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MIDNIGHT TRAIN
Part One[/center]

Ain’t as easy to hop trains as it used to be. Growing up we’d run down by the railyard and sneak through our little hole in the fence. Watch the engines surge by, iron horses running faster than our dreams. There were faster things, of course, our paps all loved NASCAR, but those stoic little stock cars had nothing on these behemoths. They cut across the country in plumes of smoke that signal their coming to the heavens, hauling everything a body could want, the very life blood of this country. It was a dream to jump onto one as it slowed and clamber up the sides like monkey bars, then stow away for a spell and watch the rest of the heartland roll on by. Could jump off quick into a field of hay and then be home in time for supper. But it wasn’t like that for the kids of today. Now there were security cameras all over the stations, making sure that no folk can get to those trains without consequence, no matter how harmless their purpose may be. That said, my purpose tonight is anything but harmless, and this is no regular old train.

Heard tell of this loco locomotive as far south as Sonora. They call it the Midnight Train. They say she’s an old steam engine with hellfire in her belly, with wheels that clack like cackling skulls, constrained by no track. Every now and again, she’ll pass on through an ordinary station in the dead of night. She’ll pick up a couple regular passengers, and ramble off into the darkness, where those passengers will never be seen again. No one knows for sure what goes on aboard that train, as dark and massive as a storm cloud. The only way to find out is to find a station and get on board yourself.

Course, I ain’t so lucky as to catch her at the station. Instead I’m straddling a motorcycle getting hotter n’ the devil’s nethers, hauling ass across open desert, chasing her taillights through the shadows and trails of her dreadsmoke. Bike ain’t mine cept the offroad tires, which I expect to be shred to shit by the end of this. I took it off some skinhead prick, figuring I’d need an expendable vehicle. Bike’s engine is sputtering a storm, spewing hot, stinging smoke and bleeding oil. My bandana keeps it all from my mouth, but my eyes are watering so hard I can taste the salt running down my cheeks. But through the tears I see it getting closer.

The Midnight Train’s end couplers stand out of the smog like the spiked horns of a huge beetle. The reversed headlamps shot out cones of blacklight into the haze, the light now just touching my front wheel. The bike jerks like a jitterbug, stuttering across phantom tracks, threatening to shake itself apart. My hands have gone numb on me, but I keep clamped on the accelerator. The engine hisses and whines like a wet barn cat while I wrestle the handlebars one handed, pulling my lariat from its holster. I hear something metallic burst and rattle in the bike beneath me and I know I got just one shot.

I jerk my arm hard and the whip slashes through the night, it catches firm on the train’s blackened rails. My cry of triumph is lost to a new, grinding, tearing sound in my engine. I push off from the footpegs and pull as hard as I can, whirling through the air before I crash into the back of the Midnight Train in a heap. I look back to the bike through the railing, crumpled plastic and cheap parts folding on themselves as it gives way and tumbles off into the desert. There’s a safe feeling, hard metal platform finally underneath me instead of rushing, scouring sands.

That feeling doesn’t last long. The wind is whipping past the train and piercing me through my snap shirt and vest, a straight chill to the bone. I push to my feet and my spurs click against the black metal. Standing here against the Midnight Train’s hide, I feel like I’m wrangling some massive bull, fighting the restraints to stay on. I stagger to the door to the first compartment. It's bigger than I am, socketed into the train’s frame on bolts bloodied with rust. I lock my hands around the door’s crank wheel and work the door open a sliver, before I dart in.

It’s a mite more comfortable inside. I slam the door shut to the howling winds and have just an instant to get my bearings. The interior of the car ain’t much. Low, fluorescent lights swing with the rumble of the engine and cast their shadows across the wooden facade. It’s simple quarters for crew, cotton beds shelved along one wall with round tables and chairs socketed to the floor for gathering. It might have been like any other train, but for the rows of coffins along the right wall, the only proper resting spot for any vampire. That, and the pair of men seated there.

Their skin is plumb white as alabaster, stretched so far over gaunt frames that I can count their ribs through their work clothes. One is dressed like an old miner, in faded coveralls slumping half off his skeletal chest, wearing a yellow helmet with a flickering light. The other is a disheveled train attendant in rags, what once might have been a fine uniform is hanging off him in ribbons. But they both have long, sharp ears, and faces marred by rotten noses and fangs jutting past their jaws. They're what I call Longtooths, thrall-things that’ve been in service past their expiration date. They've both seen me now. They rise from their seats and claw across the tables, bounding for me. I draw my modified lariat, my meteor hammer with the silver weight, but they're already on top of me.

The miner leaps at me and I duck under him into a roll, letting his face crash into the steel door. I go for a swing with my hammer as I come up, but the attendant is already too close, and catches the thick cord of the weapon in his jaw.

[color=indianred]“This is no kinda hospitality, fellers!”[/color] I shout and yank the hammer. The attendant's tooth snaps and the weight smacks the side of his head, sending him stumbling into the rows of coffins, but now the miner is back up.

