Zero Hour

Chapter Two

 

  Billy sat on the floor between two rows of seats, working at the handcuffs with a paper clip he'd found on the floor. One of the cuffs was off, the right one, bashed open when the jeep had gone over, but unless he wanted to be wearing a jangly and rather incriminating bracelet, he had to get the other one off.

  Get it off and get the hell out of here, he thought, pushing at the lock with the thin piece of metal. He didn't look up, didn't need to remind himself of his whereabouts; he didn't have to. The air was heavy with the scent of blood, it was splattered all over the place, and although the train car he'd found was empty of bodies, he had no doubt that the other cars were full of them. The dogs, has to he those dogs. . . though who let them on?

  The same guy they'd seen in the woods, had to be. The guy who'd stepped in front of the jeep, sending it crashing out of control. Billy had been thrown clear and except for a few bruises, was pretty much unscathed. His MP escort, Dickson and Elder, had both been trapped beneath the overturned vehicle. They'd been alive, though. The human roadstop, whoever he was, was nowhere to be seen.

  It had been a tough minute or two, standing there in the gathering dark, the hot, oily smell of gas in his face, his body aching, trying to decide--run for it, or radio for help? He didn't want to die, didn't deserve to die, unless being trusting and stupid was an offense worthy of death. But he couldn't leave them, either, two men pinned under a ton of twisted metal, injured and barely conscious. Their choice, to take some unpaved backwoods trail to the base, meant it could be a long time before anyone happened upon them. Yeah, they were delivering him to his execution, but they were following orders; it wasn't personal, and they didn't deserve to die any more than he did.

  He'd decided to split the difference, radio for help, then run like hell . . . but then the dogs had come. Big, wet, freaky looking things, three of them, and then he was running for his life, because there was something very, very wrong about them; he knew it even before they'd attacked Dickson, ripping his throat out as they pulled him from beneath the jeep.

  Billy thought he heard a click and tried the handcuff, hissing air through his teeth when the metal latch refused to budge. Goddamn thing. The paper clip was a lucky find, though there was shit everywhere--papers, bags, coats, personal belongings-- and blood on just about all of it. Maybe he'd find something more useful, if he looked harder . . . though that would mean staying on the train, and that didn't sound like much fun at all. For all he knew, this was where those dogs lived, holed up here with that crazy asshole who liked to step in front of moving cars. He'd only come aboard to avoid the dogs, to regroup, try and figure out his next move.

  And it turns out to be the Slaughterhouse Special, he thought, shaking his head. Talk about out of the frying pan, into the fire. Whatever the hell was going on out in these woods, he didn't want to be a part of it. He'd get the cuff off, find himself some kind of weapon, maybe grab a wallet or two out of all the blood-splattered luggage--he had no doubt that the owners were long past caring--and hightail it back to civilization. Then Canada, or Mexico, maybe. He'd never stolen before, never considered leaving the country, but he had to think like a criminal now, if he wanted to survive. He heard thunder, then gentle taps of rain against some of the unbroken windows. The taps became a tattoo, the blood-scented air thinning with a gust of wind through a shattered pane. Dandy. Apparently, he'd be hiking out in a rainstorm.

  "Whatever," he mumbled, and threw the useless paper clip against the seat in front of him. The situation was seriously FUBAR, he doubted it could get much worse--

  Billy froze, held his breath. The outside door to the train was opening. He could hear the metal sliding, the rain getting louder, then quieter again. Someone had come aboard.

  Shit! What if it was the maniac with the dogs?

  Or what if someone found the jeep?

  He felt a sick, heavy knot in his stomach. Could be. Could be that someone else from the base had decided to use the back road tonight, maybe had already called in when they'd seen the crash--and learned that there should've been a third passenger, a certain dead man walking.

  Maybe he was already being hunted.

  He didn't move, straining to hear the movements of whoever had come in from the rain. For a few seconds, nothing--then he heard a soft tread, one step, then another. Moving away from him, toward the front of the car.

  Billy leaned forward, carefully sliding his dogtags under his collar so they wouldn't jingle, moving slowly, until he could just see around the edge of the aisle seat. Someone was stepping through the connecting door, thin, short--a girl, or a young man, maybe, dressed in a Kevlar vest and army green. He could just make out a few letters on the back of the vest, an S, a T, an A--and then he or she was gone.

