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

they did not show. I wanted to walk up top, but the curvature of the car had me concerned. I found middle ground and crab-walked across. I was happy I had no company on the other side. I listened intently as I got down on the next coupling. I held on to the ladder to see just how much weight my legs would bear. I finally let go, wobbling a bit but otherwise staying erect. Yeah I said erect, it’s my journal.
    “Now or never, Talbot,” I muttered, referring to getting down on the ground and making a run for it. I peeked down the line of cars on the right: there were some zombies, but they were from the original pack and were far enough away that they did not even notice me. The Trio were around somewhere, though. I started walking, sometimes stumbling a bit and falling against the train. If this were a sobriety test, I’d be spending the night in jail. I made it the length of one car without eating dirt, turning constantly to see if any zombies were coming.
    “Gotta pick it up, man.” I started a slow trot and immediately braced for impact as the ground came up to meet me.
    “This sucks,” I said, spitting dirt out of my mouth. I got up and started again. I teetered, I tottered, but it seemed I had gone into Weeble mode—I wasn’t going down. Although, I now had company. I had a four-car lead, so somewhere in the neighborhood of a football-field head start.
    “Move motherfucker, move.” I shifted up another gear, from stumbling idiot to power walk. It wasn’t going to cut it; I fished out my weapon and kept going. I’d gone two more cars and they’d halved the distance. My plan was one more car and then start firing. Have I ever told you how much my plans suck? Apparently I was being chased by an Olympian. I was five feet from my goal when I was impacted from the rear and my legs folded in on themselves. I dropped the gun as I once again tasted dirt.
    I spun, the zombie was reaching for my neck with her mouth. Long black lines of spittle hung from her cancerous-looking maw as she snapped wildly. I had one hand on her chest and the other wrapped around her neck. It was not lost on me that my fingers were sinking into the soft, rotten flesh around her esophagus. Any harder and I could punch holes in it. If her friends caught up, I was a goner. I pushed her away, not nearly as far as I’d hoped, and she sprang up impossibly quicker than I. She dove again; this time I narrowly missed the steel of the coupling as we once again went to ground.
    “You fucking bitch,” I grunted as she tore into the collar of my jacket. I wrapped both of my hands around her neck and lifted up while simultaneously pushing off with my legs. I was now under the heavy steel coupling, and her head was above it. I pulled in with all the strength I could muster, shattering her front teeth against the metal. Bits of blackened bone littered my face. I did it again and again, maggoty meat raining down into my eyes and mouth, until finally a black ooze intermingled with gray brain matter began to drop off the train and down toward me. My legs finally got the message that they should be onboard with the rest of my body, and they helped propel me out from under before I got too much zombie stew on me. Not all of it, mind you, and I might have started to shut down mentally in disgust if not for a couple of issues.
    The newly formed Deadly Duo were close, and so were the motorcycles. I ran, not even remembering that I was without a weapon. I wasn’t at a full-on sprint, but I was keeping pace with the zombies, maybe even making some gains. I considered hopping onto a car and taking care of them, and that was when I realized that my gun was lying in the dirt.
    “Oh, that’s just fucking perfect.” I may have said that, more likely thought it. I was pissed. My legs were beginning to protest the demands I was making of them, but they’d have to file a grievance later. I’d done close to a quarter mile when I finally saw the engine car—actually,