by Greg Sisco
They were dressed like cowboys, just for kicks, and they wrapped bandannas around their faces from the nose down like they had done a lifetime ago. It seemed to add to the theatrics of a bunch of psychotic men stealing money from helpless bastards riding through the desert for pleasure. It was mostly rich folks who rode trains these days. Loki was wearing white leathers like he had back in the day, though they’d all long since discarded their garments of the past. It was more trouble than it was worth to hang on to stuff like that. Tyr, likewise, was dressed in his usual black and Thor had gone with brown so the three could remain individuals and indicate each other in front of the passengers—‘Hey Brown, throw me that gun’, ‘Check out the tits on this one, Black’, etc.
The train loomed closer, the volume of the churning metal heightening with their anticipation. And when the train was finally in view, they threw back the kickstands on their motorcycles and roared their Harley Davidsons, racing down the ridge and into the desert to chase down the beast.
They pushed the bikes to their limits chasing down the Amtrak train. Long hair blowing back in the wind with the heat of the night wrapping around him, Loki took a particular thrill in imagining the passengers asleep in their comfortable moving beds, never having imagined what was about to happen to them. It was a particularly small train on this day with only four cars on it. Behind the engine, there was a dining car, followed by two sleeping cars, then a baggage car. The baggage car had no windows and only one door, which latched tightly from the inside. That meant breaking into the dining car and working their way backward.
Loki was the first to make the leap from his bike to the train. He grabbed the old cowboy hat that was tied to the front of his motorcycle and unsheathed the AK-47 he’d brought along for its sheer size. Mortals were terrified of the thing.
With his cowboy outfit now complete aside from the very modern weapon, Loki leapt from his bike, leaving it to cruise along briefly on its own before veering out of control and rolling along the desert behind him. He gripped the side of the dining car and climbed to the top.
On the roof of this car was an emergency exit—placed here in case the train derailed and came to a stop on its side after rolling across the rocks at eighty miles an hour, projecting furniture in all directions and mixing wood and glass in an enormous rock tumbler with humans who were not equipped with seat belts. If somebody survived such a catastrophe, the emergency exit would allow them to climb into the hundred-degree dry heat of the barren desert and spend a day dehydrating before they were eaten by coyotes. But the exit also served a second purpose, which was for three madmen on motorcycles to climb the side of the train and let themselves in.
Loki dropped into the middle of the dining room with the AK in his hands, waiting for any human who’d been roused from his sleep by the roar of the motorcycles to make his way into the room. After a moment, Thor dropped in behind him carrying an Uzi, and Tyr was the last to enter with his sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun. None of the passengers had come out of their rooms. The cowboys grinned to one another through their bandannas.
“The calm before the storm,” Thor said.
Loki laughed a little, then bellowed, “Rain dance!”
They laughed to varying degrees at Loki’s cheesy battle cry and Loki and Thor went galloping through the hall toward the bedrooms. By the time Loki reached the car, a young man was opening his door to see what all the ruckus was and Loki forced it open farther, sending him careening back into a table and then onto the floor.
“Hey, get up, asshole!” Loki shouted, waving his rifle in the man’s face.
Tyr and Thor were kicking down doors, jumping into the rooms of strangers and waving guns in their faces.
“Get up! Move!”
They pulled the passengers from their bunks, throwing them out into the halls and herding them back toward the baggage car.
Behind one of the doors, a man and wife named Richard and Monica could hear the turmoil outside. Their six-year-old daughter Eva was the only thing on their minds. They’d taken her on the train ride for her birthday because she loved Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Now, from the sound of it, there were terrorists on board hoarding everyone together. From anything Richard had read or seen in the movies, people who took hostages in such numbers rarely hurt anyone, but they couldn’t take the chance with their little girl.
Little Eva was uncomfortable, scared only because of the discomfort her parents were projecting. She could tell something was wrong as they dragged her out of bed.
“Honey, honey. We’re gonna play a game, okay?” Monica tried to convince her. “We’re gonna play hide and seek.”
“I don’t want to play,” Eva whined, assessing the situation in the way children do.
“I know, honey, but we have to play, okay?”
Eva nodded her head, going along with what her mother was saying. Richard opened up a sliding cabinet under a sink in their car. There was barely enough space for Eva to fit, but there was enough.
“Hide in here, Eva,” he said.
“Who’s seeking?”
Richard was frustrated. He wanted to shout, ‘Somebody who might kill you, so hide well,’ but instead he turned to his wife.
“Some other people already started the game, honey,” Monica said, struggling to be calm and motherly. “But they’re only looking for a little while and you just have to stay hidden, okay? It’s really important for you to win.”
Monica cried as she hugged her daughter one last time before shutting her in the cabinet and leaving her there. She and Richard put their arms around each other and opened the door.
By now, Loki had made his way up to the engine and killed the engineer. This didn’t serve any purpose, but it did no real harm either. More than anything it was just a ‘fuck you’ to the rest of the passengers, who would have to scramble for a way to stop a train none of them knew how to pilot. They would figure it out eventually, but not before shitting themselves with fear.
