“Which track is it?” Ben asked, nodding to the column of train tracks beyond the doors on their left.
Patrick shook his head. “A: How the hell should I know? And B: Those are the Metra rails. We’re not taking the Metra. I am not going to the suburbs.” He spit on the floor for emphasis.
After about thirty feet, they came to a hallway on the right. It, too, had once had electronically sliding doors, but they seemed to be in short supply these days.
They could hear voices now, faint voices coming from somewhere up ahead. The darkness looked a little less complete up there, and Patrick realized there must be light around the corner at the far end of the hall, maybe a hundred feet ahead. They crept toward it, their sneakers crunching over wrappers and magazines scattered around the floor. They passed a newsstand that had been smashed to bits. The Coca-Cola case now rested on its side, along with the magazine racks and snack shelves. Patrick noticed with some amusement that someone had bashed in the glass top in the center of the checkout counter and stolen the Illinois Lottery scratch-offs from their cubbies.
Immediately after the newsstand, the hall opened up into a high-ceilinged lobby. A tall set of staircases rose off to the right, leading back up to street level, where dim, yellow light filtered in through more busted doors. Farther to the right, Union Station continued underground, beneath Canal Street and over to the original Union Station building. Patrick peered down the long, dark hall and saw sparks in the distance that might have been fires burning on the station floor. To their left was the entrance to the Amtrak waiting rooms. Here, too, the sliding doors had been ripped from their tracks and tossed haphazardly aside. There were loud shouts coming from the waiting room, and they decided to bypass it. They continued straight down the hall.
“Need help with your bags?” a voice rasped from the stairwell. Ben jumped and swung his bat in the general direction of the voice. He swung so hard that the momentum carried it around in a full arc, missing Patrick’s skull by centimeters. “Need help with your bags?” the voice asked again in a ragged, choking tone. Patrick peered into the darkness. A lumpy figure crouched on the stairs, swaying gently back and forth. “Need help with your bags?”
“I don’t think he’s talking to us,” Patrick whispered. He took a cautious step closer, hammer raised, poised to strike. The man on the stairs wasn’t facing them. He crouched on the balls of his feet, back against the railing, staring at the opposite stairwell.
“Need help with your bags?”
Patrick lowered the hammer and quietly backed away. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“My God, this is so creepy,” Ben whispered. “Hey. Let me hold the machete.”
“Jesus, no!” Patrick hissed. “That’s literally the only way this situation gets more terrifying.”
The hall terminated at the Amtrak platforms. They could just barely see the straight outlines of the train tracks in the darkness ahead. The glow of light grew brighter to the left. They turned the corner and found a group of Red Caps surrounding a short man in a blue hat. The man in blue hovered over some papers splayed out on the floor, the Red Caps illuminating them with old-fashioned oil lamps.
Patrick had been on enough Amtrak trains to know that while the Red Caps might be the muscle, the Blue Caps were the brains. A blue cap signified a member of the on-board train crew, the servicemen, the ticket-takers, and the conductor. The Blue Cap was his man.
He pulled Ben back around the corner, into the darkness. “Okay,” he whispered. “It’s game time. Are you ready?”
Ben nodded. “What’s the plan?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Not really, no. What’s the plan?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
Patrick hesitated. “Because you won’t like it.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Ben asked.
“No, I mean you really won’t like it.”
“Fine, then just tell me what it is so I can refuse to go along with it.”
“No, see, that’s why I need you to trust me.”
“Patrick, tell me the plan.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I’d trust you a lot more if you told me the plan.”
“I want you to look me in the eyes and say, ‘Patrick, I trust you.’”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Patrick, I trust you.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“No matter what?”
“Yes, no matter what.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course I mean it!” Ben hissed. “I trust you, okay? I trust you, I trust you, I fucking trust you!”
“Okay. Remember you said that.”
Ben furrowed his brow. He was about to ask why, but before he could make a sound, Patrick hauled off and whacked him in the face with the hammer.
Ben’s howls of pain brought the Amtrak crew running. Patrick slipped the hammer into his belt loop as the Red Caps skidded around the corner, weapons brandished. They held their lanterns up to the scene before them. Orange light flickered over Ben’s writhing body on the ground. Patrick stood over him angrily, his fists planted firmly on his hips.
“I demand to know who’s responsible for this!” he cried. The Red Caps looked from one to another, confused. “Well? Speak up!”
The man in the blue hat shouldered his way through the mob of Red Caps, which was no easy feat, given his diminutive stature. He stood no taller than 5’5”, more than a full head shorter than the shortest Red Cap. A long, brown mustache bushed from beneath his nose and tapered to drooping points below the corners of his mouth. His eyes were lost behind a pair of small, circle-rimmed glasses that would have been a better fit for a United States Postmaster, circa 1883. Though he was on the husky side, he must have lost at least a little weight since the apocalypse, because he kept hitching up his pants as he moved. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, huffing in consternation.
