The seconds stretched on.
Until, finally, growing impatient, Eli huffed and leaned forward, much to the others’ piggish grunts of protest. He placed an ear to the door and listened, frowned, and shifted just a little.
“Well?” Gilbert asked, over the soft clatter of the moving train.
“Well…” Eli said. “If there is anything out there, it’s being awfully goddamn cute about it. Can’t hear a goddamn thing.”
“Maybe it don’t make any noise?” Gilbert asked.
Eli pulled back to the wall and faced his companion. “Or maybe it ain’t there. Maybe something else is there.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Gilbert,” an annoyed Eli stressed. “I ain’t educated like them cocksuckers.”
That put a scowl on Nathan’s face, and Jimmy wasn’t too impressed either.
“How’s them passengers, Mack?” Nathan asked.
“Good as gold,” Mackenzie stated. “Tell the truth, I think they’re dead.”
That distracted the others.
The passengers hadn’t moved an inch, nor had they made a sound. They were perfectly scattered around the center of the car, just outside of the lamp’s fluttering glow.
“Go check on them,” Nathan said. “Make sure they understand… our resolve.”
That was one of Leland’s words, and Nathan thought it meant attitude. Or determination. Or both.
Mackenzie hesitated before getting out of his berth and marching back.
Nathan returned to watching the door. “Jimmy, you got that dynamite?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you fix us up a stick. Just in case.”
Jimmy opened his winter duster, still holding the shotgun, and rummaged about.
Nathan checked on Mackenzie. He was standing back there, a shadow among his own kind, inspecting the passengers. He carefully stepped into one berth and sized up the situation before moving on to the next.
None of the passengers moved or squeaked from fear.
“This is some peculiar shit, if I ever seen it,” Eli whispered nearby.
“I’m in agreement with you there,” Nathan said.
“I don’t think there’s anything behind this door.”
“Why don’t you open it and check?”
Eli’s stuck his jaw out. “Maybe I will.”
“I’m serious,” Nathan said. “Jimmy’s got a stick there.”
Mackenzie’s boots clomping on the carpeted floor distracted them. “They’re all dead,” he reported quietly.
“What?” Nathan asked.
“All dead. Corpses. I mean… corpses. Like something left in the desert sun and dried up like lizards. Parched and gone.”
The rolling of the train filled the considering silence that followed.
“We’re gonna open that door,” Nathan said, to which Mackenzie decided to take cover in the berth behind Jimmy.
“You think that’s wise?” Mackenzie asked.
“Fuck wise,” Eli spat, and reached for the handle. “And fuck whatever’s in there. You all ready?”
Grim nods all around, except for Mackenzie.
Eli opened the door, revealing a passenger car filled with patrons, chatting and carrying on, while a few well-dressed children no higher than one’s waist bolted up and down the aisle. There was no vestibule, and that didn’t seem to bother the gang members. All there was, was a full train car, the clueless passengers sitting with their backs to Nathan and the rest. A pleasant chatter graced the air while all those smells noted earlier wafted through the car. A conductor with a sizeable mustache straightened and handed something back to a gray-haired couple, underneath a fancy fixture that gently swayed with the train’s motion. Smoke curled around those lights and the two others like it, creating a comfortable haze that clung about the ceiling and obscured the overhead compartments.
So surprised by the seemingly natural scene of an ordinary train’s interior, the five outlaws were dumbstruck. At that moment, the train lurched enough to make Eli stagger. He released the door’s handle. The door slid shut, just as the conductor looked up with a rather dignified expression of puzzlement.
“Goddammit,” Eli swore, regaining his balance and gawking at the others.
“The hell was that?” Nathan said and went for the door. He stopped just beside it and gripped the handle.
“The hell’s going on, Nate?” Jimmy asked.
“Down the rabbit hole,” Mackenzie said. “We’re down the rabbit hole.”
“Get ready,” Nathan said, meeting the eyes of each gang member.
