Fortnightly Writing Competition: Train Journey (Results)

[Sinitrena]

Train Journey



Journeys on a train can be very exciting or incredibly boring. Confined to a fairly small space and still with a wide variety of characters in close proximity, trains also constantly change the space they occupy.

A story about a train journey can be confined to the interactions of the characters on the train (think: Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express) or it can deal with difficulties the train has during its travels (a scene from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days might come to mind) or it can be something incredible mundane like a commuter missing their train on an important day on the job, or maybe the exact opposite and you prefer a disaster with a derailed train. Maybe you want to have a look at the history of trains, like the Rainhill Trials.

The important part is that a train journey must be important to the story, in one way or the other. All trains are due to arrive on the 20. October, but knowing the train system, delays are unavoidable (though we cannot have our costumers wait too long, as they sure want to go to a halloween party with the following topic.)

[Stupot]

Interesting topic.
Got a few ideas mulling over in my mind already.

[Mandle]

Have one in the works already. Great topic!

[Sinitrena]

So, how are the stories comming along? Any missed trains, derailed ones or even some that already reached their destination?

[Mandle]

So, how are the stories comming along? Any missed trains, derailed ones or even some that already reached their destination?

Rewriting mine as I had written myself into a bind plot wise but found a pretty elegant solution I think. I should make the deadline.

[Stupot]

So, how are the stories comming along? Any missed trains, derailed ones or even some that already reached their destination?

Unfortunately my train was suspended due to a large writer's block on the track. I may be able to find another route but it certainly won't be first class.

[Baron]

A Train of Thought

   "Another one, Charlie?" Bertie asked, reaching for the whiskey bottle.  The family had operated a bar for years, now closed, but they were still slowly working their way through the last of the stock.

   "Maybe just half," Charlie said, smiling at his brother.  "The wife's got a big day planned tomorrow.  We're supposed to go out and buy that sofa she's been dreaming about for the new house."

   "Atta boy, Charlie," Bertie said, pouring a liberal half for his little brother and a larger portion for himself. 

   The two men sat in Bertie's living room late on a Friday evening, a bit of light music playing on the radio in the background.  They savoured the taste of the liquor for a while, each man lost in his own thoughts.

   "Pity about the market," Bertie said after a while.  "I don't think it's going to bounce back anytime soon.  Truth be told, I'm out a fair bit at the moment.  Do you know what a margin call is, Charlie?"

   Charlie shook his head.  He had become well acquainted with a number of financial terms since the stock exchange had crashed a couple weeks back on October 24, 1929, none of them pleasant.  But he put a brave face on for his brother.

   "We all thought it would go up forever...." Bertie said wistfully.  "Any man with a job could pick up stocks on credit - it was free money, Charlie!  Or it was as long as the stocks kept going up.  Now there's a scramble by the creditors to collect their loans.  Nasty buggers aren't taking any chances.  Do you know I heard from a friend that they threatened to burn his house down if he didn't pay up?"

   Charlie swallowed his whiskey hard.  As a matter of fact, he had heard of such things.

   "I figure if I stall long enough, things will turn around," Bertie went on.  "As long as I keep my job and can make small payments, things will be all right.  Those leeches can't get their money back if they kill the golden goose, right?  Of course there are a lot of employers that are feeling the crunch right now.  No one's buying, so they're starting to let people go.  That's the real danger."

   "Yeah," Charlie said, taking another drink.  He was a carpenter by trade, which didn't bode well if no one was building new houses.

   "The big corporations are hoarding all the money," Bertie said.  "They've got vaults full of the stuff.  Do you know I heard a man in New York is suing the B & O for twenty thousand dollars?  Twenty thousand, Charlie!  Claims they maimed his son when the train hit him.  Of course it remains to be seen if they'll pay up.  The corporations are good at keeping the money to themselves, unless public opinion swings against them.  Little rascal was probably playing on the tracks, which won't bode well.  You'd need a real compelling story to pry open those purse strings...." Bertie said, obviously turning the problem over and over in his head.

