Fantastic Trains Read online

  She waited patiently, enjoying the vibration of the train through the soles of her shoes.

  Suddenly the scene through the window changed to the now familiar glimpse of history. She looked at the walls in surprise. They remained the same. So did the floor. She delicately pressed one foot to it. Firm. Even the toilet looked exactly the same. Why did Harvey say she wouldn’t like the restrooms in 1945?

  Too late, she thought of the window; it was awfully small, but it was private. Isabelle pushed on the latch with all her might, the metal groaning. Finally unlatched, she pushed up on the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. Layers of thick paint cemented it in place. She furiously dug through her purse, grabbing a nail file. She hacked and sliced at the paint, strips of it tearing off at a time. She gasped when she saw fog trailing in front of the window.

  Isabelle sat down on the floor and cried. She felt so lonely. Would it be so much to ask to have someone close to her? Someone to hold her when she cried? To feel like she belonged?

  Banging on the door roused her. Someone twisted on the handle, yanking on the sturdy metal.

  “I know you’re in there, lady! Everyone else has exited.”

  Harvey. Isabelle ignored him, hoping if she stayed perfectly silent, he’d go away.

  “I’m not going away either. Don’t make me break this door down.”

  She sighed, standing up, and unlocked the door. She tried her best to look dignified, but she must have looked a mess. Harvey’s face softened when he saw her; she saw a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes before his jaw tightened.

  “Listen, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m running a business, and I can’t have people misbehaving or trying to disappear. You can’t come on the train anymore.”

  Isabelle felt conflicted. She certainly didn’t want to hurt someone’s business…

  But it sounded like Harvey had implied that it might just be possible to disappear.

  —— «» ——

  She tried to do the right thing. She really did. But all she could think about was 1945. The woman at the harbor who looked like her mom. The well-behaved kids running around the parks. She’d spent so many years giving everything to her mom, and her life had only gotten narrower, more limited in the last three years as her mom’s dementia took over. She had no life or family of her own, only regrets. She’d rarely found the time to date and, if she was completely honest with herself, men hadn’t exactly lined up to ask her. None of her relationships had ever even been serious enough to talk about kids.

  That was what brought her to the train station in the dead of the night, a crowbar and lock cutters in hand. In the dark, the train looked menacing. The hard, cold steel mingled with the shadows, creating a snake of darkness; she had to squint to find the steps up and to count the cars. It was nothing like the gleaming, gorgeous train of daylight hours.

  Isabelle found the last car and hoisted herself up onto the stairs. The pocket door looked like it sealed entirely — maybe with some sort of internal latch. There was no padlock and no window to lever. She peered into the darkness but could only see the vaguest of shapes. She stood there for a moment hoisting the crowbar, but ultimately couldn’t bring herself to break a window on the majestic train. She hopped down and made her way to the next car. Same result.

  She stood there, looking at the train and knowing there had to be an easier place to get on. She put one hand on the side of the train and started counting. When she reached the cars they used for passengers, she pulled herself up to the platform again. It was the same pocket door — maybe a bit more used — but still inaccessible.

  She had one more place to try before she gave in and broke a window.

  She made her way up to the caboose. A single step hugged the bottom of the door — clearly something the professionals used, not the passengers. She put her tools in her bag, strapped it across her body, and jumped for the train.

  Isabelle cracked her face against a hard piece of metal alongside the door, but she managed to wrap the fingers of her right hand around something tubular. Her right shoulder screamed in protest and her feet thrashed as she struggled to find purchase. Finally, her left foot found a scrap of metal and she took a bit of the weight off her shoulder.

  For the first time, she wished she’d brought a flashlight, though it was probably best that she hadn’t. She’d die before she spent the next few years locked in a jail for breaking and entering.

  She pulled herself up to the single step, squeezing both feet onto the metal platform, and there it was, the only item shining in the dark, the hint of silver making it easy to pick out. The padlock appeared to be attached to a hand-built hasp, and Isabelle was sure the original lock had been more elegant — probably with a beautifully wrought cast iron key. She pulled out the lock cutters she’d bought that morning and positioned them on the lock. She pushed the handles with all her might and the snick of the blades cutting through the metal echoed in the night.

  She held herself still for a long minute. Her heartbeat sounded like a drum, and she was sure that someone would have heard her by now.

  Finally, she moved, allowing her spine to relax. She took the two pieces of the lock and threw them as hard as she could into the adjacent trees. A broken lock would mean an intruder, but she hoped a missing lock might be chalked up to forgetfulness.

  She pulled open the door and entered the caboose.

  —— «» ——

  Isabelle couldn’t help herself. She spent a minute in the caboose, checking out the equipment and peering out the front window. Amongst the equipment she found a flashlight. She debated for a moment before taking it — she’d already broken into the train. She promised herself she’d leave it behind.

  The first three cars were passenger cars, identical to what she’d traveled in previously. The fourth car was a canteen; Isabelle wondered why Harvey didn’t have it open on their journeys to the past. She looked behind the register and saw bags of chips and pretzels, gum, and candy bars. Even wooden train whistles were available for sale.

