Grady, Kat and the rest hung back as the fellowship laid Vera Pendaltine to rest. Nobody knew what to do except Tye. On Respite, people were floated out to sea on a bamboo raft made by their family. As it was cast out it was set afire, and as the ocean took the dead, everyone partied until dawn.
“You’re burying her in the ground?” Milly said. She was appalled.
“This is how it was done in the gone world. If we left her here, the animals and virals would get her, and we’re hell and gone from the sea.”
Tye put Vera’s body into the hole with Peter’s help and covered her with dirt as everyone watched. Then he found a stone and placed it on top and stood back.
“May the earth reclaim you into her glory,” Tye said, and made the sign of the cross.
“Since when do you believe in witchcraft?” Milly said.
Tye said nothing.
“You guys ready to hump out? We’ve got a long way to go to get to the rendezvous point,” Grady said.
“Where we going?” Milly asked.
“Stadium,” Kat said. “Our home.”
“Why is it called that?” Jerome asked. Hansa hadn’t known.
“Cause that’s what it used to be,” Kat said.
They hiked for two days over green pasture, the grass high, with nothing but a sporadic dilapidated barn or house between them and the cloud-filled blue sky. Milly was struck by the vastness of it all. The world had felt huge to her in the forests of Mexico, but she realized now how confining that had been. The flat green plains stretched to the horizon in all directions, and Milly thought she might walk off the edge of the world.
A loud bellow made Milly jump as she walked and everyone laughed. A cow bleated, and she still wasn’t used to the huge creatures roaming around. They made her nervous even though Kat said they weren’t dangerous. After Milly’s first steak, she wasn’t scared anymore. Grady explained that the virals, which they called zombies, were afraid of the bulls and wouldn’t go anywhere near the cows.
They walked along an old highway, many of the concrete sections still in one piece and smooth. Other parts had been washed away, and eroded, and fields of grass and brush grew over spots where water had left large deposits of silt. They peeled east when the town of Corpus Christi came into view on the horizon and after a morning hike on the third day, they came through a thicket to a set of train tracks.
Up on the tracks surrounded by armed men and women was a train.
Milly froze.
Grady chuckled. “It’s an American Locomotive made in 1908. As you can see, we made some changes. It used to run on coal. It was made in old New York, and was a tourist train in Austin before the end,” he said.
Milly had never seen a train, but even she could identify the modifications. An oversized smokestack had been added behind the cab, and metal-spoked support bars spread around the black soot covered exhaust in a haphazard pattern. Steel plates and walkways were welded all around the nose and sides, and a gun turret with a mounted machinegun had been added before a smaller smokestack on the train’s nose. Armor plating covered the wheels and push rods, and wing-like flairs of twisted metal protected the long conical boiler. Piping ran in stacked rows atop the boiler, and there were nests where a person could hide. A supply car piled with wood was behind the engine followed by four box cars, their sliding doors open.
“You guys get attacked a lot, huh?” Tye said.
Grady stopped and put his hand on Tye’s chest. “You trying to be funny?”
“Thing looks like a tank. That funny?” Tye said.
Kat stepped forward. “You ever see a zombie nest?”
Tye shook his head no.
“They’re like ants. They have queens, some of which have litters of ten or more,” Kat said.
“That’s how these things multiply?” Tye said.
“We think it has something to do with the disease, but the nests can have hundreds of them. Think bees,” Kat said.
“You’ve seen this?” Milly said. Now that she thought about it, the Uruks looked a little like bees.
Grady and Kat looked at each other.
“No, they haven’t,” Tye said.
“You’re a real wise-ass for someone who just had his nuts shaved,” Grady said.
Kat said, “A guy named Tester showed up a few years ago, a greenie outcast. Turtle preacher. The greenies don’t like that crap. He told us about a lot of stuff. But, yeah, I’ve been in a nest. With Tester’s help we burn out nests when we can, otherwise eventually these things will overrun the world.”
“We’re wasting time. Get up in there,” Grady said. He pointed at the second boxcar.
Milly noticed everyone’s eyes on them, like they were exotic animals. She held her head high and her companions did the same. They climbed into the boxcar and were directed to a corner where they sat on the floor. All kinds of things Milly didn’t recognize sat in piles and stacked on shelves. Some she could tell were furniture, electronics and hardware, but she didn’t know what most of the stuff was.
Men and women ranging in age from teenagers to old men packed in with them. Grady joined them. He was their guard. He wore a pistol on his hip and twirled a small club.
“Those solar panels?” Tye said. He pointed at a rectangular piece of reflective glass.
“Sure are. Rare finds unbroken. Usually we just salvage the circulator pumps and power packs,” Grady said.
Kat joined them and told everyone in the car they were leaving in five minutes. The floor vibrated and Milly looked to Tye.
“The engine is building steam pressure in the boiler, getting ready to move the train
