Amber inhaled sharply, the icy cold air prickling her lungs like a thousand tiny knives.
“Cam!” she screamed.
He turned to her, his chin jutted up in the air, lapping up snowflakes as they landed on his tongue.
“Cam! What the hell?” she cried out. “I couldn’t find you!”
She tentatively hopped down and walked to him, grabbing his arm. “I’m serious, Cam! You can’t ever do that again.”
His playful expression faded. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you. I just wanted to go outside.”
“Yeah, but our food is back there. I paid for it and everything,” she insisted, jabbing a thumb at the train.
“It’ll be there when we get back. Let’s go see what’s on the tracks.”
“Ugh. Cam. Why do you have to be so annoying? Can’t you just do what your told?”
He was already running ahead of her, and she threw her arms up in frustration and took off after him.
They sprinted a few car lengths before they paused. The sounds of chainsaws and shouting reached their ears just as they finally reached the locomotive. Several yards ahead of the train, a giant pile of snow covered the tracks. There were a handful of men with trucks surrounding it. When they got a closer look, they realized it was two fallen trees covered in snow. The men were hacking at the trees with chainsaws, chips of wood and clouds of sawdust flying into the air around them.
After watching the spectacle a little longer, Amber’s eyes were drawn to something peculiar to their right.
It was almost as if someone had cleared a trail through the forest, branches and small trees and underbrush tossed this way and that. And there were jagged gouges along the bark of the larger trees, four, maybe five of them equally spaced apart.
Like claws.
“Hey, you! Get back on the damned train!” one of the men bellowed at them, jolting her from her thoughts. “Train crew can’t even keep their passengers under control, and they expect us to clear this shit in less than an hour!” Amber heard him complain.
Cam grabbed her hand when they shouted at them a second time, one of the workers setting down his chainsaw and starting after them.
The siblings ran back to the first car they could jump aboard, looking over their shoulders as they pushed through the deep snow. Amber helped Cam onto the platform, and he opened the door, surprised to find a group of passengers congregated in front of them.
Once Amber closed the door, she pulled Cam to her protectively, feeling uncomfortable under all the strangers’ stares.
“Did they say what was going on?” someone asked them.
“When will they be finished?” another person chimed in.
“This is ridiculous!” a third trilled.
A weathered, old hand reached out to them, and at first, Cam recoiled, until he realized the hand was dusting snow off of his head and shoulders. He looked up to see an elderly man standing there.
“Has someone been a naughty boy? You’d better be careful or Krampus will come get you!”
Chapter Five
Horror and morbid curiosity flashed across Cam’s features. “Who?”
“You’ve never heard of the Krampus? He comes the night before Christmas and takes children.”
Cam’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Oh, so like Santa Claus. I don’t believe in Santa. I’m too old for that.”
“No, no. Most certainly not Santa. Krampus is a magnificent white beast with sharp fangs, a long, pointy tongue, and claws the length of your arms. He comes at night and steals naughty children from their beds while they sleep, drags them to his lair in mountains much like these, and eats them.”
A loud thud echoed against the metal roof of the train, causing everyone to look up.
Cam’s face blanched, and he swallowed hard. “It’s Krampus!” he whispered and clutched Amber’s waist.
The old man’s serious expression softened to a cheerful smile. “I’m just pulling your leg, young man. There’s no such thing as the Krampus. It’s simply old German folklore.”
Amber bent down and met Cam’s eyes. “Yes, there’s no such thing as that monster. Just snow falling on top of the train from the trees.”
The train slowly began to creep forward, and the passengers cheered in relief.
“Thank God!”
“Finally!”
“Maybe we can still spend what’s left of Christmas with our families.”
“Blood! There’s blood in the snow!” a woman shrieked, her shrill voice cutting through the victorious exclamations from the others.
Almost in unison, everyone turned to her and followed her pointed finger. They crowded around the window, trying to see what had frightened the passenger, drawn to the commotion like passersby to a vehicle collision on a highway.
Instinctively, Amber grabbed Cam away from the window and cradled his head against her.
“I don’t see anything.”
“There’s no blood.”
“She’s seeing things!”
The sound of glass breaking in the locomotive just in front of them combined with metal screeching and crumpling, followed by screams of shock then agony, silenced the dissension among the passengers.
They recoiled against one another, taking several furtive steps backward.
The old man was the only one who moved forward, and he cautiously reached for the door between the first passenger car and the locomotive.
The door retracted, and once it opened, a macabre crime scene lay before them.
The coppery scent of blood and oozing entrails hung heavily in the air, impossible to ignore.
But even worse, the conductor’s dismembered remains were scattered across the walls and destroyed control panels, legs and arms, pieces of skull, and chunks of flesh strewn about haphazardly.
The broken windows and gaping holes in the metal allowed the wind and snow to blow through the locomotive, chilling everyone to their core.
