by RJ Crayton
Lijah turned back to look at her, sweat on his brow, either from the exertion of pushing the car or nerves from the situation. “Given how sick people are and the Martial Law, I doubt they’re running the tour boats.”
She nodded. Her memory of the world as it had been still lingered. She had yet to see the world as it was. Not in the light of day.
“Come on,” Lijah said. “The track is further east at this point. Let’s walk toward it. The track curves right around here, due to the river. If we get it here, it should be going the slowest it’s going to go.”
They walked east, out of the wooded area along the shore and toward the tracks. This area was mainly industrial. Old buildings and warehouses. Elaan wasn’t the best with directions. She easily got lost and turned around, so she wondered briefly if they were passing one of the warehouses that hid the entrance to their facility. What if Nina’s husband or someone else from the facility spotted them? They were still dressed like soldiers, but they wouldn’t have an explanation for why they were out here.
They walked in silence parallel to the tracks. Elaan knew they could be seen easily now, but there weren’t a whole lot of places to hide. Much of the area had been cleared so people could see the riverbank. Her stomach churned precariously as they walked, the anxiety of getting caught making her want to retch.
They continued to walk without speaking, watching the track, until the distance between the track and the riverbank began to shrink, with the two converged again. They saw the track curve. And luckily, this part of the river offered a small thicket of trees nearby. They must have all felt exposed, because without speaking, they gravitated to the thicket, where they could see the tracks while still remaining out of sight to would-be passersby. Though that seemed overly cautious, as Elaan doubted anyone was out to see them.
“We’ll wait here,” Lijah said authoritatively. Elaan supposed she and Josh had ceded leadership to her brother. He seemed suited for it, and even if he hadn’t been, he knew the most about where they needed to go.
The small sprinkling of trees near the riverbank allowed them to each lean on their own tree and watch the tracks. Elaan felt the weight of the situation on them as they stood there waiting. “What time is it?” she asked.
Lijah squinted in the moonlight to see his watch. “Eleven forty-five.”
Elaan felt a lump in her throat. “I thought you said it was eleven-thirty. Always eleven-thirty.”
Lijah’s voice was calm when he spoke. “We don’t know how much things have changed. It’s probably just running late. It hasn’t come yet, or we would have seen it. We just need to wait.”
Elaan looked over to Josh. He smiled at her. His smile, in the moonlight, in the middle of the night while they were running for their lives, was nice. She couldn’t help but smile back. Something about that made her feel instantly better. “I think Lijah’s right,” Josh said. “Let’s not panic. Besides, I don’t think it was daylight saving time yet. It may be a twelve-thirty train now.”
Elaan nodded. Yeah. Daylight savings time. She hadn’t thought about that. But didn’t they usually still have the same times for the trains, just an hour later. Was Josh patronizing her so she’d feel better? She wasn’t sure if she was comforted or offended by the notion. She took a breath, tried to clear her head. She didn’t want to think about it. They’d already planned for this course of action, and there was no turning back. They were going to wait for this train unless it became obvious the thing wouldn’t come. Then, they’d have to figure out where to hide out. She wondered if there were any abandoned houses. She could maybe go in and see if the coast was clear. If the owners had died, maybe the three of them could hide out there tomorrow while they figured out a new plan.
There was silence as the minutes ticked by. Elaan wanted to scream, to shout, to run around, to do something to release the anxiety. But she couldn’t. The best bet was to stay quiet and hidden in the grove of trees and listen for the train. Surely they’d hear a locomotive chugging through the night. What if it barreled through so quickly they couldn’t catch it? What if they’d jettisoned the jeep and they didn’t catch this train? Or worse, what if they got crushed trying to catch it — tripping and falling beneath the wheels? She shivered at the thought and took a deep breath. She needed to stay calm. The plan only worked if she stayed calm, if they all stayed calm and focused. Only it was hard to stay calm and focused when she was worried that Lijah had been wrong, that the train wouldn’t come. That it was never coming.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed movement. She turned to see Lijah leave the tree he’d been leaning against and walked over to her. “It’s going to be alright,” he whispered when he was right in front of her.
