Tumultus (38 page)

Dropping the M16, Reese grabbed the bandit leader’s knife and used it to cut Dublin down.  Her clothes, just minutes earlier ripped from her body, were found on the ground in a corner of the tent.  Dublin quickly dressed herself as Reese stood just outside trying to calm the still manic beating of his heart.

Every time he thought of what had been done…what would have been done, to Dublin, the rage re-ignited inside of him.  He knew he had to calm himself to ensure he would be at his most efficient and useful to ensure both he and Dublin returned to Mac and the others.  Reese knew Mac and the Russian remained alive.  He didn’t  know the status of either Bear or Cooper Wyse.

Dublin stood next to Reese.  For several seconds, neither of them spoke a word, before Reese finally turned to face her, looking down into her eyes as he gently placed his hands against both sides of her head.

“I would never let anyone harm you, Dublin.  Never.”

Dublin remained silent, looking back into Reese’s eyes.  Then she gave him a small smile before hugging him tightly as she leaned up to whisper into his ear.

‘Right back at you.”

XXXIV.

Reese, Dublin and Brando sat in the rusted out military jeep.  A small toggle taped to the right of the steering column was used to start the vehicle.  Despite its quite ragged outward appearance, the engine quickly fired up and idled smoothly.

Within a few minutes the three returned to where Reese had left Mac and the others when he ran off to save Dublin.  Mac was standing alongside Bear, and though he looked weak, Reese was simply grateful to see the older man back on his feet and breathing with far less discomfort than when he had last seen him.

Bear looked as immovable as ever, the only indication of the grenade attack being a shallow scratch that ran from his forehead to the bridge of his nose.  He was agitated at not having recovered sooner from the grenade blast to have been able to assist Reese with going after the bandits who had taken Dublin.

“I’m sorry, Reese, by the time I was sitting up you were already gone.  Then I found Mac and wasn’t sure if I should stay and help him or head out after you.  Looks like you did fine on your own, though.”

Reese quickly outlined what had happened back at the bandit encampment – a story that left Mac smiling back at both him and Dublin.  Mac was proud, knowing he had played a significant part in teaching both of them the skills needed to protect themselves in a life and death situation.  Today, that teaching proved successful.

Dublin’s eyes scanned behind Mac and Bear, looking for Yakov and Cooper Wyse.

“Where are Cooper and Yakov?  Are they both ok?”

Bear pointed back at where the train had been left a mile or so behind them.

“They both walked back to the train.  Well, more like the Russian limped back with Cooper helping him.  Yakov had this thing…a piece of rock that the grenade blast had shot into his leg.  Dumb asshole that he is, he just grabs onto it and yanks it out.  Blood everywhere.  So much that we all start thinking he’s gonna bleed out right in front of us.  So Cooper rips off part of his shirt and ties it tight around the leg, and they start heading back to the train where we have a med kit with our supplies.  Cooper says he’s stitched up plenty of animals before, so the Russian shouldn’t be any different.”

Reese was looking at Mac intently.

“And what about you, Mac?  How are you feeling?”

Mac’s eyes fell to his feet momentarily before he looked back up at Reese.

“I’m ok, Reese.  Been better…but I’m ok.”

Reese decided now was not the time to push Mac on what was wrong with his health.  That would have to happen soon – but after they were back on the train and traveling to Manitoba.

Right before they all got into the bandit’s jeep to drive back to the Russian’s train, Mac pointed some sixty or so yards in front of where they were standing.

“Good thing the Russian stopped the train.  The bandits had placed explosives on the track.  Probably would have derailed the train.  Apparently Yakov’s got these motion detectors sitting all along this stretch of tracks – about seven miles worth.  Anyone starts messing around on or near the tracks and his monitor inside the locomotive lets him know.   He says this area has always been trouble for bandits because the terrain allows them easy access to the tracks.  Once we get past here, that danger is quite a bit less, and then when we start heading back northeast, we’ll be so isolated, there’ll be almost no danger of bandits.  Smooth sailing he said.  When I pointed out we were on a train and not a sailboat, he told me to go to hell – said that while blood was pouring out of his leg.

“I’m really starting to like that Russian.”

Just before Reese put the jeep into gear Mac used his handheld communicator to let Cooper know they were all headed back to the train.

The drive back to the train was brief, and upon arriving, Reese and the others found both Cooper and Yakov working to replenish the engine’s firebox with coal.  Actually, it was Cooper who was doing the shoveling as the Russian stood scowling, muttering under his breath how the rancher was shoveling, “too slow – too slow”.  

Seeing the others, Cooper offered them a big smile as he stepped from the locomotive and gave both Reese and Dublin a brief hug.

“Reese, I take it you killed the bandits who took Dublin?”

Reese gave a brief nod of his head.

“Yeah – I did.  With Brando’s help.  He tore out the throat of one of them.”

Cooper Wyse didn’t appear surprised at the mention of Brando’s recent heroics.

“Sounds about right.  That dog can flat out fight if it’s needed.  As for you, Reese - well done.  Did good.”

Yakov remained inside the locomotive, trying to shovel coal on one good leg.  The other was wrapped tightly in white gauze.

Mac nodded in Yakov’s direction while addressing Cooper.

“Get him stitched up ok?”

Cooper shook his head as he glanced back in the Russian’s direction.

