1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Express

by Ryohgo Narita

  It was possible that the black suits had already taken control of the locomotive. However, since they’d gone to the trouble of having a treacherous conductor present, they were probably trying to operate the train as normally as possible. The black suits might not even have realized that the middle-aged conductor was dead.

  Having drawn that conclusion, Claire had decided to make sure he kept sending the signal.

  This meant he had to return to the conductors’ room at set intervals.

  On the way, he’d spotted the white suits and Czes and had followed them, and that had created the current situation.

  Whoops. Crap, not good. The signal to the locomotive comes first.

  Realizing what he needed to do next, he spun to face the other way under the train.

  Fortunately, he still had some time left. He decided to check for remaining black suits as he went.

  “See? Awesome, ain’t it? Walking on the roof feels great, don’t it?”

  “…It’s cold…” Lua murmured her response in a small, trembling voice.

  Having heard about the roof from the gray magician, Ladd had wasted no time in climbing up, and then, imagine that: The stars were pretty, and he wouldn’t be seen by any enemies who were walking through the train. Talk about bagging two birds with one stone.

  On that thought, he’d had Lua and the other guy climb up as well, but apparently, the reviews weren’t good.

  “Man. How can you jump around like that in a dicey place like this?”

  Ladd was bounding around as if it was nothing, but apparently, it was all the other two could do just to stand up.

  “Really? You guys have lousy balance. You better eat a more balanced diet. Not that I know much about it.”

  Sounding disappointed, Ladd kept moving forward.

  Then he spotted human figures several cars ahead. He couldn’t tell what kind of people they were, but they seemed to be crawling over the roof.

  Ladd’s eyes shone as if he were a little kid with a new toy, and he schemed to find out who they were.

  “Hey, I’m gonna head up to the first-class cars for a bit, so you guys, y’know, go back to the room and rest up.”

  Without waiting for the other two to respond, Ladd ran away over the roof. The fact that he managed to make almost no noise as he did so was pretty spectacular.

  Lua and the other guy looked at each other, then climbed down at the coupling that was closest to their compartment. They weren’t the least bit worried. They couldn’t even imagine Ladd losing to a group of black-suit nobodies.

  Chané stood.

  Up on the roof of a first-class carriage, with the freezing wind at her back.

  After picking off one of the white suits, she’d decided to go up on the roof and keep an eye on things for a while. They’d set guards in the dining car, and in that one car, the corridor and the room were combined.

  That meant that, with their disadvantage in numbers, there was a large possibility that the white suits would cross the roof and launch a surprise attack.

  Chané was planning to slaughter those white suits all by herself.

  She wouldn’t accept help from Goose or the others. She knew they’d betray her someday, too. Just as Nader had.

  Goose’s group was only after one thing: They wanted bodies like Huey’s. What separated them from Nader was that they supported the revolution. However, to Goose and the others, Huey wasn’t at its center. As soon as the revolution succeeded, as far as they were concerned, Huey would probably be in the way. They kept up the appearance of loyalty merely because they wanted to receive the “blessing” he said he’d give them. The blessing of having their bodies made like his.

  Once they acquired those bodies, they probably intended to exile Huey. Yes, Goose and the others were under the impression that they had deceived Huey and were using him. What a pack of fools.

  They had no idea that they were the ones being deceived.

  Huey often told Chané—and only Chané—the truth. He probably understood that she’d follow him to the very end.

  She knew: Huey Laforet’s body was immortal.

  He had recruited revolutionaries by saying he’d share that immortality.

  But Huey couldn’t actually share his immortality with others.

  He wasn’t actually interested in the world after the revolution.

  What he wanted was to gauge the social limits of immortals.

  Because Huey only wanted to see whether an immortal could win against a nation.

  She also knew: Huey was kind enough to say he loved her.

  It wasn’t as a lover, though. Not at all.

  Huey was her father.

  And that, therefore, immortality wasn’t genetic.

  Very soon, her body would age past her father’s.

  She would most certainly die before he did.

  If Goose’s group rescued Huey, they would probably try to wrest immortality from him by force. That said, it was more dangerous for him to be the nation’s prisoner. She’d heard there was an immortal in the upper echelons of the Bureau of Investigation. That man might “eat” her father.

  There was only one person who knew her past.

  Only one person who was her family.

  Only one person who loved her.

  Only one person she loved.

  Huey Laforet.

  She couldn’t let him be stolen. She couldn’t give him to anybody.

  Chané intended to rescue Huey. She knew her father wouldn’t be happy with this method—with taking hostages—but it didn’t matter. She had said she was doing this for his sake, but it was really for the sake of her own desires, and nothing more.

  She wouldn’t let anyone get in the way, no matter who they were.

  Not even a legendary monster.

  There were two figures crawling toward her, over the dining car. They didn’t seem to be white suits, but if they were planning to interfere, she’d show them no mercy. They might be passengers who were trying to escape. If they were, it was true that she’d hesitate to kill them. In the midst of these two opposing drives, Chané kept visualizing Huey’s face and words.

