World United

Shawn is awakened by the laughter around him. His eyes adjust to the unidentified room and focus on unfamiliar faces. He sits up quickly and flushes with embarrassment. He immediately wonders how much he drank last night to end up… wherever he is. The room comes into focus, and Shawn realizes it’s not a room, it’s a train car. A moving train car.

“Hey Blaze, your friend is awake.”

Blaze. There’s only one person Shawn has met with the name Blaze, and it’s the hot guy that always comes into the café he works at. Sure enough, Blaze, is making his way through the overcrowded train car toward Shawn.

He thinks this must be a dream. His subconscious telling him to finally take Blaze up on his offers to hang out. Shawn can’t remember getting on this train, or even seeing Blaze recently, so that’s the only explanation.

“Shawn, my guy! Can I get a latte with no foam?” He laughs too hard at his own joke, and Shawn awkwardly laughs in response.

Blaze pulls Shawn up into a hug and it becomes crystal clear to him that this isn’t a dream. He finds his footing as Blaze breaks the hug, “Blaze, what is—“

“Ah yes, you must be quite confused! Who are all these people? Where am I? What the hell is going on? Am I on a train?”

Shawn stares at him.

“Yes! To all of it!”

Shawn attempts to understand how “yes” applies to all those questions.

Blaze puts an arm around Shawn and directs him toward the window. “See that! That’s the wide open earth.”

The outside landscape is flat fields and some farm houses. Considering that the last thing Shawn remembers is locking up the café in Downtown Chicago, his mind is melting into a state of panic.

The wordless roar of dozens of voices and countless conversations wrap around Shawns clarity. His legs give way and Blaze catches him.

“Whoa! That must be the Sleepies still trying to hold onto you. I guessed your weight to decide your dosage, but I must’ve overestimated.”

“Sleepies?”

“A little sleep drug that me and my friends take, or give to people. It’s all fun!”

A group of people are playing a hand clapping game that Shawn remembers kids playing in grade school. Another group is divvying out snacks from a draw string bag. A few people toward the back are braiding one another’s hair and laughing about something.

“I need to sit down.”

“Sure thing, Shawn,” Blaze says as he helps Shawn back into his seat.

He kneels down in front of Shawn and stares into his eyes. Shawn avoids making eye-contact.

“Shawn. Shawn. Barista Shawn! I’m really glad you’re here, man. I’ve been trying to get you to hang out with us for awhile!”

Shawn looks him in his eyes, “Blaze, I’m not just ‘here’,” he mockingly gestures to train car around them. “You drugged me and put me ‘here’!”

“Well now, what I gave you is pure herbal, so let’s not call it drugging. But yes, I completely understand your confusion and I’m sensing some slight frustration.”

Shawn laughs, “some slight frustration. Are you insane!”

The people around them stop their individual conversations and tune into Shawn and Blaze.

“I’m not frustrated, I’m terrified—“

“Friend,” a woman nearby interrupts, “there’s nothing to fear here. We are all peaceful wanderers, explorers of the world, children of the wind.”

“Yes, yes, precisely, Shawn. This is,” Blaze stands and spreads his arms wide open, “this is World United. A coalition of like minded people who only seek adventure.”

Shawn looks around, understanding filling him, “holy shit. This is a cult?”

The car erupts in laughter, and Blaze makes his way to the front. Everyone turns their bodies to face him. Shawn notices a few faces who look just as confused and scared as him, but a majority are smiling with anticipation.

“Friends, now that everyone is awake, I guess it’s due time for some explaining!”

The eager looking people turn to reassure those looking like Shawn with smiles, head nods, pats on the shoulder, or a quick whisper.

“World United is here to save you. You’re not here by accident. World United has been led to your doorstep from many different paths. Maybe it’s because of your older sister that you ended up here,” Blaze nods to a woman excitedly hugging her younger brother. “Or, because of your neighbor that always invited you to their game night,” he points to a guy who playfully nudges another with his elbow. “Or, perhaps, you’re the barista that flirtatiously crafted lattes for me,” Blaze touches his chest with one hand and outstretches the other toward Shawn. The eager eyed people look at him with admiration.

