And tapped the barrel off what appeared to be thick glass, except the glass didn’t tinkle. It thudded.
“The hell is that?” Mackenzie asked.
“Stay in line,” Eli warned him.
“Let me get closer.”
Nathan and Leland traded looks. “Go ahead,” the gang leader said.
Mackenzie waded through the oily water at their knees and studied the set of oval windows. Then he did what Nathan was afraid to do. He reached up with a hand and spread his fingers across the surface.
“This is… amazing,” he whispered. “Amazing.”
“What is it, Mack?” Leland asked.
Mackenzie shook his head, uncertain as to how to explain. “It’s not glass, but the texture is firm. Solid, yet just a touch damp. Like…maybe like the surface of your own eye.”
“That’s an eye?” Gilbert exclaimed.
“Not an eye, but like an eye.” Mackenzie leaned in and inspected the edges before staring deep into the light. “Feels like an eye,” he repeated, lost for a moment.
“What’s all that inside it then?” Nathan asked.
Mackenzie glanced at him but didn’t answer.
Just then, a long metallic roar erupted behind them, followed by a crashing that every man recognized as water. Rushing water.
“Now what?” Eli demanded, the non-light just bright enough to see his scarf-covered profile.
“We have to hurry,” Mackenzie said and looked ahead. “This way.”
He ran, splashing through the water at his knees. Nathan and the others broke into a run as well, struggling to catch up. The walls pressed in, becoming a narrow corridor at points, but further along, another window appeared in the ceiling, just right of center. The gang raced underneath it. The crashing water grew in intensity, getting closer, becoming heavy, like boulders shaken loose and tumbling off a mountain’s back.
“There!” Mackenzie shouted over the pursuing noise.
Nathan saw it and couldn’t understand what he was looking at.
The corridor ended in what might’ve been a door. It was egg-shaped, starting a foot from the floor, and stopping a foot away from the ceiling. Like the walls, it was an unpleasant color of deep-soaked rust, where the very touch of it might disease a person. There was a definite seam, outlining the width and height, and all manner of weird vegetable matter hung off its surface. Water sloshed at the base.
And directly in the center was a wheel, spoked and ancient, attracting the attention of all.
Mackenzie gripped that wheel, just a shade smaller than the hat belonging to Nathan’s father. He attempted to turn it, but it would not budge.
Water creamed about their knees.
Nathan moved in, though there was very little room. The two men turned the wheel the other way, and the door opened with a great sucking noise that drowned out the rising thunder behind them. A gasp of filthy air blew by the men, souring their faces, but then Mackenzie and Nathan were pushing their way through. The others clambered through the portal, lifting their soaking legs and boots over the lower frame.
“Close it, Nathan!” Leland screamed. “Close it!”
Shorty Charlie Williams sped through, almost stumbling in the dark water loaming about his thighs. When he was inside, Nathan pushed but felt like he was attempting to move a train. The water pushed back, keeping the door open. Nathan sputtered, grunted, and finally screamed with the effort.
Shorty’s great hands shot past either side of Nathan’s face and slammed into the metal. He pushed, and together they slowly shut the door. Water spewed through the diminishing crack until it receded in a series of dark jets and oily dribbles, before abruptly dying.
Gasping, Nathan spun the wheel, locking the portal.
Then something massive slammed into the door with enough force to startle them all. The door whined under the pressure, but held.
“We’re saved,” Nathan gasped, spent from both the effort and the fright. “We’re saved,” he repeated.
“You think so?” Eli Gallant asked from behind him.
Nathan struggled to turn around and when he did, Shorty had to get out of his way.
The gang stood, silent yet dripping, within a chamber perhaps the width of a train car, but they were no longer on a train. That much was clear. That same rusty hue extended along the walls, and more oval-shaped membranes fluted the entire section from stem to stern. Light spilled through those membranes, the kind of light seen within halos, or sun beams penetrating deep within an ocean’s depths. At the center of the narrow chamber, a singular cone of that peculiar light shone down from the ceiling several feet, illuminating what appeared to be a chair.
The back of a chair. A throne, in fact, that nearly filled the center of the room.
And the unmoving figure occupying it, leaning back as if sunning himself.
Nathan rubbed his face and drew away a handful of water. A quick lick informed him it wasn’t entirely water, but a viscous string of unpleasant matter. He quickly spat and wiped off his face.
Leland was at the forefront, eyeing the seated figure as well as the light stemming through those dense portals. Patterns of watery light fluttered over awestruck faces and rust-flavored surfaces. A gentle swaying underneath rocked the gang members, as well as a barely noticeable undulation of the walls. Moisture dripped from the ceiling, but the water had drained away until only the men’s feet were submerged.
“What is that?” Leland asked, stopping underneath one of the glowing portals.
Mackenzie approached the seated figure. He drew up alongside and, with an uncertain expression, moved past the chair to gaze upon the hidden face.
Mackenzie’s breath hitched in his chest.
Nathan moved past the stunned men, hearing another whine again, much deeper that time—a disturbing, sonorous note that sounded both sad and majestic. He slipped through the light emanating from the walls and reached the chair with Mackenzie.
