Fantastic Trains Page 9

  After school, her grandfather met her in the entryway. She could tell something had upset him. His eyes, normally so calm and passive, darted inside the thin cover of their lids, as if searching the house for latent signs of danger.

  “Are you ready to talk?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Follow me.”

  He led her outside. As they passed through their neighborhood, it bothered her how complacent everything appeared. Children gamboled through the streets, and adults worked in garages, or managed the chaos of their front lawns. She couldn’t find a trace of wayward shadow or a crack in reality’s veneer, just a bright, suburban stretch that knew its limits, and didn’t as much as creep an inch out of place. It wasn’t right, wasn’t fair. A devil had violated her sense of what was normal, and now nothing had a right to feel sane.

  Once they reached the corner park, they found an isolated bench and sat. The stifling heat made her armpits damp and her face drip with sweat, but she didn’t care, barely noticed.

  “A long-dead friend visited me last night,” he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “I could hear him calling through my window. ‘Come outside Esidro. Let’s talk beneath the stars like we used to.’ Judging by your screams, I take it someone visited you as well?”

  She nodded.

  “Which means he has come back.”

  She nodded again.

  “I thought he’d forgotten about me. I’m sorry, Maja. I didn’t mean to get you involved.”

  “But why? What did you do to make him hate you so much?”

  He humphed, hands turning purple from the strain of his clenching fingers.

  “You say that like this is one of your books or movies. As if I’d robbed a grave or broke a Bulul statue and am now being punished for my sins.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, brushing his arm. “I didn’t mean to blame you. But what did happen, Grandpa? I need to know.”

  His apprehension made him stiffen. The momentary flexing of his muscles filled his sagging clothes so that he seemed much younger, much stronger than before. But he sighed, shrunk down again, as if the burden of her question or the memories it summoned had deflated him, aging him back into himself.

  “I’ll tell you what I can remember.”

  —— «» ——

  This was after the initial blitz, when Japanese war planes ripped into our cities, killing many of my friends and family, including my mother. It was after invasion forces landed on our shores and the evacuation of our cities and towns to the hope of someplace safer. It was also after the Bataan Death March where ten thousand prisoners of war, including my father, were killed during a sixty-mile trek into captivity.

  I was a teenager, not yet a man, when my little sister and I returned home to meet the inevitability of an occupation. We quickly learned to live with our enemies, adapting to their rules, their curfews, their violence. To be honest, it wasn’t hard. To disobey meant death. We wanted to live so we simply didn’t disobey.

  Beyond that, the Japanese fully intended to turn the Philippines into a proper possession. They made allowances, to keep the civil peace. During that time, they let us grow gardens, clear roads, and repair damaged buildings. Weekly swap meets were instituted where we could trade for food and clothes. They even let us gather and play games, albeit under their unwavering vigilance.

  My friends and I never cared for sports. Instead, we took the opportunity to smoke cigars, mostly the ones left in my father’s private collection. The four of us would meet by the edge of town. There we would speak nonsense, tell stories, or make crude jokes that only young boys would find amusing.

  The Japanese didn’t care what we did so long as we didn’t appear to be colluding. We also shared cigars with them from time to time, a goodwill gesture meant to win us more freedom. Because of this, we thought nothing when a stranger appeared in our midst, asking if he could have a cigar. A wide-brimmed straw hat threw a deep shadow across his face. We assumed from his strange accent that he was a Japanese soldier, though he didn’t wear a uniform or carry a gun.

  From that day forward, he visited every time we met. He never showed his face and never spoke, only puffed on his cigar and listened. Were it up to me, we would have put up with his unwelcome presence for as long as it lasted. We were nobodies, meant nothing, and it wouldn’t have taken much for someone to convince the men in charge to shoot us. But Lorenzo, the boldest of my friends, soon grew annoyed by the stranger’s constant beggaring.

  “We don’t have any more cigars to give. Maybe you can ask your Japanese friends if they will share their cigarettes.”

  The stranger shook his head. “No. I only want Filipino leaf, not that Japanese poison.”

  “I’m sorry. What little we have is ours.”

  Lorenzo turned his back on him. The rest of us began to do the same when the stranger made a noise, something like a growl. He snatched his hat from off his head, and for the first time we saw what was hiding beneath the shadow of the brim. His face was smooth and white. Though he had no eyes, he tracked us all the same, sneering from a little crumpled hole that passed for a mouth. We were wrong before. He wasn’t Japanese, Filipino, or even a man. He was a devil.

  “You think war is hell?” the devil said. “This is only a taste of what is waiting on the other side.” He put his hat on, this time turning his back on us. “We’ll meet again, when the time is right. Maybe then you will realize a cigar is a small price to pay for my good favor.”

  He left. We were too stunned to speak, to make sense of what we’d seen or heard, so we left too, each to our separate houses. The devil’s words began to work their evil magic that very night. We discovered Lorenzo the next day, lying by his front door with his throat slit. Soon after, the Japanese took my friend Manual and his family, and beheaded them for suspicions of collaborating with the resistance. Lastly, an officer shot Aurelio because “he didn’t bow to a superior like he was supposed to.”