  S. T. A. R. S. Had they sent out a team looking for him? Couldn't be, not so fast--the jeep had crashed maybe an hour ago, tops, and the S. T. A. R. S. didn't have a military affiliation, they were a PD offshoot, no one would have called them in. It probably had to do with the dogs he saw, obviously some mutant feral pack; the S. T. A. R. S. usually dealt with the weird shit that local cops couldn't or wouldn't handle. Or maybe they'd come in to investigate whatever had gone down on the train.

  Doesn't matter why, does it? They'll have guns, and if they figure out who you are, this taste of freedom will be your last. Get out of here. Now.

  With man-eating dogs running around in the woods? Not without a weapon, no way. There had to be some kind of security on board, a rented uniform with a gun; he just had to look. It would be a risk, with a S. T. A. R. S. on board--but there was only one of them, after all. If he had to . . . Billy shook his head. He'd seen his share of death in Special Forces. If it came down to it, here and now, he'd fight, or ran. He wouldn't kill, not ever again. At least not one of the good guys.

  Billy crawled to his feet, keeping low, the handcuffs dangling from his wrist. He'd look through the stuff in this car, first, then move away from the S. T. A. R. S. interloper, see what he could find. No point in having a confrontation if it could be avoided. He'd just--

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Three shots, from the car ahead. A pause, then three, four more . . . then nothing.

  Apparently, not all the train cars were empty. The knot in his stomach tightened, but he didn't let it slow him down as he picked up the first briefcase he saw and started to dig.

  The first train car was empty of life--but something very bad had occurred there, no question.

  A crash? No, there's no structural damage . . . but so much blood!

  Rebecca closed the door behind her, shutting out the thickening curtain of rain, and stared at the chaos around her. The cabin had been a nice one, all dark wood and expensive carpeting, the light fixtures antique, the wallpaper flocked. Now there were newspapers, suitcases, coats, bags open and spilled across the floor--it looked like there'd been a crash, and the drips and smears of blood that liberally dappled the cabin's walls and seats backed up the scenario. Except where were the passengers?

  She stepped further into the train car, aiming the handgun up and down the aisle. There were a few low lights on, enough to see, but the shadows were deep. Nothing moved.

  The back of the seat to her left was stained with blood. She reached out and touched the large splotch, then wiped her hand on her pants, grimacing. It was wet.

  Lights are on, blood's fresh. Whatever happened, it happened recently. Lieutenant Billy, maybe? He was wanted for murder . . . Unless he had a gang with him, though, it didn't seem likely; the destruction was too widespread, too extreme, more like a natural disaster than some kind of hostage situation.

  Or more like the forest murders.

  She nodded inwardly, taking a deep breath. The killers must have struck again. The bodies that had been recovered had been torn apart, mutilated, and the crime scenes had probably looked exactly like this blood-spattered train car. She should get off now, radio the captain, call
in the rest of the team. She started to turn back to the door--and hesitated.

  I could secure the train first.

  Ridiculous. It would be crazy to stay here by herself, stupid and dangerous. No one would expect her to check out a murder scene alone--assuming any-one had been murdered. For all she knew, there'd been a shooting or something, and the train had been evacuated.

  No, that's stupid. There'd be cops all over the place, EMTs, helicopters, reporters. Whatever happened here, I'm the first one on the scene. . . and securing the scene is the first priority.

  She couldn't help wondering what the guys might say when they saw she'd handled things herself. They'd stop calling her "kiddo," for one thing. At the very least, her rookie status would be behind her that much quicker. She could take a quick look around, nothing major, and if things seemed even the slightest bit dangerous, she'd call in the team, pronto.

  She nodded to herself. Right. She could handle a look-see, no problem. A deep breath, and she started for the front of the car, carefully stepping through the scattered luggage. When she reached the connecting door, she braced herself and quickly stepped through, opening the second door before she lost her nerve.

  Oh, no.

  The first car had been bad, but here, there were people. Three, four--five that she could see from where she stood, and all of them obviously dead, faces ravaged by unknown claws, bodies drenched in dark wetness. A few were slumped in seats, as if they'd been brutally murdered where they'd been sitting. The smell of death was a palpable thing, like copper and feces, like rotting fruit on a hot day.

  The door automatically closed behind her and she started, her heart beating fast, faintly aware that she was way out of her league, she needed to call for help--and then she heard the whispering, and realized that she wasn't alone.

  She aimed her weapon at the empty aisle ahead, not sure where it was coming from, her heartbeat going double-time.

  "Identify yourself!" she said, her voice firmer and more authoritative than she expected. The whispering continued, choking and distant, strangely muted in the otherwise silent car, like she imagined a crazed killer might sound, sitting and whispering to himself after a murder spree.

