by RJ Crayton
Lijah breathed into the machine for at least a minute, and then Willie pulled the device away. “Okay,” the man said. “Go stand over there with the other two. You can come over to this side once the test clears you.”
“How long does it take?” Lijah asked.
“Three minutes.”
“And if I fail?”
“I shove you out of the car. I’m sure your friends wouldn’t mind. They don’t want to be sick.”
Elaan had a good mind to pipe in that she did mind, that she minded quite a bit, but she knew that was a bad idea. Willie didn’t need to know that she and Josh would fight him if he tried to throw Lijah off the train. Willie didn’t seem that strong, but he did seem confident he could take the three of them. That made her worry. Willie had clearly been doing this for a while, so he wasn’t a fool. If he wasn’t afraid of a three-against-one situation, there had to be a reason.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting sick?” Lijah asked.
“I’m immune,” Willie said.
Lijah raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Josh watched curiously, too. He also said nothing. They clearly had decided there was some benefit to staying quiet, yet Elaan couldn’t determine what it was. “How do you know?” Elaan asked softly. “That you’re immune. I mean, I heard they took the immunes away, were using them to find a cure.”
Willie smiled at her. “I like you,” he said, as he ogled her, lingering on her chest. She felt the color draining from her face as he continued to stare, unapologetic.
“My sister asked you a question,” Lijah said.
Willie’s gaze returned to Lijah. “Oh, I get it now,” he said. “The way you looked at the two of them when they came in, I thought you were the jealous third-wheel. A guy who saw his beloved embrace someone else. Yet, that look was in the spirit of brotherly protection, eh? Don’t like the guy your sis has chosen to hook up with? Wait, do they still use hook up these days? I’m so behind on my lingo.” Willie half laughed at that, the idea that he was no longer hip and up-to-date with teen slang, or perhaps he was laughing at the idea that he had ever been up-to-date. “Anyway, that explains your protectiveness of her. Don’t worry about your sister for the moment.”
The machine beeped and Willie checked it. A green light flashed on the electronic panel of the box. “Looks like you’re in the clear, big brother. Time for your baby sister.”
Willie motioned Elaan over and she heeded him, stopping at arm’s length. She watched as he discarded Lijah’s face mask in a red plastic bag that said HAZMAT. He put a new face mask on the machine and then had Elaan breathe into it.
When he pulled the mask off her face to wait for the results, he took a few steps back and leaned on the boxcar wall. “So you wanted to know how I know I’m immune,” he said. Elaan nodded, even though she wasn’t actually sure she wanted to know anymore. She didn’t like the way Willie looked at her. She took a step back as Willie began his story.
“I used to live at home with my mother and sister and nephew. I was a schoolteacher. I taught high school, tenth grade biology. The economy was bad and my sister’s no-good husband had left her, so she and her son moved in with me. My mom had moved in a year earlier. She’d never owned a place and couldn’t afford her rent anymore. So, I helped them all, and then, when this sickness came, they all died. My mother first. Then my nephew, and finally my sister. When my mom died, I tried to take precautions, tried to wear the respirators, all that stuff you’re supposed to do to prevent infection. Then, when little Nicholas died, we were all hit so hard that we gave up. I took no precautions when caring for my sister. I figured I’d succumb and join them all. But I didn’t. Never. I went into slums where I knew sick people were and I never once got sick. And that’s when I knew. I was immune.”
He smiled at Elaan. “Sometimes I miss teaching,” he said. “I miss those girls who came to class and could never get it. They would stay to do extra credit. Those were my favorite girls.” His eyes were wistful at the memory and his voice was airy. Elaan took a step back, away from him, and Lijah came over and stood next to her. “I hate to promote a stereotype, but the girls who didn’t get it were almost always the pretty ones. Cheerleaders or pep squad members and I’d let them come and sit in my classroom to do extra credit to bring up their grades. Right after cheer practice, so they were always in their uniforms; I loved those lovely little pleated skirts.”
