AMKent books

Steam plummets into the dimming sky, slashed with malice reds and ice blues that still into the horizon, the giant locomotive digs a grinding halt into the tracks. Three men step towards Harrison, the leader of the salvage group, clutching at weathered rifles decorated with rusted bayonets. Hanging from their layered worn jackets reside chipped knives stained in old blood and large sheets of iron with a makeshift handle acting as a shield. He signals the door after the men wait for sounds of threat outside, one of the non-combat passengers approaches the leader asking that they check the residence of his lover. Harrison agrees, folding gently the address into his coat pocket and raising his rifle off the ground. He brings his palm to the surface of the thick iron door and draws it open into the defragmented order that lies outside the sanctity of the train. The other men follow with vigilant squints enhancing the ruffles under their tired eyes. Boots tread across the grass as four men walk in a rotatory fashion, each guiding the other, each acting as a heightened peripheral. The door to the giant iron malformed train closes, seven knocks in one, one two patterns are required to reopen it. The deserted buildings gain size as the locomotive shrinks, gargles and muffled wails spit forth from corners unknown. Stealth is vital as bags are filled with food and drinks, and rooms of abandoned houses are checked but present nothing but rotting corpses or nothing at all. The men throw empty glass bottles out into opposite streets to distract any threats, yet the place looks entirely left alone, even by death.

“The noise is coming from the woods beyond the town. Something must have drawn them in.”

Harrison smiles and nods, gaining confidence in his step along with the other men who follow his demeanor. They laugh about instilling royal statuses amongst one another in this new world order, the younger of the men proclaims that this apocalypse saved him from a less fulfilling life. Not a bird in the sky, but the force of night wings edges the twilight ever closer, and the less the light sees mortal man, the more death grows of interest.

“Are we going to check for the woman?”

“What woman?”

“The lover, he was begging me to let him speak to you before we left, he said he wanted to hand you something.”

Harrison pulls the folded paper from his pockets and eyes the address.

“Not too far.” He murmurs.

The men follow him as he takes an exaggerated lead, he thumbs the blunt end of his bayonetted to clean any dried blood.

“He told me they were childhood sweethearts, real cute. He never stops talking about her to the old woman we picked up a few towns before here.”

Harrison says nothing, he just continues to thumb his rifle and scout out smashed windows for any sign of movement in the buildings that surround them.

“Makes me wish I had something like that.” One of the men chunters.

The men walk through unkempt gardens and broken picket fences, they take turns calling out the numbers of the houses before they reach the residence of the lover. The men are signaled to throw a bottle through the upstairs window, but there is no response. After a minute the door is kicked in, and the woods in the distance echo with howls and cries and begin to fade into the dark. Time is creeping up on them, and as the men realize this, they enter the house subduing any further caution. An awful smell warms the house, growing in strength as they reach a boy’s bedroom. Harrison opens the door slowly with his rifle aimed solidly against his shoulder, there is nothing but a dead young man. He is missing a nose, and both his ears, fingers, and wrists are deeply slashed as deep yellow bone peaks through the fat and red sludge.

“They get him?”

“He did this to himself, looks like he was trying to distract them.”

“What? By cutting himself into this mess?”

“They are not all mindless, some are voyeurs.”

The men agree that there is nothing more to see or be done in the boy’s room and as such they go to the next room where they are hit with three dead bodies, two of which are lying on each other.

“Fuck, the girl underneath the woman, that matches his description.”

Her eyes explode open as she crackles a desperate call for help, she has not the strength to move the dead woman off her. Her cheeks are sunken, it is clear to the men that she has been here for several days hiding amongst her dead family. Harrison crouches down and drags the dead mother away, the other men stand watching the door and the window.

“What happened here?”

“They infested the whole town; my brother distracted the one in the room next door whilst I hid amongst my mother and father.”

Harrison pulls a bottle of water out of the backpack; her voice is so weak that he must lean closer to fully understand her.

“Have you seen my brother?” she cries.

Harrison looks to the ground and subtly nods.

“He’s not alive, is he.”

He unscrews the lid from the water.

“Charles sent us.” He tells her.

“He is with you?”

Harrison takes a large sip of the water and screws the lid back on. He stands as she laughs tears of joy.

“Charles is with you!” she exclaims.

