Don’t Look Back

It’s the screams that wake him up.

They’re gone again as soon as he jerks back into reality, replaced by a vaguely nausea-inducing rattle directly under his head. There’s a horrible taste in his mouth, sharp like old pennies, and an insistent throb in his left temple. Red and black shapes swim across his vision, and it takes him a moment to realise that he’s looking at the back of his eyelids.

“I think he’s waking up,” somebody says.

“We need to go,” another voice hisses. They sound worried. “We’ve got maybe five minutes before they figure it out.”

It has Alex forcing his eyes open, groaning a little as the light assails him. Four faces stare back at him. He’s lying slumped against some kind of hard surface, limbs askew, and it takes him a moment to form the word through the roar in his ears.

“Where?” he croaks, intelligently.

Another scream rings out and he can’t help but flinch before it slots into place.

“We’re on a train,” one of them confirms. She’s about the same age as him, with two dark round eyes that shine out from behind a hooked nose. She looks tired, afraid.

He looks around. They’re in a narrow metal box, a row of scratched leather seats opposite, just like the ones he’s sitting on. A small, bolted window displays a blur of sand rushing past, and in the top left corner a tangle of wires drip spikily from the ceiling.

Alex begins to panic. He has no memory of getting on the train, no idea who these people are… he doesn’t even know who he is.

“Let’s go Marcie.” It’s the older man who speaks now. His leathery face is creased with wrinkles, his teeth stained yellow above a white beard.

“Go where? What’s going on?” He directs the question to the girl, who at least looks concerned. The rest just look scared: there’s a tall, lanky guy with a black eye who’s wringing his hands together, and another great hulk of a man beside him who hasn’t stopped frowning.

“You don’t remember?” the girl—Marcie—asks, worried.

He shakes his head, and then winces at the pain that blooms to life. When he smears his fingers across his temple, they come away red and wet. “I have no idea how I got here.”

He knows he needs to calm down. His heart is galloping, breaths coming in short and fast. Panicking is the worst thing to do in a crisis situation, he knows that. But he’s still so dizzy and disoriented and afraid.

“We‘ve been kidnapped,” Marcie tells him quietly, chewing her lips. “We all woke up like this, in chains—“ she brandishes her wrists, rubbed raw and bruised, “—with these freaks who kept us in here.”

Stay calm, Alex tells himself thinly.

“Marcie. We guh-gotta go,” the lanky guy stammers and then flinches when he catches Alex looking at his black eye.

The older one sighs and shakes his head. “You managed to steal the key from one of them but then he hit you good with his gun and you,” he makes some kind of gesture that Alex intuits to mean ‘passed out’. “So we managed to get out of the chains but they’ll figure it out soon.” His drooping eyes flit to a coil of linked metal, piled on the floor like a great snake. Manacles lie on top, broken open like clam shells.

“Is it,” Alex has to swallow, “is it trafficking?”

Marcie pins him with a stare. “I don’t want to stick around to find out. We need to get to the control room and stop the train before we end up wherever it is that they want us.”

The old man grunts in agreement. “Jacob, you open the door.”

The gym-goer, as Alex has privately labelled him, nods once, impassively, and scans the train. For someone so bulky, he moves quickly, crossing the carriage to scoop something off the floor. Alex is confused as he lifts what looks like a black cube, before he realises it’s a broken CCTV camera. The back of his neck prickles as he thinks about who could have been watching.

As Jacob begins to smash it into the window of the door to the next carriage, Alex gets to his feet. It’s hot in the small space and he has to press a hand to the wall to steady himself as the sickness rises again. The scenery rushing past doesn’t help.

With Jacob’s strength, it only takes a few bashes for a crack to splinter out and the glass to give way.

“When did you all wake up?” Alex asks Marcie as they shuffle over. He just wants to distract himself from the terrifying view outside—it’s all desert, with the occasional dark scraggle of bush. Are they even still in the U.S.?

“About a day ago,” she says as they watch Jacob fiddle with the lock on the other side. “All of us are the same as you—no idea why we’re here. As far as we can tell, the only thing we have in common is that we’re all from Arizona.”

Alex nods. That does ring a bell. “Why do you think they took us?”

The lanky kid speaks up from behind. “P-Probably to sell.” He blinks at Alex with watery blue eyes, and Alex feels a twinge of sympathy. He looks young, probably still a teenager.

One by one they file through the open door into the next carriage: first Jacob, then the old guy, Marcie, Alex, and the lanky kid. It’s thankfully empty with the same set up as the last: two rows of brown leather seats, a single thick window (unopenable, Alex tries), although this one thankfully doesn’t have a camera. The train thrums under their feet and sweat crawls like slow-moving insects down his spine as they crowd around the next door.

The old guy peers through the window. “I think I see them in the one after this one,” he says, voice like gravel. “So somehow we need to get through without them noticing.”

Alex has a moment of complete surreality as he stands there listening to four strangers discuss the best way to break down the door. He wonders if the adrenaline is wearing off; his head is pounding, mouth dry as a bone. This is all moving so quickly, how can he have been asleep one moment and then ten minutes later facing down a unknown group of kidnappers?

