Hell Train

I felt like I had been awake for hours, just not conscious of my surroundings. The smooth, rhythmic whooshes and the gentle jostling and swaying could have been going on for days and I wouldn’t have known. Blinking and realizing that my eyes weren’t closed, it was just dark, I started to piece together my situation. I had been asleep, or awake but drowsy. I was in pitch plack, sitting on a soft seat; and it sounded like I was on a train. I moved my hands over my body, searching my pockets. No phone, no keys, no wallet, nothing.

Maybe I was drugged, I wondered, noticing how surprisingly calm I was. I stood and found my way out of the row and moved forward. The train's motions were so smooth I didn’t stumble. My hands bumped into a wall, and I found a doorknob. As I slid the door to the side, light and music streamed through. With only an inch open, I paused and adjusted to the light. When I opened the door fully, the scene was dizzying. In a massive train car, people were dancing and drinking, laughing and talking. Dressed in every century's finest clothes and speaking in more languages than I could recognize, the vibe of the room washed over me, and I swear the air smelled sweet. Moving into the car, I could see sections where people were engaged in all manner of activities, and it seemed like everyone had something interesting to do.

I asked the first person who made eye contact with me where I was. They just laughed and asked me to dance. The second person I asked started to gush about how they wanted to style me at the “styling booth”, whatever that was, so I just sunk back into the crowd. And then, I bumped into him.

He stood there, barely taller than me, dressed in linen pants and a baby blue shirt. His sandy hair fell loosely to his ears, and I stared at the freckles that covered his pale skin longer than I should have.

“You’re new”, he slurred.

“Do you know where I am?”

“Which way did you come from?”

“Where did you come from?” I retorted.

“Hell.”

I watched him turn and walk away, tilting a flask up to his lips. That's when I first heard it. The screams and crying. I could hear it just barely through the cacophony of the room. It was the kind of sound where you wonder if it’s just in your head. I moved through the car and eventually found another door. On the other side of that door, I felt like I had just walked into a touristy market street, except, instead of bags and trinkets, each booth was covered in signage for human rights campaigns. Every type of campaign you could think of had a space and the car seemed endless as I looked down the corridor.

I stopped at the first one and couldn’t get a word out as they implored me to donate, sign their petition, and join them in their efforts. It was an important cause, but I still didn’t even know where I was. I moved on. Booth after booth yelled at me and people even reached out to grab my arms. One woman grabbed my arm and as I turned, I saw, behind her table, a group of children being tended to by a medical professional. They had burns all over their bodies and their wounds were fresh. One young kid looked me in the eyes and didn’t even flinch as they were lathered with a cream. They couldn’t have been older than four years old and I knew they must be in pain, yet they didn’t react. Tears welled in my eyes, and I pulled away and practically ran through the crowd.

I spaced out as I ran. I was having a hard time breathing so I finally stopped. And then, I realized that the screaming was louder. I don’t know how I traveled from one end of the car to the other, but there I was, staring at another door. But I knew I would not open this one. Behind the door came the screaming and crying and pleading.

I jumped when his hand touched my shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What is this place?”

“That car is where most of us come from.” He gestured to the door we stood in front of.

“And this car?”

“Is where all the good people stay. And the previous one is where those that can’t handle this car go.”

“Where did I come from?”

“I don’t know. Some people here have opinions on that. A god put us here. Aliens. A dream. Does it matter?”

“Yes! Yes, it matters! How did we get here? When can we get off?

The screaming was clouding my head.

Can we get them out of whatever that is? How did you get out?”

“These people.” He gestured to the crowded booths. “Eventually, they convince the doorway and the door releases someone, sometimes multiple people.”

“And what is in there?”

He didn’t answer. I thought back to the children; and as the screams made me dizzier, I rushed to the wall and vomited. After that, I committed my time to the booths. I ran campaigns into the next car, the “fun” car, to get people to sign petitions and donate. I submitted paperwork to the ever-hungry door. And then one day it opened. A mangled, bruised, and bloodied group stumbled out and into the arms of those around. They were tended to and given time to rest and recoup. And then, they joined the efforts.

I ran into James periodically. He eventually gave me his name during one of his visits to my car. I always questioned why he didn’t stay and work with us considering he knew what was in the hell car. And then I saw those who were rescued slowly start to leave us and trickle into the other car. They just couldn’t handle it. Too tired and triggered by being surrounded by the memories, they just wanted to forget it. In the other car, everyone looked the same, and you couldn’t hear the screaming. I started to finally understand James. I could understand why he traveled back and forth and why he was always drinking.

And then it happened. I was down at the end, quickly stuffing documents into the slot into the wall so I could get far away from the sounds as soon as possible. The door opened. I braced myself for the image coming out. But nobody came. Instead, a black smoke swirled out. People around me screamed and ran. The smoke touched my legs and suddenly I was being pulled towards the door. I scrambled and grabbed anything around me, but the tables and banners were loose and fell around me and through the door. I saw two people to my left slip and fall through the door. And then it slammed shut. I fell to the floor hard enough to bruise my leg. I didn’t understand what happened. I looked around me for answers and seeing the people go about setting up their tables and getting back to their paperwork with a fury gave me the answer I didn’t want. I fled the car.

I climbed the ladder that led to the roof of the “party car”. James was there. He looked in my face and I wanted to say something, ask something, anything to put words to the confusion I felt. But I couldn’t. I was in too much shock. James put out his cigarette and leaned back. It was an invitation I took without hesitancy. I sobbed on his neck while he held me and rocked. When my sobs subsided, I was numb, and I turned to look at the scene that surrounded us.

Train cars ran endlessly in either direction even though I had only ever experienced four of them. They seemed normal sized from the outside despite being puzzlingly short and wide from the inside. I had never found the door that I first came through. Another mystery was the fact that no one I talked to knew how they got here. There were no tickets, not that anyone, given the choice, would’ve willingly joined the train. Surrounding the train was darkness, just a black that you could stare into forever.

“Why are we here?”

“Fuck if I know”, he responded.

We drank until we fell asleep. After that, I spent every waking moment with James for what felt like days but was actually months. We partied, we danced, we shared intense intimate moments. I fell in love with him. I’ll never know if he fell in love with me. I would tell him that I loved him, and he would stare into the distance. Occasionally, he would venture back into the other car, but I could never bring myself to join him. When he returned, and he was drunk, he would say dark things to me. Not that there was anything darker than our very existence. He pointed out that one time we were sitting on the roof.

“Whatever is out there can’t be worse than what’s here”, he would say.

And as much as I didn’t want him to go, I couldn’t disagree. Only fear of the unknown and the lingering hope that things could change in the train kept me from joining him that day he left into the darkness. Numb, again, my days blurred together. I took up a very similar lifestyle to the one James had and I started to remember him less and less. Until I saw him again.

Blurry eyed from the dark car, confused, wandering around, muttering to himself, and trying to catch the attention of the occasional passenger, I watched him. Then I caught his eye. He made his way to me, and I stared at those same star-blue eyes and freckles.

“Where am I?”

“Where did you come from?” I responded.

“Where did YOU come from?”

I smirked.

“Hell”.

Then I climbed the ladder to the roof.