Arthur was checking the cylinder of his revolver when the door suddenly slid open.
A nervous-looking young woman stepped inside with her gun raised.
She had short dark brown hair and sharp green eyes. She wore a green short-sleeved shirt with a S.T.A.R.S. logo on it, a white tactical vest, green pants, green boots, and a pink choker around her neck.
"Howdy there, miss. You doing okay?" Arthur asked politely, lowering the revolver slightly but keeping it ready.
The woman spun toward him instantly and pointed her gun straight at his chest.
"Don't move," the woman commanded sharply.
After staring at him for a moment, recognition flickered across her face.
"You're Arthur Morgan… one of the prisoners that was being transported by the M.P.'s."
"That would be me," Arthur said casually as he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a match.
"I said don't move!" the woman shouted, her grip tightening on the pistol.
"Look, officer, you need to calm down. If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have said anything. I would have just shot you while your back was turned," Arthur said seriously, his eyes steady.
"Now if you don't mind… can I ask your name?" Arthur asked calmly.
"Officer Rebecca Chambers," Rebecca said after a moment of hesitation.
"Alright, Rebecca… do me a favor and step closer to me. Or duck. Your choice," Arthur said quietly as his eyes shifted past her shoulder.
Behind her, a corpse had begun shambling forward.
"Why would I—"
Rebecca was cut off when Arthur suddenly raised his revolver and opened fire.
Rebecca instinctively squeezed her eyes shut as the shots rang out inside the train car.
A moment later she heard a heavy thud.
When she opened her eyes again she saw Arthur calmly reloading.
Then she turned around.
Behind her lay a corpse riddled with fresh bullet holes.
Before she could even ask what was happening, the other bodies in the car started getting up.
Rebecca slowly backed up until she was standing next to Arthur.
"What are these things?" she asked in disbelief.
"Ain't you ever seen a horror movie? They're god damn zombies. Shoot for the head," Arthur told her as he pulled out his second revolver and started firing.
Rebecca shook off her confusion and raised her weapon.
Within moments the two of them had dropped every moving corpse in the car.
Arthur holstered his pistols and gave her an approving nod.
"Not bad, little lady. You got pretty good aim," Arthur said kindly.
"Oh… uh… thank you… hey wait, you're a fugitive. Shouldn't you be trying to escape?" Rebecca asked, suddenly remembering herself.
"Nope. I came to this train with Billy to call for help. Our ride got attacked by some monster dogs. We crashed, and when I came to the guards were dead," Arthur explained calmly.
"How do I know you didn't kill them yourself?" Rebecca asked suspiciously.
"I was arrested for a drunken fist fight. I was being transported to your town's drunk tank to serve my week-long sentence. Why would I run?" Arthur said with an easy grin.
"Oh… that's a good point. I did see that in your file," Rebecca admitted, her posture relaxing slightly.
"Look, we have no idea what's going on here, so I say you work with the two of us until we can get out of this mess," Arthur suggested.
Rebecca nodded slowly.
"You're right. I'll trust you for now… but if you try to run—"
"Don't worry. As soon as this is over, I'll put the cuffs on myself," Arthur promised.
Rebecca looked him straight in the eyes.
There was no hesitation there.
No deception.
So she chose to believe him.
"Okay… what's the plan?" Rebecca asked.
"Originally me and Billy Coen split up to search the train, but with these things running around I don't feel comfortable with him being alone," Arthur said.
The two headed toward the front cars and soon found Billy kneeling beside a body.
"Find anything, Billy?" Arthur asked.
"The dead guy had a key to the train in him. Not sure what it goes to," Billy said as he stood up and turned toward Arthur.
"Who's she?" Billy asked, eyeing Rebecca.
"Oh, she's the officer that's gonna take us in after we get out of this mess," Arthur said cheerfully.
"That so? Good to meet you, miss," Billy said.
"It's Rebecca… but officer to you," Rebecca said, trying to sound authoritative.
"Right. Anyway, you find anything?" Billy asked.
"Just more monsters. Figured we'd regroup with you and increase our odds of survival," Arthur answered.
"Well that's good thinking. This way's a bust. The door's locked," Billy said.
"Of course it is," Arthur muttered.
The three began making their way back through the train.
Suddenly someone crashed through the train window and collapsed onto the floor.
"Edward!" Rebecca shouted as she ran to the fallen man.
Edward used his last breath to warn Rebecca about monsters all over the forest.
"Well that figures," Arthur said calmly, taking a drag from his cigarette.
"You ass… you had cigarettes this whole time and you didn't share?" Billy said in annoyance.
Arthur shrugged and tossed him a pack.
The trio continued through the train and eventually reached the restaurant car.
Using the key Billy had found, they unlocked the door.
"Why didn't we just shoot the lock?" Arthur said.
"Because we can't waste ammo. Zombies, remember?" Rebecca reminded him.
"Oh yeah… save ammo," Arthur said.
Internally he was thinking about the hundreds of revolver rounds, shotgun shells, and rifle cartridges sitting comfortably in his inventory.
And that wasn't even mentioning all the arrows, Molotovs, and dynamite he had stored away.
Since the kitchen had no power, the trio went upstairs.
There they saw a dead passenger sitting upright at a candlelit dinner table.