The machine beeped and a green light flashed. “Looks like you’re clean, my darlin’,” he said, looking up. Elaan felt a slight relief, but she still didn’t relax. They had to wait for Josh to be tested. If he came back clean, they’d have passed the first hurdle. But she didn’t like Willie’s stories, and she didn’t like his leer.
“You ever cheer?” Willie asked. Elaan offered a confused stare. “You know, like a cheerleader?”
Elaan shook her head, not wanting to speak to him further.
“Let’s test our friend,” Lijah said, pointing to Josh.
Josh, who’d been standing close to the boxcar door, came over and submitted to the test. They waited the requisite amount of time, but Willie wasn’t as talkative with Josh as he’d been with Elaan. She was glad for the silence, well at least the not talking. The boxcar was incredibly noisy as it rolled over the tracks. They’d picked up speed, she could tell. A couple of minutes passed, the machine beeped, and the green light flashed.
“Well, all three of you are in the clear,” Willie said. “So, now onto the next things. I need your names and where you want to go. Then I can tell you how much it will cost.”
Elaan bit her lip and stared at him. No way was she going to tell this creepy dude her real name. “Priya,” she said. “My name is Priya, and my brother’s name is Daanish. Our friend is named Ethan.”
She’d stolen the name of her best friend Priya and one of Priya’s brothers. She’d have used the name of Priya’s other brother, Sumit, for Josh, but Josh didn’t look anything like a Sumit.
“Priya?” Willie said, doubtful.
“My father was originally from India,” she said. “Our mother was American, born in St. Louis. That’s where we’re trying to get to.”
Lijah was stone-faced, though Josh did stare a little at her. Maybe they should’ve consulted on code names beforehand, but they didn’t really have time and she wanted something she could remember.
Willie seemed more taken with scrutinizing her than with either of the boys, and now she wished she’d let Lijah take the lead because his greedy eyes devoured her as if she were his own possession.
“Priya,” Lijah said to her. “Why don’t you take a seat? Ethan and I will talk price with Willie.”
Elaan nodded, grateful that Lijah was moving her away from the cheerleader-obsessed former teacher. But just as she was turning to walk to the other side of the boxcar, Willie said, “Not so fast. This concerns the three of you, so you all need to be here.”
Elaan turned back and decided to stand slightly behind Lijah, peeking her head around his torso to see Boxcar Willie.
“Normally,” Willie said. “I charge five-thousand dollars per person, payable in gold or diamonds.”
Elaan felt her mouth drop open. “Where are we supposed to get that kind of money? In diamonds or gold, no less.”
“Would you take cash?” Josh asked. Both Elaan and Lijah turned and studied his earnest face. What had Kingston packed in Josh’s bag?
Willie laughed. Not a little laugh, but one where he held his gut and bent over, one where his entire frame shook as if he couldn’t stop. “Cash,” he said, incredulous. “For what, boy? Wiping my ass?”
“Why is that so funny?” Lijah asked, not looking back at Josh, who’d seemed to have been perfectly serious in his offer.
Willie stared at them, looking from Josh to Lijah to Elaan. “Where did you guys come from? Seriously, where have you been?”
“In hiding,” Lijah said. Elaan tried to keep her expression neutral and leaned in so she could hear what he said and not get tripped
up later. “We were with some other people, but food supplies thinned out and we decided we needed to part ways.”
“And you haven’t noticed that cash is no longer king, that people trade in jewels?” Willie asked.
“We weren’t the ones who went out to get supplies. There was an immune. But, he didn’t come back one day, so we just thought we’d get out, go to where we have family.”
Willie looked at Lijah dubiously and opened his mouth as if he planned to ask another question. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “Your story don’t mean a hill o’ beans to me. I just like to ask to see if people are honest or not. To ride the train, you need to pay. I take diamonds. I take gold. Do you have either?”
