by Mur Lafferty
The train allows the carry-on of weapons, claws, symbiotic relationships, and other ways of protecting yourself. The train is affordable—for those who can afford such things—and fast, and may very well revolutionize travel in American coterie circles.
Everyone must experience the ghost train at least once in their lives. Or deaths.
CHAPTER THREE
Zoë and Reynard looked out the window. Snow covered the fields, and the moon shone brightly over them. The train was going far too fast for anything to pace it, but something was. It was hard to tell through the ghostly windows, not to mention the darkness and the snow, but something white and insubstantial seemed to be keeping up with the train.
“Ghosts,” Reynard said grimly.
Once he spoke, Zoë’s eyes finally made sense of what she was seeing. Two men and one woman rode horses that thundered beside the bullet train. Their mounts were clearly straining, but managed to keep up. The men had pistols in their hands, while the woman was prepping a lasso. They were all hazy and white, like the train itself.
“This is a bullet train!” Zoë said. “How in the world are they robbing a bullet train? And train robberies went out with the century before last!”
“Which is why only ghosts attempt train robberies,” Reynard said. “We need to head back to our car, now.”
They left Deepu the vampire arguing with engineering, he trying to give them information, and they being irate about it considering that they knew they were being robbed thank you very much and that’s why they were taking measures against it.
“I know this is a stupid question,” Zoë asked as they slipped between the cars. “But why are we afraid of ghosts, beyond the normal reasons for fearing vampires, zombies, and the other coterie?”
“Ghosts don’t want to consume us, or feed off us. They want to be us,” Reynard said. “They want to inhabit us for our warmth, go joyriding by eating everything they can get our hands on, or fucking everything in sight. I knew one woman who was possessed who woke up nude in Macy’s fur department, lying in a pile of sable coats, totally unaware of how she got there.
“Ghosts aren’t official coterie, since they don’t really form societies like the rest of us,” he said, “and they can’t be killed. To the nonhumans they’re irritations, like memories that won’t go away. To humans they can mean anything from embarrassment, to framing for crimes, to violent death.”
“Death?” Zoë choked. They were hurrying through the zombie car, taking less care not to wake the undead. The train had begun to shudder with speed, but Zoë could see outside that the robbers were keeping perfect pace.
“Sure. Thrill-seekers, you know. They can take your body, go skydiving, rock-climbing. You’ve got to still have the adrenal glands to have an adrenaline rush. And if they slip or something goes wrong, they just casually exit your body as you go plummeting.”
Zoë shuddered. They maneuvered around a zombie whose elbow stuck out in the aisle, who grunted at them, and hurried back to their car.
When they reached their seats, Reynard stopped and looked at Zoë. “But the real threat is when the other coterie find out ghosts are stopping us, they’re going to want to throw us off to placate the ghosts.”
“Oh, right. But wait—if the ghosts are insubstantial and all they do is hurt humans, why can’t the engineer just keep driving? If all it’s going to hurt is us, why do they care?”
Reynard sighed. “We are on a ghost train, Zoë,” he said. “The ghosts are as substantial as the train. If they want to derail us, they can. If they want to get on board and start killing coterie, they can.”
“So ghosts are insubstantial, and therefore untouchable, when they’re off the train,” Zoë mused. “And they can only act when they’re on it.”
Reynard ignored her and went to each of the sleeping zoëtists and gently shook her awake. “Ladies, I’m sorry to bother you but it looks like the train is being robbed.”
An older, plump woman that Zoë had identified as the leader stirred in her sleep and grunted, “’Sa bullet train. Can’t be robbed.” She waved Reynard away and settled back into her seat. Reynard’s mouth twisted in annoyance.
“They’re no help,” he said, sitting down in his seat.
Zoë shook Arthur’s arm. His eyelids fluttered but he remained asleep. Something worked loose in his hand, though. A squat white-and-pink bottle fell from it and rolled down his thigh. Zoë caught it.
“Benadryl? Are you kidding me?” she asked in a loud voice. Arthur didn’t stir.
