Chancellor's Crossing

His head hurt like the jaws of a vise clamped down on each side and squeezed. The left side stung, raw where he probably got hit. Max gradually opened his eyes to flickering overhead lamps and the incessant rattle of wheels on tracks.

Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clack.

He pushed against the seatback, raising himself to an upright position. Outside the window, cornfields sped past, colliding through spectral reflections of the train car interior. The last he remembered was The Hawk and Griffin and a few glasses of scotch. Maybe more than a few. His shirt flapped out with both sleeves rolled up to the elbow and stains of blood. His suit jacket and tie were missing.

When he probed the side of his head, his fingers came back bloody with shards of glass. He was hung over. Still a little drunk maybe. Possibly mugged, considering his head and the disheveled state of his clothes. He checked his pockets. The tie he found immediately. He must have taken it off. Wallet. Phone. Watch. No keys. He couldn’t remember what he did with them. Nothing else missing. No train ticket, either. He looked around the car—no other passengers.

The time was 1:56 a.m. according to his watch. If he stayed at the bar until last call, that would have given him two hours he couldn’t account for. He vaguely remembered driving. Other than that, his memory was a blank. He could have been drugged, but that would have made little sense. Why abandon him on a train then? More likely it was the alcohol.

The name, CHANCELLOR’S CROSSING, scrolled in red lights across the destination display. A familiar-sounding name, but he had no idea where it was. He opened his phone. Zero signal bars. No network service.

Max grasped the handhold on the seatback and stood—a little woozy at first. An advertisement panel at the front of the car showed a couple walking hand in hand on the beach with the caption, “Your dream vacation starts here.” If only that were true. The gangway and next car were visible through the forward door window—both empty like his.

The muffled ding-ding of a rail crossing signal rang from outside. A jolt hit him in the head, more pain. He groaned and clawed at the seat for balance. Around a long bend came the flashing red lights of the crossing signal, off in the distance as the train veered along the tracks. Next to the crossing, a pair of headlights and interior light shown in the dark. As the train approached, the open door to the sedan shut, and the car shot in front of the train on the crossing, no gate arms. The horn on the train roared but made no effort to slow.

The signal ringing came louder and closer. Max’s head ached. He braced himself between the seats and waited, grimacing from the pain. Now the ringing was almost on top of him.

All at once, the warning signal passed by the window. The ringing subsided. No collision. No sign of the car. It was just gone, like the night swallowed it up. Nothing but cornfields on both sides of the train. And Max still had no clue about where he was or where the train was going.

The metallic sound of a slamming door startled him. Max looked up from the seat in time to see a conductor, a Black man in a blue uniform through the window of the aft door. The conductor walked off into the adjoining car.

Max ran toward the door. “Wait! Wait!”

The conductor walked on, not hearing or not caring.

Max followed and twisted the handle. It rattled but didn’t move. Jammed. He jiggled it again and again. He could still see the conductor walking down the aisle in the aft car.

Max banged on the window. “Hey!”

The conductor exited into the next car and kept walking.

On the third try, the handle turned. Max slid the door to the side and ran. Along the length of the car and through two or three sets of gangway windows, Max could vaguely make out the man’s shape. The conductor walked until the train bore to the right, and he went out of view.

Max ran to the next door and stepped through, empty like every car so far. If he could catch that conductor, he might get some answers.

The moonlit cornfields gave way to concrete and tunnel. Overhead lights flickered and went dark. Max stared at the rushing lights through the window. When the overhead lamps came back, he noticed a woman in one of the seats four rows down. She looked to be about age 30 and had blond hair tied back in a ponytail.

He moved up next to her. “Where is this train going?” His words came out more like a demand than a question. The tunnel gave way once again to endless cornfields. The woman turned away from the window. Max saw that she was pregnant. The phone she held in her hand had a lock screen picture of her and a Black man snuggled together.

She smiled at him. “Chancellor’s Crossing.” Then her expression turned to shock. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m... I think I hit my head. I can’t remember how I got here. I just—”

“You’re bleeding.”

Max patted the side of his head again. His hair was matted with blood.

“I’m a nurse.” She rummaged through her bag. “Sit down. Let me see what I can do.”

Max took the seat next to her. “I was trying to find the conductor. I thought he might be able to tell me—”

“Hold still.” The woman brushed a baby wipe against his temple and picked through his wound.

“Did you see him? The conductor?”

“No. I might have dozed off.” She followed the wipe with a few squares of gauze. Then she added, “You must have hit it good. Put your hand here.” The woman guided his hand to cover the gauze. “Keep pressure on it.” Then she tore a strip off a role of medical tape with her teeth.

