Aroma is Derailed

Chapter 1

Aroma was startled awake by a sharp rapping sound coming from her window. Her bedroom was on the second floor. She glanced at the clock and nearly groaned aloud. It was only quarter past three in the morning.

She reached for her lamp and flooded the room with light. The knocking paused as she let her eyes adjust to the brightness before swinging herself out of bed. She walked to the window on unsteady feet and pulled the curtain aside.

A woman stared at her from the other side of the glass. She had pale skin and glowing red eyes. On close inspection, she held the side of the window frame with one hand and stood balanced on a thin branch that couldn't possibly hold a cat's weight. She was holding a fancy envelope in her free hand.

Aroma slowly unlatched and pushed open the window. Clearly, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this picture. The woman opened her mouth, revealing a pair of sharp but petite fangs.

"Are you Ms. Greyline? Ms. Aroma Greyline?" After Aroma nodded, the woman continued speaking. "I am Ms. Florenstine, secretary for Mr. Spike. I have brought you this correspondence at his bequest." She held out the envelope and Aroma took it, then watched the woman fade into the darkness like a ghost.

After closing the window and pulling the curtain back over it, Aroma returned to sit on her bed and open the letter. She read:

#

Thank you for delivering my lunch today, Aroma. How do I know your name? That's a secret. A vampire needs to stay mysterious, after all.

I hope my secretary found you at an appropriate time. She's not very considerate of conventions. How do we know where you live, you ask? The answer is, I'm a vampire.

Please come see me again for dinner. I live at 32 West Wilderness Rd. If you come after sunset, I guarantee you won't be bored.

Signed,

Professor Nicholas Spike

#

Aroma reread the letter, unable to discern her own reactions. Then she opened the drawer of her bedside table, placed the refolded letter inside, turned off her lamp, lay down, and went back to sleep. Who asked that woman to show up at three in the morning?

---

Chapter 2

When Aroma woke next, she was groggy. Instead of waking before her alarm went off, the latter occurred first. She fumbled for her phone and turned it off, then switched on her lamp. Swinging her legs to the floor she sat on the side of her bed and rubbed her eyes for a moment. Then she got up.

Today she didn't bother heating anything up and just grabbed a second protein shake to compensate for the lack of solid food this morning. Then she went straight to her home office and powered on her pc, setting the binder on her desk. She opened her email and saw a new notification. She read it.

#

Aroma, you are hereby invited to the funeral of Rhonda and James Siegfried and Mariel Greyline on March 3rd of this year. You are not expected to participate in the proceedings should you join, but you may if you choose to do so.

Aunt May

#

She opened the binder to update the funeral entry but paused, her eyes narrowing on the red tab barely peeking above the pages. Her mind went back to Professor Nicholas at the academy. He had not been able to solve her problem then, but the experience was memorable. It might be worth pursuing on its own merit.

Her hands trembled slightly and she forced herself to flip past the red-tabbed page about the academy until she reached the funeral page. She took a deep breath, then wrote a new entry, concentrating on writing neatly.

#

Funeral is on March 3rd. No speech required.

#

Then she closed the binder abruptly and stood up so quickly she swayed slightly. She took a moment to breathe, then ascended the stairs back to her room. She retrieved the letter from her drawer and took it downstairs with her.

She used her home office pc to investigate the address provided in the letter. There wasn't a 32 West Wilderness Rd listed, but the street was accessible enough. To find out more, she would have to visit in person. Maybe this was a case of a relatively new property not yet added to GPS databases.

She stuffed the letter in her pocket, grabbed her keys, and was almost out the door before she stopped. How was she going to get to West Wilderness Rd? Going back to the pc, she felt disappointed at herself for her lack of foresight.

A few clicks later, she had the route saved. She would have to take the train.

---

Chapter 3

Aroma walked to the same bus stop she had used yesterday to visit Merit Academy. Her wait this time was much shorter. Scarcely had she sat down when she saw the bus in the distance. A moment later and she was boarding.

