not get a signal.
“We are probably too far below ground and being inside all of these buildings doesn't help.”
Katie looked at the television on the wall, fishing around in the desk she found a remote and turned it on. The picture came up perfectly clear, unfortunately it was just a giant number nine on the screen with a steady low tone indicating the station was on the emergency broadcasting network. “The tv gets a signal.”
“Yeah, it looks like they got cable here.” said Randy, getting up on the desk to examine the connections to the television. He pulled the set off of the wall and looked at the coaxial cable connected to the television. “Maybe I can jury rig it as an antenna?” He unscrewed the cable from the television and then took out his radio unit. Unplugging his head set he tried pressing it up against the cable. A voice came through on the head phone, but only for an instant.
“Yeah, I can get this to work, I'll have a signal in a minute.” He pulled a rubber plug out of his radio and slowly brought it towards the short metal end sticking out from the television cable. The headphones came to life and he quickly put one earphone back in and adjusted his mic so he could talk.
Katie watched wearily from the chair she was sitting in. Randy was talking with their commanding officer and he didn't look too happy about what he was hearing. She heard him ask about the transport helicopters and his reply of 'All of them?' seemed to confirm what Kaleb had told them earlier. Unbidden tears came to her eyes. She wiped them away before Randy noticed and angrily told herself to show no emotion. Her entire career she had been subjected to comments, never official, that a woman should not be on a sniper team, especially not as a shooter. She'd had to work twice as hard and twice as long as her male counterparts to get to where she was and she knew, deep inside, that the only reason she was in the field was because of the domestic crisis. She could have gone overseas as a support person, but it was unlikely she would have been sent over as a sniper. The double standards irritated Katie to no end, she knew the reason the military wanted to keep women out of combat; rape. Pure and simple the military didn't want soldiers being raped as a form of torture or abuse. However Katie knew the risks and was willing to fight for her country and if Israel and some of the nations of the European Union allowed female combat soldiers, so should the most progressive country on the face of the earth.
Eventually Randy finished his conversation and turned to look down on her from on top of the desk. “We're fucked.” he said, sitting down and hanging his feet over the edge. Lowering his head into his hands he put his face down and sat quietly for a few minutes. It took Katie several seconds to realize he was crying.
“That bad?” she asked, they had never seen each other display any emotion other than passion, anger or exuberance, this was a new step in their relationship.
He looked up, eyes watery and wiped one sleeve across his face, holding it there for a moment as he fought to regain his composure. “We are staying overnight. They are sending a group by fucking train in tomorrow morning. We are supposed to assist them in any way we can and then bug out when they do.”
“That…that's great!”
He shook his head, “Oh baby…no it isn't. They are here to kill the smartest zombie in the bunch. And they won't leave until he is dead.”
“So? I can do that from half a klick away, we don't even have to get close.” Katie stopped for a moment looking at Randy, who stared back at her. “Uh, Randy?”
“Yeah?”
“How will we know who the smartest one is?”
“They got a guy…”
Chapter 33
The train reached the Illinois border at sunrise, the rail road bridge was held by the national guard and barricaded with a bus they had simply driven over the tracks and shored up with sandbags and pieces of wood. The troops had word by radio when to expect the train and waited as long as they could to move the barricades because the zombies were actively trying to cross the bridge. When the zombies saw the barricade had been driven aside, they rushed forward, led by several faster 'super' zombies. The bridge was shrouded in a light fog that lifted and fell on the river breeze. As they approached the bridge the train didn't slow. Max was in the cab and watched as they plowed into the mob on the bridge that were trying to cross into Iowa. Most of the zombies did not jump out of the way and the train engineer had to be told to keep moving and not to slow down, which went against his instincts.
The crowd of zombies consisted of all races, sizes and sexes, they didn't seem to be actively moving forward anywhere except on the railroad bridge. The train burrowed through the mass leaving writhing pieces of zombies behind it soaked in their foul black blood. One huge fat zombie was bisected and managed to pull his torso up onto the train and almost reach the guardrail before he was shot multiple times by one of Bill's men. More zombies piled onto the tracks, their sheer numbers thrust them to a height halfway up in front of the engine, most were crushed sideways, with a few getting ran over and torn apart under the moving train. As the engine made its way off of the bridge the congestion got only worse. Zombies were tossed up into the air to both sides of the tracks, like a wake left by a speedboat churning through a pond. Max saw one head, sans body, go flying by with its mouth still opening and closing. The pressure of the train was creating a bubbly wave ahead of itself as the tightly packed zombies were pressed backwards.
“Are we going to be able to get through them?” Max asked, breaking off his conversation with Stewart, which was a debate on whether she should wear her bullet proof vest or not.
Colonel Draper looked questioningly to the engineer, who was sweating despite the cool air, “Well, yeah as long as they didn't put anything big on the tracks. A body can't stop the train. A hundred bodies can't stop it. There is too much mass in this baby.”
“Could a thousand?” asked Max concentrating.
“A thousand?” laughed the engineer, “You must be joke…” his voice choked off as the wispy fog on the river lifted enough for them to see clearly to the far bank. “Oh God!”
Draper leaned close and said, “Go faster.”
The engineer made some adjustments, but the train did not seem to move any faster to Max. “How many do you feel up ahead Max?” asked Draper.
“Thousands. But only about a quarter mile deep, after that it seems to clear out.”
“Anyone we should be concerned about?”
Max just looked at him for a moment and then said, “Probably. I think there are a lot of super zombie mixed in with them. I am worried.”
“If you are worried I am too.” said Draper, pulling his radio out of his pocket he moved to the other side of the cab and began issuing orders to the troops. He ended his call by speaking with one of his superiors about air support.
Stewart was closer to Draper than to Max and the commotion had awakened her from where she had been dozing near one of the windows. “Air support? That is good, we've seen what they can do.”
Draper frowned, “Don't get your hopes up, the army sent a bunch of helicopters into Chicago yesterday morning and nine of the ten didn't come back, three managed to report that they were coming under anti aircraft missile fire from the batteries around Chicago before they were shot down. The one lucky guy who made it only saw the smoke from the wrecks. I don't think we can count on much air support for this mission.”
“I'm kind of surprised the army didn't send in special forces to take out the anti air battery.” said Stewart, to which Draper just smiled and looked out the window.
“Oh.” she said.
“Your boy Max,” Draper spoke in a low voice, close in to Stewart's ear, “he isn't much use really, is he?”
Stewart's temper rose, but she forced herself to evaluate the question from Draper's perspective, “What do you mean?”
“He can tell there are groups of undead around, but not what they are carrying or what their intent is.”
