‘Cover me,’ she shouted to Amanda. ‘I’ve got to shut off the fuel pump.’
Lucy fired into the crowd. Headshots. She jumped from the carriage and found herself surrounded by a jostling horde of grotesquely mutated soldiers. Metal dripped from suppurating wounds like they were bleeding chrome.
They lunged. A circle of grasping hands. She switched full auto. She opened fire, and swung her rifle in a sweeping arc at head height. The crowd scythed by bullets. A rolling wave of skull fragments and brain tissue.
She ran for the fuel truck. Her path blocked by a cadaverous soldier. She cracked his skull with the butt of her rifle. He fell. She stamped on his head.
She reached the ladder. She slung her rifle and started to climb. Skeletal hands seized her feet and dragged her down. She thrashed and fought as she was dragged beneath the truck. She lay beneath the chassis, kicking at snapping, snarling mouths. Two soldiers clawed at her legs. She couldn’t release her rifle strap. She drew her pistol and fired between her feet.
Lucy rolled clear of the truck. Emaciated figures stood over her. Blood-caked hands reached down.
Gunfire from the carriage. Headshots. Three mutations fell dead. They slumped across Lucy and pinned her to the ground.
She squirmed free of stinking bodies. She grabbed her rifle from the dirt and ran for the carriage. Amanda leaned from the coach and held out her hand. She hauled Lucy aboard and slammed the door.
Lucy checked herself over. She patted down, looked for blood and torn clothing.
‘Think I’m okay. Didn’t make it to the pump.’
She climbed to her feet. She slapped sand from her rifle.
Fists pounded the side of the carriage. A steady drumming like heavy rain. They heard fingernails gouge the lacquered livery.
‘We have to unhook that fuel line,’ said Amanda. ‘Someone has to get on top of that tanker and hit the Off button. If we pull away while the truck is hooked up and pumping gas we’ll be incinerated.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Lucy, pointing at the carriage door. ‘Be my guest.’
The barricade blocking the doorway to the adjoining carriage began to tremble under heavy blows. The shriek and rasp of shifting furniture. The desk obstructing the door began to slide.
‘Bunch of them in the next coach,’ said Voss. ‘Must have piled through the windows.’
Lucy got to her feet. Voss stood unsteadily by her side.
‘Got any shotgun shells?’
Voss slotted five shells into the receiver of his Ithaca pump.
‘Last few.’
‘Let’s put them to good use.’
Lucy unhooked a frag grenade from her webbing. She pulled the pin.
‘Okay. On my mark.’
She gave the nod.
Amanda and Voss put their shoulders to the upturned desk and bureau and shunted them aside.
Three soldiers stumbled through the doorway and fell to their knees. Voss stepped forward, racked his shotgun slide and blew their heads apart.
Lucy looked through the doorway. Soldiers massing in the dining car, squirming through broken windows.
She released the safety lever of the grenade and tossed it to the far end of the carriage. The grenade bounced beneath the banquette table and rolled between rotted, dirt-caked combat boots.
‘Down,’ shouted Lucy. They threw themselves away from the doorway and covered their heads.
A muffled boom. Dust and flame.
They got to their feet. Carnage glimpsed through blue smoke-haze. The banquette table and chair blasted to fragments and draped in viscera.
A soldier lay among smashed furniture, struggling to move.
‘Leave him,’ said Lucy. ‘We don’t have time for this shit.’
Amanda ignored her. She kicked through wreckage, swung her machete and split the creature’s head with a single hacking blow.
They rebuilt the barricade. They shunted furniture against the doorway. They threw headless bodies from the train.
Soldiers climbed through the windows. Amanda delivered precise headshots with her Glock.
Voss fired his shotgun dry. He threw it down and picked up his rifle.
Sound of splintering wood. Amanda pulled a rotted Persian rug aside. A fist punched upward through the centre of the floor, shattering hard-wood planks. Clawed hands tugged at broken floorboards to widen the hole. A snarling, skeletal thing began to squirm through the aperture. It saw Amanda and hissed. She decapitated the soldier with her machete. The severed head rolled across the floor. She grabbed its hair and threw it from the window.
Lucy overturned a heavy table and slammed it across the hole. She threw the missile case on top of the up-turned table for added weight.
‘Use the grenades,’ she shouted.
They unhooked frag grenades from their webbing and pulled pins.
‘Keep them clear of the fuel truck. All right. Count of three. One. Two. Three.’
They hurled grenades from the carriage windows. They crouched and covered their heads.
One of the ghouls looked down as a grenade rolled in the sand at his feet, his expressionless face clouded by a moment of memory and doubt.
Eruption of dust and flesh fragments. Body parts littered the sand. Flesh and bone trampled by boots as comrades pushed forward to hammered the side of the coach.
The carriage was filled with blue combustion smoke and the bitter taint of chemical ignition.
Sat-com handset:
‘Angel Flight to Carnival, over.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Approaching target.’
‘Roger that.’
‘We got to roll,’ shouted Amanda. ‘Forget the fuel line. Just rip it loose and take our chances. We’re out of ammo. We’re out of time. We have to go.’
Lucy distributed the remaining mags. Amanda kicked among spent cartridges on the carriage floor, searched for bullets ejected during gun jams.
They loaded their weapons.
‘That’s it. Last rounds. All I got left. Make them count. Let’s retake the loco, and get moving.’
Voss shook out a couple of ammo pouches. A single 40mm grenade fell from a pouch and rolled across mahogany. Gold tip. High explosive. He put in his pocket.
‘Lucy. Mandy. It’s been a privilege.’
He pushed the carriage door wide. He shielded his eyes from fierce sunlight. A horde of rotted creatures jostled for him. They reached and clawed his legs.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ shouted Lucy.
Voss shouldered his rifle and emptied his mag full auto. He dropped the spent clip and slapped a fresh magazine into the receiver.
He jumped from the carriage doorway. A carpet of bodies. Horribly deformed soldiers closed in on all sides. He raised his rifle and lay a sweeping arc of fire in a four-second burst. Chests ripped open. Republican Guard hurled backwards, sent reeling.
He hitched the empty weapon over his shoulder and drew his Glock. He edged towards the fuel truck, delivering swift headshots as snarling, mutated creatures lunged for him.
He shot the weapon dry, then used the butt as a bludgeon. Hammer blows. He cracked skulls.
A soldier tore at his face, ripped skin above his eyebrow. Voss delivered a vicious head-butt. The creature staggered backward.
He threw the pistol aside, drew his knife and punched it through the revenant’s eye socket. It toppled backward, knife jammed in its head.
Voss gripped the ladder and climbed. Fingers clawed his legs. Teeth sank into his calf and ankle, tearing fabric, tearing flesh. He yelled in pain and anger. He kicked himself free.
‘Motherfuckers.’
He rolled onto the tanker roof. He hit the red Off button with his fist. The steady hum of the fuel pump died away.