The Train

Morgan looked around inside Grand Central Terminal in amazement. “It doesn’t matter how many times I come here, it’s still awesome,” she said, dodging a renegade toddler.

Tyler came rushing up behind her through the crowd. “Excuse me… Sorry…” she mumbled, smiling, to the strangers who had just before been run into by Morgan. “Morg, you can look at the ceiling or you could walk. Don’t try to do both. It doesn’t work.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

Tyler snickered. “You’re such a tourist. Anyway, do you have the train schedule?”

Morgan checked her guitar-shaped bag. “Shit. No. I thought you did, Tyler.”

“No… but it’s no biggie. Umm…,” she looked up at the train schedule above the ticket stations.
“Yeah, so next one leaves at three thirty. What time is it now?”

“It’s about three,” said Morgan, flipping open her cell phone. “So that gives us half an hour. That works, I think. Hey, wanna grab something to drink?”

“No… I’d rather get a seat. We can stop at Starbucks once we get home,” Tyler replied.

“Dunkin’ Donuts,” Morgan countered.

“Whatever.”

The two teenagers made their way through the main concourse. Tyler was slightly older and slightly shorter. Only about half an inch, nothing noticeable, but enough for Morgan to tease her when the time was right. She had dark, stabbing eyes. Her hair was brown, but she dyed it a darker shade. It was also naturally curly, or as she liked to call it, The Jewish Afro.” She had it relaxed and straightened, so it ended up okay in her mind. Tyler had very light skin and wore black onyx eyeliner only on her lower lids. She also wore glasses sometimes, even though she paid enough money for those uncomfortable contacts. That was about all she did makeup wise. In fact, she sported two “Caterpillars. Big fuzzy ones.” as eyebrows, which she routinely tweezed around as best she could. At around five foot one and ninety pounds, she was small for her age. Tyler wore black, purple, or green most of the time. Not only could she be categorized as “goth”, but also classy, which she was proud of.

Morgan wasn’t all that different. She also had brown eyes, but they always sparkled… whether with laughter or with hate. Her hair was long and brown, with blond highlights (they were supposed to be red!). It was somewhere between curly and wavy. She straightened it when she felt like it, but for the trip into the city she did not. Morgan wore glasses as well, and also wore black a whole lot. She was only a bit taller than Tyler, and weighed only about two pounds more. She wore eyeliner when she felt like it, and got her eyebrows taken care of every once in awhile. Morgan also would have been called “goth”.

The girls had known each other for three years. They both enjoyed reading and writing, and school took up most of their time. Both taking “smart classes”, education was important. Morgan played electric guitar, and Tyler was a belly dancer. Since they lived in the same town, only about two hours from the city, they went in as much as they could.

This time they went alone, just to look for dresses for an upcoming dance at their school. They didn’t like the popular music at all. Tyler liked rock, metal, alternative, industrial, some country, selective operas, and anything new age. Morgan liked rock, metal, and alternative. They both liked Metallica, Godsmack, Poison, Motley Crue, Green Day (or at least Morgan), and other random bands that would mean nothing to most of the younger generation. The dance was in about a month, but dress shopping was not Morgan’s favorite thing. Tyler decided to help out. (“If you have to get a dress I might as well come with. I mean, I’ve been dress shopping a million times.”) Tyler wasn’t getting a dress, because she wasn’t sure she was going to attend the dance. She wasn’t so into guys, and it was more of a date type affair. So she would cheer on Tyler and her boyfriend and then sit home watching Lifetime and Spike TV with a hoard of Japanese candy and maybe some erotic literature.

When they found their train and boarded, it was almost empty. There were only three cars on the train, which wasn’t all that odd, because the girls lived in a not-so-great town, in the not-so-great state of Connecticut. The car they chose was deserted except for one woman in the corner. She had a journal in her lap and was writing vigorously and also seemed to be talking to herself.

“I’ve thought about being a writer… screwing it all here and moving to England but it… kinda seems like giving up…,” she muttered to herself.

Tyler and Morgan looked at each other. Morgan bit her lip to keep from laughing. They tried not to stare at the woman, but continued to listen.

“The problem with me is I can adapt to anything, so I have no clue who I am. I feel like a social conman,” the woman rambled on.

Tyler giggled. “I think she has more problems than that...”
“Shhh…” Morgan replied, laughing herself.

They kept listening, heads down, just out of amusement. The woman stayed quiet, probably having heard the girls. When Morgan looked up there were more people in the car.

A few seats in front was a young girl on her cell phone. She had blond hair and was wearing pink. Tyler frowned, listening in on the call.

“Sorry I totally abandoned you today; somebody was totally like ‘ITS LATE I’M GONNA MISS MY TRAIN,’ so I was like ‘AHHHHH!!!’”

Morgan cringed. “There’s really no need to be that loud.”

