Chapter 3 - The 5:13 to Nowhere
J. R. "BOB" Dobbs may not have been the smartest man in the world, but Jan McBride Dobbs had not raised a fool. He knew that before he set off he had to tend to his horse as well as to gather supplies for the trip. It had occurred to him to take a train, but it seemed unlikely he'd find anyone at the station to sell him a ticket. (His bizarre encounter with the Mexican Nunoz had convinced him that there was no-one else around, rather than encouraging him to believe that other townsfolk had remained behind, as might have been expected.) Still, he checked, just to be certain, and sure enough, not only was the depot deserted, but there was a sign at the ticket booth announcing that the Morganville Depot was closed until further notice. Curiously, the place was relatively untouched, like the new church, although any layman could recognize the signs of recent construction and deduce that the remodeling job had been intended to gear the place toward the transportation of freight and other non-human cargo and away from the movement of human beings.his suspicions about a train-ride confirmed, "BOB' set out for the stables. Walking through the deserted town at night was an eerie experience, made all the more eerie by the glow of the full moon and his flickering lantern, now burning away the last of its wick. Just as he reached the stables, in fact, the flame guttered and went out.
"BOB" peered through the wide gates into the gloom of the stalls. It seemed relatively untouched, although there were no signs of life, animal or human. He stepped inside and began to look around. No sooner had he passed beyond the pale illumination provided by the moon than he found his forward-foot hanging over empty space. He pinwheeled his arms wildly and luckily landed a hand on a post. He stepped away, heart thumping along like a freight train, and knelt to examine the hole with his hands.
It was wide, stretching from one end of the stable to the other, he discovered, and probably too far across to risk a leap. Certainly not in the dark! it seemed to be some kind of cave-in, but further investigation would have to wait until the morning brought sunlight into the place.
With a dejected sigh, "BOB" grabbed bag of feed and went back to his horse. He led his old friend to the town's one and only hotel and cut the bag open with his pocket-knife. Then he went inside and booked himself a suite on the top floor. He'd planned to look around for something to eat, but as soon as his head hit the pillow he was asleep.
* * *
That night he had a strange dream:
he was in a train, moving at a tremendous rate of speed, far faster than he'd ever thought possible. He could hear his mother calling him from the next car above the noise of the wheels clicking over the rails.
He was in a sleeper car, so he made his way quickly but quietly down the passage to the door and stepped into the next car. In this car all the curtains were open; in the last one they had all been drawn. He went from berth to berth, peeking into each one, only to find them all empty. Puzzled, he turned around and was about to search the berths again when he heard his mother calling him again.
He stepped through the door into the next car, another sleeper. Again, all of the curtains were open; some of them had even been torn off and lay in little red tattes on the floor. He searched each berth, but again his quest proved fruitless. He waited, listening for his mother to call again. When she didn't, he opened the door to the next car.
Suddenly he heard a loud sound, drowning out all others. It sounded something like a saw being drawn across wood. He paused, then stepped into the next car. This one was a smoking car, so "BOB" stopped to light his pipe. The sawing sound grew louder as he made his down the aisle.
Without warning his mother's voice came to him again, screaming his name over and over again, but barely audible over the sawing sound. He bolted down the passage through several cars, getting closer and closer, he realized, to the engine.
He ran through so many cars he lost track of them. The sawing sound grew louder and louder until it drowned out all else and "BOB" began to fear it might deafen him. Just when he began to suspect that he was dreaming and that the progression of cars would never end, he found himself almost tumbling into a coal car.
He caught his balance and tried to work up the courage to leap. It was night, but the shadows of the trees to either side of the tracks told him that the train was moving terribly fast. Up ahead the engine plunged into a tunnel and abruptly "BOB' found himself in inky blackness.
The fires of the engine cast a little light, just barely enough to outline the coal car in front of him. "BOB' finally dared himself and made the leap. The coal shifted dangerously beneath his boots. Then it suddenly moved, pulling itself out from under him and leaving him sprawling in the coal dust at the bottom of the car.
From his supine position "BOB" watched in horror as the coal drew itself up into a trmendous humanoid shape, with two bright embers eyes and a gaping maw of jagged flames for a mouth! In a horrible deep, dirty voice the beast hailed him:
"J. R. "BOB" Dobbs! Tonight you DIE!"