“What is it?” Eli asked from where he stood, dripping, holding his rifle at arm’s length across his thighs.
“What, indeed,” Leland asked, stepping in to get a better look.
The throne had the outward appearance of polished obsidian but pulsated like a living organism. The material shone wetly under the cone of light and paled the upturned face. A man’s face, clean-shaven, eyes closed, and seemingly at rest, even though the throne he sat upon didn’t really support him—it rose and engulfed him, like a huge leech of shining black glass attempting to suck him down. The throne stopped at his chest, where his clothing began, and his arms hung over the sides.
Clothing that resembled those of a conductor.
“Is it… eating him?” Jimmy asked, as moisture continued to drip from the ceiling.
“Looks that way,” Mackenzie answered, taken in by the sight.
Nathan frowned and, upon impulse, leaned in closer to the fellow’s profile, whereupon the conductor opened his eyes.
“What’s that I smell?” the man asked.
21
“The end,” Nathan’s mother said with a contented smile, and closed the storybook with a soft clap. She stood up from his bedside and moved to the oil lamp, perched on a small chest. Eight-year-old Nathan watched her every movement. He was in bed, thick handmade quilts tucked under his chin, while his head rested against a feather pillow. Blowing snow scratched at the window, but his room was warm.
“Did you like the story?” she asked, picking up the lamp.
“Yes.”
“Alice in Wonderland is my favorite,” she told him. “My mother gave me this book. I think I read it in two days.”
Nathan’s eyes drooped.
“What an imagination Mr. Lewis has,” she said, her voice laced with pleased wonder. “I’ve read this book five times since, and every time, I wonder if there are places where… if you crawl or step through them, there’s a chance you might find yourself in another place. Another world. Where everything is… very different. Where the animals talk, an
d up is down, and down is up. That sort of thing.”
“Mm-hm,” Nathan agreed, struggling to stay conscious.
His mother held the lamp by her side, the light as bright as a captured star. Her face was dimmed somewhat by the shadows filling the room.
“Mother?” Nathan asked.
“Yes?”
“If you… had a chance…” a deep yawn broke his thought. “Would you… want to go…”
“To a place like this?” she asked with a smile, and held up the book. She sighed, long and dreamy, and that nudged Nathan just a little more to sleep.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A story is one thing, and I daresay I wouldn’t be as brave as Alice. But you know something…”
Nathan didn’t answer.
“I do think…” she began.
But by that time, Nathan had fallen asleep.
*
“What’s that I smell?” the conductor asked. He spoke in a tired English accent, but Nathan had no idea from what region.
The man opened his eyes, and they were utterly black—as black as a freshly polished boot toe. That sight alone caused Nathan to tense, and Mackenzie and Leland drew back.
The conductor wasn’t an old man—he looked to be in his late forties, with thinning hair on top and a scar above his right eyebrow.
“What is that?” he asked and twitched his head to the left, in Nathan’s direction. “Ohhhhh.” The conductor let out in wary surprise. “Oh my, indeed. How did you get here?”
That struck the men speechless, to see this person, nearly swallowed by a throne, actually able to speak. The throne itself appeared embedded in the floor, though it was difficult to tell for certain as the water sloshed at their ankles. The cone of light sparkled off the conductor’s eyes, and though he possessed no pupils, the men could tell he was scrutinizing them.
“Oh my, oh my. Three of you. Oh dear.”
Worms of light squirmed across the ceiling. Water drops trickled into the pools around their feet. The conductor released a sigh and slumped forward. “I don’t know what I did with my hole punch,” he muttered.
“Who are you?” Leland asked, regaining his wits first. “What is this place?”
The conductor’s scarred brow hitched in a question.
“What’s all of this?” Leland asked, indicating the throne and all surrounding it.
The conductor’s black eyes narrowed in confusion, and the man’s mouth dropped open as if about to pose his own questions.
“What’s all of what?” he asked in return.
“This,” Leland persisted. He pointed to the throne and ceiling. “All of this.”
The conductor inspected himself, struggling to take breaths. “Oh, this,” he muttered. “It’s my uniform.”
That silenced the lot of them.
“Yes, my uniform,” the conductor said. “Bit ragged right now, but I’ll clean up well enough.”
“What’s your name?” Nathan asked.
“My name?”
“Yes.”
The conductor stopped to think about it. He thought about it very hard. “Archie. Willmoore.”
“Archie Willmoore?” Nathan asked.
“Yes,” Archie confirmed, his black eyes unsettling and his mouth never closing at the end of a sentence.
“You’re the conductor.”
“Yes.”
“Of this place.”
“Oh, yes.” Archie smiled, flashing black and barren gums.
“What is this place?” Mackenzie asked then.
Archie turned his head slightly toward the new speaker and took a moment to study him. “You lot certainly have a good many questions. I might ask a few of my own, if you don’t mind.”
“How about you just answer our questions first, you pinched-off piece of shit,” Eli cut in. “Else I put a hole in the back of your head the size of a goddamn wagon wheel.”
That caused Archie’s eyes to pop. He became quiet for a few seconds, absorbing the words, understanding Eli’s threat quite well.
