1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local

by Ryohgo Narita

  Cautiously, careful not to raise her body any higher, Nice looked behind her.

  Then her single eye widened in shock.

  Reflecting the moonlight as it did, that white suit displayed an astonishingly strong presence against the darkness.

  A clunky rifle was gripped at the end of white sleeves.

  The next instant, the white suit—Ladd Russo—began to yell in a voice that pierced through the din of the train.

  “Heeeeeeey, aintcha cold out here in that dress?”

  Without paying the least attention to Nice and Nick, he continued to taunt the distant black dress.

  “You guys are dressed like an orchestra because you’re going to perform for me, right? You’re going to give a pale, sad, sweet performance for me, all for me, right? Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!”

  One would have thought Chané could have attacked while he was talking, but although Ladd’s rifle was moving around and around, he always kept its sight lined up with her chest.

  “I was just thinking how boring it was now that the first movement was over, and then you climbed all the way up to the roof for me! How should I express my joy? You came just to perform an ensemble of moving, hilarious screams for me! Is this love? Is it really love?! Unfortunately, I’ve already got a fiancée, but I must respond to that love! When I ‘love,’ well, it means I kill.”

  Abruptly falling still, he began to channel force into the trigger.

  “I love you—! So die.”

  With a completely warped whisper of love, he slowly squeezed the trigger.

  A gunshot.

  Then a ringing metallic sound.

  “Whuuuh?”

  Wreathed in rifle smoke, Ladd gave a truly dumb cry.

  That instant had been burned into Nice’s eye. Just before the shot, the woman had turned aside, intending to avoid the bullet by spinning. Then, by sheer coincidence, the bullet had connected directly with the blade of the knife she held. Everything up until then had been mere coincidence, but what had astonished Nice was what came next.

  The woman didn’t drop the knife. She didn’t even stagger.

  When a bullet hits a knife, the impact is considerable. The strength of the impact depended on exactly how it had struck, but as Chané leveled her knife again, she wore an expression as if absolutely nothing had happened.

  “Hey, whoa, are you kidding me? Hey, are you kidding me?! You deflected my bullet, you bitch! You sent back the damn bullet!”

  Apparently, on seeing Chané unscathed, Ladd had gotten the idea that she’d intentionally repelled the bullet. As if he was a kid who’d been taken to the movies for the very first time, his eyes sparkled, and he started to frolic.

  “What the hell are you, hey?! That’s nuts! That’s completely insane! Even Tarzan doesn’t do stuff like that! I thought you were a dame, but are you maybe Popeye, jumped up on spinach?”

  Praising Chané while comparing her to cartoon heroes, Ladd kept stomping his feet.

  Chané showed absolutely no emotion about this. Her body twisted slightly.

  At the same time, Ladd raised his foot high.

  The next instant, the knife flew from Chané’s hand, and a silver flash headed straight for Ladd’s throat.

  “Hiyaaah!”

  With a spirited cry, Ladd stomped his raised leg down.

  As if it had been sucked into the path of the arc drawn by that leg, the silver flash abruptly disappeared.

  At that point, for the first time, a change appeared in Chané’s expression.

  Her eyebrows came together slightly, and her lips seemed to tense a little.

  With moonlight all they had to see by, it was hard to imagine that he’d noticed her expression change, but Ladd happily picked up the knife that was under his foot.

  “Haa-ha-ha-ha-hyaa-ha-ha-ha-eee-hya-hya-hya! Payback time, payback, payback, you loser! How does it feel to have your precious knife ground under my foot? Is it humiliating? Frustrating? Do you want to die? Even if you don’t want to die, I’m gonna kill you anyway, hee-hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  “He did that on purpose… What a monster.”

  Nick felt sweat break out on his back. He also fought with a knife, but to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t been able to follow that throw with his eyes. The knife had been traveling at incredible speed, and this lunatic Ladd had stomped it down by force with a heel drop.

  Unlike Chané, who had deflected the bullet by accident, Ladd’s result had been completely intentional.