  Once soldiers kidnapped my sister and forced her to work as a prostitute in a comfort station, I had no reason left to stay. Home wasn’t home without my friends and family. I waited for the cover of darkness, gathered as much as I could cram into my pockets, and fled into the jungle. Eventually, I was found and taken in by a Filipino guerrilla unit.

  The war truly started for me right then. I had no time to worry about devils or curses any longer. For a time, I even managed to convince myself that he was a figment of my imagination, created to explain all the pain and death and suffering around me. But I heard stories — on long days waiting for the raids at night, or long nights waiting for sleep to find me — and they were always the same: refuse to give the devil-man a smoke and he’ll drag you down to hell.

  When General MacArthur returned and helped liberate the Philippines, I left my country behind, thinking I could escape my curse by hiding far away. It seemed to work. Despite bad dreams and omens, the passing years made the devil’s words feel like empty threats. But I was wrong again; there is no escape. The Devil Man has found me, and he won’t stop until he has collected my body and soul, just like my friends before me.

  —— «» ——

  Dinner was a solemn hour. Maja’s fear inhabited the house like a living thing, its presence filling up the rooms, threatening to suck the air right out of them. Every so often, an unexpected noise presented itself — the yowling of a cat or the scuffling of a branch against the windowpane — and she would tense, waiting for the intrusion to succumb to the greater pull of silence. Esidro was of a different mind. He eventually flipped on the TV and watched a sitcom while they ate, his rasping titters dwarfed by a chorus of the show’s canned laughter.

  Maja was astonished by the pretense of his composure. With sunlight fading, it wouldn’t be long before shadows spawned and broke into the silhouettes of dead men and a monster. The first time had been a warning, me
ant to frighten them — of that, she had no doubt. So, what would happen the next time the Devil Man appeared?

  She pushed food into her mouth, let the scrap roll across her tongue. It was the only thing she could do to keep herself from crying.

  —— «» ——

  The goodnights Maja traded with her grandfather felt more like goodbyes. Before he closed his door, he begged her to stay inside the house, to promise that she wouldn’t interfere no matter what she saw and heard. She promised, but she regretted her decision as soon as she cut her bedroom lights.

  Her only option now was to stay awake, to support her grandfather with nothing but good thoughts and best wishes. A sense of disconnect pervaded her while she lay in bed, as if she were in two places at once, the real her watching with frustration from the corner of the room.

  She tried to pass the time by praying. But as her vigil lurched into the dark of morning hours, Heaven’s only answer was a stubborn disregard. She fell asleep still muttering at her ceiling and the vast expanse of stars she imagined far above it.

  She only snapped awake again when the front door groaned and the wall shuddered at its closing.

  “Oh God,” she said, throwing herself from the bed.

  Through the window, she saw her grandfather standing in the modest strip of their front yard, still wearing a long, white t-shirt and jeans. He stuffed something into the waistband at the small of his back that she couldn’t see in that insufficient light. The world faltered. In the stillness that followed, the black train appeared, a blur gliding through the muted streets, the vagueness of its details clarifying with every forward thrust. Once it eased onto the outer edge of their property, the Devil Man descended from the engine.

  “Esidro,” he said, arms held wide as if intending to embrace him. “I thought I’d find you hiding beneath your covers or cowering behind your granddaughter again. I thought it’d take at least a dozen more visits before you met me face to face. But here you are, the very second I arrive. Could it be you missed me as much as I missed you?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” said Esidro. “I’m not here to make friends, but to end this.”

  “I agree. The time is finally right. Take your place inside my train, among your friends, and this will finally be over.”

  Esidro humphed. “It won’t be that easy. First agree to leave my granddaughter alone. Promise me you won’t hurt her or let her come to harm and maybe I’ll go with you.”

  The Devil Man laughed. “Don’t forget your place, old man. I came out of respect for our history together, but if I had wanted to, I could have coaxed someone to cut your neck while you slept, or a drunk to take a detour through your bedroom wall. Your choice isn’t if you’ll come, but when.”

  He motioned, a subtle nod in Maja’s direction.

  Maja heard a noise behind her, like the parting of wet lips, and swiveled around to find the dead men standing in her bedroom. At first they stared, inanimate like statues, like a company of marionettes left slumped against their strings. But then they twitched, energized, imbued with life.

  “Grandpa!”

  Despite the swollen volume of her scream, she could still hear the Devil Man’s gloating.

  “Your friends are meeting your granddaughter. Better hurry. It won’t be long before they rip her apart.”

  The dead men trudged forward in synchronous strides. Maja threw herself against the window screen, knocking it loose. But with a sudden burst of speed, they encircled her, seizing her in the meat shackles of their hands. She snarled in savage fury, twisted to free herself from fingers pressing purple bruises into her skin.

  “Grandpa, help!”

  “Board the train,” said the Devil Man, “and I promise this will all be over.”

  “No!” Esidro shouted.

  He reached into the waistband at the small of his back and pulled the hidden object out. It was a pistol, its blue steel finish reflecting specks and streaks of light. With his hands wrapped around its grip, he let his eyes drift along the barrel and fired twice at the Devil Man.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” the Devil Man said, shaking his head. “Fifty years and this is the best you could come up with? You can’t kill what doesn’t live.”

