Ever Heard of a Runaway Freight Train?

Nancy tugs at my sleeve and I roll over, grumbling. I tell her to go back to sleep. It's barely half past five. She doesn't say anything else but, that's because she knows I'm right. I have this uncanny knack for being able to tell what time it is, no matter where I am, and no matter what the conditions are. Day or night, I'm a human clock.

I try to think of something mundane, something repetitive, to get my mind to sink back into that sweet dark oblivion of sleep, but it just doesn't happen. I reach over to squeeze Nancy's arm, only to find she's not there. My fingers brush against a thick linen of some sort and I crack one eye open, just a sliver, and blink. Everything is blurry. I stretch my eyebrows up and open both eyes, and then painstakingly pick the crust and garbage out of them before attempting to see again.

When I open my eyes the next time, I see darkness framed by bright yellow light, and a gentle swaying back and forth. "What the...?" I grumble, and I reach forward. I grab the edge of the fabric which I can now see is hanging in front of me on some sort of curtain like contraption, and pull it back. I see some sort of table top, and a moment later, I realize it's not a table top... it's the floor.

I lean forward and look right and left to see if anyone can tell me what the hell is going on. "Nan-c" I start to speak but my voice crackles and I cough to clear my throat. "Nancy? Hey! Nancy! Where are you?" Nothing.

I pull the curtain back more, look down and see I'm clothed in a dinner suit. Not mine, I think and then I move myself to the edge of the space I'm in, and then slide out onto the floor. I grab hold of a steel rung attached to the side of the bed, or the bunk rather, and hoist myself up onto my feet. The floor moves underneath me, subtly, not enough to make me fall, but enough to let me know... we're moving.

"Hello?" I call out, looking around, but nobody answers. I suck in a deep breath, and then button the bottom two on my jacket. I need to look serious, if I expect to be taken serious, and this... wherever I am, is serious.

I realize I'm in some sort of cubicle with six bunks, two stacks of three, facing each other. There's just barely enough room to stand between the bunks without my shoulders touching, and there's curtains in different states of closure on each one. None of them look to be occupied. None of them even have pillows, or blankets, except the one I just crawled out of.

I peek my head out of the cubicle, which also has a curtain drawn across its opening. The corridor extends right and left, and both directions end at a corner. There's nobody in sight. I listen, hoping to overhear someone talking, or hoping to catch talking "sounds" maybe, but there's nothing. I pull the curtain back and step into the corridor and I feel the floor pull away from my feet.

"Oh shit!" I say, and I reflexively reach out, grab the corner of the bunk, and in the process, smash my knuckles into the unyielding steel. "God dang- son-of- Ohhhh-damn!" I groan, and I put my back against the corner and lean on it, inspecting my hand and my knuckles for any serious damage.

Nancy is always telling me I'm a magnet for physical damage. If anyone can get hurt doing anything, I definitely will. Not only that, I'll get hurt the worst. Prom night fender bender? Everyone else came out unscathed. I got a broken ankle, a broken wrist, and whiplash. Horseplaying at the local pool? Head fracture, lacerated forehead, and then I got a pretty bad sinus infection to sum it all up. I even got a papercut one time that was so bad, I hod to go to the hospital to get stitches.

I take another look at my knuckles and I can see where they're turning black and blue already. Nancy... she's not going to be happy. And then I'm going to have to listen to it over and over again, all the while, she babies me. I smirk. Things could be worse I suppose. I could not have her to baby me, and then... I'd be all alone. Am I all alone?

I crack my neck and then turn and look to my right. What's the difference? Right, Left, either way, I gotta figure out where I am and what the heck is going on.

"Hello?" I call out again as I walk down the corridor and then turn left at the end. It's another corridor, this time, much longer, and a lot more curtains, all spaced evenly from one another. "HELLO!" I yell, thinking there's gotta be someone around, someone who can tell me something.

