“Last Train from Manchuria” by Matthew M. Ployhart

Pipes, steel, and blinding snow without.

The hulking furnace breathes onward,

Gasping fiercely into a blinding white.

Winds from south, pressing north,

Breathing onwards, breathing forth.

—

Alex sighed and rolled his head over to gaze out the window, into the lashing particles of snow rapidly whipping by. Beams of white streaked through the flurry, shimmering along the icy gloss of the snow-capped fields. There was not a single rock, animal, or piece of vegetation in sight, all concealed under an impermeable blanket of white, which itself sat in the dense ink of darkness. White lights on white snow – a stark contrast to the warm, yellow light that radiated cozily within the train car. Perhaps, if one were to stand outside, they would catch a glimpse of the long, metal engine, cutting like a knife through the snow, its searchlights sweeping over the plain in a desperate search for survivors.

“Alex,” a voice suddenly stated. Alex looked up to see William standing there, his bulging body, bulky with layers, standing before him. Despite the interior warmth, snow and ice crystals from without coated him head to toe, painting his black overcoat in a sheen of white. If not for the fact that he had pulled his scarf from his face, Alex would not have been able to tell it was him, yet all he saw was a ruddy, reddened surface upon which sat bushy, snow-whitened eyebrows and a wet moustache, green eyes peeking out from underneath a heavy fur hat. “You’re up,” he finished unceremoniously, fumbling with the buttons of his coat.

Alex let out another sigh as he closed his notebook and turned back to William, rising from his seat and turning to fetch the stiff, army-green coat draped over the backrest.

“Doing some writing?” William asked, trying to make conversation.

“Trying to,” Alex shrugged in reply.

“Well, it’s only an hour,” William replied as he began to slide his overcoat off his shoulder, revealing an identical green overcoat to Alex’s underneath. Flaky snow and lingering fragments of ice fell to the floor as he did so, melting into the decorative red carpet beneath his feet.

“Doesn’t make it pleasant,” Alex stated, although this time with a touch of humor and a slight smile, trying to better the mood. “See anything?” He asked as he buttoned the green coat over his thick black sweater.

“We haven’t stopped, have we?”

“Fair enough,” Alex replied, adjusting his belt underneath the bottom of his coat. Neither continued the conversation as Alex stepped to the empty round table nearby and picked up his own fur hat, but words carried on unspoken between them, each sharing in the exact same thoughts. These were selfish thoughts that they knew they could not acknowledge, hopes that there would be no survivors, that the train would not have to stop, and that, if it did, they would not have to wander out into the darkness of the frozen wastes beyond the searchlights. Throwing his scarf around his neck, Alex turned again to William, who was handing him his overcoat.

“Mine’s in the other room,” he said upon seeing this.

“I know,” William nodded, with a smile that seemed to be a mix of both pity and understanding. “Just thought you might want another.” Alex chuckled and forced William’s hand back to his side.

“I’ll be fine, William,” he smiled with assurance.

“I’m sure.”

“Who am I with?” Alex asked as he strode to the door at the other end of the empty car. They paced between rows of polished round tables and wooden seats. In a better time, not long departed, it would have been a luxury train, ferrying higher-paying travelers all along the North Line, but tonight its decorative cars contained the desperate remnants of less than a hundred people, the bottles of fine wine scattered here and there among the tables serving to warm rather than delight.

“Max,” William answered to Alex’s question. “He’s already out there,” he added.

Alex took a gulp from one of the reds before placing the glass bottle down with a thud on the table. Holding the alcohol in his mouth, he threw the handle of the car door downwards and wrenched it open. In the small, less-decorated space between cars, his overcoat hung on a single iron hook intended for stowing less-pragmatic garments. Swinging it around his shoulders, he reached for the next door, pausing for a moment before yanking it open with effort.

Immediately, the whipping wind and snow sent a shockwave of cold into the car, and he looked back to see William standing with his hands in his pockets a few feet back, his unbuttoned coat flapping furiously in the gusts but his face unflinching. They nodded to one another, and Alex stepped out into the biting wind.