  The hyper guy was waving the knife around, seemingly entertained, but Chané regained her composure and reached behind her back.

  “Ha-ha-ha… Huh?”

  Ladd’s laugh stopped dead. Chané’s hands had emerged from behind her back, and each held a knife that was bigger than the earlier one.

  “Are you kidding me?! Hey, c’mon, you’ve gotta be kidding me, whoa!”

  Ladd turned on his heel and, holding his rifle under his arm, ran away at full speed.

  He ran across the jostling roof in a truly rhythmic manner, leaping easily across the couplings with no hesitation whatsoever. As he made for the rear of the train, he looked as if he was truly having fun.

  Chané also launched herself into a run, pursuing him across the roof.

  Her knives weren’t meant for throwing, so she didn’t send them after Ladd’s fleeing back. With a weighty knife dangling from each hand, she ran over the panels, keeping her stance astonishingly low.

  As she sprinted through the darkness, she looked just like a torpedo closing in on its prey.

  Passing right by Nice and Nick, who were lying down, Chané ran straight after Ladd. Before long, the train’s smoke and the dark of night got in the way, and both figures completely disappeared from view.

  Even so, Nice and Nick didn’t move. In the instant the woman in the black dress had passed them, they’d been struck by the illusion that death itself had become a solid mass and was rushing at them. As Nice gripped one of the bombs from her inner pocket, she felt her sweaty palm rendering the powder unusable.

  That woman and Ladd… Were either of them actually human?

  If those were humans, then what sort of thing was the Rail Tracer, the being people called a monster?

  As Nice clenched her fists, she was picturing a tattooed, crying face the whole time.

  Then, when she raised her head, making up her mind to go forward—

  —she saw a man’s sly face and the muzzle of an abnormally long-barreled sniper rifle.

  “You look like you crawled a good long ways, but…”

  Only the upper body of the man in black—Spike—was leaning out onto the roof from the coupling. Grinning, he spoke to Nice:

  “Think you could put your hands up and come down here for me? Good job on making the long trip over. ”

  “What do you suppose this means, Miria?”

  “It’s a mystery!”

  “Do you think the monster got them?”

  “Yes, it’s horror!”

  Confronted with the two conductors’ corpses sinking in a pool of blood, Isaac took in the condition of the room quite calmly.

  Miria was responding the way she always did, but she stood back-to-back with Isaac, and she wasn’t looking at the bodies.

  “Where do you suppose Jacuzzi went?”

  “What’ll we do? He might’ve been eaten already…”

  Unusually, Miria’s voice was subdued. As if determined not to let her cry, Isaac spoke loudly in the most cheerful voice possible:

  “Don’t think things like that! It’s fine! Don’t worry! If his body isn’t here, it means, you know, he was swallowed whole! That means he’s still alive in the monster’s belly!”

  “But, but, we don’t know where the guy that ate Jacuzzi is.”

  “Don’t worry! The Rail Tracer’s going to erase the whole train! If we’re on this train, we’ll see him again someday!”

  “Yeah… I hope Jacuzzi stays okay until then.”

  “I
’m telling you, it’ll be fine. Jacuzzi’s a good guy, see? There’s no way a guy who’s better than us is gonna die before we do.”

  “You’re right… Jacuzzi!”

  Suddenly, Miria shouted his name. Shaking his head, Isaac responded, all cool-like:

  “Calling him isn’t going to make him show up, Miria.”

  “No, no! It’s Jacuzzi! Jacuzzi’s here!”

  When Isaac turned, the big man from a little while back and a young, tattooed guy were standing outside the conductors’ room.

  “O-oh, good… You’re both okay…”

  Jacuzzi hadn’t smiled since he’d seen the corpses in this room, but ironically, in the same place, he regained an expression of relief.

  He must have really hurried to get there: He was badly out of breath, and tears were streaming down his face.

  “Jacuzzi! That’s fantastic! You’re okay!”

  “You got out of its stomach!”

