1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local

by Ryohgo Narita

  As he spoke, Goose studied his opponent’s face.

  I don’t think I could ever get to like that face. He looks ready to burst into tears at any moment, yet his eyes seem somehow reasonable. …Still, if I burn him up here, it will all be over.

  With a sneering grin, Goose yanked the nozzle’s trigger.

  The tattooed youth began to charge him, but he’d roast him whole, and that would be the end of it. Go on and die.

  However…

  “What?!”

  It did spit fire, but the flames were nothing like what they’d been before. They stretched a few feet at most.

  “That can’t be!”

  Had he tightened the valve too far? Hastily, he put a hand around behind his back, but the valve was bent oddly, and he couldn’t move it from its position. The impact from his fall had done definite damage.

  “Damn it!”

  As if to say this was fine as well, he began to point the nozzle forward. However, by that time, he was already in Jacuzzi’s space. Jacuzzi took a great leap forward, dodging past the flamethrower’s nozzle.

  Jacuzzi had neither strength nor technique. The attack method he chose after leaping into the other man’s bosom was far too simple and direct: He ducked under Goose’s chin, then shot up as far as his torso and legs would take him.

  With his forward momentum layered over the attack, Jacuzzi’s forehead crunched into Goose’s nose, crushing it. When the man staggered involuntarily, he head-butted him again. Goose’s front teeth broke, and his blood began to splatter Jacuzzi’s face. However, even so, Jacuzzi didn’t stop. With the nozzle of the flamethrower restrained, he rammed his forehead into his opponent’s face twice, three times.

  Splutch splutch splat pop bluch.

  Little by little, the sensation when his forehead struck home was getting softer. At first he’d thought he’d crushed his own skull, but apparently, it was the bridge of the other man’s nose that had broken.

  I can do this!

  Feeling a definite response, he pulled his upper body back one more time, and in that instant, a dry sound echoed in his ears.

  BangbangBang

  “Huh?”

  Sharp pain ran through his side and his legs. It felt as if someone had rammed the point of an umbrella into his stomach with all their might.

  When he looked down, he saw his opponent’s left fist. There was an odd device attached to the palm of the hand opposite the one with the flamethrower nozzle.

  “It’s a handheld firing mechanism. Huey made it himself.”

  At the end of the device on his hand, there was something like a miniature gun muzzle. White smoke was trickling out of the hole, only to be immediately snatched away by the wind.

  “Convenient, isn’t it? All you have to do to fire bullets is clench your fist and press it against your opponent.”

  With blood streaming from his mouth and nose, Goose grinned and began to explain his weapon. Ordinarily, it should only have been capable of firing one round, but this one, which Huey had made himself, seemed to be equipped with three rounds.

  One of these rounds had grazed his side, while the remaining two had buried themselves in both his thighs.

  “Now then, it appears the tables have turnyagh!”

  Jacuzzi had slammed his head into his mouth yet again.

  “Wh-why you!”

  Goose jammed the fingers of his left hand into Jacuzzi’s wound. Unbelievably fierce pain ran through him, but even so, Jacuzzi didn’t stop.

  “Would you just give up?! Scream and cry from the pain!”

  He couldn’t do that.

  He’d been prepared for pain on this level since the moment he’d made up his mind to defeat these guys. That meant he couldn’t cry. No matter what, no matter what, no matter what.

  A short while earlier.

  “Jacuzzi is—”

  As they walked down the freight car corridor, Nice murmured to Nick.

  “As a rule, he’s a crybaby, but when he’s made his mind up about something, he won’t cry, no matter what.”

  “Huh… Really?”

  Nick’s question sounded dubious. Smiling, Nice nodded.

  “Yes. When he got that tattoo on his face, although I’m told it hurt terribly, he didn’t complain even once.”

  “Then why is he usually such a crybaby?”

  “I asked him about that as well. He said, ‘It’s natural for humans to cry.’”

  A memory of Jacuzzi’s face at the time rose in Nice’s mind. Jacuzzi’s face at fourteen, when there had still been something childlike about it. A face with an innocent smile and a brand-new tattoo.