   Charlie took another gulp of whiskey, finishing it off.  Truth be told, he'd been thinking along the same lines as his brother for a couple weeks now.

     Bertie took a hefty swig of whiskey before continuing.  "You know, I wish I'd kept my nose clean like you, Charlie.  All baseball and family, the wholesome things in life.  What I wouldn't give for a clean slate like that."

   Charlie nodded solemnly but said nothing.  There was a lot going on in his mind.

*   *   *   *   *

   Saturday morning started early for Charlie.  He'd promised his wife Ida that he'd take her furniture shopping with their daughters, but that meant the other errands had to be done first.  Both of the girls were just about teenagers, and so they were taking on more responsibility in the household.  Kathryn, his oldest, cooked breakfast for the family that morning, while her little sister Janet was responsible for the wiping up.

   "There you go, Daddy.  Made to order!" Kathryn said, putting steaming plates of eggs and bacon in front of Charlie and his wife.

   "Thanks, Kitten," Charlie said, tussling his daughter's hair fondly.

   "You'll get hair in the food," his wife commented, always a stickler for detail.  That was okay, in Charlie's opinion.  He liked to be the fun one.

   "Yes Mother," he said solemnly, and winked at his daughter.

   Soon the whole family was sitting down to breakfast.

   "The gang is planning a baseball game in the open lot behind the Fielder's house," Janet said, munching away at her food.  "Will we be back by mid-morning?" she asked hopefully.

   "It's a long drive downtown," Ida said, "and the traffic is always bad.  And besides, I don't want you soiling your clothes like last time."  Of course Ida meant well, but she did come across as the murderess of all things fun.  "If anything, the church is having a book study this afternoon for youth just a little older than you."

   Janet rolled her eyes discreetly, but Charlie kept his eyes studiously on his plate.  It was well-known in the family that baseball trumped church in his opinion, but it was also well known that he would always defer to his wife on matters of child-rearing.  Carefully he put his fork down.

   "We're going to have to change our plans today," he said.  The table was suddenly very quiet.  "Bertie was saying yesterday that your Aunt Lulu is unwell," Charlie continued.  "Mother and I will run errands and look at furniture.  I want you two girls to go over to Lulu's and help out."

   "Aw!" the girls said in chorus, although Kathryn's seemed more heartfelt.  She cherished spending time with her mother and father after a long week of work and school.

   "When we get back, I want you ready for church group," he went on, nodding to his wife.  Of course whatever the girls got up to in the meantime was their own business.  He winked at Janet, for he knew very well what he'd be doing in her shoes.

   And then there was the scurry to get out the door.  Ida had to have her hat set just so, and she fussed over which gloves to wear on their outing.  Charlie took the opportunity to pull Kathryn aside.  "Take care of your sister," he said, giving his daughter a quick hug.

   "I will, Daddy," Kathryn promised.

   It was early enough for fog still to be lingering, especially in the ravines that snaked through the city.  Charlie set off down Lee Road in the family's Model T, but Ida nagged him about doing the groceries first.  "I thought we could do them after, so they don't sit in the car all the way downtown and back," he told her.

   "You know I can't stand grocery shopping later on a Saturday," Ida griped.  "The lines at the meat counter are something dreadful, and I can't abide the sort of gossip I hear from the late-sleepers in the aisles."

   "Yes Mother," he said solemnly, turning the car down a side street.  At just after seven on a Saturday morning the grocer's was still calm.  Ida made the rounds of each counter twice before she was satisfied she had found the best deals.  "We can't be too careful with money these days," she said, checking over her shopping list for the third time.

   "Yes Mother," Charlie agreed.

   Back in the car Ida continued to prattle, for that was how she filled the empty space when no one else was talking.  "Poor men," she commented, noticing a line of laid-off workers queuing up behind the grocery store to get a chance at cheap food that was nearly spoiled.

   "A sign of the times," Charlie said dismissively, pulling out.

