by Mac Flynn
“My domain,” he replied.
“Who died and made you king?” I quipped.
He smirked. “My predecessor died, and I was made the leader of the werewolves in this area. This town is called Townsend, and is peopled by humans who know of us, but who won’t reveal our secret.”
Great, everybody was against my escaping. “So you lord over them like you do me?” I mused.
Luke’s smirk slipped off his face and he shook his head. “No. They obey me because they believe I’m a fit leader.”
“Sounds like a whole village of idiots. . .” I mumbled.
“Those idiots will be under your care once you’ve changed,” he shot back.
I blinked in bewilderment. “Come again?”
Luke’s lips pursed together and he glanced away. “We’ll speak of this later.” I scowled, but he was unmoved by my glare of death.
Alistair parked the car in a garage park not far from the station, and we got out. Luke held onto my arm so I couldn’t bolt and led us onto the platform. A clock sat on the wall above the double doors that led into the waiting room, and the time read fifteen minutes until six. Far off I heard the whistle of a train, and two dozen people moved from the waiting room out onto the platform. Many of the people caught Luke’s eye and bowed their heads at him in respect. I wanted to gag.
Some of the people were dressed in the same elegance as Luke, but others wore shabbier clothes with patches and worn colors. There was a family close beside us with a mother, father, and a little girl of about five. She had long golden hair whipped into a braid, and wore a simple white dress. The little girl caught my eyes and smiled at me, and I managed a smile back.
With such a crowd around us and the train fast approaching, I chanced one final rescue. I pulled hard against Luke’s unwavering hold and frantically looked about at the other platform occupants. “Somebody help me! This guy’s kidnapped me and-”
Luke wrapped a hand around my mouth and stifled my words. He smiled at the shocked crowd. “She’s a new one,” he explained to them. I was horrified when many of them smiled, nodded, and looked away. They weren’t going to help me. Luke pulled me hard against him and leaned down to whisper into my ear. “You’re only embarrassing yourself,” he scolded me. He nodded at the crowd. “These people are all werewolves and won’t help you to escape. They don’t want to risk their lives by having a new werewolf escaping,” he explained to me. Luke removed his hand from my mouth but kept me pressed against him.
For my part I felt numb. Everything I tried had failed, and miserably. There was nothing to do but except accept whatever terrible fate these monsters had in store for me. The train, the vehicle to my destiny, slipped into the station. It was an old steam engine with twelve cars. Luke guided us into the front cars. We had the entire car to ourselves as the usual cramped space was opened to create a large sitting room with narrow bedrooms and a bathroom off to one side.
Luke set me down on the short couch that sat opposite the doors to the bathroom and bedrooms. The windows looking outside were just to my right, but I didn’t glance out them. I sat limply on the cushion, too depressed to care as the two men made themselves comfortable in our temporary home. The train whistle blew a last warning for late passengers, and in a few minutes the engine jerked forward and carried me away to some unknown place, and at a few minutes before six. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.
“Cold?” Luke asked me. I glared at him and turned away. My entire being was filled with hatred for him, and we he’d done and was doing to me. Luke went into one of the narrow bedrooms and returned with a thick wool blanket. He wrapped it around my shoulders and stood over me. “Better?” I refused to reply, and he sighed and knelt down in front of me. His eyes tried to catch mine, but I refused to look at him. “This won’t last forever. I promise you you’ll see your friends and home again, but there are a few more important things to deal with first.” I didn’t answer him, but at his promise hope sprang up inside me.
Our fuzzy, feel-good conversation was interrupted when the door swung open and the little girl from the platform rushed in. She swung around, shut it behind her, and giggled. Her breath was ragged as though she’d been running, and her cheeks were a rosy red color. She didn’t appear to notice us until Alistair spoke up. “Can we help you?” Alistair asked her.
