Lambert shrugged, saying, "The nearby railways all go through the city."
The train roared as it sped through a residential area, leaving behind a horde of mutants shrieking in its wake.
"This railway doesn't have any forks until we reach Crew. But once we pass the Crew terminal, we can switch tracks to head west towards Shrewsbury, which will let us bypass Birmingham," Lambert explained.
Shao Ming looked confused, so Lambert took the tablet from his hands.
"To put it simply, we'll travel on the west side of Birmingham. There are many small towns there, but not many big cities," he said.
Shao Ming studied the map and nodded. "There are supply points, no large numbers of zombies—seems decent."
"But there's one little problem," Feng Yusheng added, peering at the map. "Wouldn't switching tracks involve a lot of trouble?"
"Yes," Lambert replied, "and the track change in Crew has to be done at the city center's train station. But we don't know which direction the tracks in Crew's station are facing."
"City center…" Shao Ming muttered, "The train's noise will definitely attract a lot of zombies, and we'll have to get off and move the tracks manually…"
The three of them fell silent; it was indeed a big problem.
"We need some serious firepower," Shao Ming said, lifting his head. "At least something that can buy us a few minutes in the middle of a zombie tide."
Since the train would inevitably need to switch tracks and would likely encounter a zombie horde, the only solution was to block the zombies outside the train tracks.
Feng Yusheng thought for a moment and asked, "What if we switch to another train?"
"That's probably not realistic," Lambert replied. "Trains don't just start like cars. Most of them require keys to operate."
The group fell silent again.
"Where do we get such powerful firepower?" Lambert asked. "We're only a few hours from Crew."
Just as they were still brainstorming, a small town appeared at the end of the tracks.
The train sped toward the town as it passed under an elevated bridge.
"Uh…" Lambert glanced at the town ahead and awkwardly said, "I might have miscalculated. After this town, we'll be entering Crew City, and we might only have half an hour."
"Can we stop in time?" Shao Ming asked.
"Of course," Lambert replied.
He pulled the lever, and the train rapidly slowed down, coming to a complete stop.
They were now in a patch of woods, a good distance away from both towns.
Shao Ming, with a glimmer of hope, began searching for gun stores on the map. To his surprise, there were no results nearby, but on the route from Crew to Birmingham, there was a gun shop—right beside the railway tracks.
"Wrong order," Shao Ming muttered with a bitter smile.
"What?" Feng Yusheng asked.
Shao Ming handed the tablet to the others. "We should have gotten powerful firepower first, then passed through Crew. Not the other way around."
"Wait, wait," Lambert said. "If the tracks head toward Birmingham, we can pick up a lot of weapons. If the tracks head toward the suburbs, we can bypass the zombie horde."
The train started moving again, heading toward Crew.
"Let me see your hand," Feng Yusheng said to Shao Ming.
"It's not going to be healed so fast," Shao Ming instinctively hid his right hand behind his back.
"Even if it's not healed, you should change the dressing," Feng Yusheng said. "Looking at your hand won't get you pregnant."
Her comment caught Shao Ming off guard, and he was momentarily at a loss for words.
The train passed through the town, leaving behind another group of mutants in its wake.
The skyline of Crew appeared on the horizon, and the train sped toward the city.
In reality, the train would only pass through the suburbs of Crew, a fair distance from the crowded city center. But even the suburbs would have plenty of mutant activity. By now, everyone there had turned into mutants.
Lambert slightly reduced the train's speed as they saw mutants pouring out from the city.
Shao Ming recalled the zombie horde they had seen a couple of days ago near the airport, and now the scene wasn't much different. The mass of mutants, like a black tide, was pouring out of the city from every possible gap.
The streets, alleys—everywhere was swarming with mutants.
But fortunately, they were inside a powerful steel beast, and unless too many mutants blocked the tracks, they were safe. Anything in their path would be turned to mush.
The train plowed through the "wall" of mutants, slowly making its way toward the station.
"Oh no…"
The three of them simultaneously saw that every single track in Crew Station was blocked by parked trains.
Lambert quickly reduced the speed further, gripping the control lever tightly, his face tense. "Hold steady, baby, hold steady…"
"We're going to crash into them…" Shao Ming muttered, as zombie blood splattered onto the glass from outside.
The train pushed through the mutants in its path and slowly bumped into the back of the train in front of it.
A few mutants were caught in between and were instantly flattened into a bloody mess.
Thankfully, the driver's cabin was positioned high enough that the three of them couldn't see the mutants being crushed, or else they would probably lose sleep for days.
With a "clunk," the two trains connected.
The train now pressed against the rear of the other train, slowly pushing it forward.
Or perhaps, it should be considered as one long train now.
Lambert pushed the control lever further, causing the engine to produce even more power as it shoved the other train forward.
Mutants continued to pour in from behind them, and as the train approached the platform, the three of them could now see mutants at their eye level.
Since there was a gap between the train and the platform, many mutants fell through, being squashed and distorted by the pressure from both the train and the platform.
Lambert accelerated again, and Shao Ming watched a mutant charge toward the side of the train, only to fall into the gap and disappear.
What they didn't know was that many of the mutants' bones and flesh had gotten caught in the train's wheels, and were being crushed as the wheels spun.
The station, several hundred meters long, felt as if it stretched for kilometers. Since the station was semi-open, they could still see the mutants pouring out of the nearby town.
In this short stretch, they had probably crushed nearly a thousand mutants.
Aside from the train, Shao Ming couldn't think of any other vehicle with this kind of power.
Who needed powerful firepower? When the train started moving, it was the ultimate weapon.
The train crushed two more mutants and moved onto the tracks leading toward Birmingham.
Lambert looked at the train ahead, which was starting to turn, and said, "Looks like we've got ourselves a chance to hit the gun shop."
The train gradually sped up again, still pulling five carriages while pushing seven or eight more, but it showed no sign of slowing down.