The bus driver was the same guy as last time. Upon seeing her, he said, "Ho, miss, glad to be seeing ya again. Seems ya got home fine las'nigh. Where'ill be tuh'day?"

Aroma just stated her destination. "Murph Station."

The driver looked it up in his little booklet. "Thah'll be dollar forty pence." She handed over a one dollar bill and two quarters. He handed her back a dime. She thought it might be one of those she had given him yesterday. Then she took a seat.

It wasn't an especially long drive. They passed the Merit Academy stop on the way. It was that time of day when everyone who started work early was already arriving at their jobs and those who worked 9-5 hadn't left their homes yet, so there wasn't much traffic. Once the bus pulled up to the station, Aroma disembarked. The bus driver was saying something, but she didn't hear him. She had never taken a train before.

She entered the station and bought a ticket. She walked over to stand on the platform. She was one of only a handful of people here. It was rather quiet this time of day.

She glanced at her ticket to verify she'd chosen the correct stop and boarding time, then checked which car she was supposed to board. It didn't say. The ground was already starting to vibrate. She glanced up just as the clock struck the hour to see the train entering the station and slowing to a stop in front of her. The doors on all the cars slid open at once. They weren't marked, so she picked the closest one and climbed aboard. She found a seat next to the door and looked for her seat belt. She couldn't find it, so she watched as others found seats. When no one used any seat belts or safety harnesses, she relaxed. She was barely aware that the doors had closed, zoning out a bit after the train started to move.

---

Chapter 4

After some time Aroma became aware of the other passengers. Several were speaking to one another. A few had gotten out of their seats to stand with their faces nearly pressed to the doors. As her focus trained on them, she managed to catch a few words. "...not right." "...how long has it been..." "...next stop..." She furrowed her brow, concentrating, and managed to come up with an idea of what was happening. It seemed the train was taking longer to reach the next station than normal. She frowned slightly. Something must have slowed the train from its usual speed. A toddler started crying but was quickly silenced as its mother comforted it. A small dog stuck its head out of someone's purse and yipped, then retracted back into the bag. She could see the purse trembling slightly.

Obviously, everyone felt uneasy. The dog's behavior, especially, was worth considering. But there likely wasn't any problem outside of a simple delay. Aroma watched calmly for a while before losing interest. She didn't quite zone out again, but she wasn't paying much attention anymore either.

The train jumped under her as if it hit a rock. Startled, she peered out the window. Nothing out of the ordinary was visible from her vantage point and the train was moving smoothly again.

She had just turned away from the window when it hit another rock, then another. Suddenly, she wasn't in her seat anymore. A brief moment of weightlessness, then she could see the car rotating around her. The scream of twisting metal broke the silence, and she could feel a breeze that quickly turned violent. One wall of the car tore away, and the force of the wind sent her flying through it into the sky above the train. Then she began to fall.

As she fell, she could see the derailed train still moving at high speed over its bridge. It was still tearing itself apart beneath her. She had somehow gotten ahead of it.

As she watched, another car's wall tore away and a bear appeared in the gap. Behind it she saw what used to be a large cage, twisted and torn asunder. The bear looked none the worse for wear.

The train car the bear was in hit something on the tracks and rose in the air. Aroma watched, eyes flickering in surprise, as the bear leaped out of the wrecked train car that was still traveling at tremendous speed, leveraging the brief elevation difference to land on top of the next car and barreling toward her at full speed across the top of the train.

When it reached the last car, that segment hit another rock just as the bear gathered itself for a leap, propelling it even further forward and into the air than normally would have been possible. It reached Aroma and she grabbed ahold of it, half sitting on its back facing the train. The bear hit the tracks, they bounced, and it kept running ahead of the train. But Aroma could see that the train was faster. It chased after them like an inevitable wave of steel.

Aroma watched for a few seconds as the distance between them and the train continued to decrease then looked over her shoulder in the direction they were going and watched the end of the bridge approach. They weren't going to make it.

Aroma turned her body around to face the same direction as the bear and wrapped her limbs around it. Her fingers dug into its flesh. She felt a jolt of static electricity at her fingertips and the bear flinched but never broke stride.

