Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  Images of the two of them moving in the dim light started to circulate amidst the intoxicating imagery Yue was sharing. A shift in momentum could be felt. LeBron yelled for Drew to come back. Drew left his post and ran over to Yue. They’d talked about the possibility of needing to do this. He’d pulled out a box cutter and slashed the top of his forearm before he even made it to them. A blood covered Yue grabbed his arm with the ferocity of an alligator snapping down on its prey. She bit deep into his arm sucking his blood and grinding the gristle. It was enough. The rush was back on for the rear of the train.

  “Go! We’re all going to die! Go!” Lisa was screaming at the grandfatherly Chris. He was too petrified to even move. Harley reached over and shoved him out the door. Lisa standing right behind him to cover him.

  From nowhere a crawler latched onto Chris and took him down to the ground. She shot the crawler and Chris multiple times before ducking back in the doorway. Her only thought to get everyone back inside. They could spend a few days eating the rest of the supplies before the train car really did become their coffin. She started screaming for Haywood and Salvador to come back. Harley was trying to knock her out of the way so he could get the door shut. Drew came forward and helped her keep Harley from shutting the door. His arm pouring blood down onto the ground.

  The train jerked forward throwing them all off of their feet. Salvador was yelling for them to shut the door. Harley was happy to oblige while Lisa tried to figure out why he’d want the door shut on him. The instant the door was closed they all heard the bullets start pinging off the exterior door and walls. The Marine had wanted to blast away without worrying about hitting any of them. In trying to save the man’s life Lisa had almost killed them all.

  The train kept picking up speed. They felt it going around turns so fast that it felt like they had to be about to tip over. Somehow, they didn’t though. The train shot out of the tunnel going way too fast. At the next turn it derailed sending crawler bodies, supplies and all kinds of other junk flying everywhere.

  Chapter 22: The End of the Line

  “Ah hell that hurt.” Harley said pulling himself to his feet. The train was sideways, and everything was everywhere. He’d come to with a mattress on top of him. If only the mattress had been underneath him, he probably wouldn’t hurt so bad right now. He’d shoved it off him with a shake of his head at how the universe was treating him lately.

  “Oh you were under there?” Lisa asked. She’d woke up on top of the mattress. She was currently standing hip deep in supplies and bedding trying to figure out how to open the door to see if they’d made it out of the tunnel. She’d already logged some time bandaging Drew, LeBron and Jeff’s arms. They were all still recovering from the crash. Yue had done a serious number on them. They’d be wearing long sleeves for a while. Otherwise anybody they met would think they were immune or something. Explaining the truth would be way too much trouble.

  Lisa had ground up two pills that looked like the ones Yue was taking. She’d mixed it in with water and a precious pack of Crystal Lite. Later on she wondered why she’d bothered flavoring the water since Yue hadn’t even woken up while being forced to drink it. Lisa had been rushing through those first aid tasks so that she could get to the door and check. She wasn’t hearing any hands slapping on the walls. She didn’t feel like a bunch of slithering demons were trying to mind rape her from ten feet away. Both of those were very positive indicators that they’d actually made it out.

  “Yeah. Where’s everybody else?” Harley asked.

  “Recovering still. I’m not sure if they’re recovering from the train crashing or Yue munching on their arms like they were all filets. They’re all breathing and moving around though. Yue’s super whacked out.” Lisa said. She tossed out the information nonchalantly but the concern and care in her voice for their shared set of friends was very much evident.

  “Ok. Watch out and let me open the door.” Harley gently moved Lisa aside and then wrenched up the lever that allowed the door to open. The door handle moved up but the door itself wouldn’t budge. That made even Harley a little nervous since there was only this door and the one in the back. If that one wasn’t working because of the way the train had settled, then the other one might not be either.

  “It won’t open?” Lisa asked. She didn’t sound too thrilled either.

  “No. Let’s go try the one on the other end.” Harley said. He started wading through the piles of garbage towards the other end of the car. On the way there they stopped to check on everyone. Harley saw that Lisa had taken her time and done the bandages up right on everyone.

  “Hey. That door not opening?” Drew asked sitting up. Lisa started to tell him to lay back down again then realized they were all basically walking wounded at this point.

  “Nope. We’re trying the back door. If that doesn’t work, we may need to borrow one of your grenades.” Lisa joked. Drew smiled at that and stood up to go with them. He was limping some from how he’d landed when the train went over but otherwise looked ok.

  Harley made sure his weapons were in easy reach then went through the same motions with the door in the back of the train. This door swung open with a loud groan. Harley had to physically push it up and hold it in place. He worked with Drew to wriggle out so he could find something to prop the door open with. All of them had been ecstatic to see the sunlight stream in when the door swung open.

