“I’m coming.”
The next boxcar was bouncing a bit, like one of its wheels was uneven. Still, Ken never hesitated as he ran and then jumped across the divide between the two cars. He caught the ladder that ran up the middle of the green boxcar. Climbed up hand over hand, moving fast, moving sure.
He put his head over the top. Hand on the roof. Pulled himself halfway up.
And before he had a chance to see anything, he felt a hand grab his ankle. Heard a familiar voice.
“Hello, Ken,” said Aaron. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to keep your hands and arms inside until the ride’s come to a complete stop?”
30
Ken didn’t react. He acted. A pair of thoughts flew into his mind:
He wants to kill my kids.
He won’t.
His foot flashed out. A perfect back kick in spite of the awkward angle of his body. His old hapkido teacher would have been proud.
Aaron had one foot on the coupler that held the boxcar to the flatcar. The other stretched to the lowest rung of the ladder that Ken was still on. The cowboy’s good hand was hanging onto Ken’s leg, his bad hand and arm looped around the rung below Ken’s foot.
Ken’s foot hit Aaron in the side of the head. The cowboy looked startled more than hurt. He weaved a bit, but managed not to let go of the ladder or Ken’s leg.
Ken drew back for another kick, but Aaron shook him. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.”
The growl rose in volume at that moment, as though the zombies were agreeing, angered that Ken had attacked the older man. It just made him angry. He kicked.
Aaron let go. Punched and re-grabbed in the same motion. Ken’s leg went dead from the knee down. He bit back a scream.
“I can do it to the other side, too,” said Aaron. He was calm as ever. “But that’d make it hard for you to keep walking.” He waited a moment. The growl got louder. “Not being able to walk would be inconvenient right about now.”
Ken nodded. He hobble-stepped the rest of the way up the ladder, over the lip of the boxcar’s roof. Hard to do with his leg half-numb. Harder to do when Aaron still had a good grip on his calf.
“Where the hell’d you come from?” he snapped.
“Went down to find out what was going on with the train,” said Aaron. He chuckled. A sound without mirth. “Decided I’d better drop some of the cars.”
“That won’t work. You’ll have to drop all of them.”
“You a train expert?”
“No.” Ken managed to stand. His leg felt like it was all pins and needles – most of them dipped in battery acid – but it worked again. He moved away from Aaron, worried the cowboy would sucker-punch him or attack him from behind again. Not that he could stop the man if he decided to hit him from the front, either. “It just seems like the things are going fast and –“
“Relax. I agree. That’s why I went back to get you before heading to the engine.” He laughed again, and this time it seemed genuine. “Imagine my surprise when I found you gone.” He looked at the bit of plastic cuff still trailing from one of Ken’s ankles. “You’ll have to tell me how you did that.”
“Why? So you can tie me up better next time?”
Aaron ignored the comment. “After you,” he said, and gestured.
“You want me to go in front of you?”
“That’s right.”
“Last time I did that you choked me to unconsciousness.”
“Fine. Let’s just stay here arguing about it until the zombies come and take over the train.”
Ken looked over Aaron’s head. The zombies had taken over twenty cars. Twenty-five.
“You go first.”
Aaron sighed. “I know where your kids are.”
Ken shook his head. “You go first. And I’m sure you’ll take me there eventually. You want my help. That’s why you were talking to me in the first place.”
The cowboy let loose an exasperated sigh. But he turned and ran ahead of Ken.
A moment later Ken followed. The growl oozed after them, a miasma that thickened the air around it.
Ken barely noticed.
He had managed to kick Aaron. Hadn’t beaten him, but even touching the cowboy felt like a victory.
More important, he was moving toward his family.
31
Following Aaron across a moving train was a surreal experience. The man had to be in his fifties, but he moved like a teenager. A teenager who was half monkey.
Ken was hard-pressed to keep up as the older man pounded across car after car. Aaron’s cowboy boots clanked across each roof, he leaped to another without pause or thought, and then looked back each time his boots came down on the next roof. Ken told himself Aaron was just checking on the zombies’ progress, but he knew it was really just to check on him; to make sure that he was keeping up.
Holy crap, I’m chasing a man twice my age across the top of a train… and I’m having trouble keeping pace.
Aaron jumped off the top of a boxcar and disappeared, falling into the dip created by another flatcar.