There was a Chasid sitting behind them. He was talking to a man in a suit next to him. They were having a heated discussion over religion. The man in the suit had asked a question about the use of the word Jehova in relation to the Jehova's witnesses. (“I guess they talk about everything in New York,” commented Tyler. “We wait until Shul.”)

The Chasid was saying, “Well, the Hebrew spelling of the world Adonai, which means God by definition, is spelled "yud, yud" in its shortened form, which is used most often. It is impossible to pronounce because of the vowel combination, so we say Adonai, but Jehova would be the way to pronounce it if the "j" sound existed in the Hebrew language and if there was a slight change in spelling. I have asked my teachers if there was a correlation, and they said no, but I believe so, yes.”

Morgan sighed. “Really, who cares?”

“I learned that in Hebrew school,” Tyler replied.

“Yeah but when I went with you, all you did that day was make sandwiches for poor people, and the next time I went we watched Aladdin.” Morgan scoffed, rolling her eyes.

Meanwhile, two college aged boys sat in the back of the car. One sported a green baseball cap, the other some very thick, wavy hair. They both wore glasses. One was laughing hysterically. “Alex, dude, you stole a garbage can from campus?! That’s fucking awesome. Oh my God. That’s so great.”

Tyler looked to Morgan. “Never ever let me get like that. Please.”

“I promise, as long as you promise never to become a man," she replied deviously.

“Deal.”

The woman in the corner was beginning to stir again.
“Theory: there is a God and I’m screwed. But hell, we all know I can bullshit my way into anything, or religion is the biggest cult and lie in the history of the human!” the woman spouted, writing again.

Morgan just laughed. “Tyler, if there is a god, I would hope he isn't so easily bullshitted. And I buy into the second one, anyway.”

“Well not everyone is as intelligent as you, hun,” Tyler said, smiling.

The strange woman with the book looked at herself gravely in the reflection in the window. “I’ve got to be honest. I’m worried about you,” she said, apparently talking to her mirror image.

Tyler closed her eyes and snickered. “Yeah, you’ve got good reason for that.” Then the woman passed out again.

“She’ll come back,” Morgan noted.
Now a man came and sat down next to the two girls, in the third seat. They raised an eyebrow at each other. Morgan shrugged.
“iPods?”
“Sure.”

They got out their individual music players and listened, Morgan to Metallica and Tyler to Icon of Coil. In less than a minute, Morgan nudged Tyler. She looked up from the window and started to laugh. Not only was the man next to Morgan dead asleep, he was about to fall down onto her. They cracked up laughing, and he moved his head the other way. Tyler kept laughing to herself as she looked out the window into the tunnel that surrounded the train.

“Thank you for traveling with Amtrak," blared the voice on the intercom, "This is the three-thirty train from Grand Central to Southeast. Our first stop is….” There was a slight garbled noise. The girls looked up and pulled out their earphones. “…125th street.”

Morgan looked confused and pissed. “Well that was odd. But this train only goes to Southeast?”
“Yeah… we have to drive back from there. Even this early there are no trains into Connecticut. It’s no big deal, we drove in this morning. We’d have to get the car anyway,” Tyler shrugged. “That noise was strange though…”

The train lurched and started to gain momentum. As it switched tracks, the lights flickered off for a few seconds. When they came back on, more people had moved into the car where Morgan and Tyler were sitting. An Italian, wearing a black trench coat and sunglasses, was sipping an espresso from Starbucks and reading what looked like an HTML manual.

“I bet he’s in the mob,” Tyler whispered.

Morgan glanced at her in exasperation. “Tyler, we aren’t all in the mob,” she replied, though she was smirking. On occasion, Morgan was fond of flaunting her Italian heritage.

“125th Street, Harlem,” The man, presumably not a real conductor but a recording, said over the loudspeaker. A creepy, grungy looking man sat down on the other side of the car, a few seats forward, almost near the woman who had passed out. He had his hand down his pants, and was staring out the window of the train, which had stopped at 125th street in Harlem.

He was carried a bag from some medical store, which was holding a Trigun book and some Poptarts. His right arm wore a medical alert bracelet, and a blue and grey checkered jacket was bunched up next to him. He was humming to himself a song that Tyler recognized as a German Rock song. She giggled to herself, amused.

More people boarded, which caught the girl’s attention. There was a woman with a baby in a carrier, and a businessman. The businessman sat across the aisle from them. The man sleeping next to Morgan stirred slightly.

“This is the train to Southeast.” the voice from the loudspeaker repeated, as the train started to move. A woman came around to punch tickets. The woman who had passed out had kept her ticket next to her, so it was punched. The sleeping man bolted awake and presented her with his ticket, before falling back to sleep with his head about six inches from Morgan’s shoulder. The man across the aisle leaned down and pulled a blue case from his briefcase and opened it. He took a band of Invisalign braces from it and inserted them in his mouth almost absently before returning to the novel he was reading.

