Transit

Jack woke with his face so close to spider web fractured glass that he thought his own pupil had cracked. Even having never ridden in a train before, Jack recognized the large rectangular windows and rows of benches. The benches had a dark and brilliant wood finish, with the backs all ending in a detailed swirl that reminded him of church pews. Running down the center of the aisle was a deep red carpet. It was almost as if it used to be a different color, and the red was just a stain on the fabric. The sight subconsciously tapped into Jack’s deepest memories and caused an involuntary shudder.

Facing the aisle, each bench had two numbers embossed in gold to designate the seating plan. Only, the numbers were not sequential. They appeared to be random, and Jack leaned over the aisle seat to look at his row’s numbers. Seats E20 and E13. Jack’s confusion was deepening by the second. He squeezed his eyes shut as if it would help him remember how he got here.

Everything was hazy and Jack had no idea how much time had passed since he’d been here. He could picture the major events of his life but couldn’t seem to put an order to it. Marrying Jen. His divorce. Those two were easy enough to guess the sequence of, but everything else was scattered. Even the memory buried so deep that it resided in the pit of his stomach was hard to place. Was that before Jen? Or after? Jack shuddered again as he found himself, once more, staring at that carpet. Was it wet? He wondered.

With a shake of his head, Jack tried to regain focus on the present. He rummaged through his pockets in search of anything that could help him make sense of the situation. He had no wallet, no tickets, no phone. All he could find were two unmarked silver coins. They were smooth, misshapen circles with absolutely no markings. Perplexed, Jack stuffed them back into his front pocket. He was becoming frustrated with his inability to remember anything useful.

“You got two of them too, huh?”

Jack whirled around to see a man standing in the aisle a few rows behind him. He was tall, clean-cut, and around the same age as Jack. He reminded Jack of the men in suits you might see eating a fancy lunch downtown while throwing around terms like “merger deal” or “contingency clause”. Jack had always been wary of these white-collar men.

“The coins. You find two of them in your pocket?” asked the man again.

Jack wondered how long the man had been watching him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did. Do you have any idea where this train is going?” Jack asked.

The man watched Jack for a moment, as if trying to decipher the true meaning of Jack’s question. He responded suspiciously, “No. I woke up a few cars back with my head against a broken window.” He shot a quick glance at the cracked window Jack sat next to and added, “We aren’t the only ones here either. There are others. All woke up next to a fucking cracked window.” Pointing to the gold numbers on the side of Jack’s bench seat, he asked, “These numbers mean anything to you?”

Still leery of the man, Jack responded, “I have no idea. Looks random.”

“It’s not,” said the man. “You’re in seats E20 and E13. So are a bunch of the others. Those seem to be the most common numbers. I woke up in seats D22 and D8.” The man seemed to notice the growing confusion on Jack’s face and lightened up slightly. He reached his hand towards Jack to introduce himself. “Name’s Miles.”

Before Jack could shake Miles’ hand and return the introduction, a crackling and thin voice filled the car’s atmosphere. It was a deep voice reminiscent of an airline pilot alerting that turbulence was ahead. “Our last passenger has awoken,” the announcer said. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here and I can assure you that all the answers you seek will soon be answered. For now, all I can tell you is that the passenger with the most coins to offer will be the only one to remain. Oh, and do take care of your windows. They are already quite... fragile.”

The voice disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Jack and Miles stood in silence for a few moments.

It was Miles that broke the silence. Shaking his head, he said, “What the fuck does that mean? The only one to remain? Whoever put this whole thing on has seen one too many movies.”

“You don’t think he means that we need to…” Jack trailed off but didn’t need to finish his sentence. Both men were silent again, and you could almost see the distrust growing.

Shattering glass broke the tension, followed by the shouting of several voices, a series of large thuds, and then more broken glass. The two men ran towards the confrontation, which led them one car closer to the front of the train. When they arrived at the source, they found three people in an argument. It took a few more moments, but they also soon noticed a pair of legs between two of the benches. The window had been completely shattered where he lay as well as a window on the other side of the car.

“You didn’t have to fucking kill him!” screamed a woman on the verge of tears.

“That little shithead was trying to steal my coins! And now I have his. Plus, you heard that announcement. You should be thanking me. I just eliminated some competition,” said a very large man with a ponytail.

“None of us even know what that announcement meant,” argued the woman. “It surely didn’t mean for us to start killing each other! You are a fucking murderer and you’re going to rot in prison for this.”

The large ponytailed man glared at her and said, “You think someone who kidnaps a bunch of random people and makes them fight over coins has any intention of involving the police?” He stepped towards her. “And don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s the only man I’ve ever killed.” This comment sent Jack’s mind racing.

Another man stepped in between the ponytailed man and the woman. He was bald and wearing gym clothes. “Back away, man,” he said as he stared the ponytailed man in the face.

