Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

From a distance, the city looked frozen into a snapshot. The clusters of buildings grew thicker on the sharp hillsides. Squinting through the locomotive’s soot-smeared front windows, Todd could see crowds emerging from houses to stand in the streets. They squinted toward the railroad tracks as the steam engine puffed clouds into the sky. Some people ran up to the tracks and threw rocks at them, others tried to follow.

Casey Jones, standing at the engineer’s station, reveled in their reception. He hung his dark, meaty arm out the window and waved. Some waved back; many just stared. A few stones ricocheted off the metal casing. Rex O’Keefe raised his wine-filled mug in a toast at the crowd.

Uncertainty gnawed at Todd. They had barely reached the fringes of the sprawling city, yet already they saw vastly more people than had arrived to greet the train in Bakersfield. What if the mob surrounded them and rocked the train off its rails?

The dining car was stuffed with crates of food and produce, but even that much wouldn’t last a day here. It wouldn’t feed a fraction of these people, and every face held a ghost of hunger behind the eyes. Did Casey really think they could just stop the train, distribute the food in an orderly manner, and wait for the grateful men and women to bring them items for trade?

“Okay, Casey Jones,” Todd shouted into the din of the pumping locomotive, “what’s your plan?”

But the engineer just grinned at him and continued looking out at the people. Rex O’Keefe and the Gambotti brothers sat on top of the passenger car and watched as they drank their wine.

In the stillness of a city without traffic, the sound of Steam Roller carried for miles. People lined up on the embankment to watch the train roll by, but Casey continued, pushing ahead until the outlying residential areas dwindled again, and they approached a dirtier industrial section of the city. Going still slower, the train pushed aside debris and wrecks of old cars piled up on the tracks.

Todd looked up. The sky was crystal blue and clear. He could see for miles. “I’ll bet the air of Los Angeles hasn’t been this clean in over a century!” he said. “I guess the petroplague can’t be all that bad.”

Near Pasadena they passed ugly abandoned gravel quarries with mounds of crushed rock and dirt eroding away. Tall metal chutes and rock conveyors stood like pieces from a giant erector set beside hulking dump trucks. The San Gabriel mountains rose sharp and monolithic behind them, grayish with summer.

Steam Roller approached a cluster of warehouses, sheet-metal factories, and industrial-park buildings about the size of airplane hangers—many of which stood black and gutted from recent fires. Delivery spurs split from the main railway line like spiderwebs between the large buildings.

Casey slowed the locomotive as they started into the warehouse complex. Todd saw tongues of brownish-black smoke curling into the air ahead. It make him uneasy; things seemed too quiet….

They rounded a curve and saw three wrecked cars on the railroad tracks. Beneath the hulks blazed a bonfire of scrap wood.

“Whoa boy!” Todd screamed. He reached to pull the emergency brake but grabbed the pull cord for the steam whistle instead, which let out a shriek loud enough to rattle the empty buildings.

Casey Jones bellowed and hauled back on the emergency brake lever. The driving wheels of the locomotive locked. Sparks flew from the metal rails as the Steam Roller tried to swallow its momentum in only a few feet. Rex O’Keefe yelped from the rear.

Todd lost his balance and slammed into the hot front plate of the boiler. He felt his skin sizzle, and he scrambled backward, wincing with pain.

Casey squeezed his eyes shut as if in silent prayer as he threw his weight behind the brake. The wheels made a groaning sound. The boxcars behind the train crunched as they tried to stop, but the locomotive slammed like a cannonball into the wrecked automobiles.

One of the hulks, a red Volvo, was tossed into the air and fell back on its roof. The other two cars tangled in the Steam Roller’s cowcatcher. One rode up to smash the front window of the engineer’s cab. Chunks of burning wood scattered in all directions like embers caught in a draft.

The boiler hissed as Casey Jones swung down from the engineer’s cab and worked his way through the wreckage to see what damage the automobiles had done.

Todd hand throbbed from where he had burned it on the furnace door. He shook his hand, then sucked on the dirty ball of his left thumb where the burn was worst.

The large industrial park was silent, even more so than the rest of the world. A few seagulls spiraled over two of the largest warehouses—

An arrow clattered against the window of the engineer’s compartment right next to Todd’s head.

“What?” He turned and saw four men dressed in dark jackets and torn jeans. They emerged from the abandoned boxcars scattered around the railyard. One clambered to the top of a old Soo Line boxcar to get a better shot.

They fired with makeshift bows using steel-tipped arrows. Another arrow struck the side of the locomotive. For an instant Todd was too confused to move, unable to believe he was standing in a 19th century steam train being shot at by arrows… in downtown LA!

Casey Jones seemed unaware of the danger as he strode toward the train. Todd shouted, “Casey!” as one of the arrows struck Casey in the back, sticking into his shoulder blade. Casey reached behind him to swat the arrow away. The sharp tip had sliced his skin, but it didn’t sink deep. Blood began to flow down his back.

Other gang members sprinted from the warehouses on their left, all charging toward the trapped train. Todd looked at the controls. The steam was still up, simmering in the boiler.

In the engineer cab, Todd pulled back on the gear-shift lever, heaving with both arms to shift the locomotive into full reverse, his hands afire with pain. The four driving wheels spun as the connecting rod rammed back and forth to build momentum in the stopped four-car train.

The locomotive shuddered. Steam poured out of the stack, mixed with black smoke. The train jerked as it fell back a few inches along the tracks. The two auto hulks tangled in the cowcatcher groaned and scraped. Roberto Gambotti yelped as he fell from the train.

Roberto’s brother yelled angrily to Todd. “Hey, you asshole! See what you did?” He jumped out to help.

The gang members ran closer. The Steam Roller ’s driving wheels spun slowly, laboriously. The train inched backward. Todd could see other attackers with knives, metal pipes, spears. He ignored his burned hand and yelled. “Casey, get your butt in here!”

The big man clambered back into the engineer’s compartment, but they could both see that the locomotive would never gain speed fast enough to take them to safety. “Quick—in the back.”

Todd gingerly opened the back of the engineer’s cab and slid through to the dining car. Gang members reached the train and began swarming over it, smashing windows with their clubs. Up front, others scrambled onto the moving locomotive. The gang members reached the rear cars.

Todd opened a window on the opposite side of the dining car. He looked at the bleeding wound on Casey’s back. “Is it bad?”

“I’m okay,” said Casey, but the words seemed to require an effort.

“Go!” said Todd. He pushed Casey toward the window. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

Casey clambered out and fell to his knees from the moving train; Todd landed beside him, but kept his balance. He spotted Rex O’Keefe running back along the tracks, coffee cup still dangling from his fingers. They started to follow Rex, but were cut off as three gang members jumped from the train.