Morgan watched this with one eyebrow raised. He was middle-aged, and that was being generous. She hadn’t a clue why, after going through the better half of his life with crooked teeth, he had decided to spring for those. And it wasn’t fair. He should’ve had to suffer through the wire version like Tyler already had and she herself currently was.

She was pulled out of her reverie by the noise of the loudspeaker clicking back into life.
“If they tell us this train is bound for Southeast one more time,” Tyler muttered, and Morgan laughed. She had just been having the thought.

“Remember, Ty, some people are stupid.”

The rueful smiles faded from both girls’ faces, however, as a series of garbled noises came from the speakers instead of any kind of speech. Tyler’s brow furrowed.

“Must be a malfunction…I hope nobody misses their stop…”

Morgan glanced at the man who was nearly falling on top of her and nodded bitterly. “’Specially this guy,” she replied, curling her lip in distaste and scooting closer to her friend.

After the speaker switched off, the next sound anyone heard was a piercing shriek. It was coming from the woman who had carried the baby onto the train in the carrier. Tyler and Morgan turned around to look at her.

“MY BABY!!! Someone, please, anyone, HELP!!!” The businessman looked up from the paper and made his way a few seats back to the woman in distress.

“What’s the matter Miss?”

“MY BABY ISN’T BREATHING!!!” She sobbed, and then passed out. By this time the two girls were kneeling on their seats, looking backward at the commotion.

“Thit. She’th right. Thith baby ith dead.” and as the man said that, his eyes widened. All Morgan saw was him lift up the carrier and throw it out the emergency exit window, and then jam it shut once more.

“Did you catch that?” asked Tyler, when they sat back down and people returned to their business. Her dark eyes were wide and she was gesturing avidly, and more than a little frantically, in the direction of the emergency exit.

“Um, yeah, he threw it out the window of a moving train onto an electrified train track?” Morgan replied. She’d been going for sarcastic, but it just came out high pitched.

“No no, I mean, yeah, but did you look at the baby? Like, really look at it?”

“No, why?” Morgan asked Tyler, curiously.

“Because its eyes were red. It looked dead, alright, because the rest of it was pale and blue, but its eyes were red!”

“Tyler, you’re just imagining things. The light probably hit it weird or something,” Morgan replied, punctuating with a nod that looked as though she was trying to convince herself more than her friend.

“Or something…” Tyler mumbled disconsolately. She looked bemused. It was pretty obvious to her as to what she saw.

About five minutes later, the mother woke up. She looked confused for a few seconds, and then upon realizing the fate of her child, she started to scream again. Morgan bit her lip. It was no ordinary scream, it was a blood curdling shriek. Tyler winced. They heard a bang, and Morgan turned around. The woman was standing up, and throwing herself against the padded seats of the car. The man who had originally went over to check things out walked down the aisle, uncomfortably. Morgan thought she had heard someone tell him to go tell the conductor, so she assumed that was where he had been. The girls heard the man grumble to himself when he sat down over the shrieks of the woman, “He mutht have gone to the bathroom… uthless public tranthportation.”

Morgan’s eyebrows shot up in a sort of bemused horror. “Does that mean he’th gone?”
She received a blank look from the man and shook her head, waving her hand in a twitchy gesture of dismissal. Tyler tried on a smile that didn’t seem very happy in truth, but she was able to master it due to her friend’s satirical wit.

Suddenly the woman, who had stopped screaming, ran out of the car. The girls heard a crack and crush. Morgan slapped a hand over her mouth as the college aged boy got up to see what happened. “Sick, dude! She got caught between the cars! She’s not movin’ now though…” his green eyes were wild beneath his unruly hair, and with that Morgan and Tyler knew that there had been two deaths on the train.

The two girls turned towards each other in the same moment.
“I want off this train,” Morgan said, sounding adamant and nauseated.

“Honey, we can’t get off this train,” Tyler replied, chuckling shakily.

Morgan nodded, took a deep breath, and looked at the man next to her, who was still asleep.
Tyler was amazed. “I don’t know how he didn’t wake up during that woman making a scene.”

Morgan still looked freaked out. “I don’t know either.” Then man snorted in his sleep, and she let out a laugh which sounded almost normal.

It broke, though, when across the aisle, the businessman had pulled something else from his briefcase. It was a shiny and sharp, and the girls recognized it as a blade. He brought it to his thigh, and cut right through the fabric, skin, tissue, and muscle. He did not scream out in pain. He smiled insanely and removed the knife, which had been plunged into his leg about three inches, and brought it back down through a spot just above his knee. Blood was gushing everywhere, and dripping onto the floor. It spurted from his arteries onto the window and the seat in front of him. He started to laugh, which was a creepy sound over the loud ripping of the knife going into the fabric and muscle.

