by Neil Bullock
There are blank looks all around, then Kyle says, “I don’t know about that, but I guess I don’t have the worst room in the place after all!”
My laugh is a little manic, but it’s genuine. Lara giggles behind me. Kyle offers me his hand and pulls me to my feet, then does the same for Lara. “Do you think the others are like that?”
“One way to find out,” Kyle says, then walks casually down the corridor pushing every door on his left open. I cover my ears against the noise. He turns around at the end of the carriage and walks back, closing them. “Yup.”
“I don’t know if I’m relieved or not. I mean, better that it’s more of the same rather than... I dunno, a fucking minotaur jumping out of one.”
Kyle’s eyes suddenly seem to double in size. “You tellin’ me that was a possibility?”
I grin. “Not a clue, big guy. I’ll tell you what, though. I’m a little scared about going in any of the compartments now. Knowing what’s next door, I mean. Or, I guess, what isn’t next door.”
Lara’s voice comes from behind me, squeaky and afraid. “Do you… do you think our rooms might do that? Like, turn off? Disappear?”
“I don’t know, honey, but if it makes you feel better, we’ll all sleep in your room tonight. Then at least we’re together if something happens.” I leave out the fact that there’s likely nothing we could do about it if something did happen.
She beams and tucks her hair behind her ears. “Cool. Slumber party.”
Lara’s words have set my mind racing though. Turning off the room, meaning that everything inside just disappears, and the room becomes a whole lot of nothing. Is that how they are until someone or something turns them on? It makes a certain kind of sense. These rooms are clearly constructed to mirror the occupants’ previous life in some way, so there’s no point having anything in the rooms until there’s an occupant. I don’t know why it can’t just be an empty room instead of the complete absence of matter, but I guess I don’t know why this train exists or what it’s for, either.
Lara yawns, which makes me yawn. The stress of opening the doors has certainly taken a toll. I feel drained. Lara looks exhausted, though Kyle is feigning nonchalance. Idly, I wonder if Mitch and Rona have noticed I’m missing yet, or if they’ll come looking for me. “Okay. More searching, or do we hit the sack?”
“I’m tired,” Lara says immediately. “We can look more in the morning. Maybe start with all those crates.”
I nod. “Good idea. Kyle?”
He sighs as if he’s not happy to admit it, but says, “Pretty sure I could sleep for a month at this point.”
That settled, we pile into Lara’s room and start figuring out sleeping arrangements.
thirteen
Slumber Party
It turns out that Lara’s room has a preponderance of soft things on which to sleep. There’s only one bed, but it’s a double and, unexpectedly, she offered me the other side. I declined when she showed me what else she had. In one of the cupboards that I hadn’t noticed was a huge array of enormous fluffy cushions. I’d always wanted to know what it’s like to sleep on a mountain of cushions. It seemed like it would be beyond comfortable, the epitome of luxury. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not. It’s lumpy and I can’t find a position that I can stay in for more than ten minutes. It makes sleeping nearly impossible, which gives me a chance to hear the ghosts Lara talked about when we first met.
When I first hear the shuffling in the corridor outside, I glance over at Kyle to see if he’s noticed, and as if he can sense that I’m looking his way, he sits up. Perhaps his short stack of blankets isn’t as comfortable as it looks.
“What was that?” I whisper.
“Someone walking past, I think. The door’s locked, right?”
“Yeah.”
I get up anyway, trying not to collapse to the floor every time one of my muscles twinges to exact revenge on me for my stupid sleeping arrangement. “Fuck,” I whisper as I hobble the eight feet to the door. Some other words of a similar length, too.
“What’s going on?” Lara suddenly asks, much louder than I’d have liked. The shuffling in the hall stops. Maybe it was going to stop anyway, but I don’t think so. I wonder what would happen if I poked my head outside now. Would I see anything out of the ordinary at all?
