Night Train

by David Quantick

  “Thanks, but I want you in front of me where I can see you,” said Lincoln.

  “But that’s exactly how I feel about you,” said Poppy.

  “I’ll go first, if it’s that important,” said Banks.

  “You don’t have what she has,” says Lincoln. “I want her to go first.”

  He looked at Poppy. Poppy returned his gaze.

  “I don’t believe this,” said Garland. “I want to do one thing and here we are.”

  Suddenly Poppy reached into her tunic.

  “Drop it,” said Lincoln, pulling out his gun.

  “What, Teddy?” Poppy said, holding the stuffed bear up by its toe. She kissed its head, tucked it into her tunic again and walked up the small corridor.

  “Door’s locked,” she said.

  “Security,” said Lincoln. “Here.”

  He threw a key at her. She caught it with one hand.

  “Knock first,” Lincoln said. “We don’t want to startle him.”

  And he grinned.

  * * *

  Poppy knocked on the door. There was no reply.

  “Open it,” said Lincoln.

  Poppy unlocked the door and went in. Lincoln motioned with his gun for Banks and Garland to follow.

  * * *

  The driver’s cockpit was roomy, compared to the rest of the carriage. Enormous bowed windows on either side and in front presented a panoramic view of the landscape. Screens filled the walls, some showing maps and track systems, others flicking between closed circuit camera images of different carriages. A rack of weatherproof coats and trousers hung to one side.

  Garland put her jacket on a hook, feeling self-conscious and formal. Banks kept his on, as if in defiance, and Poppy dropped her jacket on the floor, first taking care to remove Teddy.

  At the dead centre of the cockpit was an enormous chair, white and made of leather or some synthetic equivalent. Poppy spun it round.

  “What?” she said.

  Garland stepped forward. The chair was empty.

  “What is this?” she said. “Where’s the driver?”

  “There is no driver,” said Lincoln.

  “There never was a driver. Fully automated.”

  “No driver,” said Garland. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I needed to be sure you wouldn’t go against me,” Lincoln said. “Helps to use the carrot instead of the stick sometimes, even if the carrot ain’t real.”

  “There has to be a driver,” said Garland. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “It’s a train,” Lincoln said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  “No,” said Garland, and she could hear the hysteria in her voice. “No, this can’t be it. Someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be driving.”

  “No one driving,” Lincoln said. “No need.”

  Banks bent down. “It’s pretty impressive,” he said. “Amazing setup, actually.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Lincoln warned.

  “Why?” said Poppy. “Will it send us off course?” Lincoln smiled.

  “Off course?” he said.

  “What I mean is,” said Poppy, “it may be automatic and all that but we are still going somewhere, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Garland. “We’re going somewhere. We must be.”

  Lincoln shook his head.

  “What?” said Banks.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” said Lincoln.

  * * *

  He leaned past Banks and tapped a screen.

  “Seen this before?” he asked.

  On the screen a simple map appeared. It was shaped like a figure of eight.

  “This is our route,” he said. “Has been for a mighty long time.”

  Garland stared at the screen. “My map,” she said.

  “It was there all the time but you just didn’t want to see,” said Lincoln. “This train just goes round and round and round on the circuit. Never goes this way, never goes that. Just round and round.”

  “We saw other lines,” said Banks. “We saw other trains.”

  “All the other lines are smashed and useless,” Lincoln said. “The other trains, too.”

  Lincoln gestured with his hands.

  “This is it, folks,” he said.

  “This is the only railroad, and the only train.”

  Garland walked away from Banks and stood at the very front of the train. Oblivious to any human interaction, it nosed on with mindless determination, track stretching endlessly ahead into the night.

  For the first time, Garland could see in front of the train. Lights danced in the distance, and the darkness around was as complete as before, but it was unsettling to be able to look forwards and not just from side to side.

  “Why?” she said. “Why isn’t this train going anywhere?”

  “Because there’s nowhere to go,” said Banks. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Give the freak a coconut,” Lincoln said. “This train ain’t bound for glory, that’s for sure. This train ain’t bound for anywhere. It just follows the eight.”

  Poppy looked at the map.

  “It goes past all these orange bits,” she said.

  “Danger areas,” explained Lincoln. “Places that are just too hot to go near. I mean that figuratively and literally, by the way. There are things out there that we can’t go near because we don’t know if they’re physically safe. Installations where the wrong thing melted. Facilities where experiments went a tad awry.”

  He gazed into the dusty night.

  “Sometimes the experiments get out,” he said. “I believe you saw a couple of them.”

  “Teddy certainly did,” said Poppy. “Sorry,” she added, “that sounded weird even to me.”

  Lincoln carried on. “And,” he said, “there are places where this train can’t go because it wouldn’t be awfully welcome.”

  “You mean where there are people?” said Garland.

  “I mean places where there are troublemakers,” said Lincoln. “Bandits, assholes, nogoodniks. The scum of the earth.”

  “Rebels,” said Poppy. “Dissenters.”

  “Yeah, well, fat lot of good it did them, whatever you want to call ’em.” Lincoln snorted. “The meek inherited the earth, and it’s fucked, so they can keep it.”

