Pachmayer stood grim-faced. He waved at the soldiers who were still close by, and they pulled the door closed. He then looked down the track at the fifty cars similar to the one they had just opened.

  “Fuck,” said Gigi.

  “Must have been from the early days of the outbreak. Trains were used to keep the infected bodies away from the population centers. I guess this one never made it to its destination,” said Pachmayer.

  “Shouldn’t they have been in bags or something?” said Gigi.

  “I guess they ran out of them.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Joel sat in the small back office of the warehouse which contained frustrated and angry hybrids. He had been keeping a close eye on them from above. Pacing back and forth, watching for any sign that one of them would suddenly go full psycho and tear into the others. They might be hybrids but they were all still walking blood bags ready to be fed upon.

  Now though he needed to get some rest. It was late afternoon, and he had forgotten the last time he had allowed sleep to take him. If he didn’t close his eyes soon, he was going to pass out, or whatever the equivalent would be for a hybrid. He had no idea where Marina was. She disappeared some hours back with Flint and hadn’t been back since.

  The door opened and in walked Anna. She looked tired.

  She fell heavily on a small chair near the door, dropping an empty blood bag on the carpeted floor.

  “How are they all?” said Joel.

  “Not happy to be here.” She leaned back and the chair creaked.

  “They all had a choice not to take my blood.”

  “Not much of a choice, death or a hybrid… but yeah, I know what you mean.”

  She untied her hair and let it fall onto her shoulders. She noticed him looking.

  He leaned back and began to close his eyes when he felt a gust of wind and her lips were touching his. He went to back away when the door opened again, and he didn’t have too because Anna quickly stood up, correcting her hair.

  Marina was standing in the doorway. “Umm… There’s something you should both see.” She turned and walked away along the gantry.

  Joel, his mind still confused by what happened, stood and followed Marina outside. Anna stood in the empty room for a moment then did the same.

  Soon all three were outside in the parking lot. The clouds were still stubbornly covering the sky, and a watery autumn sun made the countryside around them looked monotone and lifeless.

  “You found another dog?” said Joel.

  Flint was playing with another dog. A black and white border collie.

  “Not just any… other dog. She’s like Flint, she’s changed.”

  Joel and Anna both looked at Marina, then at the dogs.

  “How do you know?” asked Anna.

  “I found her in a shed in the wrecking yard across the road. Probably been in there months, without any food or water. She was barely alive, but after some animal blood, well you can see the result… oh, and her eyes gave off a green glow in the shadows.”

  Joel slid his hand over his chin. “How do we know she’s not… you know, dangerous?”

  The collie was chasing Flint across the lot, moving much faster than a border collie should be running. Both dogs came together kicking up a dust plume then surged away again.

  “Does she look dangerous?” said Marina.

  It took Joel some time to get used to a vampiric dog, which he presumed was a freak of nature, now there was another.

  Marina let loose a strong whistle and the collie ran over and jumped up at her. “I’m calling her Shadow.”

  “Okay then,” said Joel. He and Anna went to walk back to the warehouse door, then Marina looked across to him.

  “Could I talk to you for a moment?”

  Anna acknowledged the direct request to only talk to Joel, and continued walking and closed the door behind her.

  “What is it?” said Joel. Anna’s kiss jumped back in his mind, which he quickly pushed aside.

  Marina took in a deep breath as if carrying a heavy burden. “I… can’t keep hating you. I mean… there’s a part of me which will never forgive you for taking Jess’s father from her. You did that—”

  “I…”

  “— Let me finish. But what you don’t know is that I had decided to leave him. Going to my sister’s was I guess the first step. Obviously, I never got to take the second step, and it will always be with me, that he died trying to get to me without knowing that I wanted things to end. When I learned what I did… well, there’s no point going back into it. So yeah, I just wanted you to know I don’t hate you… umm, anymore.”

  Joel let out a breath and nodded. “Okay.” He looked at Flint and Shadow chasing each other in circles. “So now we got two crazy dogs… you’re not going to find anymore are you?”

  Marina smiled. “I’m not making any promises.”

  *****

  “That’s…” Pachmayer cleared his throat. “Forty-eight cleared…” His words sounded muffled due to the scarf wrapped across the lower half of his face. He backed away from the mound of rotting bodies that laid on the gravel near the track.

  Dalton pulled open the forty-ninth train car door, and instantly a creature lunged at him. His surprise didn’t stop him from catching the thing by the throat and held it aloft as it dangled. It was a naked female vamp. Before it had a chance to lift its clawed hands to slash at his arms, he snapped its neck and threw it with the other bodies.

  Pachmayer looked up at the big man looking for any sign of emotion at what just happened, but on not seeing any he cleared his throat again and started pulling the other human bodies off the car with a group of other soldiers.

  As they came close to emptying it, a shudder ran through the tracks, and an accompanying chugging noise bellowed out from the other end of the train. Small plumes of smoke lifted into the air from the locomotive engine half a mile away.

  A stifled cheer was heard in the distance.

