No Ticket To Ride

7:58am

The locomotive blur raced on seemingly unaware of its own brakes or its need for a driver. This metal death trap’s mere appearance was almost as mysterious as its name, Adel Matthew Crusader; a mature name for a train. It was presumably named after its owner or maybe his wife or daughter, none of whom any onboard had ever met. The wealthy residents inside were confined to their individual compartments, not a single one daring to venture out to the mess hall or common car. The train’s narrow halls produced an eerie silence throughout the train halls that was only interrupted by the clack, clack, clacking of the tracks underneath. Although, if one listened ever so closely, it was said, that on this day, they could hear the sounds of Duke Ellington wafting through the halls. Though maybe, that was just the Vernazzian natives all at once, in perfect harmony, inquiring about the mysterious Adel Matthew Crusader, who’s owners no one knew and who’s wheels turned at an uncountable speed towards a destination it was not soon approaching.

The year: 1947, a good year for American socialites to travel to lesser known Italian counties in sleeper trains. To sip champagne from animal tusks, eat foods they could not pronounce, even if they spoke the language, and be photographed with the peculiar natives. Every room on the train was booked for an affluent individual, most of whom were unaware of the impending danger, but none less aware than the man who was only awoken by a small, brass pocket watch that dove from a shelf and down to his unsuspecting forehead.

He instinctively rubbed his assaulted head as his eyes slowly crept open, his pupils and brows widening and furrowing respectively to let in the harsh summer light. There was a large purple bruise forming on his forehead that he had not yet noticed; one much too large to have been caused by a pocket watch. The man sat up and scanned his surroundings: the room was clean, but not too clean, not in an unordinary manner for a train. Though there wasn’t much in the compartment to begin with, what was in the room— the small desk with a copy of The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on it, an emerald lamp, and a standing ashtray— had been sent westward, leaving a large gap the east side. His gaze fell on the window. The train’s momentum had flung his paisley curtains enough to the right to see outside. Mountains and bright green trees created vibrant, abstract moving art right before his eyes. For most, it would have been a remarkable sight; one worth burrowing into the hole of distraction for. But a tinge of horror washed over the barely there man. Where was he? Who was he? And how had he gotten there? Hurriedly, he searched his pockets for a clue; something, anything, that could shed light on his peculiar predicament. In the right, a used handkerchief, a candy wrapper and a lock pick, and in the left, an identification card and a small gold badge with an inscription.

ACS the inscribed letters read, right in the center of the two wings. It was held in a hand sewn burlap pouch with a message embroidered on:

To the bravest man and the greatest problem solver. Forever proud of you daddy. -Laila

Of course. How could he forget Laila? Though he was still having trouble remembering the minute details of her— like what she looked like and how old she was— he could at least deduce that he was her father. The ID beneath it read Clifton Eastern.

ACS he mouthed in confusion, his thumbs passing over the embossed letters over and over again. His gaze once more scanned the room for clues. He had no luggage, no documents of any sort to clarify the meaning of those letters and, subsequently, who he was. But after several dazed moments his eyes found the Arthur Conan Doyle novel on the desk. His brain grasped at the clues presented to him until he pieced together one feasible idea: He, similar to Holmes, must be detective. An American Crime Solver: ACS Clifton Eastern. How else would one explain the message from Laila, the novel, the lock pick and the lack of luggage on a train going to who knows where?

But what crime was he there to solve? In an otherwise pristine room, he’d obviously not been in a struggle with the criminal. He sat up and attempted to leave the bed, his left leg shackle clanging along with him as he moved. He stared at the iron around his ankle in bemusement for moments before it dawned on him.

“Ah!” He said aloud. It all made perfect sense. The criminal must have gotten the best of him during a brawl in an alternate compartment. He knocked him out and chained him to the bed to keep him from foiling his wicked plot. He must be off to his next victim by now. If this plausible hunch was correct, then Eastern only had minutes to escape before the perpetrator succeeded. He dawned the lock pick, like he must’ve done a hundred times before when freeing captive damsels and house fire trapped orphans, and skillfully released himself from his heavy binds.