A musical chime emanates from somewhere in the overhead, above the ceiling and the lights, and it almost sounds like it's coming from another compartment above me. I strain to listen, and I only catch a few words that I think... maybe... make sense.

"Kon'nichiwa! eku...resukon...torein ni go ... itadaki arigatō gozaimasu!"

I hate myself for not taking a second semester of Japanese in highschool. I turn my head to the side and try to stand as quietly as I can to hear more.

"Ressha o hanareyou to suru... bassoku ... kase rare, eien no dai konran ga shōjiru kanōsei .... ga aru koto ni chūi shite kudasai."

I smirk. Out of all of that, I understand Konichiwa, Arigato, and the last part about this being a bunch of shite. Shite kudasai to be exact. I really have no idea what that means, but I'm planning to find out.

I head down the corridor, and stop at the first curtain. "Hello?" I ask. Nobody answers me. It's about half past ten if I'm right, so I decide to take a quick peek behind the curtain. The cubicle is empty. The curtains on each of the bunks are all pulled back and there's nobody inside any of them.

I move on to the next cubicle, and the next one. Soon I'm rushing along, ripping curtains back and glancing inside for the briefest of moments before running to the next. All the cubicles look alike, and all of them are empty. Half way down the corridor, I give up on looking for anyone. Instead, I hurry towards the end of the corridor. Around another corner I see a side door and turn into it, almost smashing my face into a large window of glass.

I reach out to grab the handle on the door, but before my fingers can reach it, the ceiling and walls are jerked forward, the floor right out from under me. I stumble backwards and slam into the cubicle wall behind me, banging my head in the process. I groan and shake my head to clear the tiny specks of light swiming there.

I push myself off the wall and move forward again, feeling the forward motion of the train. It is a train, I have no doubt about it now, and now, I'm worried. How in the hell did I get on a train? Nancy said we'd be taking one to her sister's wedding, but that isn't for another six months, at least. I groan and drop my head, wondering if it's finally happening. If, after all these years of being spared, now, the time has finally come.

For so many years, I thought the family curse, a plethora of afflictions and disease, had somehow skipped over me. My father had been a raging alcoholic, my mother a drug addict. I remember when I was young, trying to get both of them to sober up and get clean, but neither was interested. My father never spoke much to anyone about anything. I bet he said maybe a hundred words to me my entire life. My mother, she just said "someday you'll realize, this is better. A lot better."

I never knew what she was referring to, until years later, at my father's funeral, when my uncle pulled me aside and told me if I ever needed anything, just to let him know. At the time, I thought he was just being generous, being kind in the moment for his nephew who had just lost his father, but the look on my face told Uncle Jack, I hadn't really understood.

"If it comes down to it... you know... if you can't do it yourself." I gave him a quizzical look and then he put his fat thumb across his chest, under his chin, and drew it across his neck. "I got you."

I was shocked. I nodded dumbly, and then moved away from him as quickly, and as inconspicuously, as I could. Did my uncle just offer to kill me? Seriously? I was still wondering if this was happening when my mother grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into a side room. It was then, right there at my father's funeral, that she explained it all.

"Your father said I couldn't tell you, but I have to. I can't die without you knowing the truth."

"You're not dying, mom," I said, but she gave me as serious and as sober a face as I had ever seen on her.

"We're not normal. Your father, me... you."

"What do you mean? Not normal?"

"We're cursed. Aches and pains, bruises, broken bones, cancer. You'll get it all. Everything. And then you'll have to make a decision. Do you want to live with it, or end it."

"What do you mean, end it?" I asked, thinking my mother had suddenly lost her mind.

"Your father made the decision. I have too. Just... don't let it continue." I was about to ask her something else, when she turned away from me and hurried out of the room, leaving me in stunned silence. Don't let it continue?

A week later, my mother was dead. My father had fallen off the twenty-third story of a bulding that was still being built. My mother died in a car accident. She'd fallen asleep and crossed over the median and met an eighteeen wheeler head on. Neither one had been an open casket funeral. And I knew, neither one had been an accident either.

