Then Nice looked up, and her gaze fixed there.
“Say, Jacuzzi…?”
When Nice tapped his shoulder and he turned, she was staring up at the ceiling.
As if her eyes had drawn his, Jacuzzi looked up, too, and gulped.
The only things there were simple bloodstains. Compared to the horrible scene on the floor, they were nothing.
The problem was, what would have had to be done in order to get such a huge number of bloodstains onto the ceiling?
There was a massive spray of blood on the ceiling. However, it didn’t seem as if it could possibly have spurted up from the corpse below.
Jacuzzi was crying, but he wasn’t afraid of the Rail Tracer anymore. Still, he had to be even warier than before about what sort of monster they were dealing with.
That wasn’t the only abnormal thing about the room.
There was a door on the opposite side of the corridor, a big cargo opening used for loading freight from the outside while the train was stopped. It was a sliding door, and it stood half open. The scenery they could see through it was steeped in darkness, and it looked as though a big pit yawned in the wall.
The train seemed to be traveling through a wood at the moment, and the faint moonlight cast an eerie illumination over the passing trees. They seemed almost like the arms of someone beckoning from the hole.
Even stranger were the footprints on the floor.
The blood hadn’t covered the entire floor; there were places where its original color was still visible. However, those places were dotted with red, shoe-shaped footprints.
When he saw them, Jacuzzi thought that Ladd’s group must have come in and walked around. However, that idea was disproved almost immediately.
The footprints clearly indicated their destination.
After walking here and there around the room, the owner of the footprints had walked away from the scene with no hesitation whatsoever.
…Through the door in the wall that opened onto darkness.
Having emptied his stomach of all its contents, Nick finally regained his composure.
Then, just as he was turning back to Jacuzzi’s group, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something odd. He felt as if there was something beyond the door at the very front of the corridor, the one that led to the connecting platform. Something bright red.
“Hey, guys. C’mere a second.”
Nick’s voice was tense. On seeing his expression, Jacuzzi and the others realized that something was up.
Cautiously, they came into the corridor. Nick spoke; he’d broken out in a cold sweat.
“There’s something on the forward platform.”
Just then, an eerie feeling settled over the group. They could feel an intense gaze from the connecting platform Nick had just mentioned.
“Jacuzzi, let’s all turn that way on three. One, two……three!”
Except for Jack, who was slung over Donny’s shoulder, everyone’s eyes turned to the forward connecting platform.
And they saw it. Unfortunately, they saw it.
A red shape, sliding away to the side of the platform.
The thing had gone sideways, and this put it in their blind spot. It had moved quickly, so they hadn’t been able to make out its form, but something red had most definitely been there.
Cautiously, Jacuzzi and the others made their way over to the platform, but already there was nothing to see.
The next carriage held a row of third-class passenger compartments. They couldn’t see a red shadow in there, either.
“It might have climbed up onto the roof.”
Jacuzzi’s group looked at each other and nodded, then climbed up after it.
“Donny, you can’t do it carrying Jack, so you go through the corridor. Keep a real careful eye out for black suits.”
“Roger. I handle it.”
Donny nodded firmly, then made his way down the corridor; Jack was still slung over his shoulder.
“Okay, Donny. Wait for us at the next connector.”
Jacuzzi told him this from up on the roof, then began making his way through the ferocious wind pressure with Nice and Nick.
What on earth had that gunfire a minute ago been about?
Isaac and Miria were carefully making their way along the train’s long hallway.
The third-class carriage, the only one in this long train: The moment they opened the door to enter that car, a huge shadow blocked their way.
It was a big, brown-skinned man more than six feet tall, carrying a bloody man over his shoulder.
Donny was moving through the corridor of the third-class carriage. At this point, nothing was happening, but he really couldn’t let his guard down.
Just as he reached the door that led to the car in front, it suddenly opened.
Through the door appeared a man who looked like a gunman and a woman who looked like a dancer.
The woman’s clothes were a brilliant red, as if they’d been dyed with blood.
The couple and the man looked at each other. An awkward silence ensued.
“……Excuse us.”
Slowly, Isaac closed the door.
“Wh-wh-wh…What was that man?! C-c-c-could that have been the Rail Tracer?!”
“Eeeeeeeeek! We’re gonna get erased!”
“Uwaaah, those red clothes, that woman, was she maybe, the Rail Tracer?”
Leaning against both sides of the door, the two groups broke out into simultaneous cold sweats.
Each heard the other’s voices, and silence fell again. Only the wind and the noise of the train rattled the door of the car.
Before long, having made up his mind, Isaac timidly spoke to him:
“Erm… Hello?”
“Please answer us!”
“Aah.”
After Miria chimed in, they heard a low voice. From the way it sounded, it had to be the voice of the big man.
“Um, are you the Rail Tracer? …Uh, sir?”
“You’re a monster! ……No, I mean, are you a monster, mister?”
“Mrk, woman over there not Rail Tracer?”
Silence again.
“Hey, Miria. Are you the Rail Tracer?”
