Tyler had finished drugging the pumpers and motioned to Mortimer. “Come on. Let’s get them.”

Get them? Fuck you. But he followed her.

The half-dozen Red Stripes were locked in hand-to-hand combat with the surviving few train guards. Mortimer climbed atop the cargo crates, leveled the Uzi but couldn’t get a shot. It was an erratic weapon, and he was as likely to hit the guards as the Red Stripes.

He saw Bill jump up from the theater seats and swing his rifle butt at the head of a Red Stripe, who ducked underneath and tackled the cowboy. They both hit the deck. Mortimer dropped the Uzi and drew the police special.

They were out of the town now, the train rolling along much faster. Tyler and Mortimer ran along the top of the crates, the rocking train threatening to toss them over the side. They hit the melee just as one of the guards took a knife in the stomach and dropped off the speeding train.

Tyler put her revolver against the back of a Red Stripe’s head, pulled the trigger. Half the Red Stripe’s head flew away into the wind, the body falling.

Mortimer went for the Red Stripe on top of Bill, but another stepped in swinging a club. It caught Mortimer in the gut. He whuffed air, tumbled over and hit the crates hard. He turned, fired his police special vaguely in the direction of his attacker.

The blast shattered the Red Stripe’s ankle. He yelled hoarse and agonized from the throat, hopped on his good leg for a moment before the train lurched and tossed him over the side, trailing blood.

Mortimer climbed to his knees, sucking breath and gagging. He probed his side with tentative fingers but found nothing broken.

He looked around. All of the train guards and Red Stripes were dead. Bill stood over his bloody opponent, Bill’s right eye swelling where he’d taken a punch.

Tyler stuck the revolver back in her waistband. “I think we’re past the Red Stripes for now.” She wiped sweat from her face. “If we can just get through the cannibals, I think we’ll make it.”

XIV

“I’m sorry.” Mortimer blinked. “But did you just say cannibals, or have I gone crazy?”

“I’ll explain later. Right now the pumpers are overdosed and I have to bring them down before they all have heart attacks.” She dashed off in the direction of the handcar, her perfect balance a tribute to long experience on the rocking flatcars. Train legs instead of sea legs.

Bill flopped into one of the theater seats. “I’m out of shells for the rifle.”

“You okay?”

Bill nodded. “Guy jumped me before I could get the pistols out.”

“Stay here. I’ll see if she needs any help.”

Mortimer climbed forward after Tyler. He noticed the train had slowed again to the pace of a fast walk. He reached the handcar and found most of the musclemen slumped on the deck, eyes closed, massive chests rising and falling with shallow breaths. Greasy piles of meat. Only two of the big brutes remained to work the hand pump.

Mortimer watched Tyler put two fingers to a man’s throat, shake her head and roll him off the train.

“What happened?”

“His heart exploded,” Tyler said. “I couldn’t dose him in time. The two pumping are on a half-dose of downer juice. When they get tired, I’ll wake up two more to take over. Best we can do for now.”

“Can’t we just stop for a while?”

She shook her head, squinted up at the sun. “At this pace, we won’t reach our destination in daylight. It’s dangerous to run at night, but worse if we stop.”

Mortimer remembered she’d said something about cannibals. He gulped. “Right.”

“I need your help now,” she said. “Get to the back end of the train and keep watch. We don’t want anything crawling up our tailpipe while we’re going this slow.”

He flicked her a two-finger salute and headed back the way he’d come. He picked up the Uzi along the way and paused to tell Bill he’d be guarding the back of the train.

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled here,” Bill said.

Mortimer went into the gear and found a box of 9 mm ammunition, winked at Bill and headed back.

He sat with his feet dangling over the back of the last flatcar. The track dwindled behind. Forest had cropped up on either side, although he occasionally glimpsed a stretch of road or power lines, a small abandoned house. A barn. He thumbed new shells into the Uzi’s magazine, reloaded the police special. He wished he had cigarettes. Mortimer had never smoked, but lighting up a Lucky seemed like something soldiers on guard duty did in the movies.

Miles and hours crept away, never to be seen again.

In spite of the cold wind on his neck and ears, Mortimer started to drift, the rocking train easing his eyelids down. He slumped, the Uzi heavy in his lap. With the adrenaline rush from the attack fading, the aches and nausea of his hangover seeped back into his body. He’d pay a hundred Armageddon dollars for three hours back in the hotel bed.

Joey Armageddon’s, the hotel, the food, the drink, the lights. It had all fooled Mortimer, lulled him into forgetting the world was now a wild and broken place. Could Anne survive out here? This savage country where women were bought and sold like cattle. She seemed far away, and here was Mortimer inching along on a train powered by sweaty men. Mortimer had read those Conan the Barbarian novels as a teenager. It took a barbarian to live in such a world, someone brutal and ruthless with the survival instincts of an animal. Mortimer wasn’t a barbarian. He was an insurance salesman. He felt suddenly small and fragile. He needed Starbucks and Krispy Kreme and Jiffy Lube.

Mortimer dreamed of Anne in a metal bikini like the one Carrie Fisher wore in Return of the Jedi. But she wasn’t chained to Jabba the Hutt. She was chained to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not the Conan Schwarzenegger. It was Arnold from The Terminator, the flesh peeled away from half his skull, revealing the metal underneath. One eye glowing red.

This is my woman now, said the Terminator.

No! That’s my wife.

Take him away, barked the Terminator.

Men grabbed him, took him to the Thunderdome, where Mad Max tried to kill him. No, not Mad Max. Mel Gibson handing him a big wooden cross. Carry this. He stuck a crown of thorns on Mortimer’s head. The thorns tore flesh, blood running into his eyes.

Mortimer looked at the blood in the palm of his hand. The blob of blood became a glowing light, blinking red. Michael York grabbed his arm. Run! Run!

Mortimer ran. He was in a bright city. They were chasing him. He ran and ran until the world was a blur, a forest, then a desert, then the ruined buildings of a deserted town. Anne! Anne! Where was she? And even if he found her, then what? How would they live? Where would they go? Mortimer thought he was rescuing her. He couldn’t even save himself.

He felt somebody grab him, looked up at Kurt Russell with long hair and an eye patch. Come on. We’ve got to escape from here.

Leave me alone. I’m too tired.

“I said wake up.” The voice had become feminine but with a hard edge.

Mortimer started, blinked. Kurt Russell’s face morphed into somebody else. Only the eye patch remained.

“You’d better not be falling asleep,” Tyler warned.

Mortimer dug the sleep out of his eyes with a thumb. “No, of course not.”

“Uh-huh.” Tyler looked doubtful. “It’s going to be dark soon, and I need you on your toes.”

“I hate to even ask this, but when you say cannibals, are you being figurative? I mean, is it a gang that calls themselves the Cannibals or something?”

Tyler leaned down, pinched the flesh of his cheek. “They’d fry you up and serve you with little red potatoes, man. Now stay awake.” She went forward again.

“They’d find me very chewy,” he shouted after her.

Great. I’m going to be an entrée.