Free A Shrouded World (Book 2): Atlantis by John O'Brien, Mark Tufo

coupling or the zombies would have me. I looked to the next car, which seemed hopelessly far away. With my left hand firmly gripping the ladder, I reached out with my right. I was short.
    “Oh Talbot, I wish you’d think before you acted.” But that wasn’t who I was. I pulled myself back in tight as I could against the ladder, and then with all the force I could muster, pushed out and let go. I’d like to say I caught flight like a sparrow, but it was more like a stone. I reached out wildly with my right hand, completely missing the rung I’d been aiming for. My fingers bounced off the next rung down and still I plummeted. Something snagged my pants just as I caught the following rung. I pulled in close, grabbed with my left, and went up hand over hand as fast as I could, dragging a zombie halfway up with me before he fell loose. By the time I got to the top of the next car, I was bathed in sweat.
    “Yeah, this is going well,” I said as I caught my breath. “One down...” I let the tally go. I was already losing faith; I didn’t need to compound that feeling.
    “Come on, come on, come on .” I pounded on my legs. I could feel the hits and I knew my legs wanted to act, but a synapse was missing somewhere between me telling them to move and them actually responding. I dragged myself to the edge of the car. A small victory of sorts, since there weren’t as many zombies. Only takes one to ruin your day, though. I repeated my struggle on the next ladder, only this time not going as far down in the hopes that it would give me more of an opportunity to grasp a rung as I fell. Must have been the added adrenaline, but I got more of a push-off this time, and was rewarded with the solid thwack of my head on the ladder.
    I clambered up quickly, pausing at the top long enough to touch the tender spot on my forehead that would soon swell to the size of a golf ball. I scooted quickly, hoping I could outdistance the zombies. Out of sight, out of mind on their behalf, right? This held true to a large degree: by the fourth car, I was down to seven zombies—but they looked familiar. I’d started taking notice that it was the same pack from car to car. They knew what was happening and were no longer following my progress across the car, instead opting to wait for me on my downward approach. I only had to make one mistake, and they seemed to know that the odds were in their favor.
    “You guys suck,” I said looking down at them—although out of the seven, five were women. I’d known all along that women were smarter than men, this just proved it. In all likelihood, the two males were only here because they were following zombie tail.
    “Oh, that’s just gross,” I said, letting that image and all it entailed take hold in my mind. I was in the midst of turning myself like I’d done a half-dozen times already when I was wracked with another spasm—it was all I could do to not black out and roll off. My legs started firing off in different directions like I was the Lord of Riverdance.
    “What the fuck ?” I exclaimed, pulling myself away from the edge. My body was bouncing around like I was on a trampoline with a metric ton of Mexican jumping beans alongside me. After a long moment, my legs calmed to the point that they only twitched like a spider’s legs after being given a healthy dose of Raid. Once my eyes stopped rolling around, I took a glance toward the approaching motorcycles. They’d gotten closer and would certainly be upon us before I could move across another ten cars in this fashion. I looked to the front of the train. The sight of the engine compartment still eluded me. I won’t lie, I thought about calling it quits, finding what little cover I could, and taking out some of the bastards if the opportunity presented itself. If I was alone, that would have been my plan, but I had to keep trying. Due to the angle at which the motorcycles were approaching, odds were Jack and Trip had no idea of our impending