When I met Nancy, it was like a whirlwind romance from beginning to... well, the moment we were married. And beyond that too. She came into my work and started asking me all these questions, and then, next thing you know, she's asking me out. Up until that point, I had decided I wasn't going to get involved with anyone. I was going to do as my mother had asked, or warned me. Don't let it continue. But one look at Nancy and I felt all my barriers come down.

Nancy ended up being a bit of a stalker, but I didn't hold it against her. Apparently she'd been perusing the internet and those desperate housewives websites, and she'd found a profile of mine from a long time ago. She'd done a lot of amateur detective work and after a few months of searching, she'd finally found me. I thought it was strange, alarming, even a bit weird, but... Nancy was a real knock out, drop dead gorgeous, and we'd already "gone the distance" quite a few times before I found all this out, so I dismissed it as best I could.

Now, nothing made sense. Why was I on a train, and where in the hell were we going? I had to have answers, which meant, finding Nancy, as quickly as possible.

With the thought of finding Nancy, first and foremost in my mind, I grabbed hold of the handle on the door and yanked it upwards in the direction of the big red arrow. As soon as the handle was verticle, an alarm sounded, a red light began flashing above my head, and a deafening roar filled the train car. It sounded like the train was moving a hundred miles an hour, but I had to remind myself, it was probably only going twenty or thirty miles an hour. my mind was making things worse than they were.

Ignoring the light and the alarm, I pulled the door sideways and air rushed into the car, almost blowing me back into it. I looked out and saw two semi-circular platforms facing each other, one plate on top of the other. to my right, and left, and above, there was nothing but wide open darkness. My mind reeled. How could this be? It was a quarter to eleven in the morning. Eleven at the very latest.

I took another look all around, hoping to see something like a tunnel wall or ceiling passing by, or even stars in the sky if it was indeed night-time which I knew it wasn't. When all my attempts to see had failed, I decided to suck it up and make the transit to the next car. It was just a few feet in front of me, but I had to be quick. I pulled the car door closed behind me, and pushed the handle down to lock it closed.

As soon as the door closed, it was like I was put into a blender, and the floor beneath me was ripped away. The car in front of me pivoted. I grabbed hold of the handle as tightly as I could, and felt my feet come off the ground and then slam back into it. I felt the door, the entire trian car, start to tip, coming off the tracks for just a moment, but then the train hit a straight away and the car lurched back and slammed down. my knees hit the platform so hard I thought my kneecaps might break and I screamed in pain like frightened little girl.

Struggling to my feet as quickly as possible, I positioned myself with my buttocks against the door, and then shot forward. I grabbed hold of the traincar door in front of me, and yanked it upwards and the handle ripped right out of my hands. I stumbled backwards and then reached out desperately, grabbing the handle at the last moment, and steadied myself.

Slower now, I got a good grip on the handle, and then pulled it upwards, and slowly, ever so slowly, the handle came up, and then, it clanged against something inside. I pulled the door sideways and before it was even half-way open, a wave of darkness came pouring out. Thankfully, I was shielded from the torrent, and the massive stream of liquid sloshed out, hit the opposite car, splashed in both directions, and disappeared into the darkness. I didn;t even hear the liquid splatter against anything to the sides, or below, but the roar of the train moving over the tracks was enough to drown out most sound anyways.

I thought about reconsidering my actions for a moment. I could go back, go back to the bunk I'd been laying in... Put my head on the pillow and try to go back to sleep. Maybe Nancy would come get me. Maybe... Nancy was dead. I struck the thought from my mind and looked down. The liquid was still pouring out of the traincar but it was now only an inch or two deep. As long as I walked with flat footsteps, it shouldn't come over the side of my shoes and my pant legs were already soaked with the stuff, whatever it was. I wasn;t about to bend down, touch it, or smell it, and I certainly wasn't going to taste it. Those cops that did that stuff in movies might have been certifiable, but I wasn't.