   "But I can't feel they have anyone to blame but themselves," Ida went on.  "They should have been carefully saving while things were good, just in case there was a downturn."

   "Yes Mother," Charlie said, the words more a habit than any kind of actual agreement.

   "Mrs. Kleinser said the lines drained the soup kitchen pot at the church by mid-morning on Friday," Ida continued.  "We were all told to buy extra barley and root vegetables to donate so that we can stretch it farther next week."

     "Yes Mother."

        "Do you know I think I'm having second thoughts about this sofa," Ida continued.  "I don't think now is the right time.  I know I made you promise and that you are as good as your word, but maybe it would be prudent to save that money for now, just in case.  You know I grew up poor, and I just couldn't sleep at night if I thought the same thing might befall my daughters."

   "Me neither," Charlie said solemnly, turning back onto Lee Road.

   "So why don't we just turn around now?" Ida asked.  "There is no point in looking at fancy furniture that we don't intend to buy."

   Charlie considered his words as the road dipped down into the ravine.  "You know there's a cost to not having a sofa for another decade," he said casually.

   "We'll manage just fine," Ida said.  "Do you know Mrs. Roberts was saying there was quite a selection of used sofas available at auction these days.  People are trying to get back just a fraction of the money they spent, now that times are hard.  I would hate to benefit from the misfortune of others, but someone is going to buy those sofas one way or another, so it might as well be us."

   Charlie considered his wife's logic.  Deep down he hated the idea of sitting on someone else's old sofa, but at least this way he still got to make the trip downtown.

   "Say, which auction house is that?" he asked.

   "Cowan's Auctions, down on Euclid at East 18th Street," Ida told him.  "Mrs. Roberts said they run auctions on Saturdays until noon.  But I don't know why you insist on taking this 'short cut' down Lee Road.  The traffic always gets backed up in the ravines."

   "Yes Mother," Charlie said, slowing down.  There was a car ahead in the fog, braking fast.

   "And I don't like how the Erie Railroad leaves its crossings unmarked down here," she remarked.  "The other railroads have started to install signs and signals at the busier crossings for safety reasons.  Do you know only yesterday one of their trains hit a car at the East 123rd Street crossing?  I heard that... slow down!"

   But Charlie had glimpsed his chance through the fog.  He pulled around the car in front of him, despite the driver's frantic hand signals, and came to a stop right on the tracks, blocked in by traffic now in front and behind.  The wail of the approaching train was almost deafening.

   "Charlie!  What- ?!?" Ida exclaimed, suddenly at a loss for words.

   "I'm sorry Mother," Charlie said, bracing himself.

   The train dragged bits of the wreckage of the Model T a quarter mile down the track.

Spoiler

While a fictional account, this is as best as I can piece together what happened on November 16th, 1929 from old newspaper clippings.  Kathryn was my paternal grandmother, and was orphaned at the age of 13.  Her uncle Adelbert ("Bertie") took the girls in for a couple months, expecting a payout from the railroad, but lost interest when the family lost its case.  The girls were thereafter raised in poverty by their Aunt Lulu.

[close]

[Mandle]

I have finished my story, but it seems I'm blocked from posting it by this "CleanTalk" thingy... what is this?

My story is pretty graphic with the horror elements. Is that what this overlord is detecting?

I get this message when trying to post my story:

CleanTalk:
Access has been denied. Please contact the site administrator at cleantalk@adventuregamestudio.co.uk with your account's email address to have it whitelisted. If registration is blocked, try temporarily disabling your VPN first to register.

[Sinitrena]

Ew, that's annoying! I assume you already contacted AGA? (CleanTalk was introduced with the forum update.)

As a workaround for the time being, googledoc and a link, maybe?

As I know that your story is finished, I'll certainly wait with closing the competition until we get to read it.

[Mandle]

Here's my story uploaded to Mediafire for download just in case I miss the deadline because of this weird issue:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/w1ur2a9aa73y8at/MIDFIELD+ON+THE+METAL-ROAD.txt/file

[Mandle]

I assume you already contacted AGA? (CleanTalk was introduced with the forum update.)