More people timidly joined the old man at the door, and they gasped and screamed in revulsion as they witnessed the violent scene before them.
Amber didn’t mean to, but as the passengers swayed and shuffled around, she caught glimpses of what remained of the conductor, and she released her grip on Cam, inadvertently allowing him to inch forward to the front. He wove through the crowd, each step heightening the look of fear and trepidation in his face until it all came to a crescendo when he noticed a bloody clump of stringy flesh hanging from the ravaged metal of the locomotive.
He reached for his asthma inhaler with one hand and sucked in a shaky breath.
“What the hell?” one man’s voice croaked.
“Is it terrorists?” another questioned.
Amber briefly wondered if it was the polar bear she thought she’d seen. But she had never heard of polar bears attacking moving trains or being capable of tearing apart metal.
Whatever it was, she didn’t want to be around when it showed up again.
Suddenly, massive claws ripped through the top of the train, scraping a giant tear through the metal.
Some of the passengers hit the ground, including Amber and Cam, ducking to dodge the claws as they swiped past.
One of the ones who remained standing wasn’t so lucky. He was staring at the clawed arm disbelievingly as it swung down the aisle through the gouge in the train. By the time he snapped out of his paralysis, the claws had already moved past him, through him.
Amber looked up from where she lay covering Cam’s body with her own just in time to see the man’s torso splinter into multiple chunks and fall away.
Cam covered his ears, his eyes tightly squeezed shut. Then he felt himself lifting away, Amber grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him back, pulling him from the chaos just as the lights in the car faded into darkness, and the train car descended into tumult.
Chapter Six
Amber was running as quickly as she could, tugging her little brother along with her.
She heard pounding upon metal
, like heavy footfall leaping across the top of the train, faster than humanly possible. She heard the pounding stop, then metal tearing apart again, felt that cold burst of wind as though there was no protective shield from the elements above them anymore.
Don’t turn around.
Don’t look.
By the time she put two cars between them, she had darted past the confused faces of other passengers still in their seats, innocent, blissfully unaware of what had happened a couple cars down.
She should have told them to run, to hide.
She should have warned them that something hideous was coming for them, and that soon, they would be in the same irreparable state as the conductor, torn limb from limb.
But she didn’t warn them. There wasn’t time.
Amber didn’t know what compelled her to keep moving forward, to stay calm—she was only aware of one thing: keeping her brother safe at all costs.
The pounding followed them again, only a little further behind them, and she saw the passengers in the new car look up curiously, until the same claws dug through the metal, and the familiar screams and cries and shouts began once more.
There was no way they could outrun it. They would be dead before they made it to the next car.
A slightly ajar latrine door caught her eye, and she shoved Cam into it before closing the door behind them. She fumbled with the slide lock, sorely disappointed with how flimsy the door seemed as she leaned against it to catch her breath.
It was then that she noticed Cam, how his chest rose and fell rapidly, how he sputtered and coughed, how his face was pale and sweaty, his eyes panicked.
“Cam, where’s your inhaler?” she whispered urgently.
“I…” he gasped, checking his pockets. “I… dropped… it.”
Amber felt a wash of nausea plummet over her. “You lost it?”
She immediately wished her parents were there, that someone could tell her what to do, that someone would save them. She fumbled around in her purse for her phone, quickly thumbing in the passcode and impatiently scrolling through her contacts to find her mom’s number.
“Call Mom… and Dad…” Cam wheezed.
“What do you think I’m doing?” she snapped, cursing in frustration when the call repeatedly failed.
They had no reception. She would never be able to reach them as long as they were in the mountains.
Her parents would never know what happened to them.
And no one was coming to be their salvation.
Two things crossed her mind. If she couldn’t get Cam to stop coughing, their hiding place would be discovered. And two, if they couldn’t get his asthma under control, her brother would die.
Amber pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to remember. Cam had had asthma his entire life, and this wasn’t the first time he’d lost his inhaler.
“Okay. Cam, look at me,” she said, remembering what her parents would do. He was staring at the door, tears streaming down his face as he listened to the screaming. “Cam. Look at me,” Amber insisted again. “Focus. Look at me.”
Finally, his eyes roamed to hers.
“I want you to breathe with me, long, deep breaths. Like this.” She inhaled deeply through her nose, then exhaled slowly, taking his hand and putting it on the center of her chest. “Again. With me. Inhale. Exhale,” she instructed, her voice soothing and steady.
Cam’s wheezing diminished greatly, and he stopped coughing.
“There we go. That’s good. You’re doing great.” She held his shoulders and turned around.
People stampeded past their hiding place, trying to escape the mayhem and whatever it was that was attacking them.
A man jostled the lock on the latrine door, shouting for them to let him in, banging furiously on the door with his fists. She released Cam and held onto the latch with both hands, keeping the door closed as best she could. If the man decided to kick in the door, they would be doomed.