“No, I don’t think so! Probably not!”
“All right, I believe you! …For which reason, mister, that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
“Yaaay, Isaac believed me!”
“Aah, I see. That good.”
They heard a relieved sigh from beyond the door.
“By the way, you aren’t the Rail Tracer, then?”
“You’re not?”
“Aah, no.”
“Then who’s the person on your shoulder?”
“Are you going to eat him?”
“Guah, this guy my friend. He hurt, we save, I carrying.”
At that, Isaac and Miria rattled the door open, and their tones changed just as drastically.
“Oh, is that all! So you aren’t a monster! And here I went and acted all respectful! Sorry about that, guy!”
“Yes, so you weren’t a monster!”
“On the contrary, you’re a good guy who looks out for his friends!”
“Aah, what you two?”
Donny finally seemed to have let his guard down as well: He questioned the two, a little shyly.
“Me and Miria? Ho-hoh, we pretend to be nothing more than a gunman and Miria, but we’re actually—you guessed it—Isaac and Miria!”
“Isaac, you’re so cool!”
“Muh, mu-muah?”
Confusion was born inside Donny’s head.
“Uh, what you two doing?”
“We’re looking for a friend of ours.”
“’Cos, you see, we have to find that friend before he gets eaten by the Rail Tracer!”
On hearing this, Donny was convinced that these two weren’t enemies. At the same time, he realized that the story of the Rail Tracer was more widespread on this train than he’d thought.
Donny didn’t know t
hat the two in front of him were the culprits behind the the Rail Tracer commotion. In addition, he didn’t have the slightest inkling that the “friend” the couple was looking for was his own boss.
“Aah, I see, you two, good guys.”
At that, conversely, Isaac’s face clouded.
“Good guys, hmm? That’s a huge misunderstanding. Still, someday, I’d like to be called that.”
“So we’ll do more good things! It doesn’t matter if nobody acknowledges us until we’re dead! We’ll do good things forever and ever, until we’re satisfied! We’ll do bad things, too, but we’ll do even more good things!”
“Mwuh?”
At the sight of Miria’s smile, which seemed to contrast with Isaac, Donny felt embarrassed for no reason. He didn’t understand what Isaac and Miria were saying, but in his heart, Donny was convinced that they really were “good guys.”
“Aah, I see. Well, hope you find friend.”
“Yeah, thanks! I hope the fella on your shoulder feels better soon!”
“Yes, ‘pain, pain, go away!’”
With that, Isaac and Miria started for the rear cars.
“Muah, white-suit guys, dangerous guys. If you go near, bad.”
When he bellowed at their receding backs, urging caution, they yelled back, “Thanks!” “Yes, thank you!” and waved.
Donny waved back, watching the pair go, then went out onto the connecting platform and waited quietly for Jacuzzi and the others to arrive.
At the same time, separated by a single door from the corridor where Donny, Isaac, and Miria were
“Hey, did you just hear voices out there?”
A guy in a white suit—one of Ladd’s men—spoke.
One of the third-class passenger compartments. Inside, the slaughter game had already reached its end.
There were five figures in the room. Three of them were on the floor, one was crouched in front of them, and the last one was standing beside the door.
As the crouching figure looked down at the three perfectly still shapes, it was emitting crazed, derisive laughter.
The moving figures were white suits.
The figures that were no longer moving were black suits.
“Hey, are you listening to me?”
“Hee-hya, hee-hya-hya-hya-hya-hya-haaaa-ha-hya-ha-heeee-hya—hya—hya—!”
“C’mon, gimme a break. You and Ladd are fine as long as you get to kill, but for me, it’s money. I want to make sure we get that money, so get it together, will ya…?”
“Hya-hya-hee-ah-hah! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha!”
Having finished off three black suits, these two were taking a breather in Room Three. Either that, or they might have been enjoying the lingering sensations of the kill.
Giving up on calling to his partner, who kept right on laughing, with no help for it, he put his ear close to the door by himself.
“Hya-ha-ha-hee-hya-hya! Hee-oh-ah-haaah!”
He thought he heard a man’s voice, followed by a woman’s cheerful voice…
“Hee-hee! Hee! hee! Hee-hya! Ha-ooh-heh-ooh-ah-hee-hee! Hya!”
“Hey, shut up a minute!”
Without turning around, he barked at his companion, who was laughing like a lunatic.
“Hee-hya-hya! Ha-ooh-ha! Hayee.”
Abruptly, the laughter stopped.
He finally calmed down, huh?
Without paying any particular attention to that, the white suit focused his hearing on the voices beyond the door.
The man and woman’s voices were receding. Apparently they were headed for the rear cars.
“Hey, let’s go.”
He had a hand on the doorknob, but his companion didn’t respond.
“Hey?!”
He turned around and was struck dumb.
His friend wasn’t there.
Although it certainly wasn’t small, the design of the third-class compartment was startlingly bleak, and there were no places where people could hide.
“Hey! Where are you? Where’d you go?”
