A high-pitched scream then, like someone having a length of skin ripped from their bare back, shot up from across the way, paralyzing Eli at the worst possible time.
Just before all hell broke loose.
14
Shorty Charlie Williams stood with his back against the door, shotgun lowered but at the ready, staring down the roughly sixty or so people jammed into the once comfortably plush, first-class interior. His fingers flexed upon the shotgun’s barrels as he scanned his audience for troublemakers. They looked back at him, their hands—so many hands—on the upper frame of those fine mahogany seats. Sixty people. Of them all, perhaps a dozen men potentially carrying a pistol under their coats, and maybe half of that actually thinking about using it.
Six potential shooters.
Shorty’s expression didn’t change, didn’t falter, and he had so much beard on his face that no one would notice a twitch. He no longer felt confident with his task, however, even with Gilbert on the other end, patrolling the aisle near the last few feet of the car. Every now and again, Gilbert would raise a hand to show all was well back there.
Except Shorty was noticing something strange about all them people sitting before him, like a congregation waiting for a sermon. Shorty wasn’t dumb by any means. Far from it. He knew he wasn’t no genius either, but he wasn’t dumb, and he certainly had plenty of what his mother and father had called—and prized—common sense.
He had plenty of that, but damn if he didn’t always use it.
Not wanting to live a life of hard labor tending to a potato farm like his father, Shorty left home when he was still growing. He hooked up with the Wilson-Tarry company in Southern Ontario, just outside of Kingston, who were into shipping railway supplies and other building materials out west, feeding the ongoing ambitions of the railroad companies and migrating settlers. Shorty got hired on for room and board, and a few cents here and there for overtime. He lifted a lot and ate a lot, and as a result, grew a lot, both in height and musculature. He grew so high that one afternoon, one man remarked that he wanted to work nearby Shorty, as the summer sun was going to be a scorcher. When another worker asked why he wanted to work alongside Shorty, the man replied, “‘Cause Shorty’s pretty much the best shade around these parts.”
And so he was.
But after four years of working for Wilson-Tarry, and only a handful of dollars in savings to show for it, Shorty believed it was time to move on.
To a circus.
Owned by one Travis “Dicky” Bailey. “Old Dicky”, as his employees called him, had an eye for potential talent, and he saw plenty of potential in Shorty, who was, by that time, perhaps the biggest man around.
Having never owned a razor, Shorty’s beard grew out, and that lent him a powerful fearsome aspect, one that he didn’t see the need to dispel. The circus called him “The Strongest Man Alive,” and “The Living Giant,” and, along with a pair of boots especially made so that he was about three fingers taller, he supposed he was a giant. Night after night he performed acts of strength under a circus tent, wowing the crowds. Old Dickey didn’t pay much better than Wilson-Tarry though, and Shorty soon questioned his life in show business. He was twenty-four at the time, which was around when he met Leland Baxter, while touring through Kingston during a particularly hot July.
Leland asked him if he’d like to earn two hundred dollars.
Shorty had said he’d like that very much. It didn’t bother him that the work was holding up a private stage coach with a payroll box in it. And it didn’t bother Shorty that he might have to shoot the armed guards that were riding with the coach. He’d never considered a life of crime before, but when Leland handed him his share of the robbery—close to eighteen hundred dollars and not the expected two—well, Shorty started considering. He started considering mighty hard, in fact.
Four years later, and he was still working with Leland and Jimmy Norquay, who was every bit as honorable, dependable, and, dare he say it, trustworthy as Leland. Shorty discovered that he enjoyed his outlaw life. All he had to do was look mean and ready to kill a person, without actually killing anyone. Over the years, he’d only had to fire his shotgun three times during a job, and no one was hurt because of it. It was more for shock and compliance, if anything.
Leland warned there would come a day, however, when Shorty would have to use that shortened, two-handed cannon he carried, and use it on a person. Shorty didn’t mind that either. The money more than made up for the potential guilt. That time hadn’t come yet, however, and part of Shorty’s brain wondered if this job, the biggest one the three of them had ever attempted, might be the job.
