A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis (4 page)

“Yeah, like I was talking about you. The last time you were straight, woolly mammoths roamed the earth.”

Trip held on to a particularly long drag for a moment. He looked up and to the side like he was thinking.

“Maybe.” He exhaled.

“There’s more coming.”

Jack was looking out over the landscape. The sun was beginning to warm the ground, causing images in the distance to shimmer. It was impossible to make out details, but the dust cloud rising to meet the sky was easy enough to spot.

“Gotta be hundreds of them.” I was looking as well. “Jack, listen man, you and Trip could still make it out of here. Go back down and try.”

The zombies were beginning to converge on our location, but there were still plenty of holes to drive through if they took off now.

“Don’t even think about going all hero on me. We all get out of here, or none of us do.”

“Does that include me?” Trip asked.

“Fine, but the hero thing is kind of what I do, or act pretty, one or the other.”

“So, probably a stupid question, but does anyone have the foggiest idea how to drive a train?” Jack asked.

I automatically looked over to Trip; if anyone could, odds were it would be him. He shook his head.

“How hard can it be to drive a train?” I asked. “I mean, it’s on tracks for fucks’ sake. It’s not like you can steer it into a tree or something.”

“Well, that may seem true, but many have been computerized and the levers and buttons would be meaningless to me. There’s inertia and weight to understand. We might easily find ourselves parting company with the tracks. I’m not excited to find out how an engine can perform as an all-terrain vehicle.”

I kept quiet. I had figured it would pretty much be one lever: forward, backward, stop. I mean really, what else did you need?

“That aside, I think it’s our only option,” Jack continued. “I’m sure there’s a manual or something in the engineer’s compartment. I just hope it’s written in a language I can understand. So, I guess the only way out of here is for me to take a crash course. Pun not intended.”

Jack looked forward toward the engine car none of us could see, and then back to me.

“Dude, I’m dead weight. Just leave me here. If the train starts moving, I’ll grab the hatch. Otherwise, I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

Looking out over the long line of cars, it didn’t look like an easy trek, even for someone with complete control of their extremities. This wasn’t just going to be a controlled jump across a set expanse, but rather a bunch of climbing and balancing, especially on the liquid tank cars. I was much, much safer sitting where I was.

“Ponch,” Trip said seriously.

He looked at me in a fatherly way as he gripped my right shoulder and squeezed tenderly.

“Trip?” I asked with a quizzical expression on my face.

“I’m going with Mack.”

“It’s Jack, and please feel free to stay here and keep Mike company.”

“Mike’s here too?” Trip looked around.

“Mike, can you make him stay?”

“He wants to go with you. How can you say no to that face?” I scrunched up Trip’s mouth with my hand.

“I rink I c’n help,” Trip managed to get out.

“Listen Jack, I’m not thrilled about being alone, especially in this condition—but if he thinks he can help, then I’d listen.”

Jack may not have been as convinced as I was, and probably thought I was trying to unload him like the clingy younger brother, but he’d been around Trip long enough to know that even if Trip couldn’t help, at least one of those guardian angels pulling overtime shifts around him could.

“Fuck. Okay, let’s go. You have to promise that you won’t go anywhere except where I tell you to. There’s not going to be any of this ‘I want to look in the cars’ or wandering off.”

Trip completely ignored everything Jack said and stared ahead toward the front of the train.

“Trip? Trip?... Trip!”

Trip finally turned to Jack.

“You have to promise, or you’re staying here.”

Trip nodded and resumed his staring, a joint smoldering between his lips.

“Do you want back in?” Jack asked.

I shook my head.

“If we do get this thing rolling, Mike, we’re not going to be able to come back and get you.”

I hadn’t thought that scenario out. It still didn’t change my mind, though. How could it? I was stuck.

“I’m good,”

Jack didn’t think so, but he wasn’t my mother and we still needed to get the hell out of there. We were safe from the zombies, but we had to find food and water. Not to mention that zombies seemed to attract night runners for whatever reason, and my position would be compromised in under a minute once they got past the Z’s. Then we had the whistlers to contend with, who apparently would eat anything placed in their path. With all the zombies here, it was bound to look like an all-you-can-eat buffet if they got wind of it. Man I am sorry for that pun, the stench was starting to affect all of my senses.

