by Skye, Relina
“The medical one, I think. What does her paperwork say?”
“You is right.” The goof lowered his voice, and added, “Says here, the owner sampled her.”
“Shush! Let’s get them on the train first.”
The swish of feathers caught my attention and I strained my ears to listen for clues. I wanted to know where we were and how many people were around.
“Shoo, bird! Off with you now before I blow youse to bits!”
“Cr…ruck! Cr…ruck!” responded the deep, gurgling croak from nearby.
The cart began to vibrate, indicating uneven ground. Several minutes later, I heard something slide open and then shut. My skin warmed and my ears ached to be popped.
Hearing the deep intake of air made my skin crawl. “She smells strange.”
“What are you talking about?” Another inhalation caused my stomach to bottom out. “Huh… youse right. Smells a little like fear or stress.” I could picture him shrugging. “She’s probably having a nightmare.” Cold skin brushed my cheek before traveling down to my throat. Giving my breast a squeeze, a rough thumb rubbed my nipple.
I wanted to smack his hand away, but doubted I had the strength to do that. Never mind fighting him off.
“Better stop, Ing. Says here, she’s pristine. Remember how carried away you can get. One more slip-up, and you’ll be made redundant.”
“Rubbish! What about the other one?”
“Pristine. Only one client sampled them. Looks like we ain’t gonna get any freebies from these two.”
“Did you remember the clothing order?”
“What do you think I am? A skive? Their clothes are in their lockers.”
A train whistle blew nearby.
“We need to go.”
“What about dressing them?”
“They’ll be fine. Someone at the medical facility can do that.” His voice grew fainter. The sound of a sliding door came from far away and quickly stopped.
The car jerked forward as the whistle blew again. My body slid across the smooth surface until I felt nothing but air and a quick drop. Fresh pain spread across my back and legs while spots danced across my eyes as I gasped for breath.
A groan came from right next to me.
Blinking several times, I found the room completely dark.
The groaning continued.
I groped around the floor until I found a hand. “Hey.” Trying to wet my lips, my tongue felt like the sun had baked it for too long.
The other woman stopped groaning.
“Look, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I intend to find a way out of this mess. Just hang in there.”
Crawling on my hands and bare knees for several minutes, I finally located a door. And where there is a door, I prayed, there should be a light switch.
My joints popped into place as I stood while gliding my palms along the sides of the door. With a quick flick of my finger, a dim light glowed from a single bulb in the middle of the car. Water seeped out of my tear ducts as my eyes adjusted to the rapid change in light. When I finally managed to focus on my surroundings, I found several empty gurneys lined up against one wall. The other wall was filled with supply cabinets and lockers.
On the floor lay a naked woman with long, brown hair. Her foot twitched, but besides that, she remained completely still.
“Keep trying to move,” I ordered. “I’m going to check out the supplies in here.” I paused. “I know this sounds crazy, but we’re on a train heading to a medical facility to have our memories wiped out. We were sold to some blood drinking creep. Can you freaking believe it?”
I continued to tell her all the random shit I heard earlier while I inspected the lockers. The last two had several items hanging up, along with shoeboxes and other accessories. Made from various organic fibers, the clothing I found was beautiful, but very revealing.
Comparing the clothing from both lockers, I soon determined the first locker was for the other woman. I quickly assessed what belonged to me before dressing in the most sensible outfit available. Taking some of the knitted outdoor accessories in hand, I carefully stuffed them into a large purse.
The other girl’s eyes were fixed on me as I continued. “I don’t know how long we have until we reach that medical facility. So, I’m going to dress you. I hope that’s okay? As soon as you are able to move, we should try to jump off this train. Crazy I know, but it beats having all your memories stolen, right?”
The woman gave a slight nod.
Dressing another person is pretty hard, not to mention, awkward. But after I finished, I returned to gathering as many supplies from the cabinets as we could possibly carry. I had no idea where we were, or if the need to trade or sell something later on might arise. I just hoped that we’d be able to find our way home.
“The sandals aren’t great,” I said, “but easier to walk in than some of the high heels they have in here. I put two pairs of boots for us in one of the garment bags. I figure our best bet is to jump into a lake or river. Our outfits are fairly flimsy, but they will aid us in doing that. Once we get out of the water, we can put on warmer clothes and toss the wet clothes down the river. Hopefully, it will take our clothes downstream, thereby throwing the blood suckers off our trail.”
“Water…” the girl groaned. I soon found a couple of gallons in one of the cabinets with some paper cups.
“Here you go. Drink slowly. You don’t want to choke.”
The woman gave me a death glare as she sipped the water. Okay, perhaps I insulted her intelligence… I didn’t know; and at the moment, I didn’t care. We had to have been traveling for at least an hour. That gave us a good head start, but I knew our luck couldn’t hold out much longer, and we were more than likely speeding directly toward our morbid destination.
“Thank you…” she muttered. “Help me stand.” The woman wavered slightly on her feet. “If I weren’t so hungry, I think I’d throw up.”
Huh, I never even thought about being hungry.
Light slowly crept into the car. I eventually realized there were actually windows on the doors, and the reason it seemed so dark before was because it was nighttime.
The other woman’s brows knitted together as she looked over a manila file from her gurney. “How the hell do they know so much information about me?”
I raised a brow. Having been so focused on forming an escape plan, I didn’t even think about my file. Grabbing it, I flipped through the contents. There were various photographs of my naked body taken at different angles, along with several from earlier dates, going all the way back to my childhood. There were also copies of my medical records, with the details and dates of appointments, illnesses, and all the shots and antibiotics I’d had in the past. Other documents included eye exams, dental work, blood work, an X-ray from when I broke my arm, not to mention my gynecological records.
