The Locomotive of Last Resort

Chapter 17: The Screaming Steel

"Get away from the bulkhead, Harlan! Now!"

Varkelion’s voice sliced through the steam-choked corridor, but the young deck-guard was already too slow.

Harlan slipped on the greasy residue coating the deckplates. He fell hard, his knee striking the iron floor with a dull crack. Before he could scramble up, the metal beneath him did something impossible. It buckled upward. Not like exploding steam pipes, but like skin swelling over an abscess.

"The plates!" Harlan shrieked, clawing at the wall. "They’re pinching! They’re holding my boot!"

"Mavrik, grab his arms!" Varkelion lunged forward, his heavy boots skidding on the slime.

Through the seams of the floorboards, thick, ash-grey fibers—coarse as horsehair but metallic to the touch—were weaving themselves through the eyelets of Harlan’s leather boots. They didn't just snag him; they were drilling into the leather, seeking the warm flesh beneath.

"Don't touch the fibers!" Mavrik warned, his face pale as salt. He grabbed Harlan’s collar instead, hauling backward with all his weight. "They’re drawing power! They’re using the heat from the boiler lines!"

"I don't care what they're using!" Varkelion drew his heavy, iron-plated revolver. "Hold still, boy!"

BANG.

The gunshot in the confined metal hallway was deafening. The bullet tore through the heel of Harlan’s boot, shattering the iron-infused fibers.

But instead of metal fragments, the wound in the floor sprayed a jet of thick, dark-purple ichor. It hissed against the hot barrel of Varkelion's gun. The train itself let out a sound—a low, grinding vibration that traveled up the soles of their feet, rattling the teeth in their skulls. It sounded like a dying hound trying to growl through a throat full of blood.

"It felt that," Mavrik whispered, his eyes wide. "Varkelion, the train felt that."

"Pull him!" Varkelion barked, grabbing Harlan’s belt and ripping him free from the shredded boot.

Harlan fell backward into Mavrik’s arms, gasping, his bare foot covered in tiny, bleeding puncture wounds that already looked bruised and swollen.

"We need to seal this sector," Varkelion said, grabbing the heavy brass handle of the compartment door and throwing his weight against it.

"It won't hold!" Mavrik yelled, dragging Harlan down the corridor. "If the metal is turning, the doors are just part of its body now! We’re locking ourselves in a ribcage!"

"Then we find a stronger cage! Move!"

They retreated down the narrow, rattling hallway of Carriage Ten. Behind them, the iron door they had just slammed shut began to moan. The heavy brass latch didn't just slide; it warped, bending like soft wax as the grey fibers began to sprout from the seams, binding the door to its frame.

"It’s sealing us out," Harlan whimpered, clutching his bloody foot. "Or keeping us in."

"Quiet, kid," Varkelion snapped, scanning the corridor. The overhead gas lamps were flickering, their copper pipes pulsing with a slow, rhythmic squeeze. "Mavrik, explain what I just saw. If you tell me it’s a design feature, I’ll throw you off the observation deck."

"It’s not a design feature!" Mavrik yelled back, his voice cracked with panic. "The alloy we used for the repairs last week—the cold-rolled plates we scavenged from the scrap-barrows. They weren't dead iron. They were dormant."

"Dormant?" Varkelion kicked open the door to the auxiliary control junction. "It’s metal, Mavrik! It doesn't sleep, and it doesn't wake up!"

"The Great Engine runs on a closed-loop pressure system, Varkelion! You know this!" Mavrik slammed his toolbox onto the metal table, sending brass valves and gauges scattering. "The steam doesn't just push pistons; it carries the Engine’s 'breath.' When we patched the hull of Carriage Nine and Ten with that wild iron, we fed it. We gave it a circulatory system. And now... it's rejecting us."

"Rejecting us?" Harlan looked up from the floor, his face green. "We’re passengers! We’ve kept this thing fed for three generations!"

