Malorie(37)

“Who are you?”

The man laughs. It sounds like an old-world laugh. The kind she might’ve heard at a party.

“Dean Watts,” the man says. “The owner of this train. Though that word doesn’t have the same panache it once did, does it? How about…I’m the one who thought we ought to try using the big dead train after all.”

Malorie imagines a person as optimistic as Tom the man once was. Would he have done something like this? Had he lived to try?

“You’ve gotta be overwhelmed,” Dean says. “Everybody is the first time.”

“Have you had repeat riders?”

“Some. There’s a man who rode back and forth a dozen times. He—”

“How many times has this train run?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Dean says. “How about you follow me to the dining car. We sit down. I answer all your questions. Believe me, during the blind restoration of this thing, I spent enough time standing in the halls.”

“We’d like a private car if one is available.”

She hears Tom huff behind her. She knows he wants to meet people. She can only imagine how unfathomably cosmopolitan this man Dean’s voice and life must sound to her son.

“We do have one,” Dean says. “Several, actually. The train is ten cars long. There’s a dining car, two storage cars, six passenger cars, and two that are more or less delivery spaces. We get almost all our orders and requests via telegram.” He goes silent a second. “Did you know the world is using telegrams again?”

She can tell by the way he asked he knows she didn’t. Can he tell she wants to know what he’s delivering?

“And before you ask,” he says, “we deliver all sorts of things. Furniture. Blankets. Canned goods. Even the dead. To loved ones who have gotten word of their location.”

Malorie can’t process everything the man says. She has ten questions for each unfathomable statement he makes.

She thought she had some grasp on the new world. Then…a knock on a cabin door has delivered her a train, a telegram, and the names of her parents.

“Here’s the thing,” Dean says. “I want everyone who rides to be as comfortable as possible. It’s not like we’re making money here. There’s no such thing anymore. But I do care. You’ll just have to trust me that much.”

But Malorie doesn’t want anybody telling her who she’ll have to trust.

“A private car,” she says. “That’s all.”

“Might I ask what you’re on board for?”

The train rocks. It’s not going anywhere near as fast as the trains Malorie took in the old world. It feels more like she’s riding a bike. Yet, for someone who hasn’t even ridden a bike in sixteen years, the motion is alarming. She has questions. Should she ask them? It’s dangerous enough that she’s brought the teens this far. In fact, it’s downright insane. Now that’s she’s here, on board, swaying with the motion, listening to the whining wheels, facing a stranger in a hall she cannot see, a stranger who, she assumes, does not wear a fold, who looks directly at her, it’s not hard to count this as the single most unsafe thing she’s ever done.

There is no good or bad anymore.

Only safe or—

“Just a car,” she says again. “That’s all.”

Dean claps his hands together.

“Okay. I get it. Follow me and I’ll show you the first available one.”

“Is there one right here in this car?”

“No,” Dean says. “We’re standing in one of the storage cars. As glamorous as you can imagine. Come this way.”

He moves and she follows. She can feel the energy of the teens behind her as if they are bridled horses, waiting to be freed. Both, she knows, must be out of their heads with curiosity. Tom has tried, over time, to invent other modes of travel. At Camp Yadin he fashioned a wheelbarrow into something of a padded rolling chair. It strikes Malorie now that Tom’s silly invention feels safer to her than this giant, swaying machine.

Yet Dean does sound smart. This means something to her. And while smart does not beget safe, it’s better than the alternative.

“How can you be sure the tracks are clear?” she asks.

She thinks she can hear Dean smile.

Is she really on a train? Can this be?

“I’m telling you, let’s sit down in the dining car. There are so many exciting answers for all the questions you’re asking. I mean, think about it…” He stops walking, and Malorie nearly bumps into him when he speaks again. “Wait. I didn’t even ask your names yet.”

Malorie can almost feel the words crawling up the throats of her teens.

“I’m Jill,” she says first. “And this is John and Jamie.”

“How old are you, John?”

“He’s twenty.”

She thinks she hears something like a smile on Dean’s face again. He knows she’s lying. But she doesn’t care. She wants to get to a car. Close the door. Lock it.

Sam and Mary Walsh.

“And you, Jamie?” Dean asks.

“She’s twenty-one,” Malorie says.

“A great age. Any age is a good one in this world. It means you’ve survived.”