1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local

by Ryohgo Narita

  After a short silence, she heard the door to the bathroom open. They probably weren’t sure exactly where the noise had come from. At that point, the possibility that the footsteps belonged to Czes disappeared.

  Her terror swelled; her tears spilled over; she wanted to scream and run right this minute.

  Swallowing down all these thoughts, the girl concentrated on holding her breath. Picturing her mother’s face, she desperately waited for time to pass.

  However, time yielded a cruel result.

  The footsteps she’d begun to hear from in front of the bathroom slowly approached, then stopped in front of the door to the janitor’s closet.

  There was no way to lock the door from the inside. One light tug on the knob, and the bulwark that protected her would be lost.

  Still, the door hadn’t opened yet. It was still okay, still okay, and besides, it might be Mr. Isaac, or Mr. Jacuzzi, or Mama—of course it might be Mama! It must be; Mama, Mama had come, Mama, Mama, Mama…

  In the girl’s mind, the person in front of the door right now was her mother. Hope simmered within despair, and at this point, her mother’s figure was the only one in her world.

  Slowly, the door began to open.

  Mama!

  She wanted to scream the word and leap out, but she couldn’t.

  The hand that had appeared through the crack in the door belonged to a man. What she saw after that big hand was a sleeve as white as snow.

  The world with her mother that she’d created began to crumble. The sound of its collapse turned into the girl’s scream.

  However, her mouth was covered by the hand of the man in the white suit.

  “Foooound you.”

  With a nasty smile, the man opened the door all the way. His eyes drooped at the outside corners.

  “You mustn’t scream, hee-hee. Sorry ’bout this, Ladd, but it’s okay if I take the girl, ain’t it?”

  Mary struggled with all her might, but the man in the white suit was built tougher than an ordinary adult. She knew it wasn’t any good, but even so, she kept fighting.

  “Quit fighting, hya-hya! I’m gonna throw you out the window before Ladd finds us.”

  He tried to drag her out of the closet.

  “Unlike Ladd, all I like is torturing weaklings to death. Hee-hee-hee……hee?”

  Abruptly, the man’s laugh cut out. He stopped moving for a few moments, and then the strength that had been focused on Mary suddenly weakened. When, with a desperate effort, she shoved him away, the man simply fell over backward.

  His body had fallen faceup, and centered on that body, a red puddle began to spread across the corridor.

  Not understanding what had happened, Mary slowly raised her eyes from the man’s corpse.

  There was a woman standing there.

  “Eeek—”

  On seeing her, Mary gave a small scream.

  The woman wore a black dress, and in her hand she held a knife that dripped with blood.

  However, that wasn’t what had frightened Mary. She’d been gripped with a fathomless terror at the sight of the woman’s eyes.

  Mary had seen the eyes of the woman in the black dress—Chané—right from the front. The color of those fantastically dark, deep, pure eyes.

  When she saw those eyes, Mary found herself completely unable to believe that this person was human.

  Ironically, a name that was completely off target leaped from Mary’s lips. At this point, she must truly have thought Chané was “that.”

  “The……The Rail Tracer…”

  “Okay, first we’ll get rid of the guard. I’ll be the decoy, so when he comes through the door, grab him.”

  “Mrrg, got it. Leave to me.”

  In the corridor outside the room where Jack and Nick were being held, Jacuzzi knocked on the door.

  If everything was the way Nice and Donny had seen, there should be one guard inside. He took two steps back from the door and stood at the ready, leaning against the corridor window.

  However, no matter how long he waited, there was no response from inside. Did the group use some sort of code among themselves? He approached the door and knocked again. As before, there was no reply.

  Making up his mind, Jacuzzi set his hand on the door’s handle. There was a tiny creak, and the door opened with surprising ease.

  A gloomy freight room. There were two shadows, deep inside it. One was crouching and seemed to be in pain; the other, who was bound with ropes, was glaring at the open door, but—

  “Nn? Jacuzzi! Is that you, Jacuzzi?!”

