Chapter 44
“Ithought they were just travelers at first. Same as us. Everybody’s heading west. Then I noticed they stayed behind small groups.
Two people, sometimes three. Never families with kids or big clusters.
They stopped whenever we stopped, but not right away.
They waited until they thought we weren’t looking, then found cover,” Sophie said.
Rachel tried to remember. She’d been focused on the road, the map, and the next water source. The world was full of frightened people moving west, and fear made every pattern look possible. Jonah listened until Sophie finished. Her account seemed to confirm what he already suspected.
“Six reports in the last two weeks. Four young men, early twenties. They follow isolated travelers and wait until no one else is around. Then they take packs, boots, food, and medicine. They don’t usually hurt people if intimidation works.
A couple of people were beaten when they fought back.
No deaths that we know of, though that’s mostly luck,” Jonah said.
“Why haven’t you stopped them?” Rachel asked.
“Stop them how? They’re mobile, and they know the corridor. They avoid our patrols because we travel in groups and they don’t. By the time we hear about a robbery, they’re ten miles down the line. We warn every traveler who comes through. Most of them listen.”
Rachel looked at Sophie. The girl’s face settled into neutrality, but fear still showed in her hands. She’d watched four men track them for days and said nothing. Rachel had wanted her self-sufficient, but that lesson suddenly felt cruel.
“Wait for tomorrow’s crew. Two of my people are taking six travelers west to the outpost. Safety in numbers, and they know the route. The washed-out section near milepost fourteen is tricky. People have gotten hurt crossing it alone,” Jonah said.
Rachel considered refusing. Every day mattered. Hannah and Caleb were still out there, unless they weren’t. Each delay stretched the space between doubt and certainty. Sophie stood beside her with both packs secured, watching Rachel and the tracks with relief she didn’t quite hide.
“We’ll wait,” Rachel said.
The escort left at first light. There were ten people in total: Rachel, Sophie, six other travelers, and two former rail workers named Dale and Marcus.
Dale carried a pry bar. Marcus carried nothing visible, though his right hand stayed near his waistband.
They moved at a steady pace, stopping every hour to rest and check feet.
They reached the washout two hours later.
Rain had carved a twenty-foot gap through the ballast and dropped the gravel into the ditch below.
The rails were unsupported. Wooden planks crossed the most stable section, tied to the remaining ties with rope.
“One at a time,” Dale said. “Slow and steady. Don’t look down.”
Rachel went first because she refused to let Sophie see her hesitate.
The planks creaked beneath her weight. The drop was eight feet into mud and broken stone.
She reached the far side and watched Sophie cross.
The girl moved carefully, placing each foot before shifting her weight.
Nobody fell. The group reassembled and continued west. With eight people around them, the corridor felt less exposed.
Dale pointed out a water tower through the trees, a signal box where the line curved north, and the remains of a maintenance shed beside the tracks.
The western outpost was smaller than Rachel expected.
A single rail car sat on a siding beside an old concrete platform.
A fire pit had been dug into the gravel, and a canvas tarp covered the supplies.
Two men rotated there weekly with crews from the main yard.
They offered boiled water and warned the travelers about the terrain ahead.
“The tunnel’s unstable. The whole thing’s listing south. We marked a detour, but the service road branches twice. Take the wrong turn, and you’ll end up at the chemical plant instead of the main line. Our map’s on the platform if you want to copy it,” one of them said.
Dale and Marcus turned back to escort others. Rachel copied the map onto the back of her county survey, adding the tunnel detour and the branching service roads. The information was valuable, but it would slow them down.
“We should keep moving,” Rachel said after the escort had gone. “Every hour matters.”
Sophie shouldered her pack and followed Rachel beyond the outpost. Trees pressed close on both sides where the right-of-way cut through a wooded ridge.
The light broke through fall leaves in shifting patches across the ballast. They reached the abandoned signal box twenty minutes later.
Its windows were broken, and glass lay across the gravel.
The tunnel detour was another mile ahead, and she wanted to reach it before the light failed.
Sophie stopped, and Rachel turned. Sophie stood beside the signal box, angled toward the broken front window.
The glass reflected more than the trees.
“There are two of them now,” Sophie said quietly.
Rachel didn’t turn around. She trusted Sophie’s eyes now. In the broken signal glass, two figures stood sixty yards back along the tracks, half-hidden by the tree line. They weren’t moving. They were watching.
“Keep walking,” Rachel said. “Same pace. Don’t run.”
The next several days settled into a pattern Rachel learned because she had to.
They moved west, checked behind them, changed direction carefully, slept away from their fires, woke before first light, and left little trace.
The railroad corridor became both a route and a maze as they worked around the unstable tunnel and picked through dead-end service roads.
The weather turned against them on the third day.
Cold rain soaked their coats and slicked the ballast beneath their boots.
Rachel found shelter beneath a highway overpass, and they spent a miserable night listening to water drip from the concrete while Sophie woke at every sound beyond their small fire.