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Thoughts and Thin Kings - by JaneJane

Eight Cars- Part 3: The Seventh Car

November 6th 2010 06:20
Hearing the roar and the footsteps Joe's attention was diverted from the darkened carriage they had just left and he turned to see what was going on. Outside the broken window an enormous creature, like nothing Joe had ever seen before, was charging at the train with its head down and clawed feet kicking up debris from the jungle floor. The general shape was reptilian, but it had brown, heavy looking feathers over most of its body. It ran on two legs, each ending with those gigantic claws and a tail snaked out behind its legs. The neck was long and the mouth ended with a giant beak that snapped open and closed when it wasn't roaring. If it had wings they were too small to see.


"Mate," started Joe. "Come on, let’s get back to the other car."

Garry didn't respond. His eyes were wide with fear, his mouth tightly closed.

"Hey, mate!" Joe shouted. Still there was no response from Garry.

The reptile/bird was getting closer and the roar was so loud that it filled the car to the point of being deafening. Joe pulled on Garry’s arm and the smaller man still didn't respond. Just short of the broken window the creature stopped, hunkered down and scratched angrily at the ground with one foot then gave a final roar before charging the train again.

Joe could see that Garry was too shocked to move so he leapt at him and they both tumbled to the floor as the creature’s head darted through the broken window, snapping at the air where they had just been.

Garry came to his senses. "What'd you do that for?" he complained.

"You'll be thanking me for that later," Joe wasn’t smiling. "Come on. Down here," and he lead Garry down the steps to the lower deck of the train. The two men crouched on the floor between two seats. Meanwhile, back up in the vestibule, the animal's roaring was replaced by grunts of frustration as it tried and failed to get its body through the window. It was too big to get any more than its head, neck and shoulders into the car.


"What are we going to do?" Garry asked.

"I think we should see if we can get past it and back to the other car," Joe said. "I don't know why but it's still dark in there, perhaps it's inside a tunnel or something. It should be safe."

"Yeah, but that means we need to get past that ... thing," said Garry. "I don't think I can do it."

"Well, we can't stay here."

"Let's think this through," suggested Garry.

"Are you crazy? We haven't got time to think, we need to get out of here!"

"I know, but..." the thought didn't get a chance to be expressed because their conversation was stopped by more animals roaring in the distance.

Joe looked over Garry's shoulder and out the window. He could see several of the monsters running through the jungle now. "Alright, we’re out of here," he said.

Grabbing Garry by the arm he stood up and half dragged him back to the steps that lead to the vestibule. The animal had been resting when it heard noise of the oncoming competition now it struggled with renewed vigour to be first to get at the prey. There was no way Joe and Garry could get past and into the last car.

Joe ducked back down to the lower level, pushing Garry ahead of him, and sat on the bottom step. "Okay," he admitted, "we need to think about this. We can't go that way."

"Right," Garry agreed. "Then we have to go the other way, towards the guard's compartment. There might be some kind of weapon there we can use."

"Oh yeah, very likely. The trains are dangerous mate, but there's no way State Rail's going to issue guns to guards."

"I didn't mean a gun. There might be an axe or some fire fighting equipment."

With incredible force the second wave of animals smashed into the train, rocking it from side to side and knocking the two of them off balance.

"Alright," said Joe. "The guard's compartment it is. By the way, what's your name?"

"It's Garry."

"I'm Joe," said Joe as he gave Garry a push towards the far end of the car, "Let's go!"

Dozens of creatures were lined up alongside the train, smashing their heads at the walls and scratching their feet at the windows. The two young men tried their hardest to not look as they ran to the far end of the carriage and up the steps into the next vestibule. Garry was first and he saw that the glass of one of the big windows was cracked and threatening to break. Not wasting any time he ran to the next door, flung it open and stepped out onto the bridge between the two cars. He was so nervous that as he opened the second door that he didn't notice how cold the handle was. He threw himself through the door and landed on the floor with a blast of frosty breath escaping from his mouth. Joe was standing still looking through the doors from the other carriage.

"Come on!" Garry called to him. "What are you waiting for?"

"There's someone else here," called Joe over the din of the angry animals.
"What do you mean?" Garry tried to get to his feet, but his shoes slipped from under him. The floor felt like glass, or ice. Joe didn't answer the question, he'd left the doorway and gone back into the seventh car.

Garry put a hand on one of the seats, it was freezing cold to touch, and leant on it while he got his feet under control and stood up. Unsteadily he made his way back to the door but before he got there Joe raced in from the other car, slamming the door closed behind him and skidded across the floor, crashing into a wall with his shoulder. He waited a moment to be sure the animals weren't following then he opened the front of his coat and showed to Garry what he had gone back for. Tucked under his jacket and wrapped in a blanket was a baby, not more than a year old, screaming and wailing with hunger and fright.
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Eight Cars - Part 2: The Last Car

October 10th 2010 07:46
Garry looked on intently as many minutes ticked their way around the virtual clock face on his mobile phone. The train was still stationary, there was still no power and there had been no announcement.