  “Your father’s plans came to nothing,” Banks said. “All that rubbish about reforms and blue skies, whatever that was, was just a waste of time.”

  “Sure did,” agreed Lincoln. “The future’s just as shitty as it always was. The world’s always been about the people who’re on board and the people who aren’t.”

  “What’s the point, though?” Poppy asked. “I mean, I get how it’s all nice and cosy on this train with all the bad people outside, but it’s not much of a fucking life is it? Stuck in here eating out of cans and nothing to do but walk up and down and look out the window at nothing all night long.”

  “What other choice is there?” said Lincoln.

  “When I was a skier,” Poppy said, absently stroking Teddy’s fur, “I loved to ski. I loved it when people cheered, and I sort of liked the medals, but it was the skiing I loved. And the thing I didn’t love, the thing I think I actually hated, was – well, it was everything else. Going to events. Mingling. Talking to people whose only interest in life was owning things. Watches, cars, boats, people… all they cared about was their stuff.”

  “I see we have a rebel of our own,” said Lincoln. He sounded like a man trying to appear bored.

  “Whatever,” Poppy said. “The thing that got me, though, was how they were always looking round. Like they were scared. Like someone was going to get in and take their stuff. Take their watch or their car or their life. And they never did anything. They just stood behind velvet ropes, or on the deck of their boat, and didn’t do anything.”

  “You want to go out there?” asked Lincoln.

  “Why not?” said Poppy.

  “Because all I have to do is stop this thing.�
��

  “You can do that?” Garland said.

  “Manual override,” Lincoln explained. “A child could drive this train. You can stop it, you can reverse it, you can even change course. I mean, assuming the brave rebel bands haven’t pulled the tracks up.”

  “We could drive this train ourselves?” Garland said.

  “We could,” agreed Lincoln. “But we’re not going to.”

  He walked over to another console and flicked a switch.

  * * *

  Outside, speakers set into the sides of the train began to play music.

  * * *

  They could hear it in the cockpit.

  “Did you just do that?” said Poppy.

  “Signal,” explained Lincoln. “From my friends who put me on the train.”

  “Who to?” Banks asked.

  “You have friends?” said Poppy.

  “How else could I get that ass Denning in a cage?” said Lincoln. “And who do you think sent the security detail? Of course I have friends. And,” he went on, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on this train. I hear there’s places you can have some kind of life if you’ve got what people want.”

  “And what do you have that people want?” asked Poppy. Lincoln gestured at Garland.

  “Her,” he said.

  * * *

  “Me?” Garland said. “But I’m nothing. I’m worthless.”

  “Hey, don’t put yourself down,” Lincoln said. “You’re solid coin to me. Think about it. There are so many uses for someone like you.”

  “Don’t,” said Poppy.

  “I don’t mean anything as sordid as that,” said Lincoln. “I mean, here we have a unique specimen. The sole surviving member of – what do we call it? The final dynasty. The last royal family. Who wouldn’t pay to have something like that in their collection?”

  “She’s a human being,” Poppy said.

  “I’m glad one of you is. Our friend here is the actual, genuine, untouched, unmodified human progeny of the Leader. The one man who could unite everybody. People like that, you know.”

  “People hate him,” said Banks. “And they’ll hate her just as much.”

  “You ever hear of leadership cults?” Lincoln said. “All around the world, Stalin, Franco, Perón… these guys, with their tunics and their moustaches, they killed thousands, millions of people. They were mass murderers. And what happened when they finally dropped dead?”

  “People rejoiced,” said Banks.

  “Did they fuck,” Lincoln said. “People cried. People wept in the streets, and they beat their breasts and some of them killed themselves.”

  “Is that what happened to my father?” asked Garland.

  “Not so much,” Lincoln admitted. “But that was more to do with a breakdown in communications. World in ruins, social media down, that kind of thing. Which leads me to something much more interesting.”

  “Finally,” said Poppy.

  Lincoln didn’t reply, just fingered the inside of his pocket.

  “Her father dies,” he said. “Nobody writes about it, nobody posts about it online, it’s on TV but there are no TVs… yet word gets around. Out there, around the bonfires and in the ruins. In the tents and the settlements, people start to get the news. Their Leader is dead. Their father.”

  He looked at Garland. “How did you feel when your father died?”

  “I was devastated,” said Garland. “I knew his faults –”

  “Faults?” said Banks. “He was a sociopath.”

  “Shut up, freak,” Lincoln said. “What else?”

  “I knew what he was like,” said Garland. “But he loved me, and I loved him. He was my world for a very long time. When he died, there was a hole in my heart, and there always will be.”

  “Despite what he did?” said Banks.

  “He was my father,” said Garland.

  “And there we have it. As she feels, so the people feel,” Lincoln said. “He was their father, and they loved him. When he was there, they felt safe. They had food, and warmth, and he kept their enemies away. Don’t you think they want him back?”

  “Back?” said Poppy. “Is that what this is about?”

  “Relax, he’s not coming back,” Lincoln said. “He’s ashes now. We tried to bring him back, remember, but he was too old and broken. We tried to make a new him, too, but that didn’t work. No, there’s only her,” and he gestured at Garland with the gun.

