Gone.
Ken was stunned at this new revelation. The zombies weren’t immune to the acid they made. And these had… if not died, then at least been put out of commission by the very act of destruction they visited on the tracks.
Was it always like this? Was it like bees, who died once they stung, each vengeance a suicide? Or was it just that they had been hanging upside down and so the acid had dripped over their heads?
More important, perhaps, was the attack by the others. They recognized the threat and acted to end it.
Smarter. Every day, every minute, the things were getting smarter.
Ken felt like a clock was ticking. Whatever edge humanity might have, whatever hope for survival, lay in its intelligence.
But what if the things got too much smarter? What if they caught up to people? What if they surpassed them?
The train bucked again. More zombies vomited acid, more went insane, more dropped off or were thrown under the tracks by the others. Each shudder was greater than the one before, each ripple through the train brought more danger of derailment.
The clock was ticking. In more ways than one.
29
Ken stumble-ran across the top of the boxcar. The next one was a cakewalk, so easy it was almost a joke. It was a flatcar, an empty bed that swayed slightly with the shift of the wheels as they passed over the tracks, but other than that it was just a big flat slab about ten feet below him.
There was a bad moment when he was gauging the best way to jump those ten feet. He didn’t want to hit and break a leg or an ankle, and he didn’t think his bad left leg would bear him up from that height. But landing and rolling was an equally bad call. The flatcar was just that – flat – but he still didn’t relish the idea of somersaulting right off the side. There would be absolutely nothing to stop his fall in that case – no handholds, no ladder rungs. Just a short drop to the ground where he would either be ground under the train or swarmed by the following horde.
He glanced down, almost absently, and realized he wouldn’t have to jump and land flat or roll. There had been no ladder on the back of the boxcar, but the front wall had a neat line of rungs hanging off it near the top of the car.
He lowered himself quickly, taking the rungs as fast as was safe. He needed to get to the front of the train. Not just to deal with the people threatening his family, but because they had to outrun the zombies. Impossible now, trailing close to a hundred cars.
But what if he could release the back ones? What if he could find a way to separate the locomotive from everything else? He wasn’t an expert, but he figured the train would be able to go a lot faster.
Fast enough to outrun the zombies?
He hoped so.
But he wouldn’t find out if they caught him first. Or if they sufficiently weakened the rails with their acid to derail the train. Or if the growl that still hammered at him finally overrode his will and rendered him helpless to act.
So many ways to die. So few to live.
He jumped off the ladder before reaching the bottom rung. A chancy move given the state of his left leg and his body in general, but he figured he needed every fraction of a second.
Ken landed on the wood-clad steel top of the flatcar. It whumped solidly, making him feel like he was on secure footing for the first time in what seemed like hours. His left leg spasmed, but only enough to remind him it was in a bad mood generally. An irritation, not a crippling moment.
He ran forward, tromping over the flatcar as fast as he could. He urged himself to greater speed, but the reserves were gone. He was at max speed given all he had been through. And he figured that even being upright at this point was a huge accomplishment.
Pat your back later, Ken. After you’ve saved Maggie and the kids.
Yeah, like you saved Derek?
He almost stumbled then, the look in Derek’s eyes when he had been bitten suddenly all he could see. The train disappeared for an instant and all he saw was a black-white beast clamping its teeth on his son’s flesh, his son’s skin seeming to burst as blood oozed from all his pores.
Derek had sacrificed everything to save his mother.
Ken had a good example – the best – to follow.
He forced the vision away. Not banishing it, just pushing it to the side so he could deal with the world around him. But he also held it close, so he could remember what his son had done. The love he had held for all of them.
Derek had never hesitated. Nine years old and he had leaped into the arms of a monster to save his family.
Could Ken do any less?
“I’m coming, Derek,” he whispered as he ran. Barely aware he said it, but knowing it wasn’t a promise of death but of life. He was going to do his best to approach his child in bravery, in goodness, in love.
He would sacrifice anything necessary, but like Derek had done he would save Maggie and the girls.