodded – which he did a lot, River thought. She wondered what had happened to him to deprive him of his voice. Something bad, it had to be.
'Have you ever been able to speak?' she asked in her usual insolent, yet somehow cheerful, manner.
Saul nodded.
'Will you ever be able to speak again?'
He shrugged.
River sighed. The poor kid; she wanted to protect him, make sure he was okay at every given opportunity, and she would.
'We're moving . . . ' she said, holding out both arms and staring down to the floor of the car. 'Whoa . . . you feel that?'
If Saul did, he didn't let on. He looked confused, but no longer frightened.
'We're on our way,' she said. 'Let's just hope the tracks are clear.'
Saul, who had been doing so well with the situation and had managed to calm himself down, suddenly had visions of thousands of cars, haphazardly stretched across the tracks . . . strewn like the aftermath of a strong tornado . . .
Or worse.
A horde, staggering forward along the rails.
He pushed himself further into the corner and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long morning.
*
It was gloomy, and the rain had started again, peppering the cars with its incessant rat-a-tatting. It wouldn't be totally light for another hour or so, which was why Shane had asked Terry – without it sounding like an order – to take it slow.
'What you think I'm gonna do?' had been Terry's response. 'Tear-ass across the wilderness like a fun-fair ride?'
Shane had found his analogy funny; he hadn't been to a “fun-fair” since they built the first theme-park. Hell, he wasn't even sure such things existed, or had existed until the outbreak.
So the train was rattling along at a nice, even pace, and they were still flanked by trees on both sides, which was either a good thing or the worst possible thing imaginable.
They were covered, shielded by the woods – at least for now – which meant that they were practically invisible as they travelled along the tracks at twenty miles-an-hour, and would have been undetectable if the locomotive had a fucking mute button.
It was so noisy that Shane couldn't hear Marla as she prattled on about something-or-other. He watched her lips move, though, which was nice. She had beautiful lips, and it was going to be a fun game trying to translate their movements into words.
The bad thing about being swathed by trees was: they couldn't see anything approaching. There could have been the world's biggest horde – a thousand hungry lurkers – nestled just a few feet away and they wouldn't know about it until it was too late.
Though even at 20mph they were moving too fast for the lurkers. If there were any in the nearby woods, by the time they'd shambled across towards the sound of the locomotive, it would be a mile or so further along the track.
No, the only thing they had to worry about was track obstructions, or so they hoped.
'I said,' Marla called as loud as she possibly could. 'We should go to dinner when we get to wherever we're going!'
Shane had been struggling to comprehend his car-companion up until then, but those words had reached him just fine.
'Dinner?' he said. A tiny spot of spittle flew from his mouth, and he thought he would just die from embarrassment as it landed on Marla's right cheek.
She wiped it away, and smiling she said, 'If that was your way of turning me down, you could have just said no.'
Shane shook his head and planted his face in his palms. When he came back up, he came up apologising. 'Dinner sounds good,' he added. 'Just . . .? ' He pointed to himself, then Marla.
She nodded. 'Yeah, just us.'
Shane smiled. 'Bond and Croft?'
'Bond and Croft,' she giggled. Leaning closer so that she didn't have to shout as loud, she said, 'Sounds like an illegal law-firm.'
Shane couldn't believe it; she was asking him out, or at least he thought she was. Maybe she was just being friendly, or trying to remove the tension from what had been an anxious few hours.
Either way worked for him.
As the world slowly drifted by through the open side if the car, it was hard to believe that everything had gone to shit. In the semi-darkness of morning, the trees, the sky, even the breeze blowing in through the aperture all reminded Shane of a simpler time. There was that fresh, dewy smell; that not-so-delightful scent of farmyard shit, and it was all welcome as it wafted around the car.
Necrosis had filled the air for so long that even pigshit was a delicacy.
'What are you thinking?' Marla said, just loud enough for him to hear. She was clinging to the side of the car, countering the rattle beneath them the best she could.
'I was. . . I was just thinking about the way things had turned out.' Shane glared out at the passing woods. 'It wasn't just us,' he said. 'It was everyone, and yet we're so lucky to still be here. . . after everything . . .'
He broke off there as the memories of Megan and Holly came flooding back. He'd managed to keep them back there, out of harm's way at the back of his mind, and yet they would always appear when he least expected it. It was something he would come to terms with eventually; if they lived long enough to deal with their respective demons.
Marla reached out and grabbed his hand. 'I know it's not any sort of consolation,' she said, 'but you've got us.'
And he did, and he knew that was more than most people had any more.
*
Terry was in a self-congratulatory mood, praising himself as he drove along, whistling Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam followed by Shall We Gather At The River.
The latter was quite apt; they were heading directly south and would hit the Mississippi within ten hours at the current pace. It sounded like a long time, but there was no way he could take the train up to its fastest; one car would be enough to derail them; a gap in the track would be enough to kill them all.
