The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line (19 page)

'I'll do that,' he said. 'In the meantime, we're safe, and we're getting out of here tomorrow.'

Emma should have taken comfort in those words; just the knowledge that they would be out of reach of those creatures, on an island miles from the shore where the threat of infection was minimal and the chances of being bitten were nonexistent, should have soothed her and made her grateful for being alive.

But she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, shake the thought of those nukes detonating only a few miles away.

A fiery death to anyone unlucky enough to be out there. A hell, she thought, worse than anything those shambling demons had suffered.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Terry almost fell out of the train's cockpit when it rumbled into life on only the third attempt. Had he expected it to start so easily? Not a chance. Had he expected it to start at
all
? Not really.

But here it was; its thunderous roar the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.

Shane and Marla were the first across to investigate. The look of awe on both their faces was comical. It seemed that they had had about as much faith in moving the shit-heap as Terry had.

Shane was grinning, his hands behind his head as if trying to remove a recalcitrant toupee. 'I don't believe it!' he yelped, excitedly. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I had already started warming up for the walk!'

'What?' Terry called back. He hadn't heard a word Shane said.

Shane simply poked both thumbs into the air. 'I said:
WELL DONE
!'

Terry acknowledged the plaudits with a nonchalant shrug. He was doing something with a lever on the control-panel to keep the train ticking over, but Shane didn't know what.

Nor did he care.

The train was running; they had means. They would be able to move south a lot quicker, and no more fucking pack.

No more back-blisters.

Marla kissed Shane on the cheek, and he shot her a confused look. 'What was
that
for? I didn't do anything. You oughta save some of that sugar for the man on the train.'

'Oh he'll be getting
plenty
of it,' Marla said, her grin exposing a mouthful of perfect-white teeth. 'I just thought I'd better get to you first so as you don't feel left out.'

Typical Marla.

He liked it.

River was jumping around at the front of the locomotive. She was chanting something, though whatever it was was being drowned out by the low, steady hum of the train's engine. It was, Shane surmised, the happiest they had ever seen her. She was celebrating because she had played a part in bringing the engine to a workable state, albeit a small one. She would, of course, proclaim that without her expertise in lubricating engines, they would be stuck in the CN Yard for the next hundred years.

Appearing at the rear of the train, Lukas and Abi looked no happier than if they had just been informed of a terminal illness. Lukas began to applaud, patronising Terry as he worked the lever in the cockpit.

Terry took no notice; the guy was an asshole, and not worth the time or effort.

He eased up on the controls, and the steady thrum slowed down. It took almost a full minute for the engine to stop completely, and the silence that came as a result was deafening.

'Well, well, well,' Lukas said to Terry as he climbed down from the train. 'You
do
have your uses, after all.'

Terry, without making eye-contact, said, 'Yeah. I'm sure you'll find some of your own soon.'

Lukas hadn't been expecting such a quick retort from the old guy, so when it hit him he was too shocked to reply.

Shane smiled; he was proud of Terry. Not only for starting the train, but for holding his own against such a class-A cunt.

As Lukas stepped forward, his shovel-hands clenched into tight fists, Abi grabbed him by the arm. It was a brave move on her part, but it was either her stepping in, or Shane, and Shane had a gun . . .

'Mouthy fucker!' Lukas bellowed. A string of spit leapt from his mouth and caught up on his stubbly chin.

'Let's just get along,' Shane said. He was never the best pacifier, even in prison. His cell-mate, Billy Toombs (God rest his soul) had been the one to take care of him, and he'd just kept his head down the rest of this time.

'Keep your ancient faggot on a fucking leash!' Lukas growled. 'I swear to—'

'It ain't
worth
it!' Abi screeched. She sounded like a coyote might if it had fallen prey to a bear-trap. 'Lukas, we don't need this shit! We'll be moving soon, and we can all go our separate ways once we reach—'

'Actually,' Terry said, as calm as a cucumber, 'we won't be able to go
anywhere
until dawn. Too dangerous.'

