From what I could tell we were on the other side of the hills from the cemetery. That whirlwind tornado of doom had taken us quite far out of our way, it seemed. It wasn’t until much later that I reconsidered the experience, specifically that of the attacking undead. Their faces would haunt my dreams and I would awake as one of their reaching hands grabbed me, followed by another, and another. Their fingers gripped tight like vices upon my body.
No, I did not care for the experience of battling the undead and I hoped not to have to experience that ever again.
As we trekked up the small hill, and the napping man came into view, he awoke with such a start. He stood up frantically with his back to the tree as he grabbed for his rifle, a long barreled piece with an exquisite telescopical sight mounted on top. The Strongman took a step forward and disarmed The Fool Assassin effortlessly, like a parent removing a forbidden item from a child’s hands. In a swift, cool motion he snapped the modified rifle over his knee and tossed the broken pieces aside. The Strongman grabbed the rail-thin man by his throat and forced him up against the lone tree, the gnarled bark certainly grinding into his back uncomfortably.
“Who are you?” I asked him calmly and gentlemanly as I leaned into his face and examined him, “I’ve seen you before.”
A struggling bit of air escaped his larynx that was rather unintelligible.
“Strongman, his throat.” I reminded The Strongman not to separate the man’s noggin from his neck and he loosened his grip.
“You’ve been following me.” I looked the man in the eye. “Whom are you working for?” I waited for an answer and grew impatient when I didn’t receive one. I reiterated, “Whom?”
The man smiled cockily revealing his mess of a mouth. The brief flash of rot was enough to turn my stomach. “I don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout, mate. I was just nappin’. Can’t a bloke nap beneaf a lonely tree on a warm summuh’s day? Now, ask your mate to unhand me, or I’ll gut ‘im.”
The man had a problem pronouncing his words correctly, but I do believe the more pressing matter was that he did indeed hold a curved blade to The Strongman’s abdomen and was ready to do as he proclaimed. The Strongman looked down at the blade and released the man and took a step back. Though, we still held him, perhaps not physically, but with his back against the tree.
“Quite prepared for a napping gent,” I scoffed.
“What happened to The Wevvah Man?” The man asked in his garbled tongue, his mashing of the language ringing in my ear.
“The Weather Man you call him?” I asked.
“‘at’s right, we call ‘im The Wevvah Man on account of that thing he does wif the weavvah.” Sounds which resembled words spewed from the man’s mouth. For posterity, I’ve done my best to recreate his accented version of the language.
“We, you say?”
“‘at’s right. The lot of us.” He spit into the grass. “Really would’ve figured he’d get ya.” The man gave a wink and a snarly smile.
After a brief moment of silence, he smoothed out his ratty old suit and he dusted off his pants. The Strongman and I looked to each other, but beyond exchanging glances, we let the situation be. The man knelt down and adjusted the buckle on one boot and then the next. The man shifted his gaze upward from his dirty boots, his demeanor turning rather putrid, and said, flatly and so unnervingly coldly, “Thought I took your lights out, I did.” He gave a smile and turned his face back to the ground, his attention to his boot buckle.
The man continued to adjust the buckle on his other boot, “Figured you just another notch in my rifle stock,” he plucked a long piece of grass from the ground, put it in the corner of his mouth. He stood back up and smirked. “I know I hit ya. Aimed straight for your ‘eart, I did.” He twirled the long blade of grass in his mouth.
“Field journal.” I produced a small notebook from inside my jacket and the assassin smiled. “I don’t assume you’ll be forthright on who your employer is, but I will offer you the chance.”
The Assassin looked us over, shifting his eyes from me up to The Strongman. He seemed an arrogant dolt. His constant mischievous grin bothered me. He brought his piercing oculars back to me, “Been tracking you. Following you. And this one...” He gestured to The Strongman, “Wasn’t expecting ‘im. The Wevvah Man delivered you to me directly. Like a present. Thought I ‘ad ya’ down. Thought I ‘ad ya, I did. Figured you was going nowhere, so I took a nap. You believe that? Took me some precious beauty sleep, I did.” He cackled and coughed. “Been up drinking onion milk for days. I put a slug in ya and thought I did ya’. I just wanted a few winks.”