  However, at that point, Chané was seized by a nasty sensation. She felt an eerie presence, as though something ominous was looking her way, as though chills were enveloping her entire body.

  Its source was behind the crawling figures.

  A man in a white suit, dappled with red.

  Instinctively, she knew this was the man who’d killed two of Goose’s subordinates in the dining car.

  “That doll’s something else.”

  Ladd stood on the tail end of the dining car, gazing at the woman who was standing on the next car.

  To think that chasing those crawling worms had led him to this hot little number!

  Ladd was grateful to his own good instincts. He was really glad he’d gone after the crawling figures.

  He caught occasional glimpses of the woman’s eyes through the smoke. The intensity in those eyes! It wasn’t a turn-off. For Ladd, the gaze held a terror that was actually pleasant. Here was a woman who was really worth killing. He wanted to dye those eyes with fear and despair this very minute.

  Ladd, the boss of the white suits, was what you’d call an average human being. His uncle Placido’s name was linked with a corner of underworld society, but he and his family had enjoyed an environment in which they could have been called quite ordinary people. There was no discernible cause for the darkness in his heart. You could say he’d been raised in what was, for Chicago, a completely normal family.

  The impulse toward slaughter that dwelled in him wasn’t the result of some sort of special experience. It had just popped into his head: human life and death, and the difference between people who died and people who didn’t. He’d only thought it, plain and simple, as casually as if he was thinking up a dinner menu.

  While his heart had been searching for a final answer, the process had gnawed away at his spirit. Before he knew it,
his heart had sickened to the point where it was untreatable. Warped convictions had developed hardily, without him knowing how to compromise or accept them.

  There had been no trauma, no pain, no particularly warped past. With no connection to any of these things, he’d degenerated into a completely twisted homicidal maniac. If there was one thing about him that was unusual, it was his speed of comprehension. It made his experience in killing people grow as quickly as if it were a part of him.

  He did have his own convictions, after a fashion, but they were nothing more than an excuse known as “aesthetics.” He wandered through the abnormal situation on this train as his desires led him.

  And now, he’d discovered a supremely interesting toy.

  A crosswind blew, revealing her whole body.

  Taking that as a sign, Ladd yelled involuntarily:

  “Heeeeeeey, ain’tcha cold out here in that dress?”

  Claire was perplexed.

  He’d managed to send the signal from the conductors’ room to the locomotive without incident; that was fine. A weird gunman had been there, and that had made it hard to get into the conductors’ room, but a young tattooed guy and a big man had taken him away, so he’d managed to send the signal on schedule. In doing so, he’d bought himself a bit more time.

  What had given him trouble had come after that.

  Claire had gone under the train and made his way to the second-class carriages; nothing wrong there. He’d had no particular difficulty clinging to the protrusions on the side of the train and peeking in the window, either. The problem was that there were third-class passengers in the room where the white suits should have been. Two of them, at that.

  One was a man who was enveloped in gray cloth from head to toe. He was a doctor named Fred, if memory served him right. As for the other… His face was smeared with blood, and Claire couldn’t tell who he was. Claire thought he was a third-class passenger because his clothes were clearly the sort a back-alley delinquent would wear. But he wasn’t discriminating on the basis of apparel: The only passengers who had been dressed like that today had been riding in the third-class car.

  Apparently, the doctor who looked like a magician—Fred—was attempting to treat the bloodied man.

  The act itself was only natural, but why was he doing it in a second-class compartment, and in the white suits’ room, at that?

  Question marks crossed Claire’s mind.

  Just then, the door to the room opened, and a man and woman in white came in. Claire recognized the pair: They were two of the three white suits who had been in the room where Czes was shot.

  “……Oh.”

  On opening the door, Lua spoke in a voice no one else could hear.

  “Who’re you, dirtbags?!” her white-suited companion yelled after that.

  They’d made it back to their own room, but why was the magician they’d met that evening there, and why was he treating the man Ladd had bloodied up a minute ago?

  “Ah, is this your room?”

  The gray magician spoke quietly.

  “Your friend Ladd made me a kind offer, and I’ve taken him up on it. Thank you.”

  As he spoke, the magician resumed treating the bloody man.

  The two white suits looked at one another. Their faces seemed to say, What’s going on? Imagine Ladd doing something like that…

  Without stopping his treatment, the magician nodded to the two white suits, politely:

  “I’m terribly sorry to ask, but do you think you could help me move this patient to the bed?”

  What’s going on? From that exchange, it’s hard to tell whether this Fred guy is friend or foe.

  As Claire brooded outside the window, he abruptly realized that the woman in white was turned toward him.

  He looked her way, too, and their eyes met. Claire thought the woman might scream, but she gazed at him quietly, without reacting at all.

  Weird lady… Well, that’s fine. I’ll save this place for later.