“That is precisely what I’d like to know!” Patrick said. “One of your Red Caps attacked my poor friend here with some sort of blunt instrument. I demand to know why, and I demand justice! Where’s the conductor of your train?”
“I am the conductor,” the little man said, puffing his chest out. “Now what’s this about an attack?”
“One of your men came tearing through here with some sort of weapon and smashed it directly into my friend’s face! I mean, just look at him! He’s hideous now!” He indicated Ben’s crumpled form with both hands. He was moaning loudly, cursing with angry nonsense.
“You say one of my men did this?” the conductor asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
“I most certainly do! He ran right by; there was no mistaking that red hat. And here, I thought the Red Caps took pride in their professionalism.” He crossed his arms in a huff.
The conductor glared around at his men. “They’re meant to, that’s for sure. Can you describe the man for me?”
“Well, it was dark, of course,” Patrick said, rubbing his chin. He thought back to the bearded Red Cap guard who’d clocked Ben on the bridge. It seemed like a good time for poetic justice. “But I know he had dark hair, it looked jet black, and he a beard about this long.” He held a hand six inches below his chin.
“Sounds like Rodgers, sir,” piped up one of the Red Caps in the back.
“Rodgers is supposed to be guarding the bridge,” the conductor said. “What on earth would he be doing down here?”
“Smashing people with hammers, apparently!” Patrick said, exasperated. “Or mallets, or nightsticks, or whatever it was! Look at poor Ben!” He crouched next to his friend and patted his head gently. Ben began to say something, but Patrick furtively covered his mouth. “I think he’s lost the ability to speak! My God, I think your man knoc
ked him voiceless!”
“Voiceless?” said the conductor.
“Yes, voiceless! We’ll be lucky if he ever speaks again!” He took Ben’s hand and helped him to his feet. A few of the Red Caps gasped as he stepped into the light. Already, a huge, purple welt was forming just under his left eye.
“Holy Lord!” the conductor swore, stepping forward for a closer look. “He really got you.”
“Yes, he did,” Patrick said firmly. “We demand satisfaction!”
“And you’re sure it was one of my men who did this.”
“Of course I’m sure! Who else could it have been? Do you think I did this? Is that what you’re suggesting? Why would I smash my own friend’s face in? He’s all I have left in this world, the only tether to my former life, the only link that still exists between what is now and what used to be!” Patrick willed himself to cry. It didn’t work. He wiped at his eyes anyway, hoping the darkness made it impossible to see that there were no tears.
The conductor looked agitated. He pulled a watch from his pocket and frowned at it. “What sort of satisfaction? I don’t have much time.”
“Well, we came down here to watch the train pull out. Ben’s a simple-minded person, and he loves to watch the trains.” Patrick patted him on the head. Ben lurched away and swatted back. Patrick slapped at Ben’s flailing hands. “Behave, sweet, simple Ben!” he cried. Ben threw a mighty kick at his supposed friend, but with his eye swelling shut, his depth perception was off, and he whiffed by a good three feet. “Mrrraugh!” he growled. He stalked off to sniffle and sulk in the shadows. Patrick continued: “We just wanted to watch the train, but now I suppose, given all that’s happened, well...Ben, how would you like to ride that train?” Ben waved his hand angrily from the corner.
The conductor frowned harder. “We don’t do much passenger transport anymore,” he said.
“If you don’t do much, then you must do some.”
The Blue Cap continued to frown. “I only say that because we have one passenger right now, a journalist. But she paid her way, handsomely.”
“Don’t tell me Ben hasn’t paid the ultimate price!” Patrick replied.
The conductor scowled. “How far would you want to go?”
“Where are you headed?”
“South.”
“Hmm,” Patrick said, feigning surprise. “I suppose we could see our way to letting this incident slide for a ride as far as...what, St. Louis?”
The conductor stroked his mustache. As he stood there thinking, a low rumbling rose from down the hallway. Patrick turned to see two Red Caps pushing a flat, metal cart loaded down with barrels. “First load of waste,” the man named Louis said. “Stevens’ll be along shortly with the rest.” The conductor nodded, and the Red Caps parted to let the cart through. As it passed, Patrick glanced down into the open barrels. A thick, syrupy liquid sloshed around inside of them. In the darkness, the stuff looked black as tar, but the smell in the air said differently.
“Is that vegetable oil?” Patrick said.
Louis shrugged as he rolled. “Some kind of waste. We’re dumping it,” he said, pushing through the crowd.
“Our work doesn’t concern strangers, Louis,” the conductor said sharply.
“Sorry, sir.”
A light bulb clicked somewhere in Patrick’s brain. “You could be using that for fuel, you know.”
The conductor whipped around, his eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“You can use that to fuel the train. I mean, you can if it’s cooking oil. It smells like it is.”
The conductor grabbed him firmly by the elbow and looked up at him. “Is that true?” he asked.
“Sure it’s true.”
“How do you know that?
“I’m a mechanical engineer,” Patrick said proudly. “Or, you know, I was. Before M-Day.”