He opened the door and a set of black tentacles exploded from the rectangular opening. Several fat limbs lashed out with whip-like precision, wrapping themselves around Nathan’s waist, his limbs, and his neck, while an ungodly screeching pierced his ears. The attack transfixed the train robber, immobilizing him with a frightening strength, and lifted him off the floor. Nathan floated in that muscular knot, the thigh-sized cord slinking around his throat and jaw, tightening, bulging his eyes and dispensing with his shock, convincing him that he only had seconds before the thing…
Nathan’s breath shot out his nose, onto that vile textured flesh that smelled like rancid meat a vulture wouldn’t touch. The others were screaming around him, all the while the train’s ominous Chumpchumpchumpchump, Chumpchumpchumpchump returned with all the might of booming thunder. Or, perhaps that was the blood pounding through the tightening vice of Nathan’s neck, forcing it upwards and stretching his temples.
With his head held fast, Nathan could not move. He stared at the inner folds of the tentacles, and an ebony face materialized deep within that fetid rose-petal cluster. A frightening expression of displeasure with flesh the color of oil. Obese features puffed and narrowed as if taking a deep breath, and yellow eyes blazed hatred. That fat face turned ever so slightly one way before oddly elongating towards him. A mouth unzipped at one corner, revealing not teeth, but a bony serration that resembled scissors cut from obsidian.
That slick otherworldly thing pulled Nathan forward, toward its off-white limb chopper of a mouth, while the irises of the creature’s eyes split into two and the pupils therein became slits.
A spurt of frothy spit spilled over that ever-widening maw.
Nathan panted and fumed and squeezed his eyes shut when a gun barrel jammed itself through those tightening appendages and fired. That obscene alien face disappeared in a blast of black and green filth, and a mass of organic muck as thick as coffee grounds spattered Nathan.
Just before the other guns opened fire.
Bullets ripped into that mass of tentacles, taking huge chunks from its writhing hide. Several punched through to the creature’s destroyed face, blowing holes into the blushing meat. A smell not unlike cooked corn filled Nathan’s nose then, and the appendage holding onto his neck convulsed, coming only a fraction of an ounce away from crushing his windpipe completely.
But then it relaxed, as did all the other limbs holding him.
Nathan crashed to the floor, no longer held aloft in that mighty grip. Hands grabbed his arms. They pulled him away from the deflating mass that was retreating back into the doorway as if hauled from the other side. The tentacles slid free of Nathan, leaving him sputtering in green blood as thick and rancid as pea soup.
Jimmy fired another salvo of shotgun shells into the creature’s collapsing front, and the entire beast sucked itself back inside the portal. It passed over the threshold with such violent force, the door slid closed with a noisy rattle.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Eli Gallant breathed, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the closed door.
“Did you… get it?” Nathan rasped, holding onto his hurting throat.
“Think so,” Jimmy Norquay said, popping open the shotgun and shucking the spent shells. He immediately reloaded, fishing fresh ammunition from his duster’s pocket.
The men had pulled Nathan back in the aisle, covered in that offensive green slop, but very much alive. They aime
d their weapons at the closed door, waiting, seeing if the creature would try to attack again.
“Nothing,” Mackenzie said. “It’s gone.”
“We killed it,” Gilbert said from behind his rifle.
Without a word, Eli went to the door and yanked it open.
An empty train car lay beyond.
“The hell’s going on here,” he muttered and closed the door. A second later, on impulse, he opened it again.
A flatbed, with the slow turning car some fifty yards ahead, and a green sun hanging in the distance.
Eli closed the door, ran a shaking hand over his face, and licked his lips. “God…” he started, but couldn’t finish, perhaps leaving the Almighty in a state of confusion, wondering if the mortal was about to ask a question.
Nathan lay on his backside, leaning against one of the berths while Jimmy and Mackenzie flanked him. Their weapons faltered upon witnessing each successive change of what lay beyond the door.
“Can’t be…” real. But Eli didn’t finish that thought, because he yanked the door open again.
Outside. Nothing but flatbeds, perhaps dozens of them, many more than the one before. Each rectangular plane was stretched before the other, all the way to the rear of a distant car, barely visible and no bigger than a postage stamp. Overhead, green lightning crackled across a pink sky.