  “Nick? Oh, good, you’re oka—”

  His delight was immediately cut short. Jack was hunkered down beside him, and his face was red with blood.

  “Jack!”

  “Don’t worry. He’s not gonna die.”

  Nick looked down, resentfully.

  “No, I’m worried! What on earth happened?!”

  “That’s what I want to know. Forget the black suits—what the hell is that punch-drunk lunatic in white?”

  Then Nick began to tell them about what had happened after they’d been caught by the black suits.

  When the black orchestra members had tied Nick up and taken him to the freight room, several other people were already there.

  “Jack!”

  “Hey, Nick. They got you, too, huh?”

  Of the three bound individuals, one was his friend Jack. The other two were a young man and woman in white.

  They’d tried to talk to the white-clothed pair, but they wouldn’t say a word. With no help for that, Nick tried to talk to Jack, but the guard with the machine gun glared at them, so they gave up.

  After a little while, the guard opened the door and went outside. He’d probably gone to call a replacement. A little more time passed, but the guard didn’t come back. Just as Nick and Jack were struggling, trying to figure out a way to cut the ropes, someone abruptly flung the door open.

  When they hastily looked that way, a man in white stood there. No, white wasn’t quite accurate. Red stains spread across his clothes here and there, creating a warped, mottled pattern.

  “Thank you, fuck you, here comes the enemy!”

  He was hyper to the point where it was patently idiotic. Striking a weird pose, the man entered the room and spun around once.

  “What’s this, what’s this, what’s this? Not one single guard! Man, that blows! Still, I’m glad you’re okay, Luuuaaa—”

  “What, you’re not worried about me?”

  The trussed-up man in white spoke for the first time. Meanwhile, the woman murmured “Thank you” in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s whine.

  They had no clue who this guy was, but they were saved. Nick and Jack looked at each other and smiled, but the man only untied the snowy pair, then started out of the room.

  “H-hey, c’mon, untie us, too.”

  At that, the man glanced at them, looking mystified.

  “Huh? Why? What’s in it for me? Are you? Gonna do? Something for me? If you were dolls, I’d expect a kiss, but you’re fellas, meaning ‘no way in hell.’ Actually, why don’t you just die right there? If you leave the planet, a doll might be born to replace you. Great, g’wan and die. It’s your destiny to die! If you fight destiny, you die, see?”

  Spinning around and around in place, he kept pointing fingers at them sharply. At that taunting attitude, Jack’s face turned bright red, and he raised his voice angrily:

  “What the hell, bastard?! Just hurry and untie these ropes, perv!”

  Without rising to the bait, the wired guy cackled and left the room with his companions.

  “Get back here! I’m still talking to you, loser!”

  “Give it up, Jack. Let’s just think about getting these ropes cut.”

  And then it happened.

  The instant Nick called Jack’s name, someone stuck their head in through the freight room door. It was the hyper guy who’d just left.

  “What’s this? Did you say ‘Jack’?” />
  Tripping over to Jack with short, quick steps, he nimbly untied the ropes.

  “What’re you playing at?”

  Nick was the one who’d asked the question, but the guy was already blind to everything except Jack’s face.

  “So your name’s Jack, huh? Now, see, that’s interesting! It’s time we figured out whether all guys named Jack are good at boxing. Diiiing!”

  Right as he rang the gong with his mouth, the man buried his fist in Jack’s face.

  “After that, it was awful. He just kept whaling on Jack… Then we started to hear gunfire from the cars up front, and at that point, he finally stopped thrashing him.”

  On hearing gunshots, the face of the man wearing the red-and-white-mottled suit had warped cheerfully, and he’d walked off in the direction of the sound with his compatriots.

  “If he’d kept that up, he might’ve beaten him to death.”

  At Nick’s mutter, Jacuzzi examined the fallen Jack’s face again. He could hear him wheezing, but his face was so swollen he couldn’t even tell what color his eyes were.

  Jacuzzi narrowed his eyes, quietly clenching his fists. On seeing this, Nick moved a little ways away from him and whispered to Nice and Donny.