"To the iron, we’re not passengers," Mavrik said, his fingers trembling as he adjusted a dial on the wall pressure-gauge. "We’re parasites. It thinks we’re an infection in its gut."

"Then we’re an infection with a very large hammer," Varkelion said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. He checked the cylinder of his revolver, reloading the spent cartridge. "Where did it start?"

"Carriage Nine," Mavrik said, pointing a grease-stained finger at the schematic diagram on the wall. "The cargo hold. That’s where we stacked the raw salvage. The rot must have taken root there first. It’s crawling forward through the undercarriage, toward the coal-bunkers."

"If it reaches the main firebox, it will choke the draft," Varkelion said. "The boilers will starve. The pressure will drop to zero in minutes."

"Worse," Mavrik said, looking Varkelion dead in the eye. "If it reaches the firebox, it will feed on the main coal-stock. It will grow. We won't be riding a train anymore, Captain. We’ll be riding the inside of a beast that wants to digest us."

"Then we amputate," Varkelion said.

The room went dead silent, save for the rhythmic, wet thump-thump of the floorboards beneath them.

"Amputate?" Harlan swallowed hard. "Carriage Nine is our secondary storage! It has half our winter rations, the spare hydraulic fluid, and... and three families are bunking in the upper berths!"

"Get them out," Varkelion ordered. "Now. Evacuate Carriage Nine to Carriage Eight. Move them into the common quarters. I don't care if they have to sleep on top of each other."

"They won't move, Captain," Harlan said, his voice shaking. "The stokers’ union is already rioting about the Fifth Carriage. If we tell them we’re cutting off the cargo hold—their food—they’ll think you’re trying to starve them out."

"Then don't tell them why," Varkelion growled, leaning over Harlan, his shadow swallowing the young guard. "Tell them there's a gas leak. Tell them the boiler is venting toxic steam. If they stay in Carriage Nine, they die. If they fight you, shoot the ceiling. But get them across the gangway in three minutes, or I’ll lock the corridor with them inside."

Harlan looked at Varkelion’s cold, grey eyes, saw no room for negotiation, and scrambled to his feet. He limped out of the room, dragging his wounded foot, his breath hitching in his throat.

"You're cold, Varkelion," Mavrik quieted, his hand resting on the manual decoupling valve on the wall. "If we drop Carriage Nine, we lose the steering stabilizers for the rear carriages. The tail of the train will start to fishtail. At sixty miles an hour, the vibration could snap the remaining couplings."

"If we don't drop it, there won't be a train left to stabilize," Varkelion replied. "How do we release the joint?"

"The coupling lock is external," Mavrik said, his voice tight. "Between Nine and Eight. There’s a manual hydraulic bypass on the outer gangway. But the lines run through the floor. If the rot has reached the joint..."

"It will have fused the coupling," Varkelion finished. "Which means we can't just flip a switch from inside."

"We’ll have to go out there," Mavrik said. "With a torch and a sledge. On the platform. While the train is taking the bend at the Black Silt Basin."

"Then we better hurry," Varkelion said, grabbing a heavy heavy-duty cutting torch from the wall rack. "The Basin is three miles ahead. The tracks there are uneven. If we don't drop the car before we hit the curve, the drag will pull the whole engine off the rails."

They burst out of the junction room, heading down the drafty corridor toward the rear vestibule of Carriage Eight.

The air grew colder with every step, but it wasn't the clean cold of the mountain passes. It was a damp, rotting chill. The walls were sweating—not water, but a greasy, amber-colored condensation that smelled of burnt hair and tallow.

As they neared the heavy iron door separating Carriage Eight from Nine, they ran into a wall of screaming people.

Harlan was trying to push a frantic mother and her three children through the narrow doorway. Behind them, a mob of passengers from the lower-class berths were shoving forward, dragging trunks, blankets, and sacks of dried grain.

"He’s lying!" a man in a filthy stoker's apron yelled, pointing a rusted wrench at Harlan. "There’s no gas leak! They’re locking us out! They’re cutting off our rations!"

