“They mean business,” Mackenzie said, as the glass door thrummed with multiple impacts.
“I mean business,” Jimmy said as he swept open one side of his winter duster, revealing the last of his dynamite.
“No time for that,” Nathan said, sighting the advancing soldiers and then switching to the next door not ten feet away. Passengers could be seen beyond that as well, and they were very much aware of the approaching gun battle.
Nathan ran for the door.
The glass doors opened, dispensing with the illusion of sitting passengers, instead revealing a vertical plane of tar that shimmered like water.
Nathan plunged through it.
41
And rolled into an empty train car more akin to recollection and upbringing. He tumbled upon a dusty floor, and came up with his empty pistols aimed at, of all things… a bespectacled old man well on in his years.
The twin Colts aimed at his head no doubt shaved a few more years off him.
“Freeze!” Nathan growled through clenched teeth.
The old man huffed, puffed, and raised a pair of the scrawniest wrists Nathan might’ve ever seen. The old man continued to jerk and twitch, as if he were in dire need to take a breath or a piss, or both, and was on the verge of choosing one over the other.
“I said freeze!” Nathan repeated, knowing the old bastard would drop dead any second.
Except the old bastard did not.
With a determination that had to be commended, the old man buckled down on his spiking anxiety, and became as still as a tree. Wide-eyed and distressed, however, as if the tree realized there was a dozen sticks of dynamite strapped around its base.
Nathan heard the others coming into the car behind him, but he kept his sights upon the old man. He had a long beard, as long as Father Time himself, and rounded spectacles that were in need of cleaning. His facial hair was white, as was the poorly cut turf topping off his head. The uniform he wore was blue, with black stripes up the pants’ legs. Suspenders held them up, going over the shoulders of a white shirt greatly stained yellow around the armpits.
The old man’s clothes looked two sizes too large for him, as if he’d lost perhaps fifty pounds at least, and he quivered like a Sunday evening dinner bell just struck.
All got quiet then, except for the hard breathing of the gang. The sounds of reloading commenced, as the men scrambled to make use of the time they had and the ammunition they carried. At one point, Eli tossed one of his emptied bandoliers onto the floor, where it landed with a whip’s crack.
The sound made the old codger jump.
“Well, look at this,” Mackenzie said.
So Nathan did.
They stood in a mail car, and three oil lamps supplied the only light. With several discarded mail bags in one corner, and a solid wall of shelving units containing a rat’s nest of paper and twine within. More paper and twine littered the floor around the units. A significantly sized safe was also against the wall, opposite the loading door—shut and barred. Next to that was a clerk’s desk with a load of paper, quills, and ink wells upon its surface. Dust and that familiar pungent smell of unwashed flesh wrinkled Nathan’s nose, and it originated from the old clerk.
“Sacred Heart of Mary,” Jimmy said, lifting a wrist to his face. “You taking shits in here or what?”
The old man blinked, then flicked his bespectacled gaze to Nathan.
“Answer the man,” Nathan ordered, distracted by the sight of the safe.
“I move my bowels over there,” the man answered with a forced display of indignance by lifting his chin. “I have the necessary facilities inside this car.”
Nathan saw the half-opened door of an onboard shitter.
“You have paper for wiping your ass, old man?” Eli asked as he thumbed shells into his Winchester.
“I … do not.”
“Any rags? A corncob, even?”
A reluctant pause. “No.”
“Figures.”
The gang relaxed, realizing that no one was pursuing them through the closed door at their backs, which was no longer black glass, but the familiar design of a regular train.
“This the mail car?” Nathan asked as he climbed to his feet.
The old man didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Nathan holstered one gun and went about reloading the other. “Don’t get any ideas,” he said. “If I don’t shoot you, one of my partners will.”
The old man didn’t say a word.
“What’s your name?” Mackenzie asked, coming forward.
The clerk watched him.
“What’s your name?” Mack repeated.
The hairy jaw quivered again, debating on a reply it seemed, when he finally said, “Festus.”
“Festus?”
Festus nodded.
“All right then, Festus,” Mackenzie went on. “This is the mail car, right? And that’s the safe?”
“It is.”
“Can you open it for us?”
“Are you…”
“Gonna rob you?” Mackenzie finished. He glanced at his companions scattered around the car. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
Festus shook his head. “Are you… from my time?”
That silenced Mackenzie.
“We are,” Jimmy answered.
Festus lowed his hands, and his trembling increased, as if he’d just suffered a heart attack. Or was shot in the back. He cleared his throat and shook his head as if coming awake from a dream.
“Sweet Lord Almighty,” he whispered and clamped his lips shut, and Nathan knew, just knew, that old Festus was just about to cut loose with a downpour of tears.
“You’re from my time,” Festus trembled. “My world. Oh my Lord. My sweet, sweet Lord. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’d given up. Given up for so long. So damn long.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said, distracted by the emotional display. “You just… take it easy old-timer. Catch your breath.”
“Oh.” Festus released and pulled a yellowed hanky from his pocket. The sight of that colored cloth caused Nathan to grimace as the old clerk buried his face in it and drew a mighty breath in through the material.