  “Hey… Did Jacuzzi switch on?”

  Nice nodded and answered Jack, also in a whisper.

  “Yes. It hasn’t happened since the time the Russo Family killed eight of us.”

  “He was crying and awesome that time.”

  “Mm-hmm. He robbed eighteen Russo establishments on his own. In one day. And he cried the entire time.”

  The Russo Family had learned Jacuzzi’s face through that incident, and they’d passed around wanted posters. In the end, Jacuzzi hadn’t regained his fear until after the funeral for their dead companions was all over.

  They hadn’t been able to put them in proper graves. They’d just buried them in an empty space in a corner of a public cemetery, without permission. Still, even that had been better than burying them under the floor of a room in the slums. A few days later, they’d forced a priest they knew to say prayers for them and had conducted a simple funeral. After all of that was over, Jacuzzi had finally retaken his “fear,” and he’d kept apologizing and apologizing to their dead companions for something.

  “What’s up? It doesn’t look like he’s snapped as bad as he did then, but what happened?”

  “Erm, well… I’ll explain later.”

  Before she could explain the scene in the conductors’ room, Jacuzzi had begun to walk, heading out the door. He was carrying Jack over his shoulder. He didn’t seem to care one bit that his clothes would get bloody.

  “Ahm, I carry Jack.”

  Donny followed his lead, and the delinquents left the freight room.

  As they did, Jacuzzi noticed something. Compared to the length of the car, the room was quite small. In addition, the color of the rear wall was very slightly different from the color of the floor and ceiling.

  Jacuzzi was sure of it: Their prey was behind that wall.

  “What’s wrong, Jacuzzi?”

  “It’s nothing, Nice. Let’s go.”

  He didn’t tell the others about that fact. They still had time, and even if he’d told them now, they’d have had to leave it until later.

  However, depending on the situation, they might be able to come and retrieve it. He understood that, too.

  The train’s top-secret cargo, the thing they were after.

  A large quantity of a new explosive with several times the force of conventional types, and bombs that had been manufactured from it…

  “Wouldja look at this? Whaddaya think, whaddaya think? Ain’t it interesting? It is, ain’t it? Hot damn, what is it, what is this? Hell, I wish I’d just come through below the normal way instead of walking on the lousy roof.”

  The very first room in the chain of three freight cars. In the corridor in front of its door, Ladd was doing a happy little dance.

  “…What is this…?”

  Lua was gazing in through the open door. Her dark eyes were clouded even further.

  Just then, from down the corridor, someone yelled:

  “There they are! That’s them!”

  They’d tried to stop Nick from yelling, but it was too late. Nice and Jacuzzi looked around hastily. However, except for the fact that the white suits had turned to look at them, they didn’t sense any particular abnormalities.

  “What? Where are the black suits?”

  Warily, Jacuzzi’s group approached the white suits.

  They were going to grill the white suits about Jack, and depending on the situation, they planned to attack them.

  However, Ladd’s words stopped that idea in its tracks. Victory went to the swift: As soon as he saw Jacuzzi’s face, Ladd called to him.

  “Hey, there! Was Jack a friend of yours? Is that loser who threw in the towel at my machine ‘guns’ still alive, Jacuzzi?”

  “Ngh?!”

  Agitation alighted Jacuzzi’s face. Why did this guy know his name?

  “Whoops? I guess I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Ladd Russo. That explains why I know your name, don’t it? If it doesn’t, you’re a complete moron, but that would be its own kinda interesting!”

  “Russo…!”

  Tension ran through Jacuzzi’s group. They didn’t know how this guy was related to the boss, Placido, but there was no doubt that he was one of their sworn enemies, the Russo Family.

  “Oh. Huh. So you did know. That’s boring. Well, never mind. What do you people think you’re doing on this train? Or actually, who do you think you are? We’re about to fully occupy this train, or rather, kill half the passengers, or rather, depending on how things go, massacre all of ’em, and anyway, if you don’t want us to kill you, you’d better jump off and die. Don’t even think about getting between us and our fun!”