She shook her head. “The world isn’t OK, Lijah, so don’t say things you know aren’t true.”
“I promised Dad I’d take you to Mom, and that’s what I intend to do.” He looked toward the train track just a few yards away. “It’s going to come. They still want supplies. They still need goods in the big cities from smaller ones. It’s coming.”
She nodded at that, though she didn’t quite believe it. “If it doesn’t come, I was thinking, maybe we could look for signs of an abandoned house and hide out.”
Lijah shook his head. “If it doesn’t come by one a.m., we should walk along the track as far as we can, and take turns that go west. We’re familiar with this area, so I know west is that way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. “But once we get further out, we’ll need to rely on the sun, or some type of map. I still think the train is going to be better than a vehicle. At least at first. At least to get out of the immediate area. They think we have a vehicle, so that’s what they’re going to be looking for.”
Elaan nodded, and noticed Josh walking over. “More planning?” Josh asked.
Elaan shook her head. “Not really,” she said, realizing that wasn’t entirely true, but not wanting Josh to feel left out. “I just asked Lijah how long he thought we should wait for the train.”
“And what was the consensus?” Josh asked.
“One a.m.” Lijah pulled his watch right in front of his face to see the time. “It’s midnight now.”
Josh nodded, and then the three of them stood there in silence for a few moments. They all seemed to have a dearth of things to say. Then, Elaan thought of the letter her father had stuffed ininside her bag. She pulled the letter from her backpack and held it out to her brother. He squinted in the darkness at it. “I found it in my backpack when I was in the jeep. It’s from Dad.”
He stared at the letter and didn’t make a move to take it, looking at it almost as if it were poison. “Why was it in your pack?”
Elaan shrugged. She didn’t know for sure. “Maybe he wanted to give it to you, but not in front of Dr. Wells. Since he was packing my bag, he probably saw that as an opportunity to get it to you without anyone noticing.”
Lijah reached out and took the letter. He opened it and pulled out a few folded sheets of paper. He smiled as he unfolded the first sheet. He handed it to Elaan, who grinned and turned the paper toward Josh.
“An Illinois map,” Josh said with awe. “Got to hand it to him — he was prepared.”
Elaan chimed in with a, “Yep,” and then checked to see Lijah’s reaction. He was squinting in the light of the moon at the other pieces of paper. Elaan was at an angle that she could tell the other sheets were a handwritten letter. But, she had no idea what the loopy scrawl said. Her brother didn’t seem to have a good clue yet either, as he was struggling with the lack of real light. While they all had flashlights, she was sure no one would turn them on and risk being seen by military patrols just to read that letter.
She wondered what her father wanted to say to Lijah. She wondered why her father hadn’t sent such a letter to her. Always Lijah. It was always Lijah who got the intel. She sighed and leaned back on her tree. To her right, Josh was staring at her, seemingly poised to speak. But then he cocked his head to the side.
That was when Elaan heard it in the distance. The distinct sound of a train locomotive.
“Train?” she said, loud enough for them all to hear, probably louder than she should have said it. Lijah folded the letter and stuffed it in his pack. Josh handed the map back to him.
“Did you get a good enough look at it?” Lijah asked Josh.
Josh nodded. “Yeah, I got it,” he said. “Besides, I’ve seen an Illinois map before.”
Elaan stared at them, a little confused at the exchange. Before she had a chance to ask about it, Josh had taken her hand and started tugging her toward the track.
“Hold on,” Lijah said, stepping in front of them and stretching out his arms to stop Elaan and Josh from passing. “Let the locomotive pass by first, before we show ourselves. I don’t want the engineer to see us near the tracks.”
Josh stopped behind Lijah, waiting for the locomotive to go by.
“We’ll look for an open boxcar. There are usually a few on trains like this,” Lijah added.
“If there aren’t any?” Josh said.
“We’ll have to open one up,” Lijah said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do.
