Final Dawn: Season 1 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (24 page)

Rachel Walsh

12:22 AM, April 4, 2038

Still struggling with the pain dealt to her by the creature, Rachel slowly made her way out of the train car, rolling to the ground as she hopped out. Sam followed close behind, still limping but moving faster than he had been. Before leaving the train car, Rachel had checked his legs and he didn’t seem to have any broken bones, which she was exceedingly grateful for. As for herself, she was virtually certain that she had at least one or two broken ribs and a mild concussion.
Other than that, though, the play was fine
, she thought to herself, hobbling along the road back the way she came.

In the time it had taken Rachel to recover from the attack and move out with Sam, the train had made significant progress. For some reason, though, the silver masses had paid no attention to her and Sam, even with the gunfight and the roars emanating from the train car.
You’d think that would get their attention. I guess their weaknesses are bigger than I thought.

This lack of attention that they paid was not all good, though. With the progress made to the track, Rachel figured that she had 20-30 minutes at most before the track was fully repaired and the train could move at full speed again. Unless she was able to get to the handcar and her backpack before the train did, she and Sam would be stuck walking with no supplies and only one full rifle magazine.

The thought of losing her supplies in addition to their mode of transportation sped Rachel’s steps and they soon arrived at the handcar, right where they had left it. This time, the train was close enough to clearly discern all of the shapes on it, and she could swear that its speed had picked up. “Get up here, boy, c’mon!” Rachel coaxed Sam up onto the handcar and made him lay down before hobbling around to the front of the car. At the rate the train was coming, she knew she wouldn’t be able to pump it up to speed fast enough, so she leaned against the front, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out at the pain in her chest.

Rachel put out all her strength in pushing the handcar and finally got it moving back in the direction that they had come from. Her only hope was to get it off onto a small side rail that she thought she had seen about a quarter mile back on the outskirts of the city. She wasn’t positive that she had seen it, but thinking back to when they had rolled into town, she remembered seeing a thick stand of trees with some large rectangular shapes behind them. If it really was a side rail – and if she could make it there in time – then they’d be safe.
If not….
Rachel dared not think of what would happen to her and Sam if they became stranded.

Rachel continued to push the handcar, nearing the hopeful side rail, when she heard a great noise from behind her. The train’s engines both roared, gearing up to pull the train cars up to full speed. Rachel kept her eyes forward, not daring to look back. Up ahead, not even half of a football field away, was the grove of trees with the train cars behind them. As Rachel drew closer, she saw a small post standing near the outside of the grove.
A railroad switch! I knew it!
The switch on the post confirmed for Rachel that there was, indeed, a side track. If she was able to get the switch moved, she could push the handcar onto the side track, switch it back and let the train pass safely by on the main track.
Easier said than done,
she thought.

Rachel pushed the handcar up to the split in the track, letting it coast to a stop. She ran around to the back of the handcar and grabbed hold of the switch, pulling it hard towards her. With a loud groan the switch’s rust gave way and the set of switch rails slid over, opening the path to the side passage. Rachel headed back around to the front of the handcar to push it onto the side rail, nearly stopping as she saw the train rolling towards her, gaining speed with each revolution of its thundering wheels.
I’ve never seen a train pick up speed that fast, especially not one that loaded with cars and cargo. The swarms must have modified it somehow
. The train hadn’t slowed down during Rachel’s pause and she hurried to push the handcar out of the way, doing her best to beat the train.

Tired and in pain as she was, Rachel managed to get the handcar off onto the side rail without issue. She half ran back to the switch and began to pull it in the opposite direction as the train bore down on her, scarcely a hundred feet away now. While the switch had moved into place quickly enough before, it was less smooth this time, squeaking and nudging as she threw her body weight against it, but still not moving enough to shift the tracks. Panic built in Rachel’s mind and body and she thrashed the switch, trying to get it to move into position.

Finally, in a desperate attempt, borne of frustration and anger, she stepped back from the switch and gave it a mighty kick. She went toppling over backwards into the grass from the force of the kick. Time slowed as Rachel fell back, and she watched in slow motion as the switch slowly, incredibly, shifted. The last bit of rust and age gave way under the force of her foot and the rail clicked into place. Seconds later the train rolled past the switch, still gaining speed, its wheels clicking against the fork in the tracks.

Stunned, Rachel laid still in the grass, watching the train pass by, rolling towards the south to a destination unknown. Faint shimmers of silver smoke flowed around the train and its cars as it went along, ignoring both her and Sam. Long after the train and its cars had passed by, Rachel still sat in the grass, her breathing slow and labored as she watched off into the distance where the last train car had vanished into the night. Wherever the train was heading, if their purpose was for anything like Rachel suspected, she feared that even if she could reach Washington and her lab, it would be too little and too late to do anything about it.

For the moment, though, Rachel allowed the thoughts of the swarms and Washington and Richmond to all fade away. She put her head back and pulled Sam in close. Rachel stared into the heavens, watching as the clouds and smoke drifted high in the sky, looking for any glimpse of a star beyond the filth that clouded the once clear air as she slowly drifted off to sleep.

Undisclosed Location

March 17, 2038

In a long hallway lined with thick glass windows, two men in suits walk side by side, speaking in hushed tones. The sounds of compressed air and commercial machinery echo in the background, emanating from the rooms on each side of the hallway. Stopping in front of a window, the men pause to watch the work unfolding in front of them. The taller man speaks first.

