World of Ashes (14 page)

Dismounting the vehicle the three men
waited until a train left the Sally Port, the locomotive providing noise cover, before leaving the overgrown area altogether. A yard-dog locomotive parked a train of fifteen or so empty cars on a line and stopped. A few railroad workers and a Marine, all with brightly colored Texas flags on their uniforms, got out to uncouple and check the empty coal cars before leaving. This was when the trio made their move. Allen pulled a gun on the workers while Keith put the Marine in a chokehold until he passed out, gently laying him on the gravel.

Ethan slung his
own rifle. “Lower your gun, Allen.” He turned to the terrified engineers. “We’re not gonna hurt you, we just wanted to avoid a confrontation we couldn’t control.” He gestured to the Marine, knowing the young man would have raised the alarm. “We just want some answers. Like why are you keeping the power on, and why are you wearing Texas flags and not U.S. flags?”

“Because there is no more United States of America.” The lead engineer said, solemnly. He had fa
ded Navy tattoos down both arms, indicating he’d been an American patriot all his life and missed his nation too. He had also once been fat, but no longer. He could probably fit a ripe watermelon or an infant in the slack in his overalls. Food rationing seemed to be everywhere. “Texas and Alaska are the only state governments still functioning last time we heard.” He added, trying to give the three the most pertinent information.

“What about the rest of the world?” Keith asked, making sure the Marine would be comfortable when he woke up.

“Sometimes we hear from England, Norway, Iceland and Greenland, but mainland Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa are all dark.”

“‘Dark’?” Allen needed more.

“Gone. No way to sugar coat it kid.”

             
“We’re still here…”

“So
again, why keep the power on?” Ethan asked again.

“Because this sh
it ain’t gonna last forever.” The other engineer shrugged, feeling comfortable enough to lower his arms. “The infected are rotting as fast a regular corpse. The vast majority will be rotted away by the end of next year, especially if next summer is like this last one was. After that, Texas and Alaska are gonna be the only powers left in North America. I guess it’s sort of a humanitarian quest, but President Paul refuses to abandon the Continued Energy Effort. As long as we can keep the lights on, that’s just that many people we can help stay alive.”

“Are Texas and Alaska friends with one another?”
Ethan asked the next logical question.

“Kinda. We’re on the offensive against the undead,
and they’re hunkering down, waiting for winter to freeze ‘em.”

“Will that work?”
Allen asked.

“
General'nyy Zimniye.
” Ethan said in what would pass for a really shitty Russian accent. “
General Winter
. Russia has historically relied on its bitter cold winters to defeat invading armies while they marshal their forces. If the Zims are dead they’re no longer exothermic, which means kinda like a package of hamburger they’ll freeze when the ambient temperature is below freezing for any length of time.”

Keith eyeballed Ethan, “Most days I’m certain you’re a burned out drunk with questionable access to guns and pharmaceuticals, and other days I’m pretty sure you’re a
genius
burnout drunk with questionable access to guns and pharmaceuticals.”

Ethan looked back at Keith. “Thanks.” He smiled.

The engineers were seeming quite relaxed as the Marine started to come around. He blinked several times and immediately looked for his M4. Keith had disassembled the weapon to its smallest components no tools were needed to take apart and laid it all neatly next to him on a towel from the Marine’s cleaning kit. It was a military faux-pas to toss another man’s gun in the dirt, but at least it would take the Marine long enough to reassemble the weapon for them to escape.

“Lance Corporal
Tuft, who’s your commanding officer?”

“Lance Corporal John A. Tuft, service number-”

“Dude, shut the fuck up. You’re not a prisoner, we’re all still Americans- we think. We’re from a local town you guys have sent a recon party to scout recently. We tried to contact you, but no one spoke to us.”

The Marine remained silent and glared like he wanted to set them on fire.

“For fuck sake, Dale, these boys
ain’t the badguys. They’re the people we’re keeping the power on for.” The conductor said.

“My unit is the 56th Texas
Marine Division, Alpha Company, First Battalion, Fourth Combat Engineers. I’m not authorized to tell you more, so please don’t ask.”

“That’s… Great…” Allen shrugged, obviously unimpressed. “How many more units are there?” The Marine
said nothing.

“It’s okay, Lance Criminal
, you don’t have to tell us anything.” Ethan took a look around, fearing they’d lingered too long. “Just, if you could, tell your superiors we’re not hostile. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to figure out where we’re from. We’re going to trust you, Lance Corporal Dale Tuft of the Texas Marine Corps, to tell the truth. We’re running low on ammunition to keep fighting the hordes coming from St. Louis and Columbia, so if it’s possible we’d appreciate some help. Tell your superiors the Sullivan checkpoint is still functioning under the flag of the United States of America, but we would like to have some allies.”

They left after that. Lance Corporal Tuft didn’t try to put his weapon
back together right away either, he seemed to be waiting for the engineers to back him up or tell him not to obey. Ethan had taken Tuft’s radio and tossed it into a coal car. It would delay the men even longer if they tried to find it.

Ethan drove as fast as he
could back to town where word spread about the train full of supplies faster than wildfire. In the morning over a hundred people were back for it, organized and protected by the Deputies. No one knew how to start a locomotive except a retired engineer who hadn’t been behind the controls of a train since 1980. There was a bit of a learning curve, but the train started moving before noon. Slowly, almost too slowly, the mile-long train headed down the tracks, armed men covering every car, a rail road equipped repair truck traveling ahead of the train to inspect the line and remove obstacles. There were no major delays, except removing a tractor trailer full of McDonalds toys the train had been pushed along the tracks for close to ten miles before the engineers could stop and abandon it.