“I apologize. I should have introduced myself. I’m Max.”

“Claire Alexander.” She lay the tape so that it ran around his head and stuck to his hair. “Were you in a car accident?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

“Safety glass.” She held up a shard between her fingers, cubic in shape. “The glass didn’t cut you. It was the impact. You hit your head pretty hard.”

“I think I drove someplace.” He remembered some of it now, driving the Alpina. It would have been hours ago, a country road. He swerved. The driver’s side window shattered. Everything happened at once. “There might have been an accident. My memory’s a little fuzzy.”

Outside, pale lamps along the track shot past like amber arrows. Max leaned over the seat in front and craned toward the window.

“Wait. Don’t get up,” Claire said. “I’m not finished.”

A cluster of lights somewhere ahead moved toward them, raised off the ground like a—

“Train platform. There’s a station ahead,” Max said. At least, he could get off here and find his way back before Chancellor’s whatever.

The lights grew closer. Max watched and waited, but the train showed no sign of slowing. The car entered the station with four lit but deserted platforms, still at cruising speed. Only at the end did Max see a Black man in a uniform, like the conductor from earlier. The conductor stood at the edge of the platform just as the train exited. He waved as they passed, sole denizen and caretaker of the station. Then the station succumbed to cornfields again.

“We didn’t stop,” Max muttered.

“This is an express train. We don’t stop until the end of the line.”

“Chancellor’s, right?”

She nodded. “Crossing. Chancellor’s Crossing.”

“What’s in Chancellor’s…Crossing?” he asked.

“My husband.” She took on a worried expression. “He didn’t come home. I’ve been leaving voicemails and texts for hours. I don’t know what could have happened.”

Max checked his phone again, zero bars. “I’ve got no coverage here.”

“Max, is there somebody you need to call?”

Ex-wife? What would he say to her anyway? That he ended up on a train during a bender. To which she would berate him for what was typical Max behavior, a testament to the end of their unhappy marriage. Jake, maybe. His sponsor. What to tell him, though? Come get me, but I don’t know where and I can’t get off the train. Where the hell is this town of Chancellor’s Crossing anyway?

The fore car door opened and shut. A conductor stood just beyond the glass window in the gangway, dark-skinned like the one before. The two before, if he counted the one on the platform. They could have well been the same, but the one in the aft part of the train had been facing away. And there was no possible way he could have passed Max and Claire in the car without them noticing. The man on the platform passed too quickly to get a clear look at his face. The man in the window smiled smiled.

“Do you see that?” Max jumped up. The conductor had already turned and walked away toward the front of the train.

“See what?”

Max left her and threw open the door to the gangway. “Hey! Wait!”

The conductor kept walking.

Max ran after him. “Stop!”

Ding-ding! Ding-ding! Ding-ding!

The crossing signal rang out in the distance. Max made it to within a few steps of the man, before the pain shot through to his head again. He cried out and careened into the next row of seats.

The warning bell rang louder. Outside the window, he saw the crossing signal and a car stopped in front of it on the road. From further down the road, a tractor trailer rolled up toward the tracks. The car shot forward and into the path of the train, just as before. The train’s horn sounded. Max swore he could still see the taillights on crossing ahead, until the turn in the track brought them out of view. The train passed through the crossing, and there was no car. The warning bell faded along with the pain.

Max glanced fore and aft. Claire likely wouldn’t have any answers and certainly no explanation on how he ended up here. Out of the two people he could ask, the conductor seemed a better choice. He opened the fore door and trudged ahead.

He was halfway down the car, when his phone played out a ringtone of We Built This City. Jake’s name appeared on the phone screen.

“Jake, are you there?” Max pressed the phone against his right ear, away from the injury.

“Max! Where the hell are you? We got cut off.”

Max scanned the window. Cornfields. “This is bizarre. I’m on a train someplace.”

“Max, did you drive?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

“Dammit, Max. I told you to get a cab. You shouldn’t be driving.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not driving. I’m on a train.”

The voice on the other end paused.

“What train?”

“All I know is it goes to Chancellor’s Crossing.”

“How did you end up there?”

More cornfields swept past the windows.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”

“Max, Chancellor’s Crossing is the end of the line. You need to get off that train.”

“Jake, the train doesn’t stop.”

“Listen to me. You need to get off that train!” Jake shouted at him.

“This is crazy. I can’t get off. I need to wait.”

“Max…if.” Zzzz—the connection cut in and out. “Chancellor’s…” And then, “Get off the train—”

Three tones. The call ended. Connection lost, the screen said.

