"Can you pick up her scent, Felicia?" Mei-Ling asked. Felicia remained with her head stuck out the window for a moment, taking a good, long whiff of the air. She pulled herself back inside and nodded.

"Yeah. She's definitely somewhere north. We're getting closer."

"Got any kings?" Ash asked over his cards.

"Go fish." Talbain muttered. He laid his cards down on the table and rubbed his temples.

"What's the matter? My brilliant strategy wearing you down?" Ash chuckled. The laughs died in his throat when he saw the feral look in the wolf-man's eyes. Ash placed his cards down on the table as well. "Heh, maybe we should pick this game up some other time…"

"Tell us more about the book, Ash." Donovan said, breaking his long silence. "In a battle such as this, knowledge could be a powerful weapon."

Well…" Ash said, running his hand over his unkempt hair, "My friends and I found it a while back in this cabin out in the woods. It was a hideous thing, human blood penned on pages made out of skin."

"Gross." Felicia said, sticking her tongue out in distaste. Ash smiled as he saw his story attracting an audience, with Felicia, Mei-Ling, and Hsien-Ko all moving in a little closer to listen. "This guy named Knowby discovered it in the ruins of ancient Sumeria. He'd been translating the pages, and left his notes in the cabin with it. We started messing around with them, and ended up raising the dead, literally."

"Can it be destroyed?" Talbain growled, growing interested.

"Don't you think I tried?" Ash said, "I tried burning it, tried ripping the pages out, tried everything. Its like its indestructible or something."

"Then how are we supposed to stop all those things it summoned up?" Hsien-Ko demanded.

"If it contained the spell to raise them, it should contain one to send them all back." Mei-Ling said, attempting to calm her sister.

"Yeah, chill baby, chill." Ash said.

"I'm not you're baby!" Hsien-Ko said, obviously growing impatient.

Ash opened his mouth to protest when the sound of a pair of screams pierced the air. A hush fell over the gathered warriors, and a few seconds later there was the screeching sound of the train coming to a halt.

"I really didn't like the sound of that…" Felicia said, moving slowly toward the door, toward the front of the train. Ash and Talbain got up and followed her.

"Jerk…" Hsien-Ko huffed, folding her arms, "Who does he think he is?"

"You're really starting to like him, aren't you?" Anita said, breaking her long silence. Hsien-Ko looked down at her, disbelieving.

"Me? Like him? That creep? You must be joking." She turned her nose up, as if to imply that liking Ash was somehow beneath her. Anita said nothing. Mei-Ling simply smiled.

"Harry? Dan? You guy's okay up there?" Felicia called. She, Ash, and Talbain slowly made their way up the cars toward the front of the train.

"Who you looking for?" Ash asked as he pulled his shotgun.

"The conductors. They come with me on all my tours." Felicia said.

"Hope nothing's wrong." Talbain muttered. As if brought by his words, the lights flickered and died.

"You had to open you're snout." Ash groaned. He turned to address Felicia, and leapt into the air when confronted by the glowing orbs that hovered in the air. He held his shotgun up, ready to fight, when Felicia's voice calmed him.

"Sorry Ash, should have warned you about that." After a moment, Ash made the connection with the sound of Felicia's voice coming from beneath those glowing balls, realizing it was her eyes. But then something else caught his attention.

"Please tell me that's you too." Ash said, pointing ahead of them. Felicia and Talbain both followed the direction of his hand, and saw the multitude of glowing red eyes watching them intently.

But the inevitable answer came when one of the deadites stepped forward, the still bleeding head of one of the conductors jammed onto its hand.

"Sorry kitty" it cackled, working the jaw as if it were a ventriloquist dummy, "You'll have to finish this tour on your own!" It dropped the head and leapt forward, claws flailing.

"What happened to you?" Hsien-Ko gawked when Ash, Felicia, and Talbain stepped back into the caboose. They were all breathing heavily, their eyes bulging nearly from the sockets with horror and panic. Talbain's tongue spilled out the side of his mouth as he panted.

"A little problem at the front of the train. I'd rather not discuss it. In fact, let's not go there again." Ash said as he pressed his back against the door.