Remembering the flight from yesterday at the Academy's haunted minecraft exhibit, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling. Her new mole heated up and she could feel the warmth spread through her body and enter the bear through her hands. When the bear whimpered her concentration broke and the electricity in her fingers flickered before she refocused on the task.

Acting on instinct, she commanded, "Jump!" Not hesitating for a second the bear leaped into the air, and kept rising as a bubble of electric heat surrounded them. Aroma could feel wings on her back, more solid than before, but she knew if she turned to look they'd still be invisible. She held on as the train crashed through the spot they'd been a moment ago and continued screeching toward the end of the bridge.

After the cacophonous sound of many tons of steel crashing, screaming, twisting, and breaking apart had faded sufficiently for her to feel the immediate danger had passed, she began lowering them toward the tracks beneath them. She was concentrating so hard while using this power that she didn't dare open her eyes until they were on solid ground. Nothing could be allowed to break her focus even for an instant.

When they were still several feet in the air, a sudden voice boomed with arrogance, the sound echoing all around her disorientatingly. “Little angel. We know what you’ve been doing, but you will always be one of us.”

With a squeak that sounded like an indignant squirrel, Aroma’s focus shattered and they abruptly dropped the rest of the way to the ground. The bear immediately crumpled beneath her and she rolled off its back. After shaking her head and rising to her feet, she raised her fist and shrieked, “Leave me alone! I will never be one of you blasted angels!”

The response to her declaration was laughter, cold and derisive, almost malicious. Mocking. “The only way to stop being one of us is to give your sanctity to a devil." The voice sneered. “But you’re too pure and innocent for that. Wake up from your delusion and accept what you are.”

Aroma muttered by reflex, “Just watch me. Too pure? What a joke.” Then she frowned. Sanctity? What was that? And why did the disembodied voice think she had such a thing? She sighed, then turned to see the bear was rising unsteadily to its feet, clearly hurt by the fall but uninjured.

She walked over to the bear and pet its head in gratitude. "You should head back the way we came. The final resting place of the train will be dangerous, and likely to attract attention. If you follow me there, you're likely to be recaptured by the humans."

The bear nuzzled her hand for a moment, then turned and ambled off in the direction she suggested it go. She stood there for a moment, just watching it go, before she turned around to follow the derailed train's path.

---

Chapter 5

She had to carefully pick her way through the debris. At first, it was a small piece of alloy every few dozen steps. Then every few steps. After she left the bridge, it became scattered clumps of rubble. Those clumps become increasingly heated and dense as she continued. Before she could even see the main body of the train, the scene looked like blackened and burned tar with nearly consistent devastation around her. It was almost like walking through a landfill that had been burned until most of it had turned to ash, and what remained even remotely intact was still burning. The smell of melted steel, spilled gasoline, and burned plastic hung in the air.

The ambient temperature was much higher than it should have been. Her shoes were beginning to wilt from the burning hot pieces of wreckage she couldn't entirely avoid stepping on. And at the far end of the killing field lay what remained of the body of the train itself. If you could even call it that anymore.

She didn't quite know what she was looking at. A mess of bent and broken steel beams, crumpled steel plates, jagged pipes that rose up from the main mass, the whole of it resembling a hill with thick smoke rising from it in several places. She stopped walking, not daring to approach any closer.

She knew she should report this, but before she could follow that train of thought she saw movement in the wreckage. A figure was beginning to crawl from it. Forgetting her earlier hesitation, she immediately ran over to help the survivor. She reached out a hand and grabbed their arm, trying to pull them to their feet. They clutched her arm and pulled back, trying to regain their balance. Then she felt an intense pain that almost made her black out and heard a scream more piercing than in any movie.

She didn't realize she was the one screaming at first. The pain was coming in intensifying waves. Her sight narrowed to a tunnel, her legs buckled, and finally she realized what was happening. The person she had just helped had long, serrated fangs buried in her arm and was chewing at the bone, trying to saw it off.

