Nine cars.
Ken kept walking. He shifted his focus away from the disappearing cars. Tried to ignore the rocking that was steadily worsening under his feet. His knees bent to adjust to the motion, and the less he thought of it the better he walked.
Ten cars.
He looked at the trail of creatures.
They were running faster than the train. Leaping up to hold not to the sides of the boxcars, but to their brothers and sisters, who clung to the train like spiders. Then they clambered over and forward and more came to take their place.
More of the ones who were running. Running faster than the train.
But only just.
A plan started to play in Ken’s brain.
He at last allowed himself to turn and run.
25
After only a few steps, Ken realized that “run” was a term that could only be applied to what he was doing in the very loosest sense.
The boxcar – the entire train – was rippling like a snapped bullwhip under his feet as more and more of the creatures climbed aboard behind him. He could only take a few steps at a time, then he had to stop and regain his balance.
Still, he got to the forward end of the boxcar without falling off. Strangely proud, then strangely ashamed at being proud at this point. His family and world were still in grave danger, so wasting a single neuron on excitement over making it across the top of the car seemed wrong somehow.
The next boxcar was the same as this one. And both had ladders, not only on their sides but on their ends. The only problem was that the ladders didn’t mirror each other. The ladder on the front of Ken’s boxcar was down and to his left, the other had a ladder off to the right. He would have to go down, cross the linkage between the two cars, reaching across empty space since he could see he wouldn’t be able to hold onto both ladders at once, and hope not to fall.
He might have taken the safe route if the ladders had been closer.
As it was….
What the hell.
Ken, language!
The second voice in his mind belonged to Maggie, and even now, in this moment it made him smile. The grin had to force its way out through an expression tight and grim. But it glimmered through, and brought strength to Ken’s legs as he backed up ten feet. Far enough to get up speed, not so far that the train could buck him of.
He hoped.
He turned back to the front. Ran. One step. Two. Three.
Then a jump.
The gap between cars looked like it was about four feet. And Ken reminded himself in the middle of the jump that he’d already thrown himself across an eight-foot gap with only a four-inch launching pad. This should be no problem.
He hit squarely in the center of the steel walkway atop the next boxcar. Feet under him, hands in front in a perfect four-point landing. The impact made his teeth clack together. His front tooth – the one he’d already lost once and shoved back in, more out of a dazed sense of possession than anything – bounced out. It clicked across the top of the boxcar and off to the side. Ken had a wild instant in which he almost lunged after it.
Let it go, man. Maggie will just have to learn to love Hillbilly Ken.
He stood again. Ran forward. It went even better this time. Maybe he was getting his sea-legs.
Train-legs, Ken. Get the terminology right. Don’t use the end of the world as an excuse for lazy language.
Then the train rocked violently. He almost went over. Grabbed the lip of the walkway. Teetered. Righted himself. Continued forward. Didn’t look back.
Nothing back there to see. You already know what’s there. Focus forward. Focus on the job.
He reached the end of this boxcar and readied himself to jump again. Backed up the few steps. Took a quick breath. Ran.
And stopped the instant before he jumped.
26
The next boxcar was different.
It had no center strip of steel, no visible stretch that, if not designed for it, would at least be serviceable as a path for Ken to walk across. That meant there was nothing for him to hang onto, either: the walkway he was on now had a lip he had used to grip when he had almost fallen off before. The boxcar ahead of him had no such minute safety features. Indeed, the top of the car was a gentle curve. Nothing too steep, nothing too serious on a train that was at a dead standstill. But when jumping across a moving behemoth being shaken by the crowding throngs of a zombie horde… everything – everything – got much trickier.
The space between the cars was only a few feet, once again. Not an interminable gap under almost any other circumstances.
There were no ladders on the back of the next boxcar. Nothing at all that he could hope to use to transfer across in a safer manner.
He had to jump.
He backed up again.
Ran.
Leaped.