Especially with the potential security force on board the train.
Shorty didn’t dwell on that. He only focused on the present.
And presently, the hostages placed in his charge were giving off some plenty strange vibes. He didn’t like the way they were looking at him. Nor did he like the dwindling light in the room. One of the nearest oil lamps sputtered and died, leaving a dark crater some five rows deep alongside the right side of the passenger car. A blight of blackness that hid the folks and turned them into faceless shades. The smell of pipe smoke seemed thicker, too, somehow, even though no one was smoking.
Gilbert paused in his patrol and stared at the section where the lamp just died. He started walking back towards Shorty, looking over folks as he came along.
Gilbert saddled up alongside Shorty, the top of his head just reaching Shorty’s shoulder, and whispered, “Getting kinda dark in here.”
Shorty nodded, watching all those hands, distinctly aware of those lowered faces watching him back. They were no longer looking scared, either, but rather scary looking.
“Everything all right back here?” Gilbert whispered.
“Mm-hm,” Shorty grunted. He flexed his meaty fingers upon his shotgun.
“Well,” Gilbert said in a flat voice. “If any of them give you any trouble, you have my permission to shoot them.”
Any other time, Shorty might’ve glared at the suggestion, but not then. He understood the thought behind it. Gilbert was only saying that to keep the folks in line. That didn’t make Shorty feel any better, however. All those eyes were clearly watching his every movement, gauging him and Gilbert both.
The eerie thing was, even the children were watching them, their little shadowed faces set and stern, glaring at him under lowered brows.
“Awfully quiet in here,” Gilbert noticed. “Awfully quiet. I like that. I can hear the train.”
Shorty’s attention was on the round, decidedly fat faces of a pair of boys, perhaps nine or ten years old. Their hair was slicked down to the skull and parted clean down the middle. They peeked over the wooden frames of the seats, little noses resting on top, mouths hidden, and little eyes observing. The parents were right behind them with their collars drawn up high and their faces indistinct. Their mouths were dark lines that split their faces.
“Well,” Gilbert announced, blissfully unaware of the mounting tension. “I’ll head on back there. See if Eli needs me.”
That drew a frown from Shorty. Gilbert had just fucked up by saying Eli’s name, but that really wasn’t what bothered Shorty. What really bothered him was how all sound had mysteriously left the car, with the sole exception of the train’s brisk rattling.
Chumpchumpchumpchump, chumpchumpchumpchump.
The crowd seemed to lean forward, ever so slightly, in anticipation of some approaching signal. Shorty dreaded the thought of what that signal might be. The two boys stared at him still, and one licked his chops as if he was gazing upon one of them big lollipops with fancy twirls. Shorty stared back, turning on every ounce of his considerable intimidation, attempting to break them like he’d done to so many before. The boy didn’t flinch, however. Didn’t blink.
Gilbert started to walk away.
Suddenly, Shorty didn’t want to be left alone. “Hey,” he rumbled.
Gilbert stopped and turned, his hat almost completely hiding his eyes.<
br />
“C’mere for a second,” Shorty said.
“What for?”
“Just… c’mere.”
But Gilbert vacillated on the spot, unaware of what was transpiring around him, and finally looked toward the distant door.
“Now,” Shorty insisted, wanting to throttle the man for wasting time.
“I should get back. Maybe go on ahead to see if Eli needs any help.”
Just then, Shorty was distracted by movement on the left, as if one of the women had shifted in her seat. Then someone else moved, somewhere in that pocket of darkness. Ever so slightly, but he picked up on it. The two boys were still watching Shorty, as were their parents, but other heads were turning in Gilbert’s direction as well, as if realizing that one of the captors was directly in the middle of the pack.
And that the passengers had far superior numbers.
A great and terrible sensation of dread sprouted from within Shorty then, of standing still in a dangerous situation. And he knew, just knew, a fight was about to start. He hadn’t been in any gunfights, but he’d been in plenty of fistfights. He knew with intimacy the vibe that preceded the storm.