  Junk filled the fifth car. Broken machinery, engine parts, tools, a mechanic’s bench, and lots of extra coal. She spied a small cot in the back of the cart, coated in oil but soft looking.

  Isabelle felt shocked when she saw what the sixth car held. A vast number of square shapes covered in sheets filled the space. A walkway was just barely visible down the center of the car. She pulled off one sheet to find an antique china cabinet. Another sheet hid a plain trunk. When she opened it, she found stacks of old stock certificates — Wells Fargo from the 1800s, Ford from 1956, even a brittle piece of paper stamped East India Company. Under a third sheet she found an old table with a suitcase on top of it. The suitcase held a uniform from the Civil War. All the items were antique … and valuable. She re-covered them, her heart pounding. She didn’t want to get involved in whatever was going on here.

  It might be perfectly legitimate — purchasing, storing and transporting antiques. But her heart told her the items must come from the past. Her palms felt moist; her body trembled. A new start was just a train ride away.

  Isabelle was tiptoeing toward car seven when she heard the noise. Hump-phhh. Hump-phhh. She held her breath and listened. The rhythmic sound went in and out. She wondered if it might be some sort of machinery, but that didn’t make any sense. She gasped and took a step back when she figured it out. Someone slept on this train.

  She’d started with the seventh car when she tried breaking in, reasoning that it would be less obvious since it wasn’t used every day. If she had been successful… She wondered if it was Harvey, another employee, or a vagabond like her.

  She took a step closer and peered in. The interesting shapes she’d seen from outside were gone and it took her a moment to realize a curtain covered the window. Definitely living quarters then and not a vagabond.

  Isabelle quietly traveled back to the fifth
car. She pulled the cot behind a large bench full of equipment, put a pair of clean overalls on top of the oily mattress and laid down.

  —— «» ——

  When she woke, the train was alive. People in vests and engineer hats shouted to each other down the length of the train. She heard footsteps coming her way, followed by a yell.

  “Come on, Jim. Hop to. I need that coal. What did I hire you for?”

  A man stopped on the other side of the bench, his dirty brown hair curling out from under his hat. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

  “Coal. Got to get the coal,” he muttered to himself, throwing bag after bag of coal onto a hand truck. Isabelle willed her body to shrink and to remain perfectly still. She held her breath, her lungs beginning to burn and her head to spin.

  Finally, Jim was gone. Isabelle got up and removed the evidence of her night on the cot. She looked at her watch. She had an hour until the train departed for 1945.

  She walked carefully through the car, gently trying every window she came to. They were all painted shut. She took a screwdriver from the bench and ran it along the seams of one, trying the window again. She couldn’t get it loose.

  Isabelle peered down the row of cars, looking for Harvey. If he followed his normal pattern, he should be in the square selling tickets right now.

  She crept down the aisle, finally arriving at the door to car seven. She tried the handle. Locked. She took off her sweater and wrapped the crowbar in it. She looked down the aisle, saw nobody, and bashed the crowbar against the doorknob. The muffled noise sounded incredibly loud to her, but nobody came to investigate. The knob hung limply against the door. She entered a room unlike any she had ever seen.

  A huge four-post bed draped in gold dominated the space, but there was still room for an antique chest of drawers, framed artwork, and a writing desk from what must have been the 1700s. Hanging over the desk was a death mask from ancient Egypt she would swear looked authentic. The room overflowed with treasures.

  She took another look at her watch and moved to the windows. They opened and closed with relative ease. She smiled for the first time in weeks. This would be how she made her escape.

  She returned to car six and closed the door to Harvey’s car. She positioned the knob the best she could. With any luck, he wouldn’t return to his room between selling tickets and the train ride.

  —— «» ——

  The train would depart in ten minutes and Isabelle was twitchy.

  Just a minute ago, Harvey had come barreling down the aisle with something dark and heavy in his hand as he headed for his room. He’d only been stopped by the walkie talkie at his belt.

  “Four more coming in from the station, boss.”

  “Damn it. Fine. I’m on my way.” He took the item he held and shoved it under a sheet. He rushed back down the aisle.

  Isabelle had made up her mind. She had to look. Something about the shape and sound of the object when he set it down seemed too familiar. She just had to work up her courage.

  She crept over to the table and raised the sheet. Laying on top of the antique table was a gun, tucked into a holster with a heavy belt coiled around it. She stared at the item, afraid to touch it but afraid to leave it too. Finally, she grabbed the gun, dropping the sheet back in place. She had no idea if it was an antique or new.

  She didn’t want to take it, but also didn’t want it accessible while she tried to escape. She tucked the gun into the suitcase with the Civil War uniform.

  The train began to hum under her feet as the engine built up a head of steam.

  The five minutes before she heard the telltale “all aboard” from outside seemed never-ending. She knew Harvey would go straight to the microphone. She should be safe.