  As he said these unreasonable things, he gestured as if he were chasing a dog away: “Shoo, shoo.”

  Splish.

  Jacuzzi had been about to say something, but that sound echoed in his ears with awful clarity.

  “Huh…?”

  He’d heard the sound when Ladd had turned toward them to make that gesture. The sound of water splashing.

  The ripples spreading at Ladd’s feet told all there was to tell of the sound’s identity.

  A red puddle spread from the entrance to the freight room. It was the same thing he’d just seen in the conductors’ room.

  “Curious about what’s in this room? C’mon and take a look. …If you’ve got the guts for it.”

  Snickering, Ladd taunted Jacuzzi. However, the boy and the others weren’t about to carelessly approach the white suits.

  “You’re pretty cautious… Folks say caution and cowardice are two different things, but they also say caution is cowardice. Which is it?”

  Ladd cackled his jibe. In contrast, Jacuzzi quietly glared back. His eyes were calm.

  “We don’t have time to deal with you people now. Afterward, though, we’ll make you pay. Count on it.”

  “Oho, you’re sounding pretty tough there, lil’ crybaby. You don’t look like you did a minute ago. Did the conductor say something mean to you in his quarters?”

  “Both of the conductors are dead. Just to make sure: You didn’t do it, did you?”

  At Jacuzzi’s words, the expressions on the faces of Ladd’s group visibly changed.

  “They’re dead? Both of ’em?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Both of them. You’re sure? There wasn’t anybody else there?”

  “Hmn?”

  Why was he so fixated on that? Frowning, Jacuzzi noted Ladd’s response.

  “…Let’s go. To the conductors’ room.”

  Saying this to his two companions, Ladd strode toward their group.

  Tension ran through Jacuzzi and the others. Nick held his knife at the ready, and Nice took a small explosive and a lighter from her waist. However, Ladd didn’t even seem to see them: He walked right on
past them, with his hands in his pockets.

  “You got lucky. For now, I don’t have time to deal with you, either.”

  His mood was a lot more subdued than it had been. Ladd’s tone even betrayed agitation about something.

  When he’d passed them completely, Nick asked Jacuzzi a question:

  “Hey, you’re sure it’s okay to leave him?”

  “Yeah, for now. There are other people we have to take down first.”

  Assuming he couldn’t have been serious about massacring all the passengers, Jacuzzi decided to prioritize defeating the black-clad orchestra and the Rail Tracer.

  Besides, he was concerned about the contents of the freight room that was leaking blood up ahead.

  Jacuzzi moved forward. Just when he was almost in front of the door, Ladd yelled at his back:

  “Oh, just so’s you know, we weren’t part of what went down in there!”

  When he looked back, Ladd and the others had already opened the door to the connecting platform and were on their way through.

  Wordlessly, Jacuzzi turned back, stepping onto the carpet of blood. Then he turned his eyes to the interior of the freight room, and

  At first Nick thought a barrel of bootleg wine had tipped over in transit.

  Meanwhile, Jacuzzi and the others had already witnessed these conditions in the conductors’ room. As a result, they understood the situation in this room immediately.

  Red. What an absolutely brilliant red. A truly warm red spread across the floor, reflecting the light of the incandescent lamps. However, the instant they saw the object in the middle, that warmth was transformed into a chilling nausea.

  The thing that lay in the center of the room wore a black tuxedo.

  They knew right away that it was a “thing,” not a person. They didn’t even have to make guesses regarding the profuse amount of blood. There was a much easier way to tell.

  The lower half of the black-clad corpse didn’t exist.

  The cross section certainly wasn’t a clean one. The closest term for it was torn off. That was what it seemed like. After a short silence, Nick made a sudden dash for the corridor window.

  They heard the sound of the window being opened, followed by violent retching. Jacuzzi and Donny just gazed at the corpse, while Nice’s lone eye observed the area in meticulous detail. Lots of luggage from the orchestra was lined up on either side of the room, and several of the boxes had already had their seals broken. One of the boxes held some kind of machine, but they couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be used for.