Trail of Tears (32 page)

“Fucker.” He screamed and then saw another
jeep approach the thrall. He saw the thrall struck by a .50
calibre.
McAteer,
he thought as a wan smile cracked his
face.
It has to be McAteer.

* * *

Carter cursed as the thrall behind him fell
from the bed of the jeep. There was only himself and the driver
left now, so he reluctantly made his way from the front seat into
the bed of the jeep. The vehicle bounced over a pot hole and he
shouted at the driver to be careful but his words were ripped away
by the wind. He snapped out a hand and griped the heavy weapon’s
stalk like a lifeline. He didn’t move for a minute as he recovered
from his scare. The train was gaining speed and the road only ran
for another few hundred yards. They had to take out the engine or
the humans would get away. There was a jeep in front of him, its
heavy gun tearing into the carriages and he knew there was another
one on the other side of the train.

“Forget about the carriages,” he shouted at
the driver. “Get me level with the engine.” The driver nodded and
the jeep lurched faster. Carter held on to the .50 calibre as he
struggled to rise. The engine compartment wasn’t far ahead and the
pulsing light from the fire urged him on.

* * *

Sandra Harrington woke to noise. People
surged around her, screaming and shouting as they tried to force
their way forward.
Where was she?
The last thing she
remembered was falling as the base was attacked. Had they survived?
What was that strange monotonous clacking? She felt that she was
moving but it wasn’t like being in a truck or a car.

She tried to sit up but her head swam
dangerously, and she fell back on the pillow. She tried to talk but
her throat was so dry that all she managed was a dry croak. Had
they been captured? Where was Peter? Questions swam in her head and
she tried again to rise.

“Welcome back,” she heard a voice to her
left but couldn’t place it. She turned her head but the figure
beside her was so muffled with scarves and cold weather gear it was
hard to see who it was. She certainly sounded young. “We weren’t
too sure if you’d wake up or not. I’ll get Amanda.”

“Peter?” she managed to croak and the figure
stopped for a second.

“I’ll get Amanda,” the figure repeated and
then disappeared.

Sandra laid there, her mind swirling with
every worst case scenario she could imagine. It took a while before
Amanda came over and her hurried explanation trumped every
nightmare she had come up with.

* * *

Phil Regan sat in a corner of the first
carriage and shivered. He had made his way up this far by offering
his help to the wounded early on. He had rightly identified that
this would be the safest place if they were attacked but the number
of people flooding forward threatened to ruin everything. Everyone
was forcing their way ahead of the thrall’s attack and the change
in weight distribution threatened to derail them if something
wasn’t done.

He stood up suddenly as he had a thought.
Ian Phelps looked at him curiously but was too frightened to move.
Regan merely nodded and headed towards the carriage door. The
engine compartment would be safer than here. If the train was in
further danger of derailing then he would be able to uncouple the
carriages and save himself. He should have thought of that before.
He struggled to make his way to the door and forced the people
back, telling anyone who would listen that he had to get forward to
help make the train go faster. Even in their panicked state the
concept of the train going faster seemed to get through and people
moved aside.

Regan opened the door quickly and rushed
through. He turned immediately and drew the small slide across the
wall, locking it and then turned towards the engine. It was cold
here and the wind pulled at him as if it intended to drag him
beneath the wheels of the train. He gripped the rail firmly,
ignoring the chill. He had left his gloves inside but he would need
his hands to climb across the short distance anyway. Smoke from the
funnel flew back around him making him cough, and he was forced to
get down on his hunkers and make his way forward under the trail of
smoke.

He saw three figures in the main area of the
engine but he couldn’t see any way to get to them. The sides of the
engine were sheer with no hand holds that he could see. In fact,
the only way he could go getting forward was over the loaded fuel
in the main compartment. The amount of fuel was surprisingly low.
He was sure it had been a lot higher than that when he had
supervised the loading.