In his own sense of pompousness and arrogance he showed just a single bright ray of humility. For but in the flash of a moment, a fraction of a wince glared across his face. There was a moment of silence and the wind blew across the plains.
“Do wif me what you will.” And The Fool Assassin’s grin faded from his face, as if he were admitting defeat and giving in. The brief moment of humility soured into a vehement sneer. From his sneer he gave a good, lowly, psychotic giggle beneath his stale, foul breath.
“You are but a fool assassin,” I said to him disgustedly.
The Strongman and I looked to each other. I don’t think either of us knew quite how to handle the scummish, lanky, most probably insane, murderer. I knew we couldn’t take him with us, but as soon as my mind pondered an alternative, The Strongman brought his fist down upon The Fool’s noggin like an iron hammer striking a railroad spike deep into the ground, knocking The Fool into an instantly heavy slumber.
“Let’s go, Doc.” The Strongman started walking down the hill.
“Wait! What about this fool?” I gave a shout to grab his attention, “We can’t just leave him here!”
“Yes we can, Doc.” The Strongman strolled back up the hill, “Listen, he’s out cold. That Weather Man might not be too far behind. There are tracks across the field. We can hit the next train by the time he wakes up. He got out here on his own, he can get back to where ever he came.” The Strongman reasoned well and he had me sold on his plan. “Now, c’mon, Doc, before we miss our ride.”
“We should search him.” I exclaimed and began to go through his pockets.
“Doc, we ain’t got time.” The Strongman grew impatient. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and we don’t know how many trains are gonna come through today; we should get moving.”
“Nothing.” His pockets were clean.
The Strongman looked at his pocket watch and I could tell by his befuddled expression that he was attempting math in his head.
“I want to know who sent him. All I need is a hint. Just a hint. A clue.” I muttered my case to The Strongman.
“If my Trans Metros rail tables are correct, there will either be another train through thirty minutes from now or forty-five minutes from now.” The Strongman had figured from experience and I was inclined to believe him. The Strongman had worked laying down rail for RailWorks before, he knew the schedules.
“So we have time, then.” I was relieved to hear; though, The Strongman was telling me as a warning as he shook his head. “No?” I inquired, puzzled.
“If the train comes in thirty minutes it’ll be the last train of the day on this line. If the train comes in forty-five minutes, it’ll will be the last train for another 12 hours. If no train comes at either of those times, there should be an engine through in about six hours.”
“You certainly know your schedules.” I was rather impressed.
“Although,” he began to say something, but stopped himself.
“You were about to say?” I was curious as to what was causing the furrow in his brow.
“There might not be a train at all.” He frowned and I gave him a puzzled look, “They might have canceled this line due to the war. The only thing that might come through are unscheduled supply lines.”
Yes, indeed. He made a good point. I was coming up empty as I searched through pockets and I had been thoroughly swayed by The St
rongman’s points on the matter. We walked through the field of waist-high grasses as the wind blew gently, turning the fields of green to fields of silver and then back again in waves. Thin white clouds streamed across the sky. The vast valley was closed off by a mountain range in the far distance beyond the tracks. We walked quietly without conversation, our attentions were divided by the curve where the train would hopefully be coming, our pocket watches, and behind us from whence we came. In retrospect, I realized it would have been a clever idea to remove The Fool Assassin’s boots and take them while using the buckles to bind his hands together. The clarity of hindsight never ceases to amaze me.
As the time approached the thirty minute mark, we kept a close eye between our watches and the curve of the track that lead into the mountains. The time came and went and the train didn’t show.
“I suppose we have fifteen minutes?” I countered the non-appearance of the engine.
The Strongman added a pinch of cynicism, “Hopefully, that is.”
We waded through the tall grasses. Fortunately that first train hadn’t come because I honestly do not believe we would have caught it. We were far too far away. Even The Strongman alone wouldn’t have been able to catch up at this distance.
Approximately six minutes from the time we should have seen the train, one did show up.
