Discovery

ground, with his head near hers.

Katie fell forward over Kaleb and the man rolled until he was on his stomach and then pushed himself upwards in a move that defied the laws of gravity. Katie, however still had a gun, she didn't need to get to her feet to shoot either, instead she caught herself with her hands, then rolled over onto her back. As soon as Kaleb regained his feet he was hit in the side of the head by a single shot from her pistol, this time when he dropped he didn't get back up.

The girl flailed backwards with one elbow catching Randy in the head and knocking him momentarily off balance. She took advantage of the situation to spin around beneath him, then planted a short blow into his groin when the opportunity presented itself. Randy let out a moan and started to fall sideways, but it was merely a feint to get his hands on his pistol. The clip had been lost in the quick fight, but he grabbed the gun nonetheless. The zombie girl tried to push his leg up off of her, then, when that failed she put her mouth down to his thigh and bit down. Screaming Randy tried to get off of the girl, as he moved she came with him, her mouth attached to his inner thigh like a vise. Bringing his gun around he put it to the top of her head and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed through her head and exited messily out of the side of her neck, instantly her jaws relaxed, dropping off of his leg a moment later.

Katie was on her knees in the hallway, staring at Randy. “I always keep one in the chamber, even when I reload.” he said. Katie didn't reply. At first Randy thought she was concerned about his bleeding leg, then he noticed the blood splatter against her camo suit, looking closer he saw the small hole in at the center of the blood splatter, right above her stomach.

“You shot me.” Katie said, before tumbling sideways onto the floor.

Chapter 31

Max arrived in Osceola the morning after the military men had come to collect him from Bill's house. Stewart was by his side and the two were now dressed in military fatigues. The military authorities had not given Max a choice, they had drafted him using the emergency legislation that the state of Iowa had enacted and taken him away from his crying children after giving him only a short opportunity to say goodbye.

The men were polite, but firm in their insistence that Max go with them. It was only after Stewart had taken one of his handlers aside that they agreed to let her come with Max as a 'body guard', the man she had proven her skills on wasn't permanently damaged. It was four thirty in the morning, according to Max's watch, and the train was already loaded up and almost ready to go. They were waiting for one more squad of men before they left, on board the train there were already two squads led by Colonel Leroy Draper, a tall, fit African American who was not happy to have Max along, but he had been briefed on the plan and had even added a few details to it himself. It was Draper who waited with Max, Stewart, and another soldier outside the train. Draper was older than Max expected, the man had to be close to his own age. Despite the age difference he looked much more fit than Max. 'He is built like a brick shithouse,' Max thought, sizing the other man up. As near as Max could tell he was the highest ranking soldier he had met so far.

“No need to try the saluting and other bullshit with me.” came Draper's voice, it was soft, deep and full of southern twang, “You ain't a soldier, even drafted, without some training. You just say 'Hey Draper' or 'Hey Leroy', don't bother with anything else.”

“Do we have a chance?” asked Max, the question he had been wanting to ask the last twenty hours.

Draper turned on him and stared intently into Max's face. “You.” he said, sticking one beefy hand into Max's chest, “You are our chance. Don't fuck this up. We get in, we kill the bastard who needs killing, we get out. Don't kill me and my men Max.”

“When will this other squad get here?” asked Stewart to fill the void after Draper's short speech.

“I think this is them now.” said Draper pointed at the headlights of a truck that was heading their way. “A squad of volunteers, really dumb volunteers, which is why we have to bring them back. Their only job is to protect the train.”

Max had a sick feeling in his stomach as he watched an old army truck pulled up, his feeling was made worse when he saw the first man to dismount. “No.” he whispered, then turned to Draper, “No. Not him, not his squad.”

“You know him?” Draper asked, surprise in his voice, “I thought you were from Colorado?”

“He is my buddy from way back, I should have known he would volunteer, but how did he know?”

“The sergeant?” asked Draper pointing at Bill who was helping an older man from his squad off of the truck. “He volunteered, he said something to his officer about the train, it worked its way up the command line and when we were looking for someone to watch our transportation, they gave it to him. Ten guys with all the ammunition they need should be able to hold this train against anything.”

The train was down to an engine, a tanker to hold extra fuel, a single passenger car and a flatbed loaded with two armored personal carriers and a half dozen motorcycles. The flatbed was the last car in the line and the motorcycles were on the front of it. One squad was riding in the armored personal carriers to man the vehicle weapons, one squad was split between the engine and the fuel tanker, which had two machine gun emplacements embedded into it and the other two squads were to ride in the passenger compartment. Max had asked about the fuel tanker and Draper had said it was a relic left over from the cold war, the guns were even Vietnam era fifty caliber monsters, but the thing had never been used before, not even to protect the rail lines in the countries the United States was involved with. When Max had asked about it Draper had said, “Who would want to be on that car? I mean it is up armored to carry fuel, but an rocket propelled grenade would cut through it like a hot knife through butter and then ka-pow! That is fuel Max, explosive fuel. It was not a good design, but we have one and we are not expecting the natives to be firing rpgs at us. It should shrug off most small arms fire, just not military stuff.”

Bill had assembled his squad and approached Draper, where he executed a sloppy salute that brought a sigh to the officer's lips. “At ease. What is your name sergeant?”

“Bill Carson, sir.”

“I thought you'd have a full squad Bill?”

“We had some casualties, but picked up a few other guys from one of the other squads from Sioux City.” There were only eight men, including Bill in front of the Lieutenant.

“Oh? I heard you were up there. I know you are more like a militia than a regular soldier, but the things I have heard about the fighting up that way…”

“It has been difficult at times.” Bill allowed.

“And you volunteered to go do this? Why sergeant? You don't strike me as having a death wish.”

“Well I know Max and I knew he would get stuck going. He has the worst luck.”

“So you wanted in on the bad luck?”

“No sir! I have good luck sir, so I should cancel him out and help us get through this in one piece.”

Draper smiled at Bill and shook his head. “Well, alright Sergeant 'Lucky', let's get your crew on board and get moving. Your squad has security once we get to Chicago so you are up in the engine and on the tanker. It looks like a couple of your guys might have been in Vietnam, they will love the weapons on the tanker.”

With only a brief nod to Max, Bill started forward and got his squad on the train. Max found that Draper had stationed him in the engine and was given a walking tour of the thing as the train started moving. Outside of the enclosed cab the train was loud. There was a very small walkway down each side of the engine that would allow them to move back to the other cars if they needed to while it was moving and the fuel tanker had a more secured walkway behind some quarter inch steel skirting that was supposed to detonate shaped charges before they hit the main armor of the tanker itself. The skirts enclosed the walkway and moving down them to the passenger car was easier than moving down the engine, at least Max didn't feel like he was going to tumble off the vehicle with every step.

The men in the passenger car were either sleeping or on watch. Six men were spread evenly throughout the train with rifles at the ready while the other fourteen men slept in the seats, some snoring loudly. Draper only