Chapter 7: Playing it Bogart

March 14th, 1995, 10:51 PM EST; Mile 369; 3 miles west of Johnstown, PA

Inside the compartment, it was noisy. Outside, the countryside flashed by in the dark, streetlights sometimes causing the shade to brighten. The clattering of the wheels over the tracks was a raucous din, while the car’s age- 45 years- and unbelievable mileage allowed some creaking and shuddering of the car’s ancient and abused structure. The cacophony included such things as the rooms door constantly rattling in its tracks, the toilet lid shuddering over big bumps, and the squeee squeee squeee of the old truck springs bouncing. Every so often, the lonesome warning wail of the F40PH’s caterwauling air horn added to the general clangor as the train hurtled through the night.

It almost goes without saying that George slept soundly in all this, facing the window of the compartment. His heavy breathing was augmented by his gentle snoring, as he lay content in dreamland. He truly looked contentedly asleep laying on the comfortable bed. His many years of riding trains had made him completely immune to all of this ruckus. It would take a lot to wake him up in this, a place he had spent many many nights sleeping soundly.

It should be no surprise, then, that he didn’t hear the gentle whizz of the undoing of a zipper, soft click of the latch opening on his door, the sounds of it sliding open in its old track, or the soft rustling of clothing. Nor did he hear the door slam shut less than a minute later and be re-locked. Not even the creak of the mattress, the air on his back, or the rustling of the sheets managed to bestir him from his peaceful slumber. He was out for the count.

A person had entered his room, and his bed. They cuddled their body up to his back and wrapped an arm around his chest. Already tired and contented by the warm presence of the loving person they held in their arms, the intruder quickly joined George in a deep slumber.

Jill had picked up the object off the floor about almost 20 minutes before. Masking-taped to it was a label reading “Roomette Key, Good Luck, Tiny.” She had no idea what Tiny was planning to do with her aunt and uncle, and, so long as they were out of her way for the moment, she didn’t particularly care. They had been showing a strident degree of apathy to her fate with Uncle Lance; she decided to show reciprocity. Goodbye!

And I say say ‘goodbye’ only as a matter of form! she had thought, what I really mead is good fucking riddance!

Jill had waited quite patiently for the Johnstown stop to make her move. In the confusion and general turmoil of the late night stop, the opportunity to sneak out of the lounge car unobserved by her aunt and uncle was presented to her. She had quickly run through the motionless cars, almost falling when the train jerked into motion just before she actually entered George’s sleeping car.

As she ran through the cars, she noticed that the sleeping car attendants were in their rooms and all of them seemed to not notice her, despite her running. She had a feeling that Tiny had suggested they not notice. Either that, or Uncle Dave had instructed them that this particular coach passenger was ok for access to the sleeping cars. It didn’t particularly matter which of the two it was, anyway.

One thing she did notice was that George was right. It was a hell of a lot easier to move through the car quickly than to be careful about it. The forward vector of motion more effectively cancelled out the side-to-side vectors the larger it became. When she got to his door she fumbled with the zipper and lock, sliding the door open and getting in as quickly as possible. She locked the door, finally feeling secure. She was safe now, locked away from them, and possibly not having to worry about Uncle Lance once they got to Chicago.

The space between the bed and the door was incredibly small; seemed to be barely more than half a foot. She eventually realized that the purpose of the curtain she had unzipped was to allow her to change with the door to the room open. With this deduction, she managed, pulling her shirt above her head, then undoing her fly and managing to shimmy out of the jeans.

She then noticed that George was completely naked. A mischievous little thought popped into her horny teenaged mind, augmented by her feelings of love and her equally strong feelings of lust.

I wonder how he’d react if he woke up next to me and I was completely naked? she idly speculated, but then suddenly, with a mischievous grin, it wasn’t so idle. This I gotta see!

And with that, she removed her light grey cotton sports bra, and her pink and blue flower patterned white cotton panties. As such, she was completely naked, her nubile teenaged body fully exposed, although George was asleep and couldn’t see it. She then climbed under the sheets and snuggled up to the person in whose hands she had placed her life. Somehow, having put her life in his hands, and holding on to him, she became comfortable, content, confident, and not at all nervous. She drifted off into a deep sleep.

March 14th, 1995, 11:05 PM EST; Mile 375; 9 miles west of Johnstown, PA

Two men, impeccably dressed in black suits with blue neck ties, sat by the side of the road, in an old- but pristinely kept- black Mercedes-Benz. The brights of the old German sedan were on, illuminating the forest on the other side of the Broadway. They had a scanner in their car, and they were scanning Conrail’s frequencies. The frequency display showed it rapidly switching through about 5 different American Association of Railroads radio frequencies.