Shane hadn't though about it until now, but Terry was right. It was already semi-dark; another hour and it would be pitch black. Driving a train when none of them were qualified – though Terry would argue that he was – was fraught with danger as it was.

Doing it in the dark was fucking
suicide
.

'What? I ain't waiting for
shit
!' Lukas spat. 'We've been hanging around here all day fucking long for this piece of shit to fix that
thing
, and now you're saying we're spending the fucking night . . . '

'I ain't saying
nothing
,' Shane said. 'You don't want to come with us first thing in the morning, by all means start walking, but that's when we're leaving and that's the end of it.'

'There could be things on the track,' Abi quietly whimpered into Lukas's right shoulder. 'It might be best to wait until light. We won't see any obstructions in the dark.'

Lukas pondered this for a moment; his eyes darted from Terry, to Shane, to River, then back to Shane. He looked positively maniacal.

'Look,
whatever
man,' he said. He turned to Abi and jabbed a finger towards her face, so close that she could have bit it off, and Marla wouldn't have blamed her. 'You need to learn some fucking respect, bitch!'

Abi was about to speak when Lukas turned and rushed away.

'Why do you put up with that?' Marla asked the girl, who was obviously distraught. 'I mean, he treats you like shit, and you just put up—'

'He's a good guy!' Abi interrupted. 'You don't know what you're talking about.'

And then, she was gone, following in the footsteps of her man, her “Good Guy”.

Marla spluttered. 'Well, she deserves everything she gets, that one.'

Shane was still smiling and staring to the train; a functioning locomotive that would – once it was in motion – be safe as houses.

'Roll on the morning,' Terry said. 'The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can find other survivors for that guy to piss off. Maybe they won't be as tolerant and he'll get the kicking he deserves.'

The darkness slowly settled in around them, a black, satin blanket that was nowhere near as frightening as it should have been.

At first light they would be rolling out of the yard with a destination and a plan. In that moment, though, with the evening collapsing upon them so quickly that they barely had time to get a fire going, they didn't know they would be two men light when they went.

*

Shane had been dreaming about Megan when something outside the car woke him. A crack, the sound of something snapping beneath a hefty man's foot. It wasn't the fire; it had barely been burning when he'd decided to get a few hours rest.

Terry was over on the departure yard, and there was more chance of the lurkers growing wings and learning to fly than the old guy abandoning his post in the middle of the night.

He pushed himself up onto his haunches. It was freezing now – although, in comparison to the last few weeks, it could be considered mild – and fog exploded from his mouth as he breathed.

Crack
.

Again, this time to the right-hand side of the locomotive car.

Marla, River and Saul were asleep in the next car, the one directly behind Shane's. He'd taken one of his own so that they weren't roused when Terry came to relieve him in an hour or so's time. If one of them had decided to go for a late-night stroll, or if nature called – as it usually did when the outside temperature was unbearably low – then Shane would have heard other voices; Marla, perhaps, telling the urinator, to be quick and quiet – which in Saul's case was a lot easier than River.

There were no voices.

Shane reached down for his gun, and felt the cold, hard steel at the exact same time a shadow appeared in front of him.

With the shotgun aimed at his head, Lukas said, 'Sorry about this, partner, but you fucked with the wrong asshole!'

*

They were rounded up like cattle and forced to kneel around the smouldering pile of ash that had once been a substandard campfire. River didn't seem affected by the sudden emergence of the traitors –
murderers
? – and made no sound as she assumed the position in the middle of the clearing. The tracks were cold beneath them, and Shane thought they might die of hypothermia before Lukas had a chance to take a shot.

'I'm sorry about this,' Abi said, shuffling nervously from one foot to the other in the darkness. 'I didn't want it to come down to this, but you kept pushing him.'

'Abi,' Lukas snapped. 'Shut the fuck up. They don't want to hear your bitching right now.'