“OK. He’s no help. The zoëtists are no help. What can we do?” Zoë asked. She couldn’t remember anything Granny Good Mae had said about ghosts. She had given advice on how to fight many of the coterie, but every time Zoë thought she had them all covered, she was introduced to a new one to worry about.
“Hang on a second,” she said. “If a ghost’s main threat is its ability to possess us, they can only do that when they’re off the train, right? What’s the threat when they’re on?”
Reynard thought for a moment. “They’re as solid as we are, which means they can attack, use weapons, and worse,” he said. “Right now they’re a threat on or off the train.”
“So we stay on the train. And if we have to fight, we do so.” She glanced at the dozing zoëtists. “It would be nice if they made something that could help us fight.”
“Come on,” Reynard said. “I’ve got another idea.”
“Where are we going?” Zoë asked. “We need to fight those guys. From what you said, none of the coterie here are going to fight for us.”
Reynard grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “There you go again, demanding to be in the middle of things,” he said. “Let someone else fight the fight for once. It’s not our train, not our problem.”
Zoë glared at him and wrenched her hand free. “It’s my problem if they attack me. And I’m not leaving Arthur.” She reached into her computer bag on the seat and pulled out a short Filipino fighting stick. Granny Good Mae had just begun teaching her the finer points of Arnis, and Zoë loved it, the stick being a lighter weapon than a sword, but quite effective. Also easier to carry without getting too much attention.
She slid the rattan stick, about two feet long, into her belt, then crossed her arms. “Go if you have to. I’m staying here.”
“So how am I going to fight ghosts?” Zoë muttered to herself.
It would be me that gets on a ghost train that somehow gets robbed, she thought after Reynard left to save his own ass. This shit doesn’t happen to people like Stacy Bellingham. No, Stacy just goes to work, comes home, drinks beer, and watches reality cooking shows. I’m the one who met the weird dude who tells me about genocide and then expects me to leave my boyfriend behind.
She hadn’t thought of Stacy Bellingham in years. Her friend from high school had had simple goals in life. Physical therapist, marriage, bunch of kids. Zoë was fairly sure that working for a vampire was not something Stacy would even consider. She would probably be insulted by the concept. Stacy had no vision. No sense of adventure.
Zoë was pretty sure Stacy was also not aboard a ghost train getting robbed.
Zoë hated Stacy right then. A small logical part of her mind wondered why she was wasting time hating Stacy instead of, say, the mysterious Reynard or the drugged-out Arthur or even the ghosts robbing the train. Or Kevin, who delighted in tormenting her so much. Or the bigots who hadn’t let her sit with her coworkers. She’d have been safe there.
She realized with disgust that she was longing for the safety of vampires and gods instead of standing on her own, which was something Granny had hammered into her. No matter how nice they are to you, they are still coterie and they are always dangerous. Work with them, but don’t count on them.
She didn’t have to count on them, but she could use them.
Zoë got out her special coterie phone and looked up Kevin’s number.
The train had not put out an alarm that it was being robbed. Only
Zoë, Reynard, and the train personnel knew about the threat, as far as Zoë could tell. They and whoever was in the car Reynard was running to, she guessed.
COME TO THE HUMAN CAR. NEED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR ATTITUDE she typed out, and hit send.
While she waited for Kevin to receive the text and respond, she again poked Arthur, who made a face and turned away from her as best he could, considering he was hunched up against a window and a train seat. But it was pretty clear he was out of commission.
Zoë put her face right up to his. “We are going to talk about the wisdom of drugging yourself into a stupor when you are on a train with people who would eat you. Pencil me into your schedule when you fucking wake up.”
Checking out entirely was unlike him, but she didn’t have time to wonder about it.
She had expected a sardonic text from Kevin, or a flat-out refusal to come to the car, but as Zoë stood guard in the aisle, with the blank faces of mud golems facing her in an interested, alert manner, she heard a low voice behind her.
“This ought to be good,” Kevin said.
“Wow, you really fell for it,” Zoë said, and felt the train shake slightly again under her feet. She caught a flash of something out the window, a wispy white. “I didn’t think you’d actually obey.”