Her strength gave out and she found herself falling backward. The pain was receding into the background as her body became numb and her thoughts turned sluggish. She couldn't stop her fall. Almost by accident, her legs became entangled with the enemy's. Now instead of her falling backward and potentially pulling the enemy down on top of her, the combined weight had them both falling sideways. Just as they hit the ground there was a flash of light, and suddenly her arm was free. The pain returned with a vengeance, causing her mind to shut down.

---

Chapter 6

She opened her eyes, and knew she had just passed out from the sudden return of pain. She forced herself to move with difficulty. She rolled over until she could support herself with one arm and looked more closely at the situation. There was a quarterstaff embedded in the ground straight through her attacker's head, not even an inch from where her arm had just been. It was lying face up, its face destroyed, but she could still see some bestial features in the otherwise human head. They were to subtle to describe, but gave the feeling of canine human hybridization. Possibly similar to werewolf imagery.

Even stranger, there was a lack of blood. It didn't look like a living creature had been killed by a staff being thrust through its sinuses. The resulting carnage more resembled a zombie movie. But both of these images contained the same problem for her current situation.

Her chest clenched and insides flipped as a wave of dread that tasted like metal flowed through her. Her heart skipped a beat and her breathing became shallow. Realization slowly dawned in her mind. Whatever it was, werewolf or zombie, it had bitten her. Which meant... Only then did she think to actually look at her injury.

Slowly, she turned her head. As her arm came into view, the severity of the injury made her face pale. The punctures were deep, the edges lacerated and torn. Bone was showing. There was mostly-dried blood coating the skin around the injury. She gingerly wiped away some of the blood and discovered that the veins surrounding the wound glowed bright red like molten wires. The skin immediately adjacent to the wounds was obviously whiter than it should have been. This wasn't a simple case of sepsis and too early to be a mundane infection.

She breathed out, then looked up to see another figure staring at her from inside the wreckage. It was that guy from the academy who had interrupted her visit yesterday. What was his name... Rob. He was just staring at her, face devoid of emotion, making no move to approach. A red glint briefly appeared in his eyes but was gone when she blinked.

She stared back for a second, then had no more time to think. More figures were pulling themselves free of the wreckage, crawling toward her like the first one had. She glanced at them, and when her gaze returned to where Rob had been standing he was no longer there. She sighed and grabbed hold of the staff, using it to help her stand.

---

Chapter 7

She turned to face the figures who were crawling toward her through the debris field. She decided to call them zombwolves.

A few were already standing. Others were attempting to pull themselves to their feet using especially large pieces of the destroyed train. A couple didn't even try. And they were all moving toward her.

Her muscles tensed as she pulled the staff out of the ground, and, placing her foot on the head of the first zombwolf, she yanked the staff free. She heard a click in her mind. Electricity shot up her arm and pierced her heart. Her vision blurred, then focused even sharper than before. Her wounds appeared to shrink as her muscles contracted more than they ever had. She could feel strength flood her system as the infection faded.

The staff now felt familiar, like an old friend. She looked at it. The staff looked identical to the one used by the Monkey King. That name felt like more than myth. Wasn't that her name? There was a brief moment of confusion, then he smiled with the corner of her mouth. How fun. To get to fight in the mortal realm again. Her eyes flickered. What? Then she went still, staff at his side.

He felt relaxed and at ease as he watched the zombwolves approach. His smile brightened with excitement. The zombwolves continued to approach. The ones on their feet were in front. But couldn't they get here any faster? The excitement waned before combat had even begun. The first one arrived and reached toward his face. He watched the hand approaching in slow motion. His staff snapped out, its head exploded and he kicked the body aside. He watched it fall. The staff whirled and hit two more zombwolves in quick succession, then he side-stepped their falling forms as the staff decapitated the fourth. He moved with deliberate ease. There were no true opponents here. He tripped the fifth in the path of one of the crawlers, watched as their heads collided then his staff went through both skulls simultaneously. This was boring. His smile faded completely. He let the next zombwolf grab him, then the next, waiting until he felt the lips of the first one on his skin before he simultaneously executed all of them in one move. He would have let them bite her again if it made the fight more interesting. He was moving automatically now, not even deigning to grace those weaklings with his full attention. He just wanted to get this disappointing charade of a fight out of the way as soon as possible.

