Chapter four
The Eclipse
"There is no way out. The only possibility is survival."
The car we had entered was empty, to our relief. There were no passengers, attendants or even luggage. All the lights were on their brightest setting, making everything look oversaturated and unreal. It was like walking into a dream.
Seth called out, seeing if there was anybody else nearby. We heard no response other than the wheels screeching in protest as they moved even faster. I looked out the window and saw that we had gone straight into a storm. Occasional flashes of lightning revealed terrain I thought unfamiliar.
The interior had a subtle Victorian flair. The seats had fancy designs sewn into them, and the wooden siding was beautifully carved. The wall lights were imitations of lamp sconces and the chandelier set in the center of the ceiling was truly a mastery of metalworking. Ignoring the motion of the train, it was like standing in a short English hallway full of chairs.
Those of us who were most exhausted slept while those of us with some energy left kept watch, just in case we weren't truly alone. Getting Amber onto the train had severely jarred her, and she was bleeding more than ever. Seth, who was also awake, used a shard of glass he fond to cut strips out of a seat back, ignoring his destruction of beauty. He tied them onto her wounds, trying to cause as little pain as possible while still tying a serviceable bandage. Amber had lost a lot of blood, and no longer did it seem she would survive.
Seth woke up Shane so he could sleep, but I couldn't have slept if I tried. I just sat with my head against the window, studying the strange terrain whenever the lightning permitted. I looked next to me, at Talisha sleeping so peacefully. How can she do that? I wondered. I knew I couldn't. I wondered if I would ever sleep again. Though I was exhausted, I became restless. It was as if something inside me was telling me to run, to escape, to never be found again. I heard a sound from the car ahead of ours, and immediately stood up. I walked over to the door, silently so I didn't wake anybody up. I opened the door, just a crack, and looked inside. Oddly enough, I saw a man shuffling off in the other direction with an obvious limp. A survivor? Taking my chances, I opened the door all the way and started after him into a car identical to ours.
I grabbed his shoulder, and he stopped moving. It was then that I realized that I had done something incredibly foolish. He turned to face me, agonizingly slowly. I noticed the claws on his hands, and I had already covered half the distance to our car before I saw his fanged visage. He paused, then walked very slowly towards me.
"Holy (expletive)!" said Josh. "I'm getting out of here!" He opened a door in the middle of the car and jumped out. Normally he would have been able to roll and absorb the fall, but the train was moving extremely quickly. His legs were almost snapped off and he was driven into a hitchhiker at forty miles per hour. I shut the door behind him and turned to face the monster. Its shuffling limp prevented it from moving very quickly. Seth charged at it with his glass shard, bravely hacking into the creature's face. The attack would have stopped a man, but the beast kept going. Seth slashed furiously, but it was hardly slowed. It grabbed Seth and bit into his throat. He screamed until his windpipe was punctured. The monster feasted. Loden grabbed one of the few clubs we had brought with us and smashed it into the creature's head with such force that the head shattered. The body fell forward, a pool of blood spreading around it. Ellie suggested we start moving in case there were more of these creatures, or worse, pandas nearby. Everybody quickly agreed. We walked in the direction of where I had first seen the zombie, forward on the train. We passed through a few identical cars until we reached a narrow hallway. At the end of te hall was the control room, and two other doors were on the left side of the hall. One was labeled CONDUCTOR'S OFFICE and the other was simply ROOM 1. The conductor's office was locked, but the other door was unlocked. Loden and I entered.
The first thing we noticed was that there was a dead guy on the bed. Loden poked him and he didn't kill us, so we looked around te room. There was a lamp, a typewriter and a note on a desk in the corner. I walked over and picked up the note. It read:
MEMO
UMOJA
Those who are stationed at the Colorado branch may have noticed strange creatures in the testing area. These "Zombies" are incredibly dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. All personnel entering the testing area are required to carry a firearm for protection. These creatures, even when deposed, will regenerate and eventually come back to life unless one of the following methods are used:
I. DESTRUCTION OF HEAD
II. INCINERATION OF BODY
Kerosine flasks and lighters are available in the storage room closest to the testing sector for those who need it. Parties of three or more are suggested for traveling in the area. It should also be noted that those who sustain bites from these creatures metamorph into the same species after a long period of time due to a strange bacteria in the creatures' saliva. There is no cure for this infliction, so take utmost care not to get bitten.
I looked up to the sound of clacking, Loden was typing on the typewriter.
"What are you typing?" I asked him.
"I dunno. I just had an urge." He walked back into the hall. I looked at what he was typing and sighed.
Ol/Loden/Room l/Ol
O2/
O3/
"What does he think this is, Resident Evil?" I pondered aloud, then followed Loden back into the hall.
Half of us were still tired, the res full of adrenaline from the attack. It was still nighttime, so we decided to go back to our car to sleep. Once we got there, we immediately changed our minds, due to the corpses on the ground. It took as another minute to get back to the passenger car nearest the hallway.
