by Neil Bullock
“It’s just what I believe,” he says when the silence stretches on long enough that I don’t know how to restart the conversation.
I offer a half smile. “It’s an interesting theory.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
“I… don’t really know what I believe. I mean, everything about this is impossible. I guess I haven’t settled on a theory yet.”
“That’s fair. Well, let me know when you do. I’ll be all ears.”
I nod and the smile I present this time is more genuine. “Deal. So, is it just you and me, or are there other people on board?”
“Only one at the moment.”
“Oh,” I say. Three people. Only three people left in the entire world. Mitch seems nice, but I am conscious that I have only just met him. What if the other person is someone I end up not liking? What if he or she hates me? I push those thoughts aside. There aren’t many people I can’t find some common ground with, and I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
“People come and go all the time. Some people linger, some people are only here for one stop. Don’t worry, there will be others.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that, no, there won’t be. We three people now on board are all that’s left of our species. Unless there are other planets with sentient life, and unless this train visits them — an idea that seems ludicrous — this is all there will ever be. And Mitch probably isn’t a young man. Statistically, most people alive are likely to be older than I am, so there’s a high probability that I will be left alone again at some point. I wonder how long the shelf life of Oxycodone is.
I return to Mitch’s theory and turn it over in my mind. Nothing about it works for me. If the train is going to paradise, why would people get off along the way? I can understand more people getting on, but not off. Rather than question his beliefs, I make it the next item on my rapidly growing list of things to try to puzzle out for myself. “Do you know where people go when they get off?”
“Not specifically. The last guy to get off stepped out into a desert. There was a small town in the distance, maybe a half hour’s walk away, but apart from that it was featureless.”
“You’ve never been tempted to get off when the train stops?”
He looks momentarily surprised. “Me? No. I’m here all the way to the end of the line.”
I smile and nod, then pop the last bite of steak in my mouth. When I’ve swallowed, Mitch moves to stand and says, “Come on, let me give you the tour.”
four
The Tour
Mitch takes me through the fourth carriage, which is an identical copy of the first, and into the fifth, another sleeper car.
“This is my room,” he says, pointing at the first door on the right. On it is a brass plaque engraved with three words.
Mitchell Joseph Powell
He doesn’t offer to show me inside.
“Who does the signs?” I ask abruptly as Mitch is turning to lead me farther along the train.
He stops in his tracks. “What do you mean?”
“You say you have passengers come and go. Do they get signs on their doors?”
He nods decisively. “They do.”
“Okay, so where do they come from? Who makes them? Who attaches them? Who removes them when the passenger leaves?”
Mitch grins, catching on. “I guess the same people who make the food.” There’s not a lot I can say in response to that. “Come on.”
He leads me down the corridor and I note that, like my sleeping car, none of the other doors here have names on their plaques. Whoever the third passenger is must live in another car all their own. We enter the next car which is rendered in bare metal with a smell that reminds me of the times I took my car in for repairs. There are a few metal and wooden crates dotted around, secured to the walls with thick strapping.
“What’s in these?”
“No idea,” Mitch says without stopping.
I want to ask more questions, like where did they come from? Does the other passenger know what’s in them? If not, why are they here? Is there a cargo service to Heaven, too? Does God have to order in from Earth to keep everyone in luxuries? I nearly ask these latter two questions as jokes, but I don’t know Mitch well enough to know how he’ll take them. I stay quiet instead and follow him into carriage seven.
“This is the one I was telling you about,” he says. This car’s floor, walls and ceiling are covered in a thick metal grille, behind which is a bright white line running around the perimeter roughly halfway up the wall. In the center of the floor is a black circle inside which is a cross, also glowing bright white.
“This all changes color to match the line on the outside?” I ask.
“I haven’t actually left since I boarded, but other passengers have told me enough that I believe so.”
“Weird.”
Mitch doesn’t agree or disagree, he just turns and marches off to the next carriage. Another sleeper car.
“Here we are,” he concludes, stopping in front of the first door on the right. I wonder why we all have our own carriage, and why we’ve all been allocated the same room in our respective cars. On the door is a plaque which reads:
Rona Hamutana
“You’ll like her, I think,” Mitch says as he knocks. Seconds later an older woman with beautiful bronze skin, dark hair and eyes and a faintly amused expression that reveals an expectation of mischief opens the door.
“Mitchell!” she says, in a deep, sing-song voice. It sounds like she’s greeting a long lost relative, not someone she presumably sees all the time. “And you found the new passenger!”
“Hi. I’m Eden.” I hold out my hand and Rona shakes it twice, firmly.
“Rona. I saw you get on. I was the one who told Mitch we had a newcomer. It’s been a while since we had any new blood on board. It’s nice to meet you, Eden.”
“Likewise.” I turn to him. “This is why you were expecting me when we met? Rona told you about me?”
“Exactly,” Mitch says, then to Rona, “We’re doing the tour.”
Rona fixes me with her gaze, something I find a little unsettling. “There’s not a lot more to see, I’m afraid. There’s another couple of cars after this, but that’s all.”