  As if Esidro hadn’t heard, he spun around, rushed toward Maja’s bedroom, and ripped the dangling screen from off its perch. Maja did the best she could to sag and cup her ears. Her grandfather squeezed off three more rounds. The bullets slammed into the dead men, knocking them aside, loosening their grip enough for Maja to wrench herself free.

  “Run!” Esidro yelled.

  Maja did as commanded, retreated from her room, scrambled down the hallway, almost overcome by the raw terror sloshing through her insides. But once she reached the back door, a memory barreled through her mind and she froze in place. It was the image of her grandfather from her nightmares. He was seated on the Devil Man’s train, his ashen face stricken of all its joy. If she left now, the Devil Man would take him. Her nightmares would become reality and she would have no one left. She loved him, needed him, too much to ever let that happen.

  “Please,” she whispered in the empty room. “Help me save him.”

  At once her thoughts returned to the stories her grandfather told her. If she’d learned anything, it was that Filipino monsters always had a weakness: raw rice to ward off the manananggal, salt to burn the aswang, a split coconut to trap Ongloc. Could it be the Devil Man had a weakness too? It seemed ridiculous to consider, more Dumbo’s Magic Feather than a stake through a vampire’s heart. And yet, it was the only thing she had to go on.

  An inkling of a plan blossomed inside her. She raced to the bookcase in the living room, tipped up the lid of her grandfather’s humidor. To her relief, the chipped and peeling cigar he’d shown her was inside. First she cut the cap off and then waved a butane lighter beneath it — like she’d seen her grandfather do a hundred times before. Vague suspicion of its provenance seeded her with hope, but she didn’t dare even think about them for fear of jinxing it.

  By the time she ran outside, the Devil Man was already leading Esidro by the hand, the dead men flanking them on both sides.

  “Wait!”

  Esidro turned to her, shivering, his face streaked with tears. “I’m sorry, Maja, but I have to go with him. It’s the only way to save you.”

  “But—”

  “Remember your promise. Go inside. I don’t want you to see what happens.”

  She held the cigar out, letting the red eye of its burning tip peer into the distance. “I brought something for the Devil Man.”

  The Devil Man chuckled, but then sniffed at the air. “It can’t be.” His earnest strides slowed into an amble. “That’s impossible.”

  Throwing Esidro’s hand aside, he bounded straight for Maja. The urge to flee roiled up inside her, but she couldn’t move, felt like an animal trapped in the hypnotic lull of headlights. He plucked the cigar from her hands and her skin began to twinge, as if desperately trying to peel away from the spot where he’d made contact. But that was nothing compared to when he removed his hat. At the sight of his round and swollen face, she thought of seeping wounds, of the pale borders of deep gashes and the white rims of ulcerations. She almost vomited, but turned away in time to keep the sick from rising up.

  “Ah, vintage Filipino leaf,” he said. “Brings back memories.” He took a deep puff, held it in for minutes before releasing the smoke in a long, contented sigh. “Was that so hard, Esidro? You could learn a thing or two from your granddaughter.”

  Maja swallowed, barely daring to look up. “I gave you what you wanted. Now will you leave my grandpa alone?”

  The Devil Man stepped closer, the threat of his proximity nearly shoving her back. He studied her. Something like a smile pulled the muscles of his cheeks before he set his hat upon his head, shrouding his face again in darkne
ss.

  “As I said to your grandfather before, a cigar is a small price to pay for my good favor. Keep him if you want him. A bag of skin and bones would make a sad addition to my collection anyway.”

  He took another earnest puff and withdrew back to his train, ascending to the engine. The dead men trailed after him, boarding just as a whistle blew a harsh, enduring, suffocating note. With that, the black train plunged into the ground, dragging the stiff segments of its passenger cars like a snake sliding into a burrow.

  Esidro staggered over to Maja and latched onto her shoulder, his profound exhaustion matched only by his stupefied expression. “How did you know that would work?”

  “I didn’t, but I hoped,” she said.

  Together, they scanned the space the black train had occupied, half expecting it to reverse, for the Devil Man to return and claim his prize. But as if to prove the world had resumed its proper course, a police siren wailed, announcing its approach, winds blew and the branches of tall trees began to sway again. Whatever had occurred was finally over.

  “Do you think he’ll keep his word?” asked Maja.

  “Who can say for sure? But let’s act as if he will and trust in God to make it so.”

  “Grandpa.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” he said, cradling her face, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “After all you’ve done for me, what could you possibly have to be sorry for?”

  “You won. You were right before. The Devil Man is scarier.”

  Esidro grinned and wrapped his arms around her. Maja cried, remembering that image from her nightmares and realizing she’d never expected to see him smile again. With a squeal of brakes and throbbing lights, the police arrived. Soon they would ask their questions about gunfire, and screams over dead men, and a monster that had left no evidence behind. But Maja couldn’t find the strength to care. She hugged her grandfather close, pressing hard against his chest, too numb to feel anything but the stinging of her tears and the solace of his living, breathing, still-warm body.