Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands Read Online Free PDF Page A

frantic departure from the station, a guardsman walked quickly through the aisle and past them, exiting through the back without a word. No news from the guard, then. Ed wondered if there simply wasn’t anything to say. They’d all watched the monsters overrun the city. And the explosions couldn’t have been accidental.
    As the wastelands of the United States scrolled past their windows, Ed found himself thrust back into the world of the infected. After more than a year inside the temporary refuge behind the city’s fence, his memories of the death and destruction outside had begun to fade.
    Now, gazing upon it again, their three years on the road without protection or peace of mind came flooding back.
    But they were survivors. And this time they weren’t traveling out on the open road, exposed. Now they had passage on a train to another safe haven.
    Ed glanced down at his two children. They stared out the window, watching the desolate scenery streak by. He wondered what they were thinking. Were they sad? No doubt they were disappointed. But his children possessed an unbreakable spirit, one that had kept Ed going far longer than he ever would have alone.
    “Will we ever go back?” Zach asked, looking up.
    “Maybe,” Ed said, but it felt untrue. St. Louis seemed destined to remain in their collective past.
    Ed wrapped an arm around Trish’s shoulders, pulling her and Jeremy in closer. He kissed the top of Zach’s head. Trish looked at him and smiled, a forced and pained expression.
    Ed felt as if he were reading his own mind on her face. “We’ll be okay,” he told her, smiling to hide his concern.
    “I hope so.”
    “We’ve survived worse. We’ll make it through this too.”
    She touched his hand, nodding. “I believe you,” she said, smiling.
    The blackened and charred husks of cars, overgrown yards and dilapidated houses whipped past as the train steamed toward the little outpost of Kansas City. Like a bullet, it cut through an overgrown land scourged with the corpses of civilization for as far as the eye could see.
    The minutes passed. Exhausted, Trish and the boys fell asleep. Before long Ed’s eyelids grew heavy, the undeniable siren song of sleep calling to him. He closed his eyes and dozed as the miles ticked away.
    * * *
    Ed awoke to the sound of screaming.
    The train car lurched violently forward, slamming him into the seat in front of them. Then he was weightless, tossed around inside the cabin of the passenger car. The world spun around him. He reached out for anyone, anything, but found nothing.
    When gravity returned, Ed’s world went black.

Chapter Nine

    When the train struck a rusting Toyota Corolla sitting on the track, it tore through it, tossing it effortlessly to the side.
    When it met a Honda Civic, it treated the compact car in the same fashion.
    Then the train struck a Chevrolet Suburban, the impact crushing the driver’s side door and crumpling the frame. Glass exploded. Tires popped. Metal groaned. The Suburban stayed with the train as the driver desperately tried to brake, incapable of quickly stopping so many tons of momentum.
    Four years without maintenance had taken its toll. The Suburban’s front wheel caught a decrepit wooden tie, which acted as a temporary wedge.
    With the Suburban jammed against the tie, the rotten wood snapped, causing the track to bend under the immense weight of the train’s engine. The front wheels hopped the track, plunging the engine onto its side.
    One by one the train cars followed their leader off the track, piling on top of each other, twisting into seemingly impossible shapes. They tumbled, carried forward by their own powerful momentum until the friction against the hard ground brought them to an abrupt stop. In a matter of seconds, dozens of train cars lay scattered haphazardly about, like the discarded toys of a disinterested child.
    Then, before the dust could settle, the carriers descended.
    * * *
    Trish opened her eyes and saw seats on