“Oh. Well, it has more than I expected,” I say before I can catch the words. I don’t want to talk about anything from the time before.
“How do you mean?” Rona asks.
But I also don’t want to lie to the only people left alive. “I… I dreamed of this train. A few days before it came for me,” I say, hoping that’s sufficient.
“You did?” Mitch asks, his voice suddenly harsh, his expression stern. As I watch, surprised, he rearranges his facial features into something more neutral. “That’s… certainly strange.”
I hesitate. “Yeah. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But then it came to pick me up.”
“Remarkable!” Rona exclaims, clapping her hands together.
I smile tentatively. “I guess neither of you did, then? I was kind of hoping I might not be the only one.”
“No… no, you seem to be unique in that regard,” Rona says thoughtfully. “Listen, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m right in the middle of something. Perhaps we can all meet for breakfast in the morning and talk some more?”
I can’t escape the idea that Rona is trying to get rid of us, but I acquiesce, “I’d like that.”
“Wonderful! I’ll look forward to it. It was lovely to meet you, Eden.”
“You too,” I say, and watch slightly bewildered as Rona closes the door.
“That’s Rona,” Mitch says unnecessarily. “She’s often busy with one thing and another.”
I think of the violin in my room and wonder if everyone on board gets to keep something of their former lives. I wonder what Rona’s thing is. Maybe I’ll ask at breakfast tomorrow. It feels wrong to gossip about her with Mitch, though I’m sure
he’d tell me. “She seems nice.”
“Mostly,” Mitch admits, then changes the subject. “You want to see the last two cars? They’re not very interesting.”
“With a sales pitch like that? Sure.”
He grins, then turns and leads me into the next car, which is another replica of the first, then a final sleeper car. Everything is the same as all the other sleeper cars except this one has nothing but blank plaques, plus the bathroom. I gesture at the door at the far end of the carriage. “That doesn’t go anywhere?”
“It’s locked. I guess if we pick up more carriages, it might be unlocked.”
“By the same people who make the food, right?”
He laughs. “You’re catching on.”
five
The Cleansing
“Well, I usually turn in early and get some reading done,” Mitch says.
I wonder what exactly he’s going to read. Our tour didn’t include a library, and the rooms aren’t exactly large. I guess if I have a violin in my room, it’s feasible that his room is full of books. Perhaps he was an avid reader in his previous life. It doesn’t matter. I’m glad of the opportunity to be alone to try to figure this place out properly. I nod. “All right. Well, thanks for the tour. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast.”
He looks at me for a beat, appearing to consider whether to say more, then nods, turns and waves as he walks away.
I watch the doors slide closed behind him.
First things first: I press the buttons for the allegedly locked door at the rear of the train. They don’t do anything. I pull at the door’s manual handle, but it doesn’t budge. That’s probably for the best. I don’t really want to fall out into that vortex of swirling horror if I can help it, but I wanted to verify the facts as they’re presented to me. Mitch told me the door is locked. The door is indeed locked. That checks out.
I wonder about the rooms. I’m surrounded by vacant rooms. Someone or something prepares them for the passengers. Someone or something puts plaques on the doors. Someone or something prepares the food. What else does this mysterious force do? It’s surprisingly easy to think of this as a normal train when I can’t see outside, but I need to remember that it isn’t. I don’t know its purpose, its route or its ultimate destination. I don’t know what the rules are.
So, what do I know?
I start with the absolute basics. I’m on a train. The train gets around by flying. That, to me, seems futuristic. Could the cooking and room prep be done by some sort of advanced artificial intelligence? It doesn’t explain how food can just appear in front of me like it does, and it raises some uncomfortable questions about the ordering process, like can this hypothetical AI read my mind? Who or what has access to the information it finds there?
I decide to head back to my room, figuring I can at least try to find out what else on board works the same way. I pause in the dining room where I met Mitch and pick up a napkin, then I shred it and deposit it on the carpet outside my room, treading it into the plush fabric for good measure. I glance around guiltily before deciding I don’t care if anyone saw me. Fuck it. Nobody can expect me to behave rationally given the circumstances, and treading a little paper into the carpet isn’t exactly a capital offense.
I unlock and open my door and I’m home, at least insofar as that word still has any meaning. When I close and lock the door behind me, I feel an immediate sense of relief.
“What the hell did I do to end up here?” I ask the silent room. When it doesn’t answer, I sigh. I’m exhausted. I’ve done nothing but walk for days on barely any food. I’m still mostly holding the floodgates of my emotions closed, something that’s going to drain me of my remaining energy. I look over at the bed. While I could probably sleep for a week, I feel gross. I quickly go through the drawers and cupboards that line the back of the room and find towels and shampoo, plus an array of lotions.
