Zombie Apocalypse Running Club by Carrie Mac

Author:Carrie Mac [Mac, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

It’s been dark for hours and hours when we finally hear the train in the distance, screeching as it brakes. As we get our things together, I have a deep pit in my gut, full of don’t get on the train.

I don’t want to go.

Liv doesn’t.

Soren does.

Racer does.

I don’t feel like I can say no, considering the ground we’ll cover on the train. We’ll be that much closer to safety and supplies, if our wishes come true and BATO is waiting for us untouched, unlikely as that sounds. We have to aim for it anyway, so we might as well be hopeful about it.

I lead Odger out into the hot night, behind Rune and Ulf. That leaves Bolt.

Racer isn’t back from going out to pee.

“Racer!” I drop Odger’s reins and start running. “Racer! The train is here.”

I don’t see him out the back, in the junkyard of car carcasses and rusting metal drums and sun-bleached traffic cones. “Racer! We have to go!”

The train stops. I hear Soren shouting for both of us. I run back to the tracks. There are half a dozen soldiers guarding the ladder leading up to the train and another six guarding the wide plank that leads into a cattle boxcar.

“I can’t find him!” I shout.

Soren is arguing with the soldier in charge of the livestock cars.

“We can’t leave any of the horses behind!” There is more fear in his voice than bravado, even though I know he’s trying to take command of the situation. “We need them where we’re going.”

“There’s four of you,” the soldier says. “You can take two horses.”

“Thirteen minutes!” another soldier shouts.

“I’m going to find him,” I tell myself more than Soren. “I’m going to go get him and bring him to the train. You deal with the horses.”

“If you’re planning on taking that big boy”—the soldier points to Odger—“you’re definitely not taking four. There’s not enough room.”

“We’re getting off in Yakima,” Soren pleads. “We’re not going that far!”

I kick Odger’s flanks. “Wait for us!”

“Nine minutes!” the soldier farther up the train shouts. “We don’t wait for anyone.”

Halfway down the dirt track that runs alongside the shop, I slow. What if I don’t find Racer? I glance back at the train. Then to the mess of engines and tarps and pallets. “Racer!” I scream. Then again, so loud that my throat feels raw immediately. “We have to go!”

I don’t know what to do. I do not know what the correct decision is in this very moment, this instant, this second. Racer needs me, but I can’t be separated from Soren and Liv.

“Two minutes!” The soldier is far enough away that I can barely hear him over the idling of the train, and the panic in my brain over the terrible subplot I’ve just backed myself into.

I head to the train at a gallop. Without Racer. Or Bolt. I jump down and lead Odger up the ramp to be with the other horses. I leave Odger with a kiss on his snout and run alongside the train to where Soren is leaning out, waving.

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