'I'd prefer you as Lara Croft, if you're asking my opinion,' Shane said.
'Got a thing for that pixelated look, have you?' Marla joked.
'I know I'm not as young as I used to be,' Terry said, 'but who the
hell
is Lara Croft?'
'She's a very nice . . . You know what?' Shane said. 'It doesn't matter. I'll find a picture somewhere and you can judge for yourself.'
River and Saul walked solemnly along the platform; River was holding her machete, Saul was holding River.
'They gone?' River asked, her tone sharp.
'Yeah,' Shane said. 'You can sheath your blade for awhile. We're leaving on a jet-plane . . .' He sang the last bit, tunelessly, and when he was finished he had everybody's eyes upon him. 'What? That was a classic.'
'It's not a plane,' River giggled. 'It's a train, stooopid!'
'Well, a train's as good as a plane right now,' Shane said. 'So let's get saddled up and ready. We leave in thirty minutes. Make sure you pick up everything we might need and toss it into the back car.'
'How many cars we draggin'?' Terry asked. 'The more we hook up, the slower we're gonna be moving.'
'I figure two cars,' Shane said. 'Since there are four attached, we just unhook the last two. You never know. Might come across some more survivors. You ever been stuck in a lift with twenty people? It ain't comfortable, I'll tell you that.'
Marla smiled thinly. 'We come across any more survivors,' she said, 'we're leaving them where they are.'
Shane didn't blame her for the harsh words. The last time they'd run across others hadn't panned out too well, had it?
They readied for the journey.
Terry shuffled towards the driver's seat, ready to buckle in for what was going to be an interesting ride.
*
When the locomotive didn't start on the first – or second – attempt, River booed from the car in which she and Saul had settled.
'Give her half a chance!' Terry's voice called back to the impatient urchin. 'She's older than you and your little boyfriend put together.'
River, in the semi-darkness of morning, rolled her eyes and smiled at Saul, who had wedged himself tightly into the steel tin's corner. 'He doesn't mean that,' she said. 'He's old, and probably senile.'
Saul nodded, relieved that he wasn't about to marry the blade-carrying young lady with a penchant for decapitating zombies in the vilest of manners. She was
pretty
, he thought, but you never should trust a girl who kills first, asks questions later. . .
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.