“Regardless of how you ended up here, you’re all here for one reason. You, at one point or another, expressed how deeply, how badly you wanted to see the world. Well Friends, I’m here to show you the world. Consider me your Aladdin, and consider this,” Blaze gestures to the train, “our magic carpet.”

The room bursts into cheers and applause around Shawn. He thinks back to the many conversations he’s had with Blaze, and regrets ever mentioning the desire to travel or get out of Chicago.

“Fuck me,” is all Shawn can manage to say.

“Now converse, play, enjoy the views. Remember, the journey is the destination, and if you miss the destination, you miss the journey.”

The eager eyed people all clap for him as they turn back to what they were doing before the speech. The woman from earlier drags her younger brother over to Blaze to meet him.

Shawn looks around the car and sees the bathroom sign. He stealthily slips over to the door and finds it vacant. He gets inside and locks the door. There’s a toilet, sink, and mirror all lit up by a green light which makes everything look dirty. Shawn looks at his reflection in the mirror.

“You need to focus. You need to focus and get the fuck off this train! These people are insane. These people are insane, and I am sane. I am sane. There’s got to be a stop at some point, right? I don’t even know where we’re at now. We could be in fucking Kansas. Oh Jesus Christ.” He slaps his hands over his face and stays like that for some time. Shaking his head in disbelief.

A soft knock on the door snaps him out of it.

“Is anyone in there?”

“Yes! One second,” Shawn calls back while he actually uses the bathroom. Before leaving the room, he takes one last look at himself. A deep breath in, and then out, and says to himself, “do what you need to do.”

He opens the door to a woman that looks like she’s been crying. She can’t be older than 20 and by the looks of it, did not come here by choice.

“Sorry,” she says without looking at him.

“It’s okay,” Shawn says, “I needed to get away too.”

She looks up at him and realizes that it’s the guy that Blaze brought. He watches a sense of relief wash over her.

She whispers, “I don’t want to be here.”

He bends down closer to her ear and whispers, “me either.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m trying to figure that out.”

“I’ll try as well,” she says as she steps by him and opens the bathroom door.

“What’s your name?”

“Janine,” she says quickly then closes the door.

Shawn makes his way to a new spot on the train since his old spot was in the middle and that’s the worst place he can think of to be. He maneuvers through the crowd attempting not to step on anyone. No one seems to be paying his arms and legs pushing through any attention.

He steps through the middle of a card game, brushes past two people making out, and steps over someone sleeping on the ground before he finds a spot for himself. It’s in a corner and shielded by the sleeping man on the ground. He looks back toward the bathroom. Janine is still in there. He watches everyone and counts how many people he thinks are like him and Janine. He counts nine, not including that woman’s brother because he seems to be embracing this opportunity.

Shawn knows the escape could potentially be very simple. The group doesn’t look violent or like they’d even attempt to stop him. So he thinks that maybe the best option is to just wait for the train to stop.

Janine comes out of the bathroom and Shawn raises his hand so she sees him in the distance. She nods and makes her way through the same obstacle course of people. When she settles in next to him, he shares his thoughts with her.

“That could be hours, or even days from now,” she says.

“I know, but unless we can stop the train, then I don’t know what else to do.”

“Right. Me either.”

The two sit there in silence for a while as the car roars with noise around them. Both are thankful that they’re being left alone.

“Does Blaze like you?” Janine finally asks.

“Um, I always thought so, like when he came into the café he was flirty and lingered around the counter. A lot of times he was the last person to leave.”

Janine thinks for a moment, “maybe you could be able to get some information from him. Like if you turned up the charm. All we need is a destination or at least where we are now.”

Shawn tosses the idea around in his head for a moment and is slightly nauseated by the idea of even pretending to like Blaze anymore.

“It’s worth a shot,” he says.

“You need to get him alone, or at least around less people. I think the conductor is the only one in the engine car. You could get him in there?”

“Yeah, I’ll say I want to talk about seeing the world or something.”