  Even as Miria’s words confused him, Jacuzzi drew a deep, relieved breath.

  “Oh, that’s right: Jacuzzi, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Really, I’m sorry.”

  The two of them abruptly began apologizing. Jacuzzi didn’t understand what they meant by it, and it perplexed him even further.

  “Huh? Um, uh, no, that’s my line—I’m really sorry I worried you.”

  Seeing Jacuzzi bow his head, Isaac and Miria exchanged glances.

  “Hey, Miria, what’s the score now?”

  “Three to three! It’s a tie!”

  “Okay then, let’s apologize one more time.”

  “But, but, Jacuzzi’s a good guy, so he might apologize again, you know?”

  “That’s true. In that case, let’s apologize a lot.”

  No sooner had they said this than Isaac and Miria turned to Jacuzzi and began reeling off apologies without sincerity, meaning, or need.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!”

  “Huh? Uh, I, um, I-I-I’m sorry, I don’t really get it, but I’m really sorry, I’m sorry. I-I-I-I’ll apologize, so please, please stop apologizing, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  …And so Jacuzzi’s confusion peaked. He kept bowing and bowing, with no idea what to do.

  “Arrg. What you people doing?”

  Until Donny delivered his verbal jab, the circular cannon didn’t stop. It continued to echo, on and on, in the blood-soaked conductors’ room.

  “A-anyway, let’s get out of this place and go to the freight room. I’ll fill you in on the details there.”

  Prompted by Jacuzzi, the party left the conductors’ room.

  In this space, which should now have been occupied only by the dead, an odd sound echoed.

  It was a light rattling sound. At the same time, the door at the side of the conductors’ room—the one that led directly outside—rattled and opened, bit by bit.

  When the noise stopped, and the door’s maw had opened completely…

  …“it” appeared from the darkness.

  A bright, bright, bloodred shadow.

  “A bright-red monster? Do you intend to stall for time with ridiculous fairy tales?”

  In the first-class passenger compartment, Goose spoke, sounding disgusted.

  “I’m not lying! There really is a monster on this train!”

  Nick yelled angrily, snapping at Goose. He was lying on the floor with his hands and feet bound, so there wasn’t really anything else he could do.

  “Hmm. Then let me ask a different question.”

  Turning to Nice, who was also trussed up, Goose asked about their connection to the white suits.

  “You say you have no ties to the group in white. In that case, why did you board this train?”

  “To visit our friends in New York, sir. There was no other reason.”

  “Circumstances being what they are, let’s dispense with the fabrications, shall we? If that truly was the reason, then why did this fellow attack the dining car?”

  “He…attacked the dining car?”

  Nice didn’t know what this was about, but she could tell that Nick’s face was growing paler by the second.

  “Hey. You’re sure this was the man?”

  “Yes, sir. I only saw him from a distance, but from his clothes and his voice, I’d say there’s no mistake.”

  A man in the corner of the room responded to Goose’s question. He was the survivor of the group that had first attacked the dining car, the one whose shoulder had been wounded.

  “…So he says.”

  A look at Nick’s face told Nice that this was the truth. At the same time, she understood why he’d done a thing like that.

  Realizing that the vague order she’d given had been the cause of this troublesome situation, Nice began working out a way to con their way out.

  “He’s a marijuana addict. I expect he did something so foolish because he’d seen a hallucination of some sort.”

  “I see. In that case, was the ‘red monster’ he mentioned also a hallucination? If so, shall we dispose of this socially unfit individual here?”

  His lips were smiling, but the light in his eyes said he trusted no one.

  She could line up all the lies she wanted, but it would probably be no use against this opponent. Even though she’d only spoken with him once, she understood this quite well. Determining that more tricks would only make their situation worse, Nice decided to tell the truth.

  “Huhn… Here I was wondering what it could be, and it’s a humble freight robbery? How dull. Well, I don’t know how many companions you have, but if you oppose us, we’ll kill you without mercy. You’d best be prepared.”

