The Majestic 311

by Keith C. Blackmore

  “This ain’t no train,” Mackenzie said through a grimace, struggling to hold onto the other side of the throne and looking Nathan straight in the eye.

  Fifty degrees, and Nathan felt the same rush as when his mother and father had taken him for his first sled ride, down the side of a frozen hay bale. There was a lump of motion sickness, and it kneaded his guts as if dithering to worsen or to leave everything intact.

  The other gang members were no longer howling, but Eli was certainly swearing. Hot lines of profanity and blasphemy fired from his mouth, scorching the very air.

  Sixty degrees, and that lump of sickness didn’t relent. Mackenzie had bared his teeth, and his eyes were tightly shut as if waiting for the inevitable crash. Leland was nowhere in sight. The light in the chamber diminished as the train continued to dive.

  But then … it leveled out. Just like that.

  Nathan and Mackenzie exchanged overwhelmed looks, just thankful to be alive.

  “God Almighty,” Nathan released as a wave of water slopped over him, jolting him to his senses. Mackenzie sputtered when a second wave splashed over his face. Both men rose to their knees and clawed at the throne to get to their feet.

  “The hell was that?” Jimmy demanded.

  “You!” Leland barked, flinging the word in Eli’s direction. “You’re responsible for this.”

  Untangling himself from a soaking Gilbert and a sullen Shorty Charlie Williams, Eli stood and glowered.

  “Don’t you strike anyone ever again without my say so,” Leland yelled. “Understand?”

  Eli resembled an oversized drowned rat still capable of delivering a wicked bite. He scowled and nodded once, shaking out his rifle as the men behind him got up.

  Overhead, the groaning lessened to the whine of a mournful violin.

  “I don’t know what you did,” Leland said. “But you did something just then. And as God is my witness—”

  “Leland,” Mackenzie interrupted. “You should see this.”

  “See what?”

  Mackenzie pointed to one of the oval windows, no longer glowing as brightly as before.

  “What, Mackenzie?” Leland asked, having lost his usual patience.

  “Just take a look. All of you. Whichever’s closest.”

  “What’s out there?” Jimmy asked as he went to the nearest window.

  Nathan stepped to the one on his side of the throne. He peered outside. “Oh my,” he whispered.

  Fish.

  An entire wall of fish sped by, just beyond the portal, a dark silver ripple of shapes and sizes, zipping past as if shot from a cannon. Entire species, it seemed. The school darted left, then right, a flittering mass of confusion yet in a tight unity.

  “There’s fish out there!” Gilbert exclaimed.

  “A whole fucking school of fish!” added Eli.

  And as the watery spectacle bewildered and excited them all, Nathan rubbed a hand over his face and knew that Mackenzie had spoken the truth.

  This was no fucking train.

  Maybe one time it was, but not no more.

  So, the question was… what was it? And how the hell did they get out of it?

  Another whine came from overhead, slow and ponderous, a note sounding of singular sadness and… something more.

  “What is this place?” Leland asked.

  “He knows,” Eli said, nodding at the unconscious Archie Willmoore.

  “And you knocked him out cold,” Jimmy Norquay said before returning to the underwater wonderland outside his portal.

  “You might’ve killed him,” Leland said.

  “Hold on,” Nathan said, and sloshed over to the throne to examine Archie. The man didn’t appear to be breathing. Worse, disturbing rivulets of inky blood ran down the back of his head, where Eli had brutally clubbed him. The pallid skin was broken, and Nathan loathed touching the wound.

  “Well?” Leland asked.

  “I don’t know, Leland,” Nathan replied. “He’s not breathing. Not as far as I can tell. He’s sure as hell bleeding, though. Just like a butchered pig. Right here.”

  Leland and the others could see. “You did that,” the gang leader shouted at Eli.

  “Didn’t mean to kill the bastard,” Eli shot back. “Only meant to get him talking, is all.”

  “He didn’t know anything,” Mackenzie declared. “Not with all that screaming he did. He wasn’t even aware of what happened to himself. Far as he knows—or knew—we’re all still aboard the 311.”