He looked down at the coupling beneath him
and saw a metal lever coming from the engine body into the coupling
mechanism. He jumped forward on to the engine side and reached
down, his hand easily grasping the lever. He was about to pull on
the metal when the train suddenly veered to the left as the track
took a sharp turn and he lost his footing. His leg slipped down
between the engine and the last carriage, and he snapped out a hand
to stop himself from falling. His leg struck the ground and he felt
a terrible pain as his ankle folded over on itself. He cried out
and almost fainted, but the smoke swirled around him and made him
cough, forcing his body to remain awake. He clung tightly to the
thin railing but his hands were so cold and he didn’t have the
strength to pull himself back up. His damaged ankle struck the
ground again and pain surged through him.

Surely it couldn’t end like this. He was too
important. He felt his hand slip slightly and then his frozen
fingers betrayed him and he was falling. Suddenly a hand gripped
his and he was being pulled back up. Someone was shouting at him
over the wind but he couldn’t hear. He mumbled something about
coming to help and then he felt darkness swirling round him.

* * *

Patricia Lohan took her station at the
window and watched the single light from the approaching jeep.
Behind her the carriage was filled with men, women and children.
Lucy and Lizzie stood with her. There was nowhere else to go. Lucy
was small, diminutive as she preferred to be called. Her cheeks
were full, probably because she was always smiling. Her face was
framed by brown hair cut short with the ends curling slightly under
her chin. It was her eyes, though, that were most striking. They
were the colour of ice reflecting a pale blue sky and they
hypnotised her every time she looked into them. They were in the
third to last carriage and the next two carriages were so packed
with panicked people they were better off where they were.

She looked over at Lucy, holding her handgun
awkwardly but her jaw set firmly regardless. Lizzie was terrified
but refused to say anything and Patricia’s heart was bursting with
pride. Since her own stand in the auditorium no one had said
anything bad to her about her love for Lucy. She had imagined
taunts and disgust if her secret ever got out and now she realised
that everyone had their own worries. What was how she chose to live
her life to them? All those months moving about secretly had been
wasted. She could have spent those months with Lucy and Lizzie. And
now time had run out for all of them.

Patricia pulled the XM8 into her shoulder,
the shoulder feeling tight and sore under her bandages. She tried
to ignore it and took aim. She used the pain of her wounds to keep
her focused. People were already firing, and her finger itched but
she held off. The jeep was still too far away and she knew that
many of the people would be reloading when they should be firing.
Lucy yelped as she pulled the trigger and the automatic bucked in
her hands, the bullet being pulled high over the target by her
inexperience.

Too many people had ignored Harris’
insistence to practise with weapons. She would have ignored it
herself if she hadn’t forced herself in order to make a good
example. She thanked God now that she had gone. The jeep bounced
closer and she fired a quick burst, grinning wolfishly as the
remaining light turned dark. She could see a thrall trying to
balance himself as he brought a weapon to his shoulder.
Oh my
God,
she thought.
That’s a bazooka.
She lifted her aim
slightly and sent another three round burst towards the approaching
vehicle.

The jeep swerved violently towards the
carriage, smashing into the side and sending the thrall with the
bazooka flying out of the jeep and under the wheels of the train.
Sparks showered and metal screeched and then the vehicle flipped
and tumbled like a cast aside toy. A huge cheer erupted around her.
She wanted to tell everyone to stop celebrating, that there were
two others vehicles to take care of before they could breathe easy.
But then Lucy turned and threw her arms around her and she allowed
herself a moment in the chaos to enjoy what they had done. A moment
later someone was shouting and the sound of another .50 calibre
erupted from the other side of the train. She reluctantly let Lucy
and Lizzie go as she crossed to the carriage. She could already
hear the screams and she offered up a prayer.

* * *

Harris rushed through the shattered
carriages, trying to ignore the carnage. The last three cars were
already torn apart; people lay dead, wounded or just so shocked by
the violence that they merely sat and cried or looked blankly
ahead. He didn’t have time to help any of them though—not if he
wanted to protect the carriages ahead.

