“I need your help now,” she said. “Get to the back end of the train and keep watch. We don’t want anything crawling up our tailpipe while we’re going this slow.”
He flicked her a two-finger salute and headed back the way he’d come. He picked up the Uzi along the way and paused to tell Bill he’d be guarding the back of the train.
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled here,” Bill said.
Mortimer went into the gear and found a box of 9 mm ammunition, winked at Bill and headed back.
He sat with his feet dangling over the back of the last flatcar. The track dwindled behind. Forest had cropped up on either side, although he occasionally glimpsed a stretch of road or power lines, a small abandoned house. A barn. He thumbed new shells into the Uzi’s magazine, reloaded the police special. He wished he had cigarettes. Mortimer had never smoked, but lighting up a Lucky seemed like something soldiers on guard duty did in the movies.
Miles and hours crept away, never to be seen again.
In spite of the cold wind on his neck and ears, Mortimer started to drift, the rocking train easing his eyelids down. He slumped, the Uzi heavy in his lap. With the adrenaline rush from the attack fading, the aches and nausea of his hangover seeped back into his body. He’d pay a hundred Armageddon dollars for three hours back in the hotel bed.
Joey Armageddon’s, the hotel, the food, the drink, the lights. It had all fooled Mortimer, lulled him into forgetting the world was now a wild and broken place. Could Anne survive out here? This savage country where women were bought and sold like cattle. She seemed far away, and here was Mortimer inching along on a train powered by sweaty men. Mortimer had read those Conan the Barbarian novels as a teenager. It took a barbarian to live in such a world, someone brutal and ruthless with the survival instincts of an animal. Mortimer wasn’t a barbarian. He was an insurance salesman. He felt suddenly small and fragile. He needed Starbucks and Krispy Kreme and Jiffy Lube.
Mortimer dreamed of Anne in a metal bikini like the one Carrie Fisher wore in Return of the Jedi. But she wasn’t chained to Jabba the Hutt. She was chained to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not the Conan Schwarzenegger. It was Arnold from
This is my woman now, said the Terminator.
No! That’s my wife.
Take him away, barked the Terminator.
Men grabbed him, took him to the Thunderdome, where Mad Max tried to kill him. No, not Mad Max. Mel Gibson handing him a big wooden cross. Carry this. He stuck a crown of thorns on Mortimer’s head. The thorns tore flesh, blood running into his eyes.
Mortimer looked at the blood in the palm of his hand. The blob of blood became a glowing light, blinking red. Michael York grabbed his arm. Run! Run!
Mortimer ran. He was in a bright city. They were chasing him. He ran and ran until the world was a blur, a forest, then a desert, then the ruined buildings of a deserted town. Anne! Anne! Where was she? And even if he found her, then what? How would they live? Where would they go? Mortimer thought he was rescuing her. He couldn’t even save himself.
He felt somebody grab him, looked up at Kurt Russell with long hair and an eye patch.
Leave me alone. I’m too tired.
“I said wake up.” The voice had become feminine but with a hard edge.
Mortimer started, blinked. Kurt Russell’s face morphed into somebody else. Only the eye patch remained.
“You’d better not be falling asleep,” Tyler warned.
Mortimer dug the sleep out of his eyes with a thumb. “No, of course not.”
“Uh-huh.” Tyler looked doubtful. “It’s going to be dark soon, and I need you on your toes.”
“I hate to even ask this, but when you say
Tyler leaned down, pinched the flesh of his cheek. “They’d fry you up and serve you with little red potatoes, man. Now stay awake.” She went forward again.
“They’d find me very chewy,” he shouted after her.
Great. I’m going to be an entree.
The train crawled along like an anemic box turtle. The sun sank, and in the final orange fuzz of daylight, Bill came back to the end flatcar, sat next to Mortimer. He cradled the lever-action rifle, the last rays of the sun making his complexion ruddy and outdoorsy. He looked like the cover of a Louis L’Amour novel.
“She wants you up front,” Bill said.
What now?
He clapped the cowboy on the shoulder. “Stay awake.”
He made his way forward, moving more easily this time, getting used to the sway of the train. He found most of the sleeping meat snoring on the deck of the handcar, except for the two at the hand pump. Tyler waved him over, handed him a big, heavy flashlight.
“Get up to the front of the train. It’ll be full dark soon. I don’t usually like to run at night, but it can’t be helped. I need you to watch for obstructions.”
“Right.” He started for the front.