  A few minutes later they’d rigged a dozen concrete blocks and a broken stop sign to hold open the door. It didn’t look super safe. Chore complete they stopped to take a breather and look around. Harley and Drew were both upset they hadn’t thought of doing that before. Just because it was sunny outside didn’t mean there was no danger. Lapses like that were what got people killed.

  “Is this the way out or are you trying to make a trap?” LeBron asked as he carefully crawled through the open door. He was extremely careful not to touch the concrete blocks or the signpost.

  “Is Yue up yet?” Lisa asked him. She’d crawled out right after Drew and Harley had gotten the door propped open.

  “She’s still out. Jeff is up and sitting with her. He looks like a corpse. Yue tore into my arm too but she like devoured both of his arms. That reminds me. We’re going to need antibiotics. Human bites are some of the most likely to get infected.” LeBron said.

  “At least you won’t be getting infected, infected.” Drew said. LeBron nodded. That was a very true point. He asked if they’d checked out the engine room yet and Harley shook his head. Not really holding out much hope for the men who’d saved their lives by willingly risking theirs to get the train going they limped slowly in that direction.

  The broken bodies of a dozen crawlerz were strewn all around the back of the engine room. The monsters had held on long enough to finish the wild ride out of the tunnels. The ones who hadn’t scattered into dark places or been killed in the crash were staring up into the sun.

  “Hey LeBron. You and Lisa go guard the other car entrance. We don’t want one of these things running in there. If they survive the door trap that we made it could be bad for Yue and Jeff.” Harley said. Lisa and LeBron rushed back to check on the other car. None of them had thought to leave a guard there.

  “You really worried about that?” Drew asked.

  “Yeah. It’s sloppy not to post someone to guard that door. I also think it’s probably best that me and you end these ones that are staring up into the sky. It’s just creepy.” Harley said. Drew agreed so they spent the next few minutes shoving combat knives into the exposed throats of the sun light mesmerized crawlerz.

  “Think we need to go in there?” Drew asked when they were done. Salvador and Haywood must’ve gone through a year’s worth of ammunition in a few minutes based on the level of carnage visible from outside the overturned car.

  “I’m not going in there.” Harley stated emphatically. He was looking at Drew like he was an idiot for even asking. They stood there staring at the car for a few more minutes trying to get
a sense if either Salvador or Haywood might still be inside. They skipped back a few steps when the sounds of a pistol being fired sounded from inside the car.

  Not bothering to check if Harley was coming or not Drew climbed through the wide open back door to the engine room. He dropped back down when more bullets bounced off the walls around him.

  “You need help in there?” Harley yelled from the other side of the entrance. He really hoped whoever was inside didn’t need any help.

  Haywood dove through the door in between them. Drew and Harley both willing their fingers to freeze on the trigger as their instinct was to shoot anything that did that. Immediately behind Haywood came Salvador. It took both Harley and Drew a second to realize Salvador had been transformed into a surger. At least they hoped that was the reason that Haywood had his knife shoved deep in Salvador’s gut. Haywood was struggling to keep Salvador’s snapping teeth away from him until Drew ended the deadly dispute with a well-placed pistol shot.

  “Glad to see you made it.” Harley said helping Haywood to his feet. Once he was standing Harley wiped his hands off on his pants. Haywood was literally covered in blood. It was dripping from his hair.

  “Yeah, that was a rough ride. Everybody else good?” Haywood asked. He was looking around at the bodies of the crawlerz with their throats sawed out.

  “It’s messy doing it that way I agree. For me the blade goes in easier though. As long as you stand to the side you avoid most of the blood. I go for the heart then five times out of ten I get stuck on a rib bone or it glances off.” Harley explained the technique him and Drew had developed to use on crawlerz stuck in that dazed and confused state. Haywood gave him an odd look at the unsolicited throat slashing advice.

  “I was actually thinking about something someone told me a while back. We were talking about why they feared the sun and he mentioned when they did get stuck in it, they stared at it like they were worshiping it. Then he dropped a thought bomb on me. The main god where the virus or mold or infection or whatever came from. The thing all those pyramid building bastards worshiped was Ra the sun god. Makes you think doesn’t it? Anyway I’m going to go hit the middle car and find a change of clothes and a gallon of hand sanitizer.” Haywood slapped each of them on the back before heading towards his stated goal. He left a trail of bloody footprints behind him.

  “That dude’s badass.” Harley said admiringly.

  “He just wormed his way out through the dead bodies of a massive pile of monsters he killed. It looked like he swam through a river of blood to get here. I’m going with badass not being enough to cover it.” Drew said with respect.

  “Agreed. Let’s heads back and get cleaned up ourselves. We need to be far away from here before night falls or all this work will have been for nothing.” Harley said.

  Drew nodded and they took one more quick tour around the main engine for the train before turning and walking past the middle car. Drew had mentioned they should check out what was left of the supply car. It looked like it’d flipped a few times before coming to rest. The crates that’d been neatly strapped to the top of it were now strewn all over the street. A bunch of them had busted open when tossed onto the hard concrete.

