1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Express

by Ryohgo Narita

  The lamps on either side of the car lit up brightly, several times.

  They were the lights that signaled that nothing was wrong with the train, but…who in the world was flashing them?

  The flashing stopped, and the pair faced each other in silence.

  Nothing was going to happen. Having come to that conclusion, Ladd began spitting out words once more, trying to make his opponent lose her cool.

  “Say, Chané, did you know your black-suited pals are gunning for you? From what I hear, they’re gonna take advantage of this confusion and rub you out.”

  Chané didn’t seem the least bit upset by those words. She’d already been aware of that, and she’d been thinking about getting rid of Goose and the others as well.

  “They say you were actually against this operation, yeah? It sounds like you weren’t happy about taking hostages and killing brats. Kind of a cream puff, ain’tcha? I guess that Huey fella didn’t like that stuff to begin with, but you’ll never get anywhere like that, y’know? I can see why the black suits would want to sell you down the river.”

  Still silent, Chané listened to Ladd’s words. Possibly because the events of a moment before had been rough on her, she seemed to be desperately holding her feelings in check, keeping herself from getting worked up.

  “You’re fighting a revolution, you’re starting a gunfight with the Man, but you don’t want to do anything that ain’t fair, and you don’t want to kill normal folks? Nice dream, sweetheart, but you better wake the hell up. What, is that Huey rube so tough he can afford to think about other folks’ lives while he’s fighting a war? If so, then it kinda makes sense, but that’s the type of guy I hate most! You can’t pull that stunt unless you think you’re absolutely safe! Dammit! That’s just unforgivable!”

  After getting himself worked up for a while, he gave a little smirk and lowered his voice:

  “Want me to tell you what I’m gonna do after I get off this train, first thing?”

  Warping his mouth hugely, ogling his opponent’s body slowly and lewdly, he said:

  “Kill Huey Laforet.”

  At that simple threat, Chané’s heart instantly froze over.

  “I thought it was weird, y’know? I always thought terrorists were the type who were A-okay with taking dirt naps, but your black-suited pals were all relaxed as hell, like they were thinking, ‘I’m never gonna die.’ Well, sure: Once this job is done, they might be getting immortal bodies.”

  He kept taking short, quick boxing steps, simultaneously raising the tension and volume of his voice.

  “Lemme be honest here. I’m not all that into killing you. Your ideas are completely soft, but you seem like you’re putting your life on the line. So I had this idea, see! I thought it’d be more fun to kill that absolute being of yours, Huey Laforet!”

  Ladd abruptly stopped his footwork, turned to Chané, and yelled straight at her. As if he were truly happy. As if he were really enjoying himself. As if toying with Chané’s heart gave him a rush.

  “Anyway, I’m gonna kill ’im. Maybe he’s immortal, but I’ll kill ’im. If he doesn’t die, I’ll cut his head off his body and sink one of ’em at the North Pole and the other at the South Pole. Right in front of you. I’m gonna take that laid-back bastard who thinks he’s safe because he can’t die and give him a lesson in how tough life really is. I’ll school him so hard he can’t stand it. Course, even if he says he can’t stand it, I ain’t gonna stop. Well?! What are you gonna do, Chané?! Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  It was a truly stale line, but Ladd knew very well that this sort of woman latched onto clichéd challenges the best.

  A great shudder ran through Chané, body and soul. If the earlier taunt had been an ignition switch, these words were a detonator. Focusing all her strength into the points of her knives, she tried to sprint straight at Ladd.

  …But the knives wouldn’t move.

  The tips of the blades she held in either hand had been caught between somebody’s fingers and immobilized. Until that very moment, she hadn’t noticed.

  A man in red was standing there, right in front of her… But that should have been impossible: Right up until a moment ago, when her vision had gone white with anger, she was sure there hadn’t been anyone in front of her.

  He’d sprung out of nowhere.

  That was the perfect way to describe the situation.

  The monster had finally shown itself to them.

  The red demon—the Rail Tracer.