The girl jumped and swiveled around. Her eyes widened when she noticed all of us staring at her. The girl glanced around the room and her eyes stopped on me. She raced past Alistair and sprang into my lap, toppling Luke back with her wild limbs. I instinctively grabbed onto her to keep her from falling, and she wrapped her arms around my sides. She tilted her head up and gave me a big, wide smile. “Hi!” she yelled. Her voice reminded me of the ringing of far off church bells that signified a joyous occasion.
“Hi,” I laughingly replied. Her good humor was contagious.
“I’ve never seen you on the train before. Are you new?” she asked me.
“I-um-” I stuttered.
“Very new. She’s not quite a werewolf yet,” Luke answered for me as he righted himself to a seated position on the floor. “She needs one more night.”
The little girl’s face lit up with joy. “And then we can run in the woods together around the Sanctuary?” she pleaded.
“Uh, I don’t know about that,” I hesitantly replied. This girl was adorable, but she tossed out the werewolf topic more easily than Luke.
She tugged on my shirt. “But it’ll be so much fun! I’ve been there before and the woods are really pretty!” Our little fun was interrupted by a knock on the door. Alistair opened it and the girl’s mother stood in the hallway.
“Abby, there you are!” her mother scolded her. She hurried into our compartment and swept her child into her arms. “I’m so sorry for this, my lord, but she’s a very curious creature.”
Luke stood, smiled and nodded. “No trouble at all.”
“Can I stay here until we reach the Sanctuary?” Abby pleaded with her mother.
“Certainly not, Abby! You’ve troubled these nice people and me long enough!”
“Wait a second,” Luke interrupted. He gestured around the room. “We’d be glad to have her with us for a night, and there’s plenty of room for her to run in here.”
The mother bit her lip and her eyes glanced over our faces. “I wouldn’t want her to bother you, and she’s such a handful-”
“I can be good,” Abby protested.
“Hush, naughty girl. You’ve troubled the lord enough,” her mother scolded.
“Are you from my district, ma’am?” Luke spoke up.
The woman blushed and gave a lopsided curtsy with Abby still in her arms. “Yes, my lord. The name’s Stewart.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “From Huntington?” he guessed.
Mrs. Stewart smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir. My husband is an expert tracker.”
“That’s quite a distance, so I’m sure you’d be happy to have us babysit Abby for you.” Mrs. Stewart did look haggled with dark patches under her eyes and her clothes wrinkled.
Abby crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him. “I’m not a baby!” she protested.
“If she wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Mrs. Stewart hesitantly agreed.
“None at all,” Luke persisted.
Mrs. Stewart set Abby on the ground and the little girl jumped back into my arms. “If she does get to be a handful you can bring her back. We’re in the last car,” the mother told us.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, but thank you,” he replied. Mrs. Stewart cast one more reluctant glance over her little girl and left Abby in our care.
Luke smiled and turned to Alistair. “It seems we have a guest for this short journey.”
Alistair bowed at the waist. “I will make another bed in my room,” he replied.
“No, I want to sleep with her!” Abby protested as she latched onto me.
I smiled. “But you don’t even know my name,” I
teased.
Abby scrunched up her face. “I don’t?” she wondered.
I laughed and hugged her close to me. “You have to ask someone their name to learn it.”
“Oh!” Abby squirmed from my arms, and stood prim and proper in front of me. She even curtsied. “My name is Abby Stewart. What’s yours?”
I noticed Luke watch me intensely. He didn’t know my last name. “Becky,” I replied.
“Becky,” Abby repeated. She nodded her approval and climbed into my lap. “I like it!”
That was the beginning of a very long night entertaining her and in turn being entertained by her. She was a curious handful, getting into our luggage and wanting to wear my clothes. I was the one stuck with most of the babysitting and the men stayed out of the way, but I couldn’t help but notice that Luke watched me with a careful eye. After one particularly long stare I turned and glared at him. “What?”
Luke smiled and shrugged. “You seem happy,” he commented.