  She was about to repeat herself when she saw the source of the whispering, halfway up the aisle on the floor. It was a tiny transistor radio, apparently tuned to an AM news station. She walked toward it, dazed by a sudden rush of relief; she was alone, after all.

  She stopped in front of the radio, lowering her semi-automatic. There was a body in the window seat to her left, and after an initial glance, she avoided looking at it; the man's throat had been slashed, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His gray face and tattered clothes were shining with viscous-looking fluids, making him look like a zombie from a bad horror movie.

  She bent and picked the radio up, smirking at herself in spite of the fear that still coursed through her. Her "crazed killer" was a woman delivering a news report. The reception was bad, the tiny unit hissing static at every other sentence.

  Okay, so she was an idiot. In any case, it was time to call Enrico, and Rebecca turned, thinking she'd get better reception if she stepped back outside, and the movement that came from the window seat was so slow and subtle that for a moment, she thought it was just the rain she was seeing. Then the movement groaned, a deep, low sound of misery, and she understood that it wasn't the rain at all.

  The corpse had risen from his seat, and was moving toward her. His misshapen head lolled back and to the side, cruelly exposing the mauled flesh of his throat, and the moaning grew deeper, more yearning, as he stretched his arms in front of him, his ruined face dripping blood and slime.

  She dropped the radio and took one stumbling step back, horrified. She'd been wrong, he wasn't dead, but he was obviously out of his mind with pain. She had to help him. Not much in the medkit, there's morphine, though, gotta get him to lay down, oh, God, what happened here-- The man shuffled closer, reaching for her, his eyesockets filled with white, black drool spilling from his torn mouth--and in spite of what she knew was her duty, to do something to relieve his suffering, she reflexively took another step back. Duty was one thing, her instincts were telling her to run, to get away, that he meant to do her harm.

  She turned, not sure what to do--and there were two more people standing in the aisle behind her, both as slack-faced and damaged as the white-eyed man, both moving toward her with the steady, staggering movements of horror movie monsters. The man in front wore a uniform, he was some kind of train attendant, his face gaunt, skull-like, and gray. Behind him, a man whose face had been partly torn away, revealing too many teeth on the right side of his mouth.

  Rebecca shook her head, raising her weapon. Some kind of disease, a chemical spill, or something. They were sick, they had to be sick--except she knew better even as the three men moved closer, raising bony gray fingers, moaning with hunger. Maybe they were sick, but they were also about to attack her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

  Shoot! Do it!

  "Stop!" she shouted, turning back to the white-eyed man, he was closer, too close, and if he was aware that she was pointing a handgun at him, he gave no sign. "I'll shoot!"

  "Aaaahh," the monster rasped, grasping for her, baring dark teeth, and Rebecca fired.

  Two, three shots, the rounds tearing into the discolored flesh, the first two hitting his chest, the third blowing a hole just above his right eye. With the third shot, the creature let out a mindless squeal, a sound of frustration rather than pain, and fell to the floor.

  She spun again, praying that the sound of shots had stopped the other two, and saw that they were almost upon her, their eyes glazed, their moans eager. Her first shot hit the uniformed man in the throat, and as he reeled back, she aimed for the second man's leg. Maybe I can just wound him, get him down--

  The uniformed man started forward again, his throat gurgling blood.

  "God," she said, her voice small with shock, but they were still coming, she didn't have time to wonder, to think. She raised her aim and fired two, three more times, all head shots. Blood and flesh sprayed, torn. The two men went down.

  Sudden silence, stillness, and Rebecca's wide gaze searched the car, her body thrumming with adrenaline. There were two, three more "corpses," but none of them moved.

  What just happened? I thought they were dead.

  They were dead. They were zombies. No, there was no such thing. Rebecca checked to be sure there was another round in the chamber, doing it automatically as she struggled to understand. They weren't zombies, not like in the movies. If they'd truly been dead, the shots wouldn't have made them bleed like that; blood didn't pump if the heart wasn't beating.

  But they only went down after the head shots. True. But that could still mean some sort of disease, maybe something that blocked pain receptors . . .

  The forest murders. Rebecca felt her eyes widen even more, putting the pieces together. If there had been some kind of chemical spill or sickness, it might have affected any number of people up here in the woods, making them attack others. There'd been recent reports of wild, feral dogs, too--was it possible that the sickness was trans-species? Some of the victims had been partially eaten, bites made by human and animal jaws on at least two of the bodies.