Thanks for the advice! I will contact him!

[Mandle]

MIDFIELD ON THE METAL-ROAD

When the sun rose through the mist flowing in over the low hills to the east and the mushrooms died, Murto was there.

The rapidly lowering rays of the sunrise spread across Midfield Common in a fan of fog-fed glory. The shadows from hillocks, shrubs, and low, jutting rocks, all fled back toward their parent as quick as spit, until the lowest hollow that the mushroom forest grew in was hit by the golden light.

Murto was there, at dawn, a member of the Shroom Guard for less than a hundred sunrises, being of a younger age and a lower stature in the order than the sixteen and seventeen-year-olds above him. And so it was that his eyes widened in shock, and in an underlying excitement, as the sunrays hit the brown, wattled domes of the mushroom cluster and they withered and shrank as if mowed down by a laser beam.

Until they were all gone. But Murto himself was already gone, racing as fast as his little feet would carry him toward the safety of the rising smoke plumes of the village, dashing through the dawn between the retreating shadows of stunted roadside trees, screaming out, "They's died! THEY'S ALL DIED!"

****************************************************************************************************************

There had been nothing particularly wrong smelling about the trader himself who had trundled into Midfield the day before, apart from his method of conveyance.

It had been some time, it was true, since someone had come through on the metal-road. The townsfolk had, of course, known he was coming long before he arrived. The thrumming of the metal tracks was something that every dweller of Midfield was attuned to feel, almost as if by instinctual birthright.

And so it was that all were gathered, in the few numbers as they were, staring down along the twin rails of steel; Those steel tracks that rose up out of the moorlands, up the shallow hill that was the knob of land that Midfield sat upon, passed over, and continued down the other side.

A dark shadow was sighted through the clinging, evening fog, and then the snouts of two oxen snorted the mist away in ragged bursts and the beasts emerged, brushing aside the white swirling air around them, and revealing the hulk of metal that they drew behind them.

The metal-road's low thrumming was drowned out by the gasp of the gathered crowd as the rusted cowcatcher of the trader's vehicle came into view through bustling spirals of spreading white air.

His wagon showed its headlamp next, high above the cow-catcher grill and long dead to the world. And then the entirety of it, what was left of it, rattled into view.

The trader's wagon was one of the oldest of the old "Locomotions". It was the oldest that the people of Midfield had ever seen. It was a light brown all over from the patina of corrosion that coated even the rods and pistons that were rusted in place along its sides.

Only the metal wheels still seemed to work. Those, and the clanger of the bell that the trader whipped back and forth to peal out his arrival from the cabin of the iron beast, from the squat, square cabin that came out of the mist from behind the long cylindrical barrel of the train's boiler.

The oxen halted their heavy footfalls and huffed out dual grunts of exhaustion. The massive metal carriage behind them ground forward a few more feet before shuddering to a squealing halt of metallic agony.

And then there was silence for the length of fifty-something rapid heartbeats from every member of the stunned crowd, until the voice of Judge rang out saying "Well met, traveler! Speak your name!"

From the boxy cabin of the train, the trader replied "Well met! Speak yours!"

The crowd murmured in some almost-laughter at the stranger's boldness, but grew quiet when their leader shouted, "My name is 'Judge'! Speak your name!"

"My name is 'Walsh'," said the trader "And I am a trader!", continued Walsh.

A cheer went up from the crowd and they rushed around his train and oxen and coaxed them up the hill into the town proper. 

He had brought wild moor roots and bags of sweet berries on the coal car of his wagon and the two oxen pulling it had been well-behaved at the feeding trough in front of The Daring God pub.

Walsh was a man of long, brown, going to grey, hair, decades older than the eldest of Midfield folk. But he shared his wares so generously in return for so little gin and sausage that he became afflicted by the affection of the town in general.

So very afflicted, in fact, that he was allowed a room for free on the second floor of The Daring God, and even a place in its carriage house to shelter his oxen off of the muddy ruts and dung of the town's only street.

