The Train- Part The First

Note: those of you who only know me from the blog have never seen any of my serious stories before, so you are in for a treat. Those of you that have seen my stories before, you’ve never seen one like THIS before. Enjoy!



Erwin Farner “woke up” to find himself in a bench seat by himself. The chugging and swaying told him he was on a train, though he could not recall ever having been on one before. In fact, he could not recall boarding this one- nor anything else that should have been in his recent memory. He knew who he was, who and what he was supposed to be; yet, anything that had actually happened to him in life was a stranger to him.



He looked out the windows and saw pleasant, grassy meadows swathed in sunshine going by. Where was he going? He searched his pockets for a clue, and found he HAD no pockets; he wore only a robe, smeared in green and purple. It looked as if someone had taken a snow-white robe and used it as a dropcloth while painting a child’s bedroom. Then, his hand hit on something. A sliver of gold, shaped like a ticket, with neither printing nor engraving. He looked at the face reflected in it- it was old, older than he perceived himself to be.



“This must be some kind of mistake,” He muttered to himself.



“No mistake,” a low, flat voice off to his left said, shaking Erwin awake to the fact that he was not alone.



Other men rode in the car, in bench seats ahead of him. They did not face him, but yet he somehow saw who/what they were. Two seats ahead to his right, a black-haired man, his face mustached and weather-beaten. His black eyes were cold, the kind of cold one only achieves when he has watched many men over the sight of a Colt equalizer- and watched them fall, clutching whatever bloody wound the bullet fired had wrought. This man felt Erwin looking into him; an imperceptible shift of an eyebrow and a twitch at the end of his straight, leathern lips were all the reaction he gave.



Shaken by the intimacy of the view, Erwin switched nervously to a second figure. The very air around this one, several benches ahead on the left, was ancient. His figure chiseled, his nose and cheeks that of some old Roman Caesar. One could easily imagine a wreath of bay leaves resting on his bald and withered brow. His visage was imperial, as cold and marble as if he were a bust in a museum. His only reaction to Erwin’s gaze was a feeling Erwin got of being unworthy of notice. His robe was scarlet and purple, in contrast to the first man’s, which was the color and consistency of dried blood.



Just in front of this man was another, tall and poised. A toupee balanced upon his head, misaligned and disheveled, a stark contrast to the prim and proper air about him. His robes were like gold, but heavily patinated, as if of copper left exposed for ages. It was topped by an ill-positioned clerical collar.



A fourth man, a few seats in front of the first, looked worriedly out the window at his bench seat, fingering a set of beads. His robes were multi-colored, mixed but hardly blended, in a confused mess that literally hurt Erwin’s eyes even though the colors were too toned-down to be what one would call “psychedelic”. The man paid no mind to Erwin’s gaze, seemingly murmuring to himself.



Finally, Erwin saw the man who spoke. He was the only one who faced the group, sitting casually at the front of the car. His hair was long, his face unshaven. He alone did not wear a robe; instead, he wore denim over-alls and a dark western hat with tassels of white, gold, and silver. “Nobody rides this train mistaken,” he said.



The Roman sneered. “The thought of riding in such a common conveyance with such… commoners… makes me ill.”



“Savor it",” the first man, the “killer”, said. “It’ll be the best such feeling remaining to you.”



The collared man rose and roared at the killer, “What would you know of our plight?” He stared at the killer with eyes afire with hot flame. The killer returned but an icy smile. The collared man turned to the man in front, shouting, “I demand to know why we’re here!”



“Siddown, Reverend Ezekiel Johnston Stowe,” the man in front said evenly. “You know why you’re here. Deep down in your hearts, you all know.” The man with the beads jerked his head at the words and turned to look at him; then nervously went back to his beads.



“Well, I demand to see the engineer,” Reverend Stowe snapped. “I want to get to the bottom of this!”



The man in front motioned to the door beside him. “Suit yourself,” he told the preacher. But you know you won’t like what you find.”



Reverend Stowe stormed to the door. As he reached it, those in the car heard a ‘thump’ of something falling from his robe. The “bead man” reached down to retrieve it, and came up with a bank-wrapped bundle of money; Erwin guessed a thousand in twenties. “You-you y’dropped this, “ bead man stammered. The Reverend stared at it, his face flushing red in rage, for he certainly had no shame in him. The man in front chuckled, the killer smiled. Stowe swept out of the room without another word, slamming the door behind him.



“Prick,” the killer snickered.



The bead man held out the money wad to the man in front, but he merely shrugged a shoulder. The bead man looked back down at his palm- and it was empty.





Tune in for part two of three tomorrow.