Morgan’s jaw dropped, as did everyone else’s in the train car. Tyler retched loudly. “Oh God… what is he doing?”
The man placed the knife on the seat next to him, and gazed out the window, blood pouring from his leg. He remained that way for a few minutes, and then he fell over onto the floor, dead.

Morgan shuddered, staring fixedly at the man. Tyler’s stomach clenched as that jagged ripping sound continued to pierce her conscience.
“Strange train ride…” Morgan muttered.
“Hey Morg, how come the train isn’t at White Plains yet? It’s getting dark, we should be there by now.”
“Yeah… well, maybe the announcements were to tell us we had to go a different way or something,” Morgan speculated.

After a few minutes, the drama died down. People had realized, as Tyler had, that no matter what, they had to get home, and sit tight until then. Morgan and Tyler, despite being extremely unnerved, relaxed. The man next to Morgan had fallen asleep leaning away from the girls, so that was a plus. Tyler brought out her iPod again, and gave one earphone to Morgan. She put on ‘Tomorrow, Wendy’ by Concrete Blond, and then changed it to ‘When The Children Cry,’ by White Lion. Morgan took a moment to savor the irony of the selections while Tyler stared out the window, trying to figure out their location. “Um, it looks like we’re in a small town, like the kind in Maine. I’ve never seen this place before… This is as crazy as hurricane Eduardo wearing a sombrero.”

“I’m sure the conductor knows what he’s doing,” said Morgan, as she opened up her backpack and pulled out a Dragonfruit Vitaminwater and a pack of Ritz peanut butter sandwiches. She glanced at the corpse and then glanced away sharply. She didn’t know how it was she planned to eat in its presence, but the whole situation was just so damn surreal that she didn’t really care.

“Since when do officials ever know what they’re doing?” Tyler asked, holding out her hand for the water. Morgan handed it over, giving a bitter laugh and tearing open the plastic cover of the crackers.

“Want?” she asked, waving them slightly in Tyler’s direction.

Tyler shook her head and responded “Maybe later,” while proceeding to chug a good portion of the rose-tinted water. Morgan nodded, shoving one of the sandwiches into her mouth.

“Good,” she said, speaking around it, “More for me.”

They sat that way in companionable, though uneasy, silence for a few moments while Tyler hunted for something they could agree upon listening to on her iPod and Morgan tore through the peanut butter sandwiches as though they were the last food she’d see in this lifetime. The way things were going in their car, she thought that might be true, anyway. She stopped mid-swallow, however, as the grungy man she had noticed near Harlem began hacking violently. Having stopped mid-swallow, Morgan found herself doing the same thing, and by the time she recovered herself, Tyler’s expression had slackened again into one of disbelieving terror.

“Wha-” Morgan started to say, and then stopped, her jaw hanging open.

The man’s eyes were a horrible, agitated shade of read and they were bulging out of his skull. Cords stood out on the side of his broad neck, which was rapidly turning red as well, and as the girls watched he turned his face towards the ceiling, gasping violently.

“Peanuts,” he choked, and then turned a malicious eye to Morgan. She flinched at the look of his face, ugly purple blotches appearing beneath his eyes. One hand continued to claw at his throat. The other returned to its previous spot and slipped inside of his pants. Morgan had leaned back against Tyler without realizing it.

“Peanuts,” he said, his voice nothing more than a rasp, “You bitch.”

As the two girls gaped in horror, Morgan with one hand raised and shielding half her face, the man punctuated each of his words by yanking the hand inside his clothes upward so violently that Morgan wondered how he didn’t just tear off what was there. His whole face turned scarlet, then blue, then black, and all the time he was jerking his hand violently up and down, picking up speed. Tyler’s jaw dropped open, somewhat intrigued, yet still disgusted.

Tyler let out a sickened cry of dismay as he died, expelling one last, deep-throated moan. When she saw the wet spot appear on the fabric of his filthy pants, Morgan screamed and buried her face in her friend’s shoulder.

“What the FUCK is going on in here, Ty? What is it?”

Somewhere a wolf howled in the distance.

Tyler looked over at the second, and most recent, corpse in the train car. He was laid back on the train seat, his head grotesquely swollen, his hand still in his pants, and a sick, satisfied grin on his face. “Oh my gosh…” Tyler couldn’t help but stare. “Just.. oh my gosh.” Tyler looked down at her friend leaning on her shoulder, eyes shut tight. She glanced over the bag of deadly snack sandwiches on the seat and retched. She opened the emergency window behind her, amazingly the same one the baby had been tossed out of, and threw the half full bag out. “And to think… I’m never going to be able to eat those again. I really liked them.”

Morgan picked her head up, tears stained her face. “I’ve gotta get out of here”

Tyler hugged her. “I know, I know, but you can’t. I’m not letting my eyes off of you.”

