The Return Man: Civilisation’s Gone. He’s Stayed to Bury the Dead. (22 page)

Now maybe a few more people would be nice.

The train chugged through the night, chewing miles of Southern California desert. Marco lowered his eyes from
the window. Sitting on the floor of the locomotive, stiff and cramped, he bent his legs towards him and rested his head on his knees, then sat up again. As utterly exhausted as he was, sleep wasn’t coming easily. At least he’d had a decent meal before bed. Canned carrot soup. Cold and congealed, but still better than another night of dried jerky. He and Wu had gathered supplies from the kitchen without trouble; Marco had been thorough with the AK-47 on his first trip, and the only corpses they saw were slumped in brain-beaten heaps. But just to be safe, he’d dragged shut the rusted door at the back of the diner; it snapped into its latch with a satisfying squawk. If there were any hiders in the rear cars, they weren’t going anywhere.

In the locomotive, Wu ruled the control panel. He’d dimmed the lights; the night rendered him a shadow against the window, a silhouetted extension of the controls. His hand appeared fused to the throttle. If the sergeant was tired, he showed no sign of it. He perched on the stool as though he’d been bolted to it, solid and straight, his lower jaw as taut as his posture. He’d stripped from his bloodstained military shirt, down to a white tank top, revealing a fighter’s physique, lean and muscled. Pale scars blemished his shoulders in long narrow lines, almost like the lashings of a whip, but Marco had been reluctant to enquire.

Shortly after sunset, Wu had slowed the train to a crawl. ‘We wouldn’t be wise to reach Los Angeles County in the middle of the night, in the pitch-black,’ he’d reasoned. ‘We’ll pace ourselves and approach slowly. At this speed we’ll arrive after dawn.’

Made sense to Marco. Ten miles an hour was just fast enough to keep any desert-roaming corpses from seizing a grab-rail and hauling themselves aboard.

For now, the two men could relax. Sit back and catch some slumber.

And God, I need it.
Marco closed his eyes. His body swayed, his shoulders jostling below his heavy head as the locomotive rocked him to sleep like a gentle mother. He and Wu had agreed to take shifts. Two hours each. One man napping, the other on watch, tending to the train’s alerter–the ‘dead man’s switch’, Wu called it, a safety mechanism that disabled the train if the engineer was unresponsive for anything longer than twenty-five seconds. In the darkness Marco heard a soft bell and then a demure
tick
as Wu tapped the alerter button. Beneath him the train wheels clacked a monotonous beat against the tracks, an endless metallic lullaby.

California
, he thought, half dozing. He’d been happy there once. He and Danielle in California. Before everything went to shit.

Would any of this have turned out different?
he wondered.
If we’d stayed?

If we’d stayed.
His thoughts skipped to the tempo of the tracks.

If we’d stayed. If we’d stayed.

But they hadn’t stayed. They’d fled, hoping for better in Arizona. And now he didn’t belong back here, back in Cally. An intruder, that’s what he was, sneaking through an open window at night. His heart rang loud behind his ribs, like an alarm sounding.

He’d felt the first pang right after Yuma, just across the Colorado River. The train had exited Arizona finally, met at the border by leafy eucalyptus trees along the California tracks. He’d last travelled this way three years ago–the summer after the Resurrection–before he’d gotten caught up in all this crap, before his first contract, before he’d become… what did Osbourne call him? ‘
The Zombie Hitman
’. Before that.

He’d just been a scared man, nothing more, sweeping the west coast for Danielle.

Christ, what a summer that had been. Through late winter and spring he’d dug in at the Arizona house, labouring over his barricade, enslaved by the conviction that she’d return there. She hadn’t. But he’d begun to notice things on his supply runs into town. Blue-vested corpses shuffling through Walmart… dead males in blood-soaked jerseys, camped in sports bars… rotted young mothers slouching on playground benches, empty eyes watching empty swings. All with such a palpable expectancy–he could
feel
them waiting for god-knows-what–that a growing suspicion took hold in his head, telling him their movements weren’t random. That perhaps these mindless mechanisms of dead flesh and bone weren’t so mindless.

Perhaps they were… nostalgic? Wistful? As crazy as that seemed…

Finally, on a sweltering July night, he’d pulled out his maps.

