End of the Line by Nicky James

THREE

Leopold

The world moved too fast. One minute I was falling face-first toward a racing train, my death imminent. The next, I was rolling along the unforgiving ground into a ditch with a man on my back. Who that man was was anybody’s guess. When we came to a stop, my brain was so rattled I didn’t immediately comprehend what was happening.

I fought to turn over to see who’d grabbed me, but it was useless. He was stronger and more determined. Every muscle in my body ached, and hitting the ground hadn’t helped. It had jarred the last of my stamina and left me drained. Useless. Even the adrenaline pumping through my veins wasn’t giving me a kick any longer. The various cuts and bruises I’d earned while escaping stung. My hands ached, and the burn in my lungs was beyond measure. It was like a thousand knives were embedded in my chest. I wanted to close my eyes and give up. It was over. I’d failed.

The guy jumped to his feet, but before I could flip around to confront him—do anything—he snagged my jacket and dragged me deeper into the brush beyond the ditch. I saw enough to know it wasn’t one of my father’s men. The guy wore a mask and rough clothing, not a fancy suit. There was something feral in the two eyes that peeked out at me. It kept my heart pumping at a punishing pace, hammering my ribs mercilessly.

The guy landed on my back again, pinning me down, and he slapped a hand over my mouth when I tried to cry out. I squirmed and elbowed him in a failed effort to throw him off.

The train screamed by then vanished into the night. Gone.

Not a second passed before the man hissed in my ear, “Shut the fuck up or we’re both going to jail, asshole. Not a word.”

I’d gone beyond fear, but I bit back another cry, processing my situation. In the distance, above the rattle and clang in the yard, men called out and radios chirped. We’d moved out from under the bright lights into a dark patch of bushes and trees. They concealed us. The voices belonged to the men from the yard who’d been chasing me. The guy pinning me down didn’t seem any more inclined to be caught.

So I stayed quiet and stopped fighting.

The men continued to hunt for us.

The chase and long run had left me breathless and panting, but the hand over my mouth made it impossible to draw enough oxygen into my starving lungs, and I was suffocating. He wore gloves. They smelled like cheap leather and cigarettes. I wanted to tear his hand off but knew better than to move. My chest heaved. The guy holding me down was out of breath too. His heart thrummed against my back as his hot breath ghosted over my cheek. The whole length of his body pressed me into the ground.

The men in the distance spoke into their radios. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their voices vanished as they moved away.

The man above me spoke in a hushed tone. “Do you have a death wish? Jesus Christ. What the hell was that?”

I squirmed, but he didn’t move.

I tried to talk, but he kept his hand clamped over my mouth.

Fear returned.

“Listen. I’m going to move my hand, but I’ll kill you myself if you say one goddamn word. Do you hear me? Not a single fucking word. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded, helpless to do anything else.

He moved his hand and rolled to his side. I scrambled to face him, my heart running faster than the train. The man was dressed in dark clothing head to toe. Some type of dark canvas cargos, a black jacket, dark boots, and a full-face mask. Only his eyes and lips showed from behind a balaclava. The same feral look locked me in place.

He held a finger to his lips then pointed into the trees. I understood he wanted me to follow him. Part of me thought it would be better to run out of the bushes and get away from this guy, whoever he was, but when I remembered what I’d been running from, I stalled.

He gestured again, his movements jerkier.

I nodded.

He held my gaze for one more minute before crawling off into the denser trees. I followed, grinding my teeth against all the cuts and scrapes I’d earned in the last hour. Once he’d gone a distance from the tracks, he veered west. We traveled farther away from the yard before he backtracked and headed toward the tracks again.

Figuring we were far enough away, I opened my mouth to ask him what was happening when three people emerged from the darkness. With a muffled cry, I scrambled backward, trying to get away, and I smacked into a tree.

The three people were crouched low to the ground, watching me. None of them had their faces covered, but they wore similar dark clothing and didn’t look pleased to see me.

The guy who had pulled me away from the train stopped and shoved his balaclava to his forehead, revealing his face for the first time as he glared at me in the dark. He wasn’t shocked to find these people, so I assumed they were together.

One of them spoke in a whisper, a guy with a goatee and glasses. “You brought him back here?”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” the guy who’d saved my ass hissed. “I couldn’t leave him there to get caught by the bulls.”