  “Oh my God,” said Poppy. “You’re not going to sell her to her enemies. You’re going to sell her to –”

  “To the fan club,” said Lincoln. “To the people who want her father back.”

  “What for?” asked Banks. “She’s not him. She says she’s not even like him.”

  “She can be, though,” said Lincoln. “Just a tweak here, a cut there. And she can be just like he was. Maybe a little more… malleable. I mean, I was surprised when she got out of the carriage I put her in. I thought she’d just lie there and cry. But people like spirit, don’t they? They like to have something to crush.”

  “No,” said Poppy. “You can’t do that to her.”

  “That’s wrong,” Banks said. “Even I think that.”

  “Why?” Lincoln said. “Her father did worse than I’m doing. He cut and shot hundreds of people. I’m just keeping the old family firm going.”

  “She doesn’t deserve that,” Banks said.

  “Stop me, then,” said Lincoln. Banks didn’t move. “Thought not,” said Lincoln. He picked up a weatherproof coat and threw it at Garland.

  “Put this on,” he said, waving the gun.

  “Where are we going?” Garland asked.

  Lincoln smiled.

  “Out,” he said.

  * * *

  Garland held the coat. It was too big for her and it smelt of diesel.

  “You don’t have to go with him,” said Poppy.

  “I don’t care,” Garland said. “I did what I came to do. I got here, and there was nothing.”

  “She’s right,” said Banks. “There never was anything, not for us. We’re just leftovers.”

  “Dregs,” Lincoln agreed. “Anyway, you are.”

  He shot Banks in the chest.

  * * *

  Banks grunted and fell to the ground. Lincoln watched him twitch, and then be still.

  “Like the man said, leftovers,” he said, cheerfully.

  “You killed him,” said Garland.

  “He’s been dead for years,” Lincoln replied. “Who’s next?”

  Garland suddenly saw that the remote control had reappeared in his free hand. Before she could move, Lincoln pressed it.

  Poppy screamed and convulsed.

  “Stop it!” Garland shouted. She ran at him and he hit her in the face with the gun. He walked up to Poppy.

  “You going to be good?” he asked.

  She gave him two fingers.

  “We’ll take those off first,” he said, and jabbed at the remote again. Poppy all but flew across the room, slamming against a bulkhead.

  “I’ll come back for the parts,” he told Garland. “Now get the fuck dressed.”

  * * *

  Shaking, Garland was about to put on the coat Banks had given her when she saw something on the floor.

  Poppy’s tunic.

  “I need to put this on too,” she said. “It’s cold.”

  “Just get a move on,” Lincoln said.

  * * *

  She picked up the tunic and put it on. Sliding a hand into the pocket, she felt something soft and almost laughed out loud. Teddy. She tried the other pocket, and this time her fingers found tissue paper. Tissue paper wrapped around something small and hard.

  “What are you doing?” Lincoln said.

  “I thought there might be some gloves in here,” Garland replied. It sounded ridiculous even to her.

  “Gloves? What the – get your hands out of there now.”

  Lincoln was pointing the gun right at her.

  “Slowly,�
�� he said.

  * * *

  She took her hand out of her pocket and held up the toy bear.

  “In the name of fuck,” said Lincoln. “Both hands.”

  Slowly, she removed her other hand, unrolling the tissue as she did so.

  In her palm were three vials.

  * * *

  “Oh,” said Lincoln. “So that’s your game, is it?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Except it’s not a game.”

  “Do you,” he said, stepping back a little, “do you even know what’s in those things?”

  “I know one of them will turn you in a heap of mush,” she said.

  “You’re wrong,” said Lincoln. “Won’t work on me.”

  Something in his voice contradicted his words.

  “Garland?” said Poppy.

  “Yes?” Garland replied.

  “Have you had your jab?” Poppy asked.

  For a moment, Garland was confused. Then she said, “No.”

  Poppy looked at her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Garland.

  Poppy turned to Lincoln. She was smiling.

  “How about you?” she asked. “Have you had your jab?”

  The look on his face told her the answer.

  “Touché,” said Lincoln. “But which vial will you smash?” he went on. “One of them is just water. And one of them is the antidote.”

  “What?” she said.

  “I didn’t tell Denning that,” said Lincoln. “I was going to, just to spice things up a little, but I never got the chance. So,” he continued, gesturing at her hand, “here’s your dilemma. You get one chance at this because I’m going to shoot the moment you throw anything. You can’t throw one vial, because you don’t know which is which. You can’t throw all three, because the antidote reacts with the air at the same time as the killer vial does, thereby rendering your actions useless. So you’re going to throw two, hoping that the laws of chance are on your side and one vial is fatal and one is water.”

  Garland put her hands together as if in supplication. She clapped them together.

  “Wrong,” she said.

  Broken glass fell from her hands as she ran at him. Before he could fire the gun, she crammed the bear in his mouth and closed his jaws down on it. With her free hand, she covered his nostrils.

  He tried to beat her with the gun, but she ignored the pain.

  “You were right,” she said. “I’ve got one chance.”