Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (22 page)

“Attack?” said Baker. “That sounds like suicide.”

“Not if we do it right. We’ll start by slowing them down. And the best way to do that is to teach them a hard lesson.”

“What lesson?”

“That nothing will come easy.”

Everyone stared at him, waiting to hear what he had in mind.

“Gather around. We’ll need to move quickly if we’re going to pull this off.”

Chapter 14  

The air in the tunnel was damp and cool, and there was a sour smell that reminded Samantha of Tanner’s socks after a long day’s hike. She swung the flashlight around, sweeping it across the landing to light up the walls and tunnel floor. A single set of tracks ran in both directions as far as the eye could see. To either side of the tracks were narrow driving lanes painted atop a stretch of blacktop that was as smooth as the Bonneville Speedway.

“What are you doing?” she said, turning around to face Tanner.

He stood, frowning, studying the staircase like a professor might a blackboard filled with differential equations.

“Trying to figure out a way to close this thing back up.”

“Are you kidding? Leave it open.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not? We’ve still got to get back out, you know.”

“That’s true, but it wouldn’t be right to leave a way for the infected to get up into the city.”

He squatted and lifted the bottommost stair. To his surprise, the entire case raised, the stairs collapsing in on themselves like an elaborate wooden puzzle box. He continued to lift the entire structure until it was high above his head. The collapsible stairs pulled at his hand as if rigged with some kind of spring.

“If you close it, we might not be able to open it again,” she said, worry creeping into her voice.

“There’s a handle on this side too.”

“Yeah, but are you tall enough to reach it?”

“If I’m not, you can stand on my shoulders.” He let the stairs go, and there was a loud clunk as the staircase locked back in place. “There, the city’s safe once again. I tell you, I’m becoming a regular superhero.” He used his knife to scratch a mark on the closest wall so they could find the stairs again later.

“A superhero, hmm…” she said, mulling it over. “I’ve got it. You can be Gorilla-man.”

He frowned. “I was thinking of something cool, like Black Phantom or Ultra Strike.”

“Too late. Once you get a superhero name, it sort of sticks with you. Nope, you’ll forever be known as Gorilla-man.”

“All right, but if that’s the case, you’re my sidekick, Banana-brains.”

She giggled. “At least I have brains!”

He turned and studied the tunnel. If he had his bearings correct, it ran roughly east to west.

“Which way?” she asked.

He pointed left. “Mount Weather should be that way, about sixty miles.”

“Sixty miles!”

“Yep.”

“That’s too far for us to walk.”

“Which is why we’re going to see if we can find some wheels,” he said, helping her off the landing.

“Maybe we can find that electric car we left under the Naval Academy.”

“Maybe.”

“But not likely.”

He shrugged.

“You’re basically saying that we’re going to wander around until we find something? Is that it?”

“Since when has wandering been a bad thing?”

“It’s not?”

“Wandering is simply taking a trip without knowing the destination.”

She furrowed her brow. “But what’s the point of a trip if you don’t know where you’re going?”

“That, darlin’,
is
the point.”

She puckered her lips. “I’m not buying it.”

He chuckled. “Come on. We’ve got some wandering to do.”

They started down the long dark tunnel, shining the flashlight on the smooth asphalt track. The walls had been coated in a shiny black substance, not quite paint—more like a thick epoxy. The only sounds were their footsteps and the occasional drip of water. They walked for nearly an hour without finding so much as a bicycle. Thankfully, the tunnel was also free of bloodthirsty infected mutants. When they came to a landing that had been sealed shut with explosives, they stopped to take a quick rest break.

Samantha pulled out a couple of bottles of water and handed one to him.

“How many times do you think we’ve been walking in the dark like this?” she asked.

“I don’t know. A few, I guess.”

“I remember the first time.”

“Oh?”

“We were on a highway, late at night, after you crashed our van.”

“That isn’t quite the way I remember it, but go on.”

“We were being chased by a pack of giant dogs that wanted to eat me.”

“Because you’re so delicious.”

“Obviously.”

“And I told you I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”

She looked up at him and nodded. “That’s right.”

“And nothing happened to you, did it?”

“No, but it was pretty scary.”

He glanced over at her. “Are you afraid now?”

She looked around the tunnel, knowing full well that it was littered with dead bodies and crawling with unspeakable creatures.

“Not really.”

“Because you know I’ll take care of you, right?”

“No. Because I know that we’ll be together, no matter what.”

Her words were obviously spoken from the heart, and he didn’t dare risk spoiling it by saying something stupid. They clicked off their flashlights and sat for a few minutes, sipping water and listening to the faint whoosh of air circulating through the tunnel.

“It’s not as dark down here as it was before,” she said. “I can see all the way to the bend up ahead.”

Tanner turned and looked. He could see the curve as well. But there was certainly no light to speak of.

“It’s our eyes. They must be adjusting to the dark.”

“Let me see something.” She covered the flashlight with her hand and used the filtered light to study his eyes. There were dark inky blobs forming in the sclera. “Your eyes are turning yucky.”

He dabbed at the corner, expecting to see traces of the black ink. There weren’t any.

