Runaway Train

Act III -Scene 4

The way the dawn came up over the place the next day was quite like how it did over an army camp, Johnny thought.

With each passenger who woke, a sense of duty settled more and more in the room. They had a task to do, and they were soon to be sent out to do it as well as they could. The only thing stopping them all from beginning right then and there was waiting for the others to wake up. Johnny had found himself awake first, actually; he watched as one by one, his companions all roused from sleep, blinking awake with a steady determination in their eyes. Why, it almost made him blush! This was all for him, after all; their soldier-like diligence was for the cause of his leg. When everybody was awake and getting into their planned groups, he profusely murmured thank-yous to each person at least once.

Rather than replying to those thanks with words of his own, Curtis' eyes had just met Johnny's in that fathom-deep grim-soft way of his. A nod, and that was it; he was off to settle down the rest of his crew. Salem and Anne ran at each other around Ed. In time, Curtis got Ed to corral them all; the gravedigger had scooped Anne up and put her on his shoulders, then he handed his shovel off to Salem (which had their eyes sparkling and jaw dropped in awe). When that was done with, the sailor started away in a preemptively annoyed huff. The other three followed in happiness, the noise and yet more well-wishes from Johnny going with them.

Sally had approached after, answering Johnny's thanks with a squeeze of his hand and a renewed warning: "We'll be back soon as we can. Watch out for Lillian, now."

Orla nodded with a grin, "Yes, take care of yourself, Johnny!" As he'd said his gratitude to her, she drew Sally away by her free hand, making the singer release her grip on his. They set out the door on their own end of the car, followed by BB, who had been roller-pacing around there the whole time in anticipation. Johnny had to admit a sort of angst lifted off him when the undead daredevil sped out of the car. That angst was only exchanged for another kind, though: worry for his friends.

Now Johnny was alone, all alone, with that one thing he was warned against most: Lillian. In perfectly languid fashion, she came over and sat in the seat across from him (or, rather, laid, as she was sort of draped over the armrests). "And then there were two," she said. Johnny, pretty terrified, kept himself in silence. Her mask-eyes turned to him when he didn't reply. "What, you're not gonna say anything?" she asked. "I'm sure you have neat stuff to talk about."

"I-I'd rather not," Johnny stuttered quietly, looking down at his boots. When had they gotten all scuffed? He tried to think of that to distract himself.

It didn't work because Lillian wouldn't shut up. "Come on! It's really boring of you to just sit there saying nothing, you know." She punctuated that with a shrug. "It's not like I'm going to kill you." That wasn't comforting at all. Lillian must've realized that, because, after a moment, she tried something else. "Okay, fine... how's this: what year are you from? What country?"

Well, now she had certainly done the trick. Even despite his fear, Johnny's eyes flicked up to look Lillian right in the face. "It's really true, then," he murmured. "We're all actually from different... times."

She tilted her head in a patronizing kind of way. "Wow, you figured it out then," she said. "This train goes through all time and space. Picking up souls after they die and taking them to whatever end they want to go to, transporting spirits or reapers or demons—yeah, you know those last two at least—to wherever they need to be—that's what this thing is for. I run all of it." She was smug on that last thought, but Johnny was caught up too much in his own head to notice that. Ed had told them this in fewer words already, of course, but coming from Lillian herself...

"Really?" Johnny breathed. "Everyone who's ever died—ever—has been on this train...?"

"Yeah," Lillian said. "Well, you know, most; before trains were made, there were like, chariots or horses or whatever for the reapers. But yeah, now that's all done through the train. That and more." Her confirmation was all Johnny had needed; his feet felt as though they were resting on graves—the graves in the field beside camp, the graves that had been made of the battleground mud, the graves in his hometown, the graves in a hundred towns, the graves of all the world. It felt strangely as if he was in one of those very graves. For the first time, it really hit him that escape might not...

"Gosh," he whispered.

"Yeah," Lillian continued nonchalantly. "It was a pretty big shock for me too, but you get over it after a while."

Those words of hers forced their way past Johnny's more grim thoughts. His brow creased a little. Was. That meant Lillian hadn't always been on the train. And what could that mean? "S-so... you were alive at some point?" he asked. "I would've thought those reapers weren't—"

"Ugh, that doesn't matter," she sort of snapped. "All that does matter is Death made me a reaper. Tuxy liked me or whatever, so he did." The sudden energy to her voice made Johnny shrink again.

"Then have t-the... the other reapers all been alive before, too...?" he murmured.

"No. They've all never been alive. I'm the only one like this. I'm special." So that's why she didn't die when her mask was blown apart... she is something different from those other reapers. With that realization, though, he just couldn't help but feel sort of sorry for her. All alone in half-death like this... and she's only a kid. He looked over her rabbit ears, her masked face, the cheek that had been repaired by the hand of Death, the golden "I" emblazoned on her forehead. In death, she had become something else, not because of herself, but because of... was it for some cause? Was it just for the sake of it? Chance? Or, perhaps, was there some deeper reason for what had been done? Johnny didn't know. He couldn't guess at the intentions of Death anyway.

Lillian was the first to make any sound after that; a low hum left her. "Okay, I said enough and more. Now you have to tell me something about you," she said, returning to her relaxed posture. "Something interesting, please."

Johnny looked down at his boots again. What was interesting enough to follow that? He thought to himself for a moment. Well, there was one thing people tended to think was neat about him. His eyes raised back up sheepishly. "I've met Walt Disney," he said softly. "That's something, right? Do... people still care about Mr. Disney when you're from?"

Lillian froze. Her ears pricked straight up and her black gaze was piercingly focused. "You... you've actually met Walt Disney? The Walter Elias Disney, right?"

Oh, I guess that means people still know him, Johnny thought, a smile growing on his face. "Y-yes, the same," he answered. "I was just an animator at his studio before the war, but we all used to get to talk with him once in a while. The studio's getting bigger so it's a different story now, but..."

"Oh my god," she said. "That's amazing! I'm talking to a part of Disney history!" She was the most ecstatic, certainly the most energetic, that Johnny'd seen her yet. She swung her legs around to sit properly—well, as properly as she could in her excitement; she was on the edge of her seat. "Wait- you must've worked on Snow White then. Oh, did you go to that big party at the Norconian afterward?"

Now Johnny was quietly laughing to himself. It was surprising, really, to see Lillian like this. "You're a fan of the studio, then?" he asked.

"Duh, obviously!" she said. "A fan of the studio, of the parks, of the whole thing—! oh, you must not know about the parks. Okay, tell me everything about what you do know. Everything!" This girl, with all her darkness, really was only a kid after all, wasn't she? After all that death and terror, she was just like any other: enthusiastic about what interested her, loud, curious. She really was lonely, despite her mask of self-absorption, but now it seemed that what Johnny had done—what had come of his life, if it was really complete now that he was here—was some remedy to that. She wasn't dangerous—not at her heart, anyway. She was just a child in an impossible situation trying her best to impress. There's no need to be afraid of her. Maybe she'll even be our biggest help. Maybe... maybe everything will be fine.