Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  “We should be good until we hit Philly.” The man said. His big bushy Santa Claus looking beard bouncing around as he talked. He had a big wad of chew in his mouth too. He kept swapping it out since all the tobacco products were pretty old at this point. The pinch he put in between his gum and lip reminding him of how dried out and flavorless he himself was now. A joyless husk left over from before the world died.

  Now there was a lot more interest in the chart up on the wall that the engineer had been meticulously marking off their progress on. The red sharpie marks up the plastic covering the route map showed them approaching Washington DC. That explained the cities they’d been riding through now. This whole train thing was starting to seem like a really bad idea.

  “How many tunnels in Washington?” LeBron asked. He was looking a little pale as well. The thought of voluntarily going into a long dark tunnel underground in a big city seeming more suicidal by the second.

  “The route we’re on is the express route. It’s the one that everyone was supposed to keep clear for critical transport back in the days when people were still transporting supplies around. We shouldn’t hit too many of them. Most of the underground stuff was on the passenger routes. The different stations people got on and off at in the city proper. There might be some though. Can’t say that I remember for sure.” The crusty old Kris Kringle of cabooses ended his explanation with that last bit of unwelcome ambiguity.

  “I’m not going in any long tunnels. I’m not letting you guys go in any long tunnels either.” Yue said putting her foot down. She literally stamped her foot down hard on the floor to make her point. There was a chorus of nods and murmurs of agreement.

  “Ok. We’ll just have to figure out a way to clear the tunnels or work around them.” Jeff said. Yue gave him a shrewd look. He’d just joined the Kris Kringle ambiguity club with his last statement. She hadn’t heard a definitive answer from him on bypassing the tunnels.

  They went over another long bridge. The engineer insisting they get out and walk it first to make sure he didn’t see any damaged parts. After wasting a few hours inspecting the long bridge he pronounced it ‘probably ok’ and took them across. That’d been a real butt clencher. Nothing like taking a zillion ton locomotive over the top of a rickety looking bridge that the engineer hadn’t seemed super confident would actually hold them.

  “We get to go back over the same one on the way back.” Yue said teasing Drew. She was kind of irritated. At a time when she should’ve felt good because there were no crawlerz around to fry her brain they had to go over a bridge that scared her almost as bad. She could see another small city looming on the horizon as well. The thought of enduring the ride through another city had her considering crushing up some Valium and doing a quick line or two.

  The endless train ride continued. They passed tall buildings and warehouses. A lot of it desolate and abandoned while some was teeming with the negative energy the crawlerz gave off. The energy Yue was entirely too sensitive to. She stuck to her guns on not doing any drugs during the day, but she did sneak a few hits out of the pint bottle Harley kept in his coat pocket. He let her pluck it out, slug down a few shots and slide it back in his pocket without saying a word.

  The burning liquor helped a little bit. Harley being Harley the liquor he drank was chosen for alcohol content versus flavor. She supposed she was lucky after doing a few snorts that she hadn’t gone blind. They were scrounging around to put together lunch when the engineer announced there was a yard up ahead. Wondering why he was bothering to tell them that when he hadn’t bothered to tell them much else the whole trip everyone glanced up ahead.

  The reason became clearer by the second. The trainyard up ahead was covered. Deep shadows underneath it an obvious haunt for the infected if they’d decided to hang out in this general area. Yue focused as much as she could on the structure but didn’t sense anything major. Nothing stronger than the idle thought threads she’d been ignoring since they rode across the bridge anyway. Her intense stare attracted the attention of the other occupants of the car.

  “It feels like there’s a few under there. They’re getting stirred up by the sound of the train coming. I think the message travels as long as there are enough of them to keep it going. They know we’re coming. I don’t think there’s enough of them to do much about it though. We should be ok assuming this is just a few seconds undercover then we pop out the other side.” Yue said in answer to all of their unspoken questions.

  The engineer nodded and sped the train back up. He’d been slowing it down expecting them to want to get out and investigate. They were still only going about ten miles per hour. The track was supposed to be cleared but for all he knew there was a car parked on it directly ahead of them. It was impossible to tell for sure looking into the inky darkness under the large, covered section of track.

  When they got closer the engineer flicked on the lights. The powerful beams reached out and illuminated a small section of the space they were entering. Shadows danced and jumped around in the darkness.

  “They see us now.” Yue said in the background. Her tone was cold and flat. The liquor had settled her nerves, but it did nothing to block what she was seeing now. She immediately started fighting down the urge to throw herself screaming at the others in the car. The others all moved away from her with concerned looks. She’d beat it into them enough now that trying to get close to her only made it worse.

  “Should we stop and get in the middle car?” Lisa asked.

  “Who’s going to drive the train then?” LeBron asked her.

  “Can’t we just let it go by itself?” Lisa asked. It made sense to her. Put it on autopilot for a few minutes to get through the darkness then they could pile out and hop back in the engine compartment.

