by Shock Totem
Dalton mouthed a word to Celia, “Pittsburgh.”
• • •
Oswego stood by the massive, spade shaped cowcatcher at the front of the locomotive and watched the engineers swing over the pipe from the wooden water tower beside the tracks to refill the train’s tanks.
“Let’s get that hooked up,” he bellowed at a Pinkerton running a cable from the Acela locomotive to the telegraph tower. Six hours on the rails and the sun was beginning to set. Red light from the west limned the golden telegraph wires in fire.
Oswego walked forward, carefully stepping on the crossties, which always seemed to be just long of a normal stride. He was wearing his sidearm, a dull, gray .38 revolver with the still visible words Smith & Wesson stamped into the metal of the barrel. Every Pinkerton who stepped off the train carried a weapon, relic double barrel shotguns or single barrel scatterguns of newer make they called Detroit Shooters. Inside the train his men kept the weapons in lockers, at least during the day when most of the passengers were awake.
He glanced back and saw a few hardy souls sliding their windows down a bit, trying to get fresh air. He knew they could see the weapons his Pinkertons were carrying, but that was okay. Armed men outside the train made them feel safe. Armed men inside the train made them frightened, and he avoided triggering that primitive emotion if at all possible.
Far enough, he thought stepping off the tracks. He closed his eyes and lifted his face into the wind, sniffing deeply.
Ahh, dammit.
“Captain,” his telegrapher said, running up the tracks.
“Where’s your weapon?” Oswego said.
“Shit, sorry sir,” the Pinkerton replied, torn between delivering his message and running back to the train to get his weapon.
“Report,” Oswego said.
“Yessir. Weather report,” the Pinkerton said. His cheeks were full and pink with rosacea. Oswego wondered how often he needed to shave.
“Out with it, son.”
“Yessir,” the Pinkerton said. “Storms coming in fast. We’re not gonna make it through in time.”
Oswego smiled, letting his teeth show. “That’s alright, I was just thinking our girl here needs a bath.” The trains were always female, just the way it was. “And the Deformation?”
The Pinkerton swallowed. Oswego thought this might be the kid’s virgin run. “Significant Deformation, sir.”
Oswego nodded.
“They gave us clearance to highball it, sir,” the Pinkerton said.
Oswego nodded. “Go on back and confirm to base we are adjusting to condition orange, then pass the word.”
“Orange, yessir.”
Oswego looked out over the flat land, marked here and there by jagged tree stumps and the empty frames of houses. The terrain had a scoured look. New maps issued a few years back designated this stretch of nothing as The Barrens, but the term didn’t take and folks still called it by a name given to it by the briefly resurgent Old Testament movement.
Gehenna. The place of punishment.
Captain Oswego’s hand rested on the butt of his revolver as he lifted his nose into the wind again.
Hell on the wind and that was a fact.
• • •
“Look, daddy,” Miri said as she followed Dalton back from the café car. He glanced where she pointed, trying to maintain balance and not dump the cardboard tray of sandwiches and drinks he was carrying.
Pinkertons were moving around the train now, casually pacing between the rows of seats. There was a great deal of tightening of belts and tugging on hat brims, pulling them low over the eyes. Some wore pistols of various makes but more carried shotguns. One woman, an officer of some sort, carried a small, stubby weapon somewhere in between a pistol and a rifle. Tightly machined pieces of black metal and plastic that screamed of old tech.
“Sorry,” Miri said, stumbling into a seated woman who reached out and steadied the little girl.
“‘S’alright, sugar,” the woman said. Her eyes met Dalton’s for a moment and she glanced at one of the Pinkertons.
“C’mon, honey,” Dalton said.
Back in their own car he paused as the conductor stepped aside to let them pass.
“I notice we’ve picked up speed, sir,” Dalton said.
“Nothing to worry about,” the conductor said. He leaned over to Miri. “They gave us the go ahead to highball. Now ain’t that a funny word?”