Something occurs to him.

“How many are there?” he interrupts to ask. “And are they armed?”

Jacob looks at him oddly. “There’s four,“ he says, with a slight accent.

“Three,” Marcie corrects with a frown. “I definitely counted three.”

He shrugs. “Three of them. And yeah, they got guns alright.”

Alex’s brain spins through the methods of disarming at gun point. There aren’t very many, and it’s usually a last resort. He shakes his head slowly as he considers. “Maybe we wait. It’s going to be hard to wrestle a gun off someone in an enclosed space.”

“Yeah,” Marcie points out, “but if we wait then they’ve probably got buddies on the other side and we’ll never make it out.”

“We don’t have time,” the old man enunciates. “This is the chance, we take it.”

He’s already moving before any of them can stop him. Alex braces himself for the loud noise of the glass breaking, but instead there’s just a soft click as the door handle turns and the door swings open.

The old man turns to give them an unimpressed look.

“Mine was locked,” Jacob mumbles.

“Go!” Marcie says hurriedly. “If they look through the window we’re done for.”

They slip into the next carriage, treading softly on the faded carpet. Alex’s vision keeps splitting and rejoining, and he’s glad that all he has to do is follow Marcie ahead of him.

Inside, they’re quick to press themselves to the walls, out of view of the window ahead. He can see them through it: blurred, shadowy figures that are clearly sitting at some kind of console. Unlike the other carriages, the bitter smell of cigarette smoke floats in the air and the window has some kind of dark green curtain half pulled across. A small wooden table is bolted down to the floor in the middle, with an ashtray and an old pack of cards on top. It looks more like a recreation room than a train: there’s even cushions on the two rows of seats.

Despite his best efforts, Alex’s knees start to shake. Are they really going to bust in there, when there are three people with guns? He feels like he’s watching the scene unfold from underwater as three of them creep ahead, swallowed up by the shadows.

The largest, Jacob, reaches the door first. The figures through the window ahead still haven’t moved, and he hears a muted burst of laughter, the indistinct hum of conversation. Jacob turns back to look at them all, as if for reassurance, and Alex gives him a nod, watches as his gaze slides past to the lanky kid behind him.

A soft clink rings out, and Alex is just turning himself when there’s a sudden weight around his neck.

He chokes, hands going up to scrabble at the hold, but his fingertips hit steel. Hot breath suddenly washes over his ear. “I’m suh-sorry,” comes the stuttering mumble of the kid as he pulls the chains tight around Alex’s throat. “I duh-didn’t want t-to do this.”

He struggles but it’s no good: he’s still weak and the kid has an odd, wiry strength. Eyes bulging, he tries to call out for Marcie, for anyone, but they’re all focused on Jacob twisting the handle of the door to the next carriage.

“Sorry Alex,” Marcie says distractedly, and through the desperate need to breathe he wonders how she knows his name.

The kid walks him forward with an arm twisted behind his back as he gasps for oxygen. Oh God, he thinks, do they mean to make me a human shield?

Sure enough, they barrel right through into the carriage. The kidnappers jump up to their feet, pale and sweating through their white shirts. One has flour on his cheek, and food drops from his hand onto a complicated looking console. He stares at them, at Alex, horrified, but he’s too slow—they all are.

“Drop your guns!” Marcie screams at them. “Drop them or we’ll kill him!”

The kidnappers freeze. The old guy, despite his age, is quick and he grabs one of the guns straight out of their hands in a heartbeat. He flicks the safety off with practised ease and points it at the rest of them. “Go on!” he roars, spittle flying into the light.

Two thuds echo over the rattle of the train as the kidnappers drop their remaining weapons.

“Alright Dee, you can let go of him,” Marcie says.

Suddenly the chain around his neck slackens and he can breathe. Alex retches as the weight behind him disappears. He’s too busy catching his breath, tears in his eyes, to really take much notice as the three men are herded into the carriage they were just in.

“Get on the floor,” he hears Jacob say from the other room.

“Is he—“

“Shut up! Next one to say a word gets a bullet through the brain!”

They go silent.

Marcie crouches down to where Alex is on his knees, fingertips pressing cold against his bruised throat.

“Sorry,” she says quietly as she helps him up and herds him towards one of the seats. It’s still warm. “It was the only way we could think to do it.”

“What—the—“ Alex wheezes, and then has to clutch his throat again as the pain gets too much. He’s glad he’s sitting; his legs feel like they’re melting under him, head ringing.

Next to him, Dee has lost the chain and is now settled on the main seat, blue eyes wide and intent on the control screen. He stiffens as Alex looks his way, but his fingers continue to dance over the keyboard.

“We’re just lucky he knows his way around this stuff,” Marcie says as she rifles through the drawers.

Somehow she’s quick to locate a roll of ductape (although unsurprising, Alex thinks, considering the whole kidnapping situation). She disappears for a moment into the other carriage, and soon he can hear the sound of the men being tied up.

