The Arklay Outbreak

Chapter Forty-Three

Rebecca staggered backward in disbelief and tripped over one of the broken crates littering the ground. She landed on her back and gasped as the air was knocked from her lungs. Rolling onto her side, she breathed heavily, feeling light-headed.

Billy was gone. She heard him shout as the water swept him away. She didn’t understand what he said, but it was enough to know that he was alive. He landed in the water, but the force of the river washed him away. He was alive for the moment, but out of her reach.

Rebecca forced herself to sit up. Billy was still alive, but who knew for how long? The water might be cold enough to give him hypothermia, and if the river went completely underground he might get pulled under and drown. Pulling herself to her feet., she found herself staring at the rail car hanging silently in front of her.

If she could get it running ...

She ran across the platform and up the stairs to the control room. Stepping over the broken door thrown there from the creature’s entrance, she went to the control panel. There was an array of levers and switches, but none of them worked. The system had no power.

On the far wall, there was a locked electrical panel. She found a crowbar conveniently leaning against the power console and used it to pry the lock off. Opening the panel, she found two rows of switches and a large lever. She gripped the lever and pushed it up.

There was a crackle and a loud buzz from the panel, and Rebecca jumped away, fearing she’d be electrocuted. When nothing else happened, she flipped all the switches. Lights and digital displays came to life on the console, and she could see lights come on inside the rail car. Excitedly, she pulled levers on the console labeled “Brake Release” and “Main Engine Power.”

When she was confident she had turned everything on, she ran back down the steps and across the platform to the rail car. The door to the driver’s car opened easily enough and she went right to the steering column. There was a single lever on the column and a few dusty dials. Rebecca pushed the lever forward and to her amazement, the rail car began to crawl forward.

Slowly at first, it crawled forward on the rail, long-disabled gears and machinery coming back to life. The rail was dirty and dry with disuse, but the car moved forward anyway. Rebecca didn’t care about any damage she was doing, because she never intended to use the rail car again. But if she could drive it to the other end of the track, maybe she could reach Billy. She could only pray that the track followed the same path as the underground river, traveling along the natural cavern created by centuries of running water, or else it would all be for nothing.

The thought of Billy dying terrified her, and she didn’t know why. She had only met him hours before, and half the time they had been together had been spent arguing or threatening each other. Back on the train, he pointed a Desert Eagle at her and threatened to leave her at the mercy of the zombies. He was a criminal and she was a cop. Barely five minutes before the creature attacked them the last time, they had been arguing. But Rebecca found herself scared to death that something had happened to him.

He had saved her life again and sacrificed his own in return. He could have stayed in the elevator shaft and climbed right to the top, leaving her to be killed by the creature. He could have abandoned her and left her to die. And yet, he came to her rescue. And when he was hanging over the edge of the platform, he saved her life again by shooting the monster’s hand and causing it to fall. He saved her life twice.

And when she tried to save his? He told her not to worry about it.

But she did worry about it. If Billy died, she could never live with herself. He risked his life to save hers and if she didn’t do everything in her power to save him, the guilt would eat her alive for the rest of her life. She had to try to save him.

Right now, he was the only thing she had. If he died, then she would be completely alone down here in this awful place, forced to confront whatever dangers lay ahead all by herself. The thought of being alone terrified her, although she hadn’t realized it until now. Billy stood by her side throughout this entire horrible nightmare, and now she didn’t believe she could make it the rest of the way without him.

It wasn’t until one of her tears dripped from her chin onto her hand that she realized she was crying. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and tried to focus on what she was doing. She pushed the throttle all the way forward, forcing the rail car to grind along the rail at maybe fifteen miles an hour. Not terribly fast, but as fast as it would go. She had no idea how fast the water was moving, so she didn’t know if she would get where she was going in time. She might even get there before Billy did, but if so, how could she tell?

The rail car rattled and quaked, and she heard the crackle of electricity over her head. She had the throttle up higher than was safe, and sparks burst from the rail clamps. But she didn’t care.

