Pretty sure.
He landed on the short span of metal between the first two engines, looked to the side. Panicked because he didn’t spot what he was looking for, then realized it was there, just painted. The same piece of metal that he and Aaron had helped Elijah use to separate the other cars from the engine – what the huge man had called a draw bar. It was here, but it had neon orange markings that had thrown Ken for a second.
He reached down, his left hand gripping the metal of the locomotive, right hand reaching for that bar below.
He heard a growl.
Looked behind.
Three of the things. One on the walkways to either side of the hood unit behind him. One looking down from above. Rain pounded down their faces, giving their already-wrathful features an added air of unreality. They seemed like things that had clawed their ways up from the depths of some dark, cold place to find this moment.
The one above Ken was one of the ones that had no eyes. Only scaly growths where eyes once had been, where eyes – in a right world – still would be.
It chirped. The sound high and piercing, almost a whistle. Then its head oriented downward. Not looking at Ken – no eyes to look with – but certainly knowing he was there. The thing snarled.
52
The rain was still falling. Dripping off Ken’s face, arms, back. His hand, reaching for that bar.
He kept reaching as the thing jumped. As it flew toward him. Like he was on an inalterable autopilot, some setting he couldn’t control. And of course that was fairly true: if he could loose the train, get his family away… well, then it didn’t matter if he died or not. If they lived, that was enough.
The thing fell toward him. Like it knew Ken was all that would separate the rest of them from their prey.
The rain fell.
Thunder finally came.
A colossal crash roared out above Ken, the sound so loud that it nearly deafened him. So loud it did what the sight of the monster flying at him had not: it stopped him, just for a moment, from reaching for the bar that would cut the cab unit away from the two trailing engines.
It was loud enough, somehow, that it shifted the flight of the zombie.
The thing slammed backward, rocketing not into Ken but instead colliding with the forward bulkhead of the middle locomotive behind him. It slid down the metal, twitching, and disappeared under the wheels.
It all happened so fast that Ken almost didn’t see the cratered mass of black and pink that the thing’s head had become.
Two more claps of thunder exploded nearby. Ken looked up. Saw two more of the zombies dancing back. Pushed back.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it!” screamed a voice from somewhere unseen in the cab. A voice that was grating, harsh. Spoken through a throat badly-cut and just as badly-sewn in a mockery of medical care. Theresa.
Another explosion. Not thunder. Theresa was shooting. Buying him time.
Ken reached the bar. He prayed it wasn’t bent or mangled the way the one farther back had been. There was no way he had the leverage to pry something like that from this angle.
He grasped the bar.
Pulled.
Nothing happened.
He pulled again.
The bar refused to move.
More of the zombies appeared. Crawling up the sides of the middle engine to look at him. He only had a second. And doubted that Theresa could continue blasting them like skeets out of the air.
53
What’s going on?
What am I doing wrong?
Ken looked down. His gaze focused instantly on a pair of lines snaking below the knuckle he stood on. Maybe that was it. Maybe.
He was still holding the replacement coupler. He swung it now. Hit each of the hoses. Both separated, one just falling apart and the other seeming to burst with an explosion of air.
He grabbed the draw bar again. Still nothing. It wouldn’t pull.
Sudden murmuring. Then Aaron screamed, “You can’t separate it without slack! Brace! And get ready to pull!”
Ken’s mind processed the instructions and figured out what was going to happen only a nanosecond before it occurred. He dropped the knuckle that was still in his hand and managed to grab a nearby grill and say a quick prayer that it would hold him.
Then there was a shriek as brakes, both air brakes and mechanical pads, engaged.
He slammed forward against the bulkhead of the engine. Saw two bodies fly forward and down and disappear under the wheels of the train in a spray of red and black. Two zombies gone.
An instant later the back engines slammed forward, pounding him the opposite direction as they rammed the front locomotive. He nearly lost his grip, and his body screamed at him to hug the train.
Ken ignored the impulse. Forced himself to lean out.
He assumed that there were normally controls to insure that all the cars of the train braked at the same time.
He assumed that someone – Elijah – had overridden them to cause precisely this effect.
He assumed that the back engines had been meant to collide with the front one.