by Keith Crews
CHAPTER ONE
RIDING THE RAILS
(1)
The imagery was disjointed, a void without proper shape or form, yet vaguely familiar. The hitman told himself they were just dreams, but each time he awoke there was always that dull pain aside his ribs where Lightning used to be. It was a peculiar feeling to have towards an absent gun, but it was nonetheless how he felt, as though a part of him had been stolen away.
He rubbed at his side with curious fingers. He had heard of a medical condition known as phantom pain in which the body compensated for a missing appendage by sending a false signal to the brain.
Was the loss of Lightning doing something similar?
Thunder was removed from its designated holster and then placed within Lightning’s: the experiment failed, the dull ache remained, the body like the brain knew the difference between the identical weapons. It, like Angelo, could not be fooled by a clever imitation. Like Thunder, there was only one Lightning, and although most people would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the guns, to the hitman their uniqueness was obvious.
A dim spoke of light crept in through the freight-car door. He moved his hand through its wake, sensing the heat of an encroaching day. He didn’t much care for the sleeping arrangements: a bed of straw along with an itchy woolen blanket, but when compared to the harsh accommodations of Gambaro’s Elitario Training Camp, this humble boxcar was like a five start luxury hotel.
He placed Thunder back into its designated holster and eased into a sitting position. Mornings were cold, but soon the temperature would soar and the boxcar would become a dry tinderbox of sweltering heat. In two days time the Demon Moon known as the Medusa’s Eye would arrive and with it would come the Riders.
Angelo would be unprepared.
He had yet to find bullets and couldn’t help but think that he’d have a better chance of locating Elvis rather than a decent stash of ammunition in these cursed lands. Still, the hitman had patiently waited for the Wish-Maker to work their magic mojo. Unfortunately, when it came to conjuring up a cartridge box of Marksman-Strike or Diamond-Back-Cobras, the Wish-Maker had left a lot to be desired.
Of course the Wish-Maker had afforded them the bare necessities, such as food and water, and sometimes graced the group with an occasional treat like chewing gum, beer, and coffee. But still, no bullets had come forward to feed Thunder’s hungry Magazine.
Sometimes the Wish-Maker retrieved electronic gizmos from the lower world, but none of those cell-phones, MP3 players and other various knickknacks would function in the desolate scope of the Wasteland. Those useless articles of technology were always discarded out of the freight car door. However, not one of those broken trinkets had ever touched the Wasteland’s barren soil, for the cursed train gave nothing back to the desert, especially its prisoners.
Angelo slowly stood and approached the splintered wall beside the freight car door. Two days ago the hitman had boarded the train, and as he looked out between the boxcar’s wooden slats upon the vast expanse of sun baked hardpan, he couldn’t help but reflect upon that strange arrival.
(2)
The train rattled towards Angelo, its tall smokestack choking out a large black thunderhead into an arid sky. Within the dark plume resided a demonic face, its grotesque features tarred by a veil of charcoal soot, its coal dust eyes ablaze with sparks.
The hitman blinked as if to clear his eyes of an illusion but the image remained.
A monster two stories high, its thick metal hide polished to a black pearl shine, its firebox and boiler extending to a distance twice that of a conventional train. The locomotive’s cast iron steam pipes burned a scarlet flame, while its crimson lanterns glared onward with a predatory like fascination. Where huge spool wheels, chrome pistons, spring valves and locking brakes should have been, were instead a dark procession of sturdy mechanical limbs. These powerful arms of forged iron jointed into black metal talons which clasped onto the sun baked rails with tenacious fingers, a monster that crawled along the tracks the way a man clambered up and down a ladder. At first glance it looked like an awkward mechanism, but the way in which the beast carried the steam engine upon its metal claws was not only smooth, but flowed like black magic.
The damn thing was alive, a giant lumbering machine with an evil spirit seated inside the smokehouse.
Instinctively, Angelo felt for Thunder, but knew that even if the gun had been loaded, it would be no match for a Goliath such as this. No, he would need a nuclear warhead to do battle with something this formidable.
The sight of the monstrous machine was brief, but memorable: a mechanical leviathan crawling on past with neither consideration nor heed.
But would this devil train pass him by completely, leaving him to cook beneath the scorching rays of the demon sun?