Lijah shook his head.
“On certain occasions, I’ve been willing to barter. Your trip in exchange for something I want.”
“Like what,” Josh asked.
Willie looked toward Elaan. “Her.”
Elaan was too shocked to speak, only widening her eyes, but Josh and Lijah said “No!” in unison.
Elaan took a step back. The fact that he would propose that and think the guys would be OK with it scared her. Was he insane? Or did he know something they didn’t?
Willie smiled at her. “I’m not so bad, sweetheart,” he said. “Just lonely. And it would just be for the duration of your journey. A few nights keeping me company.”
The thought of it made her stomach turn. Boxcar Willie was a dirty old man who lusted after high school students. In her old life, she’d only heard of such men. Made jokes about teachers they didn’t like — he’s just a dirty old man. But, that teasing vision was nothing like the real thing. She focused on the floor of the steel boxcar. She didn’t want to seem frightened, but she also didn’t want to give him the impression she was interested in watching him.
“Think about it,” Willie said. “Either way, you need to come up with a plan for payment before we get to the next checkpoint, or I’ll turn you in. Government’s always looking for rewards for people trying to skirt the laws. And under Martial Law, y’all ain’t supposed to be out this time of night. You’re also not supposed to be impersonating military officials, either.” His eyes glanced up and down Elaan’s uniform, which looked terribly ill-fitting, even in this train’s dim lantern light.
Lijah’s hands were balled into fists and there was a vein bulging in his neck. “Let us have a minute to discuss it.”
Elaan turned and headed toward the opposite corner of the boxcar, as far away from the man as she could get. She was starting to wish they’d just driven. The railway was turning out to be a disaster. When they got to the corner, they all squatted down, as if being closer to the noise of the car’s wheels would somehow prevent Willie from overhearing them.
“Do you think we can get off the train without him alerting the authorities to where we are or where we’re planning to go?” Josh asked in a whisper that Elaan could barely hear over the roar of the wheels grinding against the rails. The entire car rattled and shook.
Lijah shook his head in response. “I,” he said, then stopped. “I’m not sure. He can’t have what he wants, obviously,” Lijah said. “But I don’t have anything else to barter with him.”
Josh was silent, staring at his pack, which was lying on the floor near where they squatted. With the movement of the boxcar, it had gravitated toward this corner. Elaan stared at it, too, wondering if there were some panacea in it. Some gadget Kingston Wells had given his son that could save them. But that was likely a pipe dream. They’d made the commitment to the train, and they were stuck with it. Only, they’d run into a psycho underground conductor who wanted diamonds, gold, or teen hookers as payment.
She looked over at Boxcar Willie and wondered if maybe she could do what he wanted. If being with him meant saving everyone, was it worth that? If they were caught, she would be experimented on, and her brother and Josh would be murdered. If she could stop all that from happening by enduring misery for a night or two, didn’t she owe them that? Would being with Willie or being experimented on be worse? Could she live with herself if they were turned over at the checkpoint all because she refused? She closed her eyes and sat on her bottom, not a long way to go when they were already squatting.
Josh put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s not getting what he asked for,” he said.
“We could try to make a jump for it at some place before the next checkpoint, if we could figure out where that was,” Lijah said softly. “But he’s still going to tell. We’ll still have the problem of him telling government officials we were on the train. If he tells them where we’re headed, even though he doesn’t know the exact location, it will make it real difficult for us.”
“Do you believe that he’s really that tight with government officials, that he can explain how he encountered us without getting in trouble,” Josh asked.
Lijah crinkled his brow and pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
Josh nodded, then paused. “Do you think he’d take more cash?” he asked. “Do you think maybe his tirade against cash was an act to get us to offer him more, or do you think cash really has lost its value?”
Lijah stared at him. “You have cash?”
Josh nodded.
“How much.”
“Fifty,” he said.