  “‘But I think the times when people want to cry are the times when they need to work the hardest. So I decided that I’d cry all the time while things were normal, that I’d never try to pretend I was tough. I’d take all those tears from when I really wanted to cry, and I’d cry them out now. That way, when I really need to work hard, all my tears will be dried up and gone.’”

  It was something he’d said five years ago, a kid’s silly notion. Even for a fourteen-year-old, it had been childish, a grade schooler’s belief. Jacuzzi had kept that foolish resolution all this time. Nice really loved him for that.

  Just then, they heard three gunshots.

  “Miz Nice! That was—!”

  The sounds had seemed to come from a car farther back.

  Before she knew it, Nice had broken into a run. …With several bombs hanging from her waist—ones courtesy of the box they had been after.

  “Die!”

  Having watched for an opening, Goose unleashed a kick that ripped Jacuzzi away from him. Jacuzzi lost his balance and hit hard on his butt.

  “This is it, then. Any last words?!”

  Spitting out blood and saliva together, Goose yelled triumphantly. He resettled the nozzle of the flamethrower, pointing its end at Jacuzzi.

  His pain and anger had made him lose his cool. If he’d been calm, at this point, he would have burned his legs and made it so he truly couldn’t move. As was evident from the incident with Nader, even when Goose was calm, he wasn’t the type to kill quickly. He had a complex about having been unable to completely become a military man, but this may have been the decisive difference that separated him from the professionals.

  For a moment, Jacuzzi prepared to die, but then he remembered the bomb from Nice in his pocket.

  At this distance, he might be able to drag his opponent into the explosion. If he did, the tank on the man’s back would probably ignite. He was sure it held fuel for the fire. If that happened, the man would go up in flames, and that would be that.

  Although, of course, Jacuzzi would die, too.

  He was out of options. Even if he rolled, fell off the train, and escaped, he’d die from the impact or from massive blood loss. If he was going to die anyway, no matter what, he wanted to take this guy—

  Firming up his resolve, Jacuzzi reached into his pocket.

  Deciding that he was planning to draw some sort of weapon, Goose’s fingers tightened on the nozzle.

  However, those fingers stopped moving.

  “……?”

  Jacuzzi watched him, puzzled. Goose’s eyes were focused behind Jacuzzi, on what little was left of the train before the end.

  He didn’t really get it, but this was his chance. Sensing this, Jacuzzi tried to stand, struggling against the pain in his legs. Then he stopped moving as well.

  “???”

  Something was squirming at Jacuzzi’s feet.

  The thing that had poked its head out from the shadow of his leg was a red lump. It was a red, pulpy mass, as though ground meat had been kneaded with blood. That red matter was heading from Jacuzzi’s feet toward Goose.

  Jacuzzi hastily scooted backward. However, Goose was still looking behind him. Another red lump passed by on Jacuzzi’s left.

  At that point, for the first time, Jacuzzi turned around. Then, speechless, his eyes went wide.

  There were doz
ens of the red lumps there, sliding and rolling, coming their way. They looked like a colony of bright-red army ants. When they bumped into each other, they fused, doubling in size, and began to move again.

  Then Jacuzzi caught on: It had finally, finally, shown itself. At this worst of all possible times, a new enemy had appeared.

  Quietly, he called the monster’s name.

  “The Rail Tracer—”

  “What is it?! What is this ghastly monster?!”

  Goose had a hunch regarding its true identity. A red monster. The monster that had had the hostages babbling about “the Rail Tracer,” the one that had erased several of Goose’s men.

  “Die, die, die, die, burn, burn!”

  Forgetting about Jacuzzi, Goose began burning away the fragments of meat that were closing in on his feet. A tremendously hot wind struck Jacuzzi, and he hastily retreated backward.

  The red matter began to burn, but weirdly, no smoke rose. Then the outer layer—which had charred—cracked, and the red color reappeared from underneath.

  As though nothing had happened, the meat fragments began their advance again. Screaming obscenities, Goose waved the nozzle around.