Just like everything else on the train…
He stood up.
And started walking toward them.
They raised their guns.
Before anyone could fire, the creature suddenly whipped its arm backward and launched it forward like a slingshot directly at Rebecca.
Arthur reacted instantly.
He tackled Rebecca to the ground just in time.
Billy opened fire.
Arthur rolled up beside him and started shooting the creature as well.
After several more shots the monster suddenly burst apart into a puddle of slimy goo.
"Well… that one was different," Billy said uneasily.
"Yeah. You alright, Rebecca?" Arthur asked as he helped her back to her feet.
"Yeah… thanks," Rebecca replied, brushing herself off.
"No problem," Arthur said with a small smile.
"What now?" Billy asked.
"I'll climb on the roof and see if I can restore power to the kitchen. You two see if you can find a key card or anything else that'll get us to the front of the train," Arthur told them.
But before anyone could move…
They heard singing.
When they looked out the window they saw what appeared to be a man in a white dress standing on the rocks outside.
"Who the hell is that guy?" Billy asked.
No one had time to answer.
Because the train suddenly lurched forward.
"Damn it! The train's moving!" Billy shouted.
"I don't think you should climb on the train, Arthur. It's too dangerous," Rebecca said with concern.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine," Arthur replied as he was already climbing out the back window and up the service ladder.
Once outside on the roof, Arthur had to fight against heavy wind and pouring rain.
He carefully navigated around a massive hole in the train car and reached the power box.
After reconnecting several cables, the lights on the panel shifted from red to green.
"There we go. Now if I remember from the game… I should just go ahead and jump into the hole behind me," Arthur muttered.
Arthur dropped through the opening.
Instead of waiting around to be rescued like in the game, he simply kicked the nearby door down.
The loud crash nearly made Billy and Rebecca jump out of their skin.
"Found a key in there, and I got the power back on," Arthur told them casually.
The three then entered the kitchen.
Rebecca tried the door at the end of the room.
"It's locked," she sighed.
"Allow me," Arthur said as he gently moved her aside.
He smashed the small window with his elbow, reached inside, and unlocked the door.
"Show off," Billy muttered.
As they stepped into the next room, two Cerberus burst toward them.
Arthur activated Dead Eye.
The moment he did, everything slowed to a crawl.
The nearest hound hung frozen mid-leap in the air.
Arthur smirked.
He drew his revolver and fired.
Every shot landed perfectly.
When he released Dead Eye, time snapped back to normal.
Both hounds collapsed onto the floor.
Rebecca and Billy stared at him with their jaws hanging open.
"How the hell did you do that?" Billy asked.
Arthur simply laughed.
As he walked forward, he suddenly saw a notification appear in front of his vision.
[Dead Eye Has leveled Up]
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw his Dead Eye meter grow bigger.
"Finally… I was beginning to think the interface was broken," Arthur thought to himself with a quiet sense of satisfaction.
The three of them checked the back of the train and retrieved the hook shot. After a quick search and realizing they couldn't do anything more back there, they decided to head toward the front car.
Arthur tried the key he had found on the conductor's cabin.
With a sharp click, the door opened.
The three searched the room carefully until Rebecca suddenly spoke up.
"Hey guys, I found a weird briefcase," Rebecca Chambers said as she lifted up a brown leather briefcase and showed it to them.
Arthur gently took it from her and began inspecting it, turning it over in his hands.
"It looks like it needs some weird keys to open it. Where would we find—"
But Rebecca was cut off when Arthur simply said, "I got it."
Arthur promptly punched a large hole straight through the case.
"It had a key card to the door out there."
Rebecca blinked and stared at the mangled briefcase.
"Or you could just do that," Rebecca said dryly, seeing the large hole Arthur had cut into the case.
The three of them then used the key card to unlock the next door and stepped outside onto a narrow metal walkway that led toward the engine car.
Once inside, Rebecca began looking through the documents scattered around the controls.
"I found the manual. According to this, someone needs to take this key card and go to the very back and engage the brakes back there, while someone stays up here and engages these brakes," Rebecca explained as she read through the instructions.
"Why's everything gotta be so god damn complicated on this damn train?" Arthur muttered in frustration.
"Let's go, Billy Coen," Arthur said as he grabbed the key card.
He and Billy immediately started making their way back through the train.
Anything that got in their way didn't stay standing for long.
Once they reached the back car, they used the key card and began entering the code required to activate the brakes.
"Pretty dumb security to just have the code be whatever adds up to the number on screen," Arthur said with a shake of his head.
Billy grabbed the nearby radio and spoke into it.
"Rebecca, we're good back here. Your turn."
"Copy that," Rebecca's voice came back over the radio.
A few minutes later, the two men felt the entire speeding train begin grinding violently as the brakes engaged.
The massive vehicle screeched along the rails before finally slamming straight into a boarded-up tunnel entrance.
"Billy, get inside quick! This thing's about to derail!" Arthur shouted.
Arthur yanked the door open.
He and Billy dashed inside just as the train jumped the tracks and violently slid into the tunnel.
(Authors Note: God that Title sucks but I drew a blank so whatever.Anyway I'll be the first to tell you some stuff is getting skipped and left out.My protagonist is going to be thinking like a rational human being.So No puzzles for Arthur.)