Moonlight Express by C.L. Hernandez

Here is another short story by C.L. Hernandez!

Moonlight Express

At the end of a long, hot day in late September, a raggedy man tromped across a wide green meadow. The full moon, wearing a hazy corona of mist, was just starting to peer over the horizon like a slowly inflating yellow balloon. Crickets tuned their fiddles in the tall grass. If green had a smell, this would be it, Earl thought as he paused for a rest. He closed his eyes, trying out the theory that being deprived of one sense makes the others stronger. The effects of the cheap red wine he had consumed earlier had not worn off yet, so his jumbled thoughts cracked him up quite a bit. Sure enough, when he drew in a deep breath of the cool mountain air, it smelled greener than ever.

He opened his eyes again, noting that the light from the rising moon tinted the trees and grasses in shades of gray. Odd how that happened. Bloated rain clouds dragged their bellies across the sky, and a breeze perked up, reminding Earl that he would be wise to find shelter from the storm that was on its way.

He resumed his trek along the old railroad tracks. He had five dollars in one pocket, the half-full wine bottle in the other, and one last remaining family member: his sister, Loretta. She didn’t know he was on his way to beg her for a place to stay, but he would explain everything once he got there. He didn’t even want to think about it now.

Earl had been following this decrepit set of old tracks since noon, when the freight train he’d hitched some two hundred miles back had finally pulled into its last stop. Loretta’s house was somewhere in Greensburgh, a small town about ten miles from here. He wasn’t sure of the exact address, but it was a small town; someone was bound to know where she lived.

After another twenty minutes or so of steady walking, a low stone wall seemed to rise out of the ground to his right. Moss crept up one side of it, exuding an odd sort of coolness. Bleached by hectic moonlight, the exposed stones looked like tiny white skulls.

The grass and weeds growing up in the middle of the tracks were thicker here. Trees wearing mossy overcoats leaned over the tracks on either side, as if they wanted a closer look at this shabby man who walked by himself.

The tracks disappeared into a round, black hole. Earl frowned, momentarily confused, then laughed at his own folly. It was a train tunnel, long-unused and full of blissful coolness.

A perfect place to lay up for the night, he thought, and he stepped inside its gaping, mossy throat.

Comforting darkness folded itself around him, and he sat down on the damp ground. He had tucked a half-smoked cigarette inside one of his shirt pockets earlier, and he dug around for it while he waited for his breathing to catch up. He’d been getting short of breath lately; he supposed he should cut back on the smokes.

The temperature of the tunnel, cool to begin with, took a sudden dip. Earl rubbed his hands over the goose bumps on his arms. With the cigarette butt clamped between his teeth, he unzipped his back pack, found his threadbare flannel shirt, and draped it over his shoulders. A rustling sound, like something burrowing through dried leaves, came from farther back in the tunnel. The silver-gray moonlight didn’t quite reach back there, and Earl squinted into the darkness, trying to locate the source of the noise.

A mouse, probably, he thought. Some sort of little critter—

“You too, huh?” A voice, dry and raspy, echoed through the tunnel.

The last thing Earl expected to hear was the sound of another voice. He dropped his cigarette and his heart shot up into his throat. “Who’s that?” he called out in alarm. “Who’s in here?”

“Take it easy,” the calm male voice soothed. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m just another old derelict like yourself. Train’ll be here soon. Best move closer to the wall, or it’ll run right over you.”

Earl coughed out relieved laughter as he patted the ground with both hands in search of his cigarette. “Train? Buddy, I think you’re a little soft in the head,” he replied. “Ain’t been a train through this here tunnel in years, by the looks of things.”

“Oh, it’ll be along shortly,” the disembodied voice went on. “You’ll see. It’s gonna take us to places we’ve only seen in our dreams.

“That’s liquor,” Earl said. “Liquor does that.” He lit his smoke, straining to see his companion in the dim circle of light thrown by his lighter.

The other man sat upright, his back against the stone wall of the tunnel. A dark knit cap was pulled down low over his eyes. He appeared to be quite thin. He didn’t move at all.

Earl took a deep drag off his cigarette, and blew out smoke that he couldn’t see in the darkness of the tunnel. “Hey buddy, you want a drag off this?” he asked, hoping the man would decline. It was his last bit of tobacco, and he probably wouldn’t have any more until he got to Loretta’s place. Still, it was the unspoken law of the road that you shared what you had with other down-on-their-luck souls.

“Tobacco will kill you,” said the other man.

“Maybe so, but not today,” Earl said, and he took another deep drag.

The glow from the cigarette’s ember intensified, casting an eerie orange light over the walls of the tunnel, and the stranger sitting across from him. The man sat motionless, chin to chest.

Outside, the moon played peek-a-boo with the clouds. Approaching rain added sweetness to the breeze.

Earl moved closer to the mouth of the tunnel. Something wasn’t quite right about this guy who shared this dank hideaway with him. He made him nervous for some reason. He was most likely just drunk, but Earl wanted to be close to the entrance in case he had to run. He hoped he didn’t have to; his heart was flip-flopping in his chest, and his breathing still hadn’t evened out. He wasn’t even sure if he could run.

More rustling sounds came from the blackest part of the tunnel, like someone was back there crumpling up a newspaper. Earl tensed, ready to bolt if he had to. A curtain of clouds closed over the moon, and now he couldn’t see what might be coming towards him. The breeze picked up and tossed the first raindrops into his face.

“Where ya headed, stranger?”

