They didn't have the luxury of indecision anymore. The howls from the night had spoken plainly: the city's dead were learning to hunt, to flank, to coordinate. The depot's patchwork safety...crates, welded doors, bored watch shifts...would not hold forever. Mobility was no longer an option; it was the only chance.
So they decided to make the train their home.
Dawn came as a cold, metallic thing. Steam from the generator fogged the rafters, the depot humming with a kind of exhausted urgency. Luna moved like someone possessed, blueprinting across scraps of paper, translating scavenged engine manuals into lists of parts. Kazuma organized crews with the precision of a man who understood that hesitation was death.
"Priority one: engine...fuel, oil, cooling," he said briskly. "Priority two: structural integrity. Priority three: interior...sleeping, sanitary, storage. We have forty-eight hours before the next surge."
Mike grinned despite the fatigue. "Forty-eight hours of chaos. Perfect."
Leina rolled her eyes. "You can paint the bunks if it helps morale."
Dan stood nearby, thumbing through a torn logbook. "We need open channels, not choke points. Narrow corridors will get us killed. We build for flow...something we can reroute if a breach happens."
Luna nodded quickly. "We can bolt removable plates over the doors. Reuse seat frames for bunks and storage." She marked chalk lines across the floor, already seeing the machine as a home.
Kazuma watched her for a moment, then nodded. "Good. Mike, you're with me on a fuel run. Leina and Dan, work the interiors. Luna, when I get back, we'll handle the wiring."
The maintenance yard was only a few blocks away, but the silence made it feel like miles. Trucks sat half-eaten by rust. Diesel drums and hoses sprawled across the pavement. Kazuma and Mike moved fast, siphoning fuel with quiet urgency.
"Cars were supposed to make life easier," Mike muttered. "Now we're stealing their blood."
Kazuma didn't respond. "Check the clarity. Bad diesel will clog us before we move a mile."
The air shifted...a soft skitter across the gravel. Shadows moved in the mist. Shamblers, drawn by sound and scent. Slow, but many. Kazuma froze, then whispered, "Distraction, then sprint."
Mike hurled a wrench; the clang echoed through the yard. The horde turned, and they ran. The chase was short, loud, and terrifying...but they made it back, hearts hammering, fuel intact. Kazuma offered Mike a brief nod of approval.
Back at the depot, the air stank of oil and burning metal. Welding torches sparked against steel plates as Kazuma and the others sealed windows and reinforced frames. Dan supervised the fitting of noise-dampening rubber under the floors. "Sound kills," he reminded them. "We move silent, we live longer."
Luna calculated balance points, removing seats to anchor bunks and storage racks. Leina painted colored strips at each bunk's head...small markers of identity in a metal labyrinth. They even built an infirmary from scavenged parts, a sanitation cubicle with lime-treated waste barrels, and a water tank with a pump Luna had coaxed to life.
Every drop they saved was a victory.
When night came, the generator's hum was the sound of hope. The smell of boiled beans replaced the reek of fuel. Kazuma stood by the engine car, hands blackened, eyes alert. "We test tomorrow," he said quietly. "We leave in three days."
But the city had its own plans.
The attack came after midnight...a chorus of howls rolling over the walls. The dead had found them. Three waves tested their defenses, shrieking and slamming against the steel. One managed to climb a coupler, slamming into the hatch where Kazuma worked.
Luna saw it first and acted before thought. She jammed a fire extinguisher through a view slit, blasting foam straight into the creature's face. It screeched, staggered, and fell back into the dark.
"Seal the hatch!" Kazuma barked. They locked it down, hearts pounding. The walls rattled under claw and impact, but the plates held. After an hour, the noise faded...leaving them shaken but alive.
They had survived. Barely.
By dawn, they were silent, wrapped in blankets in the common car. Mike toasted their survival with a dented mug, voice rough. "To our steel crab," he said, tears mixing with laughter.