  “The Majestic,” Nathan provided.

  “The Majestic.” Mackenzie nodded, appreciating the support. “He still thinks we’re aboard a train.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Jimmy Norquay mulled.

  “It does,” Leland said.

  “It should,” Mackenzie said. “The Majestic. The 311. I’m not exactly sure of the dates, but she was a luxury train out of Toronto. One of the first to go through the newly opened Spirals. The same tunnels we were waiting outside of. Remember now?”

  No one did.

  “Well, you’re not going to like the next part, then,” Mackenzie resumed. “The Majestic disappeared in one of those tunnels. The longest one. I mean, she entered the tunnel mouth and was never seen or heard tell of again. Didn’t come out the other end. The tunnel just… swallowed her whole. I even think there were people waiting for her on the other side. A platform of fancy dignitaries or such. Story goes, they didn’t even hear a whistle.”

  “Horseshit,” Eli Gallant said.

  “You say that a lot,” Nathan told him.

  “That’s ‘cause I hear a lot of it.”

  “And they never found her?” Leland asked. “The train?”

  “You never heard about this?” Mackenzie asked.

  “News doesn’t travel as fast as you think when you’re in the country.”

  “I’ve heard about it,” Eli said. “And I still think it’s all horseshit.”

  “Yeah, horseshit,” Gilbert threw in.

  “Just a goddamn ghost story to tell around the fire while you’re out on the trail,” Eli continued. “To scare the shit outta some young green bastard. Disappearing train my ass.”

  “Well,” Mackenzie shrugged, not bothering to debate. “That’s all I remember. This happened some nine or ten years back. She went into one end of the tunnel and didn’t come out the other. I think there was a search party involved. Lamps and torches. They scoured the tunnel length, searching for clues. All they found was a lady’s fancy hand fan. An Oriental one. Opened wide. And I’m not sure, but I think there were reports of… of the workers hearing a train’s whistle in the tunnel. But no train.”

  “She disappeared,” Nathan said.

  “Vanished,” Mackenzie said. “From the face of the earth.”

  “So what’s this then?” Eli asked. “A fuckin’ ghost train? You saying we’re on a ghost train?”

  “He said we’re on the 311,” Mackenzie said, pointing to Archie. “When I think of ghosts, I think of a white sheet. This is all solid enough. Nathan and Leland got cuts from real enough knives. So I don’t think we’re on a ghost train, but… something else.”

  That sobered them all then, and a well-timed whine of haunting indifference rattled the length of the chamber. The light had greatly diminished, but they could still see enough. Nathan stepped back and studied the ceiling, where the cone of light had also lessened.

  What he saw through the overhead opening robbed him of words.

  More fish swam, clearly visible through that membrane keeping the water out. What stunned them all, however, was a long serpentine length, impossibly huge, coiling over itself, encircling a huge section of the surrounding fish. As the unexpected leviathan passed overhead, the light from the ceiling lessened even more.

  A second later, the whole length of the chamber turned, in the very same direction as the thing gobbling down the fish.

  “We’ve gone down a rabbit hole,” Nathan whispered. “A very wet rabbit hole.”

 
“What?” Mackenzie asked.

  That brought Nathan back to his senses. “Nothing.”

  “You said wet rabbit hole.”

  “I know.”

  “You said a very wet rabbit hole.”

  “I know what I said. Just forget about it.”

  The walls curved ever so gently, but the men eyed the flexing sides with worried expressions. The bountiful aquatic life fled from the windows, and some light returned, but nowhere near as bright as before. Mackenzie returned to his window and stared outside.

  Leland and Jimmy approached the throne.

  “Wake up, Archie,” Leland said, smacking the back of his hand across Archie’s cheek. “Wake up, I said.”

  Archie, however, did nothing of the sort.

  “All right,” Eli said, tearing himself away from a portal as if clearing his head. “So… we’re in the belly of a whale? Is that it? We’re in the goddamn belly of a whale?”