  As he kept Chané’s knives still, holding them between his thumbs and forefingers, the red shadow murmured quietly:

  “Don’t poke holes in the conductors’ room. You grazed my ear.”

  At first, neither Ladd nor Chané understood what the man was saying. After giving it a little thought, they grasped the substance of what he’d said. Apparently, when Chané had used her knives to climb up the side of the train a moment ago, this man had been just on the other side of that wall.

  “If you get it, then apologize.”

  At the red shadow’s words, in spite of herself, Chané nodded. Forgetting even her recent anger at Ladd, she lowered both hands and bobbed her head in a bow. If the other black suits had been there, every one of them would have doubted their eyes. Ladd certainly did.

  “At least give me an ‘I’m sorry.’”

  At that, Chané pointed at her throat, then shook her head. Apparently, for some reason, she couldn’t speak.

  “Ah. Sorry about that. My bad.”

  The red shadow apologized meekly, then began to stride over the roof, turning back to face them when he neared the coupling that was linked to the freight cars.

  “Carry on.”

  And so…the bright red monster cut in on Ladd and Chané’s fight.

  “I’ll kill whoever survives.”

  Lua wanted someone to kill her. She wanted it so badly that she’d even forgotten why she wanted to die. Feeling that suicide was idiotic, she’d searched for someone who would kill her. She wanted to find someone who would have fun as they killed her. In the end, she wanted to die making somebody happy.

  Then she’d met Ladd. He might have more fun killing her than anyone else on the planet would.

  “Once I kill off everyone in the world who wants to live more than you do, at the very end, I’ll pull out all the stops, give it everything I’ve got, and kill you deader ’n dead. So don’t die before then, and stick with me. Got it?”

  That had been how he’d proposed. She knew it wasn’t a trick to get her to live longer. It was something he actually thought, from the bottom of his heart.

  She also believed that Ladd would make it happen. Ladd had never failed when he tried to kill somebody, and she couldn’t even imagine somebody else killing him.

  …Until she saw that red shadow.

  When Lua had made eye contact with the red shadow that had looked in through the window of this room a moment ago, her heart had wavered dramatically. It wasn’t out of any sort of terror or love. It was enormous anxiety. He’ll be killed—that monster with the dreadful eyes is going to kill Ladd. Ladd can’t win against that!

  She’d realized what the horrible light that filled the monster’s eyes really was.

  The intent to kill. Those eyes had been made of pure murderous intent. Lua had noticed it right away. After all, it was something she was used to seeing: Those eyes were exactly like Ladd’s when he was killing someone. If there was one difference, it was that the strength of the will in those eyes was beyond comparison with Ladd’s.

  She’d felt, very strongly, that it was clearly a being from another world, a world different from theirs. Its strength of will far surpassed humans’. Even more terrifying was the fact that, in the end, the monster had gone away without killing them. She didn’t know the reason, but she understood that even with that immense murderous intent in its eyes, the monster had been in control of itself.

  Ladd was invincible where humans were concerned, but against a monster, things w
ould be different. He’d be killed, Ladd was going to be killed—

  “Are you all right, young lady?”

  A low voice brought her back to herself. She was in a second-class compartment, their group’s room.

  In front of her, the gray-robed magician had just finished treating the man.

  “There’s a lot of life in your eyes now. Unlike before.”

  “……Huh?”

  Lua responded with a question in a scarcely audible voice. As she looked at the magician’s face, she realized something.

  This man is like me. He wants to die…

  Possibly he’d understood the significance of the gaze Lua turned on him. The man spoke quietly.

  “Right in the middle of the Great War, I joined up as a military doctor. I went to Verdun. So many of us died, enemies and allies alike. Once, when I looked around, for as far as I could see, I was the only living soul.”

  He spoke, not wallowing in painful memories, but simply and indifferently.

  “I thought, ‘Ah, is this punishment?’ If I’d treated more people, would I have been spared that sight? Intriguingly, no matter what battlefield I went to after that, right to the end of the Great War, I didn’t die. I hadn’t been running around trying to escape, mind you. No matter how great my injuries were, my life was always spared.”