I sniffed. “Well, Abby’s a good distraction, aren’t you, Abby?” I turned back to her and found she’d popped open a makeup kit Alistair had bought for me. “No, Abby, not the lipstick!”
I was forever grateful when Abby’s battery ran low around midnight, and I put her to bed on the bottom bunk in the room assigned to Luke and me. Or rather, assigned to me after I grabbed Luke’s luggage and tossed it into Alistair’s room. There were two bunks in each room so he still had a bed.
“What are you doing?” Luke protested.
I slipped into the room and closed the door most of the way so I peeked out of a crack. “Girls only, no boys allowed in that room,” I replied before I slammed it shut. I turned around and found Abby’s tired eyes staring at me.
“He likes you a lot,” she commented.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “He has a really funny way of showing it. Flowers would’ve worked better than kidnapping me.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to lose you,” Abby suggested.
I shrugged and pulled the covers up to her chin. “You’ll understand better when you grow up.”
“I guess,” she murmured. She snuggled beneath the covers, but grasped my sleeve. “Can you sleep with me? Mama sleeps with me on these trips because we hit a bump once so hard I fell out.”
I laughed and nodded. “All right, but just this once.”
I slipped into my new pajamas and squished into the space between Abby and the wall. Soon we were both sleeping soundly as the train sped through the thick woods and a few small towns on its way to the strange place called Sanctuary.
10
Unfortunately, we didn’t sleep all night. We were awoken by a violent toss of the train as it was forced from the tracks. Abby and I screamed and latched onto each other as we tumbled with the train. Luggage spilled everywhere and the mirror toppled off the wall. We heard other screams and shouts, and a terrible noise of metal against wood and other metal. My back slammed against the wall as the entire car fell onto its side. It felt like forever, but the whole episode didn’t last more than thirty seconds. Then everywhere was dark, and I heard a voice among the silence.
“Becky! Becky!” Luke called to me.
“We’re in here!” I shouted to him. I glanced down at the shaking form in my arms. “Abby, you okay?” I whispered to my charge.
“I-I think so,” she whispered.
I heard somebody move in the living room, and soon the door flung open. In the dim light of night I saw Luke in the doorway. “Stay still, I’ll get to you,” he shouted to us. He crawled along the luggage and leaned over bottom of the bunk to our little nook inside the bottom bed. “Give me your hand, Becky.”
I shook my head and shakily stood to my feet. “Get Abby first,” I insisted. We passed her over, and then Luke helped me over the bottom of the bed.
Luke led us out into the living room where the cushions and broken glass were strewn everywhere. The ceiling of the car was now the wall, and beneath our feet were the broken exterior windows and hard gravel from the railroad tracks. Above our heads was the door and hallway. The door swung on its hinges, and through the new skylight we could hear shouts and cries of fear.
Alistair’s face appeared beyond the broken glass above us. “It’s not good, sir,” he told Luke.
“What happened?” Luke asked him.
“I can’t be sure yet as to the cause, but all the cars have derailed. The engine is on fire and the last few cars broke free and slid down the slope into the trees and rocks.
My eyes widened and I tightened my grasp on Abby. I jerked my head over to Luke. “The last car!” I reminded him.
Abigail’s eyes widened. “Mama!” she screamed. She tried to free herself from my grasp, but I held tightly to her.
“Not yet, Abby! Let the men get at your mom and dad!” I told her.
“No! I want my Mama and Papa!” she screamed.
Her wails were interrupted when the car beneath our feet slid a yard. Abby and I screamed, and I fell onto the sharp ground with Abby on top of me. Luke grabbed the wall and grimaced. “The car won’t hold for much longer, sir,” Alistair told us.
“So we noticed,” Luke replied. He helped Abby and me up. “We’ll get out of here and find your parents, Abby,” he told the frightened, crying girl. She nodded and calmed just a little.
Now we had another problem. The new ceiling was a good fifteen feet above us. “How are we going to get out of here?” I asked Luke.
“Alistair, take Abby,” Luke instructed his servant.