Afflicted by so much welcome, that was, until that damn kid's cries about mushrooms awoke him from his sweet hay-smelling slumber at the break of dawn the next day. And then he became a pariah.

*************************************************************************************************************** 

Walsh was dragged through the mud of Midfield's street by the mob barely an hour after the sun had risen. The young'r who had called the morning alarm leapt around pointing and spitting at him. Some little twipe known as "Murto" by name if Walsh had gathered correctly through the screaming of the grabbers and pullers who bore him towards the squat, thatched long-hall across the road. It looked like some kind of town meeting building and the weathered, wooden sign above the trapezoidal entry read, "SHROOM GUARD" in deep-cut angular runes. 

***************************************************************************************************************

The Shroom Guard had been in place in Midfield for longer than the memory of the short-lived village folk; at least from as briefly in the past as the discovery that gave the order its name, but at least as distantly recent as the emergence of the Ev'ries.

The Ev'ries had come out of the volcanoes or, at least that was how the tales were told in Midfield and the nearby Waddlebrook, even though no one in either place had any idea what such a thing as a "volcano" even was, apart from the general agreement of terms that they had been vast fires that had sprung from the ground and then that the Ev'ries had burst forth from them.

Like ants from an anthill in flames, the Ev'ries had crawled down the sides of the growing pillars of fire in a waterfall of tiny, black, spinning, spikey points at first and then had made landfall and spread and disappeared, blown outwards by the shockwaves of the thundering fire-clouds and dispersed like ripples in a boiling lake.

And now there was nobody or nothing that could be trusted once the mushrooms died at dawn.

**************************************************************************************************************

Before brutal "Judge" and the screaming mob to whom Judge meant everything, Walsh was thrown down and kicked for a bit until Judge barked, "Spare!"

"For what am I being spared?" spat back Walsh through a fine spray of blood from his mouth.

"For why or what or who you ask?! You have brought the Ev'ries here!" thundered Judge, his white-painted lips under the hanging peak of his black cowl luxuriously curling up into a sneer, or a smile perhaps.

"I am not one of them!" replied Walsh.

Judge brought his white-painted fingertips to his square chin and said, in a quieter voice this time, "We are aware of that."

"But then... wait, why is..." said Walsh.

"What nor how nor when is not the question! We know that they can't be people! Always look bad somehow when they try that." replied Judge.

"YES! So, you know I'm not one of them!" yelled Walsh, as best as he could yell with his ribs still on fire from the kicking.

Judge said, "Know or 'NO!' or know 'ledge' makes nobody know! ANYTHING!"

"Oh, you are insane then." muttered Walsh quietly to himself and then, raising his grey eyes up to Judge said, louder, "Get to the part where you tell me what is going on, please."

"Going on or out-and-in," (the sweaty mob laughed at this and Judge reflex-grinned briefly) "We know what it means when the dawnlight kills the shrooms. It means that there is an imposter in our neighborhood."

"...I," attempted Walsh.

Judge shut him down with, "SHUT UP, POSSESSER OF TWO OXEN! One of them beasts is an Ev'ries! Me and they and I have agreed that there is NO FIZZ'CAL WAY that two mere oxen could have drawn your Locomotion AND its wagon o' wares up the hill from the moors!"

Walsh, drawing himself up out of the mud of the long-hall, looked around him and, seeing only the jeering faces of a mob of people scared and out of control, turned back to look into the cowled face of Judge and said, "My Judge, what is your wise judgement?"

This seemed to ruffle Judge, but only Walsh saw that moment of weakness, and then Judge said, "Your oxen will be penned together in our grassy pasture cage. The Ev'ries can eat naught but meat. Whichever ox is the imposter, it will be the only one left eventually. It will have eaten the other and given itself away!" 

"Yes, my judge. And what of me in the meanwhile?"

Judge smiled but his white-painted lips moved in a way that was not a smile.

"THE BITCH-BOX FOR YOU!" he screamed.
 