Miri smiled. “What’s highball?”
“Means go fast,” the conductor said. “Now go on and take your seats ‘fore those sandwiches turn to cardboard.”
“They didn’t have any chicken and waffles,” Miri blurted out as they passed.
The conductor turned and Dalton saw the effort it took to compose his face into a smile. “Too messy for a train, each person needs twenty napkins to eat.”
“Twenty napkins!” Miri said.
The conductor nodded seriously. “You’ll get all you want in Detroit.”
• • •
A horrendous screech from the overhead speakers woke Dalton from slumber and he jerked upright in his seat. The car erupted in startled questions until the screech abruptly cut off.
“It’s alright, baby,” Celia said, holding Miri. Dalton looked over, able to see his daughter’s too-wide eyes in the dim lighting coming from the oil lamps swinging on hooks at either end of the car.
Static filled the air and another screech caused Miri to slap her hands over her ears. “What is it, mommy?”
“—tion, please. Attention please, cars one through seven. All women and children proceed immediately to the security car, car number eight. Proceed immediately to the security car, car number eight.” The loudspeaker popped and crackled like grease on a hot skillet.
Dalton heard a loud roar and the train shuddered on the tracks. “What the hell was that?”
“Attention please, cars nine through eighteen, please proceed to the aft security car, car number nineteen. Repeat, if you are a woman or child in cars nine through eighteen, proceed immediately to the security car in the rear, car number nineteen.”
Everywhere people were rising, confused, as the conductor began to push through the crowd. “Men, stay in your seats, let the women and children through. Okay people, let’s move it, nice and orderly back to car number eight.”
“What’s happening?” A man screeched, reaching for the conductor’s arm.
“Sit in your seat, sir. Women and children, let’s move.” The conductor doused the oil lantern closest to him and shadows engulfed the car, eliciting fearful cries.
“Celia, go, go,” Dalton said.
“Daddy?” Miri cried.
“Go with mommy,” Dalton said, his eyes on his wife’s drawn face. “Go hon, go.”
“Oh God,” Celia said, but she was already moving, dragging Miri by the arm into the aisle and the tide of people surging towards the rear.
The car shuddered again and Dalton watched Celia steady their daughter.
Popping and crackling from the loudspeaker drowned out the people in the car. “Gentlemen, remain seated until the aisles are clear. Repeat, remain seated until the aisles are clear.”
• • •
Celia and Miri pressed into the milling crowd in the security car, shoved forward by people entering behind them. The car had no seats and she grabbed an overhead strap for balance, her free hand locked into Miri’s shoulder.
“Stay right next to me,” Celia said.
“Where’s daddy?”
“He’s alright, he’s watching—”
“Attention, attention,” the loudspeakers blared. “All able bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 will report to the armories. All able bodied men will report to the armories.”
“Oh no…” Celia said, her voice weak. The crowd pressed in and she found it hard to breath.
“Let me out,” a woman screamed, pounding at the door. “Henry! Henry!”
“Mommy,” Miri said, pressing her face into her mother’
s belly. Celia could feel the wetness of tears through her blouse.
“We’ll be alright, baby.”
Glass bulbs in mesh cages overhead flared into brilliance and Celia felt a new vibration through her feet as the dry smell of ozone filled the air.
• • •
Oswego gathered five Pinkertons in the Acela engine car, all armed with old tech shotguns and sidearms. The kid with rosacea was among them, nervously spinning the barrel on a matte black .38, comforted by the winking presence of shells in the chambers.
“Warmin’ it up,” the chief engineer said, flipping switches in the cockpit. Lights began to shine and the nature of the vibration under their feet changed.
“How much range do we have?” Oswego said.
“Enough diesel for 25 miles at full speed,” the engineer said, tapping a fuel gauge.
“Right then,” Oswego said. “Please wait for my go ahead.”