"Shit," Joe exclaimed as his phone beeped the beep of battery failure and turned itself off. "My phone's dead." He leant back in his seat and exhaled slowly.

"That's okay," said Garry, "Mine's got at least an hour left."

With his eyes closed Joe decided that a conversation was better than sitting there powerless, "How do you know you've got an hour left?"

"It tells me. Here," Garry touched a place on the screen, leant across the car and showed Joe the face of his phone.

Joe opened his eyes and looked closely at the handset, "It really tells you! My phone's junk."

Garry looked on, happy that he was able to impress this stranger with his superior technology. It was nice to impress someone with something. For the first time since the train had stopped Garry's face wasn't pointing at his phone and something in the next car caught his attention - there was light. He jumped up, accidentally pushing his phone into Joe's nose and exclaimed, "Holy crap, there are lights in there!"

Joe's first response was to smash the little guy's head for bumping his nose, but he gave it a second thought and decided that it would be an overreaction. When Joe was in High School he'd been forced to attend Anger Management Camp most Christmas Holidays. Now that he was an adult it was finally paying off! He made for the first door between the two cars, flung it open and stepped out onto the small walkway between. Garry followed him, slamming the first door behind him. This left the two men squeezed onto the small walkway between cars, it was a tight spot and Joe wasn’t comfortable with it. He grabbed the handle of the next car's door and flung it open.

The two young men stumbled into the next car.

"Holy Crap," Garry exclaimed, yet again.

This car was different from the previous one. Filtered light floated in from both sides of the train. Looking out the window Garry could see a thick green jungle, like something from a Tarzan movie. Thick vines hung down from enormous trees that stretched high up to form a dense canopy. The floor of the jungle was an out fo control mass of undergrowth, rotting leaves and fungus.

One of the car's double glazed windows was shattered and glass crunched underfoot. A trail of blood lead from one side of the car, across the floor, across the seat and out the broken window.

Joe hadn't noticed any of this yet, he was still looking back at the car they'd come from. it was still pitch black. "What the hell just happened?"

Garry couldn't anwser him, his mouth hung wide open, eyes staring at the blood. Then a deafening roar from outside the train got his attention and he snapped his mouth shut. As the roar ended Garry heard that it was accompanied by the heavy footsteps of an animal running. He could have been wrong but it sounded like it was coming towards the train.
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Eight Cars - Part 1: The Last Train

September 19th 2010 04:25
One-sixteen am.

It was few minutes late when the last train to Revesby jolted out of Central and clattered through the rail yards before plunging into the darkness of the airport tunnel. This late at night, or early in the morning, there were a handful of passengers, a listless guard and a weary driver on board. This late at night, when danger likes to lurk in the spaces that are usually filled by people, just about anything could happen.

Garry sat near the front entrance of the last car and pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck. Despite the signs plastered all over the station telling him it was safer to sit in the middle of the train near the guard's compartment he preferred the rear end of the train. Besides, he often asked himself, if it's so dangerous why do they insist on running eight car trains so late at night? What’s wrong with a one car train? It's not like it would fill up.

Garry preferred the back car where he could look at his reflection in the window as he tried to work out why it was, yet again, that he was going home alone. Every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes on Sunday when there was a holiday Monday, Garry tarted himself up and made his way into town for a few drinks with friends (people he only ever saw after dark and in noisy bars) to try to pick up someone for the night. The few drinks generally became several and the picking up generally failed, hence the long ride home in the back of the train, wondering what stopped people from wanting him.

Tonight was different. In the last seconds before the carriage doors had closed, after the, 'Stand Clear' had been given, someone ran up the steps, across the platform and into the last car. He was big, round and rough. Garry immediately looked to the floor, pretending he hadn't noticed the late arrival.

Joe didn't normally get the last train home. He was a bouncer at a club in the city and usually finished work around 5am. The first train of the day was his territory. In summer it would be night-time when you entered the tunnel and day-time when you came out the other end. It was like being transported to some other place, not just the distance of the tunnel away but to some other universe.

Joe was early, the club had been quiet and, though he didn't want to admit it, he was coming down with a cold. An early mark was just what he needed so he could go home and sleep through the next couple of days. He sat on the bench opposite Garry and gave him a glance, just another skinny little queer, then closed his eyes and prayed that his nose didn’t start running. There were tissues in his pocket but Joe knew that a big bloke like him looked funny blowing his nose on a tissue, especially when he was sharing a train with some gay guy. He was probably already giving Joe the once over, sizing him up for a bit of fun. Joe opened his eyes. The gay guy stared intently at the floor.

Both men were uncomfortable and silence made it worse so, simultaneously, each pulled out his phone and made an important call.

Garry called the talking clock, "Hello? Yes, I know it's late. I just wondered if you were still awake." To which the talking clock said, "At the third stroke it will be one, eighteen, and thirty seconds."

Joe called his mother, "Pick me up at Kingsgrove will you?" To which his mother said, "It's the middle of the night. Are you dying? Do you need a hospital? Because I can call you an ambulance but that's about all I can do!"