Elaan didn’t necessarily think fifty dollars was anything to write home about, but the widening of Lijah’s eyes and the embarrassed look on Josh’s face led her to believe he hadn’t just mean fifty dollars. “Thousand?” she asked.
Lijah glared as if he wanted her to be quiet. Josh nodded. She wanted to ask where he’d gotten the money or how he had been able to pack it for the trip. She’d only taken what she was wearing. And then it hit her. She shook her head, not believing she hadn’t thought of it before. She reached up to her neck and felt the gold chain she was wearing. Her fingers found their way to the clasp so she could unlatch it.
“That’s not enough gold for him,” Lijah started to say, but Elaan shook her head.
“A little help,” she said, realizing she wasn’t going to get the clasp loose with her nerves. She turned around so one of them would get it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Josh move toward her and felt his hands graze her neck as he unclasped the chain and held out the ends for her to grab. She took both ends and delicately pulled what was hidden at the bottom of the chain, the one item she’d kept close to her heart: her mother’s engagement ring.
“Where’d you get that?” Lijah asked, recognizing it immediately.
“Dad gave it to me after we went to the facility,” she said. “He said he thought it might help me feel closer to Mom. You were so weird about her, I didn’t mention it to you, but I wear it all the time. Especially on days like today. It helps.”
Lijah reached out and took the ring, holding it gingerly, conflict on his face. “Do you know how much it’s worth?”
Elaan searched her memory, pretty sure her mother told her it was expensive, so expensive that at one point she didn’t wear it much. She’d said something like, “Walking around with eight thousand dollars on your finger seems silly, but it also seems silly to hide it in a closet, too.”
Elaan stared at the ring, here in the low light. It glimmered and sparkled. It was so pretty. “It could be worth close to ten thousand dollars,” she said, thinking diamonds had to be subject to inflation. She and her mother had had that conversation at least five years ago. She’d been in sevventh grade, she was sure, because they’d had the talk the night of the talent show, when her mother couldn’t find her ring. She’d taken it off and it had fallen behind the dresser.
“That’s not enough for all of us,” Lijah said.
“He said five grand was to get us each all the way to St. Louis,” Josh chimed in. “This ring should get us at least halfway, probably more. And that’s much closer than we are now.”
Elaan stared at the ring, feeling a slight void in the
pit of her stomach. The ring was her mother’s, and it was one of the few possessions she had left. Though, her mother wasn’t actually dead. She had to remind herself of that. Her mother was alive. This ring would get them to her.
“You okay with giving him this?” Josh asked.
Lijah blinked in surprise, as if the thought that she might not want to part with the ring never crossed his mind.
“We need to do this,” she said to Josh. “So I’m OK with it. I don’t want him to turn us in at the checkpoint.”
Josh nodded. The three of them stood back up and walked over to Willie, who’d perched himself on the floor of the opposite corner. He was making himself comfortable in his bed, which consisted of a thin mattress, perhaps a futon, covered with blankets and even a pillow. A couple of blue plastic boxes, the kind her mother used to store extra blankets in, were stacked next to him.
He smiled when they approached, patting the pillow next to him. “You ready to join me, darlin’?” he asked.
Lijah held out the ring to him. “Take us as far as this ring will cover,” he said.
Boxcar Willie stood, reached a hand out, and took the ring. He stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small eyepiece, the kind Elaan had seen used to examine diamonds in movies. The boxcar’s light was from some type of electric lantern, a single bulb that glowed in a fixture that Willie had hung from a hook. It must have been battery powered, for Elaan didn’t see a cord, and even if there were a cord, there’d be no place to plug it in. Willie held the ring up to the light and looked at it. After a moment, he tipped his head toward them. “If I’m being generous, it’s worth nine grand,” he said. “That means you’re short six.”
Lijah shook his head. “We don’t have to go all the way there. Take us as far as nine grand will go. Three-fifths of the way to St. Louis,” he said, his voice firm.