“What in the bloody hell is that?” I inquired ever so eloquently with just the right tinge of annoyance permeating the sound of my voice..
“Sorry, Doc. My math ain’t so great,” The Strongman feebly offered as we sprung to and began running towards the train at a feverish pace.
“Well which train is this?” I shouted as we ran towards the tracks, the grass whipping our shins.
“How should I know; I haven’t worked for the train company in years!” Was all he could offer in return. I guess he didn’t know his schedules as well as I had hoped.
The engine was a medium-weight Flagship Nimbulator, perhaps the 250 model. It seemed if we veered to our left, toward the direction the train was traveling, and if we would be able to keep up, we could eventually catch our train before it passed us by. It would be a quite a marathon to keep up this fast pace for this distance I was running, but I felt comfortable that once we were on the train, I could take the time to relax and catch my breath. There was no alternative to the matter. There was no telling when another train we be through.
I thought, rather suddenly as it happened, the quick zipping sound next to my ear was some type of insect buzzing by. Then I heard the faint pop and resulting echo. Another brief moment in which the sound of the aether tearing and shredding apart. This one made me flinch. I looked behind us to the hill. A flash beneath the tree. Followed by the sound of a faint pop. A hot, metal slug tore through the aether just missing me by an arm’s length. The Strongman turned to see what I was looking at.
“He’s shooting at us?” The Strongman picked an absurd time between breaths to ask a rhetorical question.
“It would seem so.” Still I answered in return. He must have had other hidden firearms at his disposal. Perhaps he wasn’t such the fool after all.
“Get in front of me, Doc!” Before I could react, The Strongman grabbed me by the back of my coat and placed me in front of him, shielding me from oncoming bullets. Another faint pop. The aether ripping. This one was different. The Strongman lunged forward as the sound of the aether tearing abruptly ended in a faint thud before it could whiz by.
The Strongman grunted.
“You’ve been hit?”
“In my shoulder, Doc. Barely nothin’.” He gritted through his teeth as he pushed me along.
“Any chance you could take flight?” I asked to lighten the mood.
He responded, “Any chance you want to run by yourself?”
“Not in a joking mood, fair enough,” my legs kicked up into my chest as he pushed me along.
Another faint pop. And another. They continued on as the sound of bullets screamed past us, around us, overhead, and then another abrupt mushy thud.
“Have you been hit again?!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Barely a nick,” he grunted.
As we moved in closer, the popping sounds ceased to register within my ears as the chugging of the train engine rattled my teeth and grew to overtake my hearing. I suppose we had been farther than I had estimated and just catching up towards the end of the train, only a few cars before we’d be behind it. I grabbed a hold of a railing and hoisted myself up, The Strongman following directly behind me. We stood between cars aboard the back platform of a passenger car. We looked back out across the plain to the lonely hill with the single tree, but he seemed to be gone.
I hurriedly grabbed for my monoclescope-adjuster from the inside of my inner coat pocket and fastened it to my monocle. I stretched it outright as far as it would extend, locked it into place, and slowly rolled the fine-tuning wheel as I scanned the tall grasses for any sign of The Fool. All I could find was what was laid before my eye.
The clouds gathered overhead and a storm broke in the far distance beyond the hill, a sheet of rain creeping across the plain. I removed the monoclescope from my eye and placed the collapsed eyepiece back in my pocket. The rains fired down across the land and my mind flashed back to the graveyard.
“Perhaps it’s the ‘weavvah’ man.” The Strongman grumbled as if he were reading my thoughts.
The storm caught up to us as it drenched the plains. I held my hand out into the cold, stinging water.
I smiled a bit of relief, “Fortunately this rain is just that.”
We boarded without further negative occurrence and took refuge in an empty cabin of a passenger car. Our surroundings, while modest, were a vast improvement from our last predicament. I slumped into a seat and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and tried to center my mind. Across from me, The Strongman sat hunched over on the edge of his seat, his elbows resting on his knees. My eyelids lifted to see a blur of the large hunched-over man stained with blood. My moment of relaxation ceased and I sat upright.