Morgan shuddered and turned her back to the aisle, looking at her friend to avoid looking at the gruesome scene elsewhere. “I’m scared.”

“I am too.”

The other passengers of the car had reacted as well. They tried to get out of the car, only to discover…

Morgan shrieked. “What do you mean the doors are locked?”

The quiet Italian responded. “We can’t get out that way. The emergency response signal hasn’t gone out yet, and the doors are closed.”

Tyler growled. “What other fucking way is there to get out?”

Everyone shrugged. The man continued reading his paper. “I know the conductor has this situation under control. If not, why are we still on the tracks?”

“Don’t SAY that!” screamed Morgan.

Tyler held her friend’s hand. “Everyone is very upset, Morg. But I’m sure the train is being driven by the conductor and he’s worked it all out. There was probably an accident or something. Anyway, I read somewhere that a train can’t go off the tracks when it’s not being driven.”

Morgan looked at her. “Really?”

“Really.” Tyler reassured her friend. And gave an evil glance to the Italian man.

The girls looked at the back of the seat in front of them, just for something to look at. Then they heard a familiar voice. It was the woman in the front corner of the train. She had finally awoken, and without a glance around, her eyes got wild and she screamed.
“Death is upon us! The end has come at last! Oh merciful Lord Jesus in heaven!!! It’s the weathered eyes and gypsy smiles!!!! GET OUT!!!”

At this remark, the girls jumped looked up at her.

“GET OUT ALL OF YOU OUT!!!!”

And then the woman collapsed again.

Tyler shook her head, and Morgan had an idea. She went through her bag and took out her cell phone. “Girly,” said the man next to her, who had awoken momentarily, “You’ll never get service on that thing. No one gets service on these trains.”

Morgan didn’t listen and opened up her Nextel. She looked at it quizzically. “I have one bar of service, which won’t get me anywhere, but why does my phone say I’m in airplane mode? I’m not in an airplane! I’m not even near an airplane. In fact, I don’t know where I am. But I’m sure as hell not in an airplane. I just know I’m on this crazy dysfunctional train.”

Tyler blinked. “Airplane mode?” She leaned over to look at the phone, when a spark shot up from the electronic device. “Shit!”

Morgan threw the phone to the floor. “It’s burning me!”

“Well, we have no way to communicate. Wonderful.” said Tyler, cynically.

“There was something wrong with my phone…” commented Morgan.

Tyler looked at her oddly. “Um well no duh, it exploded.”

“No other than that, the time was messed up.”

At this, all the passengers left in the car looked at their phones, watches, iPod, and pagers. The Italian was the first to speak up. “My watch says midnight, and it’s stuck.”

Tyler and Morgan looked at their iPods. “Twelve am, and not changing,” growled Morgan.

The sleeping man next to Morgan muttered “midnight” in his sleep, and the rest of the passengers agreed that not only were their time devices frozen, they were all reading twelve am, midnight.

“Odd, there are no buildings outside anymore,” said Tyler, gazing outside into pitch blackness.

“You’ve got to be kidding me Ty,”

“No Morgan, I’m not kidding. Hey maybe we should ask the creepy lady over in the corner if she knows where we are. I bet she lives on the train.”

“Fine. Go check Tyler.”

“No, I was going to make you go.”

“Tyler. I’m not going to go. You go check.”

Tyler got up out of her seat and scooted into the aisle. “Goddamnit, Morgan. You owe me so bad for this,” she hissed at Morgan. Tyler walked over to the woman and knelt down. “Miss. Excuse me, miss?” The woman did not seem to hear her. “Excuse me!” Tyler said, slightly louder. Everyone was watching them. Tyler put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and shook her. The lady fell onto the floor and stared up at the ceiling of the train car, blankly. Tyler jumped and ran back to her seat. “Uh, we’re not going to find out where we are from her.” There had been another death in the car.

“I just thought she passed out again,” whispered the man in the suit to the Chasid. The Chasid nodded, and began to pray in Hebrew, this time out loud.

Tyler looked even more shaken. “He’s saying Kaddish for the third time. That’s kinda freaky.”

Morgan dropped her gaze. “We’re never getting off. This sucks. I’m still a virgin.”

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Well you’re not getting any from me, and anyway, we’ll find a way out. We always do.” The train rattled on through the night.

The preppy girl had been on her cell phone almost the entire time. Her voice became frantic with the baby’s death, and then a series of “Hello? HELLO?!” followed. It was obvious no one was on the other end, but she continued to talk. More loudly and obnoxiously over the course of events, but no one paid her any attention. The last thing the passengers wanted was a clear recount of the events occurring.

Tyler readjusted her position, and sat on her legs. The extra two inches gave her a good look at the blond in front of her. She had a bag from the MTV store. Her nails were fire engine red, her eyes and lips coated with layers of fake products.
Within minutes of Tyler’s attention gaze, she yelped. A spark had erupted from the phone and was igniting the girl’s hair.