**************************************************************************************************************

Pinpoint sunlight on the back on Walsh's retinas stung badly, but not as badly as he wanted to be out of the metal box he had been locked up in for maybe a week. Maybe more, maybe less. He couldn't tell anymore but he leapt up into his captors' greasy arms like a man trying to break the surface of water while drowning.

They drug Walsh out of the "Bitch Box" and down the road to the "Iron Pasture", his feet dragging behind him limply, digging shallow furrows in the dirt of this desperate, clinging nest of the last of humanity.

Walsh's eyes opened wide when he saw what these cloying bastards had ready at the end of the path; It was a cubical iron cage. Through the many-meter-high top of it he could see the black, low-hanging clouds of the sky and through the back of it he could see the vast, dank moors beyond this horror of a village.

But the worst thing he could see was what they had done with his wagons and his oxen.

Yes, "oxen". Both were still alive. Neither had eaten the other. Neither had turned out to be the shapeshifter these people had expected.

But one was not within the cage called "The Iron Pasture" any longer.

One ox was in there. It was Betsy. The other ox, standing out between the metal tracks running by the cage, was the one that Walsh had named "Daisy" somewhere way back long ago along the metal-road. A village idiot stood by Daisy's muzzled face with his hand wrapped around a giant copper ring that had been pierced through her nose by these dullards.

Downhill from the right-side of the hilltop was the rusted metal wagon, Walsh's coal car, that was now devoid of its roots and berries. These idiots must have already eaten all of those.

The wagon that was now loaded with rocks.

From the boxy, rusted wagon that Walsh had drawn behind his Locomotion for decades, from where they were tied around its hitching-joint, ran three long, thick ropes. The three ropes ran along the ground, between the tracks of the metal-road, raising up in tiny humps over the rotting, wooden pylons that still bore the weight of the twin rails, for about two dozen meters. Only one of the ropes arced upwards in front of Daisy to where it was tied around the barbaric ring through her nose. The other two were tied around her front legs, just above her massive mud-clotted hoofs.

Walsh's wide eyes tracked left, and he saw the other two ropes tied around Daisy's back legs, running down to the back-end hitch of his beloved Locomotion. Her rusty hulk sat with its cow-catcher nose pointed downhill from the other side of the low peak of what amounted to Midfield, triangular chocks of greying wood wedged under the front-most of her wheels.

"NO!" cried out Walsh, locking eyes with those of Judge.

Judge, standing in front of Daisy's flank, spoke from under his black cowl, saying "No and naught and nein! Sit still! And watch your ox die! And then... you get the same! Unless you confess to us of the Ev'ry you've brought with you!"

His cowl whipped left and right as Judge turned his head and nodded down hard on both turns. The townsfolk ready by the chocks under the wheels of the vehicles on the uphill and downhill parts of the tracks pulled the wooden wedges out from under the wheels.

Things happened slowly at first, the ancient coal-car and the Locomotion both grinding away down both sides of the hillock. Inches at a time, and then feet at a time, and then meters.

Walsh knew that his shapeshifting Ev'ry must have waited long and long for him to return, and that she must have been very, VERY hungry. But that she must have resisted with the iron will that had made it possible for her to coexist with him for all these decades without killing and eating him first.

He called out "SHE! Break your form! EAT THEM ALL!"

And She did:

The cowcatcher at her front-end burst out into two huge claws and gripped down on the twin rails in cascades of sparks. As the grating, metal screech of her halt down the metal rails filled the damp air, her headlamp came out on a ratcheting stalk, splitting into two, and then four, and then eight rusty chains, the headlamps at the end of each irising into giant coppery eyes.

A few people had started to run already in the spit-second it took the eyes to whip around in eight directions and target the fastest of them first.

The frozen "pistons" under the long boiler dashed out, turned into thick spears at their tips, and skewered the fastest few, while the dozens of metal tubes that had lain in camouflage, supposedly to feed the engine in some feigned past life, whipped around, decapitating over a dozen of the fleeing crowd, and then pushed down into their necks, from every fallen, or still-standing, or dangling, twitching angle, and drank deeply from them.

