To Witness Another Day

They had gotten rid of the flatcar the day before in hopes that with less weight, the last bit of coal that remained in the furnace would push the engine closer to the nearest town. Winona and Grady had burned everything left—the crates, stray paper and books from abandoned homes, but that did not stop the locomotive from coughing to a stop. The train died with a lulled jerk.

Winona clutched her shotgun to her chest, a physical heavy weight to complement the invisible one. The firing chamber had been empty for the past week. She considered them lucky that they had no severe encounters with the undead, but a lone engine isolated in the desolate desert was bound to bring problems if they did not move within the next hour. Daylight would cease in a few. She and Grady both knew this, although his arched shoulders sank even lower despite his efforts for a better solution than the one already brewing in Winona’s mind, especially at the sight of a dwelling some distance away.

“You’ve done all you can do,” she began, unstrapping her weapon completely off her back. “I’m going now.”

“Ya have no ammo, girl,” he argued, voice gruff. “Yer as good as dead, ‘specially if one of them rotters comes an’ sneaks up on ya. They’re the same color as the dust beneath our feet, I tell ya!”

“I’ve been on this train long as you have and you think I haven’t witnessed the horrors caused by this disease?”

“Stop puttin’ words into my mouth, girl.”

The malice that immediately boiled in her mouth tasted bitter. “I lost one of my closet friends due to your incompetence to get this train moving in time.” 

“Well how do ya think I feel, huh? I lost my son ‘cuz he had to save you. He could’ve left you but he had to be noble for you! On top of that, my foot’s gone ‘cuz you failed to help me out in a pinch—!”

“I was trying not to die, Grady. If I had tried to save your one foot, you’d be dead that same night as me and all our sacrifice would have been for nothing.”

“If I’d ‘ad died, you’d be lying dead right outside these godforsaken tracks ‘cuz ya don’t know how to drive a train. an’ all my son’s dedication and hard work would’a been for nothin’.”

Where they had started with three, now their partnership barely remained fused with needs that only the other could provide and a sense they were now obligated to complete a dead man’s purpose. 

Winona slid off the open back of the engine, weathered boots upsetting the dust on the tracks. Whatever he had to say, she had already heard it dozens by now.

Grady shouted something loud after her, but her ears had already closed for her to hear it.

She and Preston would take over this part of the job together. Grady would sit protected with his own pistol and the rest of his darned limbs back at the engine. The two had to sacrifice a lot since then. The only thing Grady had left that’s of value are Preston’s matches for the engine’s furnace that always remained in his pocket.

The porch floorboards creaked upon arrival, windows clouded with age and desertion. Something was blocking the front door. It would normally take a kick from her and Preston to knock it over. That same process took multiple tries today. 

A chair clattered from behind the door once pushed open. Most likely it had been blocking the handle, as if it were deliberately placed there. The person that had been here before wanted no person getting in… or was it to keep something from getting out?

The dark corners groaned, whispered a warning.

Winona’s body reacted before her mind did.

The butt of her shotgun cracked into a pale, sickly green skull, wrinkled fingers grazing her arm before it collapsed to the ground. More bashes to ensure it would not get up again. This one’s only what she and her companions would call Ones, an undead caused merely by catching the disease rather than being killed by another rotter. Winona kicked the One to a dim wall. 

Seeing Ones were always the most devastating to her still—those victims were always too unsuspecting. Ones were also a reminder of why she, Preston, and Grady set out on this journey in the first place. There had been rumors that a cure was in the works at the southern border. The tracks were the only straight shot there. Whether it cured Ones completely or made the uninfected immune was not clear, but Preston had argued it was either die for a purpose or count their days barely surviving and waiting for the inevitable. He was noble in that way. 

Grady was the one who immediately agreed with him. Winona was reluctantly pulled into the mess but ended up willing to die for him in the end. She would have if she were given another chance. If only their roles were reversed. If only she had been more vigilant.

Winona’s scan of the main room only consisted of gritty furniture and either empty or spoiling cans of food. Two other rooms remained down the short hall. The first one on the right contained a beaten down furnace, rusted iron pans on a nearby table and tarnished silverware scattered on the floor. Winona knelt in front of the furnace, wedging open the oven and ran her fingers below the grate.

“Holy…” Winona’s breath caught at the sight of black dust coating her fingertips. She identified rocks under the weight of her hand. The furnace was chalk full of new coal. The resident of this abandoned home must have not gotten the chance to use this before they turned.

For the train, this would not even fill the engine ten percent of its fuel capacity. But perhaps just enough to make it to the next town. 

Winona needed to find some sort of cloth or bag to scoop these up with so she wouldn’t have to take multiple trips or risking dropping them. Luckily, there was an entire room that still had to be searched. 