They all waited just inside the tree line until a blue diesel locomotive with the letters CSX painted in yellow passed by. It was going fairly slowly, much slower than Elaan had expected. While that was a good thing for them, making the prospects of their hopping the train better, it gave her an uneasy feeling. Why was it going so slow?
It seemed to be a fairly long train, with several tanker cars up front followed by open-topped hopper cars, and finally they saw boxcars. The train plugged along, and the three of them ran out looking for an open boxcar. What if there were none? Could Lijah really open it? Elaan’s heart pounded in her chest, and sweat beaded at her hairline beneath the military cap. Her legs were moving, running, she knew, but they felt numb. Her entire body vibrated with numbness, as if this weren’t really her in the middle of the night running to catch a train that didn’t seem to have an open boxcar.
They ran at a slower pace than the train and hoped they’d see an empty boxcar with an open door pass by. But all the doors seemed to be shut. A gust of wind tugged at Elaan’s cap. She reached up to try to hold it down. Too late. A second gust came along, ripping the hat from her head. Her curls, now free, bounced as she ran. Elaan turned her head to watch the camouflage cap blow away and get crushed beneath the train wheels. She shivered as she wondered if that was an omen of what was to come for her if they didn’t correctly maneuver their way onto this train. She was running along behind Lijah. She had to focus on the now, on getting on this train.
She looked back to see the train would be ending in another half-dozen boxcars. She opened her mouth to ask Lijah what they should do, but then, a boxcar door began to open, as if of its own accord. The boxcar door slid all the way open revealing a man standing in the doorway, bathed in low light. “Hurry up,” he called, and the three of them ran faster.
“Throw your packs on first,” said the grizzled man with a beard that reached his chest. Josh seemed to hesitate, slowing down, but not Lijah. He ran faster and tossed his bag onto the train. Whatever apprehension Elaan was feeling about tossing her things onto a moving train that could move on without them vanished after watching Lijah. This was their chance. She could feel it. Elaan ran faster, struggling a bit as she removed the backpack and tossed it on the train.
There was a vertical bar next to the boxcar door opening. The man on the boxcar was pointing to it. Lijah seemed to understand what he meant, grabbing hold of the bar as he ran and then swinging himself onto the train. Elaan stutter-stepped when she saw that. Her brain was shouting that she couldn’t do that. Only, her body was still moving, still moving toward the train. Her breathing was heavy, her heart pumping fast, and the roar of the train’s wheels vibrated through her head. Logic was telling her this was a difficult and dangerous feat, but instinct was pushing her to act now.
She pushed her legs harder, ran faster, reached out and grabbed the bar with both hands and jumped. She was holding on to the bar, her legs swaying as the train moved. She felt someone grab her leg. It was Lijah steadying her. With his help, she got onto the boxcar. She turned back and saw Josh, running fast, but it seemed the train was moving faster now.
A coldness crept over her as she realized Josh might not make it. The chill of terror started in her chest and crept downward, invading her stomach and spreading to her extremities. She watched, wide-eyed, as he suddenly got a burst of speed, extended his arms, and reached for the vertical bar on the boxcar, narrowly missing it. Panic flooded her and she bit down hard on her lower lip to stop herself from screaming. Josh stumbled slightly but recovered quickly, a new determination on his face. He sped up, pushing himself to what looked to be his limit. He reached out, his fingers grazing the bar, then wrapping tight to it, as his feet lifted off the ground. Josh’s legs swung wildly for a moment, but then he managed to steady them and climb onto the boxcar. The second he seemed secure, Elaan grabbed him and pulled him into her arms. She squeezed him tight and could feel her heart thumping so fast in her chest. Or maybe that was his heart. She didn’t know. She just knew she’d never been so glad in her entire life. The thought of leaving Josh behind, after he’d defied his father and come with them. That would have been wrong on so many levels.
“OK, lovebirds,” said the raspy voice of the vagabond who’d helped them get on the train car. “Back away from the door. I’ve got to get this closed.”