  On that thought, Claire slowly moved away from the window.

  Just then.

  He heard the noise of someone running over the roof at a ferocious pace. Two someones, actually, one after the other.

  Instead of going down, Claire poked his upper body up over the edge of the roof. When he looked in the direction in which the footsteps had receded, two figures seemed to be making for the rear cars. From the colors, which were dimly illuminated by the moonlight, a woman in a black dress seemed to be chasing a man in white.

  Descending again, Claire went under the train car. Unlike the ride-stealing woman, who’d moved like a monkey, his motions were both steady and fast. As his body squirmed mechanically, he looked like a huge crimson spider.

  When he reached a connecting platform near the third-class car, Claire climbed up for a moment. He’d wanted to confirm the positions of that black suit and white suit, but it looked as though they might still be up on the roof.

  Thinking he’d check the corridor, he peeked in through the window in the door—and frowned.

  He could see a shadow walking stealthily down the third-class corridor. The figure was short, and Claire knew who it was right away, but a slight doubt appeared in his mind:

  Didn’t that boy die a few minutes back?

  Czes went into one of the third-class compartments and sat down on an uncushioned bench. Beds were provided starting in second class. In third class, you slept in the seats.

  The other rooms between the freight room and this place had had third-class passengers tied up in them. He’d checked room after room, quietly peeking in through the doors, until he’d finally reached an unoccupied compartment.

  Even so, he hadn’t seen any black suits. He’d assumed they’d be guarding the passengers they’d tied up. Although Czes wondered about this, he satisfied himself with the idea that the white suits had probably disposed of them.

  For now, I’ll monitor the situation from this room. It will be easier to work if I make my move after either the black suits or the white suits have eliminated the other group.

  Czes quietly closed his eyes, deciding to rest for a little while. That said, to make absolutely sure he didn’t really fall asleep, he was careful to keep his consciousness from drifting.

  Just then, he heard the sound of the door opening slightly.

  “!”

  Immediately, Czes bolted upright, focusing all his nerves on the entrance to the room.

  The crack in the door grew wider and wider, and what appeared, blocking the light from the corridor, was—a bizarre individual dressed in red, with blood on his face.

  The figure in red bewildered Czes for a moment, but the second he noticed that a little of the cloth wasn’t crimson, he realized what the color actually was. It wasn’t the suit’s original color. The cloth had been dyed by a massive amount of blood.

  Because the other color that was still visible in places was white, Czes mistakenly assumed the man was one of the white suits.

  “Who are you? One of Mr. Ladd’s friends?”

  He spoke in a child’s voice, but the man didn’t respond.

  “What is it…? Who’re you?”

  A slight unease was beginning to grow inside him.

  Ignoring Czes’s words, the red man shut the door behind him. Now Czes was all alone with a strange man, and his anxiety increased.

  This guy might be the immortal. Czes hadn’t seen him in the dining car, but from the demeanor he wore, it wasn’t impossible.

  “Come on, say something. I’m Thomas, okay? I think you maybe have the wrong person.”

  He managed to give a false name easily. In other words, this mystery man wasn’t an immortal. Inwardly, Czes heaved a great sigh of relief. As long as the other man wasn’t deathless, there was nothing to fear.

  However, at the phantom’s first words, a wave of unease assailed his heart again.

  “Why are you lying, Czes? Or rather, Czeslaw Meyer.”

  “H-how do you know my name?”


  The red man didn’t answer that question. Czes kept desperately searching the thread of his memories, thinking he must have met him somewhere. He felt as though he’d heard his voice before, but he couldn’t remember whose it had been. He thought he might simply have a voice that resembled someone else’s.

  Czes never did realize that the man was the conductor who’d been checking the passenger list before boarding.

  What is he? What the devil is this man? What are those eyes? The look in them is several times more terrifying than that Ladd fellow’s. What is this? It’s almost as if he isn’t human. But that can’t be. Unless… Wait. If the demon who created our immortality exists, then perhaps—

  The wild tale he’d heard in the dining car surfaced in the boy’s mind, and in spite of himself, he spoke the name aloud:

  “Ra…Rail Tracer…?”

  At the boy’s murmur, the monster looked mildly mystified, and simultaneously rather pleased.

  “Huh. You knew. I’m impressed.”

  The content of the tale Isaac had told replayed in Czes’s mind. If you do something bad, you’ll get eaten by the Rail Tracer…

  The boy’s pulse raced. The phantom took a step toward him.

  “I am—the Rail Tracer.”

  With great self-confidence, Claire declared something that would have been nothing more than a tasteless joke to a normal listener.

  However, Czes had seen his eyes, and he knew it wasn’t a joke. In sharp contrast to the way he spoke, the man’s eyes were filled with a dark light that seemed to be on the verge of devouring everything about his opponent.

  “I know you’re not a kid, and I know what you want… So I guess I’ll go ahead and kill you.”