Eli shut and opened the door again.
An empty passenger car, filled with the same hardwood berths, and polished to a fine finish, all under plentiful light. Spiders the size of dogs hung from the ceiling, their webbing crisscrossing and smothering the overhead compartments with dewy, glistening strands in the lamplight.
Eli slammed the portal closed, took a breath, and yanked it open.
Passengers in a car without seats at all. They stood, dressed in the fashionable styles of the day. Some had their heads down, reading newspapers, while others stared out their windows. A few of the closest passengers tensed, sensing they were being watched, and slowly turned around, revealing alligator eyes, toothy, lipless maws, and surprised faces.
With an uncharacteristic cry of fear, Eli threw the door closed. He rasped, his shoulders shivering, and glanced over at his outlaw companions who saw everything he’d seen, and were equally at a loss.
The gun runner opened the portal a dozen times in rapid succession. Each time revealed a different setting. Sometimes the car’s interior was slightly off; red velvet instead of green, no seats, passengers without faces. Passengers with faces, but possessing multiple arms and legs. Passengers utterly alien, with the bulbous eyes of house flies yet with human limbs. Once, a massive shape shot by the doorway like a ravenous bird picking at gnats.
“See!” Eli yelled and closed the door again.
“See?” he insisted, gesturing at a now ordinary interior again.
“See?” Again he whipped it shut, straightened his shoulders, and hauled the door open yet again.
“S—” he was about to say, when a blast of turquoise water erupted from the doorway, dousing them all, and actually bowling over Nathan, Mackenzie, and Jimmy. The water hit with all the force of a heavy mallet, rudely shoving the lads along the aisle until they recognized both Eli and Gilbert were protected by the berths. The jet of water, however, filled the doorway completely, quickly spreading along the floor of the passenger car as if it were a fine underwater grotto.
“Close the door!” Jimmy was shouting. “Close the door!”
But Eli Gallant could not close the door.
And Nathan saw why. When he had whipped that portal open, the infernal gush of water filled the doorway completely, cutting Eli off from latching onto the handle. The force of the water slapped away the gunman’s hand, so he gave up and urged Gilbert to start climbing over the berths.
Towards the rear of the train.
“Come on,” Nathan roared, forcing life into his pinched limbs. Water sprayed him, splashing off the wooden frames of the seats, dousing his eyes. Once again it felt like they were back under some mysterious sea. He looked, his face dripping and his vision partially skewed, and saw the closed door at the end of the car.
Some fifty feet away.
The water was already to their knees, filling the aisle completely and frothing like creamy jade. The rising water impeded their speed. They flipped themselves over the seats with loud cries. They landed with splashes and rose with shocked sputters, all the while the water climbed to their thighs. The lit lamps flittered over the green waters, once again bestowing a dreamlike quality that mystified and terrified Nathan.
Thirty feet away from the exit door, the aisle was already submerged, but that mad gush continued to roar behind them.
“Christ Almighty,” Eli panted, fear infecting his voice.
They waded now, kerplunking up to their chests before rising, staggering forward in an energy-sucking hurdle chase. Mackenzie slipped and went under completely, becoming a ghostly oil slick within those green depths that dimmed but never darkened. Jimmy stopped and hauled him up. Gilbert cracked his head against the underbelly over the overhead compartments, and cursed a blue stream.
Twenty feet, and the water didn’t sound so furious anymore.
Nathan glanced back and noted the exhausted faces behind him. The water still poured into the railway car, except much of the noise was smothered by the rising levels. Great ripples rolled over the water’s surface.
It was then when Nathan saw the dorsal fins.
“Oh Sweet Jesus,” he released, his verbal prompting and dismay luring the others to look.
“Holy shit!” Gilbert exclaimed and started pawing through the waves, pulling himself towards the final door.
“Stay out of the aisle!” Jimmy shouted.
