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*****
This shocked Rebecca to her core. Her mind, trained in chemistry and biology, screamed a rejection. Dead tissues do not contract. Synapses do not fire after cessation of heart function. This is impossible.
Then the woman next to him stood up. Her neck was broken, head lolling to the side.
Then the passenger across the aisle rose, missing an arm.
They all looked dead. And they were all moving.
"Freeze!" Rebecca shouted, bringing her Samurai Edge up. Her voice cracked, high and terrified. "Stay back! I said stay back!"
The man in the grey suit lunged, stumbling over the seats, arms outstretched, fingers curled into claws.
BAM! BAM!
Rebecca fired. It was panic fire.
The recoil of the 9mm jolted her small frame.
The bullets hit the man in the chest, puffing dust from his expensive suit. The kinetic energy made him stumble back a step, but he didn't stop. He didn't scream. He didn't clutch the wound. He just groaned louder, the smell of rot wafting from his open mouth, and kept coming.
Why won't he fall?
"Headshots," she whispered, a desperate mantra from her academy training. "Aim for the head. Sever the brain stem."
She tried to adjust her aim. But her hands were shaking violently. The adrenaline was dumping into her system too fast, turning her fine motor skills into mush.
BAM!
The shot went wide, shattering the window behind him. Rain and wind whipped into the car.
The Zombie was on her.
It grabbed her shoulders, its rotting fingers digging into her tactical vest with bruising force. Its jaws snapped inches from her face, its breath smelling of raw meat and old grave dirt.
"No! Get off!"
She tried to push him back, shoving the barrel of her gun against his chest, but the dead weight was overwhelming. From the corner of her eye, she saw two more zombies closing in from the aisle, blocking her retreat.
She was going to die. On her first mission. In a train in the middle of nowhere, eaten by things that shouldn't walk.
CRASH!
The window behind the zombies exploded inward.
It wasn't a bullet. It was a battering ram of flesh and bone.
A figure smashed through the reinforced glass, rolling perfectly on the carpeted floor amidst a shower of diamond-like shards and rain.
Before Rebecca could process the new arrival, the figure moved.
It was a blur of violence.
The figure stood up—a tall man in a leather jacket. He didn't use a gun. He stepped forward, ignoring the zombie's grasp, and grabbed the creature attacking Rebecca by the back of the head.
With a motion that looked terrifyingly effortless, he slammed the zombie's face into the nearest brass luggage railing.
SPLAT.
The skull collapsed like a wet melon. Grey matter and blood sprayed the wall. The body dropped instantly, the strings cut.
The man didn't stop. He spun, his leg lashing out in a high, brutal arc. His heavy boot connected with the second zombie's neck.
SNAP.
The sound of the spinal column severing was louder than a gunshot. The head was severed from the spine instantly, held on only by a flap of grey skin.
The third zombie lunged at him.
SNIKT.
Rebecca saw it. In the stroboscopic flash of lightning from the broken window, she saw three silver-white blades extend from the man's knuckles. They looked like metal... or polished bone.
He swiped his hand in a backhand motion.
SHING.
The zombie was bisected from shoulder to hip. It fell in two wet heaps, sliding apart on the floor.
Blood—black and viscous—sprayed across the man's jacket and hands. He didn't wipe it off. He stood amidst the carnage, looking at the bodies with a critical, almost disappointed eye.
SNAKT.
The claws retracted instantly, disappearing back into his hands as if they were never there.
Silence returned to the train car, save for the wind howling through the broken window.
Rebecca stood there, her back pressed against the sliding door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She was hyperventilating, her eyes wide, staring at the man. He was huge—broad-shouldered, radiating a dangerous, predatory energy that felt just as terrifying as the monsters he had just killed.
Slowly, shakily, she raised her gun again.
"F-Freeze!" Rebecca shouted, aiming at his chest. Her finger trembled on the trigger. "Put your hands where I can see them!"
The man turned to face her.
He had grey eyes. Calm. Calculating. Not scared in the least.
He looked at the gun pointed at him, then looked at Rebecca. He saw the terror in her eyes, the way her chest was heaving, the way she was one second away from a panic attack.
He didn't mock her. He didn't attack.
He softened his posture. He bent his knees slightly, making himself appear smaller, less threatening. He raised his hands slowly, palms open, showing he held no weapons. No claws. Just gloved hands.
"Easy, Officer," he said. His voice was deep, smooth, and utterly composed—an anchor in the storm. "Look at me. Hey. Look at me."
Rebecca's eyes darted from the bodies to him.
"Just breathe," he instructed gently, like he was talking to a spooked horse. "In through the nose. Out through the mouth. You're hyperventilating."
"Who... who are you?" Rebecca stammered, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "What are you?"
"I'm not the one trying to eat you," he said softly. "I'm alive. See? No bites. No rot."
He took a very slow, deliberate half-step forward, keeping his hands high.
"Finger off the trigger, Rebecca," he coaxed. "You're safe now. But if you keep shaking like that, that gun is going to go off, and I'd really prefer not to get shot tonight."
Rebecca looked at her finger. It was white-knuckled on the trigger. She forced herself to index it along the frame. She took a ragged breath.
"That's it," he nodded, offering a small, encouraging smile. "Good girl. Deep breaths."