"Get back!" Harlan screamed, his revolver drawn but shaking violently. "I have orders! Clear the vestibule!"

"Let us through, you coward!" another man roared, lunging for Harlan’s collar.

"Step aside!"

Varkelion’s voice echoed down the steel corridor like a thunderclap. He didn't fire in the air. He walked straight into the crowd, grabbed the stoker by his greasy collar, and slammed him against the iron wall.

"The next person who stops to argue dies here," Varkelion said, his voice dangerously low, his revolver pressed directly under the stoker’s chin. "Look at the walls, you fools. Look at the floor."

The crowd went silent.

In the sudden quiet, they could hear it. A wet, tearing sound, like wet canvas being ripped apart. From the cracks in the ceiling of Carriage Nine, just beyond the open door, thick, purplish-grey vines of iron were slowly creeping down, wrapping around the luggage racks, squeezing the wooden trunks until they splintered.

A woman screamed. The mob turned from angry to terrified in a heartbeat.

"Run!" Varkelion yelled. "Into Carriage Eight! Go!"

The passengers scrambled past him, abandoning their heavy belongings as the realization of the horror behind them sunk in. They squeezed through the door, terrified of the pulsing, organic metal that was slowly reaching down like the fingers of a giant, buried hand.

"Harlan, close the inner safety door behind them!" Varkelion commanded.

"But Captain—you and Mavrik!" Harlan gasped, looking at the open outer gangway between the cars. "The coupling is out there!"

"Close it!" Varkelion yelled, shoving Mavrik through the heavy door onto the open-air gangway platform. "And lock it from the inside! If we don't come back in five minutes, you blow the primary emergency bolts from the bridge! Do you hear me?"

"Captain..."

"Do it, Harlan!"

The heavy steel door slammed shut, and they heard the heavy deadbolts click into place.

Suddenly, they were out in the open.

The wind hit them like a physical blow. The train was hurtling through a narrow stone gorge, the black rock walls passing mere inches from the handrails. The roar of the iron wheels on the tracks was deafening, a high-pitched, metallic scream that seemed to harmonize with the unnatural vibrations of the train itself.

"The coupling is down there!" Mavrik screamed over the wind, pointing down between the shaking platforms of Carriage Eight and Nine.

The massive iron knuckle that held the two forty-ton carriages together was barely visible. It was completely covered in a thick, throbbing mass of grey fibers, pulsing with a pale, sickly light. The fibers had woven themselves around the heavy steel pins, forming a tight, calcified cocoon.

"It's fused!" Mavrik yelled, his eyes watering from the freezing wind. "The manual release lever is completely encased! We can't clear it with a wrench!"

"Use the torch!" Varkelion shouted back, bracing his boots against the icy guardrail. "Burn the core!"

Mavrik knelt on the vibrating, wet platform, sparking the thermal torch to life. A bright blue flame hissed into existence, fighting against the howling gale. He leaned over the edge, pressing the flame directly into the center of the grey mass.

An agonizing shriek tore through the air.

It didn't come from the wind. It came from the coupling itself.

The grey fibers shriveled and blackened under the intense heat, but as they burned, they bled. A thick, boiling stream of purple sap erupted from the wound, spraying onto Mavrik’s leather sleeve.

"Ahhh!" Mavrik screamed, dropping the torch. The liquid was eating through his heavy coat, smoking as it touched his skin.

"Mavrik!" Varkelion grabbed him, dragging him back as the grey fibers suddenly whipped upward, snapping like steel cables.

One of the metallic tendrils lashed across Varkelion’s cheek, cutting a deep gash that instantly began to burn with a freezing, numbing pain. He stumbled back, his hand flying to his face. His fingers came away wet with dark, sluggish blood.

"It’s defending itself!" Mavrik panted, clutching his burned arm against his chest. "The whole car... it’s awake, Varkelion! It knows what we’re trying to do!"

