A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis Read online

  “I let the train go, back from the car you were on.”

  “Wait... from my car? Why, of all places, would that be where you made the break?”

  “Well, I guess we can kiss the motorcycles goodbye,” Jack stated.

  I hadn’t even thought of that. I was a little more concerned that he knew the specific car I was on and had it apparently all cued up for release.

  “To be fair, Zach, the motorcycles were already gone,” Trip said. “Can I get back to my Toga?”

  “It’s Jack, and Yoga,” I said, trying to correct him.

  Jack didn’t seem to care as he elbowed Trip out of the way and started looking over the cargo manifest.

  “Shit, I gave up being bothered about what he calls me long ago,” Jack said, staring at the screen. “Well, now, how about that. Mike, it looks like one of these cars is carrying weapons.”

  “I didn’t notice any military green boxes,” I said, looking at the screen.

  “It appears to be a private collection. And, from the manifest, a rather large one.”

  “That’s about twenty cars back. We’ve got zombies and whistlers—we can’t really stop and ask them to wait while we look over the stuff. Plus, we don’t even know if there’s ammunition.”

  “Oh—there is.”

  Mike Talbot - Chapter 3

  Jack took a second to look out the front window to the looming city before he went out the side door to see how things were going there.

  “We're going to have to stop this train soon,” he said.

  I didn’t see it that way. “Why? Can’t we just keep going until we outrun the Whistlers?”

  “There's a good chance this won’t go all the way through the city. At some point, we may hit a junction or a train yard, and who knows how the tracks are set. In fact, I was trying to figure out how to slow this train down when you came in. That will be handy knowledge to have in case we head off onto a siding. It looks all cool and shit in the movies, a train running off the tracks, but I’m sure it’s a rather unpleasant experience in real life.” He turned to Trip. “Can you unlock the cars after this one?” he asked, pointing to the car we hoped still held a huge cache of weapons.

  “Namaste.” Trip was back to his yoga-doing self. In a singsong chant, he answered Jack, “Oooommm… touch the coupling on the screen, then the unlock button on the lower bottom right… oooommm.”

  “It's that easy?” Jack shook his head and followed Trip’s suggestion. “Son of a bitch, the guy is almost always right and still I doubt him.”

  “How can you not? Doubt him, I mean. The guy has like seventeen brain cells, and twelve of them flicker like Christmas lights.”

  “OOOOmmm… I can hear you… oooommm.”

  Jack eyed the manual he was carrying. I was already losing interest in it. Funny thing, ADD. The odds that I would ever need to know how to run a train were abysmally low, in fact much lower than the prospect of nightmarish creatures coming right through the door Jack had just opened. I had Jack’s gun and I knew how to shoot—right then, that was all I cared about. Jack started pressing buttons and levers to set up the slowing process.

  “No, not that way,” Trip said, rising from his yoga position to mash a finger on the uncoupling screen.

  “Goddammit! No, I didn’t want to do that now,” Jack yelled.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’re going to get a lesson about inertia and momentum,” Jack said, exasperated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll be slowing. The cars behind us, which are now uncoupled, won’t be.”

  The realization of what was about to happened dawned brightly. “Can’t we keep our speed up until they’ve slowed down?”

  “For a bit, we’ll have to. We need distance from both the whistlers and cars behind us. However, we’re going to have to slow down soon. We can’t go barreling through that,” Jack answered, pointing out the windshield at the train yard quickly approaching. “And when that happens… well, we’re going to get run over by a train.”

  We lurched forward as we lost the added weight of the dislodged cars. Soon afterward, the train strained as Jack began the breaking process, the mass tonnage behind trying to push forward with its momentum. I was getting my first up-close glimpse of the infamous city of Atlantis. It was pretty, as far as cities go, but other than that I wasn’t blown away. I didn’t see any mermen with pitchforks patrolling the area, or fountains of gold spewing silver water. There were high-rise buildings off to our left and a huge train yard to our front. Jack was right: this place looked like it housed half the trains for the entire country. There was no way to tell if the way ahead was clear or not—the rails split off into thirty or more separate tracks, most of them blocked by the equipment parked on them and barreling in to something at our top speed was not a wise course of action. We had left the Z’s and Whistlers behind, but not by much.