“When will they be ready?”

“R&D says two weeks for final hardware fab, software another week after that.”

“Field testing?”

“As soon as everything’s uploaded, we’ll start the trials.”

“Contingencies?”

“Unknown. We’ve never done a test this big before. It could go perfectly or it could all go to hell. Bertha’s primed and ready, though. Anything goes wrong, she’ll take care of it, guaranteed.”

“What about the… incident, from last week?”

“Nothing to worry about, sir. We’ve taken care of it.”

The taller man turns to stare at the other, his steel eyes cold and emotionless. “We can’t afford to throw that resource away, no matter how much noise it makes.”

“Oh, absolutely. Once the testing is complete, she’ll be back.”

The taller man turns back to face the window. Both are silent for a moment, staring at the workers going on about their tasks. Men and women dressed in lab coats, wearing face masks and hair nets are rushing back and forth. They argue over figures, check numbers and verify sample batches, all in an elegant ballet of ordered chaos.

The men in suits continue down the hall, moving on to view the other rooms.

“Hard to believe it’s really happening, isn’t it, sir?” The shorter man speaks this time.

The taller man doesn’t respond, and the other doesn’t continue. The towering man speaks again a few minutes later, after they make several more brief stops in silence.

“Did the programmers fix the issue?”

An audible gulp precedes the response. “They’re… still working on it, I’m afraid. They think they found the source, but I’m not sure it will be ready by the time we go to testing. Still, we can always—”

“They will find it, fix it, integrate it and have it online before testing begins.”

A frantic fumbling of a phone, a short text message and a hushed call follows.

“All right, yes sir, it’ll be taken care of as you’ve said. There are just a few small techni—”

“Not my problem. Fix it, integrate it and have it online before testing happens.” The temperature in the hallways drops by several degrees with the response. “Don’t make me repeat myself again.”

The shorter man nods violently, stumbling over his words. “Of course, sir. If-if you don’t mind, I’ll g-go and personally oversee the, uh, the—”

The taller man dismisses the shorter one with a wave of his hand, sending him walking, then jogging, then running at full tilt down the hall.

Left alone, the taller man watches through the window, following the equipment around the room. Large vats are transported to conveyer belts with robotic arms, workers push and stir and mix ingredients, small lights and sensors blink on and off in a rainbow of colors. A smile creeps across the face of the man, so faint as to appear barely perceptible as he watches the final pieces being laid into place.

Marcus Warden

3:48 PM, April 3, 2038

Marcus walked along the shoulder of the interstate, a dozen miles from the first exits into Richmond.  Though it had been a full day since he lost the bicycle, he still cursed with every step, berating himself for not paying closer attention when he was riding through a section of crashed vehicles.

I could have gotten myself killed. I’m lucky it was just the bike. It’s not like that makes any difference, though. The bike’s still gone and here I am, stuck walking again, with six of those things somewhere behind me. I could have at least pushed the stupid thing and maybe found a bike chain somewhere up ahead, but oh no, I couldn’t bother to do that, could I?

After riding for a long time, Marcus had stopped for a few hours to rest, only to get up and continue again early the next morning. In his haste to put as much distance between himself and the creatures as possible, he took the bike through a large pile of wrecked cars a bit too fast. The tires had slipped on some broken safety glass, and though they didn’t pop, the bike slid out from underneath Marcus, breaking the chain and sending him tumbling headfirst into the ground. While the back of his head had been skinned up pretty badly, his physical injuries weren’t serious—though his pride did take quite a hit.

The more pressing problem had been the loss of the bike, rendered useless by the broken chain. Marcus had tried everything to jury rig it, including using one of his shoelaces to tie the ends of the chain together. After snapping off a piece of the shoelace after only a few feet, Marcus angrily tossed the bike aside and continued on foot. By the time he got far enough along to regret abandoning the bike, it was too late to turn around. He didn’t want to risk trekking back that far in the direction of the creatures.

Without a fast mode of transport, Marcus became more paranoid, jumping at every little noise and rustle of the trees behind him. Every few minutes a branch would snap, the wind would whistle or the bushes would shake and he would whirl around, ready to face one of the creatures. Without fail, the noises were always natural in origin, but Marcus continued to walk along at an anxious pace, jogging when able, trying to get as far down the road as possible.

It was late in the evening when Marcus finally reached the first exit to Richmond. It only led to some of the smaller communities surrounding the city, though, and Marcus needed to get into the city proper to find his parents’ house. He still had a long way to travel before reaching the exits to the main part of the city.

As he was walking by the dark green exit sign, a low vibration passed through the night air. Marcus didn’t notice it at first, but when the dull noise finally reached his ears, he flinched and instinctively leapt for cover, diving into the median and rolling into the underbrush. His first assumption was that the noise was the sound of the creatures or one of the silver swarms approaching. The noise rapidly became clearer as Marcus held his breath, and then he recognized it for what it was.

Is that… that’s an engine!

The vibrating sound coming towards him was most definitely an engine, and a loud one at that. Though Marcus was apprehensive about coming out of cover, he tried justifying it to himself.
It’s not like any of those creatures have been driving around, so it’s got to be a person.
The prospect of merely having another living person to speak to filled Marcus with hope, and he climbed out of the median and stood on the shoulder of the road. Marcus shielded his eyes from the bright glare of the evening sun as he strained to see the vehicle that was approaching.