A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis (10 page)

I got down by his ear.

“Trip, are you all right?”

He gripped my arm. “I just saw my end, man.”

“You’re not going to die, Trip.”

“We all die.” His grip loosened.

I gently pulled away; he was beginning to freak me out. Luckily, Jack spoke, breaking the spell Trip was weaving in my head.

“Mike, there’s a latch on that door. Lock it.”

He moved to the far side of the small space and did the same to that door. Much like the noise under the overpass had been, the thunderous roar of the hundred or so motorcycles reverberated off the steel roof above us and echoed throughout the expanse. It was almost deafening inside the car—it would have been crippling outside. I had hoped they would shut them off at least, letting us get that sense back. I could see why they wouldn’t, though—they still had the zombies to deal with, and maybe they’d encountered the night runners before and wanted to make sure they could depart quickly if need be.

“Fuck, that’s loud.”

Jack turned to look at me, placing his index finger to his mouth. He pointed out the front of the train. Three whistlers were standing there. With their gas masks on, it was almost possible to believe they were just incredibly tall and skinny humans. Almost like Manute Bol, the pro basketball player—I want to say he was about 7´7˝ or so, but only 130 pounds. He looked like a stiff breeze could take him for a ride. He never did put much more meat on him and could not take the rigors of the game. The whistlers had that same size-and feel to them, but when they took their helmets off, that illusion was destroyed. The deeply wrinkled white tops of their heads, the non-existent ears and eyes, and the black lower portion marked them as profoundly inhuman. Yet they dressed in our clothing and used our machinery. I don’t know if that was adaptation on their part, or if we were just more similar than I wanted to believe.

I was bringing my rifle up instinctively: they were a threat that I wanted to be rid of. Jack pushed the barrel down and shook his head, then pointed out the small window in the door. There was a group of about ten more just standing there. Even if we took out the three in front, we would be under heavy fire, and quickly.

“Now what?” I asked him.

“Now, we play the waiting game.”

I knew what we were waiting for: the zombies to catch up and chase the whistlers away, and then for the night runners and the zombies to get into a fight over us. I had to admit, being popular was not all it was cracked up to be. The whistlers must have felt good about their position, because finally their engines died down and we got to hear the god-awful screeches they used to communicate. Weird how much I wanted the deafening motorcycles to start back up. The whistlers were amassing; this much we could tell by their boot falls on the gravel.

The three in front had joined the rest. We didn’t dare open the doors to watch; luckily the train was equipped with oversized rearview mirrors attached to the side. They formed a line that nearly stretched from end to end of the structure; weapons drawn, they fired into the approaching horde of zombies.

This was a battle in which I was actually rooting for the Z’s, and they were getting massacred. At a couple of points along the line, the zombie surge was too great for the whistlers to keep up with, and a few were dragged down and destroyed—but it wasn’t enough. The horde was quickly devolving into a gathering, and soon it would look like a party after the beer ran out.

“We should get going,” I told Jack while we watched. “They’ll never even notice.”

“Yeah, but
they
will,” he said, pointing at a few whistlers who were walking on the landing. “They have some on the catwalk above, too. I wish these fuckers weren’t so smart.”

“Yeah, me too.” I was craning my head trying to get a look at the ones above us.

“They have some at the far end as well. They’re probably guarding against zombies or night runners.”

“Still, got to be better odds than once they’re done behind us.”

Jack pointed to Trip. “He’s spent, and unless we plan on leaving him, this is our only choice.”

“Shit.”

He was right. Trip, after proclaiming our demise, was now asleep. We did the only thing afforded to us. We waited while the whistlers killed a town’s worth of zombies. I watched for a while, fascinated by their stalwartness even as some of them were lost. They would close ranks and keep firing, at times even resorting to hand-to-hand combat when the zombies got too close or something happened to their weapons. I watched as one of the whistlers reached out and lifted two zombies off the ground, a hand wrapped around each neck. He slammed their heads together like a child will sometimes do to his blocks, grey matter exploding all around him. He took down three more zombies before he was swarmed over. It was difficult to make out with clarity, but they were ripping through the soft flesh of his head to expose what looked like blackish-green bone. I hoped it was just a trick of the light—they were already so different, I don’t know why I needed their bones to be the traditional white. Maybe I had to believe—no, I wanted to believe—that somewhere, genetically, they shared something with us. But I don’t think that was case. They probably weren’t even carbon-based, like all life on earth. I had a feeling if we had the time to do some tests, we’d find a sulfuric molecular foundation.