  “The last car has the weapons?” I asked, going over to the door.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I'm going to hop down and check it out.”

  “Mike, we’re still moving.”

  “Come on, can’t be much more than ten miles an hour by now.”

  “I have to stay here and make sure we don’t hit anything.”

  “What’s your point?” He pointed to the gun. “Oh, that’s your point.”

  “Just wait, and we can go together.”

  It made the most sense, it did—but we had precious little time before the Whistlers came, and I didn’t want to be left throwing rocks at them. I gave him back his rifle.

  “When you can, follow me.”

  I opened the door. Don't let anyone fool you: jumping off of a train at ten miles an hour still sucks ass. I scraped up an elbow and got some road rash on my ribs, then winced, gave Jack the thumbs up, and made off as fast as I could to the back of our now-shortened train.

  The problem with disconnecting the rear cars was that they were still following us—which meant everyone else was, too. The idea of being out in the open again with only my hands as weapons was fairly unappealing. With me running in the opposite direction as the still-moving train, I was coming up on my desired location pretty damn fast.

  “You have got to be shitting me.”

  My lone zombie buddy was waiting for me. Like she knew exactly where I wanted to go. At least she was on the back. I grabbed hold of the rail on the front and pulled myself aboard. After a quick glance let me know that the main side doors were locked, I went up to the roof. I found out soon enough that the top hatch was, too. Why wouldn’t it be? If I thought to go in the roof, so could a criminal. I’d been one enough times to know.

  The zombie must have wanted to catch a glimpse of the skyline, because she came up after me. Her diseased gaze never left mine as she bared her teeth in what I could only guess was a perpetual sneer for her. She moved slowly, not because of her affliction, but rather in a predatory manner—she was stalking me, looking for an opening to strike.

  “I hate you,” I told her. My words seemed to upset her, as a deep growl blew through her split lips.

  My heart was seized by the icy grip of death when a sound much like wind whistling through a graveyard issued forth from her.

  “Hate you,” she hissed.

  “Oh fuck. Oh fuck,” I said as I involuntarily took a couple of steps backwards.

  I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until my right foot dangled in open space. I quickly placed it back on the roof. The zombie was coming at me quicker than I was retreating, though her movements were still wary. She wanted to kill me, she just didn’t want to die in the process. The train squealed as Jack lay heavy on the brakes; luckily we were going slow enough that I wasn’t in danger of losing my footing. Nope, that wasn’t going to be the problem: What was really going to suck were the 400 tons of steel and wood that had not yet had the good graces to match our pace and stop on their own. We were going to get rear-ended in a major way.

  I wish the
re’d been a way to warn Jack and Trip, but time was up: I jumped over the side and didn’t bother trying to get up and run, I just kept rolling away as fast as I could. I caught a few glimpses of the zombie as she peered over the edge at me, trying to figure out what I was doing. Oh, she’d follow if given the chance—then came the most god-awful, earth-moving, thunderous, explosive crash as the train was impacted. It wasn’t a high-speed collision, but it was enough to push the train off of its track and smash the car I was just on almost neatly in half, buckling it like an inexperienced shuffler will a playing card.

  Zombie girl was no longer in sight: she must have either caught flight or been pulled down into the wreckage. The train behind jumped track and luckily went off to the far side of me; three cars of the part I was riding on absorbed the brunt of the force, two fell completely over onto their sides, narrowly missing me, and the third was halfway over.

  After the ground stopped shaking, I stood. The locked door to the car was no longer a concern—crates labeled “Tynes Estate” were littered all around me. I could only shake my head in disbelief, wondering if the fates had delivered a present from my friend BT, aka Lawrence Tynes.