Great. Back where he started. No idea how he got here, and no way off the train. Max ran along the aisle to the next car. And the next one. And then the next one after that. He wasn’t sure how many cars he passed through, but he saw the conductor in the lead car on one knee. There was an open panel next to him. The rumble of the train engine carried through the open space lined with cables and wires.

“Excuse me!” he shouted, as he ran.

The conductor looked back at him.

“We’re coming up on Chancellor’s Crossing! Ten minutes! End of the line!” a staticky voice announced over the address system. The fore door next to the conductor had no window like the others before, just solid steel and a sign saying “No Admittance.”

Then came the crossing signal again, louder this time. More intense, a sound that swallowed his head, the vise claws bearing down. His vision went blurry with the pain. He couldn’t steady himself and landed again in a row of seats. Outside, the crossing signal passed in the night, the car, again vanishing into nothing—like it were some fixed pattern he needed to see. That someone or something wanted him to see, three times already.

“Sir, are you okay?” The conductor stood over him, speaking in a Caribbean accent.

The pain subsided. Max’s body trembled. “I have to get off this train!” he shouted. “The ringing...it hurts so bad.”

“I’m sorry, sir. This is an express train. We don’t stop until the end of the line.”

“I have to get off!” Max shouted. “This train…something’s killing me!”

“Sir, even if we could, there are no more stops between here and Chancellor’s Crossing. Stay where you are. If you need a doctor we can call—”

Max shoved past him. The emergency braking system hung from the bulkhead at the front of the car. Max grasped the red handle and pulled. At first nothing happened. Then with his weight, the handle descended to the down position. An emergency strobe flashed throughout the car. Still, the train showed no sign of slowing.

“Sir, the emergency system only notifies the driver. I told you. This train will not stop.”

“There’s something wrong!”

“Sir, I can assure you everything is as it should be.”

Max didn’t like the way the conductor smiled, his white teeth shining out of his black face, like those headlights on the car. Max snatched at the door handle. He couldn’t turn it. Locked. He pounded on the door.

“Hey, in there! You’ve gotta stop the train!”

The conductor gently put his hands on Max’s shoulders. “Sir, if you could please return to your seat.”

Without thinking, Max punched the man twice in the face. The conductor stumbled backward. He punched him a third time. The conductor tripped on the toolbag next to the open panel. The back of his head fell into the bulkhead with an audible crack. Max stood over him. The man lay unmoving. Blood oozed onto the floor from underneath his head.

Max dumped out the bag of tools, screwdrivers of different sizes, wrenches, and a 12-inch crowbar. He shoved the crowbar into the crack of the metal door. In the distance, he heard the sound of the rail crossing signal.

Ding-ding! Ding-ding!

The throbbing welled up again in his head. It was happening again. Max threw his weight against the door and twisted with the crowbar. The pain in his head grew from a dull ache sharper and sharper with each ring of the bell. He didn’t know how long he could take it.

The metal on the frame gave way. The door caved a few centimeters. Max could see the locking mechanism in the gap. Another stabbing pain ran through his head. He shoved the crowbar deep into the gap and pulled. The door crashed open.

The driver turned at the racket, a man in his 60s with a gray beard. Max swung the crowbar and struck him on the side of the head, knocking him out of his seat.

Ahead through the front window, the crossing approached, the red flashers, the car stopped on the road. The brake. Where is the brake? Max scanned the controls.

More ringing. More pain wracked his head. The red lever on the panel. It had to be. The car on the road sped onto the tracks directly into the train’s path. The train’s headlight engulfed the vehicle with light. Max grabbed the lever and pulled. The train lurched with the squeal of metal on metal. He had definitely found the brake, but at this speed the train wanted to keep moving.

Max wrenched at the lever. The screeching came louder, mixing with the ringing, mixing with the ache in his head. The train lurched a second time, then it slowed. His eyes blurred with the feel of a hot drill tearing through his skull. Still, he pulled. The speed diminished, a few short drops at first. Then the screeching sound became louder, dragging on the wheels until the train rolled to a stop a few feet from the car, a silver Alpina. The vehicle headlights cast pale beams through the darkness still blocking the train.

The flashing lights and ringing from the crossing signal cut out. Max found the release button for the doors, which opened with a hydraulic hiss. He ran through the car and gangway to the passenger landing and dropped the distance to the track below.

Strange. From where he walked now, he saw that the vehicle was on the road and not the tracks. From inside the driver’s cab, there was no mistaking it. The vehicle had been on the tracks. No way, it could have been an optical illusion. It must have backed out while Max found his way off the train. The car door was open as before with the window down. He saw no one behind the wheel.

The sound of rushing air came as the train doors closed. As Max walked along the track, the train started up again, slowly at first and picking up speed. When he arrived at the crossing, the train pulled past into the darkness.

