We couldn't avoid the steam-demons; they were standing at the boarding ramp to the open cattle car that was already starting to fill. Well, we'd decided to take the first opportunity to get aboard, and this surely was some sort of sign.Those old nuns of mine were receiving a lot of prayers from me lately. I could never imagine saints or angels; so when I got in one of these moods, those withered souls in black and gray habits played across my memory. I used to think the nuns that taught me were ugly old crones. With what I'd been seeing lately, they had taken on a new beauty in my mind's eye.

My prayer was simple. Don't let fatboy get on with us, please; pretty please with a Hail Mary on it.

It was easy to stay together; there wasn't any room to be separated. We were packed in like the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Of course, I realized that if we were separated, we'd have the devil's own time trying to get back together.

When all this was over, I thought I might give religion another shake; as the door to the cattle car closed, I saw that we weren't going to have to put up with fatboy: it got onto another car.

"It's open in the back!" said Jill in surprise. At first I made to silence her for fear we would attract attention, but there was so much noise going on around us that our words wouldn't be noticed over the roaring and growling filling the narrow s.p.a.ce. We were being pushed toward the rear of the car, where instead of a solid wall, there was an arrangement of vertical wooden posts with horizontal metal slats running through them.

"That's some window," Arlene commented.

"I see that none of you were brought up around livestock," I said caustically. "It's a cattle car."

With a grinding sound, the train started forward with a great lurch, throwing us into our rearward neighbors, who growled and pushed us back. The former humans who were now zombies did not be- have nearly so well as humans would have; some responded to being jostled by firing off a few shots.

"Great!" shouted Arlene.

"If this escalates, we'll be wiped out in here!" I hollered back.

"What can we do about it?"

"Nothing!" I admitted. Time again to trust to luck.

The nuns must have been working overtime, because the shots suddenly ceased. I glanced over and saw Albert with his eyes closed, moving his lips silently. I supposed that if praying was going to save us, this was a job for the pro.

Jill grabbed the back of my pants; it was a good idea-I grabbed Arlene, and she caught Albert.

We traveled past several small towns that evidently held little of interest. The night sky had a weird glow, but I still preferred it to the return of day, if that sickening green sky was waiting for us. It was too dark to make out details, but occasionally we saw fires burning on the horizon, funeral pyres to mark the pa.s.sing of humanity. We finally came to a violent stop and there was more jostling. Our luck was still with us; the gunshots did not resume.

"d.a.m.n, I wish we could see through the door," I said. Behind us was a splendid view of a smashed building and a nice stretch of barren countryside; butheavy sounds in front of us indicated some action.

"The designers must not care if the cows are well- informed," said Arlene.

As if in answer to my request, the heavy wooden door in the side of the train was pushed open to unpack some zombies, and we were greeted by a sight you don't see every day. A contingent of steam- demons was being herded by a spidermind. They were guarding what appeared to be a truck dolly in which a human form was wrapped up in bandages from head to toe. There was a slit for his eyes, but that didn't help tell us anything about the man or woman propped up on the dolly; we could only a.s.sume this was a human because there were straps across the figure-a dead giveaway that he was a prisoner.

The sight made me remember Bill Ritch. The only human they would take care to preserve with his mind intact was a human with knowledge they needed and couldn't extract without destroying . . . which meant that here was someone else we should either rescue or kill. He couldn't be left in the hands of the enemy, giving them whatever they needed. They marched forward out of sight, the steam-demons tramping in eerie, mechanical lockstep.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Arlene bellowed at me.

"Loud and clear!"

"They've got their tentacles on another of our tech lads!"

"Listen up!" I screamed. "Have plan!" They gave me their undivided attention, easy to do in such cramped quarters. "Grab guy! Run!"

Arlene rolled her eyes, unimpressed.

"How-move?" shouted Jill.

"Slowly!"

While we considered the strengths and weaknesses of our position, the monsters took the bandaged figure toward the front of the train. Although we couldn't see very well, it was easy to figure out what happened next.

The train started up again, having received its important cargo.

"Forward!" I screamed. "Make path!"

Jill wriggled her hand slowly out to where she was able to extend her fingers and ... the best way to describe it was that she goosed the zombie-woman in front of her. The nervous system of a zombie isn't great shakes compared to when it was alive, but there were sufficient sparks left to kindle into fire.

The zombie-woman didn't jump or make any sort of exclamation; but she did move forward with suffi- cient force to dislodge the smaller male taking up s.p.a.ce right in front of her.

Jill let Albert get in front of her. He had a lot of ma.s.s and widened Jill's narrow opening. The ob- jective was clear: push forward to the connection between the cars. With the speed of a snail we inched forward. I figured that so long as we didn't p.i.s.s off any of them enough to shoot at us, we were doing all right.Just about then, one of the zombies took a potshot.

I didn't see any particular reason for it; but what was I doing, trying to apply reason to zombie behavior?

The bullet struck another zombie in the throat, and it went down gurgling. We were packed so tightly, like Norwegian sardines, that further attempts at argu- ment by projectile would probably annihilate the population of the cattle car.

Jill drew the small .38 caliber revolver we'd given her and looked scared and determined both at the same time.