  Now the problem was finding a crowbar to open the nailed shut boxes. Luckily for me, there were all sorts of train parts lying around to choose from. I should have been smarter and kept a lookout, but I was focused on protecting myself by getting a weapon, sort of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” kind of conundrum. Her first bite caught me high in the shoulder, the heavy material of my jacket the only thing keeping me from becoming her early dinner or late-night dance partner, if I was to turn. She must have had a running start, because she pushed me over. We tumbled to the ground and again I found myself holding back a zombie as she hovered over me, trying to seek purchase anywhere she could. I had a decent grip on her shoulders, but her constant thrashing was definitely going to get her loose eventually.

  I could hear Jack running toward us, his boots pushing against the small crushed rocks that lined the sides of the tracks—at least I hoped it was Jack approaching, and not the Z’s friends rushing to welcome me to their fold.

  “Try to push it away and hold it still!” Jack shouted.

  “I'd like to,” I told him. “She’s just clingy!”

  “Your wife is going to be pissed, man!” Trip said from somewhere behind Jack. I imagine he thought I was engaged in some sort of strange horizontal bop with the undead female.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I barely made out the image of Jack as he knelt, shouldered his carbine, and lined up a shot.

  Oh, shit, I thought. I hope he can shoot straight.

  I wrestled as much space between the Z and me as I could, which is to say, not much. Her constant flogging around made that difficult. It would seem like I was making progress and then she’d slip around my hold and dive down again.

  I know Jack is going to take the shot regardless. Just cooperate, bitch.

  But she didn’t, and I heard a shot ring out above the snarling, followed by the familiar zip of a bullet as it streaked through the air near my head. The impact startled us both; I’m not sure which of us more so. Probably me, as the round impacted the side of her head like it had hit a watermelon, rendering her unable to be startled anymore. Gore and black liquid rained down on me, bringing most of my psychoses to life. I gagged as I pushed the now lifeless body to the side.

  I looked up to see Jack reaching down to help me. Taking his hand, I mumbled my thanks—there was no way I was going to open my mouth wide enough to annunciate properly, for fear something would spill into it. Jack was keeping a lookout at the battle playing out further down the track. It appeared that the zombies viewed the whistlers as maybe not a food source, but definitely an adversary, and were trying to use their superior numbers to gain an advantage. It was tough to really make out what was going on, but I had to think the whistlers were as taken aback by this as I was—but they were intelligent and they had weapons; they’d rally soon enough. Jack got behind some cover and kept low while I surveyed the general area.

  “There are some broken boxes on the other side, Jack. I’m going to check it out.”

  “Bring Trip with you—he keeps breaking into yoga poses; someone is going to see him eventually.”

  The Tynes Estate seemed to mostly be in possession of antiques and relics—at least that was what I was coming across, though I was certain the boxes I couldn’t get open contained machine guns and hand grenades. I snagged an ornate sword, hoping it was not just ornamental but functional as well. I was no Zorro, but I could swing a stick like no one’s business. That it was sharp was an added bonus. In the next box, I found—well, I won’t say it was paydirt, but it was a start: A 30-ought-6 hunting rifle could most assuredly kill what it hit, but it kicked like a mule and generally only had a five-round magazine: two very large drawbacks in an apocalyptic environment. Still, it beat a pocket full of marbles. Three ammunition cans were off to the side, the first filled with 8.5-millimeter rounds, which I shook my head at. The next held some .17 HMR, a great varmint round, and the third was mostly full of .380s, but luckily there were two boxes of .30-06.

  “Forty rounds. That won’t make it through one bad hour,” I said aloud, though no one was listening.

  “Mike, we’ve been spotted.”

  I had what I had and it wasn’t going to get any better.

  “I don’t know if this is cosmically you somehow, BT, but thanks.” I grabbed Trip by the shoulder and we started running toward the front of the train; Jack quickly came over to our side and joined us.

  “Who saw us?”

  “Everyone,” he replied.

  This was followed by the deep rumble of motorcycles starting up. As if that dinner bell wasn’t loud enough, I swear I heard the distant cry of a night runner. The hitch in Jack’s step let me know he’d heard it as well. We kept running. What other choice did we have?