When Monica and Richard opened their door, Loki was a couple of rooms up the hall from them.
“We don’t want any trouble!” Richard said. He had his hands above his head, as did his wife. “Just don’t hurt anyone.”
“Oh hey!” Loki shouted to Thor, feigning tremendous enthusiasm. “This guy here wants to take charge of the operation.”
“What does he want us to do?” Thor said, dragging two young women out of one of the other rooms.
“He wants us to not hurt anyone!”
Thor fired his Uzi into the one of the girls’ feet. She screamed and slumped forward onto the floor. He grabbed her hair and pulled her back up to stand next to him.
“Shit!” he yelled back to Richard. “Sorry, I suck at following orders!”
Loki didn’t bother to search Richard’s and Monica’s car and a while the married couple was thankful—in spite of their fear—that they had at least kept their daughter out of harm’s way. A few minutes later, the Brothers had seventeen of the nineteen passengers corralled in the baggage car. Only Eva, who had not been found, and the engineer, who was splattered all over the engine, were not accounted for.
The passengers cried in each other’s arms, some of them falling to the floor, others standing and prepared to fight. Men stood in front of their girls to protect them, women cradled other women in their arms like babies. Some avoided eye contact like children in grade school who didn’t know the answer to a math problem, others glared like that teacher who made you want to bring a gun to school. The Brothers could have cared less.
“Twelve-gauge,” Loki addressed Tyr this way in order to make it clear what he wanted done. “Pick one.”
Tyr searched for someone helpless. He grabbed a man in a denim jacket who was trying to look calm, but falling apart on the inside. Grabbing at his collar, Tyr pulled the man up in front of the crowd.
“On your knees.”
The man obeyed instantly. There were tears drenching his face now. He begged for his life, shutting
his eyes and turning his head away from the muzzle of the gun.
“You got kids?” Tyr asked the hostage.
“I have a son!” he managed to choke out.
“Where is he?”
“At home with his mother.”
“You still married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love them?”
“Yes!”
Tyr inhaled deeply, thinking for a moment. He looked to Loki, who smiled back at him.
“Life insurance?”
“What?”
The fear of God was in him now.
“Do you have life insurance?”
“No,” the man hoped this would be his saving grace. This was a hostage-taker with a heart of gold.
“What kinda horrible fucking father are you?” Tyr asked. He cocked his gun, which he always left un-cocked for the simple joy of that beautiful sound that terrified humans more than almost anything else.
The man became hysterical, “I’m only thirty-five. I’m healthy. I didn’t think anything would happen to me.”
“Accidents happen to everyone!” Tyr shouted. Loki and Thor were laughing quietly to themselves. “Don’t ever say ‘I’m not the guy.’ Don’t say ‘it happens to other people but it won’t happen to me.’ That’s the lesson today. That’s the lesson for all of you today!” Tyr turned momentarily to face the rest of the crowd.
The man nodded his head, tears streaming down his face. The other members of the crowd did likewise.
“Would you fight for your family? Stand your ground for them? Be a man?”
“Of course.”
“What’s your name?”
“Brian Carnahan.”
“Can I call you ‘Cocksucker’?”
Loki and Thor laughed at this. Brian just sat in horror and let himself be belittled, but Tyr didn’t continue. He let Brian know the question was not rhetorical and nothing would continue until he gave an answer.
Brian stuttered, “S-sure.”
Tyr pressed the gun to his head and said, “Wrong answer.”
He pulled the trigger and Brian Carnahan’s life was ended without an insurance policy. His head was torn to pieces and blood and brain matter sprayed across floor, onto the legs and torsos of people in the crowd.
There were horrible screams and a few of the passengers attempted to wash the blood away with piss and vomit. Everybody moved backed as far as they could. The whole crowd was in horror now and they were ready to obey.
Loki patted Tyr on the back, saying, “That was classic. Go check the rooms.”
Tyr nodded and rushed back out to the rest of the train.
Richard was suddenly terrified for the safety of his daughter.
“What are you looking for?”
Loki glared at him with a hint of admiration. It took quite a man to speak and make an individual of himself at a moment like this. He granted the answer: “Whatever.”
Pointing his gun at the ground, Loki took the stage in front of his petrified audience. He began to pace back and forth, letting the rifle swing with his arm as the hostages took in everything he said, listening more intently than they’d listened to anything in their lives.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “now that that unfortunate spectacle is out of the way, we can get down to business. You have all seen what we are capable of and if you have any questions, I advise you to assume the worst. I have nothing against any of you but I regard you as you might regard flies, so do not become a nuisance to me because I have an AK-fucking-auto-swatter and you have seen what happens to people who rub us the wrong way.
“We are not here looking for any sort of drug or weapon as you might expect. Neither are we here to track down a specific person. We are here for love of the game, and the game is Cops and Robbers. Unfortunately for you, the cops appear to have their thumbs up their asses.
“My associate is searching your rooms and he is good at what he does. This is not our first luau, as the faggoty expression goes. If there is anything of value in your rooms, he will find it. I have no doubt about this. What I need from all of you, is to take off anything of value that you have on your person; wallets, watches, cash, jewelry. If you have a diamond-studded clit ring, you had best get it out now and throw it onto the floor in front of me or I will rip it out of you in a jerking, twisting motion.