Kazuma managed a faint smile. "Tomorrow, we move. North line, then east."
Luna's voice was soft but steady. "We can't just survive. We have to be smarter than them."
Kazuma nodded once. "Then we'll learn faster."
The day of departure came wrapped in fog. No birds, no sirens...only the slow exhale of mist between towers. The welded hull gleamed faintly, seams still warm from the night's final repairs.
Kazuma checked every system himself: fuel valves open, brakes released, voltage steady. Luna ran diagnostics beside him, muttering numbers under her breath.
"All green," she said. "Enough diesel to reach the eastline, if nothing blows."
Mike leaned against the control console, crowbar slung over his shoulder. "So… probably won't die immediately. Works for me."
Leina peered through a narrow slit in the steel. "You sure the tracks are clear?"
Dan didn't look up from his map. "We'll find out the old-fashioned way...by nearly dying."
Kazuma's hands settled on the throttle. The engine growled low, a creature waking from long sleep. The depot rolled backward, swallowed by fog and memory. They were moving.
London's ruins passed like ghosts: crushed taxis, derailed carriages, buses split open like carcasses. The train ground through it, every movement a thunderclap in the silence. Less than a mile out, they met their first obstacle...a heap of derailed freight cars sprawled across the track.
Kazuma slowed, eyes narrowing. "We can't go around."
Mike frowned. "So?"
"We go through."
Before anyone could protest, Kazuma eased the throttle forward. The engine roared. Metal screamed against metal. Sparks showered the fog as the train forced its way through, shredding rusted cars into dust.
When the shaking stopped, Mike whooped. "Hell yes, we just rammed a train with another train!"
Dan stared, pale but impressed. "Crude. Loud. Effective."
"Exactly," Kazuma replied.
The fog thickened as they rolled east. Luna leaned forward, squinting through the glass. Shapes moved along the streets paralleling the rails...dozens of them, running, howling, always keeping pace.
"They're not chasing," she said quietly. "They're tracking us."
Kazuma's jaw tightened. "Sound carries. We're drawing everything with ears and lungs left."
Mike forced a grin. "Guess we're giving London its farewell concert."
No one laughed.
By midday they reached the suburbs, where cracked houses and bent lampposts watched over a narrow bridge. Cars were piled across it like barricades.
"Evacuation attempt," Dan muttered. "Now it's a choke point."
Kazuma's reply was calm, almost cold. "We don't stop."
The collision this time was brutal...glass exploding, steel folding, a van spinning into the canal below. Luna's fingers danced over switches, shouting warnings as the coupling screamed under strain.
"Pressure valves holding!" she called.
"Good," Kazuma said evenly. "Keep them that way."
Dan clung to the rail, deadpan even through panic. "If we live, you're never driving again."
Kazuma allowed himself a ghost of a smile. "Noted."
Hours later, the fog began to lift. The skyline thinned into empty fields and dying trees. Ahead stood a cracked sign...Eastline Station.
Kazuma braked carefully, bringing the train to a long, hissing stop. Silence followed. True silence...no growls, no scraping, just open air.
Mike leaned back, breathing hard. "We made it."
Luna exhaled, her hands trembling over the console. "We're out of London."
Dan looked out at the horizon, voice low. "For now."
Kazuma climbed down, scanning the platform and the rusted signal tower. He nodded once. "We rest here. Then we move north."
Leina followed, her voice small against the wind. "And after that?"
Kazuma looked east, toward the faint gleam of the sea. "Then we find a way across the Channel."
Mike chuckled weakly. "From London to the world. Not bad for a bunch of lunatics."
Dan smirked. "Let's just survive the night first."
They spread out, securing the area, their steel fortress steaming in the cool dusk. Behind them, the fog rippled faintly...shapes shifting where the city had once breathed. The dead hadn't given up. They never would.
But for the first time since the world fell apart, the survivors had something more powerful than fear.
They had momentum.