In the engine’s wake trailed a procession of railcars, each metal coffin tethered together by a knuckle bone coupling. A scaly translucent skin of webbed veins and crimson arteries cocooned the entire line. This train wound across the desert wasteland like a massive serpent, slowing digesting the railcars within its rancid innards as it ferried lost souls between unimaginable destinations.
Angelo unconsciously took a step backward, his stern lined features drawn together into a mask of disapproval. He suddenly felt no desire to book transport upon such a foul conveyance, and concluded it would be best to face the harsh elements of the wasteland rather than to set foot upon such a sinister mechanism. The train was probably a trap just like Boondocks, except this prison transport was more like a meals on wheels rather than a spiritual milking paddock.
Hell, the train might even be bound for Boondocks.
If that was the case, then it was obvious why the mirror eye hadn’t pursued him across the desert. It knew Angelo would wander out into the wasteland and then jump a boxcar to safety, and when he did, the train would simply bring him back to Boondocks where the hitman would serve out his sentence in servitude to Final Black for all eternity.
Reluctantly, Angelo turned his back on the train and stared out upon the vast wilderness of sun baked hardpan. Dehydration had stolen most of his strength, but his legs could still carry him further. Soon however, his body moisture would dry up, and when it did, he would collapse, and then his bones would be left to bleach beneath the searing rays of the demon sun.
But what other choice did he have?
The train felt wrong, its demonic countenance screamed trouble. Thunder had no ammunition and Angelo was in no condition for hand to hand combat. He needed rest, food, shelter and most of all, water. The wasteland offered nothing but the absolute certainty of death, while the train offered a deadly uncertainty.
If only he had both Thunder and Lightning along with a bandolier of ammunition, then he might have a fighting chance. But he was weak and vulnerable, and the very desert beneath his snakeskin boots seemed to know it, too.
He closed his eyes and tried to think.
If he walked out into the desert, it would be to die, but at least that end would be on his own terms. But then that would be giving up, admitting that Boondocks had beaten him. If only he knew the rules of this afterlife, then he could plot a course of action, but nothing here made sense and the only certainty afforded him was the certainty of death out on the wasteland. But then even that death would be provisional, or perhaps better stated, transitional, because he was already dead, or that’s to say in one of death’s various states of being.
Still, he would have to make a decision soon.
(3)
The railcars clattered past, their iron wheels whistling like music on crystal. The procession seemed without end, a great dark parade of metal carcasses whose colossal weight sent shudders through the cracked ground beneath the worn leather soles of the hitman’s snakeskin boots. He stepped in closer to the train. The scent of burnt oil and scorched steel was almost noxious. The demon sun had made the train’s reptilian skin as hot as a coke oven.
His eyes se
arched for an open freight door. Car after car streaked by and through the train’s scaly husk he could see the shapes of dark figures within the passing windows.
Were they human or were they demon?
A boxcar with an open freight door rattled into view. Angelo’s knees bent and his hands shaped into claws. For a second he almost swooned from heat exhaustion and fell beneath the train’s heavy iron wheels, but his balance kept steady.
It was here that the sunlight suddenly disappeared inside the fall of a cold dark shadow.
(4)
The hitman spun upon dusty boot heels with Thunder drawn.
A black cloud from the locomotive’s smokestack had blotted out the sky, its ghostly thunderhead mimicking a bear trap of teeth as set beneath the ramming thrust of pointed bull horns. The demon descended with unnatural speed, crashing down onto the ashen soil in a hot gale force wind, enveloping the hitman within an acrid fog of choking plumes. The smoke filled his lungs with foul air and burnt his eyes shut with acidic toxins.
Angelo stumbled blindly, knees crashing down into hardpan as he fell. The black cloud was a shapeless adversary, an opponent by which no conventional combat maneuver could ever hope to thwart. He crawled, struggled to reach back into that harsh measure of sunlight where the air was more forgiving, but the smoke coiled round about him like a ghostly snake, determined to squeeze the very life out of him.
Exhausted and deprived of breath, he finally succumb to that vile air, falling into an impenetrable darkness that claimed all semblance of waking thought.
(5)
The entire composition was out of meter and held no predictable rhythm. Yet despite the poor performance, Angelo still recognized the song as none other than Stephen Foster’s “Camptown Races” as played on a harmonica.
But who played it?
The hitman tried to open his eyes but his lids failed to part. He drew in a slow deep breath and focused. His sinus cavities burned and itched. The skin on his body felt grimy, saturated with some sort of petroleum paste. His muscles felt like tight bands of shrunken leather. Yet despite his poor condition, he couldn’t help but listen to the song and try to recall its lyrics.