Kevin sneered at her. “ ‘Obey,’ nice word there. What do you want to do, fire me?” He leaned in close, and Zoë could smell blood on his breath. “Please fire me.”
She smiled at him, a sweet smile. “Fire one of my best writers? I’d never do that. Besides, you’re a big, strong vampire, and I’m only a little human. Phil would kill you deader than you already are if you laid a hand on me. Or allowed me to get hurt.”
At that point the ghosts boarded. Being insubstantial, they just jumped from their horses and phased through the doors, where they landed physically on the steps leading to the human car. A couple of the zoëtists stirred, but everyone but Arthur and the thralls jumped when the lead ghost, a white man looking to be about forty-five, fired a shot in the air.
“This here’s a robbery, everyone put your hands up!” he shouted.
Kevin’s eyes went wide with alarm and he stared first at the ghosts and then at Zoë. “You knew about this.”
“You know, if you liked me just a little more, you might actually respect the manipulation here,” she said. “But yeah, I knew.”
“You could have called anyone to your little-distressed-princess side, they would have jumped at the chance. Why did you fucking bother me?” he hissed in her ear as their hands went up.
“Because I wanted to reinforce that you have to do what I say, I’m your goddamned boss,” she whispered back, keeping her eyes on the ghosts. “I have a plan but I need someone who can move faster than me.”
“Yeah, the moving-faster-than-you is going to be me leaving this fucking car and going back to the first-class car. If they boarded here, they must want something that the humans have. It’s not my problem.”
The zoëtist women were awake and in various states of panic. The thralls, of course, simply sat in their seats and stared blankly at the new events. The younger women fumbled with their bags of dirt and mud, and one was concentrating on forming a small golem out of Zoë’s half-full soda can. It twisted and stretched and little fissures opened, forcing Coke to dribble out onto the table. Four mud golems stood guarding the aisles. The woman Zoë had mentally named the Matriarch, the oldest, who looked to be in her sixties, was awake now, and glaring at the new people in the car.
The ghosts stood at the far end, grinning at them. Now that they were substantial, Zoë could see their clothing much better: the men’s cowboy outfits fit poorly over khakis and tailored button-down shirts. Their chaps were stiff and light brown, and their hats clearly cheap fabric. The woman wore a smart business suit with a modest knee-length skirt that had been bunched up to allow the chaps to fit over them. The guns at their hips, however, were real.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Zoë asked out loud.
“Good evening,” the head cowboy said, his accent much closer to New England than the American Southwest. “I’m sure you ladies know what an old-fashioned train robbery is.” He smiled with very white teeth. “Now hand over your valuables. Hell notes, talismans, any magical items you may have. And when you’re done with that, you can tell me which one of you is Reynard Arseneaux?”
“What are you going to do with our valuables?” the oldest zoëtist asked, smiling. “The moment you leave the train, they will be worthless to you. Are you going to go shop in the snack car with the money?”
“Hey, we have employers!” the woman said, sticking her chin out. She was maybe twenty-five, Hispanic, and very short.
“Shut up,” the leader growled. “It’s no matter to you what happens to us. We just want your stuff. And these bullets are plenty real on this train, so you’d best do what we say, y’hear?” The word sounded odd coming out of his mouth, as if he had a script.
Zoë stepped forward and was stopped by a golem. It held a goopy arm out to block her, and she held up her hands, trying to show she was not threatening. It refused to let her pass.
She raised her voice then. “What do you want with Reynard?”
“That ain’t your bidness,” said the third cowboy, a fat white man about the size of a refrigerator. He would have looked intimidating except that his Western garb was stretched tight over him, and he looked like a grown man who had raided his children’s costume trunk. His hat was pulled over his face, and she could see only his mouth.
“I’ll get the leader, you get the fat one,” Zoë whispered to Kevin.
“You think I’m going to take fighting directions from a little editor?” he asked. “I’d rather drink holy water.”
“Prove it. There’s some holy water in my bag there,” Zoë said, pointing at the bag on the floor.
