Juggernaut

Lucy wrenched the door fully opened and kicked the body from the train.

‘I’ll be back soon.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Amanda.

‘To make sure we aren’t hauling any passengers.’

Lucy inched along the walkway to the rear platform of the locomotive, coat whipped by the fierce airstream.

The carriages behind the locomotive were burning. Flame rippled across the coachwork like liquid. Tunnel concrete lit blood red as it streamed past.

Lucy jumped the knuckle coupling and stumbled through the carriage doorway.

Gaunt was waiting for her. He lolled in a blackened chair, legs stretched out. He was stripped to the waist. He was badly burned. His arms were blistered and weeping. Half his face was red-raw, hair seared away. Deep wounds at his hip, shoulder and neck. Metallic spines bristled through flesh and fabric.

‘Jesus,’ said Lucy. ‘I watched you die.’

Gaunt smiled.

‘Not dead. Transfigured.’

He held up the virus cylinder. The glass had cracked, frosted opaque by a fine web of fissures. The cylinder glowed ethereal blue.

‘Behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.’ Flame licked at the window frames. The wreckage of Saddam’s salon lit flickering orange. Thick smoke rose between floorboards. The interior of the carriage seared carbon-black. Delicate marquetry panels destroyed by blow-torch heat.

‘Give me the virus,’ said Lucy. ‘The money is no good to you now.’

‘Been taking it up the ass my whole damn life. Used. Shut out. Maybe I don’t want to be the good guy. Maybe I want some fucking payback.’

‘You’re dying. But you could make a difference. Destroy the virus. Save the entire human race. No one will remember your name. But you could do something heroic. Vindicate your life.’

Gaunt thought it over. He stared into the blue glowing liquid.

‘Yeah. I’m dying. But I’ll live long enough to make it back to Baghdad. All I have to do is make it through the doors of the conference centre. Smuggle the cylinder under my jacket. Delegates of fifty nations carving up reconstruction contracts. Smash the flask on the chamber floor and the virus will spread round the globe in hours.’

‘Scream Allahu Akbar as you do it?’

‘New York. Moscow. Tokyo. Panic in the streets. The world wiped clean in a matter of weeks. A silent earth. Peaceful. Pure.’

‘You’re out of your fucking mind.’

Gaunt got to his feet. He placed the virus cylinder on the floor.

‘Don’t you want to be part of a new breed?’

Lucy grabbed a broken chair and threw at Gaunt. He snatched it out the air and dashed it against the wall.

Lucy unsheathed her bayonet and lunged. She aimed for his neck. Gaunt deflected the blow. The knife imbedded in the carriage wall.

He punched Lucy in the face.

She reeled. Blood sprayed from her nose.

She drove her fist into Gaunt’s chest, delivered a deathblow that should have stopped his heart. He snarled and kicked her across the carriage. She skidded across the floor and slammed into the wall.

Lucy tried to clear her head. She crouched against the carriage wall. She blinked, struggled to clear her vision. The floor beneath her smouldered, hot to the touch.

Gaunt tugged the knife from the wall. He examined the blade, his blurred reflection. The strange disease had begun to transform his senses. The interior of the carriage danced with weak luminescence from the virus cylinder.

Lucy crouched in the corner of the carriage, panting with fear.

He smiled. He stood over Lucy. He grabbed her by the collar, pulled her upright and pinned her to the wall.

He wondered how best to kill her. He decided to drive the knife through her eye. He positioned the knife tip and braced to strike.

Lucy had a broken chair leg in her hand. She jammed the jagged shaft into his hip wound. He grunted. She twisted the chair leg. Pus and blood bubbled from blackened, infected flesh. He cried in pain and released his grip. He staggered backwards and pulled the wooden shaft from the wound.

Lucy threw all her weight into a throat punch. Her fist slammed into his neck. He staggered backward, clutching his throat, gagging and gulping. He toppled, scattering cartridge cases as he hit the floor.

Gaunt lay in the middle of the carriage. He arched his back as he tried to draw air through a crushed larynx.

Lucy picked Voss’s shotgun from the floor. She stood over Gaunt. She gripped the barrel of the weapon and lifted it over her head.

He bared his teeth, like he was trying to say ‘fuck you’ but couldn’t find the breath.

‘Go to hell.’

She brought the shotgun down in a sweeping arc. The impact split his face and shattered his skull. She pounded his head with the butt. She pulped his brain.

Fire spread through the carriage. Burning roof panels curled and fell, setting carpets ablaze.

The virus cylinder rolled across smouldering floorboards. Blue liquid wept from hairline cracks in the glass. Lucy kicked the cylinder into flames.