As the creature raised its paws high to smash him, "BOB" began to scream. The sawing sound diminished and became irregular, as if the blade were caught on a pine not or a nail. The creature made two tremendous fists and brought them down to crush Dobbs' head - and then it disappeared in a cloud of oily black smoke.
The train had come out of the tunnel.
"BOB" leapt to his feet, panic-stricken, and bumped his head. He wasn't in the coal car at all, he discovered; he was in a sleeper's berth. Had he dreamed the whole thing?
"Ouch," he muttered, rubbing his head. The sawing sound had diminsihed in volume and become steady again. "BOB" lay back down and tried to let his head stop swimming. Then he heard footsteps.
From the rear end of the car a door opened and voice muttered something unintelligible. The voice was strangely familiar, but of such a moderate quality as to be unrecognizable. There were footsteps, then the voice uttered its short, indistinct phrase again.
As the footsteps and the voice drew nearer, "BOB" recognized the phrase, if not the voice. Whoever it was, it must be the conductor, for he was going from berth to berth saying, "Tickets, please." There was a pause, then more footsteps, and voice came again, closer now.
"BOB" burst into action, searching frantically for his ticket. He checked everywhere: vest pockets, shirt pockets, pants pockets, boot, socks, beneath his gunbelt, even under his hat, but all he found was his father's recipe for snake-oil. He quickly tucked that away in the brim of his hat, suddenly terrified that he had somehow forgotten to buy a ticket and they were going to throw him off the train! At this speed that would probably be fatal. Perhaps the ticket was in his luggage....
There was a scraping noise as the conductor drew back the curtain. "BOB" looked to see who it was and came face to face with Nunoz, the Mexican from Morganville, his eyes burning bright and red in the cool darkness of the sleeper car. Nunoz smiled cruelly, revealing sharp, pointed teeth.
"Aha!" he cried, "Senor "BOB"! You have decided to join us, I see. A ha ha ha ha! Whatever possessed you to do that! A ha ha ha ha!"
"BOB" stared at the grinning apparition. Nunoz held a small lantern and it swayed back and forth with the rocking of the train, casting ghoulish shadows across Nunoz's face. There was a horrible screech of metal on metal as the train tore into an incredibly sharp turn.
"Senor "BOB"," Nunoz hissed gently, "Eet ees a great honor to have your aboard our humble carriage. Please forgive my plebeian preoccupations but, of course, I must have your ticket."
"BOB" hesitated, then tried to plea-bargain. "I haven't got one...I must have misplaced it...Can't I buy one from you?"
Nunoz drew his head back, looking for all the world like one of those hooded snakes "BOB" had heard lived in Indea, snakes whose poison was instantly deadly. Nunoz shrieked:
"You haven't got a TICKET?" He turned his back on "BOB", addressing the rest of the car. "He hasn't got a ticket."
The curtain s of the other berths began to draw back and the passengers peered out owlishly into the comparment, all eyes on "BOB". A dozen bpallid, hungry faces glared at him from their berths: an old balding man with a ragged, nicotine-yellow mustache and three-days' growth of beard-stubble on his cheeks; a young boy with rotting teeth filling his haggard grin; an anemic woman of forty years with mousy grey hair suckling a child who hung limp in her arms, head lolling from side to side in rhythm with the rails; a black man coughing up hunks of blood and coal-dust; a sharp-faced young man dressed to the nines picking carelessly at his fingers with a rusty stiletto; and many more....
"What shall be done with heem?" Nunoz cried.
"Throw him overboard," the audience intoned somnolently as one. Their voices one and all were little more than the whisper of sandpaper on a pane of glass: a quiet sound, but maddening in its quality.
"Wait," "BOB" said urgently, "I can buy a ticket, I'm not a stowaway; I can pay you."
Nunoz turned back to "BOB", glaring, his face a loathsomely adept mockery of sympathy. "Eet ees too late for that, Senor "BOB". Your money ees no good here. You cannot afford the price these good people have paid to ride thees train." He waved his arm at the assemblage and one by one they pulled their heads back into their berths and drew the curtains shut, each casting a venomous glace at "BOB" before so doing. "No, Senor "BOB", I'm afraid you must come with me. Now, please."
Reluctantly "BOB" pulled himself out of the berth. He looked around to see if there was any way he could make a run for it, but before he could tell Nunoz clamped his hand onto "BOB" 's arm and led him to the rear of the car, toward the caboose. His grip was cold and vice-like, and "BOB" was compelled to follow him, although every fiber of his being screamed in protest and warning.
