Rebecca sat in the driver’s seat with her hand on the throttle lever, visibly exhaling in relief when she saw them return.
“I heard the shotgun,” she said.
“What did you hit?”
“A giant heap of leeches over two meters tall,” Billy answered for Lincoln, his voice carrying a lingering trace of disgust.
Rebecca wanted to ask more, but after taking in the blood and shredded flesh splattered across both men, she decided against it.
Lincoln walked over to the side window of the cab and looked out.
The train was slowly climbing an incline along the tracks.
Outside, the forest had thinned, and the dark outline of the mountain slope was vaguely visible in the night.
The faint pinprick of light on the distant mountainside was brighter now, and closer.
“Almost there,” Lincoln said.
“About ten minutes left.”
Rebecca nodded, keeping a firm grip on the throttle lever.
residual rhythmically, accompanied by the steady clack-clack from the rail joints.
Lincoln leaned against the cab wall and closed his eyes for a moment—not to rest, but to organize the information in his head.
There were two types of threats on this train.
First were the T-Virus infected: mutated humans and dogs that moved slowly and died from a single shot to the head.
Second were the leech amalgams: humanoids composed of vast numbers of leeches.
Conventional gunfire was practically useless against their outer layer; you had to locate the core and concentrate heavy fire to destroy them.
What would be waiting inside the Executive Training School?
He didn’t know.
But judging by the evidence so far, the facility had to be massive.
A dedicated railway and a shuttle train outfitted with private berths and a dining car were not features of a small research outpost.
Add to that the document mentioning “Dr.
Marcus’s leech research” and “recent anomalous incidents.”
The situation inside that facility was in all likelihood far worse than on this train.
And if leech amalgams had already appeared on the train, then as the origin of the leech research, the facility itself might harbor even larger, more complex amalgams.
Lincoln opened his eyes and looked out the window.
The forest was coming to an end.
The terrain ahead changed as a wide trench opened up in the mountain—blasted out by human hands, bounded on both sides by bare rock faces, and spanned at the top by reinforced concrete crossbeams.
The tracks were plunging straight into the mountain.
This wasn’t an open-air platform; it was the mouth of an underground tunnel.
Lincoln’s brow furrowed slightly.
Building the terminal station of a private railway deep inside a mountain wasn’t meant for convenient commuting; it was designed for concealment.
From the air, this entrance would be completely hidden by vegetation and rock.
Umbrella didn’t want anyone to know where this railway led.
Once the train rolled into the tunnel entrance, the scenery outside shifted from mountain forest to rough stone walls and industrial lighting installed at regular intervals.
Most of the lamps were burnt out, leaving only a few flickering dim yellow lights that cast long, oscillating shadows across the tunnel interior.
The air changed too.
The damp forest smell vanished, replaced by the odor of concrete, engine oil, and a faint hint of rot—the exact same stench found inside the train cars.
“There’s something ahead,” Rebecca suddenly said.
Lincoln stepped up to the windshield and peered out.
About two hundred meters ahead, the tunnel suddenly opened up into a semi-enclosed loading platform.
It featured concrete platform floors, metal railings, and an arched vault ceiling roughly seven or eight meters high.
At the far end stood a massive industrial shutter door, half-open, with a faint light leaking from within.
Behind that door was likely the underground sector of the Executive Training School.
“Time to slow down,” Billy said.
Lincoln had already slid back into the driver’s seat.
He pulled the throttle lever back to zero, allowing the train to coast forward on momentum.
The speed dropped, but not fast enough.
The platform was looming closer. The source of this chapter is g.com.
He grabbed the brake lever and pulled down.
The lever moved, but the feedback felt completely wrong.
Normally, pulling a brake lever should meet resistance—the tactile feeling of brake pads clamping down onto wheels.
This lever felt loose, almost completely slack, and the brake indicator light on the dashboard failed to illuminate.
Lincoln’s expression darkened.
He pulled again with greater force, yanking the lever all the way down.
Still no response.
The braking system had failed.
“Brakes are out.”
Lincoln’s voice was brief, devoid of unnecessary words.
Rebecca’s face drained of color.
Billy took a step forward, his eyes locked on the platform wall looming through the windshield.
Lincoln’s mind raced.
He didn’t know what lay behind the shutter door at the end of the platform, but this stretch of tunnel leading to the platform was the end of the line.
The tracks terminated at a buffer stop right before the platform wall, beyond which stood solid concrete.
Impacting at their current speed, all three of them in the cab would be killed or severely injured.
He scanned the control panel and found a red button in the lower right corner labeled “EMERGENCY BRAKE.”