“Louis!” the conductor cried. “Hand me the cargo sheet.” Louis stopped and fished a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He handed it to the Blue Cap. The conductor unfolded it and held it up next to one of the Red Caps’ lanterns. He raised an eyebrow. “Corn oil.”
“That’d do it,” Patrick said.
“You’re suggesting I take that stuff and dump it into my gas tank?”
Patrick shrugged. “If you’re in a pinch for fuel, sure. I mean, it’ll make things volatile as hell, but yeah, you could power a train on that. If you have enough of it.”
“We have twenty-four barrels of it coming on board right now.” He refolded the paper and handed it to Louis. “Get that cargo on board, keep it safe. Put three barrels in the engine, we’ll see what’s what. The rest goes in the cargo hold.” Louis nodded and pushed the cart off toward the platform. The conductor turned back to Patrick and stuck out his hand. “Name’s Horace Stilton, Lead Conductor of the Texas Eagle. Welcome aboard.”
•
Ben was in a bad mood. His cheek was tender where his supposed best friend had smashed it with a hammer because that was the best dumb fucking plan he had been able to come up with. The worst part was, the dumb fucking plan had actually worked, which meant similarly dumb fucking plans were going to be encouraged in the future.
A rational voice somewhere deep inside suggested that all of this really was for the best. After all, they had managed to get on the train, something Ben had been pretty sure they’d never be able to do. But that small, rational piece of his brain was completely drowned out by the much larger, much stronger emotional piece, which wanted to claw Patrick’s face, swig the vodka, derail the train, and set fire to Disney World. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll burn that fucking Disney World. If we make it there, I swear to high heaven, I will set fire to anything still standing.
They headed toward the platform, surrounded by Red Caps, Patrick smiling his goofy smile, happy as a clam to be headed south. The train loomed before them, each car tall and silver with the blue Amtrak logo still perfectly visible along the side. It was a modest train, only six cars long, including the engine. The conductor led them to the second from the rear and gestured up the stairs. “Passenger car. Don’t go wandering between cars. My men have instructions to take out anyone who tries to cross without my expressed permission. You don’t have it.”
“You mind if I go up and take a look at the engine?” Patrick asked, genuinely interested.
Horace peered at him over his glasses and sighed. “Guess that’s fine, seein’ as how I’m headin’ that way myself. Come with me. Your friend gonna be all right?”
Patrick examined Ben’s face carefully. “Ben, are you okay? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
“And blink how many times for, ‘If I get my hands on the son of a bitch who hammered my face, I’m going to strangle him with his own intestines’?”
“Four, I think.” Ben blinked four times. “Yep, he’s fine.” Patrick followed the conductor down the platform. Ben rolled his eyes and launched himself up the steep set of stairs. He was more than willing to take a short reprieve from his “friend.” One of the Red Caps followed him and took up a position at the entrance to the car, his hands clasped at his waist. A guard, apparently. Besides Ben and the Red Cap, the passenger car was empty.
It had been a while since Ben had been in an Amtrak car, and his very private, very special love for the Harry Potter series had encouraged him to hope against hope that the company had upgraded to exclusive, wood paneled sleeping compartments at some point over the last decade. But what awaited him at the top of the stairs looked more like the inside of a Greyhound bus. A center aisle separated a long column of four-seat rows, two seats on the right, two seats on the left. They were covered in blue pleather that was literally coming apart at the seams. The upholstery was ripped, torn, and scratched so badly, it looked like someone had locked a swarm of feral cats in the car for a week. Some of the seats had be
en removed altogether, and some faced the wrong direction. A couple of the rows swiveled freely, apparently unable to be locked into place. Each side of the train had a luggage rack suspended above the seats, running the length of the car. These racks had once held suitcases and duffels; now they held canned goods and bottled water.
Ben sulked past the restrooms, the doors of which had been removed, and found a reasonably comfortable looking seat two-thirds of the way down the car. He leaned his bat against the aisle seat and slipped the knapsack from his shoulders, tossing it onto the seat next to the window. He caught his reflection in the darkened glass, and for the first time realized that lights were on inside the car. They were dim, but they were on. Rope lights set into the ceiling ran the length of the car, giving off a soft, orange glow. He crept into the row and examined himself more closely in the window. “Holy shit,” he muttered, touching the puffy purple lump under his eye. Pat had really clocked him good. Other than that, though, he seemed to be okay. His lip wasn’t really swollen from the Red Cap’s punch, and the shaving cut on his head had stopped bleeding. Hammer wound aside, he looked pretty good, and now that he was actually on the train, he was feeling a little better, too. He was still pissed at Patrick, but at least they were on track (ha, ha). And there were plenty of armed Red Caps on the train, so he’d even be able to get a decent night’s sleep without waking up in terror every time he thought he heard a sound. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a few energy bars. He tore into one and chewed thoughtfully, almost happily. Hell, this wasn’t so bad. All in all, it’d probably be a pretty restful ride.
•
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