Emergency Rations

The train’s shrill whistle was a javelin through the heart of serenity.

Percy stretched awake, his long fingernails scraping against the interior of the crate.

“Eduardo?” He hissed. “Miguel? Sam?” His vassals should be enticing him back to the world of the living with honey-blood tea right now. He pulled the release handle with one hand and pushed at the lid of the crate with the other. It didn’t open. Something on top of his bed rattled.

“Oi,” Percy puffed, rubbing his throbbing eyes. “For all the trips for me to end up in a luggage pile, it had to be during my diet.” He’d been weaning himself off of humans and substituting animals. His vassals would sneak him snacks throughout the day to keep him satiated, squirming rabbits or piglets popped into the coffin-like crate. Without waking, Percy would pierce his prey with his tranquilizer laced fangs, then sup blood like a baby breastfeeding until the slumbering critter slipped from this cruel realm into either kind oblivion or eternal bliss, or maybe another cruel life.

(Percy had been exposed to many religions during his time with the British Navy and wasn’t sure which group had it right, but as he was a vampire hoped he wouldn’t have to find out for a long time.) 

His hands explored the cramped space. No piglets today.

Veins writhed in anger.

Pointed ears pressed to the side of the box. The tracks clattered beneath him, but no voices or footsteps sounded in this room. Everyone was asleep, with the windows dark there was nothing to see during this cross-country, non-stop across ride almost all of Mexico. Even Percy’s vassals? Or had he somehow been loaded on while his servants missed the ride? Sam had an awful habit of misplacing things, him losing the tickets for all three was too easy to picture.

“Bother.” It’d be morning again before the train pulled into the station where another coterie of cohorts would unload his carton and move him to a safe house. Someone surely called ahead to Percy’s contacts if they had missed the train ride themselves.

He pulled a tablet he kept tucked in his bed out, along with his stylus (the screen didn’t detect his undead fingers as input), and a pair of earbuds. He put on a saucy audiobook his vassals had downloaded for him and listened. He tried to remember and imagine at the same time what it felt like to be warm, like the lovers in the story..

(Percy used to have a cell phone, but had thrown it into a puddle and stomped it into tiny itty bitty pieces last month. He was almost two hundred years old, and it was beneath his dignity to spend hours locked in flame wars with MahDick420 and WokeWarrior69. So his people loaded entertainment into this offline device for his diversion.)

Hour crept on. No one came for Percy, and he scowled as the sunrise dragged him back under. Sam had definitely lost their tickets. He’d get a good smacking about if Percy ever caught up with him. 

By the time the billionaire philanthropist racecar driver and the brown-haired college freshman intern overcame all obstacles to reach their happily ever after, Percy had fallen into a new fitful, aching sleep. His dreams were so vivid when he awoke again he didn’t realize it wasn’t an illusion until he jammed his pinkie in a corner. The sharp bolt of pain was convincing. He sucked the ache, then bit it, and spat. The languid, clotted crud sprayed the lid above him like stars.

No rabbit this evening either.

 He pressed at his lid, Still stuck. He called.

“Hello? Anyone out there?” Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, not his heart but the tracks rattling beneath the still moving car. The train must have stopped at a station and started on another leg of its journey during the day. His vassals hadn’t come for him.

Not possible. He had men on both ends of this trek.

Where even was he? Rocketing back towards the USA now? Forgotten?

That would be the better of two outcomes. Alone because he was forgotten, his worthless vassals taking his money and running. The worse was if they were loyal.

What if his servants were slain protecting the secret of his location from a hunter?

Did the hunter take Sam’s tickets and get on the train? Three tickets, maybe three killers had followed Percy’s scent? He struggled to remember; did this train allow pets? If there were dogs, it was as good as over. Dogs could sniff out a vampire with ease.

Percy’s body trembled, withdrawing from the substances that prolonged his supernatural existence. He needed blood. He needed it now. He shook and his vision spun. He should stay hidden.

But.

If someone was looking for him, he couldn’t be found here, prone and trapped. 