'Why are you doing this?' Marla asked. She sounded tired, unable to speak properly with fatigue. 'We were all getting along so well.'

'Haha, you're a funny bitch, ain'tcha,' Lukas said with all the confidence imaginable. He was, after all, holding all the guns. 'We're doing this because we're a family, and you're just getting in the way.'

'You're not a family,' Shane said, adjusting his position; a rock, no bigger than a quarter, had embedded itself in his kneecap, and it hurt like a sonofabitch. 'Saul isn't your son. You're a pair of fucking lunatics dragging that poor kid across the country. What are you,
paedos
? You make me fucking sick.'

'Well, look at it this way,' Lukas said, stepping forward in the darkness so that the moonlight dripped from his distorted features, painting him something more evil than Shane had anticipated. 'You won't have to put up with us any longer.'

As he lifted the shotgun, intent on taking out Shane first, Shane lunged to his feet. It all happened so quickly that Marla barely had time to get her scream out.

The shotgun clicked dry.

Shane thumped into Lukas's confused body and dragged him to the ground, punching and pounding with everything he had.

Marla clambered to her feet and grabbed Abi by the wrist, but the girl didn't appear to want to fight. She was too busy watching the battle unfold between Shane and her man.

The Good Guy . . .

Shane punched again, rolled Lukas over onto his front and pulled at his neck. Lukas made a sound – or it came out of him, regardless – that pleased Shane. The guns, his own and Marla's Beretta, were tucked in the back of Lukas's jeans. Shane freed them and tossed them across to Marla.

River was ushering Saul back towards the locomotive car in which they had been sleeping peacefully only a few moments earlier.

Her machete was there.

She would feel better once she had her machete.

Marla pushed Abi across the tracks, away from the guns, and grabbed for them. She held the Baretta on the scuffling mess of limbs a few feet away; biting her lip, she wanted Shane to roll aside so she could blow that fucker, Lukas, away.

'Leave him alone!' Abi screeched. She was sitting on the ground, rocks probably crawling up into her gusset, and watching as Shane unleashed everything he had on Lukas. The noise of each punch made her wince, and she began to sob, no doubt realising that whatever happened – if they made it through the night alive – her man, her Adonis, was going to look a helluva lot rougher than when she fell in love with him.

Shane prised the shotgun out of Lukas's obstinate grip and launched it as far as he could towards the opposite platform. It clattered against the concrete, but was almost inaudible as Shane bombarded the back of Lukas's flailing body with punches and knees.

It felt
good
.

To Shane, at least.

River returned from the car with her machete; the way she was swinging it should have worried Abi; Marla had seen her utilise the blade like that a couple of times before, and blood had always followed.

Shane finally decided to back off. He was tired, and Lukas was almost motionless. He climbed off the asshole's back and took a few steps away.

'Nice,' Marla said. 'He could have
shot
you, you idiot.' She was obviously annoyed at Shane's sudden heroics, but also satisfied with how it had turned out.

'Not with the
shotgun
, he couldn't,' Shane said. 'Let's just say I found a little time this afternoon to make the shells less . . . what's the word? . . .
effective
.'

'Ahhhh,' Marla smiled. 'Prey tell.'

'I took them out,' Shane said.

Marla's smile faded. 'Wait, you took them out? So the fucker had all afternoon to check or put new ones in?'

Shane nodded throughout. 'Yup.'

Abi, who didn't appear to know what to do with herself so just stood, trembling, said, 'What? You left us exposed over there with no fucking bullets?'

God, she really did grate after a while. Shane didn't dislike the girl – she hadn't really had a choice in what had just gone down between them and Lukas, that was pretty obvious – but he reckoned that given time, he'd grow to loathe everything about her, every inch of her annoying little soul, if indeed she possessed one.

On the ground, Lukas began to stir. He groaned, groggily began to work his way back onto his haunches, his one hand stemming the flow of blood from his left ear, which looked jet-black in the dark of night.