He could not see a foot ahead of him on the narrow platform. Tying the strings of his hat together so that the flaps comfortably covered his ears, he finally stepped away and let the heavy metal door close behind him with a thud. The ice-encrusted wall to his right was far too cold to touch with the open palm of one’s hand, so he leaned against it as he fitted on two pairs of gloves, covered by one of mittens, to fend off the cold. Shivering, he regretted waiting so last minute to get ready, but the wine he had swallowed still carried a trace of warmth snaking its way down his chest that alleviated some of the shock of the cold.

Reaching out to grab the narrow metal railing, he slowly paced forward against the fierce wind, his other gloved hand pressed to the outside of the car to keep his balance. Pausing only once to draw his scarf up past his nose, he slowly, tediously made his way along the outside of the car, straining from under the strands of fur of his low-sitting hat to glimpse the dim white searchlight just ahead.

Suddenly, a faint white line appeared, which quickly narrowed and grew in intensity to form a vibrant ball of brightness until it just as swiftly vanished. Max was clearly already at work. Practically pulling himself along the railing, squinting against the cutting shards of snow that seemed to slash like knifes against her eyelids, Alex called out.

“Max!” He shouted at the top of his voice. No reaction. He inched forward a few more paces and shouted even louder. This time, the spotlight swiveled again in his direction and stayed trained near the railing, so that at least he could see the glint of the metal in the darkness.

Finally reaching the end of the narrow platform, he nodded to his companion of the next hour, who returned it with a sincere nod of his own. Out from between his hat and scarf peered two glossy eyes, the only indication that there was a human occupant in the bundle of clothing and garments that formed an enclosure around Max, and already his black coat and pants were covered in a sheen of white, broken only where the crease of his arm or neck wrinkled the fabric.

“Not sure it makes much of a difference,” he shouted over the noise, and threw his body towards the left, his hands gripping the searchlight handlebars in a strenuous effort to turn it against the wind. Alex looked out at the expanse beyond and realized that he was right: the wind had picked up substantially, and, with the speed of the train, it was nearly impossible to see even ten yards into the darkness. Snowflakes rushed past, and though the heavy, bulky searchlight peered intently into the distance with its powerful beams, it was no use against the simple flakes of frozen water which blocked its way. In the distance, if he squinted, Alex could see the dark, shadowy outline of the rolling hills, but the snow immediately before them was too heavy and too blinding to permit much. Certainly, if there were any survivors out in the fields, their hopes of being spotted were slim.

In the din of the night, both could hear the faint, long-blasted warning horn ringing out against the darkness, its sullen wail carried back with the wind. Why it sounded so incessantly was a mystery to them, as there were no people nor animals who could possibly be on the track, but Alex assumed that it was sounded to alert anyone who may be seeking rescue of the train’s approach.

“Guess they’re really hoping they’ll find survivors,” Max, as if reading Alex’s thoughts, shouted over the wind, swiveling the searchlight a little to the left, trying to comb over the snow as thoroughly as he could.

“I’m more worried about them finding us,” Alex remarked, straining to make himself heard over the noise.

“What?” Max turned to him, swiveling the searchlight a little involuntarily, then following it up with an “oh” as he realized that Alex wasn’t talking about the survivors. Both went silent for a few moments, and Max turned the searchlight back around to comb the landscape anew. “Well, we’re already at nearly top speed,” he shouted. Not that it really helped to lessen the anxiety that seemed to affect everyone – the speed of the train as it rocketed along, the sharp slice of snow as it bit against the spotters’ eyes: it all served to remind of the desperation of their journey.

Peering further up the train, Alex could just spot the glow of the next searchlight being steered across the plain, as well as the one on the car beyond, albeit much more dimly. Sparing a glance towards the cars behind him, the sight was the same. Over a dozen searchlights, all combing, and all struggling to penetrate even a few yards into the blinding snow.

“Do you think anyone is even alive out there?