Mortimer noticed the cars straight off, half-buried in snow, the old metal husks like beer cans of the gods, crushed and tossed without heed along the roadside, the debris of some cosmic tailgate party. Others seemed obscenely new, bright fiberglass bodies sitting on the rotted remains of tires. The old junkers had been cleared out of Spring City, but now, as the Muscle Express glided the rails parallel to Highway 27 south, Mortimer remembered how it had been, the millions of automobiles plying America’s roadways. Where did you want to go today? The store for milk, Sunday church, take the kids to Disney World? It had all been so close, so possible.

An hour and a half’s drive to Chattanooga would now be a three-day walk. The world had grown smaller and smaller until it exploded into bigness again, distances stretching, horizons meaning something.

But Mortimer and Bill weren’t walking. The Muscle Express had picked up speed, the cold wind stinging his eyes.

“How fast, you think?” asked Mortimer.

Bill squinted, tried to judge. “Maybe thirty miles per hour. Not more than that. Pretty good though. Better than hoofing it.”

Mortimer leaned out, looked ahead to the handcar. Four brutes pumping, four others resting. No more unleaded for cars, no more diesel for locomotives. He wondered how many Armageddon dollars it would be worth if he salvaged a steam engine.

Somebody had bolted four movie theater seats at the back of the middle flatcar. Bill and Mortimer occupied two of them, Mortimer slouched low, trying to ignore his stomach. The cowboy thumbed shells into the lever-action rifle.

A slender figure appeared atop the crates in front of them, looked down on the two passengers in the theater seats. The newcomer’s face wasn’t clear at first, a dark silhouette against the morning sun. Mortimer held up a hand, shaded his eyes to get a look. A woman.

“Don’t puke on my train,” she said.

Mortimer looked down, closed his eyes. It took too much energy to hold his head up. “Your train?”

“I’m Tyler Kane. I’m the train captain.”

She hopped down from the crates, and Mortimer got a better look at her. Athletically thin, hard body like a track star. She wore black leather pants and a matching leather jacket too light for the cold, a white turtleneck underneath. A nickel-plated revolver sprung from her waistband. Her hair was a burgundy red, cut close on the sides and spiked on top. A black patch covered her left eye, and a thin white scar leaked from under the patch and ran straight down to the edge of her angular jawline. Her one eye was bright and blue as an arctic lake. She had the palest skin Mortimer had ever seen on someone still alive.

“You’re paying passengers, so you don’t have to do anything except stay out of the way,” Tyler said. “If we’re attacked, be prepared to help repel boarders. If you vomit, stick your head over the side. Any questions?”

“When does the stewardess come around to take my drink order?”

Tyler’s upper lip curled into a half-smile, half-sneer. “You make me laugh. I’ll make sure you land on something soft if I have to toss you over the side.”

She leapt past them onto the third flatcar.

“Nice,” Bill said. “I think she likes you.”

Mortimer only grunted, sank lower in his seat. It was too fucking cold. He climbed down to the backpacks, went through the gear until he found the down-filled sleeping bag. He curled up on the floor of the flatcar, the clattering ride rocking him to sleep.

In the dream, the man’s scream was a shrill steam whistle, and the train traveled over water instead of land. Somehow the train floated. Pirates rowed toward them in Viking longships, oars dipping into water, prows beating against the wake left by the train. They fired a cannon. The train shuddered, waves coming over the side.

Mortimer’s body shook and shook.

“God damn it! I said get your ass up right fucking now!”

Mortimer’s eyes flashed open, panic shooting up his spine.

Tyler Kane had a tight grip on his jacket, jerking him away. Mortimer sat up, found he was clutching the Uzi to his chest. Gunshots. Screams.

“What is it?”

“Can you use that thing?” She nodded at the Uzi.

“Yes.” He had only fired it once to test it. But it was a simple weapon.

“Then come on!” She dragged him up, and they climbed onto the cargo crates. “We’ve got to get forward.”

Mortimer saw Bill crouched behind the theater seats. He worked the lever action, fired into the buildings along the railroad tracks. It looked like Evansville. Men on the roof and at windows fired at the train. Mortimer caught a glimpse of a red armband.

They were going too slow. Targets like the sharpshooter game at a carnival.

They stood, jogged at a crouch along the flatcar’s cargo crates. A bullet whizzed past Mortimer’s ear like a subsonic hornet.

Tyler grabbed Mortimer’s elbow and jumped, pulling Mortimer down with her. They landed between two crates, crouched behind the cargo while she took something from her jacket pocket.

Bullets ricocheted. Mortimer’s heart thumped up into his throat.

“Why are we going so slow?”

“We were coming into the station,” Tyler said. “Evansville is a scheduled stop. The Red Stripes jumped us, but the pumpers are exhausted.”

Mortimer saw what she’d taken from her pocket, the inoculation gun the doctor had used to juice the muscle guys back in Spring City.

“You’ve got to cover me,” she said. “I need time to power up the guys again. Man, you’ve got to shoot that thing and keep those fuckers off me. You get it?”

Mortimer tried to speak but found his mouth too cottony. He nodded.

She slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go!”

They climbed up again, made their way forward to the end of the flatcar. He cocked the little machine gun, thumbed off the safety. One of the train guards hung limp and dead between the flatcar and the handcar, the back of his head wet and bloody from a large-caliber slug. They leapt over him and landed with a thud on the big handcar.

The stink of sweat slapped Mortimer in the face. The muscle guys pumped, hot, wet skin steaming in the freezing air. A shot caught one of them in the head, brain and skull and blood exploding red and gunky. He toppled over, hit the deck of the handcar with a meaty thump and rolled off.

Tyler punched Mortimer in the shoulder. “Shoot!”

He brought the Uzi up and sprayed the buildings along the track, shattering windows, gouging holes in brick. Wherever he saw a Red Stripe pop his head up, Mortimer squeezed off a burst and sent him back into hiding. He ejected the spent magazine, slapped in a new one. The muzzle smoked. His palms and fingers tingled from gripping the gun so tight, the pinkie stump throbbing.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Tyler placing the inoculation gun against thick shoulders, injecting the narcotic boost. It took only a few seconds. Veins pulsed along necks. Eyes bulged. Faces clenched. They pumped harder.

They picked up speed.

“Up there!” Tyler pointed ahead of the train.

A narrow pedestrian bridge crossed low over the railroad tracks. At least a dozen Red Stripes jogged across the bridge to take up positions. Mortimer edged around the pumping musclemen, ran to the front of the handcar and knelt at the very edge of the train. Cold wind stung his eyes. He brought up the Uzi. The men on the bridge leveled their rifles.

The Uzi bucked in Mortimer’s hands.

Red Stripes along the bridge clutched themselves, toppling over, their death screams filling the air. Mortimer looked back as the handcar and the first flatcar passed under the bridge. A handful of surviving Red Stripes leapt from the bridge onto the middle flatcar.