He pressed it.
No response.
He slammed it down hard.
Still nothing.
Even the emergency brake was locked out.
Lincoln realized the train’s braking system hadn’t failed naturally—it had been sabotaged.
Someone had tampered with the controls, locking out every method of control except acceleration.
Who did this?
Why?
There was no time to ponder these questions now.
The platform was less than a hundred meters away.
Lincoln made a split-second decision.
Pure mechanical options were exhausted, but the diesel locomotive’s transmission had one distinct characteristic.
Shifting into reverse while moving forward would force the gearbox to generate massive counter-torque, effectively using the engine itself as a brake.
He grabbed the gearshift lever with his right hand and jammed it back toward reverse.
The lever was stiff.
Forcing reverse while the transmission spun at high speed touched off a sharp screech of grinding metal, and the entire train shuddered violently.
This maneuver put extreme stress on the transmission; under normal circumstances, no operator would ever attempt it.
But now was no time to spare the machinery.
The train’s speed dropped noticeably, slowing from a coast to a sluggish crawl.
But it still hadn’t stopped.
Fifty meters to the platform.
Lincoln yanked the throttle lever all the way back in reverse, maximizing the engine’s counter-torque.
The gearbox screamed in agony, and the entire train frame vibrated violently.
Thirty meters.
Twenty meters.
Ten meters.
The train had almost stopped, but it kept inching forward at a slow walk.
Five meters. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The front of the train bumped against the bumper stop at the end of the tracks.
*Thud!*
A dull impact echoed through the cab.
It wasn’t massive, but the force still jolted all three of them forward.
Lincoln’s chest knocked against the edge of the control panel, a sharp sting of pain running through him, but no real harm was done.
Rebecca grabbed the doorframe to steady herself, while Billy’s shoulder slammed into the side wall.
The train came to a complete halt.
The nose of the locomotive pressed against the rubber padding of the bumper stop.
The pad was heavily compressed, but it hadn’t ruptured.
If they had been going even slightly faster, the bumper stop wouldn’t have held, and the train would have smashed straight into the concrete wall behind it.
Silence fell over the cab for a few seconds.
Rebecca let out a long breath, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead.
Billy rubbed his sore shoulder and muttered a low curse.
Lincoln glanced at the smoking dashboard and shut off the main power switch.
The engine’s roar faded, leaving the cab in total quiet.
“The brake system was tampered with,” Lincoln said.
“It wasn’t a malfunction. It was deliberate sabotage. Someone didn’t want this train to stop.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s not just a simple virus outbreak.”
Lincoln didn’t elaborate further.
He pieced this detail together with the murdered attendant in the dining car, the researcher beaten to death with a blunt instrument in Cabin 002, and the disabled brakes.
Someone had interfered with this train before or right as the virus broke out.
They had killed specific individuals and sabotaged the train’s control systems.
This wasn’t something an infected monster could do—it was a conscious, calculated act.
But there was no time to dig into it now.
He pushed open the cab’s side door.
The cool platform air rushed in, smelling of concrete mixed with damp underground moisture, several degrees colder than the forest outside.
Shallow puddles of standing water covered the concrete floor.
Wiring and ventilation ducts ran along the vaulted ceiling, with industrial lamps hanging at intervals—only one remained lit.
Along the left wall stood a row of rusted metal lockers and a breaker box.
To the right sat two manual baggage carts loaded with unsent cargo crates.
Behind the half-open industrial shutter door at the far end lay a corridor extending deeper into the facility.
Dim lights flickered inside, revealing fire pipes and emergency directional signs neatly spaced along the walls.
Rebecca took a deep breath and drew her Beretta from its holster.
Billy flicked off the safety on his P226, popped the magazine to check the rounds, pushed it back in, and racked the slide.
Lincoln checked his own ammunition: forty-four rounds left for the M1911, five shotgun shells expended leaving thirty-five remaining.
Plus his energy bars and first-aid kits.
Sufficient, but barely so.
The three stepped off the train onto the concrete platform.
Lincoln’s flashlight beam swept across the half-open shutter door, shining deep into the corridor.
The corridor turned a corner at the end.
Bolted to the wall at the bend was a sign with an arrow pointing left, bearing three lines of text:
“1F · Main Hall” “B1 · Research Area” “B2 · Water Treatment / Power Facility”
Lincoln stared at the words “Research Area” for two seconds.
The document said Dr.
Marcus’s research had been terminated ten years ago and the facility repurposed for training.
But why would a simple executive training school have an underground research area?
He lowered his flashlight and walked toward the shutter door.