He looked out through a tear in the carriage
wall and could see two jeeps. One of was a few yards ahead of the
other and running further out from the train as it avoided the
various obstructions ahead. It didn’t seem to be firing at the
train though. Had they run out of ammunition? Jesus, he hoped so.
But then the reality hit him.
The engine
, he thought as his
heart thumped harder.
Carter is going for the engine.

The nearer vehicle swerved out to avoid a
wooden pole but was already on a return arc. The thrall in the bed
of the jeep was already checking his load and taking aim on the
carriage ahead of him and Harris ran faster. People thronged the
next carriage as they fought through the mass of bodies to make it
to safety. But there was nowhere to go. The door between carriages
was so narrow that only one person could fit through at a time and
no one was prepared to organise the retreat. Harris ran through the
people ahead of him, pushing them aside, firing his XM8 into the
air to get their attention.

“Everyone down on the ground, now,” he
shouted and most dropped so quickly he thought they had already
been shot. Screams filled the air and then the bullets ploughed
into the carriage from the jeep outside. Harris scrambled over the
bodies around him and leaned out the window, firing at the jeep
from behind. The heavy chatter of the .50 calibre stopped as
bullets sprayed around the thrall. The thrall swivelled the gun
back towards Harris and he dropped to the floor as a hail of
bullets tore the window and surrounding wall to pieces.

Harris heard a second .50 calibre erupt
close to him and the bullets directed at him stopped. He looked up
and saw Warkowski draw level with his carriage as McAteer caught
the jeep ahead. Harris had never seen Warkowski so focused on
anything. Somewhere on this train his wife and child sat huddled
and scared and he was doing everything he could to make sure Carter
and his minions didn’t get near them.

McAteer’s jeep passed quickly and Harris was
up and running before anyone else reacted. He could see snatches of
flame from the two heavy machine guns as they exchanged fire. For
once whole sections of the train were spared from fire but Harris
knew it wouldn’t matter if Carter caught the engine compartment. He
pushed through the crowds, shouting and forcing his way through,
ignoring everyone and everything. He had to get forward.

* * *

Conor Ricks watched from his bed as
frightened people flooded the infirmary carriage. He tried to rise
but Emma held him down and shook her head. She took his left hand
in hers; it felt so awkward with two fingers missing but Amanda had
told him that losing only two fingers to frostbite was a blessing.
He had tried to unbuckle his restraints during the journey when he
heard of Emma collapsing. His wounds had proved too much for him
and he had fallen unconscious with his hands outside his blankets.
If Amanda hadn’t checked on him when she did he would have lost the
whole hand.

With both of them requiring rest and neither
prepared to obey her orders Amanda had put Emma alongside him on
the stretcher. She had stormed off muttering something about them
deserving each other. When they arrived at the train, Amanda
quickly took his fingers off. he hadn’t even felt it at the time.
Now he felt an insistent throbbing in his hand that kept sleep at
bay. They had little medicine to spare and much of what they had
was packed away. Amanda had some people rummaging through the
supplies but it was proving more difficult than they had thought
with the panicked survivors filling every spare inch of the
carriage.

Ricks was more worried about the thralls
than the pain in his hand though. The dull chatter of machinegun
fire and the screams of his friends were drawing closer and he was
useless. Emma rose to calm the people flooding the infirmary, but
they were too panicked and she was pushed aside. Ricks lost sight
of her among the flood and he cried out her name. The infirmary
carriage was the second to last before the engine itself and it was
already over-crowded with the wounded and their relatives. Injured
people lay everywhere and many of them were being trampled by
clamouring people.

He could see Amanda shouting but her voice
was lost in the frightened shouts. Amanda was suddenly struck by
someone and she fell beneath the sea of bodies. Conor forced
himself to his knees, ignoring the pain as his wounds stretched
against their stitches. He reached over to his side and gripped
Emma’s XM8. It was strange holding the weapon with his left hand
covered in bandages but he took a firm grip with his right hand and
angled the barrel up into the ceiling. Three rounds exploded. The
noise was so loud that the panicked mob stopped briefly but there
were so many people pushing behind them that they began to move
forward again. Conor fired another three rounds, drawing the barrel
down slightly so the bullets angled just over their heads.