The Rails

Harlace Wilson sat with his elbows resting on the table.

He was reading the morning newspaper as the purplish hues of the approaching dawn were peering over the horizon, and through his kitchen window.

A steaming cup of strong, black coffee sat in front of him, and he had the paper folded to the Local section.

He read the heading banner that exclaimed, "Correctional Facilities Escapee still on the run."

He skimmed the article through his weathered, and decidedly scratched reading glasses. Reading about how a week had passed since the escape, and how the authorities speculate that the escapee was still in hiding in Pasco County.

"Pasco County." Harlace thought. "Puts him right in my back yard."

They were confident that he would've been apprehended very soon, as an intense network of investigative teams had put a dragnet in place and were zeroing in on the fugitive. The article read.

Blueish smoke lazily wafted upward as he slowly brought the cigarette to his elderly lips.

He sat the paper down and grabbed his coffee. And after a careful sip, placed the cup back on the table. He finished the final drag from his cigarette and crushed the butt into the ashtray that was close by.

Today was a special day for him. Somber, but special. It was his final day of running one of the Titan Engines at K&M Railroad. He's worked for this company for the better part of 45 years.

He had started working for the company as a coal shoveler when he dropped out of high school in 1966.

The way that he got the job was a matter of luck. It was a literal coin toss that would determine whether he, or another young fellow applying for the job, would have gotten it. They only needed one more set of hands.

The Hiring Supervisor flipped a coin, and Harlace came up on the winning end.

From that point forward, he worked diligently and faithfully to finally, over some time, secure a position as an engineer.

But it was no easy feat. Especially for a young African American Man in those times.

Nonetheless, he'd achieved what he wanted, and had operated the massive machines successfully for all this time.

Today, he would say goodbye to it. For good.

He, of course pondered how he would spend the rest of his future. Operating the trains was really all he invested his time and energy into doing. So, he really didn't know how he was going to sprawl out the rest of his living years.

He speculated that he would cross that bridge when he got to that point. Right now, it was time to get to work and see what was on the books.

When Harlace Wilson arrived at the station, the air was already muggy, and stiflingly humid from the steam coming from an already idling train engine. The Day Keep, Carl, handed him a clipboard and tipped his hat as he walked away.

Harlace glanced at the document on the clipboard. He was delighted to see that he was going to be running what was referred to as a "Dead Snake". This was a pretty sizeable load of empty train cars with no cargo. A pretty simple run, as there was no urgent time sensitive push to get these cars to a certain location because there was no cargo to deliver.

Harlace looked up at the colossal engine, and then surveyed the cars that were attached behind it. There weren't too many. Maybe about 25. With a pleased nod, he placed the clipboard under his arm and turned to head toward the break room to get a little more coffee for the morning.

As he was opening the door to the break room, he bumped into Carl, causing him to nearly spill his own coffee.

"Oh. 'scuse me." Said Harlace. "Just headin' in that way before I roll out."

Carl responded in a thick Southern Dixie Drawl.

"Got-chu a snake gonna ride the rails eh, Harl?"

"Yep. Hell of a way to bring in my last day. After years of hauling this, that, and God only knows what else. Last day, hauling nothin' at all. Guess it's easy enough."

"Well? Headed to Tennessee, you should be back 'morrow early. We'll have a cold one or two to send ya off. How'd that be?"

Harlace walked toward the coffee maker with a slight smile on his face. He nodded, not looking back at the Carl. The door closed, and Carl was off to his other tasks.

Carl walked along the side of the collection of train cars to inspect the "Snake" to make sure that the hooks and pulls were in place and that all the proper cables and hydraulic hoses were secure.

As he was looking at one set of hoses, he was determining whether or not that old toss pot, Ralph Wendle had rightly connected the quick release chucks, or if he'd gone further into his cups and said, "to Hell with it", and just threw them together.

As he surveyed the situation, he could have sworn that, through his periphery, he saw a dark leg with a boot raise upward and into the doorway of the engine's Driver's Compartment. He paused. And looking in that direction, his eyebrows furled as he started to slowly stroll toward that location.

He walked through billowing mists of steam that were emitting from the undercarriage of the engine as he continued toward where he was sure he saw a leg disappear into the door of the Compartment.

"Harl?" He called.

He'd never noticed Harlace come out of the break room. And anyway, he would've walked right by him to get to the engine.

He approached the engine and jogged up the stairs to the Driver's Compartment.

He stuck his head inside the door and looked around the interior. He didn't see anything. Maybe he hadn't seen anything at all. Could that have been?

"Just imagined it." He thought, stepping inside the engine. He waited a few seconds longer and decided he hadn't seen what thought he might've.