When they’d fallen to the floor, ACS Eastern shuffled over to the large mirror to adjust his clothing. He was a neat, tidy and meticulous man. Not a blonde hair on his rectangular head was ever out of place. And aside from the very large bruise he’d just now noticed, his face was rather clean and well-kept as well: no beard, structured eyebrows, high cheek bones, Greek nose, chiseled jaw. He adjusted his brown slacks to sit a bit higher on his slim frame and straightened his brown vest underneath his brown coat which perfectly matched his clean, un-scuffed brown leather shoes and brown corduroy socks. He headed for the door to discover it was locked from the outside, strange, but not strange enough to get the prominent detective off track. No, he would find this mystery and then solve it if it was the last thing he did. He effortlessly picked the lock again and within seconds, he was outside his temporary prison and in the train’s quiet hallway.

It smelled stale there. Normally, train cars smelled like what wafted in from the adjacent compartments: too much perfume from someone’s ancient aunt or grotesque gruel from some glutton’s steel meal tray. But this car smelled like old carpet and dust, if dust had a smell. In fact they all did. He passed through the car doors carefully like one passes through museum exhibits. He kept his hands to himself, only barely touching the cold doors as he searched through the empty hallways. It was too quiet there; no babies crying, no couples arguing, no one announcing the next stop. Nothing but the clack, clack, clacking sound of the train on the tracks and the faint sound of his footsteps on the carpet and, if he was still enough, the low, haunting sounds of Duke Ellington or the Vernazzian natives worried the train would never stop— though that, he attributed to the bruise on his head thinking it must have knocked his hearing out of place. Car after car produced no passenger other than himself. The red seats were icy and empty, like they hadn’t been used in sometime. He was beginning to think he was on the car alone until he entered the fourth car.

She was sitting at a dining room table alone, picking at a chip in her polish when Eastern approached her. She was young and beautiful by modern standards with legs that went on for miles.

“Excuse me ma’am,” he said startling her, “Do you by chance know where this train is headed?”

It was a tactical question. She was beautiful, but he was no fool. Beauty was no alibi for murder, or thieving or whatever crime was committed there.

She stared at him, doe-eyed, like she didn’t hear the question. He was, admittedly, entranced by her ocean blue eyes, sultry red lipstick and vibrant blonde hair, and maybe that’s why he didn’t find it strange that she took minutes to answer his question. But when she finally answered, it

was a choked out, stuttering, almost whispered, “Vernazza.” She pronounced it poetically in a fresh Italian accent, despite her trembling, which Eastern didn’t seem to notice.

“When it is scheduled to stop?” He asked obliviously, “It’s going mighty fast don’t you think?” He chuckled, almost flirting with the girl who had now sunk deeper into her seat and attempted to slide the bolted down table between them. She vigorously shook her head from side to side, seemingly signaling that she did not know when the train would be stopping. He took a step away from her, finally sensing her terror.

“I’m not gonna bite,” he joked, extending his hand towards her shaking arm. But the girl snatched away and, in a flash, was out the door and into car three.

8:22am

Breakfast time and the mess hall was lifeless. He began to wonder if the criminal had killed everyone except the two of them. The poor girl must have been terrified to see another living face and completely unsure of who she could trust; typical damsel behavior. Though why was she outside alone? And what was that awful, stale stench? His head had begun to hurt from the large bruise and his overthinking. Solving mysteries couldn’t normally be this hard if he’d made a career of it. Puzzle pieces must’ve typically just fit together for ACS Clifton Eastern, world renown detective, but there were still so many pieces missing. He still didn’t remember boarding the train. He’d seen no body, no signs of struggle on any car, not even a peculiarly opened door that lead to a much bigger clue. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that absolutely nothing happened here. But then why was he shackled?