Keith was standing inside a box car that had mounds o
f mail in it with a dozen other people. It was the only train car at that end of the line with room to carry people as they rolled through the countryside at a painstaking ten miles per hour. No one bothered to shoot any zombies, hitting a moving target in the head was practically impossible anyhow. It took a minute or two, but eventually Keith realized one of the gunman was a girl in a desert cammo uniform that would have better fit him. He recognized her, even without the multitude of bruises, as one of the victimized girls at the hospital. It was Paula, the one who’d told them about the rapes and murders in the first place. She sat with her feet dangling over the edge of the train, watching the trees and enjoying the quiet between clacks of wheels on the tracks. He went and sat by her.

“Hey
.” He said, setting his rifle down and offering his hand to shake.

             
“I recognize you,” She said sarcastically. “I heard from a girl who was there that night that it was like watching the wrath of God strike them all down.”

Keith nodded at the macabre description.
“I deplore killing, which is why I’m a medic, but I don’t regret what we did. I think my buddy Ethan would agree, some people just need killin’.”

“We’re all
fine now, thanks to you two.” She smiled, some of her teeth near the back of her jaw were still missing. Once upon a time she’d had a smile perfectly aligned by expensive braces. There weren’t a lot of dentists left anymore. “Some of the other girls are still in the hospital, they got beat up a lot worse than me…”

“I wish there was more we could have done.”

“Unless you could time travel or bring their dicks back in a bag as proof, I don’t think there would be much else you could do. I mean, the world fucking ended, man. And I’m still alive.” She shrugged and drank from her canteen. “...And I’m… still alive.”

“Kinda wish I had thought of the dick bagging myself.
” It was purely sarcasm, but then that was the basis of their conversation in the first place.

Paula
smiled a little. “The world is never gonna be the same, is it.” It wasn’t really a question. “I mean, two years ago I was in high school. I was going to go to Mizzou… right now actually. I was already enrolled for Security Protected Dorms… As if any of this could ever be contained… It was just a way for the college to scam more money from my parents. And now, well, now I’m literally robbing a train. Sometimes it feels so surreal. I almost expect to wake up at home to the smell of bacon and eggs, and my mom’s hairspray clouding the hallways. She always used too much. Stuck in the 80’s I guess. I really miss them.”

Keith nodded
explaining that most of his family was dead now too. Then Paula threw him a curveball. “So you and Deputy Cally… are you two, you know… ‘together’?” She did the quotation marks in the air with her fingers, a band aid on one hand and a Halloween pumpkin ring on another, something one of the children at the hospital had given her while she was recovering. Perhaps it was the spirit of the children that had brought her out of her depression more than any treatment or medication could have.

Stunned for a moment
, Keith struggled to respond without laughing, “No! Neither one of us are gay. Why? Do we come off as gay?”

“
No, but your face was priceless.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. She’d go
tten him good. “I guess I hang out with him because, as you pointed out, there’s no place left to go.” Keith gestured at the farmland, now growing wild like the untamed Missouri prairies of the last century. “I had never been to the Midwest before all this shit started. I’m from Maine originally, though I’ve lived everywhere but here it seems. I joined the Army in ‘09 when we were living in Florida. I think Ethan’s been in before. Probably got drafted back in when the shit hit the fan after D.C. became a Red Zone. He won’t really talk about it much. I just know he really, really, really doesn’t trust the Army.”

“At least he’s
back home. I’m from Rolla. My parents were trying to get to family in Kansas City when our car was clipped by an Army truck. The bastards didn’t even stop for us. We walked to Bourbon and then…” Paula didn’t finish her story, there wasn’t any need to. She’d lost her entire family, even her boyfriend, all murdered by the bikers.

“We’re still kinda holding our breath that Ethan’s brother will show up. Before the phones and internet became unreliable his brother
, Lee, called and said he was heading home.”

“I wouldn’t want to be out there on my own.” Paula shivered at the thought.

“We’re certainly not alone out here.” Keith said with regret. “I’m sure Mayor Kenly will make an announcement sooner or later, but eventually there’s going to be a war between the factions of the Living after the Undead have rotted away. People are going to fight over all of this.”

“Why? Before we left the news said more than half the Earth’s population was infected. There’s going to be plenty of room for everyone
if anyone makes it.”

“It’s cute that you’re so naive. Texas and Alaska are going to divide everything real nice like. No other st
ate really stands a chance. They’ve got the military reserves and the oil to fuel them.” Keith was only theorizing about a worse-case scenario.

“I hope not. My dad said both states were conservative and really pro-American. Maybe they’ll just help us get back on our feet?” Paula was disgustingly hopeful for someone who’d witnessed hell, and who was all alone in the world.

The train made it to Sullivan without a hitch, but this time there was no free-for- all with the supplies the way there was when the Army pulled out. Everything was inventoried, including anything useful that was in the mail cars. There would be enough dried goods to last the town through winter for sure now, and the task of locking these supplies safely away was given to someone besides Keith and Ethan for once. They were starting to wear their fatigue on their sleeves and anyone with half a brain could see it.

Ethan, as usual, spent his free time at home waiting for a
n email or a phone to tell him something, staring in silence with a bottle of Southern Comfort in his hands. Most of the town was waiting for a response from the Texans as well. Keith took the opportunity afforded by the lull in activity to bring Paula to some semblance of a movie night. It had0 had been set up by a few people who had grown weary of life without the creature comforts of the 21
st
Century. The local theater had been shut down since the Army rolled into town, and it was still too far out of town to be protected anyhow. The high school gymnasium on the other hand, was in the center of town and had a projector where a few dozen people sat, happily watching a
Star Wars
marathon. Keith wasn’t the biggest
Star Wars
fan, and neither was Paula, but at least it was something to do besides hear gunshots and smell the acrid scent of death that permeated daily life. The gym smelled of rubber and cleaning agents. A marvelous change of pace.