The train suddenly lurched violently. The screech of the wheels grew louder, pitch-shifting into a frantic, desperate howl.

"The curve!" Varkelion looked ahead. The black walls of the gorge were twisting sharply to the left. The Black Silt Basin. "We’re hitting the bend! Mavrik, the torch!"

"It fell between the plates!" Mavrik yelled, his voice cracking with despair. "It’s gone!"

Varkelion looked down. The blue flame of the torch was gone, swallowed by the rushing darkness beneath the wheels. But the coupling was still half-fused, the grey fibers already beginning to regrow over the charred metal, knitting the two carriages back together with terrifying speed.

The drag was pulling the rear of the train sideways. The platform beneath them warped, the iron floor buckling under the immense torsional stress.

"We need to break the pin!" Varkelion roared, drawing his revolver again. "The explosive rounds! In my inner pocket! Mavrik, get them!"

"You'll blow the platform!" Mavrik screamed. "We’re standing right on top of it!"

"If we don't, we go over the cliff!" Varkelion grabbed Mavrik’s collar, pulling him close. "Get the cartridges!"

Mavrik’s hands shook violently as he reached into Varkelion’s heavy leather coat, pulling out three red-capped brass shells. "These are demolition rounds! If you fire these at point-blank range—"

"Give them to me!" Varkelion snatched the shells, dumping his standard rounds onto the shaking floor. He jammed the heavy explosive cartridges into the cylinder, his fingers numb from the biting wind.

He leaned over the railing, his body hanging out over the rushing, rocky ground below.

The grey fibers on the coupling sensed him. They reared up, dozens of tiny, metallic needles aiming at his face like a nest of disturbed vipers.

"Go to hell," Varkelion growled.

He pressed the barrel of the revolver directly into the center of the pulsing, purple mass, right where the main coupling pin connected the two cars.

"Varkelion, hang on!" Mavrik screamed, throwing himself flat on the platform and wrapping his arms around Varkelion’s boots.

BOOM.

The explosion was blinding.

The force of the detonation blew the heavy iron revolver out of Varkelion’s grip, shattering his wrist-strap and sending him flying backward against the door of Carriage Eight.

The air was filled with the smell of sulfur, burning flesh, and vaporized metal.

For a terrifying second, nothing happened. The train continued to tilt, the wheels on the left side of Carriage Nine lifting off the rails with a deafening, metallic scream.

Then, with a sound like a cracking whip, the main coupling pin snapped.

The grey fibers tore apart, screaming as they were ripped in half. Carriage Nine drifted backward, its wheels grinding against the dirt as it lost its connection to the engine. The faces of the passengers left in the rear window of the severed car flashed by—pale, horrified, and then gone, swallowed by the darkness of the gorge as the car derailed, crashing into the stone walls behind them.

Varkelion lay on the shaking deckplates, gasping for air, his right hand covered in soot and blood.

Mavrik crawled over to him, his face covered in black grease. "We did it. It’s gone. The drag is gone."

The train leveled out, the wheels slamming back onto the rails with a heavy, solid thud. The engine began to pick up speed again, free of the dead weight.

But Varkelion wasn't looking at the empty space behind them. He was looking at his hand.

The cut on his cheek was still bleeding, but the blood wasn't red. It was a dark, bruised purple, and beneath his skin, right along his jawline, a tiny, hard thread of grey metal was slowly beginning to pulse.

He looked up at Mavrik, his eyes filled with a sudden, icy dread.

"Mavrik," Varkelion whispered, his voice barely audible over the wind. "It didn't just take the car."

Before Mavrik could answer, the intercom speaker on the wall of Carriage Eight—the brass horn they used to communicate with the bridge—screeched to life.

But it wasn't the driver’s voice that came out.

It was a wet, rhythmic ticking sound, followed by a voice that sounded like a dozen different passengers speaking in perfect, chilling unison.

"We are still inside the fire," the speaker hissed.