I finally sat down. Jack tapped my arm, half a granola bar in his hand. I thanked him and took it, absently chewing on the bark-like bar.

“I found a stash in the other train,” he told me.

“What the fuck is it with the people here?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

He was looking at his half, I think trying to determine where he could bite without chipping a tooth.

“These fucking granola bars, they’re everywhere.”

“By the taste of them, I'm thinking they’re Government Issue.”

“Like the cheese?”

“What? No, not like welfare. I’m thinking like rations after the shit went down. They probably went around and tossed cases of these to everyone scrambling to get away from the shit storm.”

“I think I’d rather eat bugs.” I took another mouthful and loudly crunched up the small stones and pebbles.

“You probably are.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you ever seen how they make granola? I think like ten percent of this thing’s protein is derived from bugs.”

I ate the rest, reluctantly and under protest, but down it went nonetheless. I had images of whistlers, who I was convinced were some sort of large insect, getting sucked into large mixing vats and parts of them coating my food product. I guess it was better this way than if the circumstances were reversed.

A war was being waged not more than a hundred feet from our location, and if we so desired, Jack and I could have spoken in normal tones. The whistlers’ weapons were nearly silent, the zombies didn’t yell, and the whistlers’ communication was more internal than external, like a horrible case of tinnitus. Like you wanted to scratch your brain to make the sound go away. Even if we weren’t enemies, they’d have to die. I don’t have anything personal against a mosquito, but I’ll squash every single one I come across because they irritate the shit out of me. I felt the same, only much worse, toward a whistler.

Long shadows were cast as the sun sank toward the horizon. The fight behind became a confusing tangle of shadows and light, looking more like a dance party than the outright melee it was. The sky overhead darkened, stars appeared, and the last of the sun’s rays gave over to beams of silver light cast off the bright moon above. Still, the zombies came on, and the whistlers fought them off. Bodies lay stacked on the ground like kindling haphazardly tossed about. The constant groaning of the zombie horde plus the clicking and high-pitched whistling from the whistlers, though muted in the engine compartment, were almost too much to take.

“Do you hear that?” Jack asked.

I stopped chewing and cupped my ear, much like an old person will when they are trying to hear something.

“I don’t.”

“Our dinner guests are arriving,” Trip muttered.

“
That
, is a night runner scream,” Jack stated, completely ignoring Trip’s reply.

“Jack, what the fuck is going on? How much do the people that sucked us into this shit fest want from us?”

I was now convinced we’d been brought here to help in some way. The alternative, that we were all just either an experiment gone awry or a show for the upper crust, was unthinkable. If the latter was the case, I was going to exact no small measure of revenge.

Jack shook his head. “You know, as I’m watching this shit go down, I’m not entirely convinced that we were the targets.”

“Huh?” I asked in my best confused manner.

“Let’s suppose that this planet is ruled by normal people, like me and you. Are you with me so far?”

“I was in the Marines, not the Army.”

“So, I lost you already, then?”

“Funny. Keep going.”

“So, somebody does something here, like drills too far into the planet’s core, creates a wormhole in a lab, or just a regular planetary invasion.”

“You’re calling a planetary invasion regular?”

Jack shrugged. “Whatever the cause, it isn’t relevant. The people here suddenly find themselves in the midst of an extinction-level event and they go looking for any help that they can.”

“So, that’s where we come in?”

“Sort of.”

“What? I know you were a fly boy and you have all the brains in this little meeting of the minds, but can you break it down for us lowly grunts?”

“Right now, Mike, you and I aren’t doing shit. It looks to me like your zombies are doing all the heavy lifting.”

“So, you’re saying our monsters weren’t scooped up with us? We were scooped up with them?”

Jack nodded.

“Well, doesn’t that beat all.”

