Chapter 3

Car 4 was boring.

There was no other way to describe it. The two businessmen in front of her had been discussing the riots and the possibility of it affecting the import of their silks into the city. The louder they talk, they more Johanna rolled her eyes.

There was a cranky toddler whose mother was making an admirable effort trying to calm her down. She sent an apologetic smile Johanna's way once in a while. Johanna didn't mind it so much, a cranky kid was better than two whining men, in her opinion.

"Profit margin for the second quarter of the year is – "

"For fuck's sake, who the fuck cares?" Johanna grumbled loud enough for them to hear.

She stood up from her seat and shot them a look before making her way to the toilet which as luck would have it was occupied. Down in Car 5, she saw a man leaving the toilet so she made her way.

"You're the hot chick from Car 4," he commented.

She looked at him, head to toe and quickly dismissed the man. He was definitely not her type with crumbs stuck on a beard which was a hot mess to begin with, the yellowed teeth and beady eyes.

"Plenty of room in there for us both," he suggested, jerking his head at the cubicle he just left. He eyed her just as she had eyed him.

Placing a hand on his chest, Johanna sneered. Without another word, she yanked him out, clearing the pathway for her to walk. His face clearly showed the surprise at that sudden display of aggression and strength.

"Fuck off," she flipped him off.

She slammed the door to the cubicle, grumbling to himself about men and their inability to keep the toilet clean. Sure, it was a public toilet and no one had the decency to keep the place clean as they would if it were their own, but still, they should at least try to aim properly.

Disgusting, she thought.

When she was done, she debated about going back to her car and sleeping off the rest of journey or doing something else entirely.

She had never had sex on a train, perhaps the guy from earlier was on to something. Except to do that, she would need to find someone she actually wouldn't mind doing it with. That could be fun.

She began walking down the aisles of Car 6, mentally judging the people she laid her eyes on.

Married, she dismissed the first man she saw.

Likely underage, she thought of another.

Boring, she snickered at the brown-haired man with his Sudoku puzzle.

Looks uptight, could be fun to loosen her up, she eyed the woman.

She made her way over, thinking of something clever as an opener when something loud thudded against the train. She exchanged a look with the red-haired woman. Johanna turned, angling her body towards the window of the door. There was a startling red handprint of the glass.

A sickening feeling settled in her stomach. That could only mean blood.

She moved closer towards the door, peering out into the train vestibule. She thought she saw someone limping towards Car 5, back where she had used its toilet. With the bloody handprint and the limp, she figured someone might be injured.

Johanna opened the door with the full intention of going to Car 5 to render her assistance when the beady-eyed man from earlier suddenly stood in her path. There was something inherently wrong with him.

He was walking with a sloppy limp, his hand extended in front of him.

"Help me," he rasped.

She would have helped him. She would have if it weren't for the look in his eyes. He looked…. Hungry, as if she was a meal to him, and he looked manic.

He stumbled forward and Johanna took a step back. She kept moving back into Car 6 which made the occupants in the car looked from her to the man stumbling into their compartment, blood dripping from his arm.

"What happened to him?" the guy asked, now that his attention was finally drawn away from the Sudoku puzzle.

"I'll get you a medic," Johanna said, as calmly as she could. "Just – Just sit down. There's an empty - holy shit!"

Someone – or rather, something – had burst forth from behind the man. It latched on his back, causing the man to fall face first. He yelped and twitched, but whatever it was on his back held in place and as if that wasn't the worst of it, two more came forward, attacking the red-haired woman and the married man Johanna had checked out earlier.

Those things were not moving the way an injured human would, she thought in a panic. They had sunk their teeth on those people's flesh, pulling and biting as if they were…. They're eating them, she realised in horror.

The man with a chuck of flesh missing from him shoulder turned towards his screaming wife. Johanna could only watch this with mounting terror.

"Run, please," he managed to plead before his body jerked forward to grab her arm, and then she was lost.

Johanna didn't stop to think. She turned and ran into the next car one that was full of school children. She must have been a sight, wild eyed, short burst of breaths because they were all staring at her.

Then a girl with dark skin, innocent brown eyes and curly hair, started screaming.

"Rue, get away!" someone else screamed at her.

Johanna reacted. She grabbed the girl by her collar and dragged her away from the door towards the far end of the door that would bring them to Car 8. Rue struggled, stopping to look behind her.

One of the classmates had fallen. The bite mark on his leg was clearly visible with a bleeding head wound from where he had knocked his head going down. Johanna thought he was dead when he suddenly lifted his head and arch his back violently.

Rue started screaming.

His spine should have broken. His spine should have broken, and yet, he stood up. His gait was different. He stopped for a second, as if assessing his surrounding but then he moved, he moved fast, just as the man had when he attacked his own wife.

"We have to get out," Johanna said, pushing the girl in front of her.

"Shut the door, Thresh!" another student shouted. "Shut the goddamn door."

"He's my cousin," the girl was screaming. "Please, we have to get Thresh."

Johanna glanced behind her but the decision was taken out of her hand at the sight of the cabin. All she heard was screams of the children, huddled together as they began to attack one another.

"No, stop!"

Rue had dashed back, picking up a baseball bat off the floor.

Johanna grabbed her by the waist, both of them falling down in between Cars 7 and 8.

"What are you planning to do?" she panted. "Beat them all to death?"

As the train rocked on the tracks, they struggled to get up on their feet, losing balance each time they tried to stand.

"They're coming," Rue gasped, staring at a space behind Johanna. "Oh my god, Thresh…."

That was when Johanna felt something pulling her by the ankle as she tried to stand. She fell back down again, fighting now not to be pulled into the mob of… She didn't even know what they were but she couldn't be caught under them or she would lose a fighting chance.

Johanna kicked and screamed, pushing their faces away from her, somehow knowing that whatever it was she should not let them bite her. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the little girl who couldn't be more than twelve, swinging her bat violently, knocking them in the back, at the neck and on the head, anywhere she could hit.

The screamed lodged in Johanna's throat when she saw an eyeball rolled in front of her from the force of Rue's hit and yet, the boy whose eye was dislodged was still moving as if it meant nothing.

Johanna clawed at anything that tried to touch her, trying her best to escape the gritting and moaning. She stretched, her fingers brushing against something cold and metallic.

If she could just get it….

Johanna grunted. Her muscles were burning and if they didn't bite her first, she would likely suffocate.

All of the scenarios running through her head were horrifying because this was not how she planned to die.


Friendly reminder, Effie and the rest of the merry gang is in Car 9. Johanna is now two cars away. *Cue dramatic music*