  “If we hit something, I can stop the train and back us up pretty easy. If I’m not up here we could get derailed or we could slam into another train that has it’s brakes locked.” The engineer said. He was leaning forward to stare into the murky darkness. He’d been briefed by the military guys over a year ago that all the tracks had been ordered cleared. Plane flybys didn’t show any blockages and all the infrastructure seemed to mostly still be in place. He assumed they’d used satellites as well as planes and just didn’t want to talk about those too much. Whatever they’d used couldn’t have seen too much of the tunnels or under the roofs of covered spaces like the one they were headed through though.

  “Keep going?” Jeff turned the order into a question as he stared back at Yue. She seemed like she was still in control of herself. She nodded implying she still thought her original summary was pretty accurate.

  “Incoming.” A Marine standing up front called out. He’d seen a crawler loping though the darkness in that weird guerilla looking way they ran. They all saw it as it smashed against the window clawing and biting at the glass before falling off.

  Harley had been leaning against that particular wall where the window was when the crawler hit it. He jumped backwards knocking Lisa and Drew both off balance. Everyone slid their game faces on. Pistols were pulled out of holsters and safeties were undone. Seconds would matter if one of those things busted through a window.

  “More coming.” Yue gasped out behind them. She’d told them that when the infected approached as a pack it was like getting hit by the viewpoint of a bee. You’d see the same thing from multiple angles and viewpoints. Right now her brain was processing the impressions being thrown out by a solid dozen of the monsters. On top of the visuals was the insane hunger. The addicts need to feed on their blood. They needed to bite into uninfected flesh and taste the sweet, salty, hot, coppery, bloody flesh. Yue was subjected to all that including the uncontrollable urge desire to sink her own face into some warm skin and start chowing down. She was disgusted with herself.

  It was like driving into a flock of humongous bats. The windows were all covered in crawlerz within a few seconds of Yue saying they were coming. Most of them slid off the train after striking the wind
ows a few times. At least two of the windows had made some very ominous cracking sounds. There was no way to know if the window had broken or if it was just the piece that held the window to the wall. Either way it wasn’t good.

  “Light ahead.” The Marine who’d seen the first crawler barked out. He was standing all the way forward staring out one of the windows. He was trying to see past the infected hanging off every part of the train. There was a collective sigh of relief. All they had to do was make the light and they were golden.

  The window the Marine was standing beside smashed inwards sending shards of glass flying all over the place. The crawler who’d smashed through instantly closing its mouth around the arm of the struggling Marine. In her head Yue saw the window shattering and then she tasted the Marines hot blood flowing into her throat. She could feel the skin and gristle in her mouth as the crawler chomped down. She felt the orgasmic pleasure waves that went out psychically to the tortured insane on the other side of the train windows.

  “Guard the hole!” Yue screamed knowing what was coming. Once one of the pack got a taste the rest of them would turn the crazy knob all the way to the right.

  In the seconds after the first one got in three more crawlerz came in through the same window and another window was knocked out. The air was thick with gun smoke and screaming. Then they hit the light and the remaining crawler inside the engine with them paused in place to stare out the windows. While it was standing still Drew put a pistol to its head and blew out its brains. The engineer hit the brakes to bring them to a stop in the bright sunlight. He stumbled past the bodies and people to get to the door leading outside.

  The engineer threw the door open. Harley grabbed the old man before he fell down to the ground. The white whiskered engineer turned to say something to Harley then just spewed a massive amount of vomit all over him instead. To his credit Harley didn’t pitch the old dude out the door. He took the warm nastiness right in the face and waited until the man had recovered. Once it looked like the puking was over Harley squatted down next to the old man.

  “It’s not safe out there yet. These things could be hitching a ride on the outside. We need to clear it before you jump down there.” Harley said. The engineer nodded weakly. He was an old man. This was a lot.

  On the side of the car that the bodies were lying on the original Marine who’d gone down jumped to his feet. With that familiar insanity in his eyes he rushed one of the soldiers who’d been heading that way to start dragging bodies to the door. Before anyone could help him the newly turned surger had his teeth in the face of the soldier. He started whipping his head back and forth. He looked like a rabid pit bull going to town on a burglar. The soldier screamed then fell backwards. The surger stood triumphant with a huge swath of skin hanging out of his mouth.

  Harley, Drew and one of the other Marines finished off the newly turned surger and the now infected faceless soldier with a barrage of bullets. Most of the bullets settled into the bodies they were aimed at. A couple of them ricocheted around in the tight confines of the engine car causing a few more minor injuries. The engineer got pinged by one right in his shoulder blade inspiring quite a bit of impressively descriptive train yard profanity.