  She heard a soft movement, and stopped breathing. Back by the door she'd come through, a seated corpse seemed to slump lower in its seat. She watched it for what seemed an eternity, but it didn't move again, the only sound that of the rain outside. Corpse, or victim of some tragic circumstance? She didn't want to find out.

  Rebecca backed away, stepping over the man with white eyes, now very much dead, deciding she'd try the door at the front of the car. She had to get off the train, tell the others what she'd found. Her head spun with what needed to happen next--the community would have to be alerted, a quarantine set up, right away. The federal government should get involved, too, the CDC or US
AMRID or maybe the EPA, an agency with the power to close everything down, figure out what had happened. It would be a huge undertaking, but she could really contribute, really make a--

  The corpse at the back of the car shifted again, its head settling against its chest, and all thoughts of saving Raccoon fled from her shocked mind. Rebecca turned and ran to the connecting door, sick with fear. All she wanted was out.

  It didn't take too long to find a weapon, and as luck would have it, Billy was intimately familiar with the standard-issue MP handgun he found in a duffel bag stuffed under a seat. It was the same kind that his escort had carried. There was a spare clip and a half box of 9x19mm parabellum rounds, too, as well as a flip-top lighter, another handy device to have around; one never knew when fire might be necessary.

  He loaded up, stuffing the clip into his belt and the extra rounds into his front pockets, wishing he had his fatigues on instead of civvies. Blue jeans weren't the best for carrying shit around. He started to look for a jacket, then decided against it; even with the rain it was a warm night, and slogging around in wet denim would be bad enough. The small pockets would have to do.

  He stood at the door that led back into the woods, weapon in hand, telling himself that he needed to get gone--and yet not leaving. He hadn't heard anything from the S. T. A. R. S. kid since those seven shots. Only a few minutes had passed; if the kid was in trouble, it wasn't too late for him to step in and--

  Are you crazy? his brain shouted at him. Go! Run, you idiot!

  Right, of course. He had to leave. But he couldn't get the ring of those shots out of his head, and he'd spent too long as one of the good guys to turn his back on one of them, if they needed help. Besides, if the kid was dead, that would mean an extra weapon.

  "Yeah, that's it," he mumbled, perfectly aware that he was searching for a more criminal-minded reason to justify his decision. There was no help for it; he had to go look.

  With an internal groan, Billy turned away from the door, from freedom, moving instead to the front of the car. He stepped through the first door, hesitating a beat in the connecting joint before grasping the handle to the second, into the next car. The only sound was the rain outside, working its way into a real storm. As quietly as he could, he slid the second door open and stepped through.

  The unmistakable smell hit him first. His jaw tightened as he surveyed the car, counting heads. Three in the aisle. Two up ahead on the right, and one directly to his left, slumped down in a seat. All of them dead. The man in the road. . .

  Billy frowned, realizing that any one of the corpses around him could have passed for the dork who'd stepped in front of the jeep, causing the crash. He'd only caught a glimpse of the guy, but remembered thinking that he'd looked sick. Maybe one of these people--but no, they'd been dead for days.

  So what was the kid shooting at?

  Billy moved closer to the nearest corpse, squatting next to it, taking in the wounds with a trained eye as he breathed shallowly through his mouth. The guy had been dead for awhile; part of his right cheek was missing, making him appear to grin widely up at Billy, and the edges of the torn tissue were rotting, black with decay. And yet there were one, two bullet holes in his brow, and a pool of very fresh blood surrounded his head and upper body like a red shadow. Billy touched the pool with the side of his hand, his frown deepening. It was warm. The next closest body, a train attendant, looked pretty much the same, only one of the wounds was in his throat. He was no Einstein, but he wasn't entirely incapable of logic, either. The fresh blood could only mean that these people just looked dead. And the fact that they were now full of holes suggested that they'd tried to attack the lone S. T. A. R. S. member.

  Which means I'd better be damned careful, he thought, rising to his feet. He looked back at the body in the seat now behind him, his gaze narrowing. Had the man moved, or was it a trick of the light? Either way, he'd just as soon be somewhere else.

  He hurried up the aisle, stepping over corpses, trying to watch all of them at once and cursing his need to find the S. T. A. R. S. kid. If only he didn't have a goddamned conscience, he'd be long gone by now.

