Chapter Two
"Doctor Richtofen, I do not understand why we bother keeping them here. They are use-"
"Relax. It will all make sense in time. Have you made progress on the barrier?"
"We have gotten the creature to stop attacking the researchers."
"Good. Are you positive it will be ready in time? "
"Based on results, It will be completed before the end of the month."
"You best make sure it is. I do not know how much longer we can keep them contained."
Danny stared wide eyed at the locomotive that was rapidly approaching him. He dived to the left and tightly hooked his arms around a handle on a train car. Before he knew it the train was whizzing past him, and brought a huge gust of wind with it. The wind was cold and rough, urging him to let go of the car. Danny's arms were starting to give out, so he turned his head against the wind and tried hard to hold his eyes open to see how much longer until the train was gone.
Then a man's head popped out from one of the open cars on the moving locomotive. Danny's first thought was a zombie, but this one didn't have glowing yellow eyes. It stuck a hand out like it wanted him to grab it when the car came by.
"This guy is crazy…" he mumbled under the wind and stuck out a hand, "I must not be much smarter if I'm going along with it…"
The car passed by and their hands slapped, and locked together. In an instant Danny was yanked from his spot and pulled along with the train. Suddenly he felt something in his body crack, and howled in pain. He looked at his left arm just in time to see it unwind from the other train after the bone broke in two.
"Come on Lad!" The man yelled in his Irish accent, "Don't think about the arm! I need a little help here, I can't just lift you all on my own!"
Danny desperately reached with one of his legs to get a hold on a part of the train, and placed it on a small little rod.
"I need you to hurry!" The man yelled again.
He kicked off from the rod as the man pulled him into the car and sighed happily.
"Well lad," he nodded, "glad we got through that mess before we got further down the track. No doubt you would have hit something."
The man pulled the door to the car closed and then helped Danny over to a crate he could sit against. The inside of the car was dark and cold. It was filled with many crates that had been strategically placed so people could move around the car. After Danny was set down, the man opened up a small crate, pulled out a lantern, and tried to light it, but had no luck.
"Only one box on this god damn train had any source of light," he said to Danny, "the others were just filled with absolute crap."
"Name's Harold. What about you?" He said.
"Danny," He winced in pain, "And no thanks to you!" Danny looked at his arm. It was swollen, turned all different shades of purple, and stung like his arm was cut off. "My arm will probably never work again because of you!"
Harold just laughed as he finally got the lantern to work. He was in a conductor's uniform, hat and all. A well groomed mustache that curled on the ends sat on his lip, along with these round glasses that looked like they had been scratched to hell.
"You'll live lad," Harold finally said, "The girl doesn't want you to die quite yet."
"...girl…?" Danny asked.
"You found the bear too, right?" Harold asked as he held up his own M1911, "Did it not strike you odd how you were not chased by the creatures after that moment? They only walked or wobbled behind you didn't they?"
"Well that is true that they didn't-"
"Exactly. She wants you to live, Daniel. She has spoken to me once before though. I believe it was, 'The game begins when four collide.'"
"When four collide?"
Harold sat down on the ground by Danny and moved the lantern with him. He took a long moment to look at Danny's arm before replying, "When we meet two other people who found the bears, this girl is going to unleash hell on us."
Nadine watched from a hill top, as the zombie outbreak took yet another step in finishing taking over America. She wore her Nazi officer cap with her blonde hair neatly inside, and a white, blood stained lab coat that went down to her knees, bloody khakis, and combat boots. She enjoyed watching the zombies spread, just as much as her employer did, but she was not here to simply just gaze upon Group 935's achievements.
"Yo. Doych-bag. Are you going to just sit there and watch those beasts, or are we going to kick some undead ass?"
She turned around to face her extremely annoying American partner. Rachel was wearing cargo pants and boots, had dog tags hanging from her neck, a green tank top, and had her long brown hair up in a ponytail. "Listen you Yankee doodle dummy," She snapped back in her German accent, "do you want to cure this disease or not?!" Rachel never really seemed serious. All she ever wanted to do was kill! But although Rachel was bothersome, Nadine definitely needed the backup for when the zombies got out of hand.
Rachel gave a grunt and frowned, "Damn, calm down Adolf. I'm only wanting to see some action!"
"Don't worry… You will get to see plenty of that as soon as we find the other two."
"Yeah… about that… could you run that whole thing by me again?"