"What... what was that?" Rebecca demanded, her voice gaining a fraction of strength. "Those blades! I saw them!"
"Experimental combat knives," the man lied smoothly, nodding toward his sleeves. "Hidden gauntlets. Latest military prototype. I'm full of surprises."
"Stay back!" she warned, the paranoia flaring up again. "Identify yourself! Are you Billy Coen?"
The man laughed. It was a short, sharp bark of amusement that broke the tension in the room.
"Billy Coen? The Marine?" He shook his head, looking genuinely amused. "Do I look like a convict to you, Officer Chambers?"
He glanced at the patch on her vest. "...S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team. Medic, right?"
"How do you know that?"
"I know a lot of things," he said enigmatically. "Like the fact that your 9mm isn't going to stop these things unless you hit the brain stem. You need to sever the connection. Body shots just annoy them."
He lowered his hands slowly, hooking his thumbs into his belt, near the massive Magnum strapped to his thigh. His body language radiated calm confidence.
"My name is Atlas," he introduced himself. "I'm a... private contractor. Specializing in pest control."
"Pest control?" Rebecca looked at the mutilated bodies on the floor—the bisected torso, the crushed skull. "You call this pests?"
"I call them targets," Atlas replied.
He looked her up and down, assessing her. She was shaking. She was terrified. She was clearly a rookie who should be in a lab, not a warzone. But she hadn't run away. She had stood her ground.
"Listen, Rebecca," Atlas said, dropping the formal title. His tone shifted from the predator that had just massacred three corpses to something steadier—serious, but supportive. "This train is crawling with them. And worse things. Leeches. Big ones. We can stand here and point guns at each other until the next wave comes, or we can work together."
He nodded toward the sliding door at the end of the car, where the darkness of the next carriage waited.
"I'm heading to the front. I plan to search for this train, secure the engine and stop it. You can come with me, watch my back, and I'll make sure nothing gets close enough to bite you. Or you can stay here with the passengers."
He gestured vaguely to the headless corpse he had just brained against the railing. "But I don't think they're very talkative right now."
Rebecca hesitated. Her eyes darted from the gruesome remains on the floor to the rain pouring in through the shattered window. Then, she looked at Atlas.
He was terrifying. He was covered in black, viscous blood. He radiated a dangerous energy that made the hair on her arms stand up. But he was solid. He wasn't shaking. In a world that had suddenly dissolved into madness, he was the only thing that made sense.
She lowered her Samurai Edge, finally letting out a long, shuddering exhale that wracked her small frame.
"Atlas," she repeated, testing the name on her tongue. "You're... not with Umbrella?"
"Umbrella?" Atlas scoffed.
He turned his back on her to check the Remington shotgun strapped to his back, checking the shell count. It was a calculated move. He was exposing his blind side to her—the ultimate gesture of trust in a combat zone.
"Let's just say I'm an unhappy customer."
Guraaaa…
The sound was low, wet, and came from everywhere at once.
Rebecca's eyes widened. "Did you hear that?"
The scream and gunshot acted as a beacon in the silence. From the shadows of the connecting cars, a groaning tide of dead passengers and mangled conductors began to shamble forward, flooding the aisle as they hunted for the source of the noise.
With collective, sickening cracks of stiff joints, they began to reach out for them.
"Shoot to kill," Atlas commanded, his voice devoid of panic. He didn't spin around wildly; he simply drew his Lightning Hawk magnum in one fluid motion. "And remember: shoot them in the head. Anywhere else is a waste of ammo."
"Oh god," Rebecca gasped, raising her pistol again.
The conductor lunged at her, his jaw hanging loose.
BANG!
Rebecca fired. The shot hit the conductor in the shoulder, spinning him around, but he didn't drop.
"The head, Rebecca!" Atlas barked, stepping in front of her.
He didn't fire. He kicked the conductor in the chest, sending him flying back into the businessman.
"Focus!"
Atlas moved like a whirlwind. He wasn't just fighting; he was harvesting.
BLAM.
The Magnum roared. The businessman's head vaporized.
SNIKT.
The bone claws extended for a split second, severing the neck of the woman in the gown before she could grab Rebecca's leg.
BLAM.
Another headshot.
In less than fifty seconds, the carriage was silent again, filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder and the heavy copper scent of old blood.
Atlas glanced at the notifications floating in his periphery.
'Ten XP per zombie. Two EP. No VG yet.'
It was a slow grind, but it was honest work.
He turned to Rebecca. She was pressed against the wall, her gun smoking, her chest heaving. She looked like she was about to shatter.
"A-Atlas," she stammered, staring at the carnage. "Weren't... weren't those people dead? I checked their pulses before you got here. They were dead!"
"It seems these are the 'Zombies' that have been rumored in the Arklay Mountains," Atlas said calmly.
He didn't approach her. He holstered his weapon and took a step back, giving her physical space. He knew that right now, he looked like a monster. If he crowded her, she would snap.
"Take a breath," he instructed softly. "In through the nose. Hold it. Out through the mouth."
Rebecca followed his instruction, her breathing hitching.
"Dead people don't walk," she whispered, her scientific mind rejecting the reality. "It's impossible."
"Biology and Evolution changes," Atlas said. "Whatever was in here... it rewrites the rules. You need to accept that, Rebecca. If you try to apply logic to this, you'll die. Right now, the only rule is survival."