His checklist had been exhaustive–four typed pages, a catalogue of remembered date nights and theatres and Café La Bohème and yoga retreats and organic markets and Disneyland and public parks and the Ritz-Carlton and studio movie lots where she’d made her films. And then, hopeful, he’d packed the Jeep and headed west.

He’d started at the top of the list. Tech Town, where they’d met.

No Danielle there–only the young assistant manager, dead and hungry, mustard-coloured pus bubbling from its burst lips as it crawled out from behind the return counter. Disappointed, Marco had filled his pockets with batteries and escaped.

In total, hundreds of miles covered. Hundreds of memories. Each tarnished as it came up empty, just another meaningless place in a meaningless world. Yet when he’d reached the
bottom of his list, he’d started back at the top. He had to be sure.

The California search had taken three months.

Here in the train, the soft bell sounded again, followed by the quiet
tick.

Marco’s head dipped.

Swooning, he saw himself in his Jeep, heading back to Arizona after that last California trip, defeated, befuddled, aching for Danielle. The radio crackled with nothing but angry static, but he refused to turn it off, shouting instead over the noise, apologising to her as he drove drunk for two days straight, weaving across lanes of forever-empty highways with only himself to kill. Begging her to come home–to be dead with him.

Home.
Arizona. They’d moved there a year before the Resurrection. A year after…

He faltered; couldn’t bring himself to complete the thought, not even in a dream.
California’s too much
, he’d told her, the safe way to phrase it, summarising words he wished to avoid. The position at St Joseph’s had opened in Phoenix, an amazing opportunity for him. For
them.
Things would get better, he’d believed, Danielle would be happy. They’d stop arguing so damn much. But he was wrong about that…

Her voice, her bewitching alto, descended on him in the dark locomotive, dreamlike, a night bird swooping down to sit on his shoulder. Sharp talons. It hurt.

You knew I didn’t want to come here
, she said.

Bullshit
, he answered. That was his line, the script always the same.
You said—

I moved for you, Henry. I gave up my career—

Christ! That’s revising history, Delle, you weren’t getting parts—

Oh I wasn’t? You asshole—

You said you wanted to be near your sister—

You know what I really wanted. You’re avoiding, Henry.

Bullshit, I’m not—

You said we’d try again—

I know what I said—

I wanted—

Well, I never promised—

A man’s voice cut in, loud and urgent.
I can save Hannah.

Marco jerked awake. His damp shirt clung to his clammy skin, and he shuddered. The locomotive had turned cold and inhospitable while he’d slept, refrigerated by the desert night, the floor unforgiving, like a mortuary slab. Blinking, he rubbed his hands together and settled his fast heart with long, deliberate drags of air that stretched his lungs to capacity. He was thankful for the chilled air–shocking him to full alertness, locking his wild nightmare back into whatever subconscious cage it belonged. Unable to harm him until his next sleep. Still, even as the sounds and images faded, and his pulse slowed, and his breath evened, he couldn’t stop shivering.

He couldn’t forget Danielle’s words stabbing him. Fragmented arguments, lodged inside him now like splinters under the skin.

And the last voice in his dream, the man’s voice.

That voice had been Roger Ballard.

Marco swallowed. Funny how his dreaming mind had paired Roger with Danielle–stitched them together, ganged them up against him in a war of words.

I can save Hannah
.

But you didn’t
, Marco mused.
You fucked up. We both did.

He felt his stomach clench. This trip to California was screwing with him. Again he had the sensation of rushing headlong towards… what?

Towards something terrible.

‘You’re awake.’

Wu’s austere voice jarred Marco. He’d almost forgotten the sergeant was present, immersed in the shadows up front.

Jesus, please tell me I wasn’t muttering in my sleep.

‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Want your turn?’

‘No.’

‘C’mon, I’ll tuck you in. I’ll sing you a song.’

Wu stepped into the dim light. His face was carved with concern.

Marco sat up, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’

Wu pointed into the midnight world beyond the window.

‘We’re being followed,’ he announced.

Marco gawked, paralysed by the report that Wu had just given.
Followed?
For several slow seconds the word skimmed atop the surface of his comprehension–important but lacking meaning–then broke through with a crash into his deeper brain.