He then turned to leave the engine's cabin and make his way back toward the previous car that he was inspecting. Just as he did, a swift moving, shadowy arm grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar. It happened so fast that He had no time to scream. but there was time enough for his eyes to go wide in their sockets as another arm swung around, and with a calloused hand, grabbed Carl's chin and wrenched his head violently backwards. Carl's neck was broken, and he fell heavily like a sack of meal. The two dark, and mysterious arms of the assailant then jerked him swiftly up and dragged his limp frame back to one of the cubbyholes. He'd been hidden in one as he waited.

And now the assailant who was indeed inside the engine, sat slouched in the darkness of the void cubbyhole as Carl's twitching body lay next to him on the floor of the engine.

He waited.

Having had enough coffee for the rest of the morning, Harlace walked toward the idling engine. He looked around for Carl but didn't see him. He thought nothing of it and climbed the steps toward the Drivers Compartment. After a few regulatory tasks that were common before starting the train into motion, he maneuvered the slow progression of the engine, and it began its acceleration. Minutes later, Harlace Wilson was gaining a gradual speed on the rails. Forward and en route to Tennessee. The billowing steam vapors spewed from the rhythmic, thundering engine and the tracks began the familiar shrieks, squeals, and scrapes that we're obligatory. The chaotic noises soon faded into the steady clanging and hissing of the speeding wheels' revolutions.

Harlace Wilson reached for the communications radio and held it to his mouth to speak. "I'mma take you up on those beers when I get back tomorrow okay, bub?"

No answer.

Harlace figured he must be out behind the facility doing inventory on the oil barrels.

Later on, the train was rushing forward at a fast pace, and it happened pretty fast since this, "Dead Snake" had nothing but empty cars attached. Harlace looked onward through the window and he watched the landscape elapse into his past and thought more about the impending retirement that was approaching. Retirement that was reaching for him every bit as fast as this train was now traveling.

The assailant who was still crouched in hiding in a void with the corpse of Carl next to him, waited as Harlace, who was standing at the control board, was jotting down his log notes on the clipboard.

The time was 10:05 AM.

The train was now traveling at an upwards of 80 miles per hour through the green, cow country terrain.

After about 20 minutes of staying in hiding in the cubbyhole, the assailant quietly stepped over the corpse of Carl, and carefully, and slowly peeked around the divider wall to see Harlace preoccupied with looking forward out of the train's windshield.

It was at this point that the assailant pulled a rusty paring knife from inside his left sock. The knife was one that he lifted from the kitchen from the Correctional Facility that he'd escaped from last week.

This knife wasn't going to do much damage, but just enough if push came to shove.

Still looking forward watching the scenery pass by as the train rifled forward, Harlace was completely unaware of the quiet steps behind him. The escapee was silently moving closer toward Harlace's back. And he was moving very stealthily as he approached Him.

But as would happen, his stealth was broken when Harlace suddenly turned to face him. Shocked by this unfamiliar, unkempt and wild looking individual, Harlace's eyes went wide. And he attempted to make a move toward the assailant. The man raised the hand holding the knife causing Harlace to freeze instantly in a slight running pose, looking frozen like a statue in a kid's game.

"Uh-uh, Pops!" The assailant said, as he waved the filthy blade of the knife in Harlace's face.

"What the Hell is this? And who are you?"

Harlace asked with a hectic, and shaken tone.

"You don't need to worry about who I am. All you need to worry about is keeping your mouth shut and keepin' this train-a-rollin' forward. No slowing down."

"Y-Yeah, but what's going on? What-chu doin'?" Asked Harlace.

"What's going on is I'm gettin' the fuck out of here. And you fi'nna help me do it. I left that Hilton I was stayin' at last week. Crawlin' through mud and eatin' worms to stay low. Now gonna get out of this shit house town."

"Where dis train goin'?" He demanded, and Harlace slowly sat down in the seat next to the control board. He just looked at the man and said nothing.

The man impatiently asked, "Where dis train goin' Ol' School or you gonna have yo guts in yo lap!"

"Tennessee." Harlace Wilson replied with a hoarse mutter.

"Ok, that's good. Now things gonna be real cool, long as you stay cool."

"Don't let your old ass get into anything you gonna regret. We get to Tennessee, and I'mma hop. You don't say nothing, and we cool. You good?"

He was wiping off the blade of the knife and testing its sharpness with his fingers. Making it a point of letting Harlace see him do it.

"I ain't going to do nothing that's going to put my ass out to the wind." Harlace said.

"What-chu mean, old man?" The assailant replied.

"I guess you ain't never heard of harboring a fugitive."

"Ok, I tell you what. I go ahead and cut your throat right now and then you ain't got to worry about it how'd that be?" Said the assailant.

"Probably be better. I'm pretty sure you ain't know how to run this train. Probably just end up crashing and burning anyway. Only ain't no tellin' how many people you'd take out."