“Hsss!” He swipes me with curled claws as I whirl at him. I ignore the slashing pain across my chest and ram the heel of my weapon into his temple. His eyes boggle and I push my elbow into his throat and push us both to the door, pressing him into the metalwork. I look back to the attendant and see him crawling from a wrecked coffin, but I see something move on the far end of the compartment. The door to the next car is rumbling as someone works the lock, threatening to send more suckheads spilling in.

[color=indianred]“No cuttin’ in!”[/color] I say. I launch my meteor and the weight crashes into the door, crushing the lock and buying me another moment. The attendant picks his moment and rushes me while the hammer is in flight, fangs bared. I drop it and grab the knife on my belt, but something hard slams into the back of my head. Stars flare across my vision and I pitch forward, but close my grip around my bowie and jerk as I fall, slashing wildly behind me. I feel my knife cut through flesh and then nothing as the miner’s body turns to dust on death. I slam into the ground at the same time as his helmet, and then the attendant is on me.

I get my legs between us and his wicked nails pass within an inch of my face, and I taste his breath, old blood and must, through my bandana as he strains to sink his fangs in. I draw the knife up and bring it between us, then release and watch as the attendant skewers himself in desperation. He dies in a sheet of dust across my body.

I hack out a cough and try not to vomit from the noxious dust as I draw to my feet. I have to be ready for what's coming next, and fast. I draw my revolver and fix it on the door. There's a loud snap as whatever is on the other side breaks the fused metal. I rest my finger on the trigger.

A figure in black steps through the door. He's tall and draped in leather, carrying a sword dripping with blood and dust. He takes a step forward and the light catches on his dark shades. I realize I recognize him, from the close crop fade to the spiked adornments on his jacket’s shoulders. He’s the man I’ve come to see; the vampire hunter called Blade.

[color=crimson]“If you shoot, don’t miss,”[/color] he says. He’s resting his sword on his shoulder, all casual like. But I know from the set of his shoulders and hips that in one motion he could rush forward and cut me in half, and I don’t need to give him a reason.

[color=indianred]“Wasn’t plannin’ to, pardner,”[/color] I say. I spin my revolver and slot it into its holster.

[color=crimson]“Partner? Not a chance,”[/color] Blade’s grip on his sword is still tight as he turns his hand over and gestures, palm out, [color=crimson]“give me back my book.”[/color]

[color=indianred]“Was always plannin’ on it…”[/color] I grumble, pulling the slim notebook from my vest. When I mentioned I ‘heard tell’ of this train, I read it in this book. [i]His[/i] book. I swiped it the last time I came across him, fallen from his pocket in the fracas. Seemed like it was his little monster hunting diary, all full of juicy tidbits on what his next hunt was shaping to be. Namely, his next job, taking out the head vampire honcho of this here hell train. [color=indianred]“But if [i]half[/i] the rumors in this thing about this train are true, you’ll need a second gun on this.”[/color]

[color=crimson]“Yeah,”[/color] Blade says. He flicks his sword and sends all the viscera covering it to dapple the compartment's tables, then returns the cleaned weapon to its sheath. He stows the book and pulls back his coat to show off his twin holsters, [color=crimson]“that’s why I carry two.”[/color] He turns on his heel and starts to walk back from where he came, deeper into the Midnight Train.

[color=indianred]“Hold up! Didn’t come all this way to get left out of the festivities.”[/color] I go to follow him and he stops in his tracks.

[color=crimson]“What are you expecting here? That you’ll scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours?”[/color] Blade asks, and he’s right to. I’ve hounded him across Texas and back, tracked him down across leylines and met him in vampire dens, knee deep in the dead, and there I’d go banging my drum about my story, what I needed from him. He’d just tune me out and set about his work, then leave me in the dust as my back was turned. But here I am, now, at the head of it, with an honest to goodness shot to make right by the man.

[color=indianred]“No expectations, ‘cept fer killin’ every vampire I lay eyes on. I got my mission, my purpose. But that purpose has got plenty of room fer gunnin’ down extra bloodsuckers. Got silver bullets burnin’ a hole in my pocket,”[/color] I say.

[color=crimson]“Fine. At least you have the right gear,”[/color] Blade allows. He steps forward and I go to move in time with him, but he stops and turns his head back to me, curious. [color=crimson]“How’d you get onto the train anyway, cowboy?”[/color]

[color=indianred]“Motorcycle,”[/color] I grin beneath my bandana, [color=indianred]“rough stuff, I tell you what.”[/color]


[color=crimson]“No shit. Hell of a ride,”[/color] he says, scratching his chin. I can practically see my desperate chase reflected in his shades as he thinks on it, sees the grime caking my outfit. I actually catch the edge of his mouth turning up in a smile. [color=crimson]“Hope you weren’t attached to it.”[/color]

[color=indianred]“Naw, it was some Suzuki import piece of garbage. Better as scrap anyhow,”[/color] I joke. Blade’s smile vanishes.

[color=crimson]“[i]I[/i] drive a Suzuki import.”[/color]