The Dark Trinity (Book 1): Shuffle by Steven Till Page A

take its
place, he let go, pumped the gun, and then shot another burst in through the
doorway. The claws which had him pinned released their grip and he tumbled the
rest of the way through the gap and onto the ground below.
    The dead inside the driver’s compartment howled at the escape
of their quarry and began to push at the door. A couple of them were able to
get their shoulders out before being crushed by the mass of bodies behind them.
Shrieks emitted from the train, but Nathan got himself up and began hobbling
down the tunnel as fast as his now useless leg would allow. Darkness enveloped
him, as he had dropped the flashlight during his escape.
    He held the shotgun in front of him, sweeping it back and
forth as he limped along to keep from bumping into anything. He guessed that he
made it about fifty yards before his gun jabbed into something solid, jolting
him to a stop.
    “Ah, fuck!” he exclaimed as the sudden change in momentum
made him put weight on his defunct leg.
    Reaching out with his hand, he could feel the concrete wall
of the tunnel bend to the right. Continuing on, he followed the wall, keeping
the gun at the ready with his other hand. The extra support the wall provided
him was a tremendous help and he was able to move forward at a quicker pace. The
sounds of the zombies started to fade as he distanced himself from the train.
He had no idea how far down the tunnel he had to go before he would reach the
exit, but he tried not to think about it. Instead, he thought of Evelyn.
    “I’m on my way baby, hang in there,” he said to himself.
    Up until this point, Nathan had run on pure adrenaline, but
now he was getting light headed from the blood loss. He stopped and leaned
against the wall and removed the belt from his pants. He wrapped the leather
belt around his leg, just below the knee and right above the wound. He couldn’t
see how bad the damage was, but he knew that he was in some serious shit. He
needed medical attention fast, but he had to leave all his supplies on the
train.
    No food. No water. No first aid kit. No ammunition. No hope.
He took off his jacket and removed his shirt, tearing it into strips. Taking
two of the four strips, he folded them into some semblance of gauze and then
wrapped the remaining strips around his ravaged calf. The added pressure hurt
like a sonofabitch, but it would help with the bleeding. God what I wouldn’t
give for a smoke right about now.
    He continued his hobble down the tunnel. Palm, step, drag.
Palm, step, drag. Palm, step, drag. Nathan laughed to himself. The sound of him
shuffling through the darkness made him think of the zombie movies he loved so
much; well, used to love. This day had definitely put a sour taste in his mouth
for horror flicks. He continued his zombie shuffle in the dark, hoping that the
end of the tunnel would arrive.
    Ten minutes passed and he was in bad shape. He had paused a
few times to throw up and he was feeling fuzzy in the head. Ahead, a faint
light came into view. It was in front of him and was getting larger and
brighter with every step. Fires from the burning South Side illuminated the
mouth of the tunnel with a fiery orange. The exit. I finally made it! The mouth of the tunnel grew closer. Its edges started to blur in and out, but
he kept moving. A shadow appeared at the center of the light; small at first,
but it grew in size. It almost looked like a person. He hoped and prayed that
it wasn’t another dead-head. He didn’t know how many shells he had left and he
just couldn’t withstand another hand-to-hand assault.
    The shadow kept approaching. It wasn’t moving fast; it looked
like it was... walking? He stopped to vomit yet again, and when he looked up,
the shadow had halved the distance to him. He squinted, trying to see a face,
or some detail about the mysterious figure, but his hazy vision just made
everything a shadowy blur. He stood there staring, then without warning, his
legs gave out. “I’m sorry Eve,” he