"Just take it easy old man. Everything's gonna be ok. Long as you stay straight and don't cause no ruckus."

The man's eyes rolled wildly in their sockets as he panned his head back and forth as if looking for someone else in the Driver's Compartment.

Harlace slowly turned his head forward to look out of the windshield of the engine again. "Great way to go out on my last day."

He thought.

A tense, and stressful two hours drew out, as the train hastily dashed through the landscape. Passing through three industrial areas, rolling thunderously near some residential districts, and then back into a green setting where tree-lines on either side fluttered past creating blurry walls.

The two hardly spoke to each-other in that time save for pointless small talk that Harlace was growing very tired of. He had a growing rage building up within him, and every time he looked at the assailant's wide-eyed glance, it grew even more.

"You know. It's really hard for me to believe that I've traveled the countless miles that I have to what seems like thousands of locations for the past 45 years only to end up like this." Harlace said with a slight smirk.

"Yeah. Bitch ain't it?" The man replied.

"Yeah, it is. But maybe that's been the sole purpose all this time. I've been traveling all that way just-a waitin' for you to get here. So that I can put a stop to your ass."

"What the hell you tal-" the man croaked out as he watched Harlace stand up and slowly advance on him.

"Come on. Come on, you oily piss ant." Harlace said.

"Man sit ya old ass down before you hurt ya-self." The man said, and he was beginning to laugh as he watched Harlace go into a ridiculous boxing stance that looked like it could have been on a promo photo from the 1920s. He might've expected him to say something like,"Put up your dukes" next.

But Harlace didn't say that. Instead, he said, "You ain't going to Tennessee. In fact, you ain't even staying on my train."

"Man, you getting yourself into something you ain't going to like."

"You-" was all he was able to get out and then he saw a white-hot flash as Harlace connected with a right Haymaker. It hurt surprisingly and he sprawled backwards from where he'd been sitting. Harless stood swaying back and forth with his fists put up ready to attack again.

The assailant held his jaw as he shot his glance with teary, bloodshot eyes wide back at Harlace.

He stood up slowly and threw the paring knife on the engine's floor.

With his considerable size difference, and advantage of youth over Harlace, the brutality that commenced then was unspeakable.

Several hours passed and the train was now moving at 110 mph still barreling mercilessly up the rails. It was now 5:00 in the early evening. Harlace sat muttering on the seat at the control board. He bled profusely and was broken and bruised from the brutality he endured at the hands of the maddened assailant.

"I told you. Didn't I tell you? Now look at ya. All busted up. Shoulda never-"

He looked alarmed now as he watched Harlace suddenly begin taking fiercely labored breaths. He Looked like he was suffocating. He grabbed feverishly at his chest and the grimace on his face was followed by a silent, breathy scream as his mouth opened widely.

He was shaking uncontrollably, and his feet were battering a heavy tattoo upon the floor. The man watched in horror as Harlace's eyes flew upward in their sockets, throwing his head backwards to face the ceiling. His gyrations seemed to move in harmony with the rumbling of the speeding train, and panic started to grip the assailant. He could see that Harlace was dying and there was nothing he could do.

Running to Harlace, he lifted his head up in A desperate effort to do... something. He saw that his Jaws were clenched shut now and his teeth had clamped down biting halfway through his tongue. The blood that flowed was immeasurable.

After a few more minutes of watching the seizures, he now was standing with a horrified gaze as he saw Harlace's body go limp and sat slumped in the seat. Harlace rocked in syncopation with the rhythm of the rumbling train.

Now, with Harlace sitting lifeless, bloody, and slumped at the control board, the train was barreling up the rails at well over 112 miles an hour! It was now indeed a runaway train!

Over 67 tons of a serpentine mass rocketing through a landscape with blurring trees at either side!

The assailant stood dismayed at the realization of having lost absolute and complete control.

"Now what the fuck am I gonna do?" He croaked.

Frantically looking around jerking his head from left to right and then fixing his eyes upon the control board. It might as well have been an open book of Greek or Egyptian Hieroglyphics to him.

There was no way in hell he was going to be able to stop this train once it got to where it was going. The only option was to jump. Now, it had been several hours since they had left Pasco County, so by now he was sure that he was far enough away that he could make a clean getaway. Might as well jump now.

Headed to the door of the driver's compartment he lifted the heavy steel lever that engaged the lock, and with a hefty pull, opened the door with a quick slide. The speed that the train was rolling at was Earth-shattering, and the noise of the wind and the tracks was deafening. He braced against blast of the wind and committed himself mentally to making the jump.