Maybe when things opened out a little, and he could see more of the track ahead, he would take her up to fifty, but that was as far as he was willing to push it. At that rate, they would reach Louisiana – providing the train went that far – before two that afternoon.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
The sun was rising somewhere to the left; a red and orange hue began to appear in the cracks of the treetops. It was going to be light soon, but the sudden appearance of the sun didn't mean they were in for better weather. Rain and wind flicked the train windshield, and Terry scrambled frantically around on the dash for anything resembling wipers.
He couldn't see anything, and so squinted through the rain trailing down the glass. It was a horrible feeling, knowing that there were people back there, relying on him.
He didn't know how Shane coped with the pressure all the time, and suddenly realised how unfair it was to put so much credence in him to do the right thing, to make the correct move.
To make all the decisions.
If he got a chance, he made a promise, standing right there at the helm of the train, to tell Shane how much he's appreciated; how much he admired him.
He started on the first verse of O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing before giving up and concentrating on the track ahead through the rain-spattered window.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When morning came, bringing with it an ominous silence after the previous evening's mayhem, Emma found herself struggling to get motivated.
They were finally moving to one of the islands; a place where people had already started to rebuild, to create homes and begin their lives afresh.
Three islands – Cat, Ship and Horn – were probably the safest places on the planet. Military had already secured the entire islands with fencing and security, and sentries were posted twenty-four hours.
There
was no evidence that the creatures could swim, or even float for that matter, but the army were taking no chances, and for that Emma was grateful. She had Gabriella to think about; Dredd was big enough, ugly enough, and nine times out of ten stupid enough to look after himself.
She stepped out of the tent and hugged herself as the early-morning chill hit her. Gabriella had slept over in Lizzie's tent; once everything had finally died down, Lizzie's parents had promised to take care of Gabriella, make sure she got plenty of rest in time for the big move in the morning.
And now morning was here, and something just didn't feel right.
It should have been momentous, or at least relieving. They were getting off the mainland, putting an ocean – well, part of it – between themselves and the shambling demons who continued to torment them.
To Emma, however, it felt as if they were being forced out. Those fuckers were winning, and they weren't even alive. It made her think about the president, the entire board, and the contingency-plans that had obviously failed.
This was all that remained, now. She was sure of it. A couple of platoons, a group of pissed-off Americans and three islands in the middle of the Gulf Of Mexico. This was everything they had to look forward to, and Emma – despite her fears of what was going to happen in the next few hours – wanted Gabriella on one of the islands as quickly as possible.
'Are you okay?'
She turned to find Dredd standing between the tent-flaps. The steaming cups in his hands shrouded him in a welcome fog.
'Yeah,' she said, forcing a smile and accepting the piping-hot coffee from him. She signalled the tent; the disarray, the mess that she was working up to packing. 'Just got a lot to get done this morning. Should've done it last night, I guess.'
'Nah,' Dredd said, stepping inside. 'Last night was too hectic for tidying and packing.' He remembered the horde, falling all around the chopper as Al sprayed them with bullets. 'Plus, it would have been a bit anticlimactic, don't you think? All that action followed by endless hours of arranging and sorting.'
He smiled; Emma didn't.
'You spoken to Frank this morning?' she asked. Of course he had. Dredd was the go-to guy for the general, and they were in cahoots at all times. Anyone would think her husband was military, the amount of time they spent together.
'I bumped into him fetching coffee,' Dredd said, his eyebrows lowered as if he was confused by her tone. 'Everything's . . . well, as good as can be expected. They're already loading up the first boat, the one going to Horn. We're leaving some time before noon, but he couldn't give me anything more specific than that.'
Noon.
Emma sipped furtively at the coffee, burning her lip but remaining indifferent to the stinging pain.
'We need to get Gabriella to gather her stuff. You want me to fetch her?'
Emma shook her head. 'Leave her for a while,' she said. 'She'll want to say goodbye to Lizzie.'
The thought of her daughter being separated from her best friend was unbearable, but that was the luck of the draw. Each island needed a doctor, a mechanic, a farmer, and it just so happened that Lizzie's father fell into the desired pot as one of only four trained doctors remaining.
Lizzie was going to Ship.
Gabriella to Cat.
'I'll give them another hour,' Dredd said, blowing the steam from his cup. 'In the meantime, let's get this place bagged up.'
And they did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When the trees gave way to industry, Terry slowed the train right down. Factories passed languidly by, the bleakness of the scenery a massive contradiction to the woods from which they had only recently emerged.
This was Brookhaven, the place they would have arrived at if the car hadn't been totalled by an obviously drunken Lukas.
On the left they had dilapidated houses, gone to ruin long before the first person became infected; on the right, large corrugated units and steelyards, flanked by a canal where barges were half-sunk and some even mounted the bank, battered and torn from impact.
