The three of them backtracked, pushing from the rear back toward the engine.
Lincoln had already cleared the forward cars on his way in, but he still took the point position, flashlight and handgun held in a standard target-acquisition stance, scanning every corner before stepping into a new car.
Rebecca followed two meters behind him, her Beretta raised against her chest, barrel lowered at a forty-five-degree angle in a proper low-ready position.
It was obvious she had formal training; her fundamentals were solid.
Billy brought up the rear, his left hand gripping the iron bar, the empty Python tucked into his waistband, eyes constantly sweeping left and right.
Though he lacked a usable firearm, his alertness was top-notch.
On several occasions, before Lincoln could even turn his head, Billy had already picked up on suspicious noises beneath the side seats.
As they crossed the fifth car, Rebecca noticed two corpses lying in the aisle, their necks pierced through from behind with a blade.
Her footsteps paused slightly, and she cast a few glances downward.
“Did you take these out?”
“Yeah.”
Rebecca didn’t ask further, but her eyes when looking at Lincoln clearly changed.
The guarded edge she had held when they first met softened, replaced by a layer of careful evaluation.
Someone who chose to close the distance and kill the infected with a knife in an environment like this possessed nerve and skill far beyond average.
Billy, on the other hand, displayed no emotion at all.
He simply cast a brief glance over the corpses and kept moving without breaking stride.
When passing Cabin 002 from earlier, Lincoln paused at the doorway.
“Hold up.”
He stepped back into the cabin and picked up the briefcase sitting on the table with a three-digit combination lock.
The case wasn’t heavy.
Shaking it revealed something sliding inside—the metallic sound of gun parts.
It was a standard three-wheel tumbler lock.
Lincoln suddenly remembered something.
He flipped the case over to examine the bottom.
Near the corner of the leather lining was a small patch of wear that exposed the hard inner layer.
He used the tip of his dagger to pick at it, pulling out a tiny slip of paper tucked into the lining.
Three numbers were written on it by hand.
Leaving the combination hidden on the case itself was a common habit among frequent business travelers who were afraid of forgetting it.
He dialed the digits, and the latch snapped open with a sharp click.
Inside lay black foam padding, with a handgun fitted right into the center cutout.
Silver-gray slide—Lincoln recognized it in an instant: a SIG Sauer P226, 9mm caliber.
Beside the gun sat two fully loaded magazines, fifteen rounds each.
Including the magazine inside the gun, that made forty-five rounds total.
Aside from the pistol, another slot in the foam held a leather badge holder.
Lincoln flipped it open.
It was an Umbrella Senior Researcher ID card.
The photo showed a middle-aged man wearing glasses named Gregory Shaw, holding the title of Special Projects Coordinator.
It was a vague title, and within Umbrella’s hierarchy, vague titles often meant higher authority.
An armed researcher carrying a gun on his person, staying in the only locked cabin on the train, bludgeoned to death from behind.
Then there was the waiter’s body back in the dining car—blunt-force trauma to the back of the head.
Lincoln linked the two events together in his mind, his brow furrowing slightly.
It wasn’t just a viral outbreak that had occurred on this train.
Before or during the infection, someone had been committing murder.
However, now was not the time to dig deeper into the matter.
He stowed the ID card into his pouch and picked up the P226.
He weighed it in his hand, racked the slide to load a round, ejected the chamber to check, and let it snap back into place.
The gun was in prime condition and well maintained; Researcher Shaw likely had a habit of cleaning it regularly.
Lincoln turned around and handed the pistol toward Billy.
“Your Python’s out of ammo. Use this for now. 9mm, three magazines, forty-five rounds.”
Billy looked at him without immediately reaching out.
His eyes lingered on Lincoln’s face for two or three seconds, as if trying to gauge his motives.
Someone he had known for less than half an hour was actively giving a discovered firearm and ammunition to an unidentified former military prisoner.
No matter how one thought about it, that was unusual.