I took another moment to let some more of the liquid slosh out, and then I stepped inside the traincar. It was dark. Pitch black. I pulled the door closed and pushed the handle down to lock it. The liquid at my heels began to rise. I turned, found the switch for the lights, and flicked it upwards. Ruddy red light flooded the traincar, and my eyes went wide with horror.

There, in the traincar, stacked shoulder to shoulder and face to back, were hundreds of people. Hundreds. Every one of them stood stock still. Every one of them hand one hand extended upwards, and was holding onto a circular rung that hung from the ceiling. Every one of them, was naked. But that wasn't the most shocking thing. The most shocking things was, they were all coated, in blood.

I looked down and realized the stuff that had been flowing out of the traincar, must have been blood. It was thick and dark, so dark, and so thick, it was black instead of red. Against white skin, the color couldn't be mistaken. Even the lights above were coated with the stuff, giving the light its ruddy hew.

I stepped forward, hurried to the last person, they were all facing away from me, and as I turned to look at the person's face, I saw his eyes move. He looked at me. I jerked back, shocked, but when he didnt say anything, I moved a bit closer, and then more in front of him. He was completely naked, coated in blood, and absolutely immobile. It wasn't that he couldn't move, not for any reason I could see, but he just simply, didn't.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

The man didn't answer. His eyes seemed to strain against his eye sockets, and then they turned right and left, right and left, making it look like he was having some sort of seisure.

"Whoa! Whoa, okay hold on." I reached out to grab hold of his shoulder, but the moment my hand made contact with his skin, I felt a discharge of electricity that knocked me backwards. I hit the floor ans slid across it, the blood soaking into my pants and jacket. I pushed myself upright, hurrying to keep the liquid from soaking in too much, and then wiped my hands off on my jacket. It was ruined anyway.

I hurried back to the man, but didn't touch him. I could see a blackened spot on his shoulder, the handprint shape swelling, and the coppery scent of cooked meat wafted through the air. I gagged reflexively and stepped back, but strangely, it smelled good to me. Meat, sounded good. I sucked in a deep breath, pulling it through my mouth instead of my nose, refusing to smell or taste the scent. I looked back at the man's eyes and an idea came to me then.

"Right and left, for no. Up and down, for yes."

The man's eyes took a moment and then they moved up and down.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked... and then I shook my head. "Sorry. Jesus Christ. Uhhhh, do you know where you are?" The man moved his eyes right and left. No. "Do you know how you got here?" No. "Can you move?" No. "Fuck. Alright. Uhhhh... is there anything you can tell me? Anything you want to say?" The man moved his eyes up and down.

"Alright. Uh, let's do this. I'm gonna run through the alphabet. when I get to the letter, you move your eyes up and down. I'll repeat it. if I'm wrong, I'll move up or down a letter until we get it right, and then we move on to the next letter. Got it?" The man moved his eyes up and down in acknowledgement.

"Okay. A, b, c, d, e, f, g... h, I j, k, l, m, n, o, p. Q, r, s... t, u-" the man moved his eyes and down then, "U?" The man shook his eyes back and forth. "T?" The man's eyes moved up and down. "T. Okay. Good. Next letter," I said, and I continued the same way until it was clear he just wanted me to convey a message to his wife. The letter thus far were T-e-l-l-m-y-w-i-f-e-i-l. "Tell my wife I love her?" I asked after a good five minutes of deciphering. The man's eyes moved up and down. I groaned. I went through the motions to find out his wife's name, and was surprised to hear his wife;s first name was Nancy, same as mine. "Alright. I'll tell Nancy, when and if I find her, that you love her. Is there anything else you can tell me about this train?" The man's eyes said no, and I stepped forward to the next person in line.