  “Surprised you even know what a whale is,” Nathan said.

  “Go to hell, Nathan Rhodes, lest you want your ass kicked and then stomped on.”

  Nathan left it at that. He peered out the window, spacing his feet apart to better roll with the gentle movement of whatever it was they were inside of. Inside a whale. That surely had a ring to it, but it wasn’t quite right. Close, but not quite. Not if what they’d just witnessed feeding on all those fish was… a part of the chamber they currently occupied. The very thought made his head hurt.

  A heavy weight slammed against the door they’d closed, startling everyone. Eli immediately aimed his rifle at the door, and Gilbert did the same. Metal creaked but held, and a gentle tapping creeped into existence from the other side. More importantly, however, nothing came through.

  “Now what?” Eli said. “I’m gonna lose my mind during all this.”

  “No, you will not,” Leland ordered and regarded each man in turn. “None of you will. We’re in strange company, guaranteed, aboard a very strange… vessel, that’s certainly not a train. But we’re alive. And still capable of thinking. So don’t any of you even consider going insane during all this. Because if you do—and by doing so, unknowingly endanger the rest of us—I will put a bullet in you myself and not think twice.”

  An unfriendly silence ensued, as that familiar whine drifted in from all sides.

  Nathan looked out his window. Shapes still swam alongside. All manner of fish, even though he had no idea what they were. There were long ones, and huge ones. Fish shaped like garden rakes and ones shaped like canes. Some appeared fat like full umbrellas, while others were serpentine. He recognized the sharks, having learned about them from his parents, but they looked odd, with several dorsal fins along the back instead of just the one. Those predators stayed away from the train-thing, and eventually vanished into blue-black depths.

  “Where are we going, Mack?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t know, Nate. Somewhere, I suppose.”

  “Awful lot of fish out there.”

  “There are.”

  “Sharks, too.”

  “I saw some of them.”

  “Never thought I’d see a shark outside a train.”

  A pause then, as Mackenzie considered that last thought. “We’re not on board a train anymore. No sir. Forget about that right now. You all hear me? Forget about it. Like Leland just said. I mean, if thinking we’re still on board a train helps you accept what’s going on, then go right ahead. But if you think you got a firmer mind for things, then listen. We’re not on a train. Or a missing ghost train. I’m not sure what we’re on, or in, but we’re here. We’re presently safe. And until Archie there wakes up, if he ever does, we might as well… accept what it is.”

  The gang quieted then, taking the necessary time to process the little speech.

  “Well said, Mackenzie,” Leland said.

  “Thank you, Leland.”

  “If you have any more thoughts on all this, let us know.”

  “You sure some of us can handle that?”

  “You talkin’ about me, shitbird?” Eli yelled. “‘Cause if you are—”

  “Will you shut up, Eli!” Leland shouted over him.

  Looking poisoned, Eli turned back to the window that he shared with Gilbert.

  Nathan glanced over at Mackenzie, who smiled back, careful not to show such a brazen display in Eli’s direction. That little exchange boosted Nathan’s spirit just a little, enough to let him return to looking out that oddly organic window. He checked on Jimmy and Leland, their faces drawn and tense, but determined. Shorty Charlie Williams lurked nearby, shotgun in hand and his hat tickling the ceiling. The soaked rug that was his beard dripped relentlessly onto his coat. Then there was Gilbert and Eli, two gun snakes if there ever were a pair. Nathan studied them all, but not too long as to draw attention. They were his partners in crime, trustworthy to a point, but right at that moment they were all each other had in the present world. The present reality.

  He remembered the nighttime stories his mother read to him, and as far as he was concerned, they had indeed gone down a rabbit hole, some cosmic ball twister of a magical passage, leaving the Albertan Rockies far behind. He hadn’t a clue as to where they were going, but if the people in the stories could find their way home, then he sure as shit figured he could find his way back home as well.

  All he needed to do was keep everyone alive. There was strength in numbers. Leland knew that, which was why he stressed order and discipline.

