….
"God damn it." DJ muttered, his throat burning as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I didn't come in here to get all choked up..."
Laurence sat motionless beside him, staring through his wet glasses. "I swear, I hate Regal for doing this to me."
Down the main siding track, the diesel switcher locomotive was already rolling forward at eight miles per hour.
The conductor leaned out of the cab window, waving frantically toward the smoke: "HURRY! CLIMB ON! I CAN'T STOP THE DIESEL!"
Richard Evans burst from between two burning boxcars, gasping for breath, stumbling across the wooden ties. He lunged for the engine's rear metal ladder, his foot slipping in the loose rock.
The conductor saw him slip, climbed down to the bottom step of the cab platform, and reached out: "Take my hand! Grab on!"
Evans grabbed the conductor's wrist, and the conductor hauled him upward with a grunt of relief.
Just as Evans's boots touched the steel grating, two infected sprinted from the weeds, leaping onto the conductor's legs.
The conductor screamed, kicking: "Help me! Grab me up!"
Evans didn't hesitate, planting his boot against the conductor's chest and kicking with all his might.
THUD.
The conductor flew off the platform, tumbling into the gravel directly into the path of three infected.
His dying scream cut short as the engine rolled away.
Evans scrambled through the cab door, slamming it shut from the inside, wheezing in triumph.
–"Ugh... I can't stand this bastard!" someone yelled in disgust. "What a fucking piece of shit!"
A hundred yards behind the locomotive, Arthur was sprinting through a corridor of burning wreckage, carrying Maya in his arms, Claire right at his shoulder.
Beside them ran the disheveled homeless man.
Suddenly, an overhead cargo container perched atop a burning flatbed gave way under structural heat. The twenty-ton steel box tilted, sliding down the embankment directly over their heads.
"WATCH OUT!" the homeless man screamed.
He threw himself against a bent steel gantry beam, bracing his back against the iron with every ounce of strength in his frame, wedging himself into a tiny triangular clearance.
"GO!" the homeless man yelled at Arthur, blood dripping from his nose as the container settled onto his shoulders. "TAKE THE CHILD! GO!"
Arthur paused for half a second, eyes locking with the trembling face of the man everyone had ignored at the station.
"Thank you." Arthur choked out.
"GO!"
Arthur shoved Claire through the narrow opening, threw Maya across the gap, and scrambled through just as the beam buckled, burying the homeless man beneath a mountain of flaming iron.
–"You saved us, buddy." Noel whispered, sniffling. "Rest in peace."
The three survivors burst onto the open siding track.
Fifty yards ahead, the lone switcher locomotive was accelerating toward the open line, chugging at ten miles per hour.
Behind them, the smoke cleared. Over a hundred infected spilled onto the tracks sprinting in full pursuit.
"RUN, CLAIRE!" Arthur roared.
He hoisted Maya onto his shoulders, running with everything left in his body. Claire, clutching her swollen belly, pushed through the agony.
–"How many are hanging on there?!" a viewer gasped as the infected swarmed the rear bumper of the train, piling on top of each other like a human anchor. "They're gonna drag the train down!"
They reached the rear platform. Arthur leaped onto the steel grating, set Maya safely down, and leaned out, extending his hand toward Claire:
"HOLD MY HAND!"
Claire lunged, her fingers locking with his.
Arthur hauled the pregnant woman up onto the catwalk just as the lead infected snapped its jaws two inches below her heel.
He kicked the trailing infected off the ladder.
The mass of bodies peeled away, tumbling into the ballast gravel as the locomotive picked up speed, rolling cleanly onto the open line toward the Pacific Northwest.
Inside Auditorium 1, an enormous sigh of relief broke out.
"They made it." a kid behind PJ breathed out. "Holy shit, they actually made it."
"I don't think so…." Noel whispered, his face pale in the screen's reflection. "Watch the door."
The steel door leading from the rear catwalk into the locomotive cab clicked open.
A heavy footstep dragged across the metal floor.
Arthur whipped around, stepping protectively in front of Maya and Claire.
Richard Evans stepped out onto the catwalk.
The theater went completely silent.
Evans's expensive three-piece suit was soaked in oily grime.
His head tilted at a broken angle, arms hanging limp, and black veins pulsed beneath the gray skin of his neck, creeping across his cheeks.
His eyes were milky white, but through the haze of the virus, a fractured sliver of his human consciousness was desperately fighting to hold on.
"Mister..." Evans rasped, his voice trembling like a frightened child's. "I am scared... please... take me home..."
Arthur stared at him, face tightening with dread. "You're infected."
"No... no, I am not..." Evans sobbed, tears cutting through the black veins as his jaw twitched. "My mother... She's waiting for me in Seattle... my address is 412 Highland Avenue... please... take me to my mother..."
"Dad..." Maya whispered in terror, clutching Arthur's trouser leg.
Evans's pupils suddenly rolled back into his skull. His spine snapped straight with a wet crack, his jaw unhinging with a guttural hiss.