“Serves him right,” said the only woman. “What were you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”

Four sets of eyes stared at me in the darkness. I couldn’t get away. Not from four of them. Not in the state I was in. Not with other men out there looking for me.

“I needed to get on the train.”

The tallest one of the bunch snorted. His hair stood out from his head in a wild mess of untamed curls. “He needed to get on the train. You hear that?”

The man who’d rescued me held a hand up, hushing his buddy as he scanned me up and down. “You know what you were trying to do was suicide, right?”

I shrugged, unsure what else to do. “I had to try.”

Smothered chuckles rippled through the group. The one with the goatee spoke again, this time to his friend. “Killer, we’ve gotta split or will miss our ride. I was listening on the scanner. We have twenty minutes or less before it pulls in.”

My rescuer nodded, but his assessing gaze never left my face. His eyes were nothing more than inky pools of darkness. With the night shadows and his clothing, it was hard to make out what he looked like. He had angular cheekbones and deep-set eyes. His nose was sharp, his chin pointed, and his mouth was shapely and wide. He didn’t have facial hair. I guessed he was close to the same age as me, but it was hard to tell in the dark.

“All right,” he said, shuffling his feet. “We gotta split. You’re on your own, buddy. Try not to get yourself killed.”

He moved toward his friends, and they turned to go, aiming for the tracks.

“Are you getting on a train?” I called.

Three of them hissed for me to be quiet while the woman threw her hands up in an act of exasperation. “Why don’t you yell a little louder?”

They didn’t answer my question. I earned a few dirty looks as they each tugged balaclavas over their faces, ready to depart.

“Take me with you. Please.” That time I regulated my voice so it wouldn’t carry and they would at least consider.

The guy who’d rescued me was the only one who bothered turning around.

“Buddy, this isn’t some game.”

“Please. I have to get out of here.”

“Let’s go, man. Forget him.” It was the tall one with the hair who spoke as he tugged his friend’s arm. To me, he said, “There’s a station a quarter mile that way.” He pointed. “Go buy a ticket and ride like the normal folk do.”

“I can’t. Please.”

The man with the nice cheekbones pulled away from his friend and shoved his face mask up again. There was nothing friendly in the look he gave me, and I cowered.

“Killer, we don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”

Killer? That was twice they’d called him that. What kind of a name was Killer?

I squirmed under his intense scrutiny.

He was the only one giving me the time of day. He was the one to whom I needed to plead my case. “If you don’t help me, I’ll just try again on my own. Please.”

“And you’ll die.”

I shrugged. “It’s a chance I have to take.”

The one they called Killer, the man who’d tugged me to safety, frowned. “What’s your deal?”

I shook my head. There was no way I could explain to a stranger what had happened. No one could know. “I just need to get out of here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Doesn’t matter. As far away as I can get.”

“He’s a greenhorn. Leave him here,” the woman said.

“He’s a classic trustafarian,” the tall one snorted. “He wants to catch out, but look how he’s dressed. He’s a goddamn highlighter. No wonder he fell. Look at those shoes.”

They all looked at my shoes.

Their language and terminology were beyond me. I wasn’t a native English speaker, but I was fluent. The words they used seemed to be some sort of slang. Greenhorn? Trustafarian?

The man they called Killer assessed me again and shook his head with a laugh as though seeing things in me he hadn’t picked out before. “Yeah. Never mind this. Let’s split.”

They headed off again, and panic surged in my gut. I needed help. I needed to get away, and if these guys knew how to hop a train, then I needed their guidance, at least until I was on. After, I’d figure it out myself.

I used the only weapon I had at my disposal.

“I’ll pay you.”

All four of them stopped.

All four of them shifted around.

I had their attention. “Whatever it takes. I’ll pay you. Just help me. Please.”

Killer was the one who spoke. “How much?”

“I don’t know. However much you want. Just get me on a train and away from here.”

“We have, like, fifteen minutes,” the tall guy said. “If we do this, we’ll miss our train. He doesn’t even have gear. We can’t attach ourselves to him. He’s dead weight.”

“He’s right, man.” It was the goatee guy who spoke. “Besides, I don’t need money. Leave him.”

Goatee and the tall man started for the tracks again. Killer and the woman stood their ground, but the woman was watching Killer, not me, like she was waiting to see what he would decide.

Killer seemed to consider. He traded glances with the woman, who shrugged.

Killer sized me up one more time. “How much?” he asked again.