Behind the Ev'ry, unnoticed by her, the ox Daisy brayed in pain and panic, sliding forward on her outstretched front hoofs. Her snout was ripped off first in a spray of blood and stringy mucus and then her front legs were pulled from her shoulder joints by the force of the downhill-racing coal car.

Walsh felt a brief tang of grief for her. Daisy had been one of his first oxen team back when he had tamed the Ev'ry. He had kept her all this time. She had always been at the head of the team back when he had had eight to "pull" his Locomotion from village to village along the long metal-road. Back when eight oxen were still plausible to pull his pet. Back before the hard times when he had been forced to let the Ev'ry eat them one by one until there were only two.

But this was not the time to worry about how he was going to trick the next village down the rail to accept only one ox.

This was the time to loot supplies, and let the ever-evolving beast behind him grow larger from its feast, before it grew sated and settled back into the form he had taught it to.

By the time he was loading the coal car with gin and sausage, the metallic screams of the Ev'ry's ever multiplying appendages and the wet screams of the people of Midfield had blended into one solid, familiar sound. 

**************************************************************************************************************

The late, red, evening glow of the setting sun had stopped spilling down the shadows that the flailing fronds of the Ev'ry had created across the ground around the coal car, as She wiped the last remnants of the town upon the hillock from the face of this dank, flooded world.

"She" was a Queen of her kind after all, and the pronoun deserved a proper-noun status.

Then the clanking multitude of her tendrils snapped back into her body and there were such screechings of her transformation back into her trained form that the offended moorland birds, just settling down for their night's slumber in the wet scrub and reedy grass, exploded into flight in a radius of scores of miles. 

He had just finished loading the last of the useful provisions, gin and sausage this time instead of roots and berries, when She, having placed herself back on the metal-road, slid down the rails and hooked herself to the coal car. Walsh led the braying ox Betsy up through the back hatch of the coal car and let her settle down on the hill of hay that was her bed. Betsy would not be needed again for at least a few weeks, and she would be happy enough to just eat on, and of, her bed until then.

Walsh, the smile upon his face that of a man satisfied that his immediate future was one of drunken nights and fleshy meals, walked along She's flank, patting the side of her now-rusty-again boiler as he went. He mostly felt cold metal. She had become a master at this disguise. But, on every third pat or so, She allowed him to feel her warmth and he knew that this meant that She was extremely happy and pleased with him.

He slept in her cabin, on folds of undulating purple flesh that She provided for him from the iron-looking floor. This bed he had grown long-used-to looked like purple tripe to Walsh, and it was the most marvelous mattress in the world; always propping his aging body up in ways that knew every need of his sore muscles and quieting the pangs of pain from his now infinitesimal, and ever-shrinking, conscience.

Walsh slept the peaceful, dreamless sleep reserved for those who have completed a long and arduous work, in preparation for the next.

**************************************************************************************************************
 
He awoke before dawn. He had his morning piss and shit, and then breakfast of sausage, washed down with a sensible amount of gin, and then climbed back up into the cabin and belted the crap out of She's bell clanger; the signal that she should start rolling again.

The bell signal wasn't really necessary in this case. He could have just spoken to her.

However, Walsh knew, by the warm feeling through his boots, through the otherwise cold "iron" floor, that She knew this meant the next target awaited somewhat not too far down the metal-road.

She was still full from her last meal.

But Queens get hungry, and they get hungry fast!

And there was only one ox left that could be tribute to She if there was another stretch of low gains like the one before last.

As they topped the now decimated hillock that had been Midfield, all around them haystacks of splintered wood and discharged, bloody bone, the sun topped the distant horizon and spread out through the low fog in a fan of golden glory once again.

Walsh and She slid down the other side as, for miles around, in a great circle, newly sprouting mushrooms withered under the sunrays as if cut down by a laser beam.

***************************************************************************************************************

When the sun rose through the mist flowing in over the low hills to the east and the mushrooms died, Murto was there.