Garry, "So what are you doing? I thought I might drop by."
The clock, "At the third stroke it will be one, eighteen, and forty seconds."

Joe, "All I'm asking is for you to pick me up."
Mum, "And all I'm saying is, No!"

Garry, "Well that’s great! I'm on the train now, I can get off at Wolli Creek and be at your place in, say, twenty minutes?"

Joe, "I'm sick. I could get pneumonia and I could be dying, you should come get me."

Garry slid just a little further along his seat, away from Joe.
The clock said, "At the third stroke it will be one, eighteen, and fifty seconds."

Mum said, "If you're really dying then don't come here! I’ll get you that ambulance and you go straight to a hospital. Call me in the morning so I know where visit you."

Garry was about to confess to the talking clock that he didn't really love him anymore and suggest it was probably best that he continued on through Wolli Creek. Joe was about to tell his mother that he knew she didn't love him and that he was certain he was adopted. But neither got the chance to tell their lies because the train came to an abrupt halt and they were both flung to the front of the car.

Garry hit his head. Joe hurt his shoulder. They both dropped their phones.
The train lights and the tunnel lights extinguished.

Righting himself Joe picked up his glowing phone then held it to his ear – his mother was gone. He turned his phone around to let the glow from the screen light up the car. All he could see was Garry, who had picked up his phone and was shining it out the window. There was nothing to be seen, not even the wall of the tunnel.

Slowly, they returned to their seats, their phones shining light onto each other's faces. "Don’t worry," said Joe. "There’ll be an announcement in a minute and we’ll be on the move again."

They sat silently and waited.
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White Cedar

September 27th 2009 03:44
Alright. It was me. There was no murder attempt, it was suicide and this is my confession.

I never planned to make thirty, but I was having such a good time at twenty-nine the time flew by and I forgot all about it. At thirty-five I chickened out. Fear of pain was the determining factor. Then this. This was it, my last chance, forty. I certainly had no intention of suffering the indignity of incontinence, senility and forty-five. You live your life to the fullest, you enjoy every minute and when you’re ready you knock yourself off. No nursing homes, no financial bother, nice and clean.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Milkwars Part 2

September 20th 2009 02:06
Though considered almost cannibalistic by today's standards in the past milk was a very popular drink. With the aid of time travel and a miniature-transmitting device built into every carton of milk, the milk producers were able to travel forward in time and track down every carton of milk. This meant that they could know, to the very minute, when any carton of milk that was ever packed was going to pass its use by date. With this knowledge they could return to the time of packaging and stamp an accurate date on the carton. The addition of this service onto an already popular drink caused the price to sky-rocket and milk producers became members of a new class of wealthy elite called, 'The Milk Masters'.

The public demand for time travel caused the machines to be redesigned so they could become smaller and smaller, cheaper and cheaper, until eventually the C-MITE was replaced with the PTIME (Personal and Thorough Instantaneous Minute Escalator).

[ Click here to read more ]
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Milkwars Part 1

September 13th 2009 06:15
Chapter 6. Genesis of the Coraffe and fall of the Human Gods.

In ancient times the Human Gods were lords of all the Earth. You may know of fables like 'How George Made the Sunshine at Night' and 'The Thousand Year Winter'. These stories and the like are mostly children’s fables designed to teach the difference between good and bad. They're very entertaining but if you're interested in crossing the gap between Mythology and History you need to begin with 'The Fall of The Human Gods'. This story tells us not only how they lost control of the Earth but it also leads into the birth of our own race.

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Tesstwo Odyssey

September 6th 2009 09:23
We were 11 years into our journey before we received the news about the destruction and chaos back home.

If we went back there was nothing we could do to help. Even though, if we had decided to go back it would take several several months of breaking to stop the ship, then we'd need time to re-plot our course and following this would still be another 11 years travelling to get there. For us, travelling at near light speed, the time would go much more quickly, but it would still be a long wait.

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The Robot Doctor - Part 2

June 8th 2009 12:10
Three weeks passed before the robot knew what it should do.

It knew immediately that the increase in brain capacity had something to do with the doctor but it took a few weeks to understand the best course of action. The robot returned to the surgery.

[ Click here to read more ]
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The Robot Doctor - Part 1

May 17th 2009 08:22
#You need that replaced;

#What do you mean?; The robot didn’t understand the statement. It was not often that one robot gave advice to another. In fact it was unusual for robots to speak to each other on matters other than work or safety. Perhaps that’s what the statement meant. Some part of the robot’s body was defective and was a threat to the safety of a human. #Is some part of my infrastructure defective?;

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My Water Dream

March 7th 2009 06:39
We stood outside The University waiting for my parents to show, they were late. The sun was low in the sky, hidden by the gothic sandstone structures of the medical faculty. To pass the time we drank coffee. I shouldn’t have drunk the coffee. I was already thirsty and coffee does nothing to quench a thirst.

We waited. My thirst grew. The sun sank. My thirst grew. We waited


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