Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise (16 page)

Looking around and catching his breath, Strike realized that was the last thug—no more were coming in through the dining car.

“What do we do now?” Strike asked.

Agent Everybody checked the settings on his ray gun. “We wait until we hear somebody scream because the gremlins are doing something horrible.”

“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!” a man shouted from the front of the train.

“There we go,” Agent Everybody said, as he dashed off toward the sound of the scream.

As Strike followed Agent Everybody through the train cars, they soon reached the train’s conductor at the very front of the locomotive. He was sweating and frantic, desperately trying to get the train back under control.

“What’s going on?” Strike asked.

The conductor pointed ahead. “They’re switching the tracks!”

Strike looked out the train’s front windshield. He could see a group of gremlins up ahead, in a small wooden booth that rested on the side of the train tracks—the maniacal creatures were pulling levers and wildly pushing buttons in the booth, jumping up and down on the control board.

“How are they doing that?” Agent Everybody asked. “Isn’t there anybody in that booth?”

The conductor reached across and pulled on the train’s emergency brake, but there was no reaction. “We just got a report—they overwhelmed the agent and forced him out. They are in control now and they’ve changed the track!”

“So what’s that mean?” Strike asked.

The conductor’s face was awash with fear. “We’re off track. We’re heading into the caves.”

“And what’s so bad about that?”

“We don’t have permission to enter the caves right now,” the conductor said, staring blankly ahead. “And they’ve messed with my controls. I won’t have enough time to stop us.”

“Dammit,” Agent Everybody snapped, before heading back toward the commuter cars.

Strike followed him. “Can someone please fill me in on what exactly is happening right now?”

“We need to unhook the passenger cars from the train,” Agent Everybody replied. “Right now.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t have permission to enter the caves. And if we don’t have permission to enter the caves, the spirits inside won’t be happy.”

“The spirits?”

“Yes. The cave is haunted. The locals get permission to use the cave for transportation once every few weeks, but they have to ask for permission first. If they don’t, the spirits inside don’t react well.”

Strike shook his head. “Haunted train caves. Gotta love Capricious.”

Agent Everybody opened the door that led to the first commuter car. “Let’s go. We gotta head outside and make sure we don’t bring these passengers in there with us.”

Stepping outside, Strike braced himself from the rushing wind. The train was speeding along the track now, faster than ever. The hero could feel the vehicle listing as it went around a bend, and judging from the sound of its engine frantically pumping its wheels, he knew they were traveling at a rate the train was never supposed to reach. Looking down, he could see the hitch where the front car connected to the passenger cars, and beyond that, he could see the blur of the track zooming by.

“We need to get these pedestrians away from the train,” Agent Everybody said, as the conductor dashed past them, leaping onto the exterior of the next car before dashing inside. “Ever unhook passenger cars from a moving train before?”

“Oh yeah, all the time. It’s how I spent my April vacation.” Strike looked down at the steel hitch that joined the cars together. “Could I just blast it with my lightning?”

“I don’t see why not. I don’t care how we do it, as long as those cars get stopped where they are. Jump across and—”

Suddenly, a gremlin leapt down from the train’s roof, landing on Strike’s shoulders. It knocked the hero back and he fell onto the metal grating floor of the exterior of the train car.

“Dammit!” Agent Everybody shouted. As he looked to the roof, eight more gremlins jumped down on them from above. Strike blasted the two-foot-tall pests with lightning as they scratched and clawed at him, and while the creatures weren’t doing much damage, they were enough of a distraction to keep Strike from unhooking the train cars.

“Oh, I see what you’re trying to do here,” a voice said from the train’s roof.

Strike looked up. A skinny, gangly, dark-haired man with glasses and a pointy nose was standing on top of the train, directly above them. He was wearing a brown, dusty, ancient robe on top of a tattered white shirt, which looked just as old as the robe. Unlike his clothes, however, the man appeared young—no older than twenty-five.

“You’re concerned about the spirits,” the grinning man on the train’s roof said. “I don’t blame you—they are awfully upset if you enter without permission.”

Strike knocked a gremlin off the train and onto the speeding tracks. “Something tells me that’s the Gremlin Wizard.”

The Gremlin Wizard laughed. “I’m insulted, Strike! Acting like you don’t know who I am. How rude. Everyone knows the Gremlin Wizard!”

“Sorry,” Strike replied, “but I’m working my way down the super-villain ladder. Something tells me you are somewhere between F and G-list, so I’m sure I’ll be meeting you soon.”

“Oh, is that right?” the Gremlin Wizard said with a smile. “Well, guess what, you twerpy little brat? We did just meet, and this F-list super-villain is sending a train full of innocent passengers into the haunted caves of Narandarth. How’s that for an introduction?”

Finally freeing himself from the attacking gremlins, Strike ran to the edge of the train and blasted its steel hitch with lightning from his bo-staff, disconnecting the passenger cars. As the train sped forward, Strike, Agent Everybody, and the Gremlin Wizard kept moving with the locomotive, while the passenger cars were left behind.

“Correction!” Strike shouted. “You’re sending me and Agent Everybody into the haunted caves of Narandarth!”

“Still not great,” Agent Everybody replied.

“No,” Strike said, “not really.”

From the roof of the speeding train, the Gremlin Wizard clapped his hands together. “Oh, how surprised everyone is going to be! How shocked! When they learn who it was that brought you to Rigel! Finally, I will get the recognition I deserve! Finally, the Gremlin Wizard will get the credit I have always—”

Just as the Gremlin Wizard was beginning his speech, the train entered the haunted cave, and a white, long-armed, moaning ghost swooped down and grabbed the Gremlin Wizard’s shoulders, ripping him off the roof of the train and carrying him off into the cave’s unending miles of darkness.