‘By
who?
’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ Wu answered frankly. ‘They’re not with me.’

Wide awake now, Marco struggled to his feet and almost doubled over; his legs had cramped during the uncomfortable hours on the floor. Steadying himself against the wall, he hobbled to the window and pressed his palm against the cold glass.

Outside, the night sky was still at full power, still perplexing, the blackness bright with starlight. The terrain lit up with an unexpected clarity. Silver ironwood trees and patches of desert scrub stubbled the land. A hundred yards of track gleamed ahead in the locomotive’s spotlight; beyond
that, the full moon bore down like the oncoming beam of another train. Only the distant mountains were obscured–rocky ridges lurking at the desert fringe like an audience in a dark amphitheatre, encircling the stage, ready for the next performance.

Marco scanned the landscape. His neck crawled with the eerie sensation of being observed by someone unseen. He leaned until his forehead tapped the window, stealing a view as far back as he could along the vast length of the train. The glass fogged as he gulped anxiously. Didn’t matter. He couldn’t see a damn thing anyway.

‘Where?’ he asked, impatient.

‘Straight behind. In the mirror.’

He squinted into the tall rear-view mirror bolted outside the glass. In its depths bobbed a dot of sharp red light–the back end of the train–but beyond that, nothing. A washed-out reflection of himself hovered in the window, frowning.

‘I can’t see shit,’ he said. He was about to pull back when Wu cut the locomotive lights, and the cab went truly dark; without the backlighting, Marco’s reflection vanished, and at once he was able to discern shapes where none had been. And there it was–the tiniest, coal-coloured fragment in a grey sea of sand, half a mile behind. From this distance Marco wouldn’t have noticed it without Wu’s guidance; at a glance the speck could have been a rock or a tumbleweed. A minute passed before he was even convinced it was moving–keeping pace with the train, purposely hanging back at the outer range of eyesight.

‘Some type of all-terrain vehicle, a four-wheeler,’ Wu concluded. ‘A quad. He’s followed us for the last quarter-hour, perhaps longer. I detected him once the sand turned paler. An error on his part–he should have remained on the tracks. Better cover.’

‘But who
is
it?’ Marco asked again. ‘I mean, are you sure it’s not your men? Maybe Osbourne sent backup.’

Wu shook his head. ‘If that were RRU, he would have caught up and made contact by now. This individual is stalking us. Poorly, but his intentions are clear.’

‘Oh yeah? And what are his intentions?’

‘He wants to know where we’re going.’

Marco exhaled, exasperated. ‘Jesus Christ, can you stop with the half-answers?
Why
is he following us?’

A pause. Without the interior lights Wu’s face was a silhouetted mystery, but Marco sensed the sergeant was regarding him with disdain.

‘Really, Doctor,’ Wu said at last. His tone had changed from concern to admonishment. ‘Did you think we’re the
only
ones hunting Roger Ballard?’

Marco blinked. ‘What…? What are you talking about? Who else—’

‘Other political interests. Governments.’

Marco backed a step from the window. ‘Oh shit,’ he said. The realisation hit him like dynamite blasting through dense rock. He bumped into the stool behind him and sat.

Nice job, Henry
, he thought, shaking his head.
What the hell’ve you gotten yourself into?
Other nations–
how many?
–were hunting Roger. Goddamn son of a bitch. He’d been an idiot not to predict this. ‘National security’, Osbourne had said.
Of course.
If US Homeland Security was playing this sick game, then there’d be other pieces on the game-board, too, other governments with Roger on the agenda. Marco’s mind raced to catch up with the implications.

This isn’t a contract
, he realised.
It’s some kind of world war.

But for Christ’s sake, why? And what if he didn’t win?

‘So who is it?’ he asked yet again. The urgency had faded
from his voice; he heard only resignation. ‘North Korea? Iraq? Chi—’

Wu interrupted. ‘Any of those, perhaps. Or others. It doesn’t matter. They all want the same.’ He brushed past Marco to the control panel. ‘Move.’

‘Sure. Sorry to bother you,’ Marco griped. He surrendered the stool, moved to the opposite console. The empty can of carrot soup he’d eaten for dinner sat by the base. He gave it a rude kick, gratified to hear it bang away into the shadows and roll down the corridor.