And now, a brief break as a new plot twist emerges…! :O

Sorta short, so… sorry. I literally wrote, re-wrote, and re-re-wrote about eight pages of material to get this. Couldn’t get the “angle” right. 😛 Anyways, it’s time for our latest addition to the insanity… John Reeves!

 

Chapter 9

 

 

In the distance, somewhere far beyond the forested hills, a siren’s sombre tone rose above the cicadas, only to fall again below nature’s ambience.

John Reeves blew a cloud of smoke into the cold evening air, listening to the fire horn’s last echoes. Absently, he crushed his cigarette stub beneath his heel, glancing briefly at his watch without actually noting the time. He had seen his fair share of carnage in the six years since he had entered the field, but this was a whole new level for him. Thirty-some-odd people dead. Twisted metal and blood on everything. The scrubs were still fishing body parts out of the creek below.

The blackened husk of the train engine sat several yards down the track, looking for all the world like a colossal insect, on its back with its wheels to the sky. Reeves trudged towards it, rubbing his hands together in a futile attempt to ward off the chill.

A uniformed police officer was making his way around the front of the wreck as Reeves approached. Reeves greeted him with a curt nod. “Evening, Sheriff. What have you got for me?”

The Sheriff squinted at him. “I’ve got plenty for you, don’t worry. You must be the FBI fella they were going to send our way.”

Reeves handed over the papers he’d been given. “Special Agent Johnathan Reeves. Are you in charge here?”

The officer nodded. “Yessir. Name’s Sheriff Warren. You’ll be wanting to see the cause of this bang-up, right?”

“It would be a good place to start.”

“Right. Over here then.”

As he stepped forward, the Sheriff caught his toe on a protruding bit of burnt refuse, barely avoiding falling face-first into the sooty soil. He caught himself and swore loudly, spitting on the frozen ground. “This place is an absolute mess. Techies think it was some kinda IED, set to go off when the train ran it over. Ugly mess of hardware, from what we can piece together. The driver should’a seen it a mile away.”

Reeves consulted his hand-held device. “Speaking of the operator… seems his name was Eren Maxwell. Looks like he’d been running the train for twelve years.”

The Sheriff squinted at something in the distance. “Yep, we used to be good buddies. Went to the same pub up in town, actually. Felt sorry for the old guy. His wife left him twenty years ago, took the kids and left town. Two weeks later, they were dead. Blind-sided by a semi, if you can believe it. Sorta ironic, ain’t it? Whole family ended up human pancakes!” He smacked his hands together and chuckled.

Reeves was not amused. He’d been hoping to speak with Eren, perhaps get more information on the crash. Maxwell had been cocooned in the cab of the engine when it flipped. It had largely protected him from the lethal carnage, but with six broken ribs, a punctured lung, and burns on ninety-percent of his body…

He had died less than twelve hours ago, without ever regaining consciousness.

“Here we are.”

Reeves glanced up, following the Sheriff’s outstretched hand. Despite the stress they had been put through, the rails themselves had sustained little damage, with the exception of the section the Sheriff had indicated. There, the tracks were massively warped and pitted, and the left rail had snapped apart completely.

The Sheriff was still speaking. “The boys at the lab are going over the trace chemicals right now, but whatever this was, it wasn’t your average homemade explosive. Tre-mendous force, but all in one place. One big bang, hop the train off its tracks, and momentum does the rest. With the rate of speed, and trees on both sides… pretty much paper in a shredder. Musta been military-grade stuff.”

“I see that. Did anyone other than the engineer survive the initial impact?”

“Doubt it. Some bodies still missing, but overall…”

The FBI agent seemed surprised. “Who’s still unaccounted for?”

“Two or three of the doctors, one of the patients, too. We actually just found, ah, what’s-her-name… Lianne! Yeah, that was it. Found her this morning, or, well, most of her. Forensics say that she was thrown right out of the window and into the ravine as the cars stacked up. She would’a been fine, ‘cept the steel wheel carriage came down on her as she tried to run. Cut her right in half. They’re still looking for her legs, actually.”

Reeves sighed. This was an unfortunate turn of events. His superiors had given him rather specific instructions, instructions he was now unable to fulfill. His next stop would be the morgue; recover the body, get it to the lab before anyone else had a chance to examine it in-depth… or worse, cremate it. The sheriff would be no help here. Time to leave.

Almost as an afterthought, he asked, “Do you know which patient is still missing?”

The sheriff’s brow furrowed. “No, um… no, wait, yes! Yeah, her name was… Elise or something. Lisabeth? Hm… dang…”

Very slowly, trying with all his might to force emotion out of his voice, Reeves said, “Elinor?”

The sheriff’s eyes widened, and his face broke into a grin. “Yeah, that was it. Elinor Lenoma.”

Reeves tried to think, tried not to show any sign of the impact the words had had on him. Blood was pounding in his temples, blurring the edges of his vision. It was impossible… one chance in a million… but if he was right, if his department was right, this was exactly how it would have played out.

“She’s still unaccounted for? No sign of her in the wreck?”

“Nope, nothing. Some of the guys think a wild animal got her body, dragged her off somewhere, or maybe she went in the water and the current got her. We’ve been all up and down the creek bed, though. Nothing. Took us a bit longer than expected, actually. Some of our guys had to go out to that big fire.”

“Fire?”

“Yeah, the old Montgomery schoolhouse burned down. It’s about fifteen miles north of here. Anyway, there’s a lot of ground to cover. She’ll turn up, don’t worry.”

As if on cue, Reeves’ cell phone rang. With a gesture of apology to the sheriff, he answered it.

“Reeves.”

“We got her.” The caller was younger, maybe mid-twenties. Most likely an agent from another division; this was a business-only line.

“Got who?”

“The patient. The girl, Elinor. We’ve got her. She’s back at Elm Hope. Just walked in the door an hour ago. Heaven knows how she got there, but she’s there now. Sullivan wants you on-site yesterday. What’s your ETA?”

Reeves was already running, his dress shoes clattering on the gravel-covered earth.

“Ten minutes. For the love of God, don’t let her out of your sight!” He clicked the phone shut, wresting his keys from his pocket mid-stride.

They had her. Alive.

Now they just had to keep her that way.