Gilbert and Eli, aware of the clerk, moved to the safe all the same. Gilbert dropped the half-dozen or so fancy handbags he’d grabbed from the lady passengers of the last car, as did Jimmy. The safe however, that was the prize.
The secondary prize, seeing they weren’t on the train they wanted, but the damned 311.
“You can open this safe, old timer?” Eli asked, studying the five-by-five black bulk tucked against the wall.
Festus didn’t appear to hear, however, as he continued to blubber away in his filthy handkerchief. Nathan met Eli’s gaze, then Gilbert’s. Jimmy walked over and inspected the safe. His brow furrowed as he noticed it wasn’t locked. He reached for the lever and pulled the door open with a low whine from a hinge.
Wads of paper notes slid free of the safe’s interior, revealing bundles of cash still inside.
“Oh my,” Eli whispered, while Gilbert took on that familiar look of crazy prospector who just discovered gold.
Mackenzie grabbed up mail bags from the shelf and tossed them at the two men. They dropped to their knees and began stuffing away notes.
“Dominion of Canada.” Gilbert smiled at Eli, then Nathan. “God save the Queen.”
The rush of activity caused Festus to lower his moist handkerchief. He adjusted his glasses and watched the men pack away the safe’s riches.
“How much is in there?” Nathan asked.
The question surprised the old man and it took him a moment to reply. “Hundred and thirty-five. Thousand. In bills. There’s a bag of change in there as well. Quarters. Silver dollars. A hundred and twenty dollars worth total.”
“Leave that,” Eli said.
“I ain’t leaving that!” Gilbert barked. “That’s more‘n a few royal evenings back in town.”
“You can carry it then.”
Gilbert stoppe
d for only a split second before hauling out the coin bags and inspecting their strings.
“Not what we were looking for,” Mackenzie said to Jimmy and Nathan. “But better than what I was expecting.”
“After everything we’ve been through?” Jimmy countered.
Mackenzie acknowledged that with a shrug.
Nathan continued to watch Festus, and soon enough, Mackenzie joined him.
“How you doing, old-timer?” Mackenzie asked.
Festus’s red eyes glared out from behind his dirty glasses, but he didn’t answer.
“Don’t worry,” Mackenzie said. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Hurt me?”
“That’s right.”
“About what? That?” Festus gestured the safe and its contents. “I don’t care about that shit. Take it. Take every damn nickel for all I care. I just…” he shook his head. “I’m just so glad to see you. I’d given up… after so long.”
Mackenzie frowned. “How long you been here?”
“Me?” Festus stared. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Not after what we’ve seen,” Jimmy Norquay said, placing Shorty’s shotgun against one shoulder.
That actually sobered the old clerk. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you know. But, tell me, how did you get here? I don’t remember you.”
“We climbed on,” Mackenzie said. “While the train was going up a grade. Charging up a grade, really, but we got on her all the same. We were looking for another train, mind you. Boarded this one by accident… and daresay we got the surprise of our lives.”
“One surprise after the other,” Nathan added.
“Right after the other,” Mackenzie carried on. “Found out we were on the 311 from a man called Archie.”
“Archie?” The name lit up Festus’s hairy features. “You met Archie? He’s still alive?”
That quieted the men.
“Not anymore,” Jimmy reported. “He died.”
“Oh, you didn’t shoot him, did you?” Festus moaned.
“No, not us,” Mackenzie said. “But he passed on all the same. Not before he told us we were on the 311.”
Festus took a moment, looked around as if in a daze, and pointed at a chair tucked in behind a desk.
“Go ahead,” Nathan told him.
The old clerk pulled the chair out and plopped down. “Archie was a good man. Pleasant as a… as a sunny day. He was my friend.”
Nathan could believe that, despite the fact that the Englishman had somehow become a part of a sea serpent, as goddamn crazy as that sounded.
“Poor old Archie,” Festus muttered.
In the background, Eli and Gilbert continued to push fistfuls of cash into mailbags. Jimmy watched them for a moment, before turning his attention back on the two doors leading into the car. Nathan noticed that the mail car had windows, but they were bolted shut.
“But he’s the lucky one,” Festus finally declared in a rattled tone. “God above, yes. He’s the lucky one.”
Nathan didn’t have the mind or will to debate that.
“Don’t worry,” Festus said to Jimmy, noticing him watching the doors. “They’re shut. Nothing is coming through them once they’re shut. Opening them is another matter, but I’m sure… you know about that.”
That got their attention.
“What’s going on here?” Mackenzie asked quietly. “It’s damn obvious this is one weird train.”
Festus barked a laugh. “You said it, sir. You said it.”
“We’ve seen things,” Nathan heard himself say.
“Oh, I imagine you have,” Festus took up. “I imagine you have. Incredible things. Horrible things, and things that defy all logic. All belief. And all common sense. I know. I know all too well. I’ve been on this train for…”
He stopped, a look of fear on his face.
“How long?” Nathan pressed.
Festus gazed at him. “I… eventually measured days by sleep. Counting them as days. I had no other way of gauging a day as, some days, the morning never seemed to end. Worse still, there were times when the night just went on and on. And those were the worst, even though the lamps never diminished. Never had to fill them once. Not after it all happened.”