Last of all, was a family tree with the blood types of all my maternal relatives listed. There was nothing, however, on my father’s side, which didn’t surprise me; but after how thorough these bastards were, I was rather shocked they couldn’t find anything about his ancestry.
I glanced up to see the sun several inches above the horizon, and aiming straight at us.
“Shit, we need to go, and now.”
The woman shuddered. “You’re right. Do you think we have room for this in one of the bags? I’d hate to leave it with those jerks.”
I nodded. Taking the folders from her, I stuffed our files into one of the garment bags. “Here; eat this.” I handed her a protein bar. “I’m guessing they probably wake up their victims and feed them before relinquishing them to their new masters.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes and shared the open gallon of water. I pushed the remaining protein bars into one of the bags. Rolling them up, I made shoulder straps by ripping one of the dresses up. It wasn’t the best-looking backpack, but at least, it wasn’t super awkward to carry.
After looking around the car one last time, we he
aded to the back door in silence. There weren’t any other cars behind us, thankfully, and we knew we wouldn’t be smacked flat when we jumped.
My heart pounded in my chest. This was crazy. At best, it was probably suicide.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Sorry.” I opened the door and cold wind slapped my face. Where did that warm, summer air go?
Squinting my eyes, it took several minutes for my pupils to adjust to the change in light. We were in the middle of nowhere. Empty plains stretched as far as I could see on one side, while a tree line came into view on the other.
The train curved, heading into the woods.
“At least, it’s not a bullet train!” my companion yelled loud enough for me to hear.
“It’s like that train from the third Back to the Future.”
“Or Harry Potter!”
I sighed. “I love those books. I just wish I didn’t feel like we were stuck in one of them.”
“A better comparison would be…”
“Car...raw!” A raven landed on the railing.
The other woman took a step back.
“It’s okay.” My vision blurred slightly while my head felt like it was floating in the clouds. “Muninn…”
“Car…raw! Car…raw!!”
“What did you say?”
I ignored her for a moment while I looked around the side of the train. We were approaching a wide, slow-moving river.
“This is our chance.” I pulled the makeshift backpack off my shoulders. The woods started to clear around us. “Throw your bags in three… two… one!” I tossed both of my bags off to one side while the other woman tossed hers. The train started to cross the river.
Her skin paled as her arms shook.
I climbed over the rail. “It’s going to be okay. You can do this…”
“Shayla!”
“What?”
“That’s my name!”
“Oh. Clementine! That’s mine. Sorry I didn’t tell you before!”
She climbed over the railing.
“Car…raw!” The raven flew off the back.
“JUMP!!!”
As I pushed off the railing, the wind whipped around me for several seconds before the inertia from letting go sent me flying.
Judging by those movies where people are pushed off trains and land in water, what we did should have been a good idea. In reality? Not so much. Hitting the water reminded me of the time in high school when I was thrown straight up into a basket toss with no bases or back spot to catch me. Yeah, they threw me backwards and I landed on the wrestling mat, which resulted in breaking my arm.
This was just as bad. I felt like the wind got knocked out of me as icy fingers pulled me down deep under the water. Air! I needed air! Which way was up? Following the bubbles, my fingers clawed the space around me, pushing the cruel liquid downwards. The temptation to inhale the water was almost irresistible. When I thought I could not take it another second, I broke through the surface.
My first inhalation of air hurt my lungs, but I quickly realized I had to find Shayla. Spinning around, I couldn’t spot her anywhere.
“Car…raw!” Two ravens were circling over a spot about thirty feet away from me. Bubbles popped as they reached the surface. Shayla! My heart hammered the seconds away and my arms ached. Adrenaline rushing through my veins made me feel a bit shaky. Despite that, it gave me just the energy boost I needed to reach the spot where the ravens were flying overhead.
Taking a deep breath, I dove down into the murky, abysmal waters. Unable to see anything, I kept going deeper until I felt several wisps of hair. Snatching more hair with my fingers, I latched on for fear of losing her again. With another kick, I managed to descend deeper until I could wrap my arm around the other girl’s body.
Breaking through the water’s surface, her limp form nearly slid back under, but I clung to her by pulling her weight on top of my torso. Barely keeping my face above the water, I let the strong current pull us downstream at an angle toward the shore.
“Come on, Shayla!” Shoving my fist directly beneath her sternum, I hoped the good, old Heimlich maneuver would help dislodge some of the water from her lungs.
Water spurted out of her mouth as her eyes widened. Turning over, she convulsed several times before the river completely emptied from her body. “I’m…” Shayla gasped before being overtaken by another round of coughing. “…Never going to do that again.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks while she continued to randomly cough and sputter.
Rubbing her back, I tried to reassure her. “Get it all out. You can’t let any of it stay in there. There you go. Just keep coughing it all out.”
Sitting back on my heels, I looked around and tried to get a bearing on our surroundings. As soon as Shayla’s breathing regulated, I said, “It looks like the current must have taken us at least half o’ mile down river.”
The sun was overhead by the time we found our bags. Shivering, I stripped out of my flimsy dress with no hesitation. Just putting on dry clothes lifted our spirits enough to keep moving.
Crossing the rails until we reached the center of the river, we tossed our wet clothes and shoes into the rapid current.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know?’ It was your idea to jump off the train. You’ve got to have some sort of plan.”
I sighed. “Not really. I just couldn’t stand the idea of becoming someone’s dinner.” I rubbed my forehead. “Do you see the ravens anywhere?”
“Heaven help us! You’re consulting with birds?” Shayla cried. Crouching down and slowly taking in long, deep breaths, it took several minutes before she could pull herself together. “I guess it’s better to die out here than to be sucked dry.”
“We’re not dead yet.” I started up the tracks, following the direction the train went. “Let’s walk upstream and head that way. Maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble upon a town or village.”