Another voice, sounding even rougher than the first, asked the question from just over Earl’s right shoulder. His body reacted with a start. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a cry of alarm squeezed out of his throat. He fumbled his lighter out of his pocket, nearly dropping it, and flicked the thumb wheel.

A second man sat with his back against the tunnel wall now. He looked even more raggedy and road-worn than the first. A battered cowboy hat shadowed most of his face, but Earl could just make out a long, unkempt gray beard. Where had he come from? Had he been sitting there all along?

“What’s the matter?” the bearded man asked, “cat got your tongue?”

Earl’s chest tightened painfully. The lighter grew too hot under his thumb. He tucked it back into his pocket and cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “I just…I just didn’t see you sitting there, that’s all. I’m heading to my sister’s place in Greensburgh. Wife threw me out. Got tired of my drinking, I guess.”

Earl stopped short of introducing himself. The feeling of unease grew stronger; he didn’t want to talk to these two any more than he had to. There was an odd smell in the tunnel now, an odor that rose above the scent of dampness and mold. He smelled old cigarette smoke, and unwashed armpits, and another, ranker stench that he couldn’t quite identify.

The rain came down in earnest now; Earl could hear it pattering against the leaves and grass outside. He hoped it was just a passing shower. As soon as it let up, he was going to get the hell out of here and find somewhere else to spend the night.

Cowboy Hat made a dry, hacking sound that passed for a chuckle. “That’s a wife for ya,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to make it to Greensburgh, though. This train don’t go there.”

Again with the damn train! Couldn’t these two hobos see that this tunnel and the set of tracks passing through it hadn’t been used in years? “I’m on foot,” Earl said. “And there ain’t no train passing through here anytime soon, brother.”

“Oh, it’ll be along soon, you’ll see,” Cowboy Hat said.

“That’s what I tried to tell him,” the man in the knit cap said. “He didn’t believe me, neither.”

They’re on drugs, Earl thought. Heroin, maybe. They’re hallucinating or something. That has to be it. Ain’t no train comin’ through here anytime soon.

They were most likely harmless, these two druggies in the tunnel, but Earl still wanted out of here. He hated not being able to see them clearly. It just added to the creeping unease he was feeling. He wished for another cigarette and didn’t reply.

“Been waitin’ for that train for a while now,” Knit Cap said. “It’ll be nice to see my mom and dad again.”

“I’m goin’ to see my parents too,” Cowboy Hat said. “And my little brother. Man, I’ve missed that kid.”

Earl wanted to say something about parents, to mention that his were dead and he missed them dearly, but the tightness in his chest increased. It was suddenly too painful to talk. Involuntarily, his hands flew to the left side of his chest.

What the hell? Heart attack? Earl tucked himself into a ball and eased himself down onto the damp ground, grunting and holding his chest. He could hear Cowboy Hat and Knit Cap chatting with each other as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Couldn’t they see he was in trouble?

“Help…”

He managed the single word, then felt his body go limp. His hands dropped away from his heart. The edges of his vision grayed and wavered, but he was still able to see the moon, huge, full, and almost blindingly white as it burst through the clouds. With the last of his strength, he turned his face away. He’d never seen the moon so bright before.

“Take it easy, friend,” he heard Cowboy Hat say. “Here she comes. Train’s a-comin’.”

There ain’t no train! Had he said it, or had it been just a thought in his head? The tightness in his chest loosened; the pain dissolved. A lightness overtook him, a feeling of weightlessness.

And then Earl turned his head and saw that there was a train, and it was coming up the tracks towards the tunnel. The brilliant white light wasn’t from the moon at all, but the engine’s headlamp.

It made no noise. It slid over the tracks like oiled silk. Extravagant plumes of smoke rose from its chimney and seemed to blend with the retreating clouds in the sky. The train looked as though it was made from moonlight. The leaning trees and the crumbling stone wall showed faintly through its speeding form.

The headlamp illuminated the entrance to the tunnel now. The unveiled moon peered over the locomotive’s smokestack.

Earl could see his mysterious companions clearly at last, standing next to him now. Cowboy Hat’s grizzled beard clung like Spanish moss on the stark white of his exposed jawbone. His eyes were gone. His shrunken lips peeled back in a toothy grin. One skeletal hand still clutched a hypodermic needle. Earl didn’t have the strength to cry out.

The rips in Knit Cap’s flannel shirt showed glimpses of his bare rib cage. “Here she comes,” he said. “Get ready.”

“The dead don’t talk,” whispered Earl. “They just don’t.”

“We’ll take care of you,” Cowboy Hat said.

The cold bone of the dead man’s fingers curled gently around Earl’s arm and coaxed him into a standing position. “We been waitin’ for her a long time. Come on now, on your feet. She’ll be slowin’ down for us.”

Sparks like silver glitter shot from beneath the driving wheels as the ghostly train glided to a stop just inside the tunnel.

Earl let the other two men guide him aboard. He was surprised at how easy it was to breathe now. In fact, it didn’t even feel like he was breathing at all.

When the train cleared the tunnel on the other side, the locomotive rose into the rain- freshened fall air. Moonlight pierced through its diaphanous sides. The clouds closed over it, absorbed it

And then there was only the moon.

Bio:

C.L. Hernandez is a literary cryptid who has been occasionally spotted lurking

somewhere in central California.

She was once a multi-published author of unusual horror novellas and short story

collections and has been featured in several anthologies. Sadly, most of her work is no longer in

print.

After a long hiatus, she is clawing her way back to her writing desk and hoping for a

successful comeback.