  Pachmayer put his gloved hand on the frame of the car, needing the support. He blew out his cheeks. “One more to go.”

  A short while later they were standing looking up at the engine. A woman with dark marks across her face, and an older man, both in uniform looked down at them from the train cabin.

  Pachmayer smiled. “Great work, both of you. Did we bring enough fuel?”

  “It already had plenty,” said the man. “Bit of a mystery why they abandoned it here, but—” He looked at the dried blood smeared across the small double windows. “Looks like they didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

  “I wonder what its destination was,” said Carla.

  “Last stop is on the coast.” Pachmayer looked up at the two engineers. “We ready to leave?”

  “Yup, Captain. Ready when you are,” said the man.

  Pachmayer, Gigi, Dalton, and Carla moved to the next car along, and jumped up inside, but left the large door open. Even so, the smell still had them standing near the open gap.

  They watched as the vehicles they traveled down with, including Keller in the Humvee, drove back the way they came.

  “If things go well we should get back before they do,” said Pachmayer.

  A jolt made everyone grab the inside wall of the car, and the gravel bank, metal fencing, and gray buildings outside started to move to the right. They all sat near the open door, Gigi and Dalton sitting closer to each other than the other two.

  As the train picked up speed, Pachmayer leaned back against the inside frame of the door, pulling his helmet off and placing it in his lap. He watched Carla looking at the fields and forests passing by.

  “So what you think of the camp?” he said.

  She looked at him as if being woken from a dream. “Oh… umm, you seem to have a good system in place.”

  “Good system? We sweated blood and tears to get that place up and running! I’m especially happy with the fact that we now have three coffee shops!”

  She smiled. She knew the captain wanted to talk, but visions of hordes of vamps, their eyes dark but emitting a green glow, clambering across the fields and over the walls of the prison, kept pushing itself into her mind. She had hoped that such thoughts would pass now they had found a safe haven, but they clung to her psyche, reminding her that nowhere was safe. Her instincts were just doing their job she thought.

  Pachmayer saw the anguish on her face and leaned forward towards her.

  “So any news on the corporation's forces?” she blurted the question out in an effort to get outside her own mind.

  Pachmayer looked disappointed at the seriousness of the question and rested his head back on the frame. “You’ve had more meetings with the general than I have over the past day. You tell me.”

  “We should be doing recon north of the camp. Send some squads to satellite towns—” She stopped, seeing he was smiling.

  “Done and done. Like I said, the general is a smart lady.”

  A few yards away Dalton sat against the back wall of the car, his top half lost in shadow. Gigi sat awkwardly nearby, intermittently glancing his way hoping he would start a conversation. Finally, he did.

  “There’s something you want to say?” he said without looking at her.

  “When did you find out you weren’t like the other vamps? That you were a wolf.”

  He sighed. “Long story.”

  “Well, we—”

  The train jolted again, but this time it was followed by the world outside slowing down rapidly.

  Pachmayer got to his feet, hanging onto the door frame and leaning outside. He went to lift his radio to his mouth but stopped on seeing the scene along the track.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” said Carla, standing. She leaned outside and saw the same as Pachmayer.

  The train jolted one last time and came to a stop. They jumped down onto the side of the track as other soldiers in the car behind did the same.

  A hundred yards ahead of them was a scene of mangled metal carnage. Cars, trucks, semis. Vehicles of all types and sizes laid crushed and smashed across the tracks. Above them, a fifteen-foot piece of barrier along the side of a highway, which passed over the tracks was missing.

  Pachmayer and Carla walked past the train engine and up to the first of the crumpled vehicles. A maroon sedan, which was under a dark blue pickup. He raised his radio to his lips, as he looked at the low position of the sun on the horizon. “Telford. When you get back to the camp. Tell them, we’re not going to be able to make it back before tonight. Over.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Daniel Copeland stood in the living room of his parents Beverly Hills’ home. The doors, which ran around two sides of the walls, were open to the two acres of land outside, and the breeze coming in was not doing much to cool him.

  His mother was lost somewhere on sunset boulevard, but his father was home. He was always home having retired at the age of thirty-seven when he cashed out in the mid-eighties. That was twenty years ago.

  His father leaned back in the designer leather chair and picked up his cocktail. The staff made him one promptly when the sun was nearing the horizon each day. Today’s choice was a Bloody Mary.

  “So go ahead then. You say you have something to tell me?” said his father.

  The younger Copeland straightened his back. “I’m dropping out of university.” Despite his nervousness, the words came easy. He had been practicing all night.

  When the actual event took place, his father merely smiled, and wished him luck on his new endeavor, not caring what his son did. But that was a memory, and this was a dream. And in this dream, his father was Rynon.

  The king was dressed immaculately in a white suit and tie. And the cocktail had been made with real blood.

  Copeland looked back to the garden, it was gone, replaced with a desert. A sun-baked surface on which even invertebrates couldn’t survive.

  “You say you have something to tell me?” repeated Rynon, his words booming.

  Copeland looked at him, but now he was on a black stone throne and rather than standing in his parents’ home he was in a temple-like space, with pillars many feet thick and an arch stone ceiling that was lost in shadows hundreds of feet above.

