“What?” He turned and saw four men dressed in dark jackets and torn jeans. They emerged from the abandoned boxcars scattered around the railyard. One clambered to the top of a old Soo Line boxcar to get a better shot.
They fired with makeshift bows using steel-tipped arrows. Another arrow struck the side of the locomotive. For an instant Todd was too confused to move, unable to believe he was standing in a 19th century steam train being shot at by arrows… in downtown LA!
Casey Jones seemed unaware of the danger as he strode toward the train. Todd shouted, “Casey!” as one of the arrows struck Casey in the back, sticking into his shoulder blade. Casey reached behind him to swat the arrow away. The sharp tip had sliced his skin, but it didn’t sink deep. Blood began to flow down his back.
Other gang members sprinted from the warehouses on their left, all charging toward the trapped train. Todd looked at the controls. The steam was still up, simmering in the boiler.
In the engineer cab, Todd pulled back on the gear-shift lever, heaving with both arms to shift the locomotive into full reverse, his hands afire with pain. The four driving wheels spun as the connecting rod rammed back and forth to build momentum in the stopped four-car train.
The locomotive shuddered. Steam poured out of the stack, mixed with black smoke. The train jerked as it fell back a few inches along the tracks. The two auto hulks tangled in the cowcatcher groaned and scraped. Roberto Gambotti yelped as he fell from the train.
Roberto’s brother yelled angrily to Todd. “Hey, you asshole! See what you did?” He jumped out to help.
The gang members ran closer. The Steam Roller’s driving wheels spun slowly, laboriously. The train inched backward. Todd could see other attackers with knives, metal pipes, spears. He ignored his burned hand and yelled. “Casey, get your butt in here!”
The big man clambered back into the engineer’s compartment, but they could both see that the locomotive would never gain speed fast enough to take them to safety. “Quick—in the back.”
Todd gingerly opened the back of the engineer’s cab and slid through to the dining car. Gang members reached the train and began swarming over it, smashing windows with their clubs. Up front, others scrambled onto the moving locomotive. The gang members reached the rear cars.
Todd opened a window on the opposite side of the dining car. He looked at the bleeding wound on Casey’s back. “Is it bad?”
“I’m okay,” said Casey, but the words seemed to require an effort.
“Go!” said Todd. He pushed Casey toward the window. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
Casey clambered out and fell to his knees from the moving train; Todd landed beside him, but kept his balance. He spotted Rex O’Keefe running back along the tracks, coffee cup still dangling from his fingers. They started to follow Rex, but were cut off as three gang members jumped from the train.
Todd looked around and made a split-second decision. “Here, this way.” Todd and Casey turned and ran toward the nearest warehouse.
The warehouse stood like a barge made out of aluminum siding, scrawled with unintelligible graffiti. Todd reached the nearest door. It was locked, but rattled loosely in the frame. Todd hit it with his shoulder. Casey Jones joined him for a second blow, and the frame bent enough for the door to pop open. Casey left a splattered red smear of blood on the metal door.
They ducked inside. Todd shoved the door shut, looking around in the dimness for something to barricade it. They stood in a forest of metal shelves, crates of car parts, and pieces of equipment under scraps of canvas. Catwalks hung overhead, connecting the tops of the towering shelves. Three automobile engine blocks hung on chains suspended from high pulleys.
Near the door, Casey Jones found several round oil drums. “Here—help me out.” Some were filled with scummy water, others with a caked sludge. Casey wrestled one of the heavy drums in front of the door. Todd grimaced as he helped him move a second. Shaking his still-smarting hand, he heard the first gang member strike the barricaded door. The metal smacked into the oil drum, and he heard an “oomph!” from the other side.
Todd spun around to grab another barrel. The drum was lighter than he expected, and it toppled over, spilling its contents on the concrete floor with a sound like hard plastic cups. Todd gingerly picked one up, then dropped it.
It was a human skull. The barrel was full of them.
The next drum was stuffed with bones; all the meat had been sliced off.
“I don’t think the food on the train is going to distract them very long,” Todd said, forcing his words through a dry throat. “It doesn’t look like they’re vegetarians.”
Todd and Casey ran into the prison-like labyrinth of the warehouse. Light slid through the broken panes of skylights above, shining down in blunted spears. Dust drifted in tiny glowing speckles through the light.
A shaft of sunlight poured in as the gang members forced open the door. The attackers split up and stalked through the warehouse. They banged their steel pipes on the metal shelves. One laughed in the shadows.
“This doesn’t give me a darned good feeling,” Todd muttered.
Casey Jones looked around and grabbed one of the heavy engine blocks dangling from the chains. “Over here,” he whispered.
Todd joined him. They grasped the engine block and pulled backward, one step at a time as they lifted it up on its arc. They could hear one of the gang members approach as he rhythmically struck the metal shelves.
“Come out, you motherfuckers!” the gang member said. The banging got louder. He stepped around the corner of the metal shelves.
Todd and Casey shoved the engine block in unison.
The block crashed into the man, driving him back against the shelves. Crates fell off the upper levels and tumbled around him like an avalanche. He cried out, and the other attackers stopped their taunting and came running. The bank of shelves tipped over just enough to smash into the next line of shelves.
Todd and Casey ran. At the back corner of the warehouse they saw stairs leading to the network of catwalks overhead. They couldn’t see how many gang members had followed them inside.
“Go on,” Casey said, then pushed Todd up the stairs. The steps creaked, rattling as they bumped against supports on the wall. The gang members heard them and came running.
Todd reached the catwalk and started across the open space. The catwalk throbbed with other footsteps. Halfway across, Todd turned as a lean opponent strode across the metal grille toward them, holding a long switchblade. “Casey—behind you!”
Casey turned and waded toward the oncoming gang member as if he meant to take part in a barroom brawl. The attacker grinned and slashed with the switchblade.
With remarkable speed for his burly frame, Casey Jones grabbed the man’s forearm and slammed it onto the rail. Thin wrist bones snapped like balsa wood.
Even as the gang member screeched in pain, Casey grabbed him by the seat of the pants and lifted him over the edge, tossing him headfirst to the concrete floor. The attacker didn’t even cry out as he fell. The only sound he made was like a melon struck with a baseball bat when he hit the floor.
Todd reached the roof door before another gang member managed to reach the top of the stairs. Sunlight spilled in as he opened the door; Todd and Casey ran out onto the roof.
Another warehouse butted up against this one with only a six-foot gap between the two rooftops. Todd cleared the distance easily, jumping across and landing with an explosion of noise as his cowboy boots crashed into the corrugated metal roof. Casey Jones landed beside him, falling to his knees. He panted.
Todd looked behind them. “Once we get ahead of them, we can disappear into the city.”