Max recognized the car, an Alpina and silver just like the one he owned. He checked his pockets, no keys. The car was his Alpina. What it was doing out here, he couldn’t fathom. The airbag had deployed, and cubes of shattered glass covered the seat and floor, along with a few spots of blood. There was a crack on the windshield. The engine was running. His missing keys hung from the ignition. On the passenger seat lay his suit jacket.

Perhaps there was something about the way the vehicle was off keel and a little sideways, like it skidded suddenly or ran through a ditch. Max rubbed his head again. He remembered driving. He skidded. His head hit the side window. It shattered. Then he was on the train. It didn’t make sense. He checked his calls. His last was from Jake. Only that wasn’t possible.

“Dammit, Max. I told you to get a cab.” He remembered Jake’s rebuke. “If I have to bail you out again, it’s the end of the line for you.”

Max swerved before he hit his head. So, he must have either hit something or come damned well closed to it.

The tires looked okay. He circled around to the hood. Two cracks ran down the right side of the grille with part of the fiberglass broken out just left of the headlight. Max touched the dark splotches on the first crack, dark and wet. Holding his hand in the headlight, he saw blood.

His throat tightened. It could have been an animal. He glanced around. The road was deserted except for the lights from the mom-and-pop gas station a half mile down. Not possible. He had been on the train. He remembered Claire. He had an alibi, so he couldn’t have driven the car. Yet, at the same time, he remembered driving—swerving and hitting his head.

In under the streetlight, he saw a downed street sign on the side of the road a few feet behind the car. That explained the vehicle damage. He must have hit it.

Max stood over the sign. Chancellor’s Crossing, it read. He thought back over the previous events, the phone call. Running into the sign. The airbag. His head shattering the window. Before that, he swerved. Now he remembered why. He hit something else before the sign post.

Max ran to the next streetlamp. Tire marks on the shoulder blended into dirt, stained with blood. In the ditch next to him, lay the body of the conductor, his lifeless eyes staring skyward. He was the same man, the same face Max saw from the train, but wearing blue mechanic’s coveralls instead of the uniform. The name, Alexander, was stenciled on the front pocket.

No! No! No! This couldn’t have happened. Max had seen the conductor on the train, very much alive. And then, he also remembered the accident. Distracted or falling asleep, he drifted off the road. He felt the bump against the grille, the man rolling over the hood. He remembered swerving and hitting the signpost, as though both events happened as separate memories.

Max could claim the road was dark, and the accident occurred late at night. He sucked in a breath between his teeth. He’d have to sober up before he reported anything. But there was another problem, the bartender. Max was a regular. The bartender knew him. The police would ask questions, especially if he waited to report the accident.

He glanced up and down the street, no cars. No one to see him here. That whole thing with the train, even if it really happened, was gone now. Vanished into the night. A waking dream. Nothing and no one to tie him to this location.

With trembling hands, Max felt through the dead man’s pockets. He retrieved a phone, the lock screen showing a picture of the conductor and Claire from the train, the same picture from her phone. The screen cracked the first time Max stomped on it. More the second. At the third, the screen when dark. He hurled the phone as far as he could into the cornfield.

He pulled the dead man by the wrists and dragged. The feet dug tracks in the dirt behind them. Max heaved the body through the rows of cornstalks, far enough in that no one would spot it from the road. Then he returned to the car.

Max surveyed the damage again. He would need to keep the vehicle garaged for a while or get it repaired out of town, and only after he cleaned it up. No police involvement. No garage that would ask any questions, complicated but doable.

From down beyond the gas station, came a mechanical hiss and rumble. A set of headlights made its way in his direction, a tractor trailer. Shit! He could picture the scene already. The driver would stop and ask if Max needed help. Max would say no. Then the questions would start. Is something wrong with your car? What are you doing out here so late? If a story surfaced about a missing person, the truck driver would be the first to report having seen something. Even if the driver didn’t get Max’s plate, a lot of trucks had dash cams. Best thing was to be gone before anyone saw him.

Max climbed into the driver’s seat, scooting between broken glass and a deflated airbag, and slammed the door.

Ding-ding! Ding-ding! Ding-ding!

Red signal flashed on and off with the warning bell.

Down the track, the glow of the train’s single headlight like an eye in the distance rumbled closer. Max froze. In the rear mirror, the truck was already passing the gas station toward the crossing. If Max waited any longer, he’d stuck here until the train passed. The truck would catch up. And then he’d be fucked.

He could to chance it and beat the train. That way, at least, the truck would be cut off, and Max would disappear. He shifted into drive and gunned the accelerator onto the crossing. The train’s horn sounded. The train’s single headlight engulfed him.