“Nothing, sweetie, go back to sleep,” I say. I wonder if I’m mothering the girl too much. She’s got to be nearly an adult, but she hasn’t objected to my pet names so far. Maybe she finds it comforting. I know I would if I had my mom here right now.
“I can’t sleep. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since I got here. Those noises… I can’t help but think someone’s going to come in.”
“I get that,” I say. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“All the time.”
“You hide it well.” I shuffle awkwardly to the bed and sit on the edge.
She yawns. “I’m sick of it. We should just go out there and prove to ourselves that there’s nothing to worry about. Or that there is, I just want to know. I just want to be able to sleep.”
Kyle hauls himself to his feet like a mountain forming along tectonic plate boundaries. “I’m all for that,” he says, then begins to lurch unsteadily to the door. I guess his stack of blankets isn’t any better than my cushions.
“Wait!” I hiss. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do as the little lady says,” he drawls. I can hear the smile in his words even though he’s facing the door. I’m suddenly struck by how much I like these people. While it’s true that what I know about them only really stretches to the saddest and most appalling parts of their lives, I really couldn’t have asked for a better couple of people to spend this time with.
I watch as Kyle stands by the door, listening intently. I get up and trot over to him, my muscles now far more cooperative. “Coming?” I ask Lara.
“Absolutely.”
Kyle opens the door, and we step out. It’s just a corridor. There’s nobody there, no obvious source of the shuffling noise. “Could the noise have been the train itself?” I ask.
“No, somebody’s been here, look.” Kyle bends down and picks up my empty Fanta can from dinner. I know it’s mine because the ring-pull has been rotated around so it covers the hole, something I’ve done since I was a kid.
“My first night here, I shredded a napkin and sprinkled it on the carpet outside my room to see what would happen. It was gone when I woke up. I thought maybe the train was controlled by some all-powerful AI, but I’m just remembering the carriage with all the names on the doors.”
“You think there are cleaners?” Lara asks, looking surprised, but also relieved.
“Yeah, I think those rooms are the crew quarters.”
Kyle stares at me with a contemplative expression. He raises one eyebrow. “You know, that’s not actually a terrible theory.”
“Hey! There’s no need to sound so surprised.” He jabs his elbow lightly into my arm, and I poke him in the ribs. “It’s weird that we haven’t seen them, though. And the way food appears in the dining car…”
“Yeah,” Kyle agrees. Lara just nods. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks exhausted.
“What are we doing now?” she asks. “Do you think they’ve finished for the night, whoever they are? I’m so tired.”
“I’m pretty wired,” I admit. “But if you want to go back to bed, then to bed we shall go. I’ll fall asleep eventually. Gonna need to demolish pillow mountain though if I ever want to be able to walk again.”
Lara giggles and we head back to bed.
I wake up before Kyle and Lara and I leave the room, intending to see how close to the rear of the train I can get. Not very is the answer. After Lara’s sleeper car is another passenger car, and that seems to be it. The door on the far end is of a kind I haven’t seen anywhere else on the train. It has a keypad and is made of some dark metallic substance. I’m still pretty sure there are things beyond
it, but without something seriously heavy duty, I’m not getting any farther unless the train stops again.
Instead, I head back to the dining car and imagine up some coffees. I don’t know if Lara drinks coffee, but it’s never too early to start. While I wait, I wonder how the dining experience works. I’m liking my theory about an actual crew on board because it’s one thing that finally feels a little bit normal about the train, but I just can’t think of a compelling reason why I wouldn’t be able to see them, or why there’s such a weird delivery mechanism for the food and drink. The coffees appear on a tray which I carry back to Lara’s room.
Kyle and Lara are both awake when I enter.
“Good morning!” I’m not sure why I’m feeling so chipper this morning. All the bad shit seems a little more distant, a little less potent. I think it’s because I’m starting to feel like I’m among friends. And perhaps that I’m starting to accept that I can’t do anything about the situation we’re all in.
“Hey,” Lara says. “What’s in the cup?”
“Coffee. You like?”