“YOUR HAIR’S ON FIRE!” she screamed, trying to extinguish the flames with her Vitaminwater and hands.

The girl kept talking on her phone, to no one, oblivious. The flames grew. Tyler ducked down into the seat with Morgan, using her friend’s sleeve to mask the smell of burning hair, then flesh.

The voice stopped abruptly. The girl was charring, burning. The flames did not set off any alarms, and the polyurethane plastic of the seat repelled the fire from spreading further.

There was a collective retch from the stench from the people left on the train. It was obvious, something was very wrong.

Tyler peered into the reflection of the seats in front of her on the window. The blond, vivacious girl was now a pile of black fat and ash. Within a minute, another life was taken.

A green fly landed on the seat in front of the teenagers, buzzing loudly. Its multi-faceted eyes stared around without blinking, seeming to take in the gruesome feeling of the train car. The fly’s gaze fixed upon the Italian man. He had momentarily gotten up to go to attempt to open the door of the train car. When he returned, he looked shaken. “Well…” he looked at Tyler. “You may want to cover up her ears,” he said, nodding at Morgan. “It took me awhile to get all those doors open, I really had to force them… and by that I mean break them. And to say… I’m pretty much a big guy. That’s not even the worse part.”

Morgan sat up straight. “No. I want to hear, I can handle it.”

The man shrugged. “The other cars are in as bad shape as we are. Actually, worse. And the conductor is, shall I say, non existent.”

There was a gasp from everyone in the car. The Chasid returned to praying, only more feverishly. Tyler stood up. “Wait a minute. That makes no sense. Not even a trace? What did they do, send themselves into space? It’s impossible.”

Morgan smirked, her face turning a sickly green. “Heh. I thought you weren’t nervous, Ty.” The business man snapped back to attention. “It’s okay if she’s nervous. We all are.”

Tyler fumed. “I’m not nervous. I’m just, well, I’m very confused.”

The Italian man held up a finger. “What surprised me, the train is working fine. It has not ceased to run, or used up all it’s fuel. Which is interesting, due to the few other facts I realized when I was at the front of the train.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “What facts?”

Well, the time is midnight according to all clocks, only the clock in the front stopped at midnight three days ago.

Tyler gasped “WHAT?!”

“I’m not finished. Also, the GPS system of the train is not functioning, and all communication devices to the stations have malfunctioned. AND…” he glared at the girls, challenging them to talk out. “We are no longer on the track.”

Morgan began to shake. “We’re on a run away train? Oh God.”

“No, not exactly run away. Since we are fine, really. Trainwise, at least.’

The man sleeping next to Morgan had awaken, and continued into the conversation as if he had been listening the entire time. “I wouldn’t say we are fine, since I highly doubt it will be easy getting home.”

Everyone stared at him. “Nice of you to pay attention, as we are about to plunge to our doom,” commented Morgan.

Tyler shrugged. “We would have been off a cliff by now if there was really an issue. Although what stops a train from doing that once it’s off the track…”

The Italian man rubbed his chin. “Yes, but most of the time trains run into cars, buildings, etcetera, when they run off a track.” He looked out the window. “I see nothing but trees, and those would be easily run over by us.”

Morgan looked at Tyler, nervously. Tyler hugged her. “It’s okay, and he says so. He probably knows as much about run away trains as he does concrete shoes…” She looked up at him. “That’s a good thing,” she added.

The Chasid paused. “I don’t know why I haven’t seen any animals, God’s creatures, or the moon or lights for over an hour now. I thought this area was highly populated by deer, and I have yet to see one.”

Morgan was about to respond, when the train jolted suddenly. The business man grabbed onto Morgan and Tyler’s seat to keep from falling.

“Holy shit!” Tyler exclaimed. The Chasid shot her an angry glance.

The train continued to move along, everyone was at edge. The two college boys in the back didn’t look as macho as they had previously. Amusingly, one of them had their hand on the other’s thigh. Tyler watched closely out of the corner of her eye. She continued to comfort Morgan, until the men started kissing each other. Tonguing, sucking, licking. The one previously referred to as Ian climbed on top of the other, and they were grinding their hips together.

The businessman and the Chasid next to him scowled. “That is NOT holy.”

Tyler shot them an angry glance. Being bisexual herself, she had no tolerance for that. But by the time shirts and pants were coming off, and Morgan began to turn around, she lost her patience. “Okay. Would you two mind?”

Their moans became louder. It was very clear where certain body parts were going, but no one could have expected what happened next. The man under Ian took a knife from his pocket.

Morgan and Tyler gasped. Tyler shook her head. “Where are these weapons coming from?!” They watched silently, no one wanted to disturb a man with a knife in his hand and a bulge in his pants.