  Some of the scattered fuel was on fire, a little ways in front of Jacuzzi. The roof itself was made of iron, so apparently, the train as a whole wouldn’t burn.

  Seeing this, Jacuzzi was struck by a sudden thought.

  “—A fire starter!”

  “Damn it! Stay back, stay back! Buuuuuuuuuurn!”

  Goose swung the flamethrower around. If the blast volume hadn’t been controlled, no doubt he would have run out of fuel long ago. …Not that it was controlled because he’d wanted to control it…

  “Burn, burn, bur… n?”

  Tunk.

  He felt as though something had sailed over his head and fallen. When, in spite of himself, he turned to look back, a sphere about the size of an eyeball was rolling around.

  A sparking fuse was sucked into that black sphere.

  The roar of an explosion, then an impact.

  “Gwoooooooouh!”

  The blast flew at Goose’s back, shoving him toward the rear of the train. To be honest, the explosion hadn’t been a big one, but the weight of the flamethrower increased his momentum. Add in the unstable element of the moving train, and he wasn’t able to stop the way he wanted to.

  In front of him, the tattooed young man barred his way.

  “You fool! What do you plan to do this late in the game, unarmed?!”

  Goose had let go of the nozzle, but even as the impact pushed him, he took a knife from an inside pocket and raised it high, aiming for the youth.

  In response, Jacuzzi yelled at the top of his lungs.

  The words of the world’s greatest gunman, the man who’d given him courage.

  “My gunis in my heart!”

  Goose’s knife stabbed deep into his arm.

  Jacuzzi didn’t fight it. Instead, he flopped down, hard, right where he was.

  “Whaaaaat?!”

  Goose lost his balance. As he pitched forward, beginning to fall, Jacuzzi sent a mighty upward kick into his stomach.

  He pushed the weight of the man’s body, with the added weight of that sixty-pound flamethrower, up with all his might.

  Searing pain ran through him, and blood spurted from his wounded thighs. Even so, Jacuzzi didn’t lower his legs. That single moment’s battle felt like a very long time for both men. And then—

  Goose’s body did a 180-degree flip in midair and was flung away behind Jacuzzi. The most unfortunate thing for Goose was that the roof of the train ran out at that point.

  Immediately after he’d felt an abrupt falling sensation with his entire body, an impact that was beyond comparison with the one before it ran through his back.

  Then he was entirely surrounded by red, blinding light.

  Jacuzzi had fallen faceup, and a hot wind skimmed over him. When he lifted his head, red flames were climbing brightly through the dim landscape (which looked upside down to him).

  Was it over? The sounds of the explosion, the train, and the wind all seemed hollow. In the midst of them, just one voice came to him clearly.

  “Jacuzzi! Jacuzzi!”

  At Nice’s voice, he sat up. As he did, the pain in his side and thighs returned.

  “Oh, Nice, you’re okay… That’s great.”

  “I’m fine! Never mind that. We need to stop that bleeding, fast…”

  “Huh? Those clay things at your waist… Oh, they’re bombs, aren’t they? Fantastic; we got the treasure, too.”

  As Jacuzzi forced a smile, Nice pulled him into a tight hug.

  However, he gently pushed her away.

  “Jacuzzi?”

  “Nice, listen.”

  Slowly, with a smile that seemed a bit lonely, he spoke to Nice:

  “I think I might have done a little too much crying up until now.”

  “Huh?”

  “So listen, I’m going to say that those extra tears I cried were yours.”

  At that point, Nice realized that Jacuzzi’s eyes were focused on something. There was something up ahead, toward the front of the train.

  The morning sun had begun to rise, and the train was traveling straight into it.

  The “something” was standing in the center of the sunlight. As a result, Nice couldn’t make it out clearly, but there was one thing she was sure of.

  The figure was red from head to toe.

  A red shadow with the sun at its back. The shadow had two eyes in the same place a human’s would be. In the shadows cast by the light behind it, the eyes were filled with a deep darkness, a further singularity. Although they seemed like calm, black jewels, they also looked like portals to purgatory that absorbed and trapped all the surrounding light.