Elaan and Josh let go of each other. Josh’s cheeks were red. She wondered briefly if he was simply red from exertion, if he felt embarrassed by their embrace, or the man’s reaction to it. She took a step back and watched as the man, dressed in a thick brown coat, dirty jeans, and Doc Marten boots, slid the boxcar door shut. The inside of the boxcar appeared to be mainly metal, the floor coated with dried mud and grime. It was pretty much empty except for some bedding in the far corner along with some plastic boxes next to it. A light was in that corner, too, some type of lantern that gave enough of a glow for them to see each other but not terribly well.
Lijah had caught his breath and was pushing their backpacks into a pile. He looked up at the man who’d opened the door for them and said, “Thank you.”
The man cackled. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “I’ll throw you right off this train if you can’t pay.”
Chapter 16
Elaan’s mouth popped open as she registered the man’s words. Her body had finally started to return to its normal non-panic state, her breathing and heart beat slowing, her anxiety tamping down. And with his words, all that normalizing stopped. Her heart sped up again and she took a step back, widened her stance, feeling a fight-or-flight instinct kick in.
Lijah, who had been standing closer to the man who’d just threatened to throw them overboard, took a step closer to Elaan. “Look, sir,” Lijah said, looking the man in the eye, giving a slight deferential bow. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to ride the train.”
The man snorted. “So does everybody who’s interested in getting around. The Martial Law, the disease, has made it tough for people to travel. Anyone who does, thinks it’s a good idea to ride the rails. Why you think there are so many checkpoints?”
“Checkpoints?” Josh said.
“Yes, genius, checkpoints,” the man replied. He looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s. There were bits of gray in his black beard. They couldn’t see the hair on his head, for he wore a brown knit cap. “They call me Boxcar Willie,” he said. Lijah made an odd noise that was sorta like a cough, but not quite. It sounded to Elaan like him trying to cover a laugh. Boxcar Willie glared at him. “Sorry, I’m not Mr. Originality. My clients tend not to care, though. I help ferry people around on the train. I pay off the checkpoint officers to look the other way and get people transport. Usually, people have to prove they ain’t sick first. And then they got to pay me. You ain’t done neither.”
&nbs
p; “We’re not sick,” Elaan said.
“Everyone says that,” Boxcar Willie said.
“How would you know if we were?” Lijah asked.
“I got a test I use,” Willie said, turning around and walking to the front of the boxcar. From a duffle bag, he pulled an electronic contraption—a box at the bottom with a short stick attached — along with a plastic bag filled with something Elaan couldn’t make out. He walked over toward them and set the plastic bag and machine down. He reached into the bag, emerged with two latex gloves and put them on. Then he pulled a plastic mouthpiece from the bag. It was enclosed in a layer of clear plastic, which Willie ripped off with his gloved hands. The clear mouthpiece reminded Elaan of those oxygen masks you saw in hospitals. Willie slid the mouthpiece onto the stick-like piece protruding from the machine and then turned to Elaan. “Her first,” he said.
Lijah shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice coming out a commanding baritone. “What is that?”
“It’s the newest breath tester. Let’s the military know if you have the disease within three minutes.”
“How’d you get that,” Josh asked. “Only level five testing facilities have those.”
Willie grinned at Josh, a gleam in his eye. “I knew I was right to take a chance on you three,” the older man said.
“You didn’t answer his question,” Lijah said. “How did you get one?”
“I can convince a few folks to look the other way if they’re paid right, but they won’t look the other way for me taking infected people. So, we mutually agreed that it was in everyone’s best interest if I had one of these. They don’t tell me if the person is infected, just if they’re at the point where the disease is contagious. This catches carriers and infected people in the early stages. Now, give me the girl,” he said.
Lijah stepped forward. “She’ll go second. You’ll do me first, and if it all goes well you can test her.”
Willie shrugged, and motioned Lijah to the handheld machine. Willie hit a button on the boxy part of the device and some panel lights lit up. He pushed a few more buttons then held the machine up to Lijah’s face so the plastic mask covered his mouth. “Breathe normally,” Willie said.