  Finally, the train began moving. Isabelle couldn’t hear Harvey’s announcement from this distance and couldn’t miss the transition. She needed all the time she could get. She glanced rapidly back and forth between the aisle — looking for danger — and the window — looking for the telltale fog.

  When they passed through the gray fog, she made her move. She grabbed her bag and rushed to the door of Harvey’s chambers. She got the door open and headed in, closing it behind her. The broken knob fell to the ground, clanging loudly.

  She held her breath for a moment, reasoning it wouldn’t be heard five cars away. What she hadn’t counted on was the straight sight lines on a train.

  Harvey saw her enter his chamber and boiled over with rage. He threw the microphone down without a word, the feedback causing a loud squeal. He took off at a run down the aisle.

  In the sixth car, he slid his hand under a sheet, reaching for his new gun. He was outraged to realize it was missing. He threw open the door to his chamber and saw her at the window.

  Isabelle struggled to open the window. The motion of the train made it more difficult, and she cursed herself for closing it earlier.

  “Stop!” The loud roar made her jump. She spun around to see Harvey standing in the doorway.

  She turned back to the window, earnestly tugging at the metal frame. It inched up but it wasn’t enough. Harvey was there. He swung a bat at her, and she noticed vaguely that it was covered with signatures. It connected with her left shoulder, and pain shot up and down her arm.

  She reached into her bag for the crowbar and pulled it out. He stopped for a moment, surprise on his face, and she swung with all her might. She connected with the side of his head and time stopped for a heartbeat, before he crumpled to the ground. Isabelle turned around and smashed the window with the crowbar, desperate to escape into the past before the wormhole closed and they returned to 1985.

  She put one leg over the sill and then the other. She jumped.

  —— «» ——

  Harvey came to a minute later. He could feel a pounding in his head, and worse, he saw the broken window and knew what it meant.

  Boots pounded down the aisle and moments later two of his staff were there. He waved them away.

  Harvey looked out the window with regret, watching the troublemaker push through the crowd. She’d ruined a great setup for him.

  He sighed and took a notepad out of his pocket. He flipped to the third page. Every line except one was crossed off. It said “1945.” He took out a pen and drew a thick black line through the date.

  —— «» ——

  Isabelle had made it! She was in 1945. She struggled through the crowd, eager to get to the harbor or at least to get out of sight of the train. When she worked up the courage to turn around, the train was gone.

  She reached the edge of the harbor and saw the woman with the pram and the hair of spun gold. She fingered the locket at her throat as she got closer. The woman’s profile came into fine focus and Isabelle’s heart beat faster.

  She thought about all the proof in her purse. The photo albums, the death certificate, the holiday photos that didn’t include Richard Maxwell. If this was her, did she stand a chance of convincing her to truly live?

  She approached, her heart in her hand. The woman looked up.

  Isabelle swallowed.

  “Mom?”

  —— « o » ——

  Rachel Leidenfrost

  Rachel Leidenfrost writes fantasy and science fiction stories for both adults and children. An avid reader, she’s inspired by classic and contemporary works as well as the quirky and unusual. By day she is a marketing and communications executive, by night an author; this is her third published short story. Follow her on Twitter. (@RLeidenfrost)

  Steampunks needed to make steam boiler survival soup

  A little recognized use of steam power is its use for cooking, especially in times of famine.

  Learning to cook with a pressurized steam vessel (aka a pressure cooker) is one of the most important skills a survivalist can ever learn. With a pressure cooker, gathered and scavenged food sources
can be made edible, palatable and safe. You can use the pressure vessel to preserve food by canning. Under intense steam pressure harmful bacteria and viruses are killed. Not only is the food sterilized but so is the liquid, during a time when clean water can be scarce.

  The survival benefits of cooking with pressurized steam are so valuable that during the Great Depression, the US government encouraged its use. Steam cooking and canning schools were sponsored by the Civilian Conservation Corps. These schools demonstrated cooking and canning techniques. Steam pressure cooking was credited with saving thousands from starving during the Great Depression.

  The greatest example of utilizing steam pressure vessel cooking for survival can be found in the history of WWII. During the height of the war much of Holland was engulfed in famine when the occupying Nazi army implemented a food embargo on the rebellious Dutch people.

  To the rescue came stationary steam boiler engineers, who converted their stationary steam heating boilers into massive pressure cookers. With the help of citizens who scavenged, gathered and hunted every possible food source, the engineers produced what was called “survival soup”. After being cooked and sterilized, it would be transported in milk cans and barrels by trucks that had been converted from petrol to wood burning steam power, to soup kitchens across the Dutch nation.

  Popular ingredients in the survival soup were tulip bulbs, songbirds, beets and rodents. It would contain rawhide and animal-based wallpaper glue as well. Under a policy of “don’t ask, just eat,” millions of people avoided mass starvation.

  Hopefully, for the sake of survival, your steam mechanic skills will never vanish. You steampunks could be the saviors of the future.