As he approached the second diner car he heard voices. A man and woman, Americans, spoke in hushed tones. He hid behind the door, cautiously looking through the small window, in case one or both of them were the suspect he’d been looking for, though he felt that unlikely. The woman was short and stout, wearing a dress that was a tad too big for her, dragging it behind her as she coward behind the man. He was rather small too, but skinny, unlike her. He was mostly bones. From behind him, the woman held so tight to an emerald lamp that her pink fingers were beginning to turn white.

“Darling, I’m scared. Can we please go back to the room?” The woman begged, whispering.

“I’ll protect you if that monster comes back,” the man cooed.

“Please, honey. Let’s just stay inside like the officer said!” She whispered back, audibly near tears.

“Carol I’m hungry!” The man yelled at her. She quickly hushed him and he swiftly lowered his tone. “We’ve been cooped up for hours. We missed dinner because of this maniac. I’ll die of hunger before he kills us!”

“Let’s just do it quickly then,” She remarked, hushed.

The conversation conveyed one of two things, either these were innocent passengers or some of the most convincing actors he’d ever seen. He slowly opened the door so as not to startle them. If they were anything like the girl, they wouldn’t take too kindly to unfamiliar faces.

“Excuse me folks,” he began in a low tone that matched theirs, “I’m ACS Clifton Eastern and I sincerely apologize for eavesdropping but I do believe you two will be able to help me. I’m looking for the one who’s responsible for this… caboose caper, so to speak. Would either of you be able to provide me with me a description of the criminal?”

They stared at him blankly with wide eyes, just like the girl did. The woman who, judging by her wedding band, was wife to the fearful man beside her, dropped the makeshift weapon she had. It was a sturdy lamp that landed with a thud, perfect for illuminating rooms, impressing pompous friends and stopping train villains if used correctly, but not very useful when one decided not to be a hero and wanted to run instead. Then, all at once, the pair screamed at the top of their lungs and fled for the door. But tired of this running game, Eastern reached out and grabbed whichever one of them was nearest, which just so happened to be the husband. Eastern was tall, strong and strapping, so grabbing him so that he didn’t run was a fairly easy feat. He held him by his shirt collar and lifted him from the floor to match his face. He wanted to speak eye to eye, man to man, but was interrupted by the wailing of his wife.

“Please, don’t hurt him!” The woman cried from the floor.

“Honey, run!” The man ordered. She, instead, stayed weeping on the ground begging Eastern for her husband’s life.

“What is going on here?” Eastern hysterically demanded to know.

“I don’t have much,” the man in Eastern’s hand stammered, “but if you let me go, I’ve got a house in Anguilla, overlooking the water. My uncle left it to me in his will. It’s lovely, and it’s yours, just please don’t hurt my wife okay?”

“Your wife? Why would I—" Eastern’s question was cut off by the abrupt entrance of a rotund police officer from the opposite car. He released the man and turned towards the officer who had his gun drawn and baton handy.

“Officer!” Eastern sighed with relief, “Finally, someone who’ll make this all make sense! I’m ACS

Clifton Eastern,” he said donning his badge.

“Don’t move Eastern!” The officer yelled.

“Officer, I’m just going to show you my badge!” Eastern laughed adjusting the pointy pin.

“He’s got a weapon!” The woman shouted through tears.

“I love you, Carol,” the man in his hands cried.

“Eastern, I’m warning you!” The officer yelled again, moving steps closer.

“Now you’re behaving strange? I was just telling these nice folk that I—" his statement was

again interrupted by a loud noise. This new one however, was that of the pretty green lamp being smashed into pieces over Eastern’s head by the wife that stood behind him. She’d mustered up what strength her body had and threw the lamp into his allegedly perfect blonde head, sending glass flying everywhere. He instinctively released the husband and crumpled to the ground, not dead but not exactly alive either.

A deadly hush came over the group.