  Copeland thought to say the same thing again, that he was dropping his business course in favor of a startup opportunity when he realized he was older now. That was years ago, now he was serving the kings.

  “Take him back to his cell, he has nothing to say…” bellowed Rynon. His brothers who were seated in smaller thrones either side of him started laughing. Rynon joined in.

  Copeland couldn’t understand what the joke was, but then looked at his hands… human hands. He looked at his arms and legs. All human. He was no longer even a Drak. He was back to what he used to be. A lowly human.

  “Yes you are right, brother, let us all feed upon him. He will at least tide us over until dinner!”

  They all got off their thrones and started walking towards him, their eyes turning black, and their hands becoming claws. He was to be eaten.

  Copeland jolted awake in his cell, opening his eyes, and then immediately closing them as pain shot through his pupils and into his brain.

  He wanted to cry out for them to turn the lights down, that he could not take the constant light a moment longer, but no words came from his lips. Not that he was being brave, he knew there was no point. Nobody would respond. They didn’t even care enough to torture him directly.

  His eyes felt moist.

  Tears?

  He scoffed.

  Pain, not tears. I cry in pain.

  “Why did you leave me, Father?” said Jasper dressed in all white in the opposite corner of the cell.

  Copeland wasn’t sure if his eyes were open or closed, but he could see his son, nevertheless.

  Not real. Madness.

  Jasper was not wearing his usual sunglasses, instead, his natural eyes looked upon his father.

  “You are not real!” said Copeland.

  “I am alone, Father.”

  “No, no. You are with them. The enemy.”

  “I wander the wasteland, Father, looking for you…”

  Copeland’s rage burst from him. “No!” he screamed across the cell.

  He was alone. Only blank walls looked back at him. The air in his lungs sunk from his lips and he sat back on the small bench.

  *****

  “What was that?” said Carla, looking into the wall of trees just visible at the edge of the pool of light cast by a lantern that was resting on the gravel.

  Dalton, Gigi, and a group of soldiers heaved on the back and side of a silver pickup, one of the last to be moved. It slid off the back of a coupe then rolled back away from the track.

  Dalton stood sniffing the air. “We got some visitors. About a mile out.”

  “Human or vamp?” said Pachmayer.

  “Vamps,” answered Gigi.

  The broken highway above them was at the edge of a small town. Some of the soldiers had already explored some of its streets and buildings not finding any sign of life, vamp or otherwise.

  They all looked at the last remaining vehicle. A black semi-truck that was laid on its side across a part of the track. Its loaded trailer had landed on its wheels and was to the side behind it.

  Dalton walked to it, pressed his hands onto the chassis and heaved. His form started to enlarge and muscles bulged but he remained in human form. It remained fixed to the spot. He relaxed and stood upright. “This is gonna be a problem,” he said over his shoulder to the others watching.

  More creaking of wood came from the forest at the top of the nearby bank of long grass.

  Pachmayer looked at the soldiers. “Baxter, Hume, and Cantrell. I want your M4s on that bank of trees.”

  The soldiers walked away from the track, each covered in sweat and knelt pointing their rifles at the woods.

  The captain looked back at the obstruction on the track and then at the train.

  Carla knew what he was thinking. “It might work,” she said to him.

  He nodded and looked at the engineer that was still in the train engine’s cabin. Waving his hand in a circle he shouted. “Fire it up, we’re going to try and push this truck out of the way!”

  The clatter of gunfire filled the air as three vamps sprinted out of the darkness of the trees and were almost on the soldiers when they were dropped.

  Dalton walked towards them, then looked back to the others. “Lots more coming!”

  “Everyone back on the train! We’re getting out of here!” shouted Pachmayer.

  Everyone, including Dalton and the soldiers, got to their feet and ran to the train jumping up inside the open cars.

  Pachmayer jumped up inside the train’s engine cabin and hung out of the open door. “Take us forward,” he said to the driver.

  The older man increased the throttle and the train jolted then slid forward slowly.

  More vamps burst from the trees, each of them only getting a few feet before neon streams cut them down.

  The train neared the wreckage.

  “Slowly now…” said Pachmayer.

  The piercing sound of iron and steel scraping against each other filled the night as the front of the train collided with the truck’s cabin and immediately started to shunt it along the track.

  “Come on…” said Pachmayer under his breath. “Give it more juice,” he said to the driver.

  The train increased in speed pushing the truck further forward. Suddenly, its trailer pulled it back and it slid off the track and onto the gravel.

  Sparks flew up as the train's wheels hit the front of the truck, making Pachmayer pull back inside, but soon they died down and the train was moving without restraint.

  He looked at the driver. “Faster. We need to get this train back.”

  The forty-minute journey to the camp was uneventful. As they neared the section where the walls intersected the track, the barrier had been removed and the train and its collection of freight cars moved inside, and a few miles later stopped in the middle of town alongside an old building that used to store grain. A number of soldiers, officers, and the general were waiting.