Debris was hitting the train at a furious rate, a thousand percussionists beating the outside of the car. A large chunk slammed into the carriage and Oswego thought bass drum.
“We hold this car, gentlemen,” Oswego said. He patted the rosacea kid on the shoulder. “Put that away before you shoot someone in the ass, huh?”
A couple other Pinkertons laughed and the tension dropped a level. The kid holstered his pistol, blushing furiously.
“Name?” Oswego said.
“Porfoy, sir,” the kid said, touching fingers to the brim of his hat.
“We’re gonna hold this here Acela car, Porfoy, or the whole train dies. You hear?”
“Yessir,” Porfoy said. “Loud and clear.”
A giant thump rocked through the train, radiating back from the front. The engineer picked up a radio headset and listened, then nodded at Oswego. A soldier peered through the window into the roiling storm and jerked back.
“Here they come!”
• • •
It was fast, chaotic, impossible to understand and most of all absurd.
“You and you, refuse to the east,” the Pinkerton had said as he jammed blunt, single barreled shotguns in their hands along with sacks full of charges and buckshot rounds. “You and you, refuse to the west.”
“Refuse what?” Dalton said, but was ignored.
“This is insane,” Shore said, pushing his thick glasses up on his nose. He closed the breach on the second of their two Detroit Shooters. “You see anything?”
Dalton shook his head and sneezed at the grit filling the air. The train shook and his forehead bounced off the window. “Dammit,” he said. “Just flying sand. The sky is green.”
“You guys ready?” The old guy called from further up the car, peering out to the east while his loader double checked their two shooters.
“No!” Dalton called back, earning a glare from the old man. When the Pinkerton in the armory had said he was too old, the gray hair had bared his forearm.
“What was that tattoo?” Dalton called, trying to focus his careening thoughts on something. Anything.
“USMC,” the grizzled man said, baring the arm again and waving it at Dalton and Shore as if that meant something.
A string of pops echoed back to them. The train juddered sideways and righted itself.
“What was that?” Shore said.
“Gunfire,” the old man shouted back. “Get ready.”
Dalton picked up one of the guns and dropped to a knee so he wouldn’t trip and shoot himself. Things grew distant, his sensory input coming from far away even as his bowels turned to water.
“I don’t wanna do this,” Shore said. “You ever fire a gun?”
“I’m an English teacher,” Dalton said.
Pop-pop-pop.
“They’re into the next car,” the old man called out over the roar of the train.
• • •
Celia hugged Miri close to her, fighting to stay on her feet as the mass of people shifted. The security car was jerking and shaking constantly, the noise deafening. Children and adults alike were openly sobbing in fear.
A massive thump shook the car and it rolled sideways until the entire crowd was pressed against the right hand wall. In the same moment, the lights overhead dimmed and there was a tremendous crack and flash of light visible through the safety shutters. A deafening scream drowned out all other noise before the security car righted itself. The stink of burned meat filled the car.
“What was that?”
“Help me, I broke my arm!”
“Mommy, what’s happening?” Miri cried up at her mother.
“The train is protecting us,” Celia said, rubbing her daughter’s hair.
The lights dimmed once more and again came the terrible crack as blue light flooded the car. They choked on the burning smell.
• • •
It happened too fast. One second Dalton was crouched, listening to the battle raging elsewhere on the train. In the next second a section of the roof was peeled open and a cyclone of sand immediately filled their car.
A Detroit Shooter boomed and Dalton saw the flash even as something came pouring down through the hole. It tumbled inside like a fall of giant maggots and Dalton leveled his gun, afraid to fire because of the other men.
“Shoot!” Shore yelled into his ear and Dalton heard screams from the maelstrom at the front of the car.
He braced the weapon and fired, the butt crashing painfully into the meat of his shoulder. “Reload!”
He handed the weapon blindly off to Shore and took the loaded Shooter in exchange. His finger went slack on the trigger and his jaw dropped as something surged towards him.