He stares ahead, focuses on taking breath after shuddering breath. They’re in the front of the train with the bleak desert vista stretched out before them, the sun beginning to sink into the dirty haze of the horizon.

Dee hisses something under his breath and the train jolts, a groan ringing out.

“Dee?” Marcie calls in concern.

“Sh-should be slowing. We’re ruh-right near a town too,” the lanky kid says. He’s right: there’s a dark streak in distance that looks like it could be a main road.

He looks up to find Dee staring at him.

“I’m suh-sorry if it w-was rough,” the kid mumbles. “I h-had to make it c-convincing.”

Alex just nods. His throat hurts, his temples hurt, and the screech of the train as it slows is making it all worse.

As he sits there, he tries his best to ignore the muffled shouts from the carriage behind. Instead, he looks around the control room, eyes skipping over the half-eaten sandwich, the stacked coffee cups, the book on Tuscany spread out on the side like a butterfly. He went to Italy once, didn’t he? He can’t remember—and the more he tries, the worse the pain in his head gets. He gives up and closes his eyes instead, tries to focus on the tap tap tap of Dee’s fingers as he plays around on the screen.

It takes about ten minutes or so but eventually the train rolls to a juddering stop. Behind him, Marcie, Jacob and the old guy have been discussing what the first thing they’re going to do is: get a drink, ring a friend, go see a movie. Alex can’t bring himself to match their excitement. There’s an odd feeling of wrongness settling over his skin, and beside him even Dee keeps shooting him morose looks. Maybe he’d feel better if he could just remember. It’s coming back to him bit by bit: the name of his street, his 29th birthday party, his two older sisters, the few years he spent in the army before he dropped out… but he still can’t work out why they were kidnapped in the first place. There are no clues, none of it makes any sense.

But, he supposes, the important part is that they’re free. They made it, they escaped.

They leave the three kidnappers locked in the carriage that smells like smoke. They stare at Alex as he stumbles past them to the door, reproachful and sad. They’ll find a phone and call the police, Marcie says, when they get to the city.

Dee has to help him with the jump down. The desert outside is sweltering, although at least a little cooler than the train, and all around he can see packed earth and empty sky. In the distance though, around twenty minutes walk away, is the unmistakable shadow of buildings, the pinprick gleam of orange lights.

The old man begins to sing some kind of shanty song, circling around with his arms spread wide, and Alex can’t help but crack a begrudging smile. He can empathise: it may have only been a day but even the last hour felt like three to him. Marcie runs past, her black hair streaking through the air behind her. She’s still talking about the drink she’s going to get at the nearest bar, her favourite brand of whiskey.

Alex slips again as he struggles to catch up. His scuffed brogues aren’t holding up on the sand, and he feels a little irritated that the others were all given white trainers. His blood-stained shirt and slacks just mean he’s boiling hot, whilst the rest of them are in practical looking rolled up trousers and T-shirts. Had their captors run out of clothing before they got to him?

Dee puts a hand on his shoulder as he overtakes him. “M’Sorry,” he mumbles pitifully.

Alex touches his neck, still inflamed. “It’s ok,” he says again, even though it’s not. He really needs to get that looked at, maybe someone back at HQ can do it for him. He wonders what the reaction will be. Who’s going to believe him? He’ll sound utterly insane—kidnapped on a speeding train, for no apparent reason.

“Alex,” Marcie calls from ahead with a wave. “Do you need a hand?”

A rush of affection overtakes him. “I’m good,” he calls back, “it’s just the heat.”

He bites his lip as he thinks about the three men tied up on the train. It’s going to bake in there… they definitely need to make sure they contact the police as soon as they can. He looks back. The metal exterior is blinding in the light, and he squints, considering. How did they manage to commandeer something so large? There are four carriages, but what an odd way to transport people—surely it would have been easier by plane? Sweat drips into his eyes and as he blinks it away the faded letters on the side of the last carriage grow clearer.

MAX..M… SEC…TY… with smaller lettering peeking out beneath: AR…NA…TATE…PRIS…TRANSF…

Alex freezes. Rubs at his eyes with sticky brown fingers as the words ring in his head, nonsensical. But his brain is already filling in the gaps. He finds himself staring back down at his own wrists, the smooth skin, free of any sign of irritation. Thinks about the bruises around Marcie’s, the same ones as the rest of them carry.

Dread opens up a pit in his stomach, makes his head go light and his throat dry. He swallows, tastes sand in his mouth as he watches them skip ahead: the old guy, Jacob, Marcie and Dee, trailing like black ants across the sand towards civilisation.

Something presses at the edge of his mind, and almost in reflex his hand finds his back pocket, the hard square object in there. He draws it out, worn black leather, not daring to breathe.

But he knows what it is, because he remembers. Remembers the day he got his badge, graduated from the force. Remembers his buddy Benny, the way they’d all tease him for constantly eating those stupid mini doughnuts. How he’d bought him some for the next transfer trip, how he’d left to go check on the prisoners…

Oh God, Alex thinks. What have I done?