I stammered, unsure what might convince a guy like this to agree. “I-I don’t know. A thousand dollars?”

Two sets of eyes bugged wide, and they didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave anymore.

“Are you fucking with me?” Killer asked.

“No. A thousand dollars. Cash. Take me as far away as you can.”

He swiped a hand over his jaw, glanced back at the woman, then to me. He narrowed his eyes. “Half upfront. Right now, or I’m not doing it.”

“Deal.”

I dug into one of the pockets on my trousers where I’d stashed a stack of bills. I peeled five bills from the pile and held them out.

The woman breathed, “Jesus Christ.”

Killer snapped it from my hand and counted it, holding each bill to the moonlight as though checking to be sure it was real. Once he was satisfied, he stuffed it into a pocket. He and the woman stared at me for a long minute after that.

“Who the fuck are you?” Killer asked.

I clamped my mouth shut, my whole body tense. That was not a question I had any intention of answering.

When Killer realized I wasn’t going to speak, he let it go. My guess was we didn’t have time to argue.

Killer snagged my jacket and yanked me through the bushes toward the tracks. The woman trailed behind.

“You listen and do exactly as I say. If you die, I am not responsible.”

A lump formed in my throat as I stumbled to keep up.

We came upon a ditch where a pile of rucksacks were tucked out of sight. The two other men of the group had their packs on and were lying in the ditch. They glanced over at us and shook their heads with a laugh.

Killer dropped to his knees and pulled one of the packs toward him and proceeded to unzip various compartments as he rooted around inside.

The girl crouched beside him with another pack. “What do you need?”

“He needs pants that don’t glow in the dark and something to cover his hair and face. I can’t do much about his footwear. What’s our time?” Killer hissed at the men lying down.

“Not good. Nine minutes,” one of them said.

“Take off your pants,” Killer said as he pulled something from inside his sack. “Put these on and do it fast. They aren’t ideal, but they will have to do.”

“No. Put them on top. Layers. You’ll be warmer,” the woman said. “Here.” She handed Killer a black hoodie and a black bandana. “He can draw the hood up and tie this around the lower half of his face.”

“Perfect. Jacket off, man. Put this underneath.”

I trembled as I worked the sports pants he’d given me over my trousers. They got stuck on my shoes, and I cursed, yanking hard to make them fit over my oxfords. They had an elastic waist and fit decently. However, they didn’t smell clean, and it made my nose twitch. I wasn’t in a position to protest. When I had them on, I moved to take off my coat but remembered the blood saturating my silk shirt.

“Take it off. Now, man. We don’t have time.”

I shook my head, sweat beading along my forehead, a chill racing up and down my spine.

“You have to cover up.”

I must have looked spooked. The woman made a noise of frustration and tore Killer’s balaclava from his head, tossing it at me. “Fuck this. Put it on, asshole.” To Killer, she said, “We don’t have time to argue with this piece of shit. You wear the bandana and pull your hood up.”

“Incoming. You guys better be ready, or we’re leaving without you,” one of the men in the ditch called.

The distinct sound of an approaching train filled the air. I pulled the face mask over my head. It was warm from having been worn by another person. It also smelled like sweat and a hint of some kind of cheap shampoo. There was a tinge of cigarette smoke embedded in the wool as well.

Killer and the woman fit their packs over their shoulders and scrambled to the edge of the ditch, waving me to follow. I lay at the end of their row, the man named Killer beside me.

What did it say about me that I’d rather go on the run with a guy named Killer than face what had happened this evening?

I pinched my eyes closed, evicting the images of blood from my brain. But I could still see and hear it all. Crashing. Loud shouts and cries of anger. The destruction of broken furniture. So, so much blood. I wiped my hands on my jacket, certain they were still stained.

The level tone of the man beside me brought me back to the present and grounded me. “This is what’s going to happen. Listen carefully and do exactly as I say. When the train comes through, it should be at a decent enough speed for getting on, unlike your passenger train. We have to find the right car, and that takes work. I know what I’m looking for and so do all these guys. You stick with me. We have to spread out to search for a good one. Keep your body low, and for the love of god, watch where you run and don’t trip. When someone finds a good spot, they’ll call it, and we’ll all get on. You’ll need to watch us and copy our moves. Run at the same speed as the train. When we get on, get low and stay low until I say. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to feel chaotic but keep your cool. Stay with me, and whatever you do, don’t fucking fall. You fall, you die, and I will leave your body here for the bulls to find.”