He looked for his partner, but there was no answer, and he saw nothing.
…Only…the wide-open window really concerned him. He was pretty sure that window hadn’t been open a moment ago.
The window was pointlessly big. A lone person would probably fit through it easily.
“C’mon, now… Don’t tell me he fell out.”
Nervously, the white-suited man started toward the window.
He had to lift his leg high in order to step over the black suits’ corpses, and in that moment…
…“it” appeared in the window.
Splitting the darkness, a deep red shadow touched down in the room.
A very brief time passed, and
—all the figures had vanished—or more precisely, had been erased from the room.
Men in white and men in black. Everyone equally.
“Sorry we’re late, Donny. Walking on the roof is pretty hard. At first, we were practically crawling.”
Jacuzzi and the others climbed down from above the connecting platform.
“Aah, Jacuzzi, you okay?”
Jacuzzi answered the brown-skinned giant’s question clearly:
“Yeah, there was nobody up on the roof. No Rail Tracer, either. All we had was moonlight, so we weren’t quite sure, but we didn’t see a red shadow anywhere.”
“Aaah!”
“Eeek! What’s the matter, Isaac?!”
Isaac gave a little scream, and Miria clung to him, anxiously.
“We overlooked something important!”
“Wh-what?”
Looking solemn, Isaac spoke gravely:
“We forgot to buy the souvenir for Ennis…”
Silence. For the space of a breath, Miria looked down. Then she raised her head and spoke:
“Wh-wh-wh-what’ll we do? We can’t meet Ennis empty-handed! I’d hate it! We mustn’t!”
Miria’s eyes were damp, and Isaac immediately consoled her:
“Don’t cry, Miria. I’ve got a good idea.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s buy a souvenir in New York. They say everyone’s happy to get souvenirs from New York, no matter where they live.”
On hearing this, Miria’s face lit up.
“You’re right! Isaac, you’re so smart! That’s wonderful!”
“It is, hmm? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
As he laughed, they reached the entrance to the second of the three freight cars.
When they’d discovered the pool of blood and the corpse in the first freight room, as you’d expect, they’d panicked, but the moment they’d seen that it wasn’t Jacuzzi, they’d regained their composure.
Isaac had crossed himself, then clapped his hands together, beginning to pray.
Miria had mimicked him, and they’d prayed for the dead in the style of contrasting religions.
They weren’t terribly disturbed when confronted with that horrible corpse. It was as if they were used to seeing them. Even so, they prayed earnestly for the repose of the dead. When they’d finished, Isaac and Miria left the room as though nothing had happened.
After that, they’d enthusiastically engaged in the sort of out-of-place conversation they’d been having a moment ago, and before they knew it, they’d reached the connecting platform.
The entrance to the second freight car’s corridor. When Isaac slowly opened the connector door, he didn’t see anyone inside.
Relaxing, he began to go in, and in that instant—
—the sharp report of a gunshot echoed through the car.
“!”
Immediately, Isaac and Miria ducked, then hastily shut the door to the platform.
“Wh-wh-wh-what was that?”
“S-s-s-scary!”
When they peeked in through the window in the door, they saw people in the center of the corridor, leaving the freight room. There were three of them; they all wore white, and one of them sported a mottled red pattern on his clothes. The mottled man held a
smoking rifle in his hands.
As Isaac watched their movements tensely, the three began walking toward them.
“Not good, Miria. Let’s hide.”
“Yes, like the Secret Service!”
The two of them hastily went back to the first freight car, flattened themselves beside the door, and held their breath.
…Held their breath and blabbed away.
“Listen, Miria… Those people must be the ‘dangerous guys’ the big fella mentioned a minute ago.”
“Eeeeek!”
“Don’t worry, Miria. They don’t stand a chance against my trillion guns.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Miria, have I ever stood by and watched you die?”
“No! Not even once! ’Cos, I mean, I’m still alive!”
“You see? And so, well, leave it to me!”
“Okay!”
This time, the two did silence their voices. They focused their attention on the situation beyond the door.
Before long, they heard the sound of a door opening outside. It was probably the door to the second freight car. The distance from there to the door beside Isaac and Miria wasn’t even two yards. Voices—and footsteps—were coming closer.
“Why’d you kill him, Ladd? That would’ve been a pretty good deal.”
“Mm, yeah. But did you see the guy’s eyes? He had this look on his face that said, ‘I’m not gonna get killed.’ He was sure we wouldn’t kill him! He was making a monkey of the great Ladd Russo, see? It was sort of, y’know, frankly, he made me sick, so I shot him up.”
“Yeah, but, c’mon…”
“I don’t like it, though. Even right when I blew his head off, he looked cool as a cucumber… What the hell was that about?”
The voices stopped in front of the door. The door showed no sign of opening.
Then the voices gradually receded, moving upward.
What in the—?
When, after a short while, Isaac peeked through the window in the door, there was absolutely no one in sight.
“There’s nobody there…”
“It’s a locked-room disappearance!”
1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local Page 12