“Something tells me he forgot to get permission for himself before we came in here,” Agent Everybody said, watching as the spirit and the Gremlin Wizard became smaller and smaller in the distance.

“Man,” Strike replied, “he might be, like, M-list.”

Agent Everybody peered around the side of the train and looked forward. They were barreling into the dark cave. “Yup. Except he did lead us in here, and we are still surrounded by angry spirits, so he might jump up a level or two. C’mon, we gotta get to the front of the train.”

Strike and Agent Everybody reentered the conductor car and made their way to the controls.

“Any chance we survive this?” Strike asked.

“Well, the good news is the tracks through the cave aren’t very long, and we should be through in a few minutes. The bad news is what the spirits do to you when you enter without letting them know.”     

“They boo at you and tell you not to do it again?”

“No. They rip the track out from under you, and you plummet into the water below us.”

“Great.”

“Your dad used to have this lightning jump he used to do. Can you do that?”

“I can. But it takes a hell of a lot out of me. Especially if it’s high.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Why?”

“‘Cuz we’re gonna need you to jump.”

“How high?”

“Probably high enough that it’s gonna take a hell of a lot out of you.”       

“Not to be mean, but I’ve only known you for about fifteen minutes, and I already hate you.”

“I get that a lot.”

Agent Everybody climbed up a ladder and opened a hatch that led out onto the train’s roof.

“C’mon. We gotta head up top.”

Strike followed him up the ladder. “You see? This is why I hate you.”

On the train’s roof, Strike squinted from the wind battering his face and looked around. He gasped at the height and sheer breadth of the caves; the train was on an elevated, narrow track, speeding above a rushing river over three hundred feet below them, and there was still another four hundred or so feet above them, until the ceiling of the dark cave. The boy could see dozens of abandoned, crumbling train tracks criss-crossing the cave above him, along with hundreds of moaning, open-mouthed, white, flying ghosts, with long, dangling arms and bodies that appeared to be made out of fog.

“Okay,” Agent Everybody said, “it looks like the track swoops down up ahead. Right after we go down the hill, we are going to—uh-oh.”

“What?”

“They’ve already started taking the track a part. The track in front of us is gone.”

Strike looked in front of them. The long-armed ghosts were swooping down from the ceiling and removing pieces of the train track. Now, instead of going down a hill, the track they were traveling on simply ended, leading to the open air.

“Once we run out of track, we’re gonna go airborne,” Agent Everybody said. “We’re gonna have to hold on and hope we land on the lower level of the tracks.”

“We’re gonna have to hold on?” Strike shouted. “How are we gonna do that?”

“We’re gonna reach down and hold on.” Agent Everybody crouched and gripped a metal railing on the roof. “It’s not that hard to follow along, kid. You gotta keep up with me here.”

Strike bent at the knees and grabbed the railing. “Oh, I’m following along. So far I’ve got: ‘Orion sent me on a death train with a lunatic.’ Let me know if I missed anything.”

Strike looked ahead. They were rapidly barreling toward the end of the train tracks. Soon, there would be nothing but open air in front of them.

“Okay,” Agent Everybody said. For the first time, nerves were evident in his voice. “We’re about to lose track. When we hit the air, hold on, and stay as low as possible. Don’t let the spirits grab you and take you away. If the train lands on the lower tracks and we keep moving, I want you to immediately lightning jump up into the air.”

“If’ we land on the lower tracks? Don’t you mean ‘when?’”

“Yeah, yeah, sure—‘when.’ Listen, you’re gonna have to lightning jump as high as you can, to draw all of the spirits towards you. They’re attracted to bright light.”

Strike stared out at the darkness in front of him. “I’m going to be bait.”

“Essentially. The vast majority of the spirits will be blocking the exit of the cave, so you are going to need to make as much energy and lightning as possible to bring them all to you, so we can get out of here.”

“Won’t we just go right through them if they are blocking the exit?”

“No. If we hit them, they’ll fly into our bodies, where they will slowly kill us.”

“And we don’t want that.”

“No. I know I don’t.”        

Strike thought it over. “So I’m gonna have to lightning jump as high as I can, and time it just right so I land back on the moving train, hopefully without any ghosts on me.”

“See? You’re learning already. I didn’t even have to spell that part out for you.”

“No, I’m just learning to figure out the worst-case scenario, and then do that, because it’s what you’re gonna ask me to do.”

The two heroes now only had a few feet left to go before the end of the track.

“Here we go,” Agent Everybody said. “Hold on. Don’t forget what to do if we land on the other side.”

“‘When.’ ‘When’ we land on the other side.”

“Right.”

Strike watched the tracks. The end grew closer and closer.

“Hold on!” Agent Everybody shouted.

Strike crouched down and gripped the metal railing as tight as he could. As he closed his eyes, he suddenly no longer heard the wheels grinding along the track. The smoke stack in front of him was still puffing away, but that was the only sound in the vast cave. They were airborne.

Strike opened his eyes. He, Agent Everybody, and the locomotive were now falling through the air, heading straight for a lower level of track.

“This might actually work!” Agent Everybody shouted. “Hold on!”

With a horrendous metal
SCREEEEEEEEECH!
and an explosion of bright red sparks, the train crashed onto the lower level of train tracks and wobbled wildly on its wheels. As the locomotive swayed from side to side, all while barreling forward, Strike gritted his teeth and tried to keep his grip on the railing. His legs went out from underneath him and his chest slammed against the train, but he managed to stay on the roof. Finally, the locomotive steadied itself.

“We made it!” Agent Everybody shouted.