She grabbed her shotgun from off the floor by the nozzle. A short walk across the hallway, she reached for the other door handle. The knob did not budge. It was locked, not blocked by something behind it.

Her shoulder rammed against the jamb, the wood splintering a little more after each hit. The door broke open after four tries. Her heart stuttered upon recognizing the Two before it charged at her. 

The Two ran into the hallway’s wall as she dodged to the side. She swung down on the back of its head with the butt of the gun. Twitching, it fell, but only temporarily.

Twos were products of the disease transferred by the bites of the undead. Twice the amount of strength and stamina of a One. If bitten, one would need to be shot immediately before they completely turned.

Winona remembers again.

Preston was the one that had gotten bitten after saving her life. The way his limbs began twitching as Grady dragged him away always remains. She killed the final One, then rushed to him as he began to stand on his own again.

Once the chaos had settled, Preston had the only loaded gun left. The knowing look in his eyes when he raised that gun matched the sinking feeling in her chest. 

Preston saved her life, and his father’s, twice that day.

But Winona never did get to say what she needed to.

Two screamed like an eagle, that with the extra adrenaline from the resurfaced memory fueling her. Its claws drew deep lines into the drywall, its sallow and hollow skin clinging to its deformed bones. Twos don’t bleed. Whacking it down with a shotgun continuously wouldn’t work. To kill them, they must burn. 

Only, Winona did not have any firestarters.

Two charged. The empty barrel caught in its mouth, notched teeth shoving against the steel, forcing her into the back wall. A kick to its scragged ribs was met with slash against her thick denim shirt. Spit spattered onto her face when it roared again, claws about to pierce into her skin.

Then front door creaked open. Even Two held its breath as the spine twisted to look.

Grady leaned heavily against the doorframe, eyes widening at the sight of Two. His hand swiped into his pocket. Two tore through to home to get to him, screeching. 

Winona stumbled up into the other room, grasping any sharp silverware from the ground, rushing to get back to the main room. 

“Fire!” she screamed at him, but Grady’s fingers already dropped the match. The splintered wood began charring, edges slowly disappearing as the flames grew. In only a few seconds, the timber ignited into a blaze.

Two startled backwards. His frame staggered when Winona dugs the forks and knives into its back. Just enough time to shove him forward into the ever growing inferno. 

Two died there. 

Feet staggering, Winona flew back into the other room. Slammed the door. Turned over the table. Stopped the door. Got to the window, shotgun in hand. Swinging, the butt shattered the dirty glass.

“Winona!” Grady cracked, hopping into view from the other side. “This sunbaked house’s gonna collapse! Git through this darned winda’ now!

Her ears were ignorant to his commands despite the flames already licking under the doorway. The scattered coal made its way through the small window with shaky hands. She gripped the shotgun, though it still began to slip through her hands. Her fingers started to feel numb, the quakes in her forearms and shins too strong. The strikes to break open the rest of the window were less powerful. Then she stopped, breaths labored.

The coal was already on the other side. Maybe Grady could still get to that border.

Winona’s words stumbled from her lips. “Grady, Grady, listen to me. Get- get the darn coal back to the engine. Get to the next town. Start taking them now, I say!”

“No,” he snarled. Grady’s firm grip clamped down on the nozzle, seizing it through the window. His blows even broke down some of the siding. The shotgun was thrown to the dirt.

He captured her arms through the gap, using gravity to help her over the ledge. She had just enough power in her thighs to push over the other side, onto the desert floor. Dust entered her lungs just as a shattering noise from the front of the house alerted the heat already blasted through the majority of the house.

“Grady,” Winona gasped, strength returning to her limbs, clamoring for any coal she could before the house completely collapsed. She tossed the coal far enough away to come back to retrieve them at a safe distance from the fire, returned to the old man to safely drag him back to the engine by his shoulders. “How’d you know? How’d you get here so fast?”

“Ya din’t come out an' wave yer gun at me to tell me yer okay. Even if it were you an’ my son, that’s protocol, girl.”

“You still blame me for your son’s death. I thought you wouldn’t care whether I lived or died.”

“Of course I blame ya, girl. Always will,” he admitted, tone coated with spite. Grady squiremed out of her grip, crawled on his elbow, groaning from the effort, and scooted closer to the engine on his own. “But Preston loved ya. An’ ‘cuz of that, I respect ya. Yer indispensable if I am able to avenge my son and carry out his legacy. If ya died out in that house, I would’a died on this engine. You an’ I agreed on that.”

Not another word was said as Grady sat back in his engineer seat other than muttering about the pains in his nonexistent. Coal was dispensed into the engine’s furnace, the last match in the box utilized. This was the last shot to make it to the next town. All they could pray for was to witness another day.