De Camptown ladies sing dis song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
De Camptown race-track five miles long, Oh, de doo-dah day!
I come down dah wid my hat caved in, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I go back home wid a pocket full of tin, Oh, de doo-dah day!
Gwine to run all night!
Gwine to run all day!
I'll bet my money on de bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on de bay.
The rhythmic clack of train wheels as they passed over the subtle breaks in the rail line told him he was onboard the train.
But how had he gotten inside?
He couldn’t remember.
If only he could open his eyes, but his eyelids would not budge. The flesh on his palms explored the surface he was lying on. It felt cool, almost like plastic, but was not. He deduced it was straw and that somehow he had been scooped up by the black smoke and tossed into a freight car with someone who couldn’t play the harmonica worth a pinch of bat crap.
A sudden sneeze blasted out of his nose, sending a wave of dull pain throughout his dehydrated body. For a second the harmonica stopped, but soon went back to playing, except this time it warbled Percy Montrose’s “Oh My Darling Clementine.”
The hitman squeezed his eyes tight. The thin cover of skin tugged upon the taught blindfold until the dried mucus finally gave way like old Velcro. Through a blurred halo of light he could see a bright beam of sunlight burn through several broken slats within the boxcar’s weathered walls. Slowly, he sat up, his muscles protesting with the kind of pain usually reserved for a trauma unit. The heat exhaustion had his cellular tissues stretched thin, his bones as brittle as balsam wood.
His ears followed the sound of “Clementine” to a stack of hay bales at the freight car’s far end. Angelo felt for Thunder: the howitzer was safely inside its holster. He was relieved beyond measure to discover that he had not lost another weapon. However, that comfort was fleeting. He was still on death’s doorstep with no ammo and in no physical condition to put up a fight. He found a knee but still had to use his hands for balance. The subtle rocking of the boxcar felt like an earthquake, the soft rhythmic clack of the heavy iron wheels like mortar explosions.
Heat exhaustion was the ultimate hangover.
If he didn’t get water and cool down soon, it would escalate into sunstroke, and then his kidneys would fail, and then after that, every other organ system would shutdown.
But then did he actually have internal organs inside his spiritual body?
The notion of that gave him brief pause for consideration.
He was already dead, killed on a casino rooftop, so the question remained: could something that was already dead, die again?
He recalled killing the barkeep back inside of Boondocks. The bartender’s expression alone should’ve been answer enough, but Angelo was nonetheless uncertain. Perhaps spirits got the three Rs on this side of the rainbow: reused, recycled and reincarnated.
But then what of the halfway hounds he had slaughtered in the dungeon hallway?
What had become of their essence?
There was no resolution, just the age old mystery that was as prevalent in this purgatory-like-world as it was in the land of the living.
Angelo drew Thunder, felt its hot surface meld to the flesh of his hand. He wished the gun would sing now, if only to give him some of its magical strength or at the very least perform a duet with the harmonica. His legs struggled into a stand, but his posture was far from sturdy. His knees trembled and his balance swayed as he crept towards the hay bales. If he fell now, he doubted he’d ever get back up again.
He pushed Thunder forward, letting the gun lead him round the stacks of hay.
True, the howitzer wasn’t loaded, but the person with the harmonica wouldn’t know that. If Angelo was going to win any sort of confrontation, he would have to play it bold by bluffing the strength of his hand. Sun Tzu would agree: when weak, appear strong to your enemy.
And so he gripped Thunder, stepped round the hay bales and took aim.
(6)
The hobo was old, unkempt and quite drunk. A faded blue flannel shirt along with a cowhide jacket covered his upper body. He sat propped up against the boxcar’s slatted wall. A moth eaten wool blanket laid draped across his legs, a bottle of amber whiskey nestled into the cleft of his thighs.
Angelo crouched down, nested both knees within the boxcar’s bedded straw. Despite his ill-condition, the hitman fixed the drunk with a set of narrow eyes that were lit with an incredible determination. The hobo stopped blowing into his harmonica, tossed back a stiff shot of whiskey and then resumed crooning darling “Clementine.”
“Water,” said Angelo in little more than a croak.
The hobo stopped playing “Clementine” and then began harping out a tune called “Cool Water,” by Bob Nolan.
Angelo didn’t see the humor.