“Don’t worry about him,” Shorty said to Gilbert, his scarf muffling his words, and warming his face to the point of perspiring. It was getting warmer in the close quarters. “We got something to talk about. You and me.”
Gilbert thought about that, still oblivious to the disturbing side-eyes from the passengers and the subtle but very deliberate rustling of fabric.
“Like what?” he finally asked.
“Just come here for a second,” Shorty said.
“You’re slowin’ me down here.”
“Just need you over here, is all.”
“For what?”
Shorty decided he might shoot Gilbert first. “Get your ass over here now, Gilbert.”
Silence then, as deep as a mine shaft. Gilbert didn’t appreciate him revealing his name or the implied threat. Shorty didn’t care. He waited, noticing the fluttering of one oil lamp on the far wall, its light weakening, dying. And as that light died, the seated ranks of shades and their evil eyes sparkled all the more.
“All right,” Gilbert sulked and trudged back.
One of the boys, the one on the left, lifted his face just enough to bite the wood of the seat in front of him. It was a slow, deliberate bite, and somehow, despite the constant chuffing of the train, Shorty heard the sinewy give of hardwood fibers as the child sank his teeth into the woodwork, teeth that were a sinister tiara of finely wrought needles.
The nearby brother lifted his face as well and his mouth hung open, where a flood of fluid dripped and spattered.
Gilbert stopped just at Shorty’s side.
“Don’t appreciate you usin’ my name,” Gilbert stated, attempting a stare down, just as the father of the two boys shoved his brood aside and leaped over the seats in a startling feat of agility. The father’s face blackened in mid-jump, and his mouth stretched open to twice its size, displaying a wet trap of rattlesnake fangs.
Shorty let him have both barrels, the blast shockingly loud in the confined space. The sawed-off cannon propelled the evil thing back into its berth in a halo of gore and gun smoke. The father landed in a crumpled heap, where only his lower legs and feet stuck up over the seats.
But Shorty didn’t have time to appreciate the first man he shot.
Because the entire car of passengers was rushing both him and Gilbert.
15
“You get all that?” Leland said as he walked through the empty passenger car.
Jimmy and Mackenzie clearly got all that, but Nathan could tell they were having trouble believing it. Truth was, Nathan didn’t think Leland should’ve said anything at all. When the leader started talking, however, Nathan started nodding, backing Leland’s story up when needed.
“What do you think?” Nathan asked, as they strode through the second passenger car, every bit as abandoned as the boys had said it was.
“Give me a few minutes,” Mackenzie said.
“I believe it,” Jimmy said with a quick glance behind. “I believe.”
“You do?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah.”
They fell silent then, the train’s pace loud in their ears, growing faster. That worried Nathan. It worried him a lot.
“Leland?” he asked.
“Yes?”
Leland slid back the vestibule door and strode towards the entrance of the third car.
“The train’s going faster,” Nathan said.
The four men stopped and listened, gazing down at their feet. The train rocked ever so slightly, like the prow of a boat cutting across a calm sea, but her pulse had indeed quickened.
“Sweet Mary and Joseph,” Jimmy released in a whisper.
“She’s picking up speed, all right,” Mackenzie verified.
“That’s bad, ain’t it?” Nathan asked.
“Very bad,” Mackenzie said. “Trains can jump the tracks if they’re going too fast. They call it derailing. The whole thing could wind up on its ass, and if it does, we’re more than likely dead.”
That got them all thinking.
Leland’s head snapped up. “Is that gunfire?”
Nathan heard it as well. “Holy shit.”
“That’s gunfire,” Jimmy confirmed.
The four charged along the dreamy interior, their boots thundering along the aisle. They threw open the door to the fourth car and saw two of their number at the far end. One was Shorty Charlie Williams, reloading his shotgun while on the run. The other was either Gilbert or Eli, right behind him.
