He brought the Uzi up and sprayed the buildings along the track, shattering windows, gouging holes in brick. Wherever he saw a Red Stripe pop his head up, Mortimer squeezed off a burst and sent him back into hiding. He ejected the spent magazine, slapped in a new one. The muzzle smoked. His palms and fingers tingled from gripping the gun so tight, the pinkie stump throbbing.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Tyler placing the inoculation gun against thick shoulders, injecting the narcotic boost. It took only a few seconds. Veins pulsed along necks. Eyes bulged. Faces clenched. They pumped harder.
They picked up speed.
“Up there!” Tyler pointed ahead of the train.
A narrow pedestrian bridge crossed low over the railroad tracks. At least a dozen Red Stripes jogged across the bridge to take up positions. Mortimer edged around the pumping musclemen, ran to the front of the handcar and knelt at the very edge of the train. Cold wind stung his eyes. He brought up the Uzi. The men on the bridge leveled their rifles.
The Uzi bucked in Mortimer’s hands.
Red Stripes along the bridge clutched themselves, toppling over, their death screams filling the air. Mortimer looked back as the handcar and the first flatcar passed under the bridge. A handful of surviving Red Stripes leapt from the bridge onto the middle flatcar.
Tyler had finished drugging the pumpers and motioned to Mortimer. “Come on. Let’s get them.”
Get them? Fuck you. But he followed her.
The half-dozen Red Stripes were locked in hand-to-hand combat with the surviving few train guards. Mortimer climbed atop the cargo crates, leveled the Uzi but couldn’t get a shot. It was an erratic weapon, and he was as likely to hit the guards as the Red Stripes.
He saw Bill jump up from the theater seats and swing his rifle butt at the head of a Red Stripe, who ducked underneath and tackled the cowboy. They both hit the deck. Mortimer dropped the Uzi and drew the police special.
They were out of the town now, the train rolling along much faster. Tyler and Mortimer ran along the top of the crates, the rocking train threatening to toss them over the side. They hit the melee just as one of the guards took a knife in the stomach and dropped off the speeding train.
Tyler put her revolver against the back of a Red Stripe’s head, pulled the trigger. Half the Red Stripe’s head flew away into the wind, the body falling.
Mortimer went for the Red Stripe on top of Bill, but another stepped in swinging a club. It caught Mortimer in the gut. He whuffed air, tumbled over and hit the crates hard. He turned, fired his police special vaguely in the direction of his attacker.
The blast shattered the Red Stripe’s ankle. He yelled hoarse and agonized from the throat, hopped on his good leg for a moment before the train lurched and tossed him over the side, trailing blood.
Mortimer climbed to his knees, sucking breath and gagging. He probed his side with tentative fingers but found nothing broken.
He looked around. All of the train guards and Red Stripes were dead. Bill stood over his bloody opponent, Bill’s right eye swelling where he’d taken a punch.
Tyler stuck the revolver back in her waistband. “I think we’re past the Red Stripes for now.” She wiped sweat from her face. “If we can just get through the cannibals, I think we’ll make it.”
XIV
“I’m sorry.” Mortimer blinked. “But did you just say
“I’ll explain later. Right now the pumpers are overdosed and I have to bring them down before they all have heart attacks.” She dashed off in the direction of the handcar, her perfect balance a tribute to long experience on the rocking flatcars.
Bill flopped into one of the theater seats. “I’m out of shells for the rifle.”
“You okay?”
Bill nodded. “Guy jumped me before I could get the pistols out.”
“Stay here. I’ll see if she needs any help.”
Mortimer climbed forward after Tyler. He noticed the train had slowed again to the pace of a fast walk. He reached the handcar and found most of the musclemen slumped on the deck, eyes closed, massive chests rising and falling with shallow breaths. Greasy piles of meat. Only two of the big brutes remained to work the hand pump.
Mortimer watched Tyler put two fingers to a man’s throat, shake her head and roll him off the train.
“What happened?”
“His heart exploded,” Tyler said. “I couldn’t dose him in time. The two pumping are on a half-dose of downer juice. When they get tired, I’ll wake up two more to take over. Best we can do for now.”
“Can’t we just stop for a while?”
She shook her head, squinted up at the sun. “At this pace, we won’t reach our destination in daylight. It’s dangerous to run at night, but worse if we stop.”
Mortimer remembered she’d said something about cannibals. He gulped. “Right.”
