Some guy yelled, “He’s got a gun! Get him!”
For one terrifying second, I thought he meant me, but the throng rushed in the direction of a kid who looked to be one of the Latin Kings. The shooter only had time to fire once more before the crazed mob fell on him, and kicked and punched him to death.
His death was a kind of turning point. Anger slowly subsided like water flowing down a drain. People who’d had each other in a death grip a moment before looked confused, as if they’d awakened from a bad dream. Their panic evaporated, and a mixture of fear, shame, and horror silently replaced it.
I surreptitiously tucked my Beretta back in the basket and made sure Lucullus was still alive in his feverish sleep. I helped a few people up and stepped to one side. The Caribbean woman lay dead in the middle of the car, her head split open. Beside her, a man with a torn neck was convulsing in a way we knew all too well.
“He’s changing,” someone in the shadows murmured. “We gotta do something.”
A pretty young woman, her face smeared with blood, tangled hair covering her shoulders, stepped forward. With a cold, unforgiving look on her face, she took the gun out of the dead shooter’s hand. Not missing a beat, she raised the gun, aimed at the convulsing man’s head, and pulled the trigger.
The shot opened a huge hole in the man’s face, and he stopped moving. The girl studied the guy for a while, then tossed the gun on the corpse.
“That was the last bullet,” she said in a flat voice.
Suddenly a cramp shook my body so hard I had to bend over. I straightened up, panting. My clothes were soaked in sweat. I must’ve been feverish for quite a while, but with all the chaos, I hadn’t realized it. I doubled over as an even stronger cramp washed over me and cried out in pain. A guy standing next to me shot me a suspicious look and backed away. I saw fear and disgust in his eyes. He looked at me like I was no longer a person; I was one of them.
Oh, no, no no, please. Not now, please.
“Everything’s under control,” I gasped, waving my hand like a drunk. “Be cool, pal.”
I kneeled down next the basket and took out the thermos of Cladoxpan. My hands were shaking so hard that I could barely unscrew the lid. The first wonderful drink transported me out of that train car for a moment. The liquid flowed down my throat, shutting out the hell around me, and opening all my thirsty cells.
I screwed the lid back on and closed my eyes, savoring that glorious sensation. A part of my mind screamed, This is what heroin addicts must feel like when they shoot up. Hello, addiction. I’m your willing slave. I’d have to deal with my addiction later.
“So now whadda we do?” someone asked in a slightly guilty voice.
“Help the wounded,” someone else replied.
“First we’d better bash in the heads of the dead,” said the girl who’d done the shooting. She said it matter-of-factly, like she was talking about going shopping.
Honey, while you’re out, would you stop by the grocery store and pick up a dozen oranges? Oh, and while you’re at it, bash in the head of that dead child next to you.
“How do we do that?” murmured a frightened woman whose little girl pressed against her skirt, her eyes flooded with terror. “We don’t have any weapons.”
One of the surviving Latin Kings came forward, rummaged through his dead compañero’s clothes, and pulled out a hammer with a razor-sharp claw. Without a word, he walked over to the body of a twelve-year-old boy and brought the hammer down on his head with a loud chop. His eyes dark and vacant like a shark’s, he kept pounding steadily until he was satisfied the job was done. The back of the boy’s head looked like strawberry jam, with pieces of bone sticking out.
“That’s how you do it.” He handed the hammer to the man next to him, who held it away from himself as if it were a live snake. “Any blunt object will do. Just make sure the person’s dead.”
The other passengers looked at him for a moment, horrified.
“You can’t be serious,” muttered the man to my right.
Suddenly, one of the bodies lying on the floor shook.
“There’s your answer, jackass,” said the kid with a shrug.
The man holding the hammer hesitated, swallowed hard, then stepped forward and struck the convulsing corpse in the head. As if someone had fired a starter’s pistol, nearly all the living passengers began to stalk the glut of dead bodies lying on the floor, hitting their heads with a variety of objects.
The scene looked like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. We were covered with bits of blood and brains. The boxcar’s walls were painted with grotesque blood spatters that dripped slowly onto the floor amid lumps of gray matter.
Someone vomited. I shrugged and took another sip of Cladoxpan. Nothing disgusted me now. I’d long since passed my threshold for horror. Besides, there was nothing solid in my stomach.
The next few hours seemed endless. The train rolled along with a monotonous rhythm, punctuated by brief stops. I couldn’t figure out why. Once, for no apparent reason, we even backed up for a couple of miles.
Occasionally there was a thud and the entire train shook. We assumed the train had collided with objects on the track. We could guess what those objects were. I slowly and tortuously wrestled my way to one of the windows. I climbed up a mountain of corpses piled there and peeked out the window.
At first I felt relief. The outside air was fresh and invigorating compared to the stench inside the car. Then when I figured out where we were and how far we’d traveled, my soul fell to my feet. The train was rolling across a parched plain. Groves of twisted trees dotted the landscape. We must be somewhere in south Texas, near the Mexican border. The map that Strangärd gave me showed distances and directions, but not the names of states.
The atmosphere inside the car was gloomy. Talk was at a minimum. We were all lost in our thoughts. Even the cries and groans had stopped, replaced by deep resignation and a fear of the unknown. No one knew where we were headed, but we all wanted the trip to end soon. Nothing could be worse than being locked in that train car of death.
Of the original hundred and fifty exiles in the car, fewer than half were still alive. The rest had been crushed to death or had their heads bashed in. We survivors now had more room to move around. Any Cladoxpan on the corpses had been looted. I’d shamelessly rummaged through the clothes of the skinny guy who died by my side and found a small flask. I topped off the contents of my thermos, which I hid at the bottom of the basket under Lucullus. I didn’t want it to get around that I had such a big stash of Cladoxpan. I kept the gun hidden too. The Latin King’s death proved that a gun was no guarantee of survival. People were desperate and had nothing to lose.
About two hours later, another case arose. This time, we were better prepared. He was a young guy of about twenty, tall and burly with a broken leg. His face was beaten to a pulp. Someone whispered that the Green Guards had beaten him up during the raid when he’d tried to stop them from seizing his sister and mother. Not only did he fail to save them (they were in another car), he’d nearly died. Maybe he’d given his Cladoxpan to his family or he’d been too weak to stop someone from stealing it. Either way, the kid was the next to transform.
First, he begged. He stood in the middle of the car, leaning on a makeshift crutch, and summoned all the dignity he could. Like a beggar in the subway, he pleaded for someone to give him a drink of Cladoxpan. Everyone—including me—either glared at him or looked away, tightening their grip on their own stash.