Shawn stands up and looks for Blaze. He’s on the opposite side near the door for the engine car talking with a ground of his followers. All of them looking at him starry-eyed and brainwashed.

“Good luck,” Janine says quietly.

It takes him far too long to get to Blaze, but once he sees Shawn he cuts himself off. An animated smile fills his face as he steps through the mini crowd around him and toward Shawn.

“Shawn, have you adjusted?”

“Um, yes. I was,” he remembers to be flirty, “I was wondering if we could talk somewhere a little more private?”

Surprise hits Blaze’s face, “oh yes, privacy, this way.”

He turns to the followers he’s just abandoned and excuses himself, then guides Shawn through the door into the engine car. The noise of voices disappear behind the sounds of the engine. Shawn can see a figure in the conductor’s area and he’s thankful they’re not fully alone.

“It’s a little loud in here Shawn, but it’s private, what is it you wanted to discuss?”

Shawn pretends to be a bit shy, but he truly wanted to wander around this car for more information.

“I just, well, some of the stuff you said earlier, I’ve been thinking about it. Seeing the world, magic carpet,” he pauses when he notices as small room that looks like an office, then finishes his sentence, “flirtatious latte making.”

Blaze chuckles as if he gets something, and walks toward Shawn.

“What part of all that are you most curious about and I’ll start there?”

Shawn acts surprised, “what’s this? Your office?”

He scurries over to the door and opens it, “it’s much quieter in here, Blaze.”

“No! Don’t go—“ Blaze’s warning is too late, “in there.”

Shawn’s not entirely sure what he’s seeing, but his act fades immediately. There are blue prints of a bridge, tools that look like they could make a bomb, and a gun on the table.

“What the,” Shawn is lost for words, “stand back!” He yells at Blaze, who is already running toward him. Shawn steps into the tiny office and slams the door closed. Blaze is banging on the door, as Shawn locks and barricades it.

He’s frantically tearing through the blue prints and other stacks of paper to get more information.

“You’ve rigged a bridge to blow up?” Shawn yells as he tries to make sense of the papers.

The banging stops on the other side of the door, “Shawn, open the door and we can talk about what you’re seeing.”

“Nah, Blaze, I’ve seen enough movies to know that door will remain shut.”

“You don’t understand the mission of World United, it would all make sense if you just listened.”

Shawn thinks about all these people on board. They don’t know what he’s planning. They don’t know they are tomorrow’s headline. They are going to be the latest Jonestown.

“I need to get off this train,” he says to himself.

There are three taps on the door then Blaze starts singing, “I can show you the world.”

“Oh fuck no,” Shawn grabs the gun, as Blaze continues through the song, “I’ve got the gun, Blaze.”

He stops singing, “it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Shawn frantically looks around the room for ideas, for anything. He steps over to the window, the train is on a curve and he can see a few miles of tracks in the distance. At the end of his sightline, is a bridge.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Blaze says, “you could’ve died unknowingly with the rest of them. Just a moment of panic before it’s all over, but now, you have to live with panic for the last, what would you say? 15 minutes of your life.”

The door unlocks and Shawn pushes it open. He and Blaze look at one another face to face, but Shawn has the gun pointed directly at him.

“Where is the detonator?”

“Those movies helping you right about now?”

“Where is it, you psychopath?”

“The tracks are laced with a wire that’ll be tripped when we cross over the bridge, no detonator required,” Blaze says looking smug.

A sigh of exhaustion escapes Shawn. He contemplates what to do while he looks into Blaze’s eyes. He used to find them mystical, something that he wanted to discover, or dive into. They were eyes that captivated him, drew him in, made Shawn fall for a presented version of himself. Now he’s driving everyone off a cliff to their deaths. The eyes that he once thought held beauty, held nothing but destruction.

Shawn didn’t even think about pulling the trigger before he did it. He felt the bullet push out of the gun, and watched it cross the space between them, and felt it enter Blaze’s chest. He kept one hand on the gun and the other grabbed his mouth in shock.

He stepped out of the little office and walked toward Blaze. Blood pooled out of his chest where the singular circle wound disappeared into a tiny sea of red.