The bathroom at the end of my carriage is all marble and granite. There’s a clawfoot tub in the center of the space, and if I thought I could stay awake long enough to use it, that’s exactly what I’d do. I know I’d be asleep in seconds though, so a shower it is. I turn the water on, as hot as I can stand, then double check the door is locked before undressing. I have bruises on my arms and legs that I don’t have any recollection of getting. I stand there for several seconds as the room fills with steam, watching the water pour down the drain, then I close my eyes and step forward into the stream of water. I suck air in through my mouth as the sudden change in temperature hits me. I struggle for a moment to maintain my composure, but then I exhale the breath in a loud sob. The floodgates open and I am helpless against the torrent that comes gushing out.
It’s a very childlike thought that pounds its fist at the back of my mind.
It’s not fair.
I cry for Greg, who I never really knew, but he, along with everyone else, didn’t deserve what happened to them.
It’s not fair.
I cry for Mom and Nana as I picture their faces at the end. I imagine fear and confusion. I imagine unrelenting pain. They never hurt anybody, and they raised me to be the person I am. Why couldn’t there have been a genetic component to whatever it was that happened?
I smash the side of my fist against the wall as the weeping becomes more intense and the muscles in my stomach start to hurt again. Good! Let them. I put my index finger into my mouth and bite down as hard as I can bring myself to. It just brings more mewling.
It’s not fair, dammit!
Mostly, though, I cry for Alice. She was a fiercely intelligent, talented woman hindered by the simple fact that her upbringing didn’t allow her to believe anyone who told her she’d done well. She kept searching for someone she could believe, but I know she never felt worthy. I hope to any Gods that might exist that she died in her sleep, and not spending her last seconds regretting wasting so much time and effort on those completely unjustified feelings of inadequacy. I cry because, as much as she may have believed herself unworthy in one breath, in the next she would be fighting for everything she deserved. The job, the husband, the inevitable clutch of pale smiling children.
And I cry because I’m here, on this train, with people that I don’t want to be with, because they’re not the people I lost.
It’s not fair.
When I get back to my room, my eyes sting and my finger hurts where I bit down on it. I’m dripping water from my hair all over the carpet because I didn’t bother drying it, just pulled my clothes on over my wet skin. Now, as I confront my bed, a new wave of sadness washes over me for the things I myself have lost, mixed with a healthy dose of guilt that I’m even thinking such a thing when I’m still alive.
Still, I can’t help it.
I strip off my wet clothes which have now wicked the moisture away from my skin and left me mostly dry. I towel my hair briefly, then I climb into bed, pulling the covers up over my head so everything is dark, and I can pretend I’m absolutely anywhere else.
I try not to drift off to sleep thinking about how I’d have loved to be the cool aunt to Alice’s children, despite never wanting any kids of my own. I try not to think about how I’ll never make concertmaster. I try not to think about how I’ll never experience the heart-stopping wonder of a majestic orchestral piece ever again.
Eventually, I sleep.
The disorientation when I wake is immediate. There is no indication of what time it is. There’s no sunlight through the window. I have no clock. The train’s lights are apparently turned on permanently with no obvious way to turn them off. Recalling my idea about the AI, I groan, “Lights off.”
Nothing happens.
If this were a spaceship, its schedule would at least fake a circadian rhythm. The train doesn’t appear to do that. Maybe it’s a consequence of time not working. I don’t know what time I went to sleep, and I don’t know what time it is now. It could be midnight. It could be noon.
It’s an effort not to be annoyed by this. I
have to tell myself that knowing the exact time isn’t a skill that humans have always had. Sure, they had the sunrise and sunset to go by, but there’s only one question I need answered right now: do I feel rested?
The answer is, surprisingly, yes.
That makes it morning. If it is actually four in the morning and it’s just that I’ve woken up at a particularly favorable point in my sleep cycle, I can always take a nap later. I need to get used to the idea that it doesn’t matter. I don’t have a job anymore. I don’t have anything. There is no reason to get out of bed, and so if I don’t want to, I don’t have to.
It hits me then that the disorientation I felt wasn’t entirely due to the lack of time. It feels like we’re slowing down. Are we about to make a stop? Or maybe this section of swirling gray hell has a speed limit for some reason. I already know we can’t be about to pick up another passenger because there are no people to pick up, but I’m still curious.
I climb out of bed and pull on my clothes, squirming in discomfort at the dampness against my skin, and walk haltingly over to the blinds covering the window.
Just a peek, I tell myself.
I lift a corner of one blind slowly and am shocked by the intensity of the sun outside, bathing the world in its brilliance. I pull up the blind completely. Below me, I see an expanse of pristine water that mirrors the clouds. Trees cluster along the edge of the lake in groups, as if daring each other to take a dip. Scattered among the trees are red brick buildings with corrugated aluminum roofs. They look mostly dilapidated, but as we rush past, I try to focus on each one long enough to notice the movement I desperately hope to see inside. Some evidence of humanity, of anything. Some reason to go on.
I don’t see anything.
I look hopelessly from side to side, taking in as much of the outside world as I can, wanting to see something that will prove to me that everything is not lost. It’s strange, watching the train traverse its surroundings like this. There are no tracks, no obvious navigation of any kind, we’re just plowing through the air about sixty feet up, gradually drifting toward the ground. I notice that the train is rounding a corner. From my position near the front, I can see the rear carriages.