Nunoz led through the door and into another sleeper and into another on beyond that. As they passed through each "BOB" could hear the curtain rings scraping against the rods as the occupants peered out at the two of them after they passed by.
The next car had a peculiar odor to it, one "BOB" recognized as animal feces. Looking around he saw that this car was full of cages and the wooden floors were covered with straw. Strange beass peered out at them from behind the steel bars, some with mindless hunger, but others with peculiarly sad expression of either mute sympathy or mere apathy. As they left the car "BOB" heard a long, mournful howl from the other end of the car.
The next car was even stranger than the last. Weird, discordant music played, seeming to issue forth from the very walls themselves, although there was no sigh of anyone with an instrument. To either side of them half-naked women performed lewd and exotic dances involving intricate gestures of the hands to compliment unfamiliar yet communicative facial expressions. Just as they were about to exit it occurredd to "BOB" that the women were singing as well; there was the source of the music.
The next car was a charnel-house of horror. It was packed to the waist with the carcasses of horribly mutilated cattle. He and Nunoz were forced to climb over the corpses to pass through. Although both of them were slimed with blood by the time they reached the middle of the car, Nunoz's grip never relaxed for even a second. Revolted, "BOB" had no choice but to crawl across the carcasses until they reached the door. Through all of this Nunoz moved along steadily without looking left or right.
The next car was the last, the caboose. Nunoz led "BOB" swiftly to the rear of the car and flung open the door. "This is where you get off, Senor "BOB"!" He said, his voice suddenly and surprisingly full of genuine grief, but still resolute and implacable. He gave "BOB" a tug in the direction of the door.
Resigned to his fate, "BOB" made no resistance. Still, he had to ask: "Where is this train going?"
Nunoz stopped and gave "BOB" an odd look, as though it was either a very stupid or a very intelligent question. He relaxed his grip ever so slightly. "Thees train? Thees train ees bound for Nowhere, Senor "BOB"!"
"I thought for sure you'd say 'Yucatan,' " "BOB" replied grimly.
Nunoz threw back his head and laughed long and loud. "A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! A ha ha ha ha ha ha! You are a very funny fellow, Senor "BOB"! A very funny fellow indeed! A ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Nunoz gained control of himself with an effort and continued, his glowing red eyes fixed on "BOB" 's own: "But we will soon see who laughs last and loudest, will we not? There ees not much time left."
"Until what?" "BOB" asked, sensing that Nunoz referred to something other than his imminent and rash disposal over the rails of the caboose.
"Until eet ees over, of course!" Nunoz cried, his eyes sparkling with the mischievous delight of those who speak in riddles to those who truly want to learn the answers. He grew suddenly very serious. "Senor "BOB", I have warned you away from this path once before, and yet you have paid my warning no mind. I am hurt. Nevertheless, I will warn you once again, and request that you heed my words thees time: you can still turn around. There ees much you can do een thees life eef you but stray from the path you currently travel.
"If you do not, well, I can make no promises, you see, but I can almost guarantee with 100% certainty that you will come to regret your decision. You do not understand what you are getting yourself into; the temptations that lie before you are too strong for a mere mortal; your perspective ees altogether too narrow to comprehend the magnitude of the forces involved here, forces you may soon find arrayed against you. Eef you are not very careful you will soon begin to believe that you are some kind of on some kind of moral crusade, like a knight seeking the Holy Grail, or some other Royal Nonesuch! Clearly you are a lucky man, and that is a good theeng, but if you keep trying to do right it will be your undoing!"
Clenching his pipe between his teeth, "BOB" remembered something Mother Dobbs always said. "I'd rather be lucky than right any day!" he cried defiantly.
"A ha ha ha! Well spoken, well said, Senor "BOB"! I admire you, really, I do! But come, eet ees your time." Nunoz tugged irresistably at his arm.
"Wait!" "BOB" cried desperately. "Answer me one last question!"
Nunoz sighed impatiently. "You are testing me, Senor "BOB"; I am becoming exasperated. Very well! What ees your question?"
"What is that sound, that buzzing, sawing sound?" "BOB" studied the Mexican's queer eyes.
"That sound? Why, that is the sound of you snoring, Senor "BOB"! A ha ha ha ha ha ha!" And with that, Nunoz flung "BOB" from the train.
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