Nadine walked up to her and sighed, "The bear you found was from Samantha, the girl who is controlling these monsters. She said we needed a group of four before her 'game' would begin. Now, this means that any hidden 935 outposts in America will have massive amounts of zombies so we can find them. Documents on the cure progress should be contained somewhere-"
"Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, zombies, blah, blah, four people, blah, blah, get the cure and save the world. Got it!" Rachel said.
Nadine rolled her eyes and returned to looking at the town. When she looked back she saw smoke rising up and moving fast.
"Look!" She pointed at a train pulling quickly out of the town, "Someone is still alive down there!"
Rachel held her arms up in a victory stance. "Yes! Finally!" She yelled and ran past Nadine, "Move it or lose it, German!" She jumped from the side of the hill and slid down the edge toward the train.
"Ugh. Never patient, that one." Nadine quickly jumped after her.
"So what were you even doing on this train, Harold?" Danny asked him suddenly. He winced in pain again as he rolled onto his side cradling his arm.
"Me? Looking for supplies mostly, lad. I've been fighting these beasts for… oh… about three years or so," he replied.
"They've been around for that long?!"
"Longer I assume. I have a feeling the government tried to hide it from the public. Brings back memories of the Kennedy assassination."
"Who knows, if they have been around for a while... maybe even Kennedy was killed by zombies too."
Harold sighed and nodded. "That may have been the case, lad."
Suddenly there was a loud thunk over head, as if something had dropped onto the top of the train car. "T-trains don't make t-that noise… d-do they?" Danny asked through gritted teeth.
"No," Harold responded, "Zombies do."
"That was anything but a soft landing, Nadine!" Rachel complained as she pulled herself up on top of the train car.
"Quit your whining! We need to search these cars for the survivors before this train gets going any faster. We don't want to get thrown off," She pointed to the back of the train, "You start going that way, I will go this way."
The hatch to the car below them opened and a handgun came up first, followed by Harold. He pointed it at them as he climbed up to the top of the car. He remained silent as he pointed the gun at the two girls.
"Hello!" Nadine said to him," We want to know if you have seen any teddy bears around here."
"Why would I know of such a silly thing?" He replied.
"We found two and just had to have more."
"No!" Harold said, "I will not have you bring the hell the little one speaks of!" He walked closer to the girls.
"Whoa, buddy!" Rachel said to him, "We are friends. Amigos. Das… uh… not enemies. We're not going to kill you."
"Lies! You're mocking me! The last man that tried to get me to believe that stole my supplies!" He yelled and pointed the gun at her.
Nadine instinctively lunged for his weapon. She got one hand around the gun, and pulled on it. Harold quickly reacted by pulling the trigger and firing a loose bullet. She threw her fist up into his jaw, causing him to release the gun and fall back, but she fell as well and dropped the weapon off of the train. She reached inside her labcoat to get her pistol, but she couldn't find it. Then she looked up at Harold. He had a stern look on his face as he pointed her weapon at her face. Nadine was in total shock. "H-how…?" She muttered.
"I learned a few tricks riding these metal beasts, lady." He walked up to her and held the handgun only inches away from her face. Rachel just stood there in admiration of Harold's skill and laughed at Nadine.
"I could use a little help here!" Nadine hissed.
"Nope! I'm not getting shot here!" Rachel replied with a chuckle.
Harold held the gun close to her. "Why are you here?" he asked seriously, "Why are you really here?"
"I might know a way to cure the plague," She said through clenched teeth, "I had to get the girl to play her game to release the zombies so I would know where to go!" Nadine was laying down flat on the train staring into the gun.
"I don't believe you." Harold brushed his finger along the trigger.
Danny's head popped up from the open hatch, "Harold, you better not be dead. I'm fucked if you are…" he looked at what was happening for a second. "What the hell?!"
"They're thieves Daniel! Go back down and be careful of your arm!" Harold yelled, not taking his eyes off of Nadine.
Danny looked over and finally saw Nadine at gunpoint. Suddenly the girl he heard earlier spoke again, starting with that demonic laugh. "Now we can begin!"
Harold didn't flinch.
Danny turned pale.
Rachel grinned childishly.
And Nadine glared at Harold.
"It appears you don't have much of a choice now, but to trust me." She said to the conductor, "I am the only one who can end this madness."
Harold took a quick second to think it over, then picked her up by the collar of her shirt, "You live for now. Give me one reason though," he said sternly, "and I will make you wish that I had killed you."