  He slipped through the two doors, weapon ready as he entered the next car. It wasn't a passenger car, wasn't as nicely decorated; from the entrance, he could only see a short corridor that turned up ahead, and two closed doors to his right, a few windows opposite. He considered checking the rooms, aware that it would be the smartest move--turning your back to an unsecured area was a bad call--but he was starting to think that his conscience could go screw. He didn't want to secure the entire train, he just wanted to see that the kid was okay and then get the hell out. And if said kid doesn't show up in the next couple of minutes, I'm deboarding anyhow. This sucks.

  "Sucks" wasn't the word, it didn't begin to describe the low terror he felt in his gut--but he'd seen fear cripple the strongest men, and knew better than to dwell on thoughts of monsters and darkness. Better to laugh it off as a bad dream and get on with things.

  He edged down the corridor, moving silently, sliding along the wall as the hall jagged right and then continued on, past an open door with a spill of cardboard boxes blocking the entrance. Storage room, probably. There were no bodies, at least, but a smell of rot hung in the air. The few unbroken windows he passed reflected a pale shadow of himself, only blackness and rain outside. He noted with dismay that some of the glass from the shattered panes was inside the car, scattered across the dark wood floor . . . Which suggested that someone had been trying to get in, not out. Creepy.

  It looked like the corridor jagged left again up ahead, just past another closed door labeled conductor's office. He had to be near the front by now--

  --and he saw a second pale shadow up ahead, reflected in a window, directly past the turn. He stopped, held very still, watched as the figure crouched down, his or her back to the corridor, oblivious to any threat from behind. If it was the S. T. A. R. S. , he or she needed more training. Billy took the last few steps and raised his weapon, moving in behind the crouched figure. He knew he should avoid a confrontation--the kid was obviously fine and dandy, and he had other places to be--but he also wanted to know what was happening, and this might be his only chance for information.

  The S. T. A. R. S. member turned, saw Billy, and slowly, slowly stood up, facing him.

  "Kid" isn't far off the mark, he thought, staring down into the wide, innocent eyes of a teenager, a girl. God, were they hiring out of high schools these days? She was small, at least a half foot shorter than he, and pretty--reddish-brown hair, slim, muscular build, even, delicate features. If she weighed more than a hundred pounds, he would have been surprised.

  She'd been crouching in front of a dead man, his savaged body slouched in the corner next to the car's exit, and if she was surprised to see him, she hid it well.

  "Billy," she said, her young voice clear and melodic, her words making him grit his teeth. "Lieutenant Coen. "

  Shit. Someone had found the jeep, after all.

  He kept the gun raised, aimed directly at her right eye, playing it cool. "So. You seem to know me. Been fantasizing about me, have you?"

  "You were the prisoner being transferred for execution," she said, her voice taking on a hard edge. "You were with those soldiers outside. "

  She thinks I did it, that I killed them, he thought. It was written all over her pixie face. He realized then that she probably didn't know a thing about what was going on, if she hadn't connected the walking-corpse-guys to what had happened to the jeep. And he saw no reason to disillusion her. She was trying to look tough, but he could see that he intimidated her. He could use it to get out of this.

  "Uh-huh, I see," he said. "You're with S. T. A. R. S. . . . Well, no offense, honey, but your kind doesn't seem to want me around. So I'm afraid our little chat time is over. "

  He lowered his gun, then turned and walked away, his gait easy and unhurried--as though he wasn't the slightest bit concerned b
y her presence. He was counting on her obvious inexperience and fear of him to keep her from acting. It was a calculated risk, but he thought it would pay off.

  He tucked his weapon into his belt at the small of his back and was halfway back down the corridor when he heard her jogging to catch up. Shit shit.

  "Wait! You're under arrest!" she said firmly.

  He turned to face her, and saw that she hadn't even unholstered her weapon. She was doing her damnedest to look fierce, but she couldn't pull it off. If the situation had been less serious, any less bizarre, he would have smiled.

  "No thanks, dollface. I've already worn the handcuffs," he said, holding up his left hand and jangling the hanging cuff. He turned and started away again.

  "I could shoot, you know!" she called after him, but now there was an edge of desperation to her voice; he kept walking. She didn't follow, and a few seconds later, he was back through the first connecting door.

  He opened the door to the car of dead passengers wearing a shaky grin, relieved. It was better this way, every man for himself, and all that--

  --and he saw that the dead man who'd been slumped in his seat at the back was now standing, swaying, his one remaining eye fixed on Billy's position. With a moan of hunger, the creature shambled forward, reaching out with shredded lingers as though to feel his way to where Billy stood.