  We were heading toward the huge train terminal. Why? Mostly because it was directly in front of us—other than that, we had no reason to think it was better than any other place. Trip was starting to flag—I myself was feeling the effects of the last few days, so I can only imagine the toll it was taking on him. The way he acted, you would think nothing bothered him. Jack noticed as well, and we each got under an arm and half-carried, half-dragged him. For once, he didn’t have any stoner remarks: he simply thanked us. Which, if I’m being honest, scared the hell out of me. If Trip thought it was bad, it must be worse than even I thought it was.

  The whistlers weren’t much more than a hundred yards behind us by the time we got under the heavy shadow of the depot. The building was massive, stretching far into the distance, and there had to have been sixty or seventy train cars under its roof. Up a short flight of stairs to our right were what appeared to be offices. Off that deck was another set of stairs that led to a series of catwalks that were about train height. I guess they were so workers could more easily reach the tops of the trains. I liked the idea of the height, and if it were just the zombies I think that’s where we would have made our stand. But the whistlers had ranged weapons, and we’d be easy targets for them up there in the open. If given the choice, I would have headed for the offices, but Jack had other ideas—he guided us, the interlocked trio, toward another engine.

  Jack let go of Trip as he hopped on to the small ladder that led in. He opened the door and motioned for us to follow; I helped Trip in, who seemed to have the muscle mass of a bowl of holiday gelatin. He moved just far enough for me to get in before he collapsed on the floor in a heap, his arms and legs splayed. He was pulling in heavy gulps of air, his eyes wide in terror.

  I got down by his ear.

  “Trip, are you all right?”

  He gripped my arm. “I just saw my end, man.”

  “You’re not going to die, Trip.”

  “We all die.” His grip loosened.

  I gently pulled away; he was beginning to freak me out. Luckily, Jack spoke, breaking the spell
Trip was weaving in my head.

  “Mike, there’s a latch on that door. Lock it.”

  He moved to the far side of the small space and did the same to that door. Much like the noise under the overpass had been, the thunderous roar of the hundred or so motorcycles reverberated off the steel roof above us and echoed throughout the expanse. It was almost deafening inside the car—it would have been crippling outside. I had hoped they would shut them off at least, letting us get that sense back. I could see why they wouldn’t, though—they still had the zombies to deal with, and maybe they’d encountered the night runners before and wanted to make sure they could depart quickly if need be.

  “Fuck, that’s loud.”

  Jack turned to look at me, placing his index finger to his mouth. He pointed out the front of the train. Three whistlers were standing there. With their gas masks on, it was almost possible to believe they were just incredibly tall and skinny humans. Almost like Manute Bol, the pro basketball player—I want to say he was about 7´7˝ or so, but only 130 pounds. He looked like a stiff breeze could take him for a ride. He never did put much more meat on him and could not take the rigors of the game. The whistlers had that same size-and feel to them, but when they took their helmets off, that illusion was destroyed. The deeply wrinkled white tops of their heads, the non-existent ears and eyes, and the black lower portion marked them as profoundly inhuman. Yet they dressed in our clothing and used our machinery. I don’t know if that was adaptation on their part, or if we were just more similar than I wanted to believe.

  I was bringing my rifle up instinctively: they were a threat that I wanted to be rid of. Jack pushed the barrel down and shook his head, then pointed out the small window in the door. There was a group of about ten more just standing there. Even if we took out the three in front, we would be under heavy fire, and quickly.

  “Now what?” I asked him.

  “Now, we play the waiting game.”

  I knew what we were waiting for: the zombies to catch up and chase the whistlers away, and then for the night runners and the zombies to get into a fight over us. I had to admit, being popular was not all it was cracked up to be. The whistlers must have felt good about their position, because finally their engines died down and we got to hear the god-awful screeches they used to communicate. Weird how much I wanted the deafening motorcycles to start back up. The whistlers were amassing; this much we could tell by their boot falls on the gravel.