I watched Trip and Jack move away, and had a momentary pang of grief when I thought that I might never see them again. Then I realized I wasn’t psychic, so I felt better. There are times when being a simple man has its advantages.

A few zombies began to follow the noise Jack and Trip were making, and some even began to visually track the pair. It had to be close to twenty minutes before I lost sight of their diminishing forms. The further they walked, the harder they were to distinguish, until eventually they began to shimmer as if they were in danger of evaporating, and then they were gone.

“Well, this sucks,” I said. I lay down so I was looking straight up. The red paint on the car was soaking up the energy of the sun and roasting up nicely. I couldn’t help but feel like a steak cooking on a griddle. Maybe I would have been better off inside the boxcar, although I’m sure that was getting hot as well. I would be out of the sun though, and maybe able to forget just how thirsty I had become. I did the only thing afforded to me: I dozed. Not surprisingly, most of my dreams revolved around me slow roasting on a spit or being immersed in a large body of water, drinking all I could yet never feeling like my thirst had been slaked. There was also one short dream about an old English teacher I’d once had a crush on. It was all going well until she pulled her face back and strips of flesh blackened and fell away to expose the gray of decaying muscle matter. Her lips cracked and split to reveal overly large teeth that elongated as her mouth opened impossibly wide.

“That is not a preposition!” she shrieked.

“Whoa!” I startled myself awake and realized that I had moved perilously close to the edge of the car. My heart beat fast as I shimmied back to the middle. After I shook the cobwebs of the nightmare away, I got a small laugh. Although Mrs. Lyndros had been the subject of many adolescent fantasies back in middle school, she was all business and much more likely to yell at me for one of my many English language errors than kiss me. Maybe if she hadn’t been so beautiful I would have been able to concentrate more on a language that baffles me to this day.

“Well, maybe sleep is out of the question,” I said to myself, then opened up the small pack Jack had brought up with him, which contained my whistler weapon.

“Might as well give it a shot.” I swear I wasn’t going for a pun there—it just lent itself so easily. The weapon was clearly designed to be attached to a much smaller forearm. I don’t think I could have made it work, given the size of the straps attached to it—even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to wear it. The mechanics of its firing showed a high probability that I would put one in my own hand or a body part of some other unintended target near me. I saw no discernible safety, but the triggering mechanism was easy enough; it was just a pressure switch placed in the middle of the small projectile launcher. Had a hard time calling it a gun, since there were no bullets or explosive powders involved.

I couldn’t imagine any spring inside such a small box that would have enough power to launch a staple more than twenty or so feet. I knew that wasn’t the case, though—it easily shot at least thirty yards, because that’s how far away I’d been when I’d launched the RPG and suffered my present wound.

I sat up as best I could. My back was sizzling and I had to swallow back an urge to shout. A few zombies saw me as I poked up.

“You’re as good a candidate as any,” I told a thin woman that looked as if she had been interrupted during a salon visit. Green curlers hung from the left side of her head and twists of tin foil lined her right. I knew enough to realize that she’d left those things in far too long.

“Probably burning the shit out of your scalp, aren’t they?” I asked. She growled—I took that as a “yes.” I held up the box, trying to figure out the best way to aim something that did not have sights. I finally turned it sideways. I cupped my right hand with my left, and with my index finger, I touched the button. I took note that it actually took more force than pulling a trigger, maybe somewhere in the ten to twelve pound range. I had first thought that maybe the thing had been damaged or was out of rounds, even though I was looking at the two-foot rod we figured the staples had been made from. Although we weren’t sure, since the metal outside was not shaped like the thing that had struck me. That process must happen inside; at least, that was our working theory.

I pressed harder and was rewarded with a slight metallic click and a
psfft
that sounded like a match dipped in water. Of course by this time, I almost had the thing pointing straight up. If the rod moved at all, I did not notice.