“Bill,” the officer said to the husband, “help me drag him to the front. No use chaining him back to the bed. He’ll just get out again,”

4:36 pm

They didn’t think he’d ever wake up. In fact, they’d invented riddles about it like can you morally kill a killer and where should you bury a body on a train that won’t stop moving? But when he did wake up, the throng of train goers dispersed, choosing to watch from the walls instead.

“You’ve been asleep for almost hours 8, Eastern. You should be well rested,” the officer boldly chuckled.

Eastern’s swollen eyes fluttered open. The image before him was dreary and dismal, but he could still make a few images out of the blurry image before him: two men—one clearly the officer from earlier and the other, completely unrecognizable to Eastern— faced him. The inquiring eyes of the passengers he hadn’t seen until now blinked at him, fearfully. He could finally see the fullness of the trees out of the large front window. So this is Vernazza, he thought to the tune of the Duke Ellington song that sang over the speakers, drowning out what might still be the Vernazzian natives certain the train would never stop. They’d secured both his left arm and leg, this time, to a metal pole that his throbbing head periodically bumped against. Momentarily, he thought to search for his trusty lock pick, but all that belonged to him was sprawled on the floor in front of the man he could not recognize: his lock pick, his ID card, the badge, that candy wrapper and the used handkerchief.

The year: 1987.

The two men conversed in hushed tones. ACS Clifton Eastern, using his impeccable powers of deduction, resolved that these must be the criminals at large, the people must still be in danger and he needed a plan to escape and save them.

“This is how it ends?” Eastern muttered through a clenched, sore jaw, “You’re supposed to protect these people and instead you’ve done what? Terrified them? What sick plan have you devised?”

“What?” The officer asked, perplexed.

“What have you got to lose?” Eastern said leaning forward. “If this is how we all die you might as well confess it!”

The officer looked at the other man, completely confused. The unknown man shrugged.

“Eastern,” the officer said crouching down to look him in the eye, “what are you talking about?”

“You!” Eastern yelled, startling the passengers “You did this! And I know how! You lured these people on the train with promises of a free trip to Italy, that’s why no one needed a ticket. I came along intending to stop you, only to be foiled by your goons and chained to my room. And now that I’ve come close to stopping you, you’ve chained me here, planning to kill me and then the rest of them! Well, if my hunch is correct, and it always is, I’ll get out of here and you’ll be in prison where you belong. The only thing I couldn’t quite figure out was why? Why would you do this?”

The officer stared blankly at Clifton Eastern, who was now slightly foaming at the mouth.

“Charlie,” the unknown man said stepping closer to Eastern and sitting on his knees to face him, “Let’s stop this charade now, okay?”

“Who are you?” Eastern said huffing at the man.

“Tell us how to stop the train, Charlie” he said calmly in his thick English accent.

“Does he really not know you?” the officer asked, a tinge of concern in his voice.

“Children who’ve played a game for far too long tend to forget what reality is,” the man said shaking his head. “My brother, in essence, is such a child. I don’t think he even knows who he is,”

Eastern glared at the man who was beginning to look familiar; his pale skin turning red, his blue eyes darkening.

The man stood up and faced the crowd, his back to the chained man on the floor who was now panting and drooling like a caged animal.

“My name is Brighton Redwood. I apologize for what my brother, and therefore I, have done here today. But, I will gladly admit to my wrong doing, as well as his, and pay the consequences for my actions. My brother, whose real name is Charles Redwood, Charlie, believes himself to be an anti-hero of sorts, but I suppose that makes me his anti-hero accomplice. Charlie believes that those of us aboard this train have done something wrong or have tainted society in some way and therefore, should be removed from it, permanently. My brother has lived at the heels of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle since we were young, wanting to be like the main characters: wealthy and well-liked. But when our father lost his job and then drank himself to death, we were left with a mother who did not know how to raise two boys on her own and eventually abandoned us both. I’m not making excuses for Charlie, I’m explaining why he is the way he is.”

