A Train to Nothing

The hay in the train car felt good on my bare feet. I walked to the edge of the door and watched the fields and the tracks blur by faster and faster as we gained speed. The little town that’d almost killed me faded into the distance, and I grinned. The sun was just starting to rise.

I didn’t do anything too bad, just rob a couple small time banks. But I guess on that last run things did get a little out of hand. An old man got shot in the head. Things like that happen in my line of work, but I wish it didn’t.

I laid down in the dry hay and felt my shoulders relax. Farm fields gave way to swampland and the air started getting thick and sweet. It didn’t take long to put me to sleep.

I swear the sound of my grumbling stomach woke me up. It was a long, painful sound that really made me miss my dad’s chili. I wondered how he was doing, in our small house. Probably still complaining about his back. Probably still being barked at by the dog.

It was nighttime outside, and there was a light rain that was starting to soak the inside of the car. I got up and closed the great metal doors with a long pull. I sat back down in the hay and told myself I’d get out at the next stop.

Any time my eyes started to shutter I’d get up and pace the car to wake myself up. And then my stomach started to grumble real bad, like a violent cat was trying to claw its way out of my insides. I pulled open those doors again to see if we were any closer to a town.

And my God, we were not. I pulled open the doors to get blasted by cold snow. There was no ground I could see, the train tracks gave way to cold ice and rock down the side of a long cliff. The sun was setting again, so we’d been going for another whole day without stopping. And the mountain range we were coasting along had no end in sight. 

I tried to close the heavy metal doors but the blizzard fought me. I pushed so hard I slipped on the ground and found myself belly on the floor, head hanging outside facing the rushing tracks. We were going faster than any train I’d ever been on, certainly faster than I’d want to be on mountain tracks like these. I scrambled to the back of the train car and stayed there.

Now I was shivering. I picked up some snow off the floor and ate it, and tried to sleep.

Little icicles had formed on my upper lip on the next time I woke up. My hands had gotten pale and my fingertips were turning an ugly shade of blue. I tried a few times to stand and at last propped myself up using a handle bar up against the wall.

The train car shook and my knees crumpled for a moment, making me almost lose my grip. My stomach was purely empty, and I was seeing dots. 

I made my slow way to the edge of the door. I was gonna do something dumb.

The blizzard had given way to clear, cold air but we were still high above the ground. The ocean was down below. By this point the geography of where we were had me completely lost. I’d started in Kansas, and it seemed like we’d only been riding a few days.

I felt around the outside of the train car for a metal rung and at last found it. Limb by limb I made my way to the outside face of the train car. My arms were weak with hunger. 

The cold air blasted my back as I felt for the next rung up, and then the next one. I made my way to the top of the car.

I could see the passenger cars start about two cars ahead.

I dropped below with a painful thud, landing on the grate walkway. The next train car was open face, another batch of hay except most of it was rapidly being swept loose by the wind. We were going a hell of a lot faster than this train was originally intended, it seemed.

Past that final cargo I made it to the back door of the passenger car. I fiddled some with the door handle that’d been frozen shut and eventually beat it open with my shoe. On the last hit the ice broke but so did my grip and the shoe went flying off the train, the way of the loose hay. I entered the passenger car frozen, starving and with one foot bare.

I’d been expecting a blast of warm air and lights, but that’s not what I was met with. The wind had mostly stopped, but it got no warmer, and the dark of the train car reminded me of an abandoned house I’d been living in back in Kansas. The only light came from the windows.

“Hello?” I called, but there was no response. I walked further into the car. I didn’t see any heads above the seats, there was no conversation, and as I walked down the aisle, nobody was asleep horizontally either. “Hello?” I called out again in vain.

I’d never seen a train car like this, that was totally empty. But this was the back of coach. There was a possibility that everyone was in the lounge car, or in the fancier seats they usually had up ahead. I made my way to the next car as the train rocked and shook.

The next car was emptier than the last. The dining car was attached and there were dishes and pots cast all across the floor. For just a second I thought there might’ve been a struggle but as the train lurched left then right I saw more pots fall to the floor. 

This passenger train was probably carrying nothing but cargo to a specific location. By the looks of it we’d already crossed well over half the country, and we wouldn’t stop until we arrived.

I rummaged through the cabinets but found nothing except for a couple of toothpicks. All the food must be with the crew at the head of the train.

I passed through several more empty passenger cars, each one a bit wealthier than the last, until I finally reached the tender. I stepped outside the last passenger car and was blasted by that familiar freezing wind, shaking my coat and my arms as I climbed the ladder to the top of the car.

I stepped my feet into the massive pile of coal and found myself so numb that the rocks’ jagged edges didn’t bother me at all.

The train rocked left so hard that rocks flew off the edge and disappeared into the mountainside. It flung my body downwards but I’d dug my feet under a layer of coal and I remained aboard.

Whether or not the crew ahead sent me to prison, at this point it’d be worth a bite to eat and a warm bed. I crossed the last walkway to the head of the train, and pushed open the door.

And there was no one there.

I rubbed my weary eyes and looked around. At first I considered it being a trick of the light. But I took a step further into the train car and I saw it plainly. 

I could hear the boiler going. I could see the train tracks rocketing beneath us. I’d just passed through every conceivable train car someone could’ve been in and found nothing but silence. This was an empty train.

We started passing through a dark tunnel. For a moment some suicidal or hopeless tendency froze me there, filled with inaction. 

If only I’d never gone to Kansas. That old man would still be alive and I could be eating chili right now.

The train rubbed hard against the rock side of the tunnel and sent the whole thing vibrating with an otherworldly screeching, and then we reached a clearing.

Clouds that’d obscured the far distance were suddenly gone, and clear sunlight beamed into the cabin. The tracks through the mountain range ended at last with a broken bridge dangling over a large valley.

Even facing my imminent death, the pristine beauty of the disintegrating wooden bridge and the rushing water below made it hard not to appreciate.

I watched myself pull on the train’s emergency brake with all my might, and I watched my frostbitten hands and weak arms keep slipping off. I watched myself wedge my feet against the bar and give one last pull, and I watched those same feet leave the ground as the train was sent over the edge. 

And I watched the glittering water below, as it rushed closer and closer.