"We're going to have to, Ash." Felicia said regretfully.

"What?" Ash gasped.

"The only way to get the train moving is from the front control room. We'll have to go up there to it."

"Why must there always be a problem?" Ash groaned.

"It gets worse…" Mei-Ling said from the window.

"How can it get any worse?" Talbain growled. Mei-Ling grabbed Ash and the wolf-man and shoved them both in front of the window. They leaned out, and saw the swarm of deadites climbing up the sides of the train, breaking windows, pouring into the cars, searching for victims.

"As if my day needed to get any better…" Ash muttered.

"We'll have to abandon the train." Hsien-Ko said.

"We're not abandoning shit!" Ash said, suddenly seeming to take charge. "We need this thing to find the book, remember?"

"Are you kidding? Did you see all those things? Only a lunatic would try to get through all that!"

"Then you're looking at the world's biggest lunatic." Ash said in a low, determined voice. He then paused a moment, considering what he'd just said, before thrusting it aside. "I'll go." There was a tense silence, and Ash could not help but smile at the new look of respect on the faces of his comrades. Even Hsien-Ko looked at him skeptically, either admiring his courage or damning his ego.

"You can run along the roof…" Felicia finally said, helpfully. "It'll be a lot faster than fighting through all the cars." She jumped up and punched a small panel above their heads, opening the way to the outside of the train. Talbain gave Ash a boost, barking with frustration when his companion stepped on his dog-nose.

Ash stood atop the caboose and looked down the long line of cars toward the engine. It looked like miles.

"Hold on!" Hsien-Ko shouted as she and Talbain leapt out onto the roof with him. All three of them hesitated when they saw all the deadites climbing onto the roof's of the other cars, slowly making their way down toward them.

"We'll clear you a path." Talbain snarled, and with that he threw his hands forward the same way as before, the wolf-head shaped fireball screaming down the train, incinerating dozens of deadites before it died out. At the same time, Hsien-Ko produced her gong, giving it a hard whack, the sonic vibration knocking even more deadites off the train. "That's the best we can do." Talbain said, giving Ash a pat on the shoulder, "Get going, now!"

When they hopped back down into the caboose, Hsien-Ko mulled to herself.

"He really is the world's biggest lunatic…" she said sadly, "but he's a brave lunatic…" Her thoughts were interrupted by the breaking glass and Anita's scream. She looked up to see the decaying hand reaching in.

Ash bolted along the roof's of the cars, jumping over the spaces between them. He made it across three before the deadites started to clamber back up onto the roof after him. He made his way across the fourth one and was about to jump to the fifth when one of them grabbed his ankles, but he freed himself with a simple kick to its chin.

He landed on the fifth with a grunt, and immediately a pair of hands grabbed at his thigh.

"You ever read 'A Farewell to Arms'?" he sneered down at the creature, "Cause I wrote it!" With a single slash of his chainsaw he freed himself from the creatures grasp and continued running, kicking his leg to toss the still grasping hands off. He made his way to the edge of the car when a grinning head, the skin pulled tight over the skull, popped up in front of him. He swung the chainsaw low, and the top of the cranium came off, the blood spilling over the sides like a glass overflowing. A swift boot into its face, and his way was clear. He leapt for the sixth car when another monster leapt up and wrapped its arms around his waist. He landed on his stomach as the writhing creature tried to pull him down into the crevice between the cars, into the eager arms of its brethren.

Ash cursed, clenched his teeth, and reached behind his neck for the trigger of his shotgun. He closed his eyes tight and pulled the trigger, firing a single barrel. The buckshot tore through the leather of the bottom of the holster, ripped along the flesh of his back, and into the creature's head, leaving a gaping hole where one of its eyes had been. It recoiled with a gargle, and Ash rolled over, nearly throwing himself off the edge of the train. He kicked his legs hard, and sent his attacker tumbling off into the night.

Ash moaned in pain as he pulled himself back to his feet and struggled across the roof the final car, now swinging his chainsaw-arm left and right, up and down, too and fro, each swing cutting flesh, ripping bone, blood and puss flying through the air.