“Water,” Angelo repeated more forcefully. Thunder’s hammer was also clicked back to reinforce the seriousness of the situation.
The hobo let the harmonica fall into his lap next to the whiskey bottle. He then let his old wrinkled hands slowly reach down and pick up his traveling bindle. Angelo watched the old man work the red knotted rags until they came loose. The bindle fell open upon the straw like a picnic blanket to reveal an odd assortment of knickknacks: an animal hide pouch stuffed with tobacco, a deck of playing cards, a box of matches, a buck knife, a tin of sardines, beef jerky, an apple, an orange, and lastly, a plump brown wineskin.
It was the wineskin that the hobo picked up with trembling hands and passed to Angelo. The hitman grabbed the bloated skin and felt its weight. It was full of liquid. He pulled the plug open with his teeth and then waved the spout beneath his nose.
It was indeed water.
(7
)
The strip of sandpaper inside Angelo’s mouth cried out for moisture, but the hitman hesitated to drink. He wasn’t sure if his body had passed over that invisible threshold into that medical condition otherwise known as sunstroke. If it had, then drinking the water would be unwise. Sunstroke needed to be treated by cooling the body down first. But in order to do that he would need to use what little water there was inside the wineskin on his neck and armpits.
There was perhaps as little as three liters stuffed into the skin.
He would not dare to waste a single drop and so would chance drinking.
The warm water was beyond delicious it was life-giving nectar as drawn from heaven’s springs. It slid down the back of Angelo’s throat, lubricating his vocal chords as it fell. He paused in midstream to appraise his stomach’s reaction to the liquid. His gut kept steady, carried the water as easily as the wineskin had. Discipline paced his rate of drink, lest he forfeit its treasure on the pangs of gluttony. Slowly, each drop was nursed from the nipple until the skin could offer no more satisfaction.
“Thank you,” said the hitman as he dropped the wineskin back onto the bindle.
“You’re welcome mister?” replied the hobo in kind, although his mood was anything but cordial.
Angelo holstered Thunder. “Don’t worry old codger…I’m not here to hurt you…I’m just passing through.”
The hobo’s posture eased ever so slightly.
“What’s your name old timer?”
“Samuel Birch,” replied the hobo with a nod.
“Hello Samuel Birch. I’m Angelo.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“”I’m new to these parts Samuel Birch. Can you tell me where I am and where we’re going?”
“You’re aboard the train of the damned,” replied Birch without the slightest hint of misgiving. “And where we’re going is nowhere.”
“Everything goes somewhere eventually old timer,” countered Angelo. “To use a euphemism, all roads lead to Rome at one point or another.”
“Not this train,” said Birch. “At least that’s what we…I mean that’s what I’ve discovered in my brief time here.”
Angelo nodded and grinned. “And how long have you been here?”
“A few weeks,” replied Birch. “Just long enough to know that we’re not going anywhere.”
The hitman contemplated a strange idea:
How long was a day in the wasteland?
Angelo lent an eye to the bright garish sun that burnt a ray of light into the boxcar. The hitman didn’t know how many hours were in a day on this side of the rainbow, but he felt it probably mirrored the regular world close enough to pass for a clever forgery. Still, there were other factors to take into consideration, like latitudinal plane, time of season, or if the wasteland in fact turned upon the axis of a planetary globe. Perhaps the landscape here went on without end, in which case the concept of day and night would defy scientific explanation.
“So you’re all alone here?” asked Angelo.
Birch pursed his lips. “Yes sir.”
Angelo nodded and then examined the bindle once more. The sight of the hobo’s food made his stomach rumble.
“I’ll give you what I can spare,” assured Birch as he gestured to his modest bindle. “Best thing for you to do would be to move on up the line, I reckon. There are ample supplies in the forward cars. But best be mindful of Mr. Stiles.”
“And who is Mr. Stiles?”
“Why he’s the master of the train,” replied Birch. “He don’t care for the riffraff in the aft part of the train…he keeps to the luxurious cars in the forward section…lives like a king up there they say.”
“Who says?” asked Angelo.
Birch narrowed his thin lips and twitched a crooked smile as he took on a defensive posture. “Please mister. Take my possessions and be on your way. There’s nothing for you in here. The forward cars…that’s where you want to be. Gambling, drinking, ladies, they have it all up there. I also reckon they’ll have bullets for that big gun of yours, too.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” replied Angelo. “But if you don’t mind me asking, how did you know I needed bullets for my gun?”