He looks to his men watching the door and window, they turn and look at him.

“Your name?” she wheezes.

“Harrison.”

“What should we do with her? We are running out of time.”

He looks back at her, she is trying to sit upright.

“There is nothing left to recover in this town.”

Night falls fast and the voices that resonated exclusively within the woods begin to draw back into the town. Harrison and his men hear floods of feet stamp out of the grass and fill the town that slowly leaves them in the distance. The younger man pushes forward and applies the signifying knock to the train, the door opens and the men pile in. They all drop their backpacks onto the hard wooden floor of the large cargo crates that are attached to the rear of the locomotive. Charles runs towards Harrison but is stopped by two of the men he left with, he quickly sees that she is not with him and begins to fall to pieces.

“The town got flooded, they were everywhere. We managed to check the house, but it was empty. Chances are she moved to the town ahead, or maybe towards the source like us. Either way, there is nothing more in that town for any of us than the supplies we managed to salvage.”

The men move Charles back into the civilian area of the train, he whimpers back to the old woman who hugs him and fills his head with false hope. Harrison drops his rifle into the weapons cabin along with the other men, he grabs the younger man by the shoulder before he can leave.

“Hope is hope, it’s an idea, if it’s true or false it doesn’t matter, that’s only a statement. You got it?”

The young lackey nods in a slightly shaken manner, Harrison pats him on the shoulder and leaves to his quarters by the front of the train. An announcement is made by the conductor, the train will begin to move within 5 minutes, all personnel on board should make sure that all apertures are tightly secured. Several checks are made before the train begins its descent further towards the source. Charles sits down with the old woman; she rubs his hands gently.

“You will find each other, I know it.” She smiles.

Charles breaks down placing his forehead into her ancient knuckles, she grits through the tears herself, one must always be strong if another is weak, she tells herself. Two of his acquaintances catch onto his sorrow and go over to further comfort him. The first is an older man with a rough face, and thick white and black hairs riding to his eyes from his chin. The second, a woman in her early 30s, prides herself on what others comment on as a tomboy appearance. She has short, choppy hair and a dress shirt rolled up to her elbows, her forearms are detailed with ink poke tattoos of gravestones from the fallen that are significant to her. The old woman looks at them both and smiles, none of them particularly trust Harrison, however, this train is no democratic society, and they are in no room to strike against authority wherever it may lay. Charles informs them of the situation, and they both console him, instilling the same false hope as the old woman did. Harrison’s men guard the entrance to the next coach, rifles firmly gripped complimented with mean faces and dead eyes. Both the newcomers sit down at the table with Charles, who has managed to pull himself together.

“Charles, isn’t it?” the tomboy asks.

“Yes, yes. I know your name.”

“Just call me Zee, I always liked that name.”

Charles looks to the man beside her.

“Call me… Plato.”

“You can’t be serious?” laughs Zee.

“It means broad, and I am broad and smart just like the man himself.”

“Zee and Plato, I’ll stick to Charles.”

Even through the thick metal walls of the locomotive, screams and thuds seep through any gap they can. The horrors that lie outside are too much for many on the train, so only the strongest soldiers are permitted to leave, hand-selected by Harrison himself. Quiet tongue tells a tale of Harrison statured at the summit in an ordered society before the apocalypse had begun. A man in the shadows who pulled the strings behind some of the largest economic events that the rumbling of reverbed through even the most poverty-stricken. Many easily accepted the instilled hierarchy on the train, as they had throughout society, the train had become a place of class, with one’s capital no longer being that of money, but of social utility. It is a common word amongst those with nothing that in times when power in wealth no longer holds value, the rich would eat one another. However, this was not the case, and despite the harsh segregation of class throughout an old order, humans were still humans, and what separated them was nothing more than the will of the soul. The train chugs along, its thick plummets of steam filled with the sensations of a crowded and scared batch of survivors evaporating at the sight of the stars. The four speak amongst themselves at the table, old memories come to life through animated expressions and subtle movements of fingers and arms. Possible futures are skimmed through but not given much deeper analysis, in trying times the past and future are what time consists of as the present is nothing but despair. Words fill hearts and minds until tired eyes are ready to dream of something better, the four souls part ways with handshakes from Charles and words of gratitude.