Don’t fall. Those two simple words never sounded so complicated. I had been brought past the point of exhaustion already. A new surge of adrenaline poured into my system, but would it be enough? If I thought about the tender aches and pains covering my body, I was convinced I’d never make it.

Killer pulled the bandana his friend had given him over his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes peeking out. He’d drawn the hood of his jacket, pulling it tight around his face. The rest of the group were as dark as shadows in their gear too. Like ninjas or bank robbers.

Or killers.

Who were these people? What had happened in their lives to make them do stuff like this?

Was I going from one bad situation to another?

Coiled tight like a spring and ready to jump at a moment’s notice, I waited and watched. Killer gripped my jacket so tight it was like he feared I’d bounce up too soon. The freight train roared into the yard. It wasn’t going nearly as fast as the passenger train had been going, but the power behind the engine made it daunting nonetheless. The ground rumbled, and the ear-splitting shriek of metal on metal made me want to cover my ears.

Killer’s grip tightened, and he yanked me closer, shouting in my ear to be heard over the noise. “Not yet. We want to be at least twenty or more cars back.”

My heart pounded a bruising rhythm as I squinted at the cars moving past.

My mouth dried with the anticipation, and bits of wool from the face mask stuck to my tongue. Dust and debris billowed in the air, and my eyes watered and burned.

I wasn’t counting how many cars had gone by, but in a sudden flurry, the four people in the ditch beside me exploded into action. They scrambled toward the train, splitting up and taking off in both directions. Killer dragged me by the coat for a dozen feet before letting go.

He headed east, the opposite direction the train was traveling. He seemed to be waiting for a certain type of car before sticking his head over deep wells on the ends. “Suicide,” he yelled before abandoning it and racing to the next. I didn’t know what that meant.

I heard similar calls from the others in the group.

It felt like time was slipping away, and we weren’t going to get on. I didn’t know what they were looking for or why it was taking so long, but I’d put my faith in this reckless bunch, hoping they could help.

When I was convinced the train would leave without us, someone yelled, “Here! Here!”

Killer pivoted on a dime and raced toward the one who’d called out, snagging my jacket and spinning me to follow. All his friends were running along the same car now, their packs bouncing on their backs as they one at a time jumped onto a ladder that was attached to the side of a car.

“Watch how they do it,” Killer yelled over the engine. “You’re next.”

My palms grew slick with sweat, and a steady tremble rumbled to life in my core. The tall man snagged the ladder and held it as he ran alongside the train at the same pace. Then he tugged himself up and got his feet on the lowest rung. He was over the lip in a flash and vanished into the well. He’d made it look easy.

“Go, go, go,” Killer urged, one hand pressed against my back.

Pushing my fear aside, I kept pace with the train and grabbed the metal rung of the ladder the same way the tall guy had. The bottom rung was right there, but getting my feet off the ground and onto it felt like a feat I would never master. Don’t fall, Killer had said. It was do or die. I thought of the men pursuing me. I thought of the mess I’d left behind at the penthouse. If I didn’t take this leap, if I didn’t take this risk, my life would be over anyhow.

It was a leap of faith. This train was the ticket to a future I couldn’t imagine. Was it a beginning or an end? Only time would tell.

“Go,” Killer screamed. “Jump, for fuck’s sake. Do it. Now!”

So I jumped.

I held the ladder and aimed for the bottom rung, hoping the shiny sole of my oxfords wouldn’t slip. The tall man and the goatee guy snagged my jacket the minute I was on, and they heaved me over the lip of the car and into the well. I crashed on top of them, smacking my elbow against something metal and unforgiving which sent a tingling jolt to the tips of my fingers. The woman was huddled in a corner out of the way. A moment later, another body landed on top of me. There was a flurry of movement as people scrambled to sit up and tuck themselves low in the well, keeping their heads down.

Killer pulled me over to one side until I was wedged in tight beside him. There wasn’t a whole lot of room.

He tugged the bandana off his face. His smile and the glimmer in his eyes was breathtaking. “You did it. Fucking-A, man.”

He offered a fist to bump, and I complied, unable to fight my own grin.

Killer tipped his face to the night sky. It was in that moment, while staring at the contentment on the stranger’s face before my heart had even begun to calm and as tremors still rocked my core, that I knew, somehow, my whole life had just changed.