“Get back!” Shorty yelled as he stomped towards the others. “Get back!”
No sooner did he shout when the four men saw why.
The far door opened with a booming crash and a mob jammed into the portal. They didn’t just force their way through, they pulled and shoved and popped through the fixed doorway, like greased-up spiders sprouting from a loose floorboard. And they moved like spiders, a fluid, nimble, yet nerve-twanging motion that no human being could ever replicate, but they were.
Then there was the growling.
A low, throaty gravel that originated from deep within that teeming mass. That sound frightened Nathan badly. They were passengers, crawling forth from that doorway, skittering over the seats, and…
A split second before he ran, Nathan crouched and released a short note of disbelief. Passengers emerged from the upper section of the doorway and skittered along the shadowy paneling of the ceiling with a nightmarish energy, their murky faces turned to the fleeing men. Their hands and fingers splayed, knees cocked, and feet clinging with supernatural adhesive.
Leland whirled and pushed the others back, wanting no part of what was coming. Nathan suddenly found himself in the forefront of the retreat, his footfalls crashing upon the floor. The door handle slipped in his hand as he grabbed it, whipping its metallic length across the inside of his wrist as if chastising him for his clumsiness.
“Hurry, Nate,” Mackenzie huffed, crashing into him from behind and every bit as frightened.
Nathan whipped open the door, spun inside, and held it for the others to pile through. When Gilbert stormed past, scarf lowered and teeth bared, the sight behind him was petrifying. Mind-numbing.
Passengers continued to fill up the car in the rear. They charged along the floor and ceiling, swarming light fixtures and plunging the section into flickering darkness. A dismal gush of terror rushed through and defiled that first-class interior. The growling grew in volume, as did a disturbing mewling, the sound of worms chewing away at the edges of paper, impossibly amplified.
Nathan slammed the door closed. He hurried through the vestibule to the third car, just as the forward elements of the passengers slammed into the portal behind him, and the growling reached a peak.
“Watch out now,” Leland said and pulled Nathan away. The gang leader studied the door before dropping to a knee and hauling out the very tools needed to
knock ice loose from the winter-cursed couplings. Leland hammered his one and only spike into the floor, jamming the door.
“That should keep it shut,” he said in a shaky voice. He reached into a deep pocket of his winter duster and extracted the tongs he carried from the engineer’s cab. He tossed the tool in a nearby berth.
A weight slammed into the door, scaring the train robbers. Guns swung up and aimed.
“Get back,” Leland ordered, steadying his rifle. “Make some room.”
The gang retreated to the midway point of the car, where they immediately spread out across two rows and took up firing positions. The door trembled and jerked, just enough that a seam appeared, and hundreds of white fingers sprouted from it. The sight tugged free a memory best forgotten, where Nathan, in the root cellar of his parents’ farm, had once picked up a rotten potato. His fingers easily plunged into the tissue-thin skin, and he remembered the writhing maggots inside.
All those clawing, probing fingers resembled energetic maggots.
The door rattled and shook. A chorus of those bone-dry voices seeped inside, almost drowning out the sound of Gilbert frantically reloading his Winchester.
“The hell’s wrong with them?” Nathan said. He was crouched in a seat, his own rifle steadied by the backrest and pointed at the door.
“They’re changed,” Gilbert said. “All changed. Into monsters.”
“Into monsters,” Shorty agreed, aiming his shotgun at the door.
“Monsters?” Leland said, the color gone from his face.
“Monsters,” Shorty repeated.
“All the passengers?” Jimmy asked, ready to blast anything coming through.
“Daresay most of them,” Gilbert said and worked the Winchester’s lever with a defiant snap. He immediately took up an unobstructed position among the seats. “But bullets stop ‘em just fine. I shot about a dozen already.”
“Only a few stayed down,” Shorty pointed out.
“But they stayed down,” Gilbert said.
All eyes concentrated on the door, which continued to violently tremble within its frame, barely holding in the pressure beyond. A hammering ensued, violent and powerful.
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