1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Express

by Ryohgo Narita

  I’d settled on the date and time for our meeting. Another letter finalized it.

  The other letter was also from an old acquaintance of mine in New York. I’d thought he and Maiza had been in touch, but apparently, this was an entirely different matter. It was a letter requesting the explosives that were a by-product of my research.

  This other alchemist seemed to be concealing himself in the Runorata Family, whatever that was.

  It was a windfall. Not only would I obtain a large sum of money, I’d be able to eat him right along with Maiza. Not only that, but if I ate Maiza, I’d acquire all the knowledge Szilard had accumulated as well.

  I imagined my wish coming true, and before I knew it, I was smiling.

  I’d settled on a train to transport the explosives.

  The Flying Pussyfoot. It was a unique train, operated by a corporation that was independent from the railway companies. A convenient train that smuggled liquor on the sly.

  I scraped together what money I had at the house and succeeded in having a large quantity of explosives loaded onto the train.

  The time had finally come to board. At the door, a conductor was checking the passenger list.

  I tried to slip by him, but the sharp-eyed conductor stopped me.

  “You’re riding by yourself? Would you tell me your name, please?”

  Having people pay attention to me for a variety of reasons is both an advantage and a disadvantage of my appearance. Consequently, I tried to behave in ways that maximized the advantages.

  As a matter of fact, the man I bumped into a moment ago didn’t make the slightest complaint. They were all so very easy.

  Being unable to register a false name, however, is inconvenient. Making my expression and tone as childlike as possible, I politely gave my real name:

  “—Czeslaw. My name is Czeslaw Meyer. Please call me Czes!”

  PROLOGUE VII

  THE WOMAN IN COVERALLS

  That day, Rachel had put on her coveralls and gotten ready for a long-distance trip.

  This time, the target was a special, privately managed train, the Flying Pussyfoot. It was traveling directly to New York’s Penn Station, so once she was aboard, there would be no danger of a check along the way. After that, it would just be a question of how to stay hidden from the conductor.

  In a word, she was a habitual ride-stealer. By now, she’d boarded more than a thousand trains without a ticket, and she’d gotten away with it every time.

  She didn’t feel a shred of guilt about this. After all, it was for work, and it was also revenge.

  She worked as a gofer for an information broker, and she made her living by collecting information from all over America and selling it to him.

  The president of the brokerage, who was located in New York City, paid his highest prices for “live information”—information that was communicated directly from the various cities. In addition, he preferred hearing tips in person rather than over the telephone. Apparently, this was because he could watch the other person’s eyes, which made it easier to determine whether they were lying. He was an odd fellow, but she didn’t dislike him. The offensively obsequious man at the reception desk was irritating, but she’d built friendships with everyone else. In the first place, it was weird that the brokerage was structured like an organization in spite of being an info dealer. It was probably only natural for its president to be a bit eccentric. That was what Rachel thought, and she’d continued to stay on good terms and do business with the company.

  The president of the brokerage routinely asked Rachel all sorts of questions. He’d make her answer unrelated questions about a particular city one after another; he said he was analyzing information that couldn’t be seen, as a rule. She didn’t really get it, but as long as he paid for the news, she didn’t care what he did.

  Rachel was constantly shuttling between various cities. No ordinary information brokerage would have gone that far. In fact, it was rare for one to want information from other cities at all.

  In the first place, under normal conditions, the train fare would be ridiculously expensive. If, on top of that, they didn’t get any good information, not only would they not make a profit, they’d go out of business immediately.

  However, at least with Rachel, this wasn’t a concern: All the trains she used to get around, she rode for free.

  “This is revenge.”

  That was what she’d once told the president of the information brokerage.

  Rachel’s father had worked as a maintenance technician for a certain railway company.

  It was an extremely common story. One day, a damaged component had caused an accident, and the company had pushed all the blame for the error onto Rachel’s father…even though the actual fault lay with the board of directors, who’d ignored the voices from the field that had requested new parts.

  Her father, who had told them that not changing the component would be dangerous, had been blamed for the mistake. How utterly ridiculous. Even if he’d wanted to take them to court, he hadn’t had proof, and his fellow technicians had kept their mouths shut, afraid of losing their jobs.

  It was a laughably common story in any era. Rachel had grown up seeing her father burdened with that agony.

  Loathing for one railway company had grown to include the railways themselves.

  However, it was also true that her father had loved trains more than anyone. She vacillated between the idea of someday getting revenge on the railway and respecting her father’s passion—and in the end, she’d chosen ride-stealing as her method of revenge. That way, she could damage the railway companies without harming the trains or the passengers. That said, she couldn’t do any substantial damage, and it was nothing more than an act of simple self-satisfaction. In fact, if you considered the risk she ran in breaking the law, it wasn’t self-satisfaction, it was sheer self-harm.

  Even so, in order to keep her own anger in check, she kept right on stealing rides. She might even have been trying to find a reason for living in ride-stealing.