Ten feet, and a curving, snaking log of… something filled the middle of the car, submerged some two feet down. It investigated the aisle at leisure, oblivious to the men. The sight of the thing doubled the train robbers’ efforts, and they hurried over the seats, splashing down to their collarbones before attempting to rise again, but crouching so that they didn’t rattle their skulls off the overhead compartments.
A great hissing of water jerked Nathan’s head around. Back at the other end, the rising level hid the continuing flow. More dorsal fins cut the surface, creating smooth lines that seemed to intersect each other as they approached.
Nathan reached the door just as the water touched his chin. His father’s felt hat lay against his back, and of all the other men, he was the only one who still had a hat. He stood with his head angled up and sucked down air. Gilbert was the next one to reach the end, looking like a tomcat knowing he was about to drown. Eli was right behind him, but he was watching what was below his chest.
Nathan looked and wished he hadn’t.
Two of those logs swam towards them, their little fins fluttering their unnerving girths through the water.
Leeches, Nathan realized. The damn things looked like giant leeches. Or eels. Or, God forbid, a weird merging of the two species.
Jimmy and Mackenzie crowded in behind him, pushing him a little more to the door which was a finger’s width away from being completely submerged.
“Quit pushin’!” Nathan roared as the two leech things came right up to his underwater belly, clothed in a ton of wet winter clothing. The creatures snaked away uninterested. Nathan swallowed, watching the things zigzag through those shockingly clear waters, where the bodies of the creatures didn’t seem to end.
“Oh Jesus,” Gilbert panicked in a little boy wail and pulled out a nasty-looking knife used for skinning buffalo. “If one of those things fastens on to my pecker, I’m gonna scream.”
The leeches circled off, leaving the men alone for the moment, but Nathan’s nerves were raw and crackling in those warm waters.
“Get the door open,” he said. “Gotta get the door open.”
Nathan got in position while Gilbert’s fingers scrabbled along the top. The two men faced each other.
“One,” Nathan said. “Two.
Three—”
He yanked down hard on the door latch and pulled. A second later, Gilbert pushed.
And under that pressing weight of water, they opened the door just a crack.
The leeches changed course, right back toward the men. They coiled their undulating lengths and made lines for the gang, as if sensing they’d missed an opportunity.
“Pull, goddammit!” Gilbert screamed.
“I’m pullin’,” Nathan squealed and drew breath to refuel his efforts.
Jimmy moved in, but there wasn’t much room to work unless…
Without another thought, Nathan dove underwater. He went to the floor, gripped the doors edges, and braced his boots against the nearest berth, just to the side of Gilbert and Eli. Nathan stretched his legs all the way back and heaved himself with a watery groan of effort.
Through bubbly green waters, one of those eel-leeches moved in, zeroing in on Nathan’s contorted face.
The door opened with a lurch, and the sudden rush of escaping water flushed Nathan through the opening in a fury of green-white. Nathan screamed. Heard screams. Things hit him, one even hard enough to greatly hurt his shoulder. A hard ridge slapped past his arm and he reached out and grabbed a wooden base. Someone rolled over him, clutching at his duster, but failing to hold on. Nathan fought for his bearings, realizing he was on the floor, and got to his knees.
The door was still open and water was pouring in, but not like the storm surge of the previous car.
The eel-leeches were nowhere in sight.
His clothing weighing a saturated ton, Nathan flipped himself over the berth and got to his feet. The other men rose around him. He pushed forward to the door and gripped the handle. With all his remaining might, Nathan shoved the door closed, decapitating that watery rush.
“Oh Jesus,” Eli Gallant was panting, lifting himself up from the aisle. Others did the same, flopping weary limbs over seats and staring at Nathan’s shivering figure with worn gratitude. Mackenzie’s chest was heaving, his eyes rolling, but he lifted a hand to signal all was well. Jimmy and Gilbert collapsed in a couple of empty berths.
Unwilling to relax just yet, Nathan felt for his guns. His rifle was gone, but his Colts remained. Drawing deep settling breaths, he studied the interior of what seemed like a deserted passenger car, with three lit oil lamps shining brightly.
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