The human died, and the predator took over.
Evans lunged, claws outstretched straight for Maya.
Arthur met him in the center of the narrow catwalk.
The two men collided with a crash, and Arthur drove his forearm into Evans's throat, pinning the thrashing monster against the low safety bar.
Evans snapped his teeth wildly, his fingers digging into Arthur's collar, clawing at his face.
–"Push him! Throw him off!" viewers chanted in the dark.
With one final surge, Arthur shoved him backward into the open air.
Evans fell, but as he tumbled, his head whipped around, his jaw snapping shut like a steel trap.
Teeth sank deep into the fleshy meat of Arthur's right hand.
CHOMP.
The theater gasped as one.
–"NO! HE GOT BIT!" a chorus of voices cried out.
Arthur let out a sharp cry of pain.
He ripped his hand free, sending Evans tumbling off the platform to bounce across the ballast gravel and vanish in the dust behind the train.
Arthur stood on the swaying platform as the cold desert wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead, slowly raising his right hand.
Two deep puncture wounds were leaking dark blood from his palm.
Around the bite, the veins were already turning charcoal black, creeping toward his wrist.
Inside Auditorium 1, an absolute, suffocating grief settled over four hundred people.
"No..." DJ whispered, a cold lump forming in his throat. "Please... anybody but him. After everything he's done..."
Keanu Reeves, inhabiting Arthur's completely, didn't scream or curse at the sky.
Instead he simply stared at his hand, and a quiet calm washed over his battered features.
The realization that his time was measured in minutes.
He glanced at his watch before turning to Maya, who watched him with wide eyes from behind Claire.
Arthur turned and walked into the locomotive cab.
He knelt down beside the control console, his voice soft, level, stripped of all pride:
"Claire. Listen to me carefully."
Claire stepped into the cab, eyes dropping to his bloody hand, and she stopped dead, mouth falling open. "Arthur..."
"Pay attention." Arthur said, pointing his clean left hand toward a heavy red lever. "This is the primary pneumatic air brake. When the train clears the mountain pass and reaches the fortified perimeter outside Seattle... you pull this lever. All the way down. Do you understand?"
Claire's eyes flooded with tears, and she nodded silently, biting her lip.
Arthur stood up and walked over to Maya, kneeling so his eyes were level with hers.
His right hand was tucked firmly behind his back, hidden from her sight.
"Maya…" Arthur whispered.
Maya looked at him, at his pale face, and her lower lip trembled.
"Dad..." she sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck. "Please don't go. It's my fault. I shouldn't have asked to go to Seattle. I am sorry, Dad! Please don't leave me!"
Keanu's eyes welled with tears, but he forced a gentle, loving smile onto his face; the warmest smile he had given her in the entire film.
"It isn't your fault, Maya," Arthur whispered, resting his forehead against hers. "None of this is on you. Stay with Claire, alright? Whatever happens, you stay right beside her. Promise me."
"Daddy, no! Stay with me!" Maya wailed, clutching his collar. "Please! Don't go!"
"Maya... You have to let me go." Arthur choked out, voice cracking with unbearable pain.
He gently, firmly unpeeled her small fingers from his shirt.
He looked at Claire, his eyes pleading.
Claire wrapped her arms around the screaming child, pulling her backward into the corner of the cab, holding her tightly as Maya kicked and sobbed: "DADDY! DADDY, NO! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Arthur stood up, stepped out onto the exterior rear platform, and pulled the cab door shut between them.
The locomotive roared down the tracks, wind whipping through his torn clothes.
Arthur slumped back against the cab wall, slowly sliding down until his knees hit the steel floor.
His breathing turned into a wet, ragged gasp, and his fingers twitched in spasms.
He gripped the low railing behind him, fighting with every ounce of his remaining soul to keep his mind from slipping into the dark.
The camera pushed into an extreme close-up of Keanu's face.
His jaw slackened as black veins surged up his neck and spread across his cheekbones like dark ivy, his eyes clouding over with a pale, milky film.
And then, the sound of the roaring engine faded into silence.
A soft, warm amber glow filled the screen.
In Arthur's dying mind, the snowy mountains and burning train yards vanished.
He was back in a hospital room seven years ago.
He looked down at his own hands; clean, unscarred, trembling with awe.
Cradled in his arms was a newborn baby wrapped in a soft white blanket.
Baby Maya opened her tiny eyes, her miniature fingers reaching out to wrap around his thumb.
On the rear platform of the rushing train, Arthur's milky, dying eyes softened.
A radiant, peaceful smile spread across his face, and the pure joy of a father who finally knew what his life was for.
His fingers slowly uncurled from the railing, and his body tilted backward into the rushing wind.
The camera pulled back into an ultra-wide aerial shot as Arthur's silhouette tumbled from the platform, his shadow trailing briefly along the sunlit tracks before disappearing into the vast, open horizon.