  On hearing this, the president of the brokerage had smiled quietly and said, “That’s a good thing. Well then, once you’ve found it, you can begin buying tickets. Buy enough tickets to cover the rides you’ve stolen so far as well. Just imagine you’ve paid the money to your father instead of the railway companies.”

  Buy tickets for her father. Would that day ever come for her? As she swayed back and forth on trains, the thought was always on her mind.

  Today, all sorts of information had flown around Chicago. Stories of the trouble surrounding the Russo Family and the explosion at the factory outside town swept through the underbelly of society with the momentum of surging waves.

  When she’d reported these stories by telephone, the information broker had said he absolutely wanted to meet with her and hear the stories in person.

  The Flying Pussyfoot was scheduled to depart for New York that evening. It was a pleasure train built by some rich man. The type of train Rachel hated most.

  It wasn’t that she had no money. She simply refused to pay to ride. Today, in order to live out that warped conviction, she made for the station again.

  She checked the cars of the Flying Pussyfoot carefully, particularly the areas around the freight room. When Rachel was stealing rides, these were the cars she used most.

  However, at that point, she heard something unpleasant.

  An orchestra from somewhere or other was going to put a guard in the freight car. As she thought of ways to cope with that, she checked the connecting platforms: In a pinch, she could climb up onto the roof or down under the cars from there. The undersides of the cars on this train were built to be slightly more spacious than those on an ordinary one. Thinking, If it’s like this, I should be able to get underneath with no problem—something no normal person would think—Rachel gave a small sigh of relief.

  Just then, she encountered a strange man and woman in black. They were dressed like orchestra members, but they had
extremely sharp eyes, and no matter how you looked at them, they didn’t seem like respectable people. For the moment, Rachel opted to make herself scarce, but she felt the woman’s eyes boring into her back for a while afterward.

  I think I’ll steer clear of them.

  As she thought this, she waited for the departure bell. Once she’d seen the conductor board, she crept up to the train, staying in the station employees’ blind spot. Then, in a truly splendid motion, she leaped on board and crawled down under a connecting platform.

  And then the departure bell rang out.

  PROLOGUE VIII

  THE RAIL TRACER

  Late that night, in the conductors’ room, the young conductor and the older conductor were idly shooting the breeze.

  “Oh, you don’t know that one? The story about the Rail Tracer, the ‘one who follows the shadow of the rails’?”

  Of all ghost stories, this one was a particular favorite of the young conductor’s. This was because, although he was apparently no good at telling ghost stories, it managed to leave a terror with an unpleasant aftertaste, no matter who told it.

  When he’d tried it on Jon the bartender the other day, Jon had just said “Hogwash” and left it at that. What sort of reaction would he get out of the older man?

  “Well, it’s a real simple story, you see? It’s about this monster that chases trains under the cover of moonless nights.”

  “A monster?”

  “Right. It merges with the darkness and takes lots of different shapes, and little by little, it closes in on the train. It might be a wolf, or mist, or a train exactly like the one you’re on, or a big man with no eyes, or tens of thousands of eyeballs… Anyway, it looks like all sorts of things, and it chases after you on the rails.”

  “What happens if it catches up?”

  “That’s the thing: At first, nobody notices it’s caught up. Gradually, though, everybody realizes that something strange is going on.”

  “Why?”

  “People. They disappear. It starts at the back of the train, little by little, one by one… And finally, everybody’s gone, and then it’s like the train itself never existed.”

  When he’d heard that much, the old conductor asked a perfectly natural question:

  “Then how does the story get passed on?”

  The young conductor had been expecting this question, and he answered it without turning a hair:

  “Well, obviously, it’s because some trains have survived.”

  “How?”

  “Wait for it. I’m coming to that. See, there’s more to the story.”

  Looking as if he was having fun, he began to tell the crux of the story:

  “If you tell this story on a train, it comes. The Rail Tracer heads straight for that train!”

  The moment he said that, the other conductor’s expression shifted into disgust.

  Whoops. I might’ve sounded a little too cheerful there, he thought, but he couldn’t stop now.

  “But there’s a way to keep it from coming. Just one!”

  “Wait a second. It’s time.”

  Saying this, the older conductor lit the lamps that sent a signal to the engine room.

  And I was just getting to the good part, too…

  Fidgeting because he wanted to hurry and get on with the story, the young conductor watched the other man work with sharp, intense eyes.

  They spent enough money on this train. You’d think they could’ve set up a wireless between here and the engine room, the young conductor thought, but on seeing the lights that shone on either side of the car, he changed his mind. This train had been built with an emphasis on form and atmosphere, rather than function. To a bystander, even this practical signal probably served to illuminate the sculptured sides of the train. It was just the sort of gimmick you’d expect a nouveau riche company to come up with. And, since he was being employed by that nouveau riche company, there was no point in complaining. The young conductor smiled wryly, sighing over his position.

  Just then, the older conductor finished his task, and, beaming, the young conductor began to tell the rest of his story.

