Beside me a trestle of the track juts from the ground, and I test my weight on its braces before starting to climb. At the top, the rails from the tunnel continue into the distance. It’s deserted up here, and I sit, pulling my knees to my chest, allowing myself a moment of rest.

That’s when I let the tears come. I can still feel the fingers of the dead on me, still hear their moans. Every inch of me is bruised and battered, my muscles so fatigued they don’t even protest anymore.

But I survived.

And now it’s time to live.

I scour the horizon. To my left a band of light teases the sky, the smallest hint of morning. But it’s enough that I can see the path of the tracks stretching forward, and I push myself to my feet, determined to find Catcher and the others.

I can barely walk in a straight line after being trapped in the tunnels for so long, the cold eating into me. But the trestle is narrow and some of the boards are rotted, and it takes all my concentration to put one foot solidly in front of the other. A few dead stumble along the ground below me, pawing at the braces, and yet without the horde rumbling after me it feels quiet out here in the fog-coated morning.

The tracks take me past expanses of barren land, charred bricks chewed over by weeds. A long low cemetery fades out of view to be overtaken by a graveyard of rusted-out train cars. From all of these places the dead come, trailing behind on the ground as I make my way past overhead. They moan and reach and I ignore them all.

Eventually, as the sky lightens, a structure begins to rise from the mist in the distance. Elegant curves and twists fading in and out of the tumbling clouds. I rub my eyes, wondering if my mind’s playing tricks on me.

It’s almost too painful to hope. I swallow, pressing my fingers to my lips as tears blur the outline of what has to be the roller coaster from the picture on the map.

The roller coaster Catcher told me about.

I want to call out, to scream for joy as my body aches with the possibility of relief, but I still can’t believe it. I move forward slowly, waiting for the world to crash in around me again.

Because I can’t believe this could be it. I can’t believe I’ve made it this far.