She saw a light ahead and leaned forward expectantly, pushing the throttle harder even though it was as far as it would go. Up ahead she saw a platform much like the one she had just left, except there was one on each side of the rail. Wide metal steps led up to a walkway above the platform with doors on each side. Bright fluorescent lights shone from the ceiling, but Rebecca didn’t know why they were already turned on.

She grabbed the brake lever and pulled it slightly, lurching forward as the rail car braked. A high-pitched squeal emanated from the rail above and a bright shower of sparks flew over the roof of the car. She smelled smoke as she pulled the brake harder, and then the car jerked forward and back, knocking her off her feet. She scrambled back up and tried the brake again, but nothing happened. The platform was too close now to stop in time. She was only a few seconds away and the rail car’s speed had barely gone down at all. It swayed back and forth as it soared down the rail, sparks shooting from the top like fireworks.

Rebecca didn’t have time to run to the rear car, so she just on the floor directly behind the driver’s seat, bracing her knees against the back of the cushion. She closed her eyes and put her head between her legs and her arms over her head.

The rail screeched loudly as it came to the end and the car crashed through the stopping block. It broke free of the rail with an explosion of machinery and sparks and landed on the platform with a bone-shuddering thud. Rebecca fell sideways and slid into the corner of the cabin, trying to hold her arms up to protect her head.

The rail car tilted sideways as it jumping the track, just like the train Rebecca had been on just hours before. The rear car smashed through the metal braces holding the rail and flipped over, crashing through rows of metal drums, sending up a tidal wave of dust, smoke, and debris. The tremendous echo of the crash reverberated down the cavern and back again like ghosts howling.

The driver’s car slid across the platform, seeming to float on a sea of sparks, and slammed into the rock wall at the end of the platform. Rocks and debris rained down on it like a minor landslide, and the middle car crashed into the back of it, sandwiching it into the wall.

The echo died down and the dust floated back to the floor, and then everything was silent again. Rebecca crawled from the wreckage of the driver’s car and crawled on her hands and knees, her vision blurred and ears ringing. There was blood on her arms, but she didn’t know where she was bleeding. She sat up on her knees and tried to clear her head.

She felt on the verge of passing out, but she had no time. Billy might be dead already. Dazed, she managed to get to her feet and staggered to the railing overlooking the river. This side of the cavern was much closer to the river than the other side was. She only had to look a few feet below to see the swirling, churning water below.

She guessed right. The river ended here at the end of the cavern and went completely underground. If she missed Billy here, the river would swallow him up and he would certainly drown. She leaned far over the railing, her head still spinning, and screamed his name.

“Billy!”

Panicked, she scanned the banks of the river on either edge of the platform. She held her breath when she saw him, almost not willing to believe it. Against all odds, he lay below the platform on the other side, his body pressed by the water against a small outcropping of rock.

She screamed for him again but he didn’t move. She had to hurry, because if he was unconscious he might slip loose from the rock and go under the surface. She couldn’t jump the gap between the two sides of the platform, so she had to run up the stairs to the walkway above and down the stairs on the other side.

She climbed over the railing and slid down the edge of the cavern wall until she could reach his body. Water splashed up over the rocks, soaking her from head to toe. It was cold water, but not freezing. Not cold enough for Billy to go into shock. She grabbed his arm and pulled him up until he was halfway out of the water. His hair was stuck to his face, and she quickly wiped it away to see if he was breathing, but it was too hard to tell. He had a pulse, and that was enough.

She put his arm over her shoulder and lifted him almost to his feet, adrenaline surging in her veins. She held him against the wall as she planted her feet and somehow managed to push Billy’s limp body up under the railing and safe onto the platform. His legs dangled over the edge, but she didn’t care. She climbed up the side of the wall and over the railing, collapsing in a heap next to him. She saw that his chest was moving. He had a pulse and was breathing, and his skin felt warm to the touch. He was alive, he was safe.

Rebecca laid down the ground beside him, utterly exhausted, and finally lost consciousness.

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