  With eyes that seemed to have completely lost interest, Goose left the room for a moment.

  Nice hadn’t told the entire truth here. For one thing, she hadn’t let on that Jacuzzi existed. For another, she hadn’t mentioned the content of the cargo they were after. Possibly Goose thought they were simply aiming for the cargo of this high-class train in general, because he hadn’t pressed her further.

  In fact, Jacuzzi’s group was after just one type of cargo. Not only that, it was an article stowed in a hidden space in the freight room.

  If Goose learned what its contents were, he would probably try to obtain it. She didn’t know what their objectives were, but if they got their hands on that, their power would increase dramatically.

  Above all else, she wanted to avoid that, no matter what.

  For the moment, Nice breathed a sigh of relief. Then she murmured to Nick, who lay beside her:

  “My apologies. If I’d only explained the situation to you properly…”

  “Nah, Miz Nice, don’t worry about it.”

  Forcing a smile, Nick scraped together some bravado, trying to encourage his esteemed friend.

  “Either way, nobody’s dumb enough to think we’re on the up-and-up after seeing how you look.”

  “That is absolutely no consolation whatsoever…”

  Recalling her own appearance, Nice was dismally convinced. As she sank into mild self-loathing, she began thinking of ways to get out of this situation.

  Just then, the door opened again.

  Goose, who wore a complicated expression, asked Nice and Nick a certain question:

  “A moment ago, you said, ‘On the way back from the conductors’ room, we saw a corpse in the freight room.’”

  This was a fact, and the two nodded earnestly.

  “Was there anything abnormal in the conductors’ room?”

  A doubt had occurred to Goose. He had a comrade in the conductors’ room, the informer. According to their plan, the man was supposed to have killed the other conductor. Why hadn’t he disposed of this woman when she visited the conductors’ room?

  At that point, Nice remembered. Oh. Come to think of it, she hadn’t told him about what she’d seen in the conductors’ room.

  “Yes, there wa
s something that convinced us of the existence of the Rail Tracer.”

  “Just tell me the facts. Briefly.”

  “There were two corpses in a sea of blood. One conductor had been shot dead, and the other had been mauled to death. That is all we saw.”

  On hearing Nice’s answer, yet another doubt crossed Goose’s mind.

  Just a moment ago, the time when the conductor should have sent the sign that all was well to the engine room had come and gone. …And yet the train hadn’t stopped. Why? As far as he knew, they hadn’t occupied the engine room yet.

  Goose put his head out the window, looking in the direction the train was traveling.

  The locomotive, from which light was faintly visible, was attached to the front of the train, and the smoke that streamed from its smokestack showed no sign of weakening.

  “What’s the meaning of this?”

  Goose quickly left the room, put together a unit of five of his men, and ordered them to go check on the conductors’ room.

  If what the woman said was true, who had killed his comrade in the conductors’ room?

  Then the tragedy in the freight room, which he’d heard over the wireless, crossed his mind.

  Nick’s description of the freight room echoed in his ears:

  “In the freight room! One of your pals was lying in there with his bottom half chewed off! It’s a monster, a red monster—the Rail Tracer did it!”

  Even as Goose mentally repeated Impossible over and over, a fear of the Rail Tracer was gradually beginning to eat away at him.

  Like this train, that terror was slowly but surely eroding his heart.

  “I see! I’ve got it! Right now, the inside of this train is The Records of the Three Kingdoms!”

  “The greatest three-way relationship in Asia!”

  In the last freight room, Jacuzzi and the others had summarized the situation on the train, and once he’d gotten a rough grasp of events, Isaac had abruptly yelled.

  “‘The Records of the’…what?”

  Jacuzzi hadn’t heard the term before, and he looked bewildered.

  “Oh, The Records of the Three Kingdoms is a famous part of Chinese history! It’s a story about how amazing samurai split the country into thirds and glared at each other! Um, ‘Cao Cao’ and ‘Liu Bei’ and ‘Yuan Shao,’ I think they were!”