Runaway Train chapter 31

“Ben’s told me on how obsessed he was with trains since he was little, so it is wild to me that we met on one,” Cara started. The other Bloodletter’s moved far away from the group. Only Indigo and I stayed with the group in the dimly lit church.

Emma gasped, “Yeah that’s right! I’d call him Old Ben when he’d talk to me about engines and pistons, hah, and you two met on one! What was it? That runaway train that Bexley got run over a long time, I bet!”

Ben looked shocked. “That can’t be the same train…”

Emma nodded, “There’s only one crazy zombie-run runaway train I ever heard of.”

I signed indignantly, “There really couldn’t be another one. That’s the train my handler—-someone I once knew told me about.”

Indigo snapped at me, “You don’t know anything about nothing, Amory!”

I ignored her, “Is it the converted steam train?” I signed to the human Cara.

She nodded pointing to me in an affirmative way, “Yes! That’s it. Ben, baby, you tell ‘em.”

“Well,” Ben cleared his throat, eyes shining, “Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engine, invented in 1712, was the first engine that actually was recognized….”

Emma laughed, “No, no! That’s too far back…”

Stan shook his head, “Maybe just when you and Cara met… that might be great to give us how that happened…” He signed in a strained, almost exhausted way. He looked like if how a zombie learned how to sigh in a constant struggle of blowing no air and all grief, he was the actual picture of that feeling.

Ben put his hands up, “But in order to tell the story, of us,” he placed a gentle hand on Cara’s shoulder, “you need full context.”

We all stayed quiet, looking at the couple, mainly Ben, to continue. He started blathering on immediately as though he saw a signal switch on. My dead handler taught me engineering sometimes when she was in a slightly less hateful mood.

“Modern trains, before the war started I mean, ran on a third rail which is a rail along the track, or overhead wires called catenary lines. The electricity makes the motors spin, turning the wheels. The engineers has everything computerized and easy to command in an automatic way. Throttles and brakes also helped things speed up or slow down. Well, getting down to it, I am sure all of us are aware of the story of the runaway crazy train that a zombie keeps running. There was an electric train that was dead. Never ran. Never moved off its tilted tracks. Until one day, a zombie had it in his undead brain to start running this long gone engine. He made a deal with an alchemist. She converted the electric engine into a steam one. Impossible but she did it.”

“Why? How?” Indigo asked in a perky way, her eyes wide and beautiful. I couldn’t help myself. I had to watch her as I heard the story.

“She was commissioned to build a firebox and a boiler. Remove the electric motors and wiring….” Ben kept droning. Cara looked like a melted puddle of quicksilver next to Ben, who was eating her up.

Stan noticed me and gave me a knowing look, but I scowled. He smiled anyway. I knew I couldn’t afford to get invested in anyway else but Indigo. I lost Jack, but he was only a Bloodletter for a short time. We don’t really have family or friends in Bloodletter groups. Just numbers and tasks to do. Endless work for nothing in return. It made me keep remembering someone I have tried so hard to forget. My handler, Rhetha. I knew that the alchemist Ben was talking about was her—-she often bragged about how impossible and impeccable her work was converting that train.

Ben kept talking but I was barely paying attention. (“Change the chassis to hold water and coal. Redesign the cab controls and safety systems. But she didn’t do anything for free….”)

The words slide in and out of my mind like a worm or a parasite. Reminding me of how Rhetha would beat me, throw acid on me, poison me to make my mind cloudy—-how she would strategically burn parts of my body. Deeper burns for worse mistakes that I’d make.

“It is said that when it was done, the steam cores heat ether turbines, old electric conductors still hum inside, all the outside wires ripped out as though it were an insect’s exoskeleton, channeling residual lightning energy. The transformation that the alchemist built was, in her own words, “when the power grid died, we rebuilt with fire.” Ben finished, and everyone was silent in awe of his words.

I knew those words like my own stale innards. The fire was her lifeblood as well as her worst enemy.

“The zombie went mad to find the gold to pay her for her necromancy. She rebuilt a skelton that was decaying and rotting into a shiny, screaming-whistle of a new engine with all working parts. It was the zombie’s dream. He found a wealthy zombie’s stash on gold coins. What he didn’t know is that they were cursed coins. Made with royal blood. The train now can never stop. The coins rotted within the alchemists hands but she never let them go. The engine sings its warped song as the whistle’s noise swallows up the air within its grasp.”

“Talk about a skelton crew!” India burst in, signing with a new found confidence. Emma and Cara laughed.

“I met my Cara, well, because we were both seeking the same thing,” Ben finally explained. I wished I could yawn or sigh like humans. They tell stories that last too long. I wish they could just get to the damn point.

“Freedom from the same old same old,” Cara said and Ben laughs with her.

“We both needed to find a new way to live, like we were half-dead. Trying to find a new definition to keep us running, like the once dead engine. I was a stowaway on the train and I saw a girl with eyes that lit up my heart. She asked me to be her carry-on and I could not say no. We almost got killed trying to get off the train before the zombie engineer found out we were hiding in an open car.”

“That was insane. My heart beat was in my throat!” Cara recalled. “You helped me calm down though,” she winked to Ben, making him blush.

“The runaway train was both of you, in a way,” Stan offered. “But you found a new home in each other.”

Emma nodded, “I never thought you had it in you but you’re wild Ben!” She shoved him gently.

Indigo nodded, signing, “If only this old lump could get it together!” She pointed to me. Why me? I felt something truly strange twisting my dead innards like an electric current.

Everyone laughed.

I knew I was cursed, even if I got farther away from that old witch Rhetha’s home, she felt alive inside of me. I heard her often speak in tongues and now she’s always in my head, taunting me. Torturing me like when she was alive.

I can’t get anything together for you like how I want, Indigo. Though I desperately want to.