I hear a noise. A rumbling. I sit up and lean back on my claws. They feel like heavy rocks at the end of my arms. The blood on the one has congealed. It snaps open with an eerie clack!
Somehow I am on my feet. I hobble up to the rails and look down them to the east. There is a train coming. If it is too fast I will not make it, but I am willing to try it. It might be my last bit of good fortune. Then again, my fortune may have indeed run out. I wait.
The horn is deafening and the lights are blinding, and I have no idea if the driver is seeing me and what exactly he is seeing if he does, but my timing must be good. I take a deep breath and kick the rails in front of me with my numb right foot until it tingles enough for me to move my toes. They feel thick and hard inside my stolen sneakers.
When the engine has passed me I begin to run. Fortune has handed me one more face card. It is slow enough for me to be able to have a shot at grabbing something, if anything that is protruding from its side. I lurch and hobble as fast as I can on my bad foot, grimacing and grinning like a haunted pumpkin.
The cars float past me like ghosts at sea. Gigantic white rusted letters painted on the cars’ side seem to mock me with their words. I am moaning, I can feel the vibration in my chest, but I cannot hear my own voice. My foot has become numb again and the impact with each step sends pain like shards of broken glass up my leg and into my hip and ribs. I look desperately for an opening in the train, for a foothold or handhold, an outstretched arm, something. Anything.
The next car is a cargo container. A huge bay door in its centre is open about ten feet. Something from a horror comic is leaning out. Its hair is long and white, and flying in the breeze like a torn flag. Its arm is long and thin and twig-like, and is stretched out towards me. The creature’s face comes to a stunted snout in its centre. The nostrils there are big and looming. Huge teeth bare proudly from the open mouth beneath. It is yelling and I can barely hear it.
“COME ON, COME ON!”
I am screaming now. I am taking great gulps of air and scrambling on my numb foot, reaching out like a drowning man at a passing boat, my chest feels like it is going to explode and my arm is not long enough, I am not fast enough, I have run out of fortune-
The hand that grips my wrist is like steel. I am hauled off my feet and pulled like a sack of oats into the car. I am too worn to fight. The door closes with a steel shriek and I am enveloped in darkness, awaiting the end. I will wake up back in the hospital, not knowing how I got there with my hands missing…
“Give him some room!” a voice growls, remarkably animal-like.
A light is turned on and I realize, blinking, that it is a floodlight. Arms haul me into a sitting position and I am administered cold liquid from a metal can. It is cool and tasteless going down my burning throat.
“Take it slow. This is Healagel. It will stabilize you,” the animal voice tells me. I drink until he takes it away.
Within seconds my head begins to clear. The pounding in my foot subsides, and I am able to sit myself up with no help. I do so and look around the car at my rescuers.
The ten or so that are hunkered down around me are also in various stages of the change. Their faces and hands have scaled and hardened. Their claws are brown gray and gleam in the reflecting floodlight. One man’s face is completely changed. Small yellow eyes peer coolly from bulky sockets, and I have no doubt that he does not need the light anymore to see me.
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