She screws her face up, which I guess means no, but then she says, “I don’t actually know. I never tried.”
“What? How is that…” I trail off. “Huh. I was about to say I thought kids today spent all their time in Starbucks, but I’m guessing that may not be true for you.”
“What’s Starbucks?” Lara asks.
“Exactly. You know what I’m talking about, right Kyle?”
“I am familiar with that particular establishment, sure.”
I grin at him. To Lara, I say, “It’s a big coffee chain. They’re all over the world.”
“Coffee? Seriously?”
“Yep,” I proclaim proudly. “Anyway, you wanna try some or what? I’ll warn you now, once you’re hooked, you’ll never get off the stuff.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be corrupting the youth,” Kyle suggests. I raise an eyebrow at him, and he offers a goofy grin in return. He shrugs. “Fine, go ahead.”
I offer Lara a cup and she sniffs it tentatively, then takes the tiniest sip. “That mostly just tasted hot.”
“You need to get more. Like this,” I say, then gulp down a mouthful. It burns a little, but it’s a pleasant burn. I think the nerves in my mouth long since atrophied due to my hot coffee abuse.
She takes another, longer sip, then her mouth turns down at the edges. “I’m so confused,” she says, shaking her head and grinning. “It’s sweet, which I like, but it’s also gross, which I don’t. You want the rest of this?”
I take the mug back. “One day, you’ll understand,” I say in my most patronizing voice. She shakes her head.
I hand Kyle his cup and he starts downing it with a commitment I rarely see in other coffee drinkers. It’s almost gone before I finish asking, “So, what’s on the agenda today? Are we planning to open any more doors into crazy non-existent spaces?”
“God, I hope not,” Lara says. She walks to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of water and starts drinking from it. It reminds me of my own bottle of water which is just standing there on the counter at the back of the room. I walk over, grab it and put it in the fridge for later.
Kyle puts his somehow already empty mug down on top of the fridge then says, “I think we should look through the crates, like Lara said last night. Then maybe we can check on the crew car again, see if anyone’s home?”
“Suits me,” I say.
“I’m going to shower,” Lara says. “I’ll be back in five.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Five what? Hours? Days?”
“Ha-ha.”
“What? Teenage girls are renowned for the length of their showers. Maybe that was just me.”
She rolls her eyes and leaves.
“I do wonder if we can get more clothes from somewhere, though. I had a shower my first night, but I’m still wearing my end of the world outfit.”
“I guess we need to find one of the crew and ask,” Kyle says.
fourteen
The Night to Remember
The first thing I learned today is that clothes can be ordered up the same way we order food. Lara figured that out. She thought about clothes, and clothes were delivered. We don’t appear to get any choice in design, but everything is clean and the right size. The next thing I learned is that the crates are filled with supplies. We found brand name drinks, chips, other snacks, a whole lot of rice and pasta and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing to explain the train or why we’re on it, and nothing to hint at a way off. Kyle spent the afternoon taking things apart with a screwdriver he also conjured up in the dining room. He calls it “being thorough.” He even took one of the noticeboards off the wall in car seventeen, but he didn’t find much behind it. Apparently, any power on board is not something we can hijack, which is a shame as I’d really like to charge my phone. I have photos of Mom and Nana and Alice on there.
When it gets close to what I judge to be evening, I sit in the horrible dining car, waiting for Kyle and Lara. I told them to meet me in ten minutes before realizing none of us has any idea how to measure that. Hopefully, they understood the gist. There are some things I found in one of the crates that I haven’t told the others about yet: a bottle of vodka, one of cranberry juice, another of Cointreau. I’m hoping the crew can provide some limes.
It’s time we had some fun.
Also on the table are one of Lara’s big bottles of water from her refrigerator, plus the one I boarded the train with. If we can maybe avoid a hangover, then great.
Lara walks in first and shoots a puzzled look my way.
“What?” I ask, grinning.
“What’s all this?”