Kevin whipped his head around to her. “You’re not serious.”
“No, the word you’re looking for is ‘stupid,’ I’m not stupid. Can we please focus on the ghosts with the real guns?”
“Fuck this,” he said, and turned and ran out the door.
“Why is every guy I encounter on this train a complete coward?” she asked out loud.
Zoë tried to climb over the seat to her left, but the golem hit her with its suddenly very solid mud arm, smacking her into the wall. She grunted and fell, and the golem flowed around her feet, trapping her.
“Dammit, I’m not the threat, it’s them! Go get the fake cowboys! I’m on your side!” she said, struggling to free herself from the insidious mud that trapped her. She stood, but the mud was still gluing her to the floor.
“We’re not fake! We’ll put a bullet in you!” shouted the woman, and Zoë snorted.
“What happened to you guys, anyway? Did you get killed while on some corporate dude ranch visit? Did something interrupt your team building?”
They looked at each other, uncertain. Zoë laughed. “I was kind of kidding. Are you serious? That’s utterly tragic. So you’re doomed for eternity to wear fake cowboy outfits? You must be in hell.”
She actually pitied the cowboys for a moment. The zoëtists had noticed her at this point, and the Matriarch flicked a hand, and the mud fell away from Zoë’s jeans and shoes, although she was still filthy. The golem stepped back and let her get up.
“No matter what we were in life, we’re here in death, and we’re robbing you,” the woman said, stepping in front of the man. “And the costumes we died in may not be real, but the guns are.”
Zoë nodded. “You said that. I’m sure they’re very scary. Now what I’m interested in is who is your employer? And what do ghosts get out of employment? What could you need?”
The woman shook the gun as if worsening her aim would make her more threatening. “Hold it right there! And it’s none of your damn business. Give me that talisman, and whatever hell notes you have, now!”
Zoë had been slowly inching forward, but still had two golems between her and
the ghosts. She held up her hands to show she wasn’t armed. “Hang on, Calamity Jane, I’m just curious. Can’t I be curious?”
“You can be dead!” shouted Calamity Jane. Zoë stopped and waited for the inevitable violence. She didn’t think the woman could hit her; her hand was shaking too much. But she didn’t want to go hand to hand with the big guy.
When the woman didn’t pull the trigger, someone snickered off to the side.
“You’re really not very good at this,” Zoë said, not unkindly. “Why don’t you just step off the train in Charlotte and go watch some NASCAR, or something?”
The fat ghost, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, lifted his head. He’d had his head down, the hat obscuring him, and he looked dreadful. While the other ghosts looked somewhat human, this one looked chewed on, as if by a zombie. Half his cheek and one eye were missing. Zoë winced.
“She’s not good at it, but I am,” he said, and took aim.
Granny Good Mae had taught Zoë an awful lot about intent, and how you could judge what someone would do based on the intent behind their movements. This was why she was confident the woman wouldn’t shoot. But when she got a look at old rotting one-eye, she knew she was in trouble.
She dove behind a seat as the cowboy pulled the trigger, and heard a wet squelch as the shot hit the golem that had jumped in front of her.
“OK, real bullets. We’re done with the mocking, I guess,” she muttered.
She peeked over the seat back. The golems rushed forward to engage the ghosts, and the ghosts fired again, followed by the cry of one of the zoëtists. “Shit,” Zoë said.
The ghosts now struggled under a torrent of mud. The door opened behind them and a zombie porter came through, along with the snack car vampire, Deepu, and a hulking demon with green skin and far too many teeth.
“There, Raoul,” the vampire Deepu said, pointing to the ghosts. The demon grunted and picked two of the ghosts—the leader and the woman—up by the necks. He slammed them together as if he were clapping his hands, their heads clashing together. He dropped them and they crumpled. The porter opened the door and the wind roared into the car, picking up paper and trash and putting out the gaslights. In the darkness Zoë heard a grunt as the demon tossed the ghosts into the night, and the bodies faded as the ghosts went from corporeal to insubstantial again.