  Nathan figured they were going to need a lot more if they were going to find their way home.

  23

  “This all seems like one piece,” Jimmy said, causing Nathan to turn away from the oceanic wonders outside his window. Jimmy and Leland remained by the throne, examining the chair and how it appeared to fuse itself to the conductor.

  “All one piece,” Leland murmured, deep in thought. “Yet, the upper bit is still a man.”

  “Yes.”

  “And poor old Archie was talking to us, right up until he couldn’t.”

  “He was.”

  They quieted then, and Nathan went back to gazing out his window. Fish of an extraordinary range of size, shape, and color swam by the train-thing, and all he could do was marvel at every one. Some were incredibly ugly, consisting of teeth and particles that resembled worms, while others were simply beautiful. And the colors. Whatever sea they were under, whatever ocean, the blazing colors that popped from the depths were of a variety and richness that shamed the great mountains of Alberta, and tarnished the golden prairies of Saskatchewan. Oranges, yellows, greens, and blues, and the magical thing about them was the light. As rays of light penetrated the clear membranes through which Nathan peered, the creatures above and especially below somehow produced their own light. Nathan had heard of how the Chinese were able to light up the heavens with dazzling displays of fireworks. Nathan hadn’t seen anything like that, even though he would dearly love to, but what he was witnessing in those ocean depths might very well rival those fireworks.

  Backs and limbs, spines and fins, speckled and lined. All lit up and shimmering by some magical property that he didn’t know or comprehend.

  They simply were.

  “You guys seeing this stuff?” Eli Gallant asked, sounding equally impressed and mystified.

  That drew Leland and Jimmy over to see. And they saw.

  “Good Lord,” Leland exclaimed softly.

  Below them, more shapes swam along, lit up in striking shades of blue-green bioluminescence. Ghostly swarms of glowing mushrooms flowed through the waters. Beyond them were lines and shading that hinted at mountains and valleys. Trenches of sand and stone lay like crude roadworks upon the ocean floor, while twisted coral rose up in spirals and noble minarets. Entire populations of radiant creatures moved throughout the deep. Sea greens, dark and mysterious, waved at them from the peaks of submerged highlands, while clusters of shining fish darted in and out of tunnels with all the speed of a comet.

  Good Lord, indeed, Nathan thou
ght, pressing his shoulder up against the walls and heedless of the contact.

  “What are we looking at, Mack?” Leland asked.

  Mackenzie hesitated before answering. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  Nathan didn’t know either, but he knew it was beautiful.

  “Glorious, isn’t it?” Archie suddenly asked.

  The world outside was forgotten then, as all attention flew toward the recovering conductor.

  “What happened?” Archie asked as he righted his head, cracking his vertebrate while doing so.

  Leland licked his lips. “You were struck,” he finally said. “By one of the boys.”

  “He struck me?”

  “He did.”

  “He certainly did a job.”

  “You were… hysterical, Archie,” Leland explained. “He thought it best to subdue you.”

  “No worries, sir,” the conductor said and blinked. “Quite all right. There’ve been plenty of times when the missus has done the very same thing to me. I tend to lose feathers quickly, I’m told. I do endeavor to try better in the future.”

  Leland gripped the conductor’s shoulder. “You did fine. As long as you’re not hurt.”

  “Just a bit of pain in the old head. Nothing to worry over.”

  Leland smiled.

  “Enjoying the sights, are we?” Archie asked.

  “We…are,” Leland replied.

  “Lovely, aren’t they?”

  “What are we looking at,” Mackenzie asked. “Exactly?”

  Archie took in the open portal right above his debilitating throne. “I can’t rightly say. I mean, I know, and yet I don’t.”

  “Best tell us what you do know,” Leland said.

  Archie became silent then, composing his thoughts. “We’re underwater. Under a great sea. A great and wondrous ocean, filled with all manner of breathtaking delights.”

  “What is this train?”

  “The train?” Archie asked with a confused look. “Ah yes, the train. The Majestic. This is her. And it’s not her.”