“Party time.”
Kyle appears behind her, already rolling his eyes so hard I can almost hear it. “Lara’s underage. And what if I’m an alcoholic or something?”
I’ll admit, these things did occur to me. About the first one, I decided I don’t care. Lara must be old enough to have had some experience with alcohol, and she’ll be in the company of semi-responsible adults. That Kyle might be a recovering alcoholic, or simply teetotal… well, I’m just hoping he isn’t.
The smile that gradually makes its way over Kyle’s features as I hold his gaze tells me he’s just fucking with me, and that’s good. I think we need this.
Lara sits next to me and picks up the bottle of vodka. Kyle sits opposite, and asks, “You couldn’t just order a ready mixed drink?”
I smile. “Feel free. But I’d kind of like to forget I’m on this damned train for a while, and putting us in control of the drinks seems the best way to do that.”
“Fair point.”
Lara puts down the vodka and picks up the triple sec. “What can you make with this stuff?”
“Cosmos, baby!”
Kyle rolls his eyes again. Lara remarks, “I don’t think I’ve had one.”
“There were other options, but a cosmopolitan is something I know how to make.”
“So, get with the making,” Kyle says. “Are we allowed to order food at this here shindig, or what?”
“Go right ahead,” I say. “But maybe try to get everything now so we don’t have to keep being reminded where we are?”
Kyle nods once, then his eyes glaze over as, I assume, he starts to fantasize about food. The stuff I ordered before Kyle and Lara got here suddenly appears on the table. Cocktail glasses and a bowl of limes. There’s a cocktail shaker, too, and a little plastic bucket of ice.
“Guys, I think this proves it,” I say, picking up the shaker.
“What?” Lara asks.
“The crew is human. Or sentient, at least. Not an AI. I didn’t ask for this, or the ice. I was just going to stir everything.”
Kyle’s eyebrows raise as he considers this. “Interesting. You think whoever they are figured out we’re having ourselves a party, and what you were planning?”
“I’m guessing so. Though maybe they’re just liste
ning.”
Lara’s head jerks up and she glances around the room. “Like, right now? Why wouldn’t we be able to see them?”
“Hey, I didn’t say I had the whole thing figured out,” I say, and Lara laughs. I wish there were more to laugh about on board.
I start adding stuff to the cocktail shaker under the all-too-intense gazes of both Lara and Kyle. When I’m done, I pick up the shaker and wobble it gently.
“Oh, come on,” Kyle says. “That’s really how you’re going to do that?”
“Economy of movement,” I say. “It does the job, and I don’t have to look like an idiot when I throw the damn thing across the room.”
“Give it to me,” he says, and when I do, he proceeds to dance around the room with it, passing it from hand to hand, behind his back, between his legs. Lara is in hysterics, and I guess that’s the point. I start to laugh, too. It feels good, though it also makes me feel a little guilty.
“You’re going to do that for every drink I make, I assume?”
“Sure.”
“All right, but don’t blame me when your arms don’t work in the morning.”
He grins and I pour the first drink into Lara’s glass. She takes a tentative sip, screws up her face, then considers, “Not bad. Thanks, Eden.”
I smile. “No problem, kid.”
I make drinks for Kyle and myself next, and then the food arrives.
Later, we’re all a little bit drunk. We abandoned the plan to limit our use of the train’s dining facilities when Kyle started talking about whiskey. Thus, the table is now covered in drinks I didn’t make, and the more we drank, the more food we ordered. Then we started to try to outdo each other with the outlandishness of the food orders.
Kyle started it when he decided he was craving fresh bread and butter. I reasoned that I haven’t smelled baking bread since before getting on, but wonderful smelling fresh bread and butter turned up moments later, and it went on from there. I ordered my Nana’s lasagna, and it was indistinguishable from the real thing. Lara won the contest when a two-tier cake covered in pink frosting appeared on the table with ‘Happy Birthday, Lara’ written on it and a single candle burning in its center.