The man underneath held the knife to the back of Ian’s neck, and slowly drops of blood appeared on the surface of the skin. Tyler noted that the cries coming from the couple were pure pleasure, but the words were negative. The usual “Oh yes” was replaced by “Oh no”, but with the same infliction.

No one in the car stirred. They watched as their motions came to a climax, and the knife fell into the flesh of Ian’s neck. He lay still. The other man pushed his friend off and his hand finished off his pleasure, plunging the weapon into his own jugular simultaneously with a groan.

There was silence. Tyler swallowed, and tried to focus on counting the scratches on her window. Morgan shook, putting her iPod on very loudly.

The train kept running, everyone a bit more on edge. The man next to the girls had not fallen back to sleep. Instead he was scratching his leg vigorously.

“We just wait now.” Said the Italian, calmly, eyeing the woman’s body in the corner.

There was silence while everyone thought to themselves. Everyone’s subconscious was running along the same lines, those of “I’m going to die within the next few days. I’d better put my head between my knees and kiss my ass goodbye.”

A loud grunt came from the man next to Morgan. Tyler looked at him, questioningly. He had rolled up his pant leg and was scratching his calf even more feverishly. Tyler craned her neck, and gasped. The area he was scratching had become torn open in streaks, blood oozing from the scores in his skin. With his other arm he was scratching his shoulder. Tyler could only assume it looked the same as his lower extremity by now.

The businessman was clearly disturbed. He vomited onto the aisle behind his seat. The smell did not help the overall atmosphere of the car.

She tugged on Morgan’s shirt, who was now staring absently out the window, tapping her foot. “Uh… Morg… umm….”

Morgan looked at her, and Tyler tilted her head towards the man.

“Oh!! Ew..!!” Morgan screamed. The man did not acknowledge her, for he was now trying to scratch his back as well. Blood and bits of flesh had gathered under his fingernails, and were getting on his seat and the one in front of him.

“What should we do?!” Tyler whispered to Morgan.

Morgan kept staring at the man. “Um, sir? Excuse me. Sir!” He grunted again, faintly.

“What’s wrong? Are you having a reaction to something?” Morgan, Tyler, and the Chasid were all staring at him, terrified. The Italian man raised his eyebrows and was watching the situation.

His eyes were open, madly, as he continued to rip at his skin. “Itches.. Oh God… It itches so bad! Ugh!!!”

Obviously, he would be no help. Morgan snapped back into reality. “Um, um, I have some Benadryl in here. Hold on.” She began to search through her guitar purse when the man began to rip off his clothes. It was clear that whatever was wrong with his shoulder and leg was wrong with the rest of his body as well. He was a gruesome sight, and Tyler couldn’t help but retch.

Morgan looked up, holding the Benadryl. Then she dropped it. "Oh... my..."

The man was bleeding. His raw skin was hanging from the stabs in his flesh. The man was scratching his eyelids feverishly, his face was mangled. Blood was spurting out of the deep gashes on his neck. Tyler’s eyes grew wide. “Who does that happen to?! God!” She pulled Morgan back against her, afraid whatever it was that was making him itch was catching. The heavy man rolled out of his seat onto the train aisle. His eyelids were scratched through, and his eyes twitched madly inside his head. Something was lying on the floor next to him, Tyler peeked over to see, terrified.

She squealed in horror. “It’s a fingernail. Holy shit…” The nail was still attached to bloody tissue, it had peeled back gruesomely from the pressure on the man’s skin. He stopped moving, and uttered a loud, guttural moan, before his body went limp. Morgan saw his eyes roll back in his head through the slits he had made in his eyelids.

Morgan and Tyler stared at one another. The businessman seated next to the Chasid looked almost as if he was in a trance-like state. Tyler began to cry, silently, streaks of tears appearing down her cheeks. “I want to go home.”

Morgan hugged her “I know… I do too.” She was also sobbing feverishly, trying to think of any possible way out.

Their attention soon diverted to the businessman. He was no longer paying attention to his surroundings. Out of nowhere, his briefcase appeared. The latches were opened, and out came a syringe.

“What the hell?” Tyler exclaimed. She hated needles, almost more than anything else. She pushed herself far into the seat in front of her, turned around to watch the man. The Chasid next to him grew angry.

“Put that down, my friend. The world is no place for substance abuse, especially on a rebel train.”

“No,” whispered the Italian. “That syringe is empty.” He moved to get up and take the needle away.

“NO!” Cried the businessman. “Let me… let me… need to.”

The Italian backed away from the possible weapon. “Okay… okay.”

Tyler was shaking, digging her nails into Morgan’s arm, who was holding her tight. “If it’s empty then why is he putting it to his skin, Morg?!”

Morgan gasped. “Tyler, cover your eyes.”