Alistair easily dropped through a broken window and the open door. He took Abby in his arms, hunkered down, and jumped upward. His vertical easily cleared the distance, and the pair disappeared over the side of the overturned car. My mouth was still open when I was swept into Luke’s arms. “Hold on,” he instructed.
I yelped when we flew into the air. We whipped past the walls and out into the open air. Luke landed us close beside where Alistair and Abby stood. He set me down carefully so my feet didn’t go through a window, and I got my first glimpse of the area and the wreckage. The area was a rugged wilderness of trees and a sloped hillside that ascended to the left of the train and dropped down on the right side. Ahead of us was the remains of the engine, and flames shot high into the dark night sky. Beyond that was the ruins of the tracks. The thick metal bands were a tangled mess of warped steel, and I wondered how an engine could have caused such devastation.
Behind us lay the other cars, and in the distance I could see that the final three cars were fifty yards down the slope. The cars had left a mess of broken trees and small, scattered boulders. The compartments themselves were a tangled mass of thick and warped sheets of metal. Some passengers stood on the slope above the wreck while the train’s crew and other riders were down among the ruins of the final three cars.
I didn’t know how anyone could have survived that mess, but they were pulling people out of the rubble. Most of them even looked unscathed with not even a scratch across their cheeks. Abby grasped my hand and her little eyes searched the faces of the survivors. Her face lit up when Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were helped from the remains of their car, and she tugged hard on my arm as she jumped up and down. “Mama and Papa are all right!” she cried out in joy.
“Of course they are,” Luke calmly replied.
For my part I was shocked. I thought I’d been holding the hand of an orphan. “How did they make it?” I wondered.
“There are benefits to being a monster,” Luke calmly replied. He glanced around us. “We should get off the car,” he reminded us.
I nodded and lifted Abby into my arms. The ascending slope meant the drop to the ground wasn’t too far, so I hopped down and followed Alistair over to the group of forward-car survivors. Unlike my wonderful assortment of minor cuts and bruises they were just in shock. The other survivors were helped up the hill, and Abby broke from me and raced over to her shaken but healthy parents. “Mama! Papa!”
“Abby!” her mothe
r cried out. They raced into each others’ arms and there were smiles all around.
I glanced up at Luke and noticed he, too, wore a smile. “You like happy endings, too?” I teased him.
Luke shook himself from his good humor and straightened his filthy pajama top. “A good deed is it’s own reward, but celebrations should be for another time and place.”
“You mean because we need to get out of here?” I guessed.
He looked to the engine and where Alistair spoke with the engineer. “Because I don’t think this had anything to do with a good deed.” Luke took a step toward them, but we were detained for a moment longer by the arrival of Abby and her parents.
“Becky, look! Mama and Papa are all right!” Abby yelled at me.
“Of course we are, Abby. A little train wreck wouldn’t kill us,” Mrs. Stewart scolded. I’d hate to see a big train wreck.
Mr. Stewart stepped forward and eagerly shook both Luke and my hands. “Thank you so much for keeping her safe in your car. I don’t think Abby would have got through the wreck as well as us.”
“Probably not, and we were grateful to have her company,” Luke politely replied.
“If there’s anything we can do for you just name it,” Mr. Stewart insisted.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Luke promised. “But if you’ll excuse us.” He turned away and to the engine, and I waved goodbye to Abby and followed him.
“I’ll see you at Sanctuary!” Abby called over my shoulder.
I followed Luke over to his servant and the scraggly old engineer. “What happened?” Luke asked them.
The engineer’s face was covered in cuts and he had a dour expression. His clothes were torn from the shrapnel of the tracks, but he was otherwise healthy. “Ah don’t know, me lord. We was going on as smooth as can be and I heard a small explosion. Then the whole track burst out from under us and the engine tipped over.” He glanced over to the flaming engine and growled. The noise was distinctly wolfish. “If Ah ever get a hold of the rascal who done this-”