"Hold your fire, Jill!" I shouted. She didn't make me repeat it. The zombie with the itchy finger kept firing wildly and suddenly connected with a point where a metal slat and wooden post came together. A heavy zombie near to the point of impact fell back against the weakened spot and suddenly went right through, leaving a huge hole big enough for even Albert to fit through.

"New plan!" I bellowed.

22.

By now the train was up to speed again, smoking along at 300, 320 kilometers per hour. At this speed, the wind could be considered a refreshing deluxe feature for the typical bovine pa.s.senger. As I attempted to squirm through the opening, I quickly learned that a typhoon-strength head wind could slow down the most dedicated Marine.

The main thing was not to drop my shotgun as I climbed on the sill, leaned out into the hurricane, and stretched up until I reached the railing along the outside top of the train. I hoped the zombies wouldn't pay any attention to this latest change in their envi- ronment. At some level they were still human enough to resent this ridiculous crowding, or they wouldn't be exchanging shots. Maybe our team would rate zombie grat.i.tude for giving them elbow room.

While standing on the sill, leaning forward into the wind, holding the railing, I reached down to help Arlene. Her slim, dry hand slipped into my sweaty paw, and I noted that it was cold. Arlene always had trouble keeping her extremities warm. I hoisted her out and up to the roof, where she hooked her legs to hang on so she could lean back down. Then Arlene helped me take care of Jill.

I didn't blame Jill for being terrified. But I was surprised when she started shaking. Or maybe it was just the train rocking violently back and forth. I guess this would be an experience to write home about, if there were still a home. No matter how brave and grown-up this fourteen-year-old wanted to be, she was having one wild-a.s.s situation after another thrown at her and had to handle each without benefit of training.

The terror in her eyes didn't prevent her doing what she had to do, and I didn't pay attention to the tears.

The angle was bad, but Jill weighed almost nothing- and I heaved a sigh of relief as I finished handing her up to Arlene.

Albert was a problem. He was a big guy and not asgymnastically oriented as Yours Truly. Arlene and Jill attached webbing to the railing, then attached it to Arlene. The webbing is extraordinarily strong, able to hold tons before ripping. We didn't go into h.e.l.l without taking some decent equipment! No way was Arlene going to fall with that stuff on her.

Now Arlene and I could help Albert up. It was a lot easier than blowing away a steam-demon.

We might even have enjoyed our time on the roof if not for the hurricane head wind. It smelled a whole lot better than inside.

We lay on our bellies, and a ferocious gale battered us. But we weren't blown off; in fact, we could stand shakily, leaning into the wind. I figured there must be some sort of air dam up front, otherwise, 300 kph would have swatted a standing man off the top of that train like finger-flicking a fly.

"Listen up!" I shouted against the gale. "Single-file!

Forward! Slowly! Don't fall!"

Arlene put her mouth right up to my ear. "How far L.A.?".

"Two hours-dawn-rescue human or kill him!"

"What?" screamed Jill, clearly horrified. She was plenty loud enough to be heard. There was no need to explain to two old soldiers like Arlene and Albert. I'd stopped thinking of Jill as a young teen, but there was no getting around the fact that she was a civilian.

"Death better than fate!" G.o.d only knew how much she heard, but she clenched her teeth and said nothing more. The brutal arithmetic inside my head could wait for another time; I hoped she would never have to decide who lives and who dies. Sometimes I envy civilians.

There was nothing else to say. Besides, we'd all be hoa.r.s.e from shouting if we didn't shut up.

I went first; it was my party. I set the pace nice and slow. It took nearly a quarter hour to crawl the length of the train; fortunately, the track through Arizona was pretty straight. But the natural swaying of the cars could still hurl any of us to certain death; the rails were laid for cargo, not pa.s.sengers.

I looked back frequently; we didn't lose anybody.

Next stop: Relief City! Two cars ahead was the flatcar with a complement of one spidermind, one steam- demon, and one human wrapped like a Christmas mummy and strapped down tight. The spidermind was between us and the human, the steam-demon on the other side.

It occurred to me that these superior examples of alien monster-building might sniff us out better than the lesser breeds; and the wind did a lot to erase our lemon odor. In our favor, we were way downwind.

The wind was so d.a.m.ned loud, I didn't think they could hear us either.

I gestured to Arlene. Time for the Deimos veterans to do their stuff. We crawled closer, where I could see a very narrow gap between the cars . . . too narrow for the adults.

I noted the fact that the spidermind was so big, a couple of its right feet dangled limply over the side ofthe flatcar . . . and that gave me an idea.

But it was too narrow for the adults. Only Jill could fit.

Oh man, this was my nightmare come true. It was never supposed to be a walk for the kid-but this?

Throw the raw recruit, not even driving age yet, into the meat grinder against a spidermind and a steam- demon? It was criminal . . . homicidal!

But what were the options? Not even Arlene could squeeze into that slender s.p.a.ce; she probably out- weighed Jill by forty pounds. They were like two different species, and thinking of me or Albert down there was a joke.

Feeling my gut clench, as well as another part of my anatomy, I said to myself: Time for the recruit to do her stuff.