The ponytailed man now took notice of Jack and Miles. Realizing he likely wouldn’t fare well against all four strangers, he backed away and let out a snicker. “Fine. You guys all want to be friends? Go ahead. I’ve already got more coins than any of you,” he said as he turned and walked into the next car and out of their sight.

Jack looked back and forth between the bald man and the woman, and then at the dead body on the floor before asking, “What the hell happened in here?”

The bald man let out the breath he seemed to have been holding for a while now and replied while pointing at the man on the floor, “Immediately after the announcement, he tried to steal the coins from that guy”. He pointed in the direction of the ponytailed man. They immediately started fighting and… well, you can see what happened.” He looked at his feet for a moment and then added, “Something strange happened with the windows, too. Just before they started fighting,” he pointed to the dead man again, “his window broke. Then as soon as he was dead, Ponytail’s window shattered. No one even touched the windows.”

“Take care of your window,” Jack repeated the announcer’s message out loud without intending to. The others looked at him. “Why did we all wake up next to a cracked window?” asked Jack rhetorically.

“And how do we ‘take care of them’?” said the bald man in agreeance.

“Something Ponytail said…” Jack started. He hesitated. This isn’t something that he talked about. Ever. But it felt important. “Something he said struck a nerve with me. I…”, he trailed off again. He wasn’t even sure he could get the words out. “I’ve killed before too,” he finally said. “I didn’t mean to kill him. We got into a fight, and we were drunk and… I was charged with manslaughter.” Tears were welling up in Jack’s eyes as red stained carpet flashed into his vision and he carried on, “I keep seeing visions of what happened since I woke up on this train. Blood-stained carpet. Someone or something knows what I’ve done, and I think that’s why I’m here.”

The others were silent. Each of them was forced to search through their own haunted memories.

“I’ve never physically killed anyone,” said the bald man solemnly, “but the company I started has been responsible for multiple lives lost. I’ve directly ignored several safety issues to save money. I’ve also been seeing things since I woke up.”

The woman and Miles didn’t have to say anything. It was obvious that they had all done something to deserve being there on that train.

The bald man and the woman introduced themselves as Murphy and Shelly, respectively. They continued their conversation awhile longer until it was apparent that they needed more information to understand what was going on. As much as they wanted to stay away from Ponytail, they agreed to move towards the front of the train.

As they went from the adjacent car to the next, it was like going from the tense and steady clicks of a roller coaster ascending a hill to the moment where your stomach drops out and you’re staring at the concrete below. Ponytail had been busy. Two more bodies. One more smashed window. Judging from the scene, Ponytail had clearly gotten his hands on some sort of heavy blunt object to use as a weapon.

Shelly vomited over one of the benches at the sight of the nearest victim laying in the middle of the aisle. His forehead had been dented in and the white of his skull was visible through torn skin and blood. The dent had made its way into his right eye socket and pushed the eyeball downwards into his cheek. They were mostly saved from the gory sight of the second body. Ponytail had stuffed the man under one of the bench seats. You could only see the feet sticking out from underneath so either the man had been exceptionally small, or he suffered a somehow worse fate than the first man.

They slowly moved from car to car, checking between each row of benches for an ambush. So far, there had been no signs of Ponytail, save the gory remains of his victims. From the number of bodies they had come across so far, Ponytail must’ve had 10 coins. They eventually reached a car that had a large sign over the door leading to the next. The sign read ‘Locomotive Entrance: 10:13’.

The colon separating the numbers flooded Jack with understanding. He had never been religious, but two numbers separated by a colon was undoubtedly a bible reference. “They’re bible references. The seat numbers are references!” yelled Jack to the others. “I think each of us woke up in a seat number referencing our past… I don’t know… Maybe a reference to the sin we committed.”

The others seemed to be processing this. All except Miles, who had a hollow and unsurprised look on his face. Jack knew the face. He had worn that face once before when the police told him that the man he had fought with that night at the bar was dead. His brother was dead. He had known it before they told him. The amount of blood that had leaked from the back of his head on to the carpet had given it away. Their parents never forgave him. He never forgave himself. Before Jack could address the look on Miles’ face, the door to the locomotive swung open.

A man in a train conductor’s uniform stood in the doorway. The light coming from the room behind him was so intense that they could barely make out his form and clothes. As their eyes adjusted, a greasy and large man came into view. His teeth were yellow and black. He was constantly swatting at tiny insects crawling on the flesh of his arms going in and out of his sleeves. His clothes were at least 3 sizes too small, and a sweat covered, hairy naval protruded from the shirt. They recognized his voice from the announcement.

“Congratulations!” thundered the conductor with a raspy voice. “You’ve made it to the end. Come on in and join the others and we’ll get to answering all your questions.” The man turned to walk back into the car he emerged from. They could see a large, curved knife attached to his belt.