  To Lua, the man’s story seemed like a tale from some distant world. The cloth over his face had slipped slightly, exposing the hideously burned flesh beneath. It was likely that his entire body was covered with scars like that one.

  “If it was divine punishment, and I ran from it through suicide, I would probably be given a heavier punishment. That is why I treat people: I see it as my duty to save as many souls who want to live as possible. Until God allows me to die.”

  When he’d said that much, he looked at Lua’s face.

  “It looks as if you’ve found something you must do. Unlike earlier, your eyes are alive. I don’t know whether it’s from terror or anger or sadness. However…”

  On hearing those words, Lua slowly stood up.

  “Hey, Lua, where are you going?”

  “Not far… I’ll be right back, so wait for me…”

  Saying this to her white-suited companion, Lua departed the room. Behind her, the gray man spoke to her, in a dull voice:

  “Once you’ve done what you need to do, perhaps you could return to being dead… No, forget that. It felt as though someone with eyes like mine was disappearing, and it made me a little lonely for a moment, that’s all…”

  With the man’s words at her back, Lua left to find Ladd. The doctor’s sentiment hadn’t been an encouraging one. His words had been spoken in a way that plunged her into greater unease. Yet what had made her so uneasy, when all the man had done was speak methodically about himself? It was almost as if the man…was Death.

  When she’d thought Ladd was the strongest, her instincts had been correct. She would never doubt that. Only, precisely because that was true, she could trust this instinct as well. Ladd mustn’t fight him, mustn’t defy him, mustn’t meet him. That red shadow was bound to bring Ladd misfortune.

  Remembering the eyes of the red man from a moment before, Lua quietly ran through the train.

  The sudden intruder left Ladd and Chané unable to move. The sky was still gloomy, and they couldn’t really see the man’s expression. They knew just one thing for certain: He wore clothes that were dyed red, from head to toe. Ladd was “dappled with red,” but in this man’s case, the simple term “bright red” was enough.

  Ladd was the first to speak, breaking a long silence:

  “Who’re you?”

  His tone held a clear wariness that was quite unlike him, and he began to turn very slightly away from Chané, toward the scarlet watcher.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The red man’s answer was simple as well. However, Ladd was convinced of one thing:

  This is probably the guy who offed Dune.

  What had convinced him was the sight of the clothes he was wearing. Although they’d been dyed red with blood, the design was definitely the one that belonged to the train’s conductors. In addition, in order to get splashed with this much of your victim’s blood, you’d need to kill very messily. These two conditions overlapped, making Ladd certain that this was the culprit who’d killed his friend.

  He didn’t know who this conductor who’d killed Dune was, but it was clear at a glance that he wasn’t anybody decent.

  The not-at-all-decent man spoke words that were, as expected, a bit odd:

  “Think of me as talking air.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Ladd gave that arrogant answer an insolent response. However, his intent to kill this man who’d slaughtered his friend was already at max.

  He’d been planning to kill his friend’s enemy, anyway. He took a bloodied throwing knife out of his coat and, with no hesitation, threw it at the crimson man. The silver rod, dulled with blood, headed straight for the man’s throat.

  “If you’re air, don’t talk!”

  “That’s harsh.”

  Neatly catching the thrown knife, the red-stained man—Claire—smiled quietly.

  A moment’s silence.

  “Hold it. Didn’t you just do something really unnatural?”

  “Not at all. See? I caught the hilt, so my hand didn’t get cut. That’s natural, right?”