In Row F, DJ let out a broken, shuddering sob.
Around him, half of Auditorium 1 was openly weeping.
Grown men wiped their eyes with their sleeves, and teenagers clutched each other, staring at the screen in pure emotional devastation.
"When this movie started, I never imagined I would shed a tear for a man like him." Laurence whispered, his voice breaking. "He began as a parasite... and somehow, he ended up dying as a father."
The locomotive rolled on through the mountain pass, its horn silent.
Inside the cab, Claire sat on the floor, holding little Maya against her chest.
Maya was shivering, staring blankly at the locked steel door, eyes swollen and red.
Ahead on the tracks a tunnel loomed beneath a towering concrete ridge.
Outside the tunnel, a military barricade blocked the line; concertina wire, steel Czech hedgehogs, and sandbag pillboxes.
Claire stood up, face pale with exhaustion.
Remembering Arthur's words, she reached for the large red air-brake lever on the console and hauled it downward with both hands.
The brake shoes clamped onto the steel wheels, and Pacific Express 101 ground to a final halt fifty yards before the barricade.
Claire unlatched the cab door.
Holding Maya's hand tightly, the pregnant woman and the little girl climbed down.
Before them lay the mouth of the tunnel.
A dark cavern cutting through the mountain ridge toward the coastal defense line.
"Come on, Maya." Claire whispered, her voice hollow. "We have to walk."
Holding hands, the two survivors stepped into the darkness of the tunnel.
High on the concrete pillbox overlooking the tunnel exit, two National Guard snipers lay behind heavy Barrett .50-caliber rifles.
Through the night-vision thermal optics, two heat signatures emerged from the deep shadow.
"Command, this is Post Delta." the spotter spoke into his headset. "We have two bogeys exiting the north rail tunnel on foot. Thermal profile indicates one adult female, one juvenile."
Through the radio, Central Command crackled back:
"Verify status. Are they infected?"
"Unable to verify visual indicators, Command." the sniper replied, voice tight. "The shadows are too deep. Range three hundred meters."
A heavy, agonizing pause hung over the radio.
–"I hope they don't just shoot whatever comes out of that tunnel." a viewer in the theater begged under his breath. "Give it a second longer! Please!"
Then, the cold directive came through:
"All units, execute standing containment protocol. Do not risk a perimeter breach. Shoot to kill. I repeat, shoot to kill."
The sniper gloved finger resting against the trigger.
He aligned the crosshairs directly over the center of the adult's chest.
"Taking the shot in three... two–"
Suddenly, a faint, trembling sound drifted out from the mouth of the tunnel.
It wasn't a snarl, but a voice, cracked with exhaustion and tears, echoing through the concrete vault:
"Proudly swept the rain by the cliffs…
As it glided through the trees…
Still following ever the bud…
The 'Ahihi Lehua of the vale..."
The sniper froze, and his finger stopped on the trigger.
Down on the tracks, little Maya walked through the dark, tears streaming down her cheeks, singing the song she hadn't been able to finish at her school recital.
The song she had practiced for her father.
"Aloha 'oe... Aloha 'oe…
Until we meet again..."
The spotter ripped his binoculars away from his eyes, face pale with sudden shock.
"SURVIVORS!" the spotter screamed into his radio, waving his arms frantically. "HOLD YOUR FIRE! HOLD YOUR FIRE! THEY'RE SURVIVORS!"
From behind the sandbag trenches, a dozen soldiers dropped their weapons, leaping over the wire, running with medical kits and warm wool blankets down the tracks toward the weeping child and the exhausted pregnant mother.
The soldiers enveloped them in blankets, lifting Maya into their arms as the camera slowly pulled straight up into the clear winter sky, the mountains echoing with the final notes of the little girl's song.
The screen slammed to black.
For three full seconds, Auditorium 1 sat in absolute, stunned silence.
Then, down in Row B, someone began to clap.
A second person joined in.
Within five seconds, the entire four hundred person theater was on their feet.
An explosive standing ovation erupted across the room, filling the theater with thunderous cheers, whistles, and applause as people clapped until their palms turned red.
The white typography materialized across the screen:
–Written and DIRECTED BY REGAL SERAPHSAIL–
"HOLY SHIT!" a guy two rows down screamed at the top of his lungs, wiping tears while clapping furiously. "THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!"
DJ stood between Noel and Laurence, hands clapping automatically, his chest tight with an emotional ache he hadn't felt in a movie theater in years.
Beside him, Laurence took off his glasses, using his sleeve to wipe away tears running down his cheeks.
DJ looked around the crowded auditorium – Four hundred people.
Strangers who had walked into the theater an hour and a half ago to watch an action movie, were all standing together, crying, cheering, and looking at the screen with pure reverence.
He smiled faintly, looking up at the silver letters glowing in the dark.
"Yeah." DJ murmured softly. "A zombie movie that makes people cry? That's unheard of."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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