Eastern’s head hung low to the ground. He dug his fingernails into the wood floors as the sweat pooled around him. The man continued.

“In our mother’s absence, Charlie buried himself in his books, finding solace in their high class lifestyles and pretending they were his. We lied to our schoolmates and teachers, instead of confessing to what our mother had done, but in this lie, Charlie invented a new life for us. One where our mother was still home and getting remarried to a rich man from Sussex. A world where time froze, it was always 1947, and no harm could be done to two abandoned children. A world where heroes existed and villains were punished. I’d even believed in this world until we got back to our empty home and bare cupboards. I admit, I took to stealing to keep from starving, but just whatever I could grab quickly and run with. But Charlie was different. He didn’t have to steal, he could manipulate people with his words, and they would want to give him things! He believed his own lies and fell deeper and deeper into his makeshift utopia. But I figured, it was just playing pretend; what was the harm in that? I chose to accompany Charlie to the upper end, forsaking my petty theft expeditions, and for months our cupboards were full with no signs of ever being empty again. But one summer evening, Charlie asked me a strange question. He wanted to know if I thought the people we were visiting were deserving of what they had. It was the first time he’d seemingly left his storybook world and remembered that we were poor and essentially, orphaned. I told him I’d never thought about it and he left it there. We eventually grew up and got jobs and sold the house. I got married and I thought Charlie moved to a flat in London, until someone told me he was in Brazil. Then someone else told me he was in Malaysia. But the postmaster said he was in Canada.”

“I was in Oregon,” a brooding voice spoke from behind him. It was much different than the voice that belonged to ACS Clifton Eastern. Eastern’s voice was a brisk American one; it was chipper, mid-toned and warm. This voice was deep, sinister, raspy and unmistakably English. The man attached to the voice wasn’t ACS Eastern either. He was unkept and untidy. His suit was torn with tufts of cotton escaping from the lining. His hair danced out of place and appeared much longer than before. Blood and drool slid down his once chiseled, now swollen jaw and his nose had been fractured, giving it a crooked, upturned appearance. This was no longer Clifton Eastern, this was a monster. “I left Wales and went to Oregon,” he finished.

“Welcome back, Charlie,” Brighton sighed turning around slowly.

“I went to Oregon to make a special purchase.” Charlie, the man formerly known known as Clifton Eastern said slowly.

“I remember,” Brighton said, “You wrote me about it. You always wrote me. You said there was something you wanted and a girl had it and you had to marry her to get it,”

“The plane,” Charlie smirked.

“Yes, the plane,” Brighton said shaking his head. He turned back to the expecting crowd, “her father was a pilot, to be more specific, an Air Crew Specialist for the United States Air Force. He had a personal plane named Laila, for his daughter. The agreement was when he died, the plane was hers. So Charlie figured, if he married her, the plane was his as well. I honestly believe my brother was willing to marry Laila and wait for that plane. But when her father refused to allow Charlie to marry her, he did the unthinkable,”

Brighton looked back at his brother, disappointment in his eyes, before continuing.

“I think it was the rejection that made him snap. He’d never been rejected before. Not by anyone, except mother maybe, but she’d been dead to us for years. They found his body in the river a few miles away from the house. Charlie convinced police that he was innocent, but I knew the truth. That was his first, but it wasn’t his last. Not by far. My brother flew in that dead man’s plane from country to country saying he was some sort of detective, waiving his badge around like a child. He wrote me at every stop, each letter more gruesome than the next, his targets always being wealthy and affluent— undeservingly so if you asked Charlie. And the worst part of it, was that he seemed genuinely happy. I think, in his world, this was the heroes punishing the villains, so it was okay. I stopped reading at some point, and burned the letters I’d saved. My daughter was 3 then, and I hated the thought of her reading one accidentally. I never spoke of Charlie’s endeavors, but my wife knew I had a brother. I was embarrassed, to say the least, and too afraid to go to the police. So I leaned on the lessons from my brother: I lied, somewhat. I told them he was a traveler. But I hated lying, even a little bit, so when he wrote me that last letter, saying he was going to get something bigger than the plane, I wrote back. I told him I wanted to see it and asked him to wait for me.