Ultimately, however, he reached out and took it.
His movements were smooth and practiced.
He released the magazine, checked the round count, shoved it back in, and racked the slide—loading complete.
The entire sequence was fluid, taking less than two seconds.
“Don’t worry about me pointing this at you,” Billy said, pulling the empty Python from his waist and jamming it into the gap beside a seat before tucking the P226 into its place.
“I’m not stupid enough to start an internal fight in a place like this.”
The corner of Lincoln’s mouth twitched slightly, and he tossed the two spare magazines over to him.
Rebecca watched from the side, her mouth opening slightly as if to say something, but she ultimately remained quiet.
She had probably wanted to voice whether giving a gun to a prisoner in custody was appropriate.
In their current situation, however, the difference between an armed teammate and one wielding an iron bar could mean the difference between life and death.
She had likely realized that as well.
The three of them pressed on toward the engine car.
No new threats appeared in the cars Lincoln had previously cleared.
The corpses on the floor remained exactly as he had left them.
The blood had further congealed; with the temperature remaining low, the rate of decomposition hadn’t accelerated.
Through the dining car, through the second passenger car.
All the way back to the very first car Lincoln had entered.
He had originally boarded through the door in the middle of the train and cleared every car toward the rear, but he had not yet checked the front section toward the engine.
Between the first passenger car and the engine sat a short car—likely a baggage or power auxiliary car—with its door locked tight.
The door was made of solid iron, far thicker than the connecting doors between standard passenger cars.
Lincoln tried the key he had retrieved from Cabin 002, but the size didn’t match.
He took a step back to inspect the lock mechanism.
It was an industrial-grade mortise lock; prying it open by force was unrealistic.
However, the door frame’s hinges were exposed on the outside.
“Stand back.”
Lincoln unslung his shotgun, the Remington M870, from his hip.
He pressed the muzzle against the upper hinge, angling it slightly to prevent ricochets from striking anyone.
“Cover your ears.”
Rebecca and Billy turned away simultaneously.
*BOOM!*
The blast of a shotgun in an enclosed space was deafening, making their ears ring violently.
The top hinge blew apart, and the top edge of the heavy door panel sagged outward.
Lincoln lined up a second shot against the bottom hinge and pulled the trigger.
The entire door panel detached from the frame, tilting inward and crashing to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Twenty shotgun shells left.
Behind the door lay a short utility corridor lined with tool racks and distribution boxes on both sides.
Pipes and cables ran along the floor—this was the train’s equipment maintenance area.
At the far end stood a half-open iron door, behind which lay the conductor’s cab.
As the three walked through the maintenance section, Lincoln spotted something on the right-hand tool rack.
It was an olive-drab metal box stamped with the word *EMERGENCY*—an emergency supply crate.
He flipped it open.
Inside was a box of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition containing twenty shells, along with a first aid kit, two bottles of mineral water, and a few energy bars.
Lincoln packed the shotgun shells into his pouch first, then grabbed a water bottle and two energy bars.
He handed one bottle of water to Rebecca.
“Drink some.”
Rebecca hesitated for a brief moment before taking it, unscrewing the cap, and taking two quick swallows.
She then passed it to Billy, who took a drink as well.
Lincoln didn’t drink.
Instead, he bit open an energy bar, chewed a few times, and swallowed it down.
His system panel stated that safety threshold recovery was achieved through “Sleep” and “Nutritional Supplementation.” He wanted to test whether eating food had any direct effect on restoring his threshold.
After eating, he summoned the system interface in his mind and stared at the safety threshold number for several seconds.
90/100.
No change.
He waited another minute or so, but it remained firmly at 90.
It seemed a single energy bar didn’t provide enough nutrition to trigger recovery—or perhaps the restoration process took longer to register on the readout.
Alternatively, “Nutritional Supplementation” might not refer to ordinary food at all.
He logged the detail for later testing.