  “Uh, sorry. So, to be saved, you”

  “Oh, wait, hold on. Hearing the answer first would be boring, wouldn’t it? I know a similar story; why don’t I tell that one first?”

  That sounded intriguing. The young conductor was nuts about stories like these, so he was raring to hear the other man’s tale.

  “So we’ll trade ways to be saved at the end, right? Sure, that sounds like fun.”

  At those words, the older conductor looked at him, and his eyes were strange. Those eyes almost seemed to hold a mixture of scorn and pity. It did concern the younger conductor a bit, but hearing the new ghost story took priority.

  “Well, it’s a real common, simple story. It’s a story about Lemures… Ghosts who were so terrified of death that they became ghosts while they were still alive.”

  “Wha—? …Uh-huh…”

  “But the ghosts had a great leader. The leader tried to dye the things they feared with their own color, in order to bring them back to life. However, the United States of America was afraid of the dead coming back to life! And, would you believe it, the fools tried to shut the ghosts’ leader up inside a grave!”

  The content of the conversation didn’t really make sense to the less-experienced railman, but anger had gradually begun to fill the face and tone of the speaker. The young conductor felt something race down his spine.

  “Uh, um, mister?”

  “And so. The remaining ghosts had an idea. They thought they’d take more than a hundred people hostage—including a senator’s family—and demand the release of their leader. If the incident were made public, the country would never accept the terrorists’ demands. For that reason, the negotiations would be carried out in utter secrecy by a detached force. They wouldn’t be given time to make a calm decision. They’d only have until the train reached New York!”

  “A senator… You don’t mean Senator Beriam, do you? Wait, no, you can’t— Do you mean this train? Hey, what’s going on? Explain yourself!”

  Realizing that the bad feeling he’d gotten had been right on the mark, the young conductor slowly backed away from the older man.

  “Explain? But I am explaining, right now. To be honest, I never thought my cover of ‘conductor’ would prove useful at a time like this. In any case, when this train reaches New York, it will be transformed into a moving fortress for the Lemures! Afterward, using the hostages as a shield, we’ll take our leave somewhere along the transcontinental railroad. The police can’t possibly watch all the routes at once.”

  “Wh-who’s the leader?”

  Asking an awfully coolheaded question, the young conductor took another step backward. However, the train wasn’t very big, and at that point, his back bumped into the wall.

  “Our great Master Huey will be interviewed by the New York Department of Justice tomorrow. For that very reason, this train was chosen to become a sacrifice for our leader!”

  On hearing this, the young conductor asked his senior colleague a question. He was still oddly calm.

  He’d heard the word Lemures before. If he remembered right, the terrorist group whose leader had been arrested just the other day had called themselves the Lemures.

  “…Why are you telling me this?” he asked the older man.

  He’d thought he’d started to tell a simple scary story, but he’d stumbled into a terror that was far more real than any ghost tale.

  The middle-aged conductor, Goose’s subordinate, kept talking to the young conductor:

  “Master Huey is merciful. I merely emulate him. Knowing the reason for your death as you die: You’re very lucky.”

  Then, taking a gun from inside his coat, he wrapped up his story:

  “Now then, regarding the all-important method of salvation… ‘Everyone who heard this story died immediately. There wasn’t a single way to be saved’!”

  A
s his story ended, he took aim at the young conductor’s nose and fired.

  …But no bullet was fired.

  “Wha…?”

  A numbing pain ran through the middle-aged conductor’s hand. The finger that should have squeezed the trigger pulled vainly at empty space. The gun bounded up into the air, then fell right into the young conductor’s hand.

  In the instant the older man had pulled the trigger, the young conductor had kicked the gun up, moving only his leg. Because the old conductor hadn’t seen his upper body move at all, he had been entirely unable to predict the attack.

  Having acquired the handgun, the young conductor shoved its muzzle into the forehead of his senior—the terrorist.

  “Sure there’s a way to be saved—just kill them before they kill you.”

  The young man who stood there had a presence completely different from the person he’d been a moment before.

  The middle-aged conductor shuddered. It wasn’t because he was afraid of the gun; no, it was because of the eyes of the man who had it trained on him. They weren’t the eyes of the young man who’d been innocently telling ghost stories. They were eyes that swallowed everything—eyes that destroyed everything. Dark and deep, with a hard glitter to them.

  Their color seemed to hold a mixture of hatred and pity and scorn, and it was all turned on him. Black flames, shining fiercely, as if all the light were turned toward the inside of his eyeballs… That was what his eyes were like. Just what sort of life did someone have to live to end up with eyes like those?

  Even as the middle-aged conductor trembled at that thought, he realized they looked a lot like the eyes of his fanatical comrade, Chané.

  However, frankly, that didn’t matter one bit. Either way, if nothing changed, he was going to get killed. That alone was a fact he understood clearly.

  “Wa-wait, please wait, Claire.”

  “No.”

  With that, the young conductor—Claire Stanfield—began to squeeze the gun’s trigger.

  He depressed it slowly, as if enjoying the time before he dealt death.