"I'll keep watch," volunteered Loden.
"For what?" I asked. "We just checked the train, and it's deserted!"
"I'll watch and find out. Plus, we thought it was deserted before, and look what happened to Seth!" Seeing his point, we took our seats.
Again, sleep failed to take me. I just stared out the window and thought about the memo. Zombies... In a testing area? What were they testing? Did they turn real people into those things? That's... sick. My thoughts drifted off, and something struck me.
"Oh. Crap."
"What?" asked Loden, behind me.
I turned to him and said, "We've been on this train for far longer than ten hours. Yet look out the windows. How can it still be dark out? It's not natural, though. It's as if the sun has been blotted out. Like... smoke or ash or something like that, but it feels... wrong. Like an eclipse, a bad omen. It feels like... like death is coming for me."
"Are you afraid of death?" asked Loden.
"Before all this happened, I was, just a bit. But after nearly being killed several times, I've realized that as long as you have the will to survive, survival is always a possibility."
"That's odd," interjected Michael from across the hall. We turned to face him as he continued. "Even now, the thought of death gives me the screaming mimis."
"Michael?" asked Loden.
"What?"
"Shut up." Michael was about to give a scathing reply to this when the train gave a sudden lurch. The lights went out, then on again. It was obvious that we slowing down incredibly quickly. The train lurched again, waking up all the sleepers, then started shaking violently. Everybody who was standing fell over, and then everybody was struggling to orient themselves in an upright position. Then the train lurched one final time and stopped so abruptly that most of us were launched into the seats in front of us. Everybody stood up and filed into the aisle, some quite shaken.
"What's that smell?" asked Summer. Then we smelled it too - gasoline. I opened the side door and dived out as fast as my legs could propel me. Others jumped out behind me, and there was a mad rush to get away from the train. Then the engine exploded. Flames shot down the length of the train faster than seemed physically possible. Those of us who hadn't taken cover behind nearby stones almost succumbed to the intense heat. Sara and Ellie, who had to carry Amber, didn't make it out in time, and Shane was in the back of the car, and couldn't outrun the flames. All four of them perished in the fire.
The other survivors and I looked around in silence and saw that the train had jumped off the rails at a sharp turn and careened into a storage tank full of gasoline. There was a small, unremarkable building nearby that seemed to be connected to the tank by several rusted pipes at ground level. The rain had stopped, but the remaining chill combined with the heat from the flames, creating an uncomfortable climate. Not wanting to sit around in that, Tylor walked off towards the building, and the rest of us were quick to follow. When we reached it, we saw a large, ornate set of front doors. Above the building, there was a sign that proclaimed, simply,
UMOJA
The name seemed ominous, so we started off once again into the woods. In the unnatural darkness, the trees looked like gaunt figures reaching out to tear us apart. It had started to rain again, and we were lost. The forest twisted and turned like a labyrinth, and several times a bramble patch forced us to backtrack and find another path. We walked in silence, as if we had forgotten to speak.
Signs of civilization started to appear after a while. Several abandoned hunting cabins littered the woods, but the were too weathered for use. The sixth we came to was intact, but locked. I felt warmth through the door, indicating that someone had used it recently - or still was. Talisha found that the window to the right of the door was open, so she told us to wait as she went inside. I started to protest, but she was already inside. The rest of us waited outside with bated breath for a moment; Summer looked like she would climb in the window too. Suddenly, Talisha screamed and dived out the window, followed by a panda. This one was odd, with the white patches on its coat replaced by blue. Its claws were dripping with a fluid that looked as though it had the consistency of molasses. It looked like a deadly venom.
Luckily, the panda got its leg trapped in a bear trap that Talisha had nimbly leapt over. This time, I stood back to watch the melee instead of join the other six in attacking it. As only three of us had had time to grab their chair leg clubs, the rest had to make due with rocks and sticks. Tylor, who still had a club, whacked the panda's head a few times to disorient it. This, however, did not prevent the creature from slashing his leg, the wound saturated with the sickly-looking black venin. He fell back, horrified at the sight of the wound, which seemed to be smoking. The wound gave off a nasty stench that I could smell from several yards away.
I skirted around the fight, careful not to get close enough to accidentally get hit by a rock. The panda was still caught in the rusted trap, but its flailing kept anyone from getting close enough to finish it off. Turning away, I examined Tylor's vorpal wound. The claw had gone straight through skin, tendon, and muscle to clack painfully against the bone. He wasn't bleeding, oddly enough, but seemed to secrete more of the black toxin, which oozed slowly down his leg. He lay back against a tree, moaning constantly from the pain. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, staring with dread behind me in what seemed a silent scream. Alarmed, I started to turn, but it was too late. The next thing I knew, there was an excruciating pain in my back, spreading all throughout me, causing my muscles to spasm painfully all over my body. I slowly looked down, just in time to see a giant claw burst through my chest, then withdraw with a sickening squelch. I felt nothing but the purest agony. My eyes rolled back into my head and I collapsed into darkness.