They cautiously followed him into the room where they found a car with a different layout than the rest of the train. This car had benches along the perimeter where you could observe the entirety of the car no matter where you sat. Jack immediately noticed Ponytail sitting in one of the benches. Ponytail flashed a crooked smile at him and opened his hand to show off the pile of coins he had amassed. There were three others that Jack didn’t recognize in the car. He assumed they must’ve made it to the front before Ponytail got to them.

The conductor walked to the corner of the train car and pulled down a small square shaped microphone with a coiled cord like you would see on an 18-wheeler. He made an announcement in a language that was unrecognizable to any of the passengers. Moments later, more men dressed like train conductors started coming into the train car. Each of them was dragging one of the bodies that had been left behind in the train cars. They tossed them into a pile and lined up in front of the door, blocking the exit. Jack recognized all of the bodies from their route up to the front. Until he didn’t.

Five more bodies other the ones the group had passed were dragged into the room. This sent a chill down Jack’s back as he slowly looked over to Miles. Miles had come from a few cars back. And he told Jack there were others. Jack hadn’t even thought to wonder why the others hadn’t come forward with Miles. He had killed them. He had stolen their coins. But why? They hadn’t even heard the announcement until he and Miles were together.

The conductor cleared his throat to gather everyone’s attention. “We will be arriving at our destination in a few more minutes. Does anyone have any questions they would like answered before we arrive?” he asked like an upbeat tour guide.

“Where the fuck are we?” shouted Shelly, her face angry and exhausted.

The conductor’s smile somehow grew even wider as he replied, “Why, you’re in Purgatory of course.” Seeing that this didn’t clear up the confusion, he continued darkly, “You’re dead. All of you have expired in your earthy lives and are now moving on to… the afterlife.”

“We’re going to Heaven?”, asked a man Jack didn’t recognize.

“Well, that depends, doesn’t it?” said the conductor as if speaking to a kindergarten class. “You were all placed on this train because the sins you committed in life didn’t guarantee you a place in heaven or hell. You were sent to me instead.” hissed the man. “Corinthians 10:13. An announcement was made at the beginning of your time here to tempt you,” continued the train conductor as he surveyed each and every passenger’s face. He started laughing and said, “I can see now by some of your faces that you realize the mistake you’ve made. Your window represents your soul. It was already fractured, but if it was broken by the sins you committed here… well, then I’m afraid the answer is no. You’re not going to Heaven.”

Jack glanced at Ponytail, whose smug look had turned into one of horror.

“You lied! You said the one with the most coins will be the only one to remain on the train!” screamed Ponytail, who had gotten up to get into the conductor’s face.

The train conductor boomed, “I operate between the forces of good and evil. No God or Devil has authority over me. I won’t hesitate to deceive.” His tone shifted and he smiled as he continued, “That being said, there was truth to what I said. I’ve been doing this for a long time now and I find that it’s more… entertaining when at least one person knows what’s going on.” He looked over at Miles. “For each group that comes through me, I offer one poor hell-bound soul the opportunity to delay their pain and anguish by staying for another round. Why, Miles here, he’s been here for three rounds now by collecting more coins than anyone else.”

“You fucking knew the whole time?!”, shouted Jack in fury.

Miles looked genuinely scared as he yelled, “I’m not ready to go to Hell! I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay on this train.” He reached into his pocket and pulled 10 silver coins to prove his point.

Ponytail stood up and shouted, “So will I. He also pulled out his 10 silver coins to match Miles.

Miles moved quickly and grabbed Shelly by her hair and threw her into one of the nearby benches. He snatched the knife from the conductor’s belt and raised it over his head above Shelly. Jack reacted without thinking and jumped between the blade and Shelly. He felt the metal pass through his chest and then pull out. Miles wasted no time pulling the coins from Jack’s pocket and kicking him to the side. Both Ponytail and Miles were attacking anyone they could get their hands on to collect more coins. The train car was in pure chaos and bloodshed.

As Jack lay on the train floor slowly bleeding out, he could see the train conductor standing in the middle of the carnage with a wicked smile. Once all was still, Miles was standing over a motionless Ponytail. He would be riding the train for a fourth time. Jack wondered how long Miles could possibly keep avoiding his fate.

Suddenly, the train came to a stop. A door on either side of the train opened and a man emerged from each door. They each wore a suit, one red and one white. They both approached the conductor. “Gentlemen, its so good to see you,” greeted the conductor, “I think you’ll both be quite pleased with your take this time.”

The men each received a stack of papers from the conductor and then started filtering through the bodies. Jack noticed the man in the red suit immediately go for Ponytail and drag him off through the door on the left from which he had come. Jack’s eyes were struggling to stay open and just before his eyes closed, he saw the man in the white suit heading towards him. He felt the man gently grab his wrists, and Jack finally forgave himself as he was dragged through the door on the right.