The man plunged the needle deep into his muscle. His arms shook, and he pushed the plunger down with his thumb.

“Why?! What’s happening?!”

Morgan’s voice wavered. The Chasid was saying a prayer, but trying to move away from the man. The Italian backed away, watching. “Honey, just don’t look.” This made Tyler cry more.

The businessman cried out, and a bubble appeared under his skin. Everyone in the train car made a sound of disgust. It traveled slowly up his arm, before shrinking. For a minute, it looked as if it was a non-issue.

Then his eyes went back in his head, and he put his hands on his head. The syringe fell from his arm, leaving a runoff of blood. He collapsed, but not before veins bulged madly in his forehead.

“Tyler?”

“Whaaat?”

“He’s gone.”

Tyler pulled her friend off and screamed. He was slumped back in his seat, and the Chasid was climbing over him to go stand near the Italian. Morgan resumed her crying as well.

“Tyler what if we never get out of here?”

“Then we’ll die, just like the rest of them did.”

“I don’t want to die…”

“I don’t either.”

Their sobs grew louder. The Chasid and the Italian man look at one another. Tyler stood up, and held out her hand for Morgan.

“Where are you going, ladies?” questioned the Italian. “There’s no way you can get off this train alive. The jump off would kill you.”

Tyler glared at him. “I’m taking her to the front car. I want to see what’s going on for myself.”

Morgan shook. “No, no, I don’t want to go. Tyler… seriously, I don’t want to!” Tears fell from her eyes.

“There’s no other way. We die here or we see for ourselves... and I don’t want to go alone, myself. Maybe if we both go, we stand a better chance.”

The two men stood up. The Chasid bent down to the girls. “Listen, if you are going, we should come with you. There’s nothing keeping us here except a bunch of corpses now.”

“He’s right”, the Italian commented. They all took their bags and headed foreword, past the woman in the corner. They got to the electronic door and Tyler took a look back, as if surveying what had occurred. It was still dark outside, with no sign of where they were.

“Okay, let’s go.” Tyler said, hugging her best friend tight.

The Italian walked next to Morgan and struck up some conversation with the teenagers. “So where are you from?”

The Chasid pressed the emergency button to open the door, the same one used during power outages, and since the door had closed, some electric message was triggered and they were able to open the portal. The woman from before, whose baby had suffered the first death, was indeed caught between the cars. Stepping over her, they tried not to pay attention. They walked through, and the first thing they noticed in the next car up was the bodies.

There must have been fifteen bodies in the compartment, in various positions, each hinting at the way the person had died. There was a young girl whose head appeared smashed against a window, blood and pink matter smeared on the glass. An older man looked peacefully asleep, but a bottle of painkillers lay next to him, empty. Tyler tried to look straight ahead as she walked to the next door, and it was not a long walk, but it felt like forever.

Morgan was crying, trying to answer the nice Italian’s questions. “We live in Connecticut, in a small town.” “I have a dog named Austin and a donkey, Tyler has a cat named Princess Alcatraz.” “I play guitar, and Tyler can sing.” “Yes we are both fans of Stephen King.” “Yes we are both in honors classes.” Her words were interrupted by intermittent sobs.

The Chasid gazed at Tyler while he paused to open the next door. “At midaberet Ivrit?” Tyler immediately understood this as him questioning her as to whether or not she spoke Hebrew.

Tyler smiled softly. “Ken. Camuvan.” Of course, she spoke a little bit. Her sister was born in Israel, as was her brother. Religious school helped out a tad, as well.

He looked down, trying to be discreet. “Khavera shelakh t'hiyeh biseder?” The Chasid wanted to know if Morgan was going to be okay.

Tyler giggled, switching her thoughts back into English. “Hey Morg, are you going to be okay dahling? I promise, we’ll go to Dunkin Donuts as soon as we get outta here.”

A grin broke out on her friend’s face, despite her tears. Tyler knew she would be fine.

The next car, as everyone expected, was just as bad. In this three car train, they were all well aware the source of the problem was located in the front of this car. Tyler’s heartbeat quickened, and Morgan stopped crying. Her voice hitched every once in awhile, when confronted with the corpses in this car. Apparently someone had taken a cat onboard in a carrying case. The gated door was wide open, and a few people appeared scratched to death.

The cat itself either hurled itself at a wall of the train, or someone had thrown it there. It was difficult to tell. But it was obvious that is car was more insane, more out of place, then either of the others. Tyler held onto her runic necklace. Something felt so wrong. The Chasid began muttering in Hebrew, shaking his head. And the Italian man walked ahead, stopping before the conductor’s area.

He turned around slowly. “We have no other choice… but I don’t even want to be aware of what could possibly be right over there.” The train felt like it did a sharp turn, making everyone lose their balance. The locomotive had no definite movement or location, or so it seemed. It was an unexpected move.