  The color of those eyes seemed to link this world to the afterlife. A negative light that engulfed everything they saw.

  Seeing this, Jacuzzi felt certain that the red shadow was the Rail Tracer. The red meat from earlier must have come together to form a human shape. That was what Jacuzzi had determined.

  Looking at Nice, who’d frozen at the sight of the shadow, Jacuzzi quietly continued what he’d been saying:

  “So, you see, since I cried enough for you, too, you keep on living, and even if painful stuff happens, don’t cry. The only thing I can’t handle is seeing you cry.”

  With that, before Nice could stop him, Jacuzzi broke into a run. At the same time, Nice realized that two of the grenades with the new explosive were missing from her waist.

  “Jacuzzi!”

  By the time Nice started to run after him, Jacuzzi’s body had already slammed into the red shadow.

  Then they both went over the side of the train.

  Nice screamed. She screamed Jacuzzi’s name so loudly it nearly shredded her throat.

  Just as her scream ended, there was a flash of red light behind the train.

  The tremendous explosion roared. A shock so powerful it was hard to believe it came from grenades welled upward, and the wind of the blast sent Nice’s glasses flying. As her glasses fell further up the train with a clatter, she dropped to her knees.

  The explosion echoed all through the train, but before long, as though nothing at all had happened, silence returned.

  Nice was remembering something from her childhood.

  It was the time when she’d badly injured herself with her own explosives. She’d lost her right eye and gained scars all over her body. The shrapnel had wounded her left eye as well, and she’d lost much of her eyesight.

  She could only vaguely make out people’s faces. She’d been afraid she’d have to spend her entire life this way, unable to see anyone’s face, and she’d cried and cried, refusing to meet anyone.

  One day, Jacuzzi had sneaked into her house and told her something. Half his face was covered with a tattoo so striking she could see it clearly even with blurred vision.

  “See? Now you’ll be able to tell which face is mine! J
ust stick with me all the time and you’ll be fine.”

  Jacuzzi had laughed when he’d said it, and on hearing his voice, she’d cried tears of happiness. When he’d seen this, Jacuzzi had thought he’d made her cry; he’d started to feel anxious, and he had burst into tears, too.

  Even as she remembered this, Nice kept on crying.

  Her glasses had fallen, and her already blurry vision was soggy with tears. Now she’d never be able to tell people apart. At most, she’d be able to make out Donny’s huge body. If she didn’t think about pointless things like that, it felt as if she’d cry even harder. Remembering the last thing Jacuzzi had said, she tried desperately to stop crying, but it really wasn’t possible.

  However, she didn’t sob, not even once. She fought to keep the sounds locked inside her throat. Just when she was worried she’d stop being able to breathe…

  … a figure stood in front of her.

  Was it Nick, or a surviving white suit or black suit? When she looked up, no longer caring what happened—

  —she saw a blurred, black pattern over half its face.

  “That’s mean. I told you not to cry…”

  The blurred tattoo was warping into a weird shape.

  “When you cry, Nice, it makes me want to cry. So, look—please don’t cry.”

  She gave up trying to stifle her cries and hugged Jacuzzi hard.

  … Sobbing his name all the while.

  Before long, Nick and Donny also climbed up onto the roof and stood around Jacuzzi and Nice, who were quietly leaning against each other.

  By that time, Nice had stopped crying, and Jacuzzi was smiling cheerfully.

  “By the way, Jacuzzi. How did you get rid of that red monster? I was sure you’d fallen off the train; how did you survive?”

  “Umm, I’ll tell you later. I don’t really understand it myself yet. Only, that red monster is—”

  Just then, Jacuzzi finally noticed Nick and Donny, and he greeted them, still smiling.

  “H-hey, great timing.”

  His voice was trembling slightly.

  “Sorry, but D-Donny? Do you think you could carry me to Room Three in the second-class cars? A-apparently, there’s a doctor in there.”