The radio caught on to a frequency and squawked: “ ... Amtrak 41, end slow order, proceed on green, track one, you have the highball, over.” It paused again as it scanned, and then located another frequency, “Roger, Amtrak 41, end slow, proceeding green signal, track one, we have highball, over,” a second voice, Tiny’s, said, “Acknowledged, Amtrak 41, End slow, proceed track one green highball.”

“Finally,” the man in the tan MB-Tex driver’s seat said, “They must be two hours late!”

“Yeah,” said the man in the passenger’s seat, “No wonder they are killing this sucker.”

Suddenly, a bell began clanging, followed mere seconds later by alternating flashing lights. Gates started to descend, lights blinking, the bells clanging with them. The familiar lights and sounds of a protected grade crossing filled the night air, signaling the arrival of the mighty train.

Off in the distance, one of the men saw a bright light start to approach. Moments later, alternating ditch lights started flashing, creating an eerie lighting effect on the snowy ground in front of it as they alternated. The ditch light almost gave the impression that the train was pushing the world out of its way as it approached. The horn started its insistent bawling, the train belted out the sound of the morse code letter “G”, the required sequence for approaching an at grade crossing of the tracks. Long, Long, Short, Long; Long, Long, Short, Long!

As the train hurtled toward them, the ground began to shake and rumble, and they could feel it even through the comfortable, softly sprung and padded seats in the old Mercedes. It shook the ground enough that had the car’s engine been running, it would have dampened the vibrations of the diesel fueled power plant.

Its boxy F40PH came clearly into view, followed by two more. Baggage, dorm, coach, lounge, dining, Slumbercoach, and sleeping cars thundered past. The headlights and warning light’s gleamed off the stainless steal cars, the red, white, and blue stripes vividly streaking past. Snow and sand kicked up by its passage was clearly seen by the car’s bright headlamps. It was a relic, a train from another era, the time when more than half a dozen streamlined night trains went over these very tracks between Harrisburg and Chicago.

As quickly as it started, it was gone, the rear marker lights retreating into the horizon. It left the snow covered scene feeling empty and lonely; the Broadway Limited thundered on through the night, an irresistible force that would take an act of god to stop. Trains are nothing if not dramatic.

With that, the driver of the car turned his key, waited for a light to go off, and turned it some more. The clattering racket of a small Diesel engine starting up finally punctured the eerie silence that had come to fill the void once the train was out of earshot. With slow, practiced, and deliberate moves, the man shifted the car into first gear, did a tight U-turn, and the chugged back up the steep hill, struggling off into the night, the signature sound of an old Mercedes-Benz diesel trying to hill climb filling the air.

What had just held a large group of people and had roared with unimaginable force was now empty, and for a moment, it was completely silent. Then, void of all noise, the crickets started to chirp once more.

This would be the last grade crossing the train would pass for twenty miles.

March 14th, 1995, 11:11 PM EST; Mile 384; 18 miles west of Johnstown, PA

As they approached the planned point, Tiny walked up to the still drinking couple. He had been having second thoughts for a while, as what he was doing was ... morally ambiguous, perhaps. He only knew one side of the story, although some of the actions of those two passengers had started to fill in the blanks for the other side of the story rather convincingly. Looking at these disgusting excuses for people seemed to, once again, strengthen his resolve. He would almost derive pleasure out of this, if just to wipe that supercilious smile from Krista’s ugly and drunkenly slack face.

He walked up to the drunken couple’s table. They were carousing noisily and talking about how they were going to be free of the ugly little stupid girl once they got to Chicago. It was an obnoxious conversation to be having in public, even when this drunk. The girl had seemed very sweet and decent to him. The subject matter of their discussion raised his heckles. All second thoughts vanished from his mind.

“I’m sorry folks,” Tiny said evenly and with deathly calm, “but you’re clearly drunk. I’m going to have to cut you off for tonight. Why don’t you go back to your seats now, and leave the other patrons of the car in peace?”

“YOU PIETH O’ SHITH NIFFER!” roared Justin, “I AM NAW FUFFING DRUNF, ITH YOU WEREN A DUM NIFFER YOU COULD FUFFIN-”

“If you don’t shut up, you are going to be put off this train in Greens-” Tiny started, smiling inwardly. So far, So good.