Finally, he stomped on the head of the last one to crawl in his direction. He wasn't even breathing hard. He scanned the battlefield with contempt, then let the staff shrink in his hand. The feeling of strength in his body faded in tandem with the shrinking of the staff.

When it was the size of an ink pen, he felt something shift inside her. She put the staff in her pocket, then swayed. She sat down, exhausted, body in agony. She checked her injury. It was just as bad as before, but the red glowing lines on her skin were gone.

She could hardly bear to move, but she forced herself to pull her phone from her pocket and dial 911. A voice on the other end skipped the pleasantries. "What's your emergency?"

"Train derailed. I am close to it. Can you triangulate based on my phone's current location?"

"It will take a few minutes. Please stay on the line while we run your gps."

Aroma relaxed and waited. She thought about her injury, and how the red lines had disappeared after using the staff. She thought about Rob. Then she remembered she had been on her way to investigate the professor's house. She looked around at the devastation around her. That plan got derailed. Pun intended. She looked at her injury. Better save the investigation for another day.

"We're all set. Emergency personnel are enroute to your location. Would you like to remain on the phone until they arrive?"

"No. Thank you." Aroma hung up the phone then dialed 1-800-TAXI. "You have reached Screaming Taxi services. How may we help you?"

"I'm in the middle of nowhere somewhere past a train bridge after Murph Station. Can you pick me up?"

"Sure, no problem. Do we have your permission to use your phone's gps data to find you?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Please hold while we transfer your call to the driver. Have a wonderful day."

She heard a beep, then a long moment of silence. "This is Robert Ironescue. I'll be your driver. Please wait a few minutes while my equipment triangulates your location."

"Okay." Aroma waited again. She thought about the bear. Hope it got away safely. Then she remembered the voice. Of all the... She sighed.

"Okay, I've got it. I'm only two minutes away. See you soon." The driver hung up. She assumed he didn't have hands-free driving enabled.

---

Chapter 8

All she could do now was wait. She closed her eyes. What felt like a few seconds later she heard the sound of a helicopter descending toward her. She opened her eyes and looked around. There wasn't a helicopter and the sound was gone. Instead, an all wheel drive suv with Screaming Taxi emblazoned on the side was pulling to a stop next to her.

She shook her head, feeling a bit disoriented. Then she moved as if to stand up. The taxi driver, Robert, opened his door and sprinted over to help her rise. He assisted her to the taxi, opened the rear hatch and had her sit on the tailgate while he rummaged inside. He took out an unopened bottle of rubbing alcohol and opened it, then grabbed and lifted her arm with one hand while pouring the whole thing into her wounds with the other. She hissed and tried to snatch her arm away. He didn't let go until the alcohol stopped dripping from her skin. Then he grabbed a roll of bandages, wrapped them tightly around her arm, and secured them.

He helped her down, half carried her in to the passenger side door, then helped her climb aboard and closed the door behind her. He closed the back hatch and climbed into the driver side.

"Where to?"

"Home."

She didn't give him her address. It never occurred to her to do so. She was barely aware of her surroundings, her mind in a fog.

The driver gave her a long look. Then he took out an envelope from his pocket, opened it, and read the contents. He input an address into his GPS system and began to drive.

Aroma fell asleep in the taxi. Robert woke her when they were in front of her house, then helped her exit the vehicle and walk to her door. As she went inside, he handed her an envelope. "Do you need me to help you inside?"

She took the envelope and put it in her pocket without looking. "Thank you. But no." Robert nodded then turned and walked back to his vehicle. She watched him drive away.

Then, she realized she never paid him. And he never reintroduced himself in person. Shaking her head, she went inside and immediately climbed the stairs toward her bedroom. She put the envelope on her bedside table, climbed into bed fully clothed, and fell asleep immediately.

End of volume 3