He had run.

The instant that the thing that looked like an old Locomotion had started not looking like that anymore, he had run. He had run fast. But he had still seen Judge cut in half from one shoulder to the opposite hip by a spinning cable that looked silver but turned red. He had seen the remains of the ox, on its side, still trying to bray, burbling blood through its amputated snout, start to be gobbled up by some kind of rectangular mouth with revolving metal teeth. Murto thought he even saw his mother's face on the ground in pieces, but he had looked away so fast so as to be sure not to be too sure of that at all.

Through the whipping metal strands and gnashing mouths out on thick, greasy, segmented cables, cables as thick as the village blacksmith's arm, he had run.

An eye on a chain, a chain made of long, rusty segments three feet long, segments like the chain of the thing he had been told was once called a "bicycle" he had once dragged out of the moor and tried to fix for a few days before giving up, had turned towards him but he dove into a marsh, and it had been distracted away by a screaming man he had once bought groceries from.

Murto had stayed underwater, his hand pinched on his nose, for as long as he could. Then he had slid out of the marsh-pond on his belly and had pulled himself as far as he could, by grasping at tufts of the long grass and the reeds. As far as he could away from the screaming metal sounds and the other screaming on the hill.

He had dragged himself along the muddy ground until he passed out.

When he awoke, he was cold. He curled up into a ball, seeking the warmth of himself, and, barely finding it, shivered uncontrollably.

His stomach was growling, he was cold and couldn't get warm again no matter how hard he tried, and everyone was dead.

He just lay there waiting for death.

And then, after some time, Murto heard a noise.

***************************************************************************************************************

As he and She started to pick up a head of speed along the downhill rails, Walsh heard a noise.

He leaned out of She's cabin, his matted brown, going to grey, hair stringing sideways out in front of his face.

He wiped away the mottled strand of hair that had been whipped across his eyes by the wind and looked down.

There, running beside the cabin was the same little whelp that had ratted him out in the first place. The one who had made this acquisition all the more troublesome. The mushroom-watching little bastard.

The kid was holding an outstretched hand up to him, while stumbling over tufts and rocks but somehow still keeping his flying feet under him.

"MISTER! HELP ME! TAKE ME WITH YOU!" yelled the boy and then, "I'LL DIE HERE!"

Walsh smiled and held out his hand so that the child could grasp it. He yanked the kid up into the cabin of She and planted him on the floor and said "Yes... Yes, you can come along with us, Little Ox."

[Mandle]

Hmmm, it let me post it this time. Sorry for the bother. I wonder what the problem was.

[Baron]

I don't know, it kinda looks like spam to me.  Is there anyway to verify that this Mandle character is legit? 

[Sinitrena]

The train is about to depart (the competition will close soon.)

Stupot, are you sprinting towards the station, or will you miss the train?

I'll leave it open for maybe 8 hours from now, or until I hear something from Stupot.

[Stupot]

I'm sorry Sini, but the bus from my house to the station hasn't turned up. I'm sure three will come along at once as soon as it's too late, but I'm not going to be able to make this train.

I will read and vote for the others though.

[Mandle]

Oh, by the way... I got a PM from AGA explaining that the new anti-spam bot has a bit of an itchy hair trigger still. I've been whitelisted manually now so no further issues hopefully.

[Mandle]

I don't know, it kinda looks like spam to me.

Your face looks like spam. 

[Sinitrena]

Alrighty, let's try this again (don't ask, I'm a bit disorganized today...)

We have two entries:

Baron - A train of Thought
Mandle - Midfield on the Metal-Road

Voting is open in a poll at the start of the topic. You have 1 vote (I think - It's ctually the first time I created a poll in the forums, but that can't be that difficult, right? It's not like I didn't see the option at all first and was about to ask you all how to create a poll when I did see it in the end *grumble *grumble *grumble)

Anyway, back on topic: Vote, and maybe comment a bit if you feel like it...

[Baron]

What, no voting deadline?!?  SWEET!