“Well, it works.” Horrendous Hair Holly had been swallowed up by the crowd, so I picked out another. This one was an older guy, and naked—if anything, I was about to put him out of his shame and embarrassment. When he was alive, I could imagine he’d removed all the mirrors from his house so he wouldn’t have to be exposed to what I was seeing. The sallow, yellowing color of his skin now wasn’t doing him any favors. He was about twenty-five feet away, I figured it should be easy enough to hit him. I held steady, aiming for his head. I don’t know if my aim point was off or there was significant drop to the staple, but I hit him dead center in the chest, directly between his areolas, one of which I just happened to notice was nearly three times the size of the other. Are they even called areolas on a guy? I don’t know, but one looked normal, the other like a brown saucer had been placed there. Yeah, he definitely needed to be removed from my field of vision.

I heard the impact and the shattering of his breastplate; he staggered but did not go down, nor look to where he’d been shot. He didn’t much care. I was getting ready again, trying to correct my aim, when like a train wreck (bad analogy considering where I was) my eyes were drawn back to that disfigurement on his chest. Black, dry blood leaked from where the staple had embedded, but that wasn’t the cause for concern—it was the small black lines that began radiating outwards, moving quickly even as I watched. They were thickest, and thickening, closest to the wound, and they were gaining momentum as they spread first across his expansive chest and belly, then down toward his legs. I had the displeasure of watching his manhood turn black right before the heavy channels worked their way down his legs.

“Oh, fug.” I nearly threw up in my mouth. “Shit.” I placed the weapon down and began to fumble with the button on my pants; after undoing it and pulling the zipper down, I took a big breath before I dared to look.

“Oh... oh thank God,” I said as I looked at my own particular package. It might not be the biggest and shiniest, but it’s mine, and I was very fond of it just the way it was.

“Well, that’s not what I expected to return to. I mean, I know you miss Tracy, but shit, man. I leave you alone for a while and this is how you choose to amuse yourself?” Jack asked.

“Fuck, man!” I scrabbled to pull up my zipper, happy I didn’t make a skin sandwich in the process—if you catch my meaning.

“Trip been training you to be a ninja, too?”

“We’ve been yelling at you for at least the last two car lengths.”

“Are we all taking our pants off?” Trip asked. He didn’t wait for a response before he dropped his. “This is so much better!” he exclaimed, his pants pooled around his ankles.

“Now I’m convinced this is a nightmare, because this shit can’t possibly be real. Pull up your damn pants, Trip. I’m going over here to heave. I’ll be back shortly,” Jack said, moving away.

“He gets to, but I don’t?”

“Hey, Jack,” I said.

“I’m not listening unless everyone has their pants up and everything tucked away.”

“Trip just pulled his up. Just be glad you didn’t get the view I did.”

Jack turned and I pointed over to the zombie that was now entirely crisscrossed in pencil-thick lines.

“Well, that certainly is interesting,” Jack said, taking in the whole monstrosity. “Oh, now I get why you were, uh, checking things out. I’m not looking, but is everything okay?”

I gave him a thumbs-up.

“What happened to him?”

“I shot him with the whistler weapon.”

“Neurotoxin?” Jack asked, not turning away from the zombie.

“I guess—maybe not deadly, just incapacitating.”

As if in response, the zombie fell to his knees, and then would have fallen onto his face if he hadn’t collided with the legs of the zombie in front of him. He fell over sideways and then came to a rest facing the sky.

“It’s not that I’m wishing it on you, but that... that didn’t happen to you. I wonder?”

I could have told him that I had my own set of enhancements that were keeping the poison at bay. Now it was his turn to look suspiciously at me. Oh yeah, there were secrets out there, and neither of us were about to let them become public knowledge.

“Let me see your back.” I pulled my shirt up so he could see. “I should have marked the extent of the lines somehow. I won’t swear to it, but I think they’re receding. So, maybe there is some sort of incapacitating toxin in the projectile. That kind of makes sense, given their proclivity to eat their victims.”

“Like a spider or something.” That gave me the willies, thinking about it, and it made me reluctant to pick the gun back up now that I realized that somewhere in that device poison was produced.