Another reason he agreed to the train rather than simply walk it, albeit an unhappy one, was he couldn’t hear anyone’s heartbeats from where he was. It was getting bad, very bad. The hunger was actually biting hard now and hardly an hour went by without thoughts drifting to the thirst. He didn’t want anyone nearby. That would just make it worse, especially not when traveling, when all too often the sheer boredom of the trek would cause one’s mind to wander. He would’ve needed to constantly focus on something to keep his mind off of it, like he had done in Caulkinsborough if they had decided to go trekking instead of taking the risk with the train.