“Unbeknownst to me, he’d been working on his largest heist for years before he wrote me. He got a job as a museum curator. It was the perfect gig for a patient man like Charlie and it sat right on the tracks and served as an extended exhibit; a perfectly preserved beauty from 1947. He’d do his job during the day and repaired the train at night for years until she was ready to go.”

“He’s insane!” The officer breathed out in horror, "What did you do to the train’s owner, Adel Matthew Crusader? Will we find her dead somewhere too?”

Charlie sighed, “Do you see what I mean, Brighton? These are the elite?” He looked blankly at the officer. “She doesn’t exist.”

“I’m afraid he’s telling the truth, Officer James,” Brighton sighed. “It took me awhile to figure out, but the train’s name, like ACS Clifton Eastern, is an anagram. I told you my brother loved Agatha Christie. If you mix up Adel Matthew Crusader, you get Samuel Edward Ratchett, the same way Lanfranco Cassetti gets you ACS Clifton Eastern. He’s paying homage to the same twisted character.”

“Ingenuity, my dear Watson,” Charlie chuckled, “You’d all board a train with no working breaks and keep going until you hit a wall or another train.”

“That backfired though, didn’t it,” Brighton snapped, “When I discovered you’d removed the break valve to the train, I confronted you before your departure out of the window in what was due to be my room. You drew a gun on me and I ran, alerting the other passengers on board. We’d gotten to the diner car when the train jerked back and it sent you head first into a table, knocking you out cold. I was the one who cuffed you to your bed.”

“So now we’ll die together,” Charlie smirked.

The crowd erupted into a frenzy of panic, each one crying or praying or asking another what they should do. Together, they drowned out the sounds of Duke Ellington and the Vernazzian natives and the clack, clack, clacking of the train on the tracks that had suddenly begun to slow.

First the music shut off, then the smoke from the train died out, and finally, the clack, clack, clacking became a slow whining as the Adel Matthew Crusader that was traveling up a slightly elevated hill came to a complete stop. The 1947 beauty had quietly died, for lack of fuel, in Vernazza, 1987.

They were oblivious to their new found safety until someone from amongst the group noticed a change in the room:

“He’s gone!” the passenger yelled.

They all turned to where ACS Clifton Eastern and Charlie Redwood once sat and stared at the open space and pile of cuffs and pool of sweat. His absence almost caused another terrified eruption that was abruptly stopped by a man’s voice yelling,

“I think the train stopped!”

They immediately ran to pry open the doors and erupted into celebration.

“You think he’s still on the train?” the officer asked Brighton once they’d all left.

“No,” Brighton said, “I think he’s meticulous and cunning and he always planned to stop in this very spot. I think there’s a boat or car somewhere waiting for him. I think this was never about them, he knew I’d come and he wanted to remind me that if he wanted to, he could kill me.”

Brighton paused for a moment. Staring at the pile that used to be Clifton Eastern.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” the officer said, “This train needs a driver. Breaks or no breaks it’s an old machine. It couldn’t have started on it’s own. Who drove the train?”

The officer found himself talking to the empty car. He peaked his head outside for signs of Brighton: he saw the lush Vernazzian mountains overlooking the clear blue waters below and in the distance, a small village, where Vernazzian men and women were continuing in their day to day, not even slightly concerned about a train that was playing a Duke Ellington song while carrying affluent passengers. The roads went on for miles and Vernazza was a port city where ships entered and exited like clockwork.

Both Redwood brothers were long gone. With them, either or both, the lock pick that belonged to Eastern. That and the knowledge of what ever happened to ACS Clifton Eastern’s alleged gun. A thought significant enough for the officer to wonder if all was not as simple as it seemed.