“And in case some ballsy little asshole or bitch out there is planning on taking a chance with some dear little possession to them; in case somebody is thinking, ‘He won’t know. He thinks he’s got us all on a leash now and he won’t check to see if we’re obeying.’ Guess what! As soon as my friend gets back, we’re gonna strip search half of you and if we find anything you withheld from us, we are going to fire our guns at members of the other half. That’s right. We will shoot people who we did not search, we will do it on your behalf, and we will let their friends and families sort this out with you.
“So give up whatever you’ve got. You have no dignity left anyway, and you will have even less when you are standing naked in front of a crowd with your wedding ring stuck between your ass-cheeks.”
Loki wasn’t sure whether they’d actually strip search anybody. It was just a final persuasive button that had come to him as he was improvising his speech. If anyone had the balls to hold onto a piece of jewelry after hearing that threat, they deserved to keep it anyway. And sure enough by the time he finished talking, the ground in front of him was littered with cash, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches, wallets, spectacles, and credit cards. Thor was picking up everything except for the credit cards, which were both traceable and a pain in the ass to steal from.
As the valuables were being gathered, Tyr was opening a cabinet in one of the rooms and finding a small child inside it. She was curled up in the fetal position and looked frightened, but there were no tears in her eyes when she looked at him without making a sound when he found her.
Tyr smiled. There was a very strong quality to this little girl. Despite all the chaos erupting around her, she was calm and innocent.
Because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, Tyr asked, “What’s your name?”
“Eva,” answered the little girl. And after a moment she said, “Are you the seeker?”
Tyr laughed.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“I was playing Cowboys and Indians earlier. I kicked the shit out of the Indians.”
He put out his hand for her to take but she just stared at it. He moved it gently to her shoulder and she slinked away in the same gentle panic with which she would slink away in the Las Vegas bar thirteen years later. And once again, Tyr gave a comforting smile and a consoling rub to her skin.
“I want Mommy,” the little girl said.
“You want Mommy? Okay, let’s go find Mommy.”
Tyr reached out again, but Eva just stared at him silently. She didn’t trust him. She was strong and she had sense, all in that undeveloped little body of hers. How charming.
“I already found Mommy,” Tyr told her. “She’s with all the other people I’ve found. I found a whole bunch of them. Come on, you don’t want to just sit here by yourself, do you?”
Still, Eva was unsure. Tyr gave up, got to his feet, and walked away, playing a child’s game.
“Fine,” he said. “Have fun hiding from nobody. I’m gonna go play with your mommy.”
A moment after he left the room, Eva ran to the door. He turned to face her again.
“Did you change your mind? You want to come after all?” His voice was overly sensitive and compassionate.
Eva took a moment to carefully deliberate this before she nodded her head yes.
“Look what I found!” Tyr cried excitedly, returning to the hostage situation with a six-year-old girl in his arms.
Richard pushed to the front of the crowd, shouting, “Put her down! Let go of her!”
Loki pointed his rifle at two girls in their late teens w
ho were standing away from the commotion and minding their own business. Pressing the barrel to one of their faces, he screamed to the rest of the crowd, “Y’all best keep that asshole back! Cause these bitches don’t deserve shit!”
The crowd obeyed, keeping Richard away from his daughter. Richard obeyed as well, not wanting to hurt anyone innocent.
“I thought we made it clear to you that we suck at following orders,” Thor said.
He raised his gun and pointed it at little Eva. People in the crowd jumped forward and others held them back. Richard and Monica were screaming for their daughter, who sat silently in Tyr’s arms, grabbing at him as if for protection.
Tyr was deeply disappointed in this. He had a lot of respect for the strong-willed little girl. Minutes ago he had blown the head off of a weak and cowardly man who seemed to have half the sense, half the courage, half the character of this little thing. It was a shame to treat her as collateral. To kill this one would be like putting a bullet through Michelangelo’s David—and why would you want to do that before it was finished?
Tyr pushed Thor’s gun aside.
“Not this one, Thor,” he said.
Thor would have had no trouble respecting this decision, but Loki was another story. Barking orders was his entitlement, and he didn’t tolerate seeing it done by the others. Being sure to preserve his position of authority, he put his gun to the girl’s head and said, “Oh come on now, Tyr. How could one be made to resist this one?”
Tyr pressed Loki’s gun aside the same has he had Thor’s.
“No, Loki. Kill the rest of them if you want. Kill them all. I’ll help you. But I like this one.”
Loki gritted his teeth and exhaled loudly.
“No,” he said. “I think I want that one.”
Loki grabbed for Eva and Tyr fought him off saying, “Come on, Loki. How often do I ask for anything? Give the girl a break.”
Loki turned to the onlookers, “See this is why I’m the honcho. He gets attached too easy.”
He said it as a joke, but nobody laughed. Monica and Richard were trying to run for their child, now wholly unconcerned for anyone else in the train, but a couple of others were holding them off.