Final Dawn: Season 3 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (5 page)

Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

11:17 AM, April 24, 2038

“One… two… three… lift!”

Rachel, Marcus and David all grunted as they strained to lift the thick steel track on top of one of the wooden ties that had been laid down in the gravel. With Rachel at one end of the beam and Marcus and David at the other, they worked to slide and push the track onto the edge of the tie before stopping. Frequent breaks had been a requisite part of their work considering that each of them was still dealing with the injuries they had sustained, but the work was moving along smoothly, though not as quickly as they had hoped.

“Nice job guys… let’s get this one hammered in.” Rachel smiled at David and Marcus who were leaning against each other, groaning from the efforts of their exertion. Each of them only had the full use of one of their arms, so they fell in naturally to helping one another, working to support and brace each other as they moved the heavy equipment on the tracks. Hefting a long-handled hammer into the air, Rachel motioned toward a pile of spikes on the gravel. “Who wants their fingers pinched?”

With a grimace, Marcus leaned down and held one of the spikes vertically over a hole in the rail flush with the wooden tie, keeping it at arm’s length and turning his head away. With a flourish, Rachel raised the hammer above her head and brought it down on the spike. Splintering the wood as it traveled forward, the spike dug a full inch into the wooden tie before stopping. Marcus pulled his hand away and stood up as Rachel brought the hammer down again, delivering several more blows to the spike before finally stopping. She let the head of the hammer fall to the gravel near her feet and drew her arm across her forehead, looking at the dark cloud cover above.

“Just a few more to go, and we’ll be ready to test it out.” As each length of replacement track was pulled on to the ties, Rachel continued to attach the two together with railroad spikes. Compared to a professional job, the work was sloppy and sub-par, but it was enough that even David’s attitude began to improve.

The normal passage of time marked by the sun was non-existent thanks to the storms, and by the time Marcus glanced at his watch, it was nearly midnight. He, Rachel and David were all exhausted as they walked the length of the track, pointing out the small and large flaws and strengths in the work they had performed. While the replacement rail wouldn’t hold up to repetitive travel, the three agreed that, if their luck held, it might just allow the locomotives and a few of the train cars to pass before giving way under the stress.

Marcus and David collapsed on the ground near the locomotive. Their heads hung to their chests and sweat dripped from their faces, falling to the dirt with the tiniest of splashes. Rachel stood over them for a moment as she surveyed the rail before she sat down next to them, taking a proffered bottle of water from Marcus. The three sat quietly for nearly an hour as they rested, watching Sam wander around the newly constructed rail as he sniffed what seemed to be every piece of gravel and every inch of wood, iron and steel. Finally, after they had recovered a bit from the day’s work, Rachel pushed herself up to a standing position and looked back at the train just behind them.

“What do you say, guys? Can we get the cars uncoupled and test this out tonight?”

Marcus’s first instinct was to laugh, lie down, and go to sleep. With a sigh, though, he took Rachel’s outstretched hand and stood up next to her, helping David up along the way. The three stood together for a moment, looking at the makeshift railroad and the massive train that they were hoping the rail would somehow support.

“Well,” David said as he walked toward the locomotive, “time to find out whether we’re going to fail or not.”

The couplings holding the train cars together were simple to unlock and, together, David and Marcus unlocked the one between the third and fourth train cars, leaving the locomotives and three boxcars connected in the lead group. As they worked on the coupling, Rachel pored over the controls in the lead locomotive, trying to learn them well enough to start the lead engine up. Without warning, the locomotive engines came to life, causing David and Marcus to jump away from the train. They ran to the lead locomotive which had already started inching forward, pulling themselves in through a side door.

“Were you going to warn us about that?” Marcus shouted over the sound of the engines as Rachel worked the controls frantically.

“Sorry! A little busy here! Did you uncouple the cars?”

“They’re disconnected and we’re ready. How far will we go, though? Just to the edge of the repaired track?”

Marcus, David and Rachel all grabbed frantically for handholds as the train lurched forward. Rachel jabbed at several buttons, but it was no use. “I think the train’s in an automatic startup cycle! I don’t know how to stop it!”

Unburdened by the hundreds of tons worth of boxcars it had been towing previously, the train accelerated quickly down the track, speeding toward the repaired section at a much faster pace than Rachel had planned. She had hoped to move the train slowly along the repaired area while David and Marcus walked on either side, checking to make sure the repairs would hold up under the train so that they might have a chance to fix any problems as they came up. The train had its own agenda though, and the power of the locomotives all working in unison drove them forward inexorably with no chance of stopping.

Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

2:28 PM, April 24, 2038

As Leonard stepped through the bulkhead, Nancy kept her arm outstretched, preparing to catch him in case he tripped. While he had shown remarkable improvements over the last day, Nancy was still concerned about the fast pace Leonard was forcing upon himself after such a major operation. Refusing to listen to any of her arguments, though, Leonard insisted on being allowed to exercise vigorously, mainly by walking for hours through the vast corridors of the Arkhangelsk.

Since last seeing Commander Krylov, Nancy and Leonard had spoken little about the satellite imagery of the canal, though it was weighing heavily on both of their minds. When Leonard finally stopped to rest and eat, Nancy took the opportunity to discuss the situation with him over a bowl of suspicious-looking stew.

“How far do you figure until we’re there?”

Leonard looked up at the wall clock and shrugged. “A few hours maybe. We should get an hour or two of sleep if we can beforehand. Krylov’s probably going to want us up there with him while we go through the canal.”

“Any ideas as to why they’re all traveling north? There had to be hundreds of them.”

“Tens of thousands. And that’s just what we could see. I’m guessing they’re heading to the same place as the ones we saw on the way west, starting at Samuel’s compound.”

Nancy snorted at the mention of Samuel’s name and nodded thoughtfully. “Probably to the nexus, then. Same place we’re headed. I don’t like that one bit. Dealing with the AI’s one thing, but those creatures are going to make it even worse.”

Crumbs flew across the table as Leonard bit into a large cracker too aggressively. After swallowing he lowered his voice, looking around to make sure no one was listening. “Krylov seems to like you. He’s listened to your opinions so far, anyway. Maybe you can convince him to deal out a bit of destruction on our way through the canal so we can slow the creatures down a bit. It might not do all that much in the grand scheme of things, but who knows.”

Nancy nodded and then turned to look at a door opening at the other end of the room. Past a few crewmen who were also partaking in the meal, as if on cue, Commander Krylov stepped through the bulkhead. Looking around, he spotted Nancy and Leonard and nodded to them before taking a dish and filling it with a small portion of stew and packaged crackers. Greeting the crewmen as he went, he walked toward Nancy and Leonard and sat down next to Leonard, giving him a clap on the back as he looked at Leonard’s bandaged leg.

“Mr. McComb; how goes the exercise?”

Leonard smiled and shrugged. “As well as it can, I guess. It hurts like hell, but your doctor’s done a good job taking care of everything.”

Krylov dug a spoon into the stew, making a face as he put it in his mouth. “He’s doing a fair sight better than our cook, I’m afraid. Poor bastard drew the short straw after the landing party incidents.” Krylov picked up a cracker and opened the package, pushing the stew away in the process. “As bad as it is, though, you’d both better get as much in you as you can stomach. We’re coming up on the crossing in two hours, and I would appreciate your assistance up on the command deck, Ms. Sims, and yours as well, Mr. McComb, if you can manage.”

Leonard slapped the thigh of his injured leg and smiled broadly. “Nothing I can’t handle, Commander. We were actually just discussing the canal before you arrived.”

The commander raised an eyebrow as he took a small bite from the cracker. “Oh? Please enlighten me. I could use as much information going into this as I can get.”

Leonard looked at Nancy and she took a deep breath before speaking. “We haven’t talked about it much, but we’re in agreement that the creatures’ goal is to reach the nexus. They’re traveling in huge swarms like the ones we saw when we were going from Washington to Alaska.”

“Any particular reason why they’d be trying to reach this ‘nexus’ that you can think of?”

“We were just starting to discuss that when you arrived.” Leonard interjected. “It’s likely that the AI is gearing up for the next step it’s taking, whatever that is. You know the theories that we were throwing around, but there’s no solid evidence for any of them yet.”

“What we do know,” Nancy said, “is that letting those creatures get to where they’re going is anything but a good idea.”

Krylov’s eyes narrowed as he glanced back and forth between Nancy and Leonard, a slight smile gracing his face. “I have the feeling you’re about to ask me to do something, yes?”

Nancy reached out and patted Krylov’s arm, smiling as she did so. “Very observant, Commander. Leonard and I agree that any disruption in the creatures’ movements could be beneficial. Since we’re passing through the canal anyway, we were hoping that there might be some way to prevent any more of them from crossing over the canal.”