I removed my monocle, held it to the light of the window to check for scratches, then cleaned the glass free of dust with the window’s curtain. I placed the circular glass back in place over my eye and stood to get a better look at his wounds.
“Well, the bleeding isn’t too bad,” I tried to get a slightly different view, “and it doesn’t look like the bullets penetrated very deeply at all. Still, you are prime for infection. Could eventually lead to fever. Probably cast from lead, no doubt. Definitely a no-no your body will not appreciate.”
“Doc, I know. I’m aware of the situation. Can you just get ‘em out?” The Strongman looked up to me, “I don’t need a complete check-up.”
“Certainly, indeed. I’ll need supplies.” I exited the cabin and traversed the train. Everything behind our car seemed dead. I knew all of the good stuff would be up front.
I swiped a paring knife from the kitchen while an all-too snooty, and seemingly crazed, chef went to battle with a group of kitchen-infiltrating mauzenhoffs, obviously on the search for food. It was a battle he was sure to regret; I could not bare to witness. (I do believe one did brandish a little knife.)
From the kitchen I walked to the social car. There, I politely asked to borrow a needle and thread from an elderly, eldery lady who was, at the time, knitting some outrageous piece of clothing for some poor, unsuspecting grandchild. Or perhaps an overweight cat, but I didn’t bother to ask. I knew it would be a futile endeavor of conversation as I had to politely ask her again, more loudly this second time, for a needle and thread. This one registered and she obliged.
And I borrowed a top shelf bottle of hard alcohol from the bar on the way back to The Strongman. The barman seemed to be at odds with a drunkard who was afraid to get off his bar stool, fearing the train was moving far too fast. He kept exclaiming to the barman, “Tell the engineer to slow it down! I can’t possibly be expected to get off this stool at this excessive rate of speed!”
With my makeshift surgical tools in tow, the healing could commence.
Surgery was a success. I will spare the gory details, however few. Suffice it to say, The Strongman was made of something akin to a combination of flesh and steel. The bullets to him were like splinters. I held the bloody metal bullets in the palm of my hand. I grabbed the bottle of booze from The Strongman as he was just about to take another swig and poured some into the palm of my hand. He grabbed the bottle back. I cleared the blood from the bullets, rolling them around in the pool of alcohol in my palm.
“They don’t look quite like Huntsmen issue,” I retrieved my micro-monocle from a pocket and fastened it to my eye. I examined the bullets closely. “These were cast by hand.”
“So?” The Strongman asked as he took another drink. He offered me the bottle and I took in my fair share.
Every portion of my innards which that liquid touched on the way to down to my belly burned an awful trail. “Well...” I handed the bottle back and explained, “If they were Huntsmen issue, we’d have something. But these bullets were cast by hand. Rare to find. Unless, that is, you’re perhaps somewhere remote like the very far north of Northward Territories where supplies are hard to come by. And, if not Huntsmen issue, a bullet will usually be factory prepared; uniform, smooth. A factory prepared bullet by ArmamentWorks, for example. These bullets have definite casting marks and trim that would normally have been shaved off. Instead? Sloppily, hastily made bullets. That man is quite the fool. You’d think you’d want an aerodynamic projecticle. The Fool Assassin.” I looked back down to my hand, a puddle of slightly pinkish, but clear liquid, “Oh, bother. Do you perchance have...” I gestured my messy hand, showing it to The Strongman.
We both gave a short look around the cabin before The Strongman suggested that I just use the curtains, but I didn’t care to sully the Trans Metros-issued fabric curtains. The Strongman suggested that I use the lavatory and asked if I noticed one near the social car or the kitchen. I thought a moment and before I could formulate a single inkling of memory the train jolted side to side in such a quick and violent manner. I was thrown into the curtains, my hand forced to dump its boozy, pinkish contents on the fabric anyway. In the jolt, The Strongman dropped the bottle of alcohol and it shattered upon impact with the cabin floor. The entire cabin stunk like the fumes from a shot glass as it sits just beneath one’s nose before drinking it down. The smell permeated my nostrils something terribly.
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 25