Dean tousled her hair before grabbing the tire iron. He took his first step on the trestle, looking down. Mistake. Vertigo rippled through him. Luther tugged him back by his pack.
“Bro, honestly, I don’t think you’re up to this,” Luther dickered as if Dean had lost his marbles.
Dean loosened his pack’s straps, giving him better agility. “I’m fine. I should adhere to my own advice and not look down.”
He stepped to the side of the gorge to size up the situation. The river roared a good fifty feet below. Whitecaps told him the river was rough. “Looks like a vessel of some sort got hung up on the rocks.” He zoomed in. “Yep.” Some poor sucker had taken a houseboat of all things down the river. Had he been out of options . . .
“Alrighty then, ready as I’ll ever be.” Dean poked the tire iron at what was left of the creosote-treated decking. The rails and ties had been stripped who knows when, leaving two narrow pathways on each side of a three-foot gap.
He banged two times on each section before stepping down, avoiding the rotted planking. Taking it step by step, he marked Xs on the sturdy planks, all the while refusing to look down at the river raging in all its glory.
He came to an area where the decking sagged. He jabbed it with the tire iron. Just as he thought. The old timber disintegrated into flaky chips and twirled down. Time to switch sides. He reached over and jabbed the planking on the left side of the track. Intact. He stepped light-footedly to the other side of the decking. That move might prove fatal for Twila’s short legs.
He made it to the bend in the tracks to be greeted by a tunnel blocked off with wire-meshing another fifty yards or so ahead. Well, at least he had the sense to carry an array of tools in his handy-dandy tool belt.
The trek was going smoother than he had anticipated. That was until the toe of his boot clipped something or other. He couldn’t seem to shake his boot free. He poked at the wood.
“Agh!” A gnarly hand reached up from below. Then, he smelled it. How’d one of those things get up here? He kicked the hand away with his other boot. It dawned on him. Clumsy, dim-witted dead-heads couldn’t climb the scaffolding. But, X-strains could. And X-strains traveled in hordes.
By the time he realized his peril, another ugly bastard popped up through the track’s center gap. He booted it in the head, ripping flesh from bone. Another popped up next to him. Dean reached for the Glock in his hip holster and squeezed-off two rounds into its flesh-molten face. A swift swing of the tire iron sent it reeling over the edge.
Spine-tingling howling rendered him deaf. For Christ Sake! How many are there? No time to count. He fired away at the grisly heads popping up from below. Until it was time to reload.
He reached for the loaded magazine in his hunting vest. Something grabbed him from behind. Dean tried to break loose, falling flat on his ass. The Glock fell through the center gap. Its dull thuds bounced off the lattice-framework, announcing his death warrant to the gorge.
The dead-head drooled onto his cheek, zeroing in for the kill-bite. And there was the tire iron. Within reach! Dean swung at it, sending it over the edge.
They were everywhere, at least a dozen anyhow. Dean hurried back as fast as he dared. He knocked one over the edge with a home-run swing. One of them yanked him to his knees from below. He went down kicking and yelling, hoping to warn his friends. Of course, they would have heard the gunshots by now. Knowing Luther, he’d be there any second. If Dean could just hang on a tad longer . . .
The X-strainer growled with the baring teeth of a rabid wolf. Dean resorted to his last move. He rolled to his side. Falling through the trestle’s gap. He banged against the timbers, grappling to stop his freefall. But, the sands of time claimed him as he slipped through the center of the hourglass.
Chapter 37
Luther Jones gobbled the last hunk of smoked fish with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach minutes after Dean left to inspect the bridge. I’m not liking this one iota, he mulled to himself.
He knelt beside the wheelbarrow and absentmindedly spun the tire. It still rubbed against the brace. He pried the frame from the wheel with his wrench until the wheel spun freely. He was sick of dealing with the piece-of-shit wheelbarrow. But sometimes Twila rode in it. After all, she was only a kid.
Why had Dean taken them through the damn desert? Frustrated, Luther sorted through the pile of supplies next to the wheelbarrow. They didn’t need two first-aid kits. Time for more downsizing. He tossed out the sissy bandages but kept the tourniquet and the long-expired antibiotic ointment. As far as he was concerned, the rest was junk, junk he was tired of hauling.
They had gone through their supplies numerous times, each time weeding out a little more. Like Justin’s big-ass tent. They had left it behind after losing the last cart much to Justin and Ella’s dismay. Thankfully, they had scavenged pup tents from the KOA campgrounds, which the adults wore strapped to their packs along with sleeping bags.
He deliberated over the pots and camp stove. He already had a camping cookware set in his duffle. As for the stove, well, he was ready to scrap it. But Ella wanted it. It must give her comfort knowing she could cook—when they had food. Their food and water had dwindled along with his patience. A dilapidated train bridge . . . had Dean lost