T
he sun had set
, leaving the world for yet another day. With its departure, the bright moon casts the train yard in silver and deep shadow. The fight behind rages on; shadows fighting shadows. I honestly don’t know how it has lasted this long. One side should have quit the field long ago. Zombies aren’t ones to do that, but the whistlers? That’s a surprise. In my experience, even if winning, no one would stay on the field for so long against such a relentless foe. That leads me to believe that the whistlers are protecting something…perhaps this is their home? The mother ship is close by?

As funny and far-fetched as that sounds, anything could be true in this place. And, frankly, I’m done with being here. If we were scooped up with the zombies and night runners, I’d like to be unscooped now. This place is more than welcome to host as many zombies and night runners as it would like. Hell, take them all as far as I’m concerned. Just let me click my heels and return home. Oh, and beam in all of the night runners while you’re at it. It would be cool to return home and find all of them have suddenly vanished. Yeah, let’s do that.

I realize how tired I am by these thoughts. Each moment seems to bring yet another “wonder” to this place, and that alone is exhausting. The task of figuring shit out comes later. Right now, we need to extricate ourselves from the area. If we don’t, then whoever wins this little skirmish outside will still be surrounding us, and we’ll then have their undivided attention. No, as fun as it may be to watch, I can’t see how waiting around for the victor could be a good thing.

I open up and sense a large number of night runners heading our way. The melee-fest outside is about to get much more interesting. I’ve noticed more whistlers arriving periodically, possibly to relieve those that become exhausted. Yeah, things are about to get a lot messier.

We’re fine in the cab. I’m sure the doors and windows are impervious to night runners, and they seem to be keeping the whistlers at bay. Perhaps they mean to starve us out…I don’t know. They could have known the zombies were approaching and decided to fight them before deciding what to do with us. Regardless, I don’t really want to be around much longer.

“Mike, there are night runners inbound. We need to get Trip on his feet and leave.”

“How do you know they’re coming?” Mike asks.

“I just do.”

I can tell that Mike senses something more. Even in the gloom of the cab, his expression carries the unvoiced tone of suspicious query. Yes, our secrets are perhaps approaching the surface. He holds the deep look for a moment longer, then drops it.

“Trust me, man, the idea of being trapped in here is killing me, but going out there is suicide. If you actually have a plan, I’m all ears.”

I reach over and move a switch that looks very similar to the electrical master switch Trip found—and, nothing. No dials jump, no instruments light up. I might as well be playing with a child’s driving panel. Just our luck—we managed to power the last train, but it must have a one-time thing.

“I’m not sure. Open the door and run for it?” I answer with a shrug.

“That’s your plan, Jack? That sounds like one of mine. I mean, you’ve had better ones. Right?”

“I have? Lynn would be thrilled to hear that I’ve had a plan at all.”

“If that’s all we’re going to do, then we should have left when this little get-together started.”

“True enough,” I reply. “That hindsight thing, I guess. Besides, I wanted to observe a little. And we weren’t going anywhere with the watchers above. I’m sure we’d have been stapled and hog-tied in some barn by now, or down some hole being told to rub lotion on our skin.”

“They’re still up there, creepy bastards,” Mike says, donning the NVGs and looking out one of the windows.

“I have a feeling that they’ll have their hands full shortly, and the others seem a little too preoccupied to notice us.”

“We won’t make it far just running. That didn’t work out very well the last time.”

“No, but we have to do something. I’m just not overly sure what that something is.”

“Rollin’ down the tracks in my GMC,” Trip mutter-sings in his sleep.

“What in the fuck is that? I swear, Mike, that is one insane dude. I mean, maybe not truly insane, considering some of the shit he’s come up with—but damn. I told you that he thought he was ringing a dinner bell with the whole air horn thing, didn’t I?”

I glance at Mike, who is not paying any attention to what I’m saying, instead staring intently out the front windows. At least, I think he is staring intently. It’s hard to determine from the angle. For all I know, he could have fallen asleep standing up.

“Mike…Mike…Mike…Calling Mike,” I say.

He turns toward me. I’m so tempted to say “danger zone,” but I let it pass.

“Look out there and tell me what you see,” he says.

I look to the front, squinting my tired old eyes. I see nothing but boxcars, flatbeds, and tankers parked among lines of engines, all sitting on sidings waiting to be hooked up and delivered to other rail yards. Off to the sides, paved and dirt lots are filled with semis. There isn’t anything that draws my attention.

“I don’t see anything that would put us in a better situation, Mike. What are you looking at?”

He pauses and stares at me a moment longer, perhaps wondering how good my night vision is. Maybe it’s time we both came out with our secrets. I know it would make things easier. Hiding things like that in a survival situation isn’t easy, nor is it advantageous, really. I know I’m worried about how he would take hearing that I had been scratched, given the world he comes from. He might think that I could turn at any moment—I know that’s what I’d be thinking. And he’s obviously worried about sharing his secrets, for whatever reason. Still, by now I’m pretty sure that each of us knows that the other is probably keeping secrets—so how much longer will we be able to keep them?

Mike turns back to the front. “There, in the distance to the left. On the siding all by itself. I can barely make it out, but I think it’s one of those maintenance trucks. You know, the ones with the retractable wheels that maintenance crews use to drive on the tracks.”

I look back in the direction he’s pointing. Sure enough, barely visible is a large pickup, a newer F350 or whatever they’re called here.

“Damn,” I say, looking down at Trip’s prone form. “I bet it’s a GMC as well. However, that doesn’t mean that it will run. Nothing that I’ve come across has been drivable. I don’t think there’s a battery out there that still has juice, except for the train that brought us here.”

In the gloomy darkness of the cab, Mike shrugs.

“Mike, that’s quite a risk. There are night runners approaching. If we make it and it doesn’t start, we’re screwed.”

“As risky as your plan of just making a run for it? Plus, man, you convinced me to stay. Then you say we need to go, but you don’t like my idea?” Mike asks, rhetorically.

“Touché. I don’t suppose we could just ask Trip if it runs.”

We both stare down at Trip, who is soundly sleeping on the cold floor.

“We could. Not sure we’d get a decent answer, though. Probably start talking about something he did in the circus. Fucker was a clown, I can guarantee it. You ready to hear that?”

“No, I’m good. Okay, then. Well, let’s look for a route that will keep us hidden for the most part.”

“I think a straight run is the best idea. How about you?”

The route Mike’s proposing is at an angle, crossing perhaps twenty sets of tracks and about a hundred and fifty yards or so of open terrain. I just look at him, wondering if he’s kidding.

“No,” is all I say.

I can just picture the three of us running across the tracks, Trip with his obligatory joint, night runners hard on our heels and closing, the sound of whistler staples…well, whistling past our heads. We reach the truck—barely—and throw open the doors. The keys are miraculously on the visor. I hastily insert them and turn: nothing. I frantically try again and again while the night runners close in and surround us. I’ve seen that movie before; no thanks.

Of course, my option of sneaking through the rail yards, smelling like we do and with night runners about, isn’t really a better option, and might actually be worse.

“So, do we wait for night runners, or make our run before they show up?” Mike asks.

“That’s the question. I’m not really a fan of either choice as I don’t see either ending well.”

If the night runners are already here and we venture outside, well, that outcome seems obvious. If they are on their way and we bump into them, or they see or smell us first, we will be immediately bumped up to first place on the menu—an equally shitty situation. The way I see it, we should wait for them to arrive. That way, they’ll at least be busy, and hopefully have other prey in mind.

While Mike and I contemplate which is the best of our two horrible choices, which one is less likely to end with us being torn apart and feeling every second of it, Trip stirs on the floor. He rolls over and pushes himself to his hands and knees. With only a glance in our direction, he shimmies over to the middle of the floor, feels around with his hand, finds a depressed latch, and lifts a floor plate to reveal a narrow crawlspace surrounded by pipes and what looks like fuse boxes. He then disappears into the opening, leaving the metal hatch open.

“What’s that all about?” I ask, turning to Mike.

“Plan C, I guess,” he answers with a shrug.

“I’m afraid to even ask. I’m not sure whether I should be bracing for an explosion or looking toward the truck to witness his sudden appearance,” I say, staring at the opening.

“I suppose there’s the chance that he crawled in there to continue sleeping, thinking it was too loud out here,” Mike volunteers.

I suppose that’s a possibility. With Trip, all options are on the table. He could be down there for any reason imaginable, and some that aren’t. I can’t describe the dread that encompasses me when Trip does stuff like this on his own. Yes, we are still alive. And yes, the things he does usually work, but it ages me greatly each and every time.

Perhaps I’m too controlling. If I was honest with myself, I do like to be in control in most situations. I mean, it’s my life we’re talking about. Like Trip, for good or bad, things seem to work out when I go with the flow—but with
my
flow and
my
way of seeing things. For the most part, I can feel a certain flow with things. I let go of the way I think things should be and, well, for lack of a better way of saying it, I surround myself with the environment and
feel
it. I ease into the flow and thread my way through it. If, for some reason, that doesn’t materialize or becomes interrupted in some fashion, I’ll pause until I get a sense of things again. I let everything go and allow for an awareness of sights, smells, and sounds. Soon enough, a path will show itself—for the most part. I can’t describe it very well; regardless, Trip throws a wrench in that process. The smooth flow, okay, perhaps not so smooth at times, groans and shrieks in protest of said wrench that is Trip. If I do live through this, I will emerge from it a lot older…and just maybe, a little wiser. But first, the living through it part has to occur. At the moment, the odds of that happening aren’t exactly in my favor.

I hear shuffling in the compartment below and Trip pokes his head through the trap door. Smoke drifts lazily upward from the joint hanging in his mouth. The rising smoke is a lighter gray in the cab, then turns to silver as it wafts through a moonbeam. Trip’s hands and upper cheeks have dark grease smears, barely distinguishable from the rest of the grime. Yes, it’s time we find a place to bathe again. The smell in the engine cab is beginning to take on the funk of a well-used locker room. The moment we step outside, we’ll be immediately identifiable to the night runners. I don’t know enough about the whistlers, but from what little I’ve gleaned, they don’t seem to have enhanced senses of smell or eyesight. The moonlight outside is bright enough to easily make out things, though I’m also not sure of their ability to see at night. All of that we’ll have to find out soon, if we can. But that’s for later. Given our current situation, later may not be a player.

Mike reaches down to help lift Trip from the small compartment. I glance from them to the window and back. I feel like a bystander in all of this, merely watching to see what happens. Maybe nothing, maybe Trip found some sort of edible treat, or maybe he’ll raise his hands and the train will begin flying─anything seems possible at this point.

“When did the sun go out?” Trip asks, stepping toward the console and looking outside. “Is there an eclipse?’

“No, Trip, you’ve been sleeping,” Mike comments.

“Oh. Did you know that watching an eclipse from a shuttle is much different than seeing it from the ground?”

“Come on, Trip. You were never on a shuttle,” I state, rolling my eyes.

Some of his stories could be true, but on a shuttle? Seriously? Come on!

“I wasn’t? Damn, won’t those astronauts be surprised to learn that.”

“Okay, Major Tom. What were you doing down there?” I ask.

“You know, I partied with Bowie,” Trip replies, reaching down to what I’d come to understand as the main power switch.

“I’m not surprised about that in the least.”

Trip engages the switch and the overhead lights dimly illuminate the instrument panels. The central console comes to life, bathing the interior in a faint, bluish glow.

“He turned the fucking thing on! How did you…?” Mike begins.

“Power couplings and a switch underneath. They uncouple the batteries while an engine is in maintenance or is going to sit for a while. How do you not know this?” Trip queries, before settling down into a series of contorted yoga postures, his question apparently forgotten the moment it was uttered.

I guess I should have spent a little more time studying the systems in the manual. Muted screams momentarily rise above the sounds of the ongoing battle. Looking outside, packs of night runners emerge into the rail yard from the direction of the city. They pour across the tracks, a few stumbling on the raised rails. Their pale faces glow in the moonlight, and when the beams catch them just right, their eyes shine as if a silver fire is blazing within. That sight scares me more than their shrieks erupting within a darkened building. They look like demons pouring directly out of hell’s gate.