44

"How did you get here?" Rebecca asked. As a sign of trust, she had slid her pistol into the holster at her hip, although she left the clasp open so she could draw quickly. Billy Coen, in return, had slid the Desert Eagle into his back pocket and crossed his arms.

"The same way you did," he said. "I crawled out of that truck and found the train tracks. I intended to just follow them to the nearest city, but I found this train instead. I should have just kept running."

"What happened with the truck?"

Billy licked his lips and did not meet Rebecca's gaze. "I was in the back of the truck, being taken to prison. You know that much. I heard one of the guards say something about a man in the road, and the next thing I know they started screaming. The truck went off the road and rolled a couple times. I banged around the back of the truck like a sock in a dryer. When the dust settled, I kicked the door open and crawled out. Both the guards were already dead."

"Did you see what killed them?"

"No, and I consider myself lucky because of it. I might have joined them."

Rebecca shook her head. "I don't understand it. Do you think they saw one of the zombies in the road and just lost control?"

"When I say they started screaming, I mean they were screaming as if they were being eaten alive," Billy said softly. "Something got in the truck with them and killed them before we even crashed. I couldn't see anything because it was too dark."

"But what could have happened? What could have gotten into the truck as they were driving?"

"Got me," Billy said, clearing his throat, as if anxious to end the discussion. "But it wasn't one of these zombies, I can tell you that."

At the mention of the zombies, Rebecca turned her head to glance back toward the car they had escaped from a few minutes before. She could hear them stumbling around and moaning gently, and it nauseated her. She had to close her eyes and force the images from her mind, the hideous images of bloody, gory monsters reaching for her. The very thought of undead hands reaching for her made her shiver uncontrollably.

Her eyes popped open when she felt Billy's hand on her arm. Almost instinctively, she reached for her gun, but Billy raised his hands in defense.

"Relax," he said, starting to smile, "I was just going to tell you not to worry about them. They can't get us in here."

Rebecca took a tense breath and lowered her arm. For just a moment, Billy had almost seemed sincere, like he was actually worried about her. She shook off the feeling and pushed him away.

"We can't stay here forever, you know," she said impatiently.

"I guess not," Billy admitted. He pointed at the car they had come from. "But there's zombies that way." He then pointed at the next car down. "And there's zombies that way as well."

"And we both have guns."

"With limited ammo. We don't have enough bullets to stop all of them."

"Then what do you suggest?" Rebecca asked, getting frustrated.

Billy leaned past her to open the door to the private compartment next to them. The light was on inside to reveal a somewhat cramped room with seats on either side and one large window looking out into the dark wilderness beyond the train tracks. Like the window Rebecca had tried to break earlier, this one was lined with narrow plastic panes like venetian blinds. But where Rebecca could barely dent the plastic, Billy had succeeded in separating one end of one of the panes and bending it back to create a gap of about four inches between the horizontal panes above and below. It wasn't wide enough to squeeze through by any means, but it was a start.

"You'd think a passenger train like this would have emergency doors somewhere," Billy said. "But I haven't seen one. And these windows are built like prison bars. It took me about half an hour of pushing on that thing to bend it out like that."

"I bet the emergency doors are just in the other cars," Rebecca said. "I was too busy running for my life to look too closely at each window." She sat on one of the seats and stuck her arm through the gap. The window behind it was gone, broken by Billy. She felt rain falling on her outstretched arm.

She ran her other hand up the side of the window, seeing that each narrow pane was screwed securely in place on each side of the window, but the screws were concealed behind a thin metal strip that lined each side.

Billy sat down on the opposite chair. "I used a fork to unscrew that side, but I couldn't wedge the fork under the metal cover on this side."

"You're right," Rebecca said, "they are built like prison bars."

"The other rooms are the same way. The best I could do was unscrew that side and then bend the stupid thing back. I figure if we get three of them bent like that, we'll have enough room to squeeze through."

"Why don't you just shoot them? I bet that would be easier."

"I can't afford to waste bullets. Who knows if those monsters are outside the train as well?"

Rebecca had to admit that she hadn't even thought of that. Suddenly, the idea filled her with dread. If the zombies were outside the train, they could go anywhere. They might follow the train tracks and wander until they hit the city, and then what would happen? How could anyone defend themselves if zombies suddenly invaded Raccoon City?

Belatedly, she realized that her fellow officers were still out there in the wilderness. What if the zombies found them? Out in the middle of the woods, they would have no doors to hide behind or rooms to escape to. And in the thickening darkness, how could anyone even see the zombies coming? Rebecca realized that she had to get off the train, not only to save herself, but to warn the others!

For all she knew, they had already encountered the zombies. They might be calling her on the radio right now to warn her! If only she hadn't broken her walkie-talkie!

She pulled her arm back inside. "Let's get this thing open," she said hurriedly, moving out of the way.

Billy wasted no time in jamming the metal fork under the metal strip and peeling it back. It was difficult work using one of the fork tines as a makeshift screwdriver, rotating the screw only a quarter of a turn for each movement of the fork, but Billy worked at it intently for several minutes until the screw came loose and tumbled to the floor. Immediately, Rebecca grabbed the pane and began to pull on it. With Billy's help, they were able to quickly bend it back and out of the way.

"Maybe I can squeeze through," Rebecca said, kneeling on her seat and pushing herself through the opening. Instead, she could not even fit her head through the opening between the panes, and angrily pulled back.

Suddenly, the room moved and she lost her balance on the seat, tumbling on top of Billy. The two of them fell onto the floor and quickly pushed away from each other. Rebecca sat up on the floor as Billy got to his feet. They could feel the motion of the train and when Billy looked out the window, he could see the trees moving past the window.

"The train started back up," he said unnecessarily.

Rebecca stood up and wiped her hair from her face. "Who could have started it? I thought everyone else on the train was dead."

"I have no idea," Billy said. He gingerly set his hand against the wall to hold himself up as the inertia gradually increased. Rebecca let herself fall into the seat, pushed by the movement of the train. "But whoever it is must be in a hurry. We're picking up speed."