  Harley tried to help him up to tend to the wound. The man pushed Harley away and worked himself to his feet on his own power. Then with a rebellious look at Harley he swung the door open and turned to climb the ladder down to the ground. Harley moved to stop him from climbing down. Jeff called out to let him go.

  “We do need to get some boots on the ground with him though to keep him safe. We also need to get these bodies out of here and get the engine room cleaned up some.” Jeff said.

  “Not it.” Drew said immediately after Jeff was finished. He found out very quickly that yelling ‘not it’ wasn’t as well honored a tradition as calling ‘shot gun’ to get the best car seat. He got stuck working with a couple of the other guys dragging the bodies out. Once they had them out, they worked on cleaning up the engine room. All while the others walked around outside getting tans and generally enjoying the lack of disgusting smells.

  Once the engine room had been scrubbed down everyone climbed back aboard. Harley showed up last in a brand new set of clothes. He’d tossed all of his puke covered ones. They held a brief pow wow to talk about whether they wanted to continue or not. The decision was made to keep going. They weren’t going to go into any dark spaces again. The next time they reached one would be time to turn around and go home. There wasn’t much further they’d be able to go anyway according to the engineer. No one was in a hurry to rerun that gauntlet they’d just been through though so why not check out another hundred miles of track or so?

  Chapter 19: City of Brotherly Love?

  The tracks had been switched to run by major warehouses and distribution centers to assist with the rapid distribution of supplies up and down the coast. There’d been well planned routes for the distribution of goods in the event of an emergency. It was amazing how well planning for climate change, nuclear war, or an incoming asteroid strike translated into defending against a zombie apocalypse. The CDC had even setup webpages that were zombie apocalypse themed to get people to prep for major storms and other catastrophic events.

  For the millionth time Jeff thought of the wild series of random events that’d led to the situation that they were in now. The irony of things like the CDC website. The complete hypocrisy of the US government’s response to the rapid spread of the infection. A hypocrisy he’d been very much complicit in. He was glad now the government was back on the right side of the fight. Back to supporting the citizens stuck out there holding on for dear life. Even though he knew the initial government response had been the only sustainable course of action he still felt the need to atone for what they’d done. The hard decisions that had to be made. The enormous amount of innocent blood they’d bathed in so that the country could have some hope of coming out of this.

  They stopped in a deserted area outside of Philly for the night. They’d gone the long way around riding the rails, but it’d gotten them this far without anymore tunnels. The engineer had already told them there was no way they were avoiding tunnels if they wanted to keep going north on the rails. The idea was to wake up and make it the rest of the way to Philly and mark exactly how far they could make it. They were still stopping at every major station to drop off flyers and shoot up a flare. The flyers changed based on what state they were in. There were different destinations for refugees based on where they were starting out at.

  They continued on the route to Philly once they’d checked the train and everyone had snagged their preferred spot for the day. Another long bridge and they rolled into the city proper. They rode next to a river for a while then crossed yet another bridge. When they spotted a tunnel opening up ahead that was an immediate braking action.

  “I guess that’s the end of the line for us. Lunch then head back?” The engineer asked. He normally ate standing up staring out the front window. Since they were stopped anyway, he figured he could enjoy a plate of whatever without being focused on the tracks up ahead. Not that focusing on the kind of food they’d be eating was a really great idea either. Jeff nodded and they broke out the rations.

  They ate a leisurely lunch talking through what they’d learned so far. LeBron brought up the idea of staying the night where they were at to give the survivors time to check out the flyers they’d left. Yue nixed that idea by telling them there was no way they should spend the night anywhere near that tunnel up ahead. She could feel the crawlerz inside writhing all over one another in excitement at how close the train was sitting to them. She suggested maybe just heading back to the last place they’d dropped off the flyers and everyone agreed that was a solid idea.

  Chris put the train in reverse, and they headed back the way they’d come. Yue had finally asked the engineer to repeat his name while they’d been eating lunch. Everyone had half-smiled when it turned out to be Chris. They’d all been calling him Kris Kr
ingle behind his back already. Not that he hadn’t heard them given the small confines they were living in.

  They went slowly over the first bridge. No one said a word about the snail’s pace since they were going backwards. They couldn’t see with anywhere close to the same clarity as they had before. Chris was checking the charts to see where the next turnabout was. He knew there was one at the covered train yard they’d gone through that could be switched manually. None of them wanted to deal with that place again any longer than they had to though. He was checking on an alternative when the Marine they’d sat on the cargo car with Drew and Lisa radioed back that there was something on the track up ahead.

  “Are you able to confirm what it is?” Jeff asked a few seconds later. Chris was slowing them down as they drove with the water on one side and a row of warehouses on the other.

  “It’s a big truck. Woah!” The Marine’s voice came over the radio.

  “Please advise on what you’re seeing.” Jeff transmitted.

  “Ambush. They just set the truck on fire. We’re taking fire now. Advise we get the hell out of here.” The Marine shot back.