“Oh God!” Shore cried.
• • •
Oswego pressed his eyes to the periscope and angled the viewer back down along the length of the train. A huge, seething pile of the Deformation had swarmed over several cars. More of the Deformation rode in on the winds, giant kites made of flesh with dozens of grasping hands and screaming mouths. A brief flash of memory, pizza makers at Luigi’s tossing circles of spinning dough high into the air. His stomach lurched.
Crack! A bright flash lit up the storm and Oswego saw a cloud of flame roll back along the length of the train.
“We are a rocket on rails, boys,” Oswego said.
Gunfire crashed from the train, his men shooting through specially designed firing slits. Porfoy released the cylinder on his .38, dumping brass shells onto the floor and fumbling in fresh rounds. He was repeating something over and over but Oswego couldn’t make it out.
More flashes from the security cars as the electrified defenses cooked the attacking Deformation into cinders.
“That’s it, we’re not gonna hold,” Oswego said, looking away from the periscope and tapping the white faced engineer on the shoulder. “Crank her up, full speed!”
• • •
It was people. A stretching mass of screaming, howling people all connected, arms grafted into bellies, feet into heads, hips into backs. They were dangling, stretching through the hole in the ceiling like pulsating dough and Dalton wondered in horror at how much of it was still outside the train.
He aimed at the mass and pulled the trigger. A gout of blood exploded as the buckshot struck the squirming flesh. “Reload!” He said, turning when Shore didn’t take the weapon.
The other man was lying on his back between two seats, unconscious.
“Shore!” Dalton dropped to his knees, patting around for the sack of ammunition, unable to take his eyes off the horror stretching towards him.
Small hands grabbed the top of the seat as an individual form no larger than a child struggled to pull itself free, skin tearing with a grotesque, adhesive sound.
Bile filled Dalton’s throat when he saw that other heads on the mass were twisting, teeth chewing to free the child-thing until it was dangling from an elongating piece of indeterminate meat stretching from its forehead.
The train gave a mighty lurch beneath him and Dalton rolled backwards, banging his shoulders into the groun
d, driving the wind from his lungs.
• • •
The flashing blue light and crackling thunder had grown into a constant assault on their senses inside the security car. Smoke roiled along the ceiling and the stench of vomit competed with the grotesquely appealing stink of roasting pork.
Celia lost her grip on Miri when the train lunged forward, pitching everyone towards the rear of the car.
“Miri!”
Screams of pain and terror filled the car as it rattled and shook. The lights overhead dimmed and even amidst the chaos, Celia could feel an incredible surge of speed.
“Mommy!”
Was that Miri? “I’m here, baby! Miri, I’m here!”
• • •
“Seventy six miles per hour,” the engineer said, grinning with fierce pride. “Full speed.”
Oswego could feel the velocity through his boots, the train seeming to ride higher and lighter on the rails. The rattle of gunfire tapered off as the Pinkertons leaned back, white eyes staring from faces coated with black grime, coughing against the stink of cordite. Bright shell casings bounced like popcorn kernels on the vibrating floor.
“Well done,” Oswego said to the engineer, carefully stepping back to the periscope. Through the brutal storm he saw no mass of attacking Deformation. No flames or flashes of lethal electricity. He rotated the periscope, stepping in a small circle inside the Acela car until he was looking forward along the train.
Porfoy saw his captain’s white teeth as the big man grinned.
“What is it, sir?” Porfoy said.
“Clear sky ahead, gentlemen,” Oswego said, smiling wider as the Pinkertons gave an exhausted cheer. “Give me ten more minutes at this speed and then lets throttle back.”
Porfoy looked dazed. He had fired over thirty six rounds and his hand was cramping. “We did it,” he said.
• • •
Dazed, Dalton sat up on the floor between two seats as the train began to decelerate. The hole in the ceiling channeled great currents of wind through the car, clearing it of smoke. Dalton rubbed grit from his eyes.