Shawn looks to where the conductor is, but the figure hasn’t moved. He starts to walk toward it, when he realizes there’s no one there. The figure was a jacket on the wall blowing in the wind.

He looks at the train control panel and sees that everything has been jammed into place. This train has no intentions of stopping until it hits the bottom of the canyon.

Shawn tries unjamming the speed throttle, while simultaneously looking for an emergency stop.

A scream rings out from behind him and he whips around to find one of Blaze’s devout followers standing in the door way, looking at Blaze’s body on the ground. A man pushes past her and crouches down to Blaze. He begins to shake him and cries about Blaze’s promise to show him the world. Two more people come through the door and start shouting at Shawn.

“You killed him!”

“Someone grab him!”

Knowing there is no time for any of this, Shawn turns and points the gun at all of them.

“Quiet!” He screams until his lungs are empty, “Blaze was going to kill us all!”

People are pouring through the door to see what’s happening, and others are crawling toward Blaze sobbing.

“Murderer!” Several of them shout.

“I’m trying to stop this train. If we don’t stop it before we get to that bridge, we’re all going to die! He’s rigged it with explosives.”

“Liar!”

“Get him!”

Several people charge at Shawn despite the gun in his hand. He remembers saying “do what you need to do” to himself in the mirror and fires the gun upward. The bullet bounces off the ceiling and hits one of the men charging him in the face. His body falls to the ground and everyone freezes where they are.

“I’m not lying. Someone check the office,” everyone hesitates, “quickly!”

One of the people closest to the door and covered in Blaze’s blood goes to the office. It’s in disarray, but she comes out with the blue prints of the bridge in hand.

“He may be telling the truth,” she proclaims.

Someone steps up and grabs the blue prints from her hands, “this proves nothing!”

“We don’t have time for this!” Shawn is envisioning the bridge right in front of them and all these seconds are wasting time. He looks at the doorway and sees Janine, he half turns back at the control panel, and sees a release switch.

He needs to get everyone back onto the second car, and somehow hit that switch to disconnect the cars.

“Get back on the second car!” Shawn shouts.

A few people quickly oblige since the gun is still waving in the air. Others stay with Blaze’s body, and a few are waiting to pounce on Shawn.

“I said,” Shawn points the gun directly at people, “get on the second train car.”

“You are not our leader,” one man says, while the people crying over Blaze’s body pull themselves away and into the second car.

“We will not take orders from someone who killed our leader.”

“I am trying to save everyone,” Shawn tells them as one of them lunges at him. Shawn jumps out of the way, and his path to the second car door is clear. He runs toward the door and turns around to face the remaining followers who refuse to listen.

He calmly speaks to them, “I’m going to get on this second car, and then I’m going to shoot at that control panel until these two cars separate,” he pauses. “You can either be on this car, or that one.”

The remaining people cautiously move in a pouncing position, ready to avenge their leader. Shawn reaches the door and steps through the threshold.

“Last chance,” he says to the five remaining people in the engine car.

None of them budge. Shawn glances back and sees Janine behind him, silently having his back. Everyone else stares at the unfolding situation in fear.

He takes aim at the control panel and fires. He misses the first time, and one of the people on the first car abandons their mission to avenge and beg to be let off. Shawn waves them through and they hurry in. He aims and fires again. Miss. He refocuses and imagines how close the train is to the bridge, and fires. He hits the release button and sparks fly out of the control panel.

Instantly the latches between the car separate and the brakes on the second car activate launching everyone forward.

It takes half a mile for them to come to a complete stop. Everyone watches as the engine car barrels toward the bridge. It’s no more than a few feet away from the open chasm when the whole ground below them rumbles like an earthquake. They watch the engine car fly for just a moment before plummeting out of view.

“Holy shit,” Shawn says.

A cloud of smoke and fire fills the air where the bridge just was, and Shawn feels a tug on his shirt.

He turns to Janine, “look,” she says.

Shawn turns around to face all the people he just saved and sees their faces full of tears and awe.

Then one by one they start kneeling before him.