“Yeah – you could say that I suppose.  Got him back here, tied off the tourniquet a little more, and he grabs a bottle of vodka and pours it all over the wound.  Must have hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.  Drinks about a third of the bottle himself, and then tells me to heat up the backside of that same shovel he’s using now to cauterize the wound.  Says he doesn’t like stitches.  Calls them a waste of time.  I hesitated cauterizing it – figure there’s going to be a hell of a risk of infection.  He starts cursing me out, calling me things I don’t even understand, and grabs that shovel himself and pushes the back end of it right up against the wound on his leg.  Holds it there for about ten seconds and all you can smell is his skin burning to hell.  Terrible smell.  He looks down at it, pours some more vodka over it, wraps it up in gauze, and then goes back to shoveling coal like he doesn’t have a care in the world.”

Yakov leaned out of the locomotive and nodded at Dublin and Reese.

“Kill the Muslims?”

Reese answered back.

“Yeah – we killed them.”

The Russian nodded his head once.

“Good.  We go soon.  Ten minutes.  Be ready.”

Cooper Wyse, himself known to be a man who would rather do than say, shook his head at the Russian’s brevity.

As Bear rejoined the Russian in helping him shovel coal into the firebox, Mac and the others took their seats in the passenger car and waited for the train to start moving again.  Ten minutes later, just as Yakov had told them, the train began to inch its way forward.  It was at that very moment Brando’s head raised and he bolted from his position at Cooper’s feet to the back of the passenger car where he began to snarl and bark loudly.

Everyone else in the passenger car turned their head to follow Brando, wondering what could have the Doberman so agitated.  Cooper rose from his seat and began to make his way to the back of the passenger car, his eyes straining to see whatever it was the dog was sensing behind them.  The train’s speed was slowly increasing to nearly ten miles an hour.

“What the hell is that?”

Cooper’s question was barely heard above the din of the locomotive as it worked itself slowly down the train tracks, pulling the passenger car behind it.

The others joined Cooper at the back of the train car, looking out the same small window as the rancher was.  All of them inhaled sharply at the sight of the hellish nightmare that followed them.  Even Mac Walker, who had seen countless horrors during his seventy five years of existence, was both stunned and frightened at the sight.

“Oh my god.”

XXXV.

Hundreds of dark shaped monsters moved quickly toward the train, running with an odd hunched gait where their heads hung well ahead of their bodies, and their claw fingered hands would push them forward in unison with their feet, similar to how a monkey would run.  Their sleek, lean, hairless bodies were moving with considerable speed – much faster that the train was managing to travel at that time.  Unless the train’s speed increased more quickly, the creatures would likely catch up to them within another minute, possibly even sooner.

A particularly large seeker ran directly ahead of the others, its inhumanly wide mouth growing wider as it let out a prolonged, terrifying shriek that was immediately joined by the many other seekers who answered its call with equally shrill shrieks of their own.  Brando began to whimper, sensing the vast number of the monsters now nearing the slowly moving train.

Without uttering a word, Cooper Wyse opened the passenger car door and stepped to the small outside platform that hung off the back.  Both of his Colt pistols were drawn, and he began to take aim, pause a half second before each shot, and then shoot.  Each bullet found a target, eliciting a shrieking cry of pain from one of the creatures.  Only a few dropped to the ground though.  Others, though hit by one of Cooper’s bullets, continued running toward the train.  It took no more than fifteen seconds for the rancher to fire off all six shots in each of his guns.  He turned to look beside him as Reese, holding one of the assault rifles he had taken from the Muslim bandits, began firing repeated rounds into the dark mass of seekers.

In the front of the train, the Russian heard gunfire from behind the locomotive and stuck his head out the side and looked back to see the nightmare mass of creatures running to catch his train.  Yakov turned around to look at Bear, who was steadily shoveling yet more coal into the firebox, and uttered a single command to the big man.

“Shovel faster.  Shovel more.  Strange things behind us.”

Bear looked back at the Russian with a mixture of confusion and anger.

“What?”
 

His shouted question was ignored by Yakov, who was focused entirely on getting the train up to speed in a shorter time than he would normally have done..  Hoping enough steam was being produced without causing dangerous levels of pressure to build inside the boiler and valves, the Russian released more water into the system while carefully monitoring the water level just above the firebox.  Too much and the increase in the rate of speed would be too slow.  Too little and the firebox temperatures quickly become dangerous.

Determining enough coal was in the firebox, Yakov held up a hand signaling Bear to pause his shoveling.  The firebox was closed entirely, causing the water temperatures to spike upward.  Normally this process would have taken nearly thirty minutes.  Now the Russian was attempting to compress it into no more than ten minutes.

The train’s valves groaned under the strain, as massive clouds of coal ash belched from the exhaust chimney.  The speed indicator currently showed just twelve miles an hour.

Reese quickly emptied the AK-47’s standard 30-round magazine into the seekers.  He was able to see at least three of them collapse onto the ground and not get back up.  Hundreds more were still closing in on the train, their collective shrieks close enough to overpower even the noise of the moving train.  Reese was about to return to the inside of the passenger car to get another magazine but Mac was already stepping onto the platform with his trusted M16.  His skin color remained a pasty white, while his breathing continued to be a series of short, raspy, wheezing noises, but the former Navy SEAL had that look of calm determination Reese had become so familiar with seeing on Mac’s face during an imminent threat.