Birch paused, blinked, and then shifted anxiously. “I didn’t know…it’s just that…well I just assumed you’d want some bullets…that’s all.”
“I see,” said Angelo with a decisive nod. “Makes sense, I suppose. But again, if you don’t mind me asking, seeing as you’ve been here for a few weeks, where are you getting your food and water?”
Birch opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out, instead his eyes inadvertently glanced toward a large pile of hay in the corner.
Angelo followed the path of Birch’s unintentional glance. “So…is your friend in the hay going to come out on their own, or am I going to have to drag them out?” The hitman was beaten and exhausted, and doubted he could perform such an exertive task, but he nonetheless felt the response was warranted. After all, Birch was not only lying, but also hiding something. Angelo would not, nor could afford to let pass anything that might prove to be a vital resource in his campaign to survive.
“Please,” pleaded Birch in a desperate voice that was just a bit above a whisper. “We don’t want no trouble here. Take our food and be on your way death merchant. Your kind don’t belong back here. They all go forward.”
Angelo turned suddenly and glared at Birch. “Death merchant? Last time I heard that personal character disparagement was in a small town called Boondocks. Why did you call me that? And what do you mean they all go forward? Forward where?” The hitman could feel adrenaline pour energy back into his muscles. Perhaps he was not as worn out as he had first thought or perhaps such physical sufferings were also the product of smoke and mirrors.
As Birch stammered and searched for an articulate answer, the hay stack suddenly began to rustle.
The proverbial needle had just been found.
(8)
A girl no more than eighteen emerged from the haystack, her long dark hair littered by a snarl of dry straw. She was an attractive girl, her eyes a piercing shade of ethereal jade that seemed to reside on the borderline between two states of spiritual being. Those eyes were almost magical, and they held onto the hitman with such a force that Angelo ventured a thought that he might not be able to escape them.
What did those supernatural eyes see and to whom did they abide?
The hitman did not know, but understood that there was indeed a resource to be had therein, and he would utilize that power to leverage an advantage.
“Who are you?” demanded Angelo.
The girl brushed the straw from her smooth delicate features and offered the hitman a genuine smile that was tempered with a bashfulness that was quite endearing.
“My name is Tracy,” the girl replied. “I brought you here to help us.”
“You brought me here,” reciprocated Angelo with an almost amused sentiment. After all, the girl was not hale nor built of demonic smoke. No, the train had brought the hitman here, not this unassuming child.
The girl nodded. “Yes, I brought you here. I watched you escape from Boondocks and then cross the wasteland beneath the hateful gaze of the mirror eye. You are a death merchant from the lower world, equipped with tools of the killing trade.”
The girl’s words rang true, and the hitman could not help but to think upon those strange eyes of hers, for surely if anyone could claim to see such things, then surely it would be this young woman.
“How did you bring me here?” asked Angelo, his question validating the girl’s claim. “Why have you brought me here?”
The girl sat on the straw with her legs crossed in a lotus position and smiled warmly upon the hitman with an affection not easily discarded. “In time Angelo…in time…but first you must rest…there’s a great task set before you and you will need your strength to complete it. Soon the Medusa’s Eye will be on the prowl and with it will come the Riders.”
“Sleep Angelo,” said Tracy with a strange note of authority. “Slip down into that dark nocturnal realm and let rest attend your soul. Be patient, there’s time, although not much.”
“He’s too dangerous!” protested Birch to Tracy. “You’re playing with fire! We need to move him along. They all go forward damn it! They all go forward!”
“No,” replied Tracy. “This one is special. He is different than the others. I can see it in his soul.”
Angelo began to stand when he suddenly realized that he was in fact lying on his back staring up at the freight car ceiling. The aches of his body seemed to ease with the effort and he held no apprehension about taking a measure of rest in the company of strangers. Logically and strategically it made absolutely no sense to render one’s self so vulnerable with sleep, but then the condition of his ailments had roosted and thus needed respite. Still, a stubborn part of the hitman steeled himself against that mystical charm that sought to close his eyes, and the more it fought the magic, the more he realized that he had been tricked.
That had not been water in the wineskin, but rather something else.
But it didn’t matter what the hitman had drank, for it was too late now, he was already down deeper than deep, in fact one could say that he was almost deader than dead.
NOTE TO THE READER:
Wasteland is book one a five book Wasteland series.