He brought his knees up to his chest and squared his back against the floor of the crate. His large feet pressed against the lid and he breathlessly pushed. The whatever trapping him inside rattled again. It fell against the shared wall instead of tumbling into the aisle.

“Damn,” Percy hissed. He kept kicking, now knowing it’d be much harder as he had to grind the box he was in away from the wall by exerting force against the whatever that was now wedged. It was slow work, measured in centimeters a minute. 

The door to the train car ratcheted open. Angry yelling. No idea what they were saying though; despite all his years on Earth, he’d never learned a second language. Percy pulled his feet back down and let the lid close. Too quickly, it snapped shut. The two men yelling cut off. They tossed aside boxes and bags, barking at each other with desperate conspiracy. Percy was grateful he didn’t have to breathe.

Percy had been driven out of Europe by CCTV. Other vampires had suggested Central and South America, already rife with conflict, where the occasional killing wouldn’t get as much notice. If you beheaded your dinner to hide the bite marks people would just chalk it up to the cartel. 

There’d been only one caveat: avoid the hunters.

Percy clutched himself to stop the shakes and listened.

After an hour, the two men swore and stormed out of the storage car.

Percy licked his fangs, extended and desperate to eat.

He’d just have to trust it was a schedule mix-up. That’s all. Just a little miscommunication, a missed boarding. Surely his servants would find him today. He closed his eyes and forced himself down again. 

Hours passed. The sun was a straightjacket, swaddling this monster tight. As it sunk, each strap was pulled free, loosening until this monster was let free.

It didn’t wake to darkness. When it came to, everything faded into focus. The room, a new room, was bright and light. It was full; its veins no longer ached, its body no longer shook. It was standing, not contained. The room wasn’t covered in blood. Nobody and no body moved, a dozen passengers dead and exsanguinated lay before it.

“Oh no.” Percy licked his lips, which were plump and rosy again after a feeding. “No, no, no.” His consciousness awoke in mid-sprint, pushing remorse to the back. Rain pelted the windows, not even moonlight shone in. Splinters jutted out of his sleeves. He’d clawed his way out of his prison without even waking.

He ripped furniture bolted to the walls free, before shoving it in front of the doors. Then, assured no one else would wander into the scene of his crime, he set to work covering up the very obvious sets of bite marks on each victim.

He tried not to notice little details (she has matching teddy bear clips in her hair) as he stacked all the bodies in the center of the car. Only one looked peaceful. No doubt the first one he’d consumed, who hadn’t known was what coming, who’d been reading a book one moment and then drowsing the next. He’d feasted; enough blood for an entire season flowed through him. He hadn’t felt this alive in body in almost a century.

He was supposed to be enlightened now. This sort of thing happened to other vampires, sure, but not him. He wasn’t one of the bad ones.

“I didn’t mean for this, I didn’t mean, I’m not dangerous, we’re not the bad guys anymore,” Percy insisted, clutching to the inspiration his favorite romance novels had fed him in the last few decades. Vampires could have it all. Immortality and humanity. They could, he could. This heap of carnage at his feet was not indicative of who he was, it was just a bad day.

He clutched at his greasy pearl string of self deception in his mind as his physical hands ripped through pockets. His fingers curled around a lighter. An immaculate reflection stared back at him in the chrome as he contemplated if this was necessary.

 He wished he knew how to uncouple train cars, but he was an actor, not an engineer. Movies made it look easy, but he was sure he’d just fall off. Decapitating or maiming these innocents seemed too grisly. Fire would have to be it.

 He glanced around.

 No fire extinguisher in this car. Probably none in the next car either. 

Would the entire train go up like a candle?

He rationalized they’d be fine as he knocked out a window pane with a chair. Rain pelted him through the gaping maw, pitch black without the glass to bounce the train’s lamplight off of. He swatted the spare shards onto the floor, cutting his hands. They healed in the seconds before Percy threw a lit match onto the pile of bodies. It extinguished. He grabbed menus and napkins and stacked them in pockets. These ignited well, and soon their seeds of heat fanned across the truth Percy chose to ignore.

 He jumped into the night, the room to his back already warming.