Person after person, those who were smart enough at least, had pretty much the same thing to say. None of them knew how they had gotten here. None of them knew where they were, or where they were going. None of them had anything to offer, and, after the first three rows of people, I realized, none of them, were female.

Deciding to give up here, I headed forward, and half-way up the traincar, I felt the floor pull away again. My blood soaked shoes gained little traction and soon I found myself sliding backwards, gaining speed in the opposite direction the train was going. I turned my neck just in time to see I was going to collide with someone, and then I did.

I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning the electric discharge was so intense. I fell to the floor, my hair on end, and then, I head someone coughing behind me. I turned to see an old man, chest down, but his face was up, and he was smiling at me.

"Hey! You're free!" I said, scrambling to my feet.

"You knocked me loose!" the old man said, rolling onto his side. "Oh my lord. You have no idea how long we've been here!"

"How did you get here?" I asked.

"Well... it was... nineteen forty-two when I was-" the man reached out to grab hold of something to steady himself, and I saw an arc of electricty jump from the old man's hand, to the leg he was about to grab hold of... The moment the arc hit him, he fell forward with a thud. His face pressed into the blood on the ground and he made no effort to blink, of cough, or lift his face. I grabbed hold of him to try and roll him over and received another shock in return, jerking my own hand back.

"God damn it!" I shouted, and I got to my feet as quickly as I could without touching anything, or anyone. I hurried forward now, angry, and pissed, and confused. Where in the hell was I? Why was I here? What was going on? As I moved closer to the traincar door in front of me, the train seemed to speed up, and my footsteps became harder and harder. "Come on!" I shouted to myself, forcing my feet flat against the ground and using a bit of suction to keep me moving forward. "Almost there."

I grabbed the handle, and pulled it upright, slowly, so I could keep a grip on it, and not slip and injure myself even further. When I pulled the door to the side, light poured in so bright, so intense, it was as if I was staring at the sun itself. I had to throw my hand up to shield my eyes, and instantly I thought of the hundred of men behind me that didn't have the ability to close their eyes, or even blink. I looked down, saw there was a platform there, bright and glowing as if it was on fire. I stepped out onto it and closed the door but only torqued the handle down a little, just in case I had to get back in there in a hurry.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw past the blinding white light, and then I saw the fields of fire. To my right and left, and even, somehow, far, far above me, there were endless rolling fields of fire and flame. Black charred coal and embers surfaced like waves in the ocean, smashing over on each other, spilling dark sprays and patterns across the raging flames which then quickly caught the stuff on fire, and burned with a renewed intensity that blinded if you stared too long.

I stepped closer to the edge, looked down and then craned my head further, trying to see if there was anything I could make out. Any landmarks or anything to identify where I was. A mountain of darkness lay beneath the train tracks, as steep as the edge of a cliff, and just as treacherous. At the base of the mountain lay a sea of boiling bubbling lava, and beyond that, the shores of brilliant fire that lapped at dark coal that seemed to feed into it, burning for all eternity.

"Hello, David," Nancy said, and I looked up, shocked, surprised, confused, and then overjoyed.

"Nancy! Jesus Christ where are we!" I yelped and I hurried across the short expance and took her into my arms. "What in the hell is going on?"

"I, uhhhh. I'll tell you in a little bit. In the mean time, I need to let you know the rules."

"What rules? What are you talking about?" I pulled away from her, noticing that as my hands left bloody prints on her clothing or skin, the stuff evaporated without a trace. "What in the hell is going on?"

"Mmmm, well, you got most of that right. Come on. Let's go talk to the conductor and get you up to speed."

Nancy grabbed my hand, and the train lurched forward, picking up speed so quickly I could barely hang out. "Holy shit!" I cursed.

"Yeah. Basically," Nancy laughed and she opened the door and pulled me into the traincare. "Now, don't be mad at me, okay?"

"Mad? Mad about what? What in the nine hells is going on Nancy!"

"Yeah. Nine is just a myth. There's only one. You ever heard of the runaway freight train from..."