After a minute of perspired hesitation, he glanced back at Harlace, who was still tremoring from the vibration of the train. He looked ahead into the distance through the windshield. He then looked back outside of the opened doorway. Just as he was going to make the jump over the stair railing, he lost his footing on the wet, slick deck surface and started a clumsy plummet toward the granite rock bed of the tracks. Volumes of pain shot through his body as both of his legs shattered along with his pelvis. His torso was nearly twisted backwards as he rolled horridly end over end across the rocks.

The train continued its earsplitting roll forward as the man's fractured and fissured body was tossed pell-mell along the granite bed. Eventually, he came to rest in a Topsy turvy position writhing in complete agony as he watched the train quickly reduce in size. It gained distance, and the light mounted on the back of the rear car dimmed in its intensity as it rolled out of sight.

The pain that racked the man's body was indescribable and before another 60 seconds could pass, he blacked out.

Later, after what seemed to him like several hours, the man was jarred back to the waking world by the intense torture gripping his body. His breaths were heaving gasps. He looked across the tracks and noticed that not too far away, there was an abandoned service station along what looked like a dirt road. He would need to get off the rocks and away from the tracks to try to find something similar to safety. He wasn't sure if he was going to make it or not. But he would definitely need to find some shelter to get away from the elements, whatever wild animals would want to make chow out of him, or even another passing train. He mustered all the strength that he could to try to cross the tracks, but his movements were next to impossible. With every breath he took, the pain seemed to grow more and more. His body was bloody, beaten, and broken. His legs were useless, so there was no way for him to use them for any momentum at all. It was all upper body. That was what he was going to have to use to get over and across the tracks and toward the abandoned service station.

After about 20 minutes of his complete and seemingly futile efforts to make any progress away from the tracks. All he could do was rest his head on one of the rails. But then suddenly, he was startled. He could feel the rails vibrating. At first, he wasn't sure if he was feeling it at all and maybe it was just the tremblings of his body in response to the pain. But after a minute, he was certain that not only could he feel a vibration in the rail, but he could hear it.

A train was coming!

This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. He jerked his head in the direction of the South, but he saw nothing. He still felt the vibrations and they seemed to slowly and gradually become more intense. He then jerked his head into the position of the North and saw what looked to be a very dim light. He watched it as it started to grow in its intensity. It was definitely a light! It was a train! He desperately and frantically tried to move his body off of the tracks, but he couldn't move at all now. Maybe because he had been laying for too long that his muscles just gave up the ghost. The pain was too intense for him to move. He could barely scream but was managing to do so as the light's brightness grew more and more piercing. The train was rapidly approaching, and he couldn't move.

As he watched the hulking mass get closer, he saw familiarity. It was the rear car of the train that he had jumped out of. It was Harlace's Train! He was wondering how in the hell this was possible!

Maybe it was a hallucination! At any rate it didn't make a difference. It was headed right for him! He moved jerkily and desperately but to no avail. He couldn't get up and over the tracks and this train was barreling toward him like a predator toward prey. Inevitably, the train rushed over him, and his already ruptured body was reduced to a disgusting mass of gelatinous gore.

His quivering remains lay underneath the tumultuous chaos of the dashing train.

After about an hour later, and passed sundown, the train slowly, and finally came to rest on the tracks in a rural area somewhere in Citrus County.

It had ultimately run out of fuel.

It was eventually discovered by railroad officials after reports from the depot in Tennessee stating its failure to arrive. And then after an investigation, it was released back into the possession of K&M Railroad.

Both Harlace's and Carl's Bodies were sent back to Pasco County and examined by the medical examiner's office. Their deaths were ruled as homicides. It was surmised that they were murdered by an assailant that boarded the train unseen and acted as a stowaway; and after murdering the two, made an escape somewhere during the travel.

What they don't know is that Harlace was vindicated. Posthumously.

And he did it himself.

The way it happened was through some bizarre kismet. As the runaway train barreled forward on the tracks, the vibrations were so acute, and fierce, that they caused his limp body to fall forward. He fell against the controls of the board and seemingly preternaturally, caused the train to go into an instant, and aggressive loco-reversal.

No one had seen that, when the wheels spontaneously went into reverse, they had emitted a screaming and fiery volley of Sparks as the rails shrieked with all the Hellish sounds of fire, flood, and the end existence.

They hadn't seen how; it had rolled forward with the glowing-hot wheels moving in reverse for nearly 3 minutes before it started its gradual advance backward.

They hadn't seen how the train made a long descent in reverse to ultimately avenge the wrongful death of its 45-year veteran engineer.

They also hadn't seen how; there may or may not have been a slight grin on Harlace Wilson's face as he lie on the floor of the engine facing the ceiling.

The assailant was never found, and as with many other unfortunate cases, went cold over time.

The K&M Railroad Company erected a memorial at the station in honor of Harlace and Carl.

THE END