“How long?” Nathan said, getting annoyed at not getting a straight answer.
Festus paused, then gave it up. “A hundred and twenty. Years. Five months. And fifteen days, today. By my reckoning.”
That quieted them all. Even Eli and Gilbert’s efforts slowed to a stop. The train, however, continued to roll on.
Chumpchumpchumpchump…
“Bullshit,” Eli swore, looking at the old clerk as if a horse had clocked him upside the head with both rear hooves.
“It is not…” Festus shot back. “Bull chips. I assure you. I’ve been here long enough. To know.” He ended with a glare at Nathan. “I know how long I’ve been here.”
Mackenzie was shaking his head. “But this train has only been missing ten years or so. Give or take a year.”
“What?” Festus asked.
“Ten years,” Mackenzie continued. “I forget the exact time now, but it sure as hell hasn’t been over a hundred.”
“Ten years?” Festus asked.
“If that.”
That caused the clerk to grip the arms of his chair, as if trying to keep a hold of reality. He then pulled out a drawer from the desk, making Nathan reach for a Colt. Festus ignored his caution and extracted a picture from within. He turned the frame around, showing a black and white photograph. There was a collection of men, in the company uniforms of the railway, standing before the 311, perhaps before she took her first journey across the great plains. They were smart-looking, standing ramrod straight in front of the train, with fists on their hips or holding onto their hats.
“See him here?” Festus tapped a pudgy figure.
“Holy Christ,” Mackenzie whispered.
Nathan recognized the man at once, when he was obviously still a man. “Archie Willmoore.”
The conductor who had become part of a sea serpent, and who had died along with it. He was younger then, but there was no mistaking the man. The hair only beginning to thin, the scar still above his right eyebrow.
“Yes,” Festus said. “That’s him. Now see here. This is me.”
Not a man spoke afterwards.
Because right beside the proud conductor stood a much younger man, no older than twenty-one if that. With a head of light hair and the smile of someone who had found his purpose in life and was supremely happy because of it.
That young man was, of course, the mail clerk before them.
“That ain’t you,” Eli scoffed.
“That is me, I tell you,” Festus shot back. “That’s me. I don’t mind if you don’t believe me because I know what’s what. If you’re here, you should know what’s what, too. Everything happens on this train. Everything and… and more. The train ain’t right, and then it’s everything right. It’s haunted, and it’s not haunted. It’s even beyond haunted, at times. And, try as I might, I can’t explain it any more than that.”
“Festus,” Mackenzie said, keeping a level head. “Why is the train like this?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
Festus sighed. “I don’t know. I figure… the closest I can figure, is when we went into that first tunnel. That’s when everything went bad. Everything went dark. Just like the sun going down. Except it never did go down. And it never did come back up. It stayed dark. And, as the Lord above is my witness, that was probably the worst of it. That… eternal dark. That tunnel that just went on and on. You won’t believe it… but it stayed dark for almost a year. A year. Not that it mattered. People… the passengers… became anxious after ten minutes. Most were insane by the end of the day. Then… things got worse.”
If Nathan had been unnerved by the train before, he was positively chilled to the marrow now, and even more aware of the ghostly pulse of the great machine.
“
Why?” Mackenzie quietly asked.
Festus focused on him. “Because we couldn’t stop the train. Riley was the engineer. The best of his time. He couldn’t stop the engine, no matter how hard he tried. He applied the brakes but that only generated this fearsome… spectacle of sparks. The train wouldn’t brake and, in fact, only sped up. The light at the front shone only a great empty void on ahead, and the rails she—we rode. The only connection we had with reality. When the ground disappeared…”
Nathan swallowed at that point, knowing the feeling.
“Well, people truly became disorderly. We couldn’t control them. Couldn’t settle them down. It was mutiny. Windows were opened. Doors. The screaming. Oh the screaming. Women, children, and men. I’m not too proud to admit I howled at times, when my despair sought to rob me completely of my senses. I screamed. And that was only the first day, I’ll have you know.”
Eli Gallant lowered his head, his fists clenched tight around his Winchester. Money bags lay at his feet.
“The ground eventually returned, mind you. Which was welcomed at first, but then people tried to get off. Not only the people, but the company hands as well, you understand. They tried to get off the train. Some jumped, into that flashing dark, never to be seen again. Whole families. Mothers and fathers holding children. Man and wife holding hands. Stepping off the train where they could and disappearing into the dark as quick as a wink.”
At that, Festus snapped up a fist.
“Some even tried… going to the caboose and hanging a rope from it. That was most disturbing. Most disturbing. As the line hit the rail bed… it suddenly came off the ground, and went tight. No one could pull it back in. No one. It was as if it was towing another car entirely. It eventually snapped. No one tried jumping off the train after that, but we’d lost a quarter of our passengers already by then. Then… it only got worse.”
Nathan fidgeted from one boot to the other, glancing around. Only Jimmy and Mackenzie were keeping their faces neutral. Eli was scowling, as if hearing a story not to his liking in the least. Gilbert stood slack-jawed, holding his rifle in one hand.
The Majestic 311 Page 31
