Only a second passed. Only a second for the fact that the things on the floor were not his family and friends to sink in.
He died a thousand times in that second.
But it was not his family.
Just moving blankets. Lumps of fabric that had once protected cargo and now twisted across the floor and looked like bound bodies in the half-light of his terror.
He turned on Aaron, who hung half-in and half-out of the boxcar.
“Where are they?” he demanded. The words came out as a snarl, a sound the equal in menace to the growl that now saturated the air around them.
Give up.
Give in.
The call should have been harder to resist. But Ken’s rage was damping it. He was terribly afraid, yes. But if he gave into his fear – not for himself, but for his wife and children and friends – then he would be paralyzed. So he let the fear shift to anger. Anger was a close cousin to fear, the reason so many fights began in fright, so many murders were subtle twists of terror.
Anger was terrible, yes. But, sometimes, useful.
“Where?” he screamed again.
Aaron actually shrank back a moment, drawing more fully out of the boxcar. “HellifIknow,” he finally said. It was all one word. Confusion and his own fear and the rush to move melding the syllables into a single mass as seamless as the horde that was moving toward them.
A constant vibration was writhing through the car. The things were close.
“Come on,” Ken said. He jumped out the side door, not pausing to see if Aaron followed or not. His feet hit the gravel beside the train and he did not slip in the loose dirt. He ran forward. Toward the engine.
The girls had to be there. Maggie had to be there. Christopher and Buck and even Sally. They all had to be there.
The alternative was unthinkable. Therefore it could not be true.
They have to be there.
41
He ran. Faster than he should have, faster than he could have. He had too many injuries, too many aches and pains. But the hum of bruises and the thrum of sprains and strains pushed into the background as his feet covered the terrain.
He looked down at the wheels of next car they passed. Still off the tracks. But close. So close.
The next car. The last car.
Still off the tracks.
He passed it.
Give up.
Give IN.
The growl rose and rose as the things came. Thousands of them swarming over the metal of the train, painting it black as night, black as despair, black as death.
And Ken still ignored it. Before he had found it nearly overwhelming. Now… he brushed it aside. Still a force.
But so was he.
He thought he heard Aaron’s steps stutter. Didn’t know if it was because the cowboy was dealing with the psychic attack as well, or because he had hit a loose patch of sand. Nor did Ken care. The other man wasn’t his family.
And his family was his only focus.
He passed the final boxcar.
Came upon another figure.
Ken stopped automatically, halting so fast that his feet dug furrows in the gravel that underlay the tracks. His mind flashed automatically to the conclusion that it was a zombie; that the things had made it in front of them.
Then he realized the thing was alone. Not running toward them, but struggling against something at the rear of the boxcar.
And it was huge. Six-foot-seven at least, a hulking mass of muscle clad in body armor with “Boise Police” stenciled across the back, a WWII-issue gas mask dangling from his neck. Perfect white teeth stood out in stark contrast against skin so dark it was nearly an absence of light.
Elijah, one of the people who had rescued Ken only to point a gun at his children and take them hostage, gritted his teeth. His voice, deep as summer thunder, boomed, “Don’t just stand there, dammit. Help me!”
42
Ken felt like his awareness had heightened. Like he could sense more than he should have been able to. Not just what was happening in front of him, but even what was out of sight.
The zombies were coming. Within perhaps twenty cars.
Aaron, rushing forward to help Elijah. But he had only raised his foot; hadn’t yet had time to put it down. He was moving so slowly. Did he always move that slowly? Or was Ken just… processing things this quickly?
Elijah was straining at a lever that extended under the coupling between the boxcar and the next part of the train. The last of the three engines. The lever was bent, torqued out of alignment.
Aaron’s foot still hadn’t come down.
Next to the train: sand, gravel, dirt. The same slope to a dry wash. Then a twenty-foot stretch of nothing before the sand became scrub, then another twenty or thirty feet before scrub became woods.
Ken had no idea where they were.
He could feel life in the woods. Or at least imagine he could. Small hearts beating in feathered breasts, furry creatures peering out from hidden blinds as curiosity and terror tore at them in turns.
Aaron’s foot finally came down.
Time snapped back to itself.
“What’s going on?” said the cowboy.