The levity didn't work. I still felt sick.

We crawled back and huddled with the others in the gap between two cattle cars full of zombies, where we could hear each other, at least. I felt like a cla.s.s-A creep giving Jill her a.s.signment; but n.o.body else could do it. Anyway, the kid seemed eager, not afraid.

She'd make a good Marine. Did I say that before?

This time, my plan had more details: Jill would shimmy down into the tiny gap between the two cars, using some of the webbing. "Just like Spider-man!"

she said. Well, whatever. We'd use all the positive fantasy images floating in her mind. She had to believe in herself absolutely to pull this off.

If they spotted Jill, she'd be dead meat, and the rest of us with her. Once she made it into the gap, she would very carefully loop the webbing several times over the nearest limb of the spidermind and pull it tight-without allowing the spidermind to notice it was being hobbled. She would attach the other end of the webbing to the t.i.tanium grappling hook the Presi- dent had included in Albert's gear. We could do that before she started out. We'd lose the hook and some of our webbing, but with luck, we'd lose the spidermind as well.

"If she makes it that far," I said, wrapping up, "she drops the hook to the ground beneath the wheels and ducks, waiting for it to catch on a tie or something."

"And that gross bug gets yanked off!" she said, grokking the plan immediately. "Gnarly idea, Fly!"

I let her savor the image of the alien brain scattered across the countryside. Slamming into the car behind at better'n 300 per ought to do the trick nicely, and "Spider-ma'am" would defeat the spider creep with a thick dose of poetic justice.

Now all we had to do was make it work.

While Arlene and Albert prepared the hook and line, Jill let me wrap it around her waist. She asked me to do it personally. That meant a lot to me. Then I gave her a gentle push forward and hoped Albert's G.o.d wouldn't choose this moment to desert us. I put in a good word for Jill with the nuns as well.

Jill climbed down the side of the car we were on, two cars back from the flatcar. So far, so good. I climbed down after her.We crept forward at wheel level, crawling alongside spinning death so slowly, it made our previous trek along the roof seem like a drag race. Mother Mary, I thought, please don't let there be any fence posts too close to the tracks!

We very carefully worked our way around the wheels; but if we were any higher up the train, the spidermind might have us in its sights. Hunkering down at wheel level, we were hidden by the side of the car itself.

There was enough light to keep Jill in my personal viewfinder every step of the way. I imagined her knuckles were white. Mine sure as h.e.l.l were. I kept pressed right up against her back, my arms on either side of hers to make sure she didn't slip. We finally got to the edge of the flatcar; now the show was entirely Jill's, and all I could do was hang and wait.

23.

Cheese and rice, I felt like a weenie when he took me outside the train. I swore myself I wouldn't eff-up any more. For the mome, Fly respected me, and Arlene too. I didn't care so much about Albert, but he was all right for one of the LDs.

Now was my chance to prove to everyone! Maybe I almost wrecked the truck when those missiles went through, and maybe they don't know how close they came to being hosed. But if I pulled this off, I'd make up for everything! Plus I'd pay back one of those crawly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds for what they did to my mom. And Dad.

He was right, the slot was a tight fit, even for me; but I could wiggle through. I don't know what they would have done without me for this. As I slid along, I got grease on me. Gagged me out at first, but then I was glad, cuz it made me more slippery. Huh, like to see one of those wimp LD girls do this! She'd faint, and the human race would lose the war.

Suddenly, I saw a thin, silver thing sticking over the edge. Got wide on the end. I didn't recognize it at first, seeing it so close up. Then I gasped-it was a spidermind foot! It was bigger than I thought. It was bigger than / was!

The end of the foot fluffed out like bell-bottom pants, like my grandparents wore, like on the Brady Bunch. G.o.d, I was glad they didn't live to see the monsters kill their children.

I stretched, flipping the webbing, trying to loop the foot; but I couldn't reach that far! That PO'ed me-I was going to dweeb-out just cuz my arms weren't like an orangutan's.

Then the leg twitched. I screamed and jumped- and fell.

I slipped down, banging my knee and barely catch- ing the edge of the flat thing . . . my face was an inch from the tracks.

Oh Lord-the wind blew off the ties, freezing my cheeks, and I smelled smoke. I think I even . . . well, peed my pants. Shaking like a leaf, I hauled myself back up. I spared a glance back at Fly; he looked like he might have peed his pants too. I shrugged-sorry!I'm sorry, but hacking systems would never seem serious after this. Just a toy. This was real. I knew I was taking a big chance, but there was no way else to reach the foot: I rested my knee on the bed of the flatcar and stretched higher, and then I could reach the leg.

The spider moved again! I wasn't able to get back down before the leg pinned me back against the firewall of the car behind. I was stuck like a fly in the spidermind's web.

I didn't make a sound; I could barely breathe, but I didn't panic this time-I didn't have any you-know- what left. It didn't know I was there ... so I hung.

It would kill me the second it realized I was there, same way I'd crush a bug; I was still alive because I was hidden from view by the huge leg itself. 'Course, it might kill me without ever knowing I was there; if it put its weight on that foot, it would pulverize me.