  Rations, water and loose ammunition were scattered all over the road. Drew and Harley were trying to get a handle on what they’d want to take with them when Jeff and LeBron walked out to meet them. After a brief conversation about what a miracle it was that Haywood had survived Jeff told them they needed to be loaded up and rolling out in the next ten minutes. The sound of the trains crashing off the track would’ve been heard throughout the silent city of brotherly love. Jeff wasn’t sure if it was the men who’d ambushed them or the crawlerz they needed to be more afraid of.

  “If it’s the crawlerz we could camp out right here and spend the day sorting through what we need and making plans. We can crash in the same train car we’ve been sleeping in. If it’s those guys who attacked us the other day, I don’t know that hiding in the car is going to keep them from hurting us. Although honestly unless they have explosives what are they going to do?” LeBron asked.

  “We don’t know that they don’t have explosives. Just pouring the diesel from the main engine all over the top of the car we’d be in and setting it on fire would probably do the trick. We’d either burn to death or suffocate. The train’s just been slammed hard into the ground on its side. I’m not really wanting to bet our lives on its structural integrity after all that.” Jeff said. That made total sense to Drew. It did bring up some questions though.

  “Where are we going and how do we get there?” Drew asked.

  “We’re going to head to Cape May. It’s the closest operational base to here. We can figure out the how on the way there. Go ahead and grab everything you can carry. Food and water for three days then the rest is weapons and ammo.” Jeff said before he left to tell everyone else to get moving.

  The how turned out to be a few blocks to the west. The Schuylkill River ran down to the Delaware river which dumped out into Delaware Bay. Yue was in some weird fugue state and the rest of them were nursing various bruises, sprains and broken things. On top of lugging Yue with them on a stretcher they were also carrying as much ammunition as they could shove in pockets and backpacks. Jeff flashed back to the conversation about how they should have a spare vehicle on the train with them. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. All they could do was use the experience to plan better next time.

  They climbed down off the tracks to walk along a dirty concrete walking trail that ran parallel to the river. They did find wheels of a sort. A grocery cart had been abandoned in the weeds. They stopped and messed around with it for a few minutes until they had Yue stretched out across it. It didn’t work great, but it now only took one person to drag her along instead of two.

  What they needed was a boat. It didn’t have to be a great boat. It just needed to float and have some way of controlling it. A couple of canoes would work if there wasn’t a regular boat floating around waiting for someone to take. As long as they could get it in the middle of the river and not sink until they made it to Cape May. Haywood had snagged a bunch of flares from the wreckage of the train so even if they overshot Cape May they’d be able to signal the base.

  “Easy for you to say. You could probably just jump in the river and swim to Cape May.” Jeff said when Haywood told them that accidentally drifting out into the ocean wouldn’t be a big deal. SEALs were meant for operations like this. He had to be loving this versus the stuck in a train underground scenario. If they could finish off the mission by blowing something up, Haywood would be in SEAL heaven.

  Up ahead there was a major overpass. It passed right over the tracks they were on. Underneath the overpass it was dark as night. They had to abandon the shopping cart to climb up and over the overpass. None of them were willing to risk going underneath the bridge and getting attacked by the crawlerz that may be lurking in the shadows. LeBron tried to engage them all in a conversation about this being where the legend of trolls living under bridges came from. He was ignored by everyone who didn’t tell him to shut up.

  It wasn’t that they were worried about talking attracting the infected. It was just that they didn’t have time to get sidetracked. They were all focused on finding a boat before it got dark so that they didn’t get ripped apart by hordes of the infected. That focus turned into frustration as the day wore on without any boats they could commandeer turning up. They’d seen plenty of docks with empty moorings. Each time they saw one coming up they all quickened their pace hoping this one would be it.

  The tracks swerved inland so they started walking through overgrown parking lots as they tried to see through the trees growing beside the river. Stopping to climb up and over the highways casting shadows down on them took up a lot of time. They had to take long inland detours on most of them to get to a place they could actually climb up and over. The shadows were starting to get way too long when Jeff spotted a warehouse parking lot filled with tractor trailers
.

  He made the call for them to head for the trailers for the night. They could continue the search for a boat in the morning. Harley had lugged along a pair of the cutters that were the skeleton keys of the apocalypse. They found a sturdy looking trailer and broke into it for the night. Yue finally woke up once they were all inside and settled in for the night.

  Jeff was happy for that at least. He loved her and she didn’t weigh hardly anything. When you had to carry her on top of everything else that they were each carrying it was a bit excessive though. He’d be happy to let her walk the next day. If she was doing ok, he’d even offload her gear back to her. He’d been lugging along her weapons as well as his. Thankful to finally be off his feet he slid down the wall to do his best to relax while he could. They didn’t have much longer until the demons came.