Just get through this as quickly as possible, Terry told himself. There was a limit on how fast he could go, though, which set him on edge. This was a place where people were, or had been, and the likelihood of mangled cars on the track was increased ten-fold.
For all they knew, there still were people here, holed up in their homes, awaiting rescue that would never come.
There was nothing they could do for these people except pray, and Terry was the only one likely to even bother.
Something up ahead caught Terry's attention, and he slowed the train even more; it wasn't safe travelling at such a relaxed pace – they were completely exposed, and the deep thrum of the engine would entice any lurkers towards them – but there was something just ahead, and until Terry was comfortable . . .
It was a horse; Terry heaved a sigh of relief as the beast whinnied and snorted at the air. Whoever had left it had done so in the correct way; by setting it free, giving it half a chance to survive among the dead.
And survive it had.
As the train slowly moved past the horse, Terry waved, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps he was going a bit silly in his old age, or maybe it was because he hadn't seen a horse for so many years that the sudden appearance of one had overwhelmed him to the point of madness.
Needless to say, the horse didn't wave back. It simply bolted along the edge of the track, off to fight another day.
For seven minutes Brookhaven passed gently by. Morning was now in full-swing, and the rain – as if it had been informed of the hour – gently pattered at the windshield once again.
Like clockwork, Terry thought, smiling to himself. The horse had put him in a good mood.
The train crossed over a bridge, a short construction that made Terry's teeth rattle inside his skull.
It got him to thinking; just how long would these things last now that there was nobody to maintain them? How long would the Golden Gate Bridge remain international orange now that everyone who painted it was either dead, or undead?
Terry hadn't spent much time pondering the ins and outs of the post-apocalyptic world in which they now found themselves, but now that he'd started he realised how ultimately depressing it all was.
And then he went a step further and began to convince himself that he wasn't cut out for it. What did he have to offer, anyway? Nobody wanted some crusty old ex-con knocking around the place. He was ageing, desiccating at a rate only marginally slower than the things they were running away from. His back was fucked and the six teeth he had were loose and brittle.
He dry-swallowed and tried to think about happier things.
'The horse,' he muttered to himself. 'She was a beauty.'
And so he thought about the horse.
*
Three hours past without incident. There were lurkers out there, but only in small hordes and too far away to cause panic. The tracks had taken them through more countryside; the dead brown hues of fallen leaves painted the landscape, and it was as if they were floating along on a chocolate river in some places, such was the extent of the wintry decay.
The train carried them through a station, its weathered sign informing them they were now in Foxworth, wherever the hell that was.
The station got smaller behind them, and Terry picked the pace up once again. He'd had no choice but to slow upon their approach, but there was no point maintaining such a lacklustre speed now they were back in the open.
Once again, fields spread out on either side of them. Terry had marvelled, to begin with, at the sheer number of farmyards they were passing. He had no idea so many people had kept the land – their land no more – and the thought of all that acreage going to rack and ruin depressed him.
Now, as they entered Foxworth, there were not so many farms. People, rich investors, had purchased the land and converted it into an endless array of water-parks and country-clubs. A large billboard, visible from the train – of course, the marketers weren't completely stupid �
�� told them about the spectacular new slides at Columbia Water Park. There was a picture of a boy halfway down a tube, water splashing out towards the camera. The boy seemed to be having a great time.
Though probably not anymore.
Terry sighed; the train trundled on.
The track opened out onto a recently-constructed area where bricks replaced grass and solid, brown walls stood instead of trees. Whatever it was, the architects had gone crazy with triangles. Everywhere Terry looked there were three-sided shapes; even the bricks had been formed with a triangle set into them. It was a little excessive, and in this new world a complete waste of time and space.
But that could be said for a lot of things, Terry reminded himself. What had been the point in space-travel, in surgical advancements, in all those years spent paying taxes and feeding a fucking cat who never offered anything in return?
It was all for nothing.
A waste of time, money and effort.
At the end of the day, or the end of time, as it turned out, none of it made the slightest bit of difference. Neil Armstrong got chewed up the same as every other poor soul; Bill Gates's money would have only helped if he had used it to create barricades with to keep the lurkers out, and that damned cat you spent all those years feeding was either dead, dying of hunger, or infected.
Why do I keep thinking like this?
Terry had remained positive for so long, through everything, and now he was being bombarded with detrimental thoughts and ideas. It wasn't like him, and he reached for the bible in his jacket-pocket.
“Thank God,” he sighed as he brushed against its hard leather.
He was still touching it when the train rounded a corner.
He didn't have time to pray.
*
'Where did they come from?!' Shane gasped, pulling Marla away from the open door.
She turned, gasped as she saw the piled-up bodies in the street. These weren't dead, though. The piles were wriggling, clambering to get over the fence holding them away. The way they were stacked up on top of each other – like pancakes with their own special syrup – meant they were a lot closer to clearing the fence and getting to the train and its tantalising contents.
The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line Page 16
