Malorie(34)

Reason.

The word sounds wholly out of place here. Reason in a world gone mad. A world gone dark. A world where she could conceivably be passing her mom and dad right now, the two of them quiet for the sound of three people running toward them, the two of them still working their way downstate, the two of them looking for her.

It’s not a train, Malorie thinks. Because it can’t be. Because the idling engine of a train doesn’t go quiet, then rise again. It doesn’t sound exactly like this. And because it would be too unfathomably good for her if it is there.

If there’s one thing Malorie hasn’t had, it’s breaks.

Has anyone?

But she moves toward it still. Nearly running now.

Both teens are ahead; Olympia calls out the dips in the road, Tom says they have less than a mile to go. Malorie’s legs scream. Her chest is too hot. Her head is swelling with memories. Mom and Dad taking her and Shannon to the zoo. How the sisters followed the painted elephant prints to where the brilliant leviathan stood in a large enclosure, but nowhere near big enough. How Dad picked Malorie up and told her he wished he could sneak the animal out of the park, put it under his coat, walk it all the way back to Africa. Malorie remembers laughing at this, then understanding what he meant, then understanding that her dad was a nice man. She remembers Mom, at a store, standing in line to buy the sisters jeans. How the woman in front of them was two dollars short. How Mom gave her those two dollars.

Oh, how Malorie wants to see these two people again. The yearning has conquered her body. The hope, the rush, the possibility…

But she won’t let herself do this, won’t let herself commit. It might not be a train at all.

And even if it is…who drives it?

“Come on!” Tom calls excitedly. Malorie hears him nearly fall over and regain his balance. She feels Olympia’s hand at her elbow.

“Come on!” Tom yells again. And he sounds sixteen. So does Olympia. Two teenagers living, right now, a memory, a thing they will never forget, Malorie knows; she has memories of her own. Mom and Dad laughing with the neighbors at the kitchen table. Dad wearing a funny wig on Halloween. Mom stringing lights up on the roof in December.

She thinks, suddenly, of Ron Handy. How the man must be thinking of his sister, now, pining to touch her hand again, hurting to hear her voice.

“It might not—” Malorie starts, short of breath. “It might not even be—” She can hardly get the words out. “It might not even be a train!”

On cue, a whistle blows.

It shatters Malorie’s personal darkness, the black sky split up the middle by a cloud of white metallic steam, billowing with the force of a bona fide train.

Oh my God, she thinks. Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

And she’s running, her mind wild, fresh colors in the dark, one the color of belief.

It’s a train after all. There’s no doubting that now.

“COME ON!”

Did she yell it? Was it Tom? No, Olympia. Olympia is leading again. She’s calling out what to watch for. Like she’s a cat, able to react faster to the drops and curves than Malorie ever will be able to again. And it’s working. Branches strike her arm, and her knees almost give out as the road begins to unspool downhill, but Malorie is running, no longer simply moving, running to a blind train, a train that heads north, to where her parents have been listed as survivors.

The sun is hot and still high and because the road is downhill, she can hear the engine idling, much louder than it was before. She can see the image, as if the whole insane scenario is a Norman Rockwell painting; creamy white steam rising from the head of a black train, its wheels shimmering in the summer sun. She imagines men and women with parasols on the platform, engineers and ushers taking tickets, children afraid to board, pets tight on leashes, bags and cases, shoes on creaking boards, the tracks leading off into the future, north, like a secret door to Mom and Dad.

Sam and Mary Walsh.

Malorie falls.

She bangs her knee hard on the road and realizes it’s not soft dirt anymore, it’s packed, possibly pavement. She’s hot beneath the hoodie and gloves, sweating behind the blindfold. And it strikes her, as she’s getting back up, as Olympia’s hands settle on her shoulders, that the reality of the moment is nothing like a fabled painting of the old world. The train doesn’t glisten, it sits, most likely rusted out in parts, probably dangerously wired for electricity. There’s no way the machine has passed any safety codes, this much she knows. The windows must be painted black, and it’s easy to imagine that paint dripping down the sides of the train’s body, reaching the giant wheels. She would bet money there are boards missing, spaces along the twin tracks that lead north, yes, but not the north it used to be. Here, the train will ride into blackness, all its passengers blindfolded, even the engineer unable to look outside. And what would he see if he did? There are no families saying goodbye, no pets to be sure. And the luggage the passengers take with them are only bags stuffed with canned goods and batteries, extra shoes and black cloth.

Who else would ride a train like this? And why?

Malorie is up, moving again, her knee be damned. The idea of the train leaving now, before they get there, is almost too cruel to comprehend. How long would they have to call this area home, waiting for it to return?

“We’re so close,” Tom says.

And Malorie knows they are. Her son’s voice is nearly inaudible among the roar of the big engine. She imagines Tom sucked up into a new world, where industry reigns once again, where jobs are wanted, workers needed, professions opening onto infinite paths, journeys her teens might’ve taken two decades ago.