Finally he dropped down into the control room at the front of the train to confront two more deadites. They were crouched over the mutilated bodies of the conductors when he entered, but quickly rose to their feet to face him. They both charged him at once, and he sent one of them flying back with a large gash in its chest, the still beating heart clearly visible. The other smashed into him and then slammed back against the wall, grappling with each other. As they fell against the wall, Ash's chainsaw hand broke the glass case of a fire-safety axe hanging against the wall. Ash grunted and placed the barrel of his shotgun right against the monster's abdomen, emptying the second shot into it. It recoiled, a flooding wound in its gut, bile spilling from its stomach. Ash reached with his free hand, grabbed the fire-axe and brought it down in an unstoppable arc. It wedge into the zombie's head, blood gushing now, and it finally collapsed.

The second one was on top of him now, tackling into him, sending him sprawling on the floor. They scrambled against each other in a pile of writhing limps until it had him down, his chainsaw arm pinned against the floor. It stared down into his eyes with the luminous balls of puss in its sockets, its lips curling over the jagged teeth. It slowly lowered its face toward him, considering which morsel to bite into first.

"You…are so ugly…" Ash struggled, "It's a shame to make you even uglier!" He jerked his head up and bit down hard on the deadite's nose and yanked his head back, ripping the appendage away. The zombie recoiled, screeching, and with a few quick swings of a chainsaw, it was finally over.

"All right…" Ash said as he eyed the controls of the train, "Let's see what this baby can do."

"It can't end like this!" Hsien-Ko snarled as punched through the window, sending another of the foul creatures tumbling away.

"I can't believe we never saved mother…" Mei-Ling whispered, her eyes growing glassy with tears of frustration and fear. Talbain and Felicia stood at the opposite wall, also fighting off deadites as they tried to enter through the windows. Donovan stood on the railing on the very back of the train, his massive sword making short work of any creatures that tried to board past him. Anita crouched in the center, clutching her doll to her face tightening as she too began to fear.

"John…" Felicia said as she struggled against the unending assault, "I need to tell you…"

"Its all right, I know" he growled in response, only turning his head to look into her frightened face for a single second. "Me too." He said with a smile. She took great comfort in this, and steadied herself for the end.

But then the loud scream of the train-whistle pierced the hopelessness. The floor beneath them gave a great jerk, and slowly the train started forward, increasing with each passing moment. Some of the deadites howled as they were ground under the metal-wheels, others were thrown away by the sheer force of movement.

"Yeeeaaah baby!" Ash shouted from the control room as the train picked up speed. In the caboose, the combatants all stood silent, almost unbelieving.

"Did he actually…" Hsien-Ko whispered as she stuck her head out one of the windows. Ash was leaning out the window of the control room, and he gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up. "He did it!" She shouted, giving the final confirmation to her relieved companions. "He really did it!" Felicia gave a loud purr of delight, Mei-Ling clapped her hands together, and even Anita managed a smile.

Back at the front of the train, Ash smiled as the wind whipped against his face, all the panic that had previously been seizing him vanishing with each instant, and each deadite that was crushed under the weight of the train. But this was all broken when a sudden jolt of pain shot from the back of his head.

"Ow!" He shouted and clapped his hand on his scalp. He looked up and saw none other than Lilith Aensland hovering in the air. She held up a hand, clenching a small sample of his own hair between her fingers and waved at him.

"Thanks, I'm sure I can find a use for this!" she giggled and vanished. Ash was left, confused and bewildered.

When he stepped into the caboose, Hsien-Ko immediately threw her arms around him, hoisted him in the air and spun around the room with him. Felicia, Talbain, Donovan, and Mei-Ling all laughed as they watched Ash struggle against her crushing grip.

"I don't know how you did it, but thank you!" She said when she placed him back on the floor. He flashed her a charming smile, and for a moment she actually felt her heart flutter at the sight of those eyes…

"Ahem." Felicia said, and the two immediately looked away from each other in embarrassment. Talbain stepped forward and clapped Ash on the back.

"Not bad, man." He congratulated.

"Indeed, you did very well." Donovan said with a nod of his head. Ash smiled and gave a small salute with the barrel of his shotgun.

"Hail to the king, baby." He said, and they all laughed.