“Shut up,” Leland ordered Eli. “We’ll do the talking.”
“The man’s mind is gone, Leland,” Eli protested.
“I said shut up.”
Eli settled down.
The train—or the chamber they were currently in—creaked and whined. Nathan noted that he could no longer hear the familiar Chumpchumpchumpchump anymore, and that both puzzled and worried him.
Archie the Conductor sized up the men in his field of vision. “You have guns,” he finally whispered. “Oh dear. Do you mean me harm?”
“No,” Leland said with a shake of his head. “Just answer our questions.”
“Do you mean my passengers harm?”
Leland didn’t answer that.
“Just answer the questions,” Nathan said, stepping in.
“I see. Oh dear. Well, then, ask away.”
“Very good, Archie,” Leland said. “Now, where are we?”
“You, sir, are on board the Majestic 311.”
That familiar bone rattle and building of nervous energy crept back into Nathan’s lower bits.
“The 311?” Leland repeated after a time.
“Yes, sir. We call her ‘The Majestic’. Not a finer locomotive travels these tracks. A dream on wheels, she is. All the finest materials available cover her bones, to ensure the most luxurious ride, the most decadent travel experience this side of the great pond.”
“We’re on the 311?” Mackenzie asked.
“You are indeed, sir.”
“What happened to the 5409?” Leland asked.
“Excuse me?” Archie asked back.
“The 5409. What happened to her?”
“We’re looking to get aboard the 5409,” Nathan explained.
Archie looked from one man to the next. “I see,” he finally said. “You mean to board her? And rob her?”
Leland didn’t answer. They studied each other for a time before Archie spoke. “Well, sir, I have no knowledge of a 5409. This is the Majestic. The 311.”
“You don’t have a payroll car?” Leland asked.
“We have a mail car,” Archie replied in a helpful tone. “Containing registered mail destined for stops all along the way to the West Coast, but not exactly a payroll car.”
“He’s lyin’, Leland,” Eli said.
Leland silenced the gun runner with a look.
“You don’t have any cash on board? To pay miners way up north?” Nathan asked.
“No, sir. That we do not.”
“No safe?”
“Well,” Archie said, thinking it over. “There is a safe, but I can assure you there’s no great amount of cash inside of it.”
“The money we want,” Leland said, “is a considerable amount of cash. Well over three hundred thousand dollars, Archie. And you’re right. We intend to rob her. We won’t harm anyone who stays out of our way. That includes you.”
Archie’s inhuman black eyes stared at the gang leader. “Very kind of you, sir.”
“The money is supposed to be a secret,” Nathan said. “Maybe he doesn’t know about it.”
“That so?” Archie asked. “So how is it you came into this information?”
“That’s our business, Archie,” Leland said softly, with a hint of a smile.
“I suppose it is, sir. Not meaning to pry. My apologies if I’ve overstepped my bounds. In any case, you’re looking to be aboard another train. This is the 311. There’s no such sum of money on the Majestic, sir.”
Archie’s mouth hung open at the end, as if exhausted by the effort.
“This is the 311,” Mackenzie stated.
Archie shifted his head ever so slightly to address the man. “It is.”
“A train.”
“Yes sir.”
“This… is a train?” Mackenzie waved a hand, the very wet environment Archie currently inhabited.
The conductor followed that hand, studying the walls and the ovals of subtle light. A crease formed between his bla
ck eyes as if he realized his surroundings for the very first time. “Oh dear,” he muttered, taking in the sights.
“Oh fucking dear,” Eli echoed.
“What’s all this then?” Archie said, his mouth drooping in a horrified panic. “What’s all this? Oh my Lord…”
The conductor whimpered as he inspected himself, his head turning left to right and back again with growing urgency. Archie’s face pinched and darkened, as he clearly saw what had become of himself but did not understand in the least.
“Oh my sweet, sweet Lord,” he exhaled and looked directly at Nathan. Archie took a breath as his panic came to a boil.
“What’s happened to me!” he screamed.
22
The throne remained steady, but everything above the chest line, everything that was Archie, shivered as the conductor’s terror seized him.
“What’s happening to me? What’s happening to me, oh sweet Lord Almighty what has happened to meeeeeeee!”
The conductor’s uncorked fright and frenzy unnerved the three men standing about him, prompting them to withdraw in horror. Archie thrashed one way and then the other, screaming, emptying his lungs before reloading and screaming again. He tried moving his arms, but failed miserably, and when he realized he couldn’t move his arms (as demonstrated by checking each one and grunting forcefully), he truly began to whistle.
Until Eli, having quite enough, stepped up and smashed the butt of his Winchester into the back of the conductor’s skull.
Archie slumped forward before settling back, mouth gaping wide as his black eyes closed.
“Jesus Christ,” a disgusted Eli swore, poised to hit the conductor’s head again. “That boy could—”
The train lurched sharply downwards at a gradient of perhaps forty-five degrees, throwing the men off their feet and sending them into terrified screams. Nathan clawed for purchase and latched onto the base of the throne, hanging on for dear life. Putrid water splashed across his face. The whine became a deep bass groan, a sound of injured fright, and the walls flexed and moved.
The Majestic 311 Page 13