Krylov looked at the surface of the table for a long moment as he quietly stroked his chin. “Hm. I think we can manage that.” He stood up, tossing the uneaten half of his cracker into his lukewarm stew. “Follow me and I’ll show you a few options at our disposal.”

Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

11:09 PM, April 24, 2038

The sound of gravel being pulverized under the wheels of the locomotive was harsh over the sound of the engines themselves. David, Marcus and Rachel all winced at the noise, but with nothing they could do about it, they held on and hoped for the best. Tucked in a corner and whining loudly, Sam cowered in fear at the sounds surrounding him. Marcus reached out a hand to comfort him, only to be thrown to the floor as the locomotive rocked from side to side. Metal ground upon metal as the wooden ties shifted under the weight of the train, causing the tracks to begin to fall out of alignment. With only a few ties placed, the amount of stress on the spikes and ties was enormous, and the entire repaired section was under threat of collapse.

“We have to stop! It’s not going to hold!” David screamed in Rachel’s ear, fighting to be heard.

“It’s not like we have a choice anymore! Just hold on!” Rachel shouted back at David as she watched through the front of the train to see the repaired section coming to an end. “We’re nearly there!”

Another lurch rocked the train in the opposite direction and the cold snap of steel chilled Marcus’s spine. David and Rachel were thrown across the narrow confines of the locomotive while Marcus barely managed to maintain his hold on a nearby seat as he sank to the floor to try to get to a safer position. As he watched out the window, the black clouds ahead began to tilt crazily to the left before rocketing back to the right as the train lifted several inches up and then slammed back to the ground. Though the lead engine had gone through the repaired tracks without an issue, the stress caused by the subsequent engines and boxcars was too much for the meager assortment of wooden ties and spikes. The rails began to break off from the ties, sending the spikes rocketing through the air due to the sheer amount of pressure they were under and widening the width of the rails to the point where the rear cars were no longer in full contact with them. No longer constrained by the rails, the rear cars began to wobble, causing the entire train to pitch back and forth and setting up a resonance that threatened to derail the entire set of cars.

Frantically pawing through the controls, Rachel tried desperately to find something to slow the train down, but as she pushed and pulled on a series of buttons, switches and small levers, one of them caused the train to jolt forward even faster. The engines went into overdrive as the throttle was pushed to its maximum and the train struggled to find traction to pull the rear boxcars through the last few feet of the now nearly re-destroyed section of repaired track. Although this increase in speed wasn’t the result Rachel had hoped for, it was the one that ultimately resulted in success. Instead of stopping and hoping that the oscillation of the train would cease before the locomotives and boxcars were thrown off the tracks, the increase in speed broke the resonant frequency set up by the fishtailing boxcars, causing them to straighten out as the back and forth motions of the train ceased. A final horrendous squeal of metal upon metal signaled the end of the repaired section of the track as the boxcars’ wheels locked back into the rails with several satisfying thumps. Free of the abrupt panic brought on by the near-disastrous experience, Rachel remembered the emergency lever she had used previously to stop the train and placed her hand on it, preparing to pull it downward.

Marcus’s hand came down on Rachel’s and pulled it off of the lever as he pushed her to the side. “No! We’re clear! If we stop again, we’ll have to go through all that startup nonsense again!”

Hearing Marcus’s voice cleared the clouds in Rachel’s mind and she stepped back and sank to the floor, her back against the wall of the locomotive. Instead of the sound of scraping metal or spikes being torn from wooden ties, the only sounds were the engines of the locomotives and the clicking of train wheels on the tracks as it continued to pick up speed. The steadily increasing clicks were oddly soothing to Rachel, who found herself timing her breathing to them as she calmed down and tried to recover. Sam poked his head out from his hiding place and crawled up to Rachel, nuzzling his head in her lap and whining softly as he looked for comfort from their ordeal.

“I hope we didn’t forget anything because we’re definitely not going back that way.” David was leaning halfway out of a window as he looked back at the formerly repaired section of track that was now in ruins. The wooden ties were askew, with one of them having sunk far enough into the gravel that the rails connected to it had physically broken under the weight of the train as it passed over, making it impossible for anything to cross over the area again. Marcus and Rachel instinctively looked around them, verifying that they had indeed loaded all of their supplies onto the train, and thankful once again that nothing of importance had been lost in the APC’s explosion.