Cameron backed into the rear of the tiny bathroom, wedging himself between the toilet seat and the wall. “It’s Krampus, like that man said.”
Everything seemed to be mired in time, the madness that had unfurled moments before succumbing to silence.
Krampus was a fairytale, folklore the old man had recounted just to spook them, Amber told herself.
It’s a polar bear. One with rabies. It isn’t Krampus. That’s impossible.
Amber gradually released her grip on the door handle and looked over her shoulder at Cam.
“We need a plan,” she murmured aloud, more to herself than anyone else.
“Could we jump off?” Cam offered, mistakenly thinking she was talking to him.
Amber shook her head. She’d seen how fast they were going, how the train was clambering along the tracks unsteadily now that no one was in the locomotive to control it. “We’re moving too fast. We’d die in the fall.”
Cam thought for a moment, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “What if we went to the back of the train?”
Amber raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I saw a movie once about how you can drive the train from the front and the back. They’re the same so the train doesn’t have to turn around. If we can make it to the back, we can stop the train, and then we can run for help.”
Amber had to admit it wasn’t a bad idea.
“That means we’ll have to go out there. And we don’t know what we’ll find,” Amber said gravely.
Cam nodded. “I know.”
“Are you going to be okay? You can hide here, and I’ll go out and try to find your inhaler.”
He edged away from the wall, jutting his chin up bravely. “We stay together. I’ll be okay.”
Amber took his hands in hers. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. Do you trust me?”
He nodded, and she pulled him into a tight embrace.
Then she stepped back, her fingers lifting to unlock the door.
Chapter Seven
Amber gently pulled the latch back, wincing at every creak and squeak. Centimeter by centimeter, she opened the door until she could see the seats and aisle closest to the latrine.
She crept out into the open, motioning for Cam to stay put.
The car to her right seemed eerily empty and silent, like a ghost town abandoned after a fabled gold rush.
But when she looked closer, she saw the same havoc she’d seen in the locomotive. Mutilated bodies and gnawed-upon limbs were strewn everywhere, across seats and tucked away along the aisle.
She swiveled to her left to the front of train and froze, her breath caught in her throat.
It was just as the old man had said.
Pressed between the seats, a behemoth creature with white fur was hunched over in the aisle, its massive back facing her. Two long, curled horns protruded from its skull and jagged, pointed ears peeked out from the blood-stained fur.
It made a wet, slurping noise, intermixed with a crunching sound that made Amber’s stomach flip.
She didn’t have to see what it was eating to know it was one of the passengers.
Cam started to step toward her, and she swiftly stepped between him and the creature, shielding him from seeing the hideous beast.
She crouched down to his level and motioned for him to maintain eye contact with her and not look away. Taking his hands once more, Amber began to walk backward so that Cam would only see her and nothing behind them. She cast periodic glances over her shoulder as she navigated the empty car, increasing the distance between them and the creature.
Cam would stiffen every time he stepped on something soft and mushy, and Amber knew his instincts were telling him to look down at the carnage, but she wordlessly shook her head and signaled from his eyes to hers, then continued to guide him to the next car, making sure to check that the monster was still busy feasting on what remained of the other passengers.
She had almost made it to end of the car when her boot landed on something tall and thin, f
ollowed by a crack as it snapped and fell to the ground.
Amber stared incredulously at her feet, horrified to see a partially consumed ribcage surrounding her boot, the broken rib beside it.
But then she heard something perhaps more terrifying.
Silence.
Nothing.
The disgusting crunching and munching noises she’d heard as they snuck past the many rows of seats had ceased entirely.
Her head shot up in alarm.
The creature was now on its feet facing her, its sheer size unable to be contained in the height of the car, forcing it to hunch over.
Its eyes were blood-red, like a smoldering volcano brimming with flaming, inextinguishable embers. Long fangs the length of fingers lined its open maw, and bits of flesh tangled in them, wobbling there, still dripping wet with blood. Its chest heaved as it watched her, unmoving, completely fixated with the sight of her and her brother.
Cam turned and saw it, too, and he screamed and backed up into her.
“Run!” she cried out, and the two of them broke into a sprint.
She chanced a look behind them and almost stopped running.
The creature was gone.
Just then, she heard a volley of heavy thuds above their heads, and she pumped her legs faster, dragging her brother along with her.
Amber collided with the door to the next car and tried to jostle it open. She heard voices on the other side, hushed ones, and she knew they had barricaded and fortified the door so that no one else could enter. In a fit of desperation, Amber flung her fists against it, screaming, piteously begging them to save them, or at the very least, to take her brother.
The pounding above their heads stopped, and Amber wondered when the creature would descend upon them, when they’d suffer the same fate as the conductor and the other passengers in the first two cars… torn raggedly limb by limb before monstrously long fangs sunk in to devour whatever flesh still clung to their bones.
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