  He chuckled, sending a response meant to taunt him back. That bumped Ladd’s intent-to-kill gauge up past its maximum. He didn’t care what the other guy did. What I really can’t stand are this monster’s eyes. Those eyes are seriously bad news. A normal person probably wouldn’t even be able to look at ’em straight on. But above and beyond that, I can’t forgive him! What the hell is this guy, this bastard?! When he caught the doll’s knives back there, and when I threw the knife at him, his eyes didn’t even flicker. He’s got the kinda smell I hate most. The same as some phony pacifist who spouts random crap when he only knows about war from the radio and the papers. The same as a mafia boss who makes his men do all the risky stuff and takes the biggest share of the money for himself, when he don’t do squat. Like that guy from a while back, the one who looked like a kid… Nah, this fella’s even worse!

  Ladd’s eyes sprang wide open, fiercely, and he launched himself into a run, heading for Claire.

  Leaning forward, he got in close and attempted to unleash a barrage of fists.

  Just as he thought his first attack would hit home, Claire evaded it in a way that would normally have been impossible.

  “Say what?”

  Right before Ladd’s eyes, Claire’s body receded. He spread his arms wide, bending backward. Or, no, this went beyond simply bending: He just fell backward. Even though the roof of the train ran out right at his feet.

  Ladd thought his opponent had thrown himself onto the tracks. Claire’s body had nothing to support it, and naturally, it disappeared down below.

  However, that thought only lasted a moment. Claire’s upper body, which should have been gone, bounded back up from the side of the train.

  Claire had hooked his legs from the knees down onto the roof of the train, flattening his upside-down body against the side. Then, using part of the ornamentation as a handhold, he’d launched his torso back up.

  In a motion like a spring-action doll, Claire’s upper body returned to the roof…where he promptly rammed his head into Ladd’s chin.

  In spite of himself, Ladd retreated a few steps but began to shift directly into a counterattack.

  However, he caught a flash of silver out of the corner of his eye and hastily dropped into a crouch. Immediately afterward, the blade of a knife skimmed over his head, and a few hairs danced on the wind.

  “That does it, you damn broad!”

  Ladd dropped back a few steps, glaring at Chané, who’d paid out that knife attack. Chané wasn’t looking at the red shadow anymore. She’d focused all her attention on killing Ladd.

  However, Cla
ire’s voice broke that concentration easily. Although it was laid-back, the voice was too intimidating to ignore.

  “You’re Chané, right? Was the stuff that guy said a minute ago true?”

  Without showing any particular emotion, Claire quietly asked Chané a question.

  “Uh, you know: about how you were actually against this operation, and how you don’t really want to kill people. How the Huey fella isn’t into that sort of thing, either.”

  Chané wasn’t sure whether she should answer the red shadow’s abrupt inquiry. She could have ignored it, but it felt as though ignoring it would mean denying herself and Huey, so she nodded emphatically in response.

  “I see. Well, good. In that case, do you want me to help you out a little?”

  “Huh?”

  At this sudden offer, Ladd gave an idiotic-sounding cry, and Chané looked startled.

  “Wait a minute, hold the phone, you ruddy monster! That’s a bit weird, ain’t it?! I don’t really get it, but you’re the one who’s been going around bumping off the black suits and my pals, yeah?!”

  “Right. What’s the problem?”

  “What the hell?! Then why are you telling her you’ll help her out all of a sudden?! You killed my pals!”

  Claire answered Ladd’s perfectly natural yell with zero hesitation:

  “Huh? Well, from what you were saying a minute ago…it sounds like she’s actually one of the good guys.”

  At that answer, as expected, even Ladd fell silent for a bit.

  “I heard you screaming, see,” Claire offered. “If she has to go along with this to save somebody who’s important to her, well… You’ve obviously got more than a couple screws loose, and it’s easier to sympathize with her, and besides, I feel kinda sorry for her.”

  At that point, finally, anger welled up inside Ladd.

  “Quit jerking me around, monster. What’s that? You’re feeling a little sympathy for this broad? Who the hell are you? Just how soft in the head are you?! Hah! And here I was wondering what sort of big, scary monster you were! You’re nothing! You’re just some sick-making hypocrite! Are you one of those guys? If kids with guns came at you on a battlefield, would you feel bad for them and save them, instead of killing the buggers? That’s exactly what you’re saying, low-watt!”