“It means the blood’s working.”

“What about me?” She tilted the flashlight so that it illuminated her eyes. “Any black stuff?”

To his surprise, he saw that both eyes were as black and glossy as the tunnel walls.

“A little.”

She nodded. “It’ll go away eventually, right?”

“Sure it will.”

She clicked off the light and leaned back to rest on her hands.

“I don’t feel any different. What about you?”

“I don’t have a burning desire to eat brains, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good, because I think you’d be a scary zombie.”

“Rest break’s over,” he said, tossing the bottle over his shoulder.

Samantha quickly capped her bottle and stowed it in her pack.

“Superheroes don’t litter.”

“No? Well then maybe I should turn in my cape.”

“So you can litter?”

“Litter, steal, smash in a few heads, whatever. I’m not good at following rules. You know that.”

They climbed back off the landing and continued their journey with the flashlights off.

“Maybe that’s your superpower,” she said.

“What? Smashing heads?”

“No. Doing all the hard things that it takes to survive.”

He grinned. “So, that would make me Survivor-man? I like it.”

“No, it’s like I said. Once your name is set, it can’t be changed. You’ll forever be Gorilla-man, just like I’ll forever be Princess Banana-brains.”

“That’s funny, I don’t recall the princess part.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, placing a hand on his. “I won’t make you call me Princess.” She smiled. “Your Highness will do just fine.”

Their big discovery came ten minutes later, but it wasn’t the armored electric cart they had been hoping for. It was something much bigger.

The train consisted of eleven cars, each seventy-five feet in length, and each painted ghost-white with no markings other than an identification number. It had been built narrower than a conventional tram to avoid infringing on the driving tracks that lay on either side, leaving the tunnel to act as a two-lane road with a subway running right down the middle.

“Is that a Metro train?” asked Samantha.

“Can’t be. We’re too far down. It must be some sort of emergency transport system.” Tanner stepped up onto an oversized metal bumper and peered through the front window. “I can see the driver’s booth.”

“Do you think you can drive it?”

“Of course, I can. I can drive anything.”

“Let me rephrase that. Do you think you can drive it without killing us?”

He waved the question away. “The real question is whether or not the batteries still have any juice left.”

“Even if you could get it running, it’s facing backwards.”

“Hmm, good point. Let’s go check the other end to see if there’s another control booth.”

As they came around the side of the train, they saw that one of the heavy glass doors had been pried open and now lay cocked at an angle. Tanner peeked his head in. The inside of the car was very utilitarian with molded gray seats and deep overhead bins. Like many trains, doors at either end of the cars allowed the conductor and passengers to move freely from one car to the next.

He climbed up and pushed aside the broken door.

“Let’s walk it to make sure no one’s inside.”

“Sure,” she muttered. “What could possibly go wrong with walking through a spooky ghost train?”

He ignored her grumbling and proceeded into the train. As they reached the end of the first car, they found a large trunk bolted to the floor, directly opposite the lavatory closet.

Samantha stared at it warily. “Fifty cents says there’s a dead body inside.”

“You’re on.” Tanner flipped the lid open. Inside was a collection of emergency supplies, including a marine first-aid kit, Tyvek disposable jumpsuits, flashlights, protein bars, bottles of water, and a box filled with assorted hand tools. “Better than a body,” he said, digging through the supplies.

“What’s this?” she asked, picking up a black pouch about the size of her hand. The label on the front read
Avon NH15 Compact CBRN Escape Hood
. She opened the pouch and found a shiny vacuum-sealed bag inside. A picture on the front showed a man wearing the hood, square filters covering his cheeks and a clear plastic shroud over his head.

“It’s a respirator to filter out poisons in the air. Probably only works for a few minutes though.”

“Still, we should take a couple of these.” She looked down at the trunk. “Really, we should take some of all of this.”

“It’s not stealing?”

“I don’t see why it would be. The supplies were put here to help people, and we’re people.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me.”

Tanner opened his pack and began stuffing in escape hoods, Tyvek suits, some water, and a handful of the protein bars. Samantha did the same, rifling through the first-aid kit to grab suture supplies, blood stopper bandages, and a bottle of Betadine.

Once they were finished scavenging, they continued exploring the train. Other than the broken door and a few cracked windows, it was in remarkably good shape. When they finally arrived at the far end, they discovered an identical control booth overlooking the front of the train.

Tanner set his backpack to the side and slid in behind the controls.

“Let’s see if we can get this thing moving.”

“Do you really know how to drive a train?”

He shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

“You say that a lot.”

“And I’m usually right, aren’t I?”

She thought a moment. “Not really, no.”

He looked back at her and grinned.

“Better hold on.”

Samantha turned sideways and wedged herself in the control booth’s doorway.

Tanner took a moment to study the controls. There was a panel with an assortment of buttons and gauges to one side, but directly in line with the front window was a speedometer, a thick controller handle, and a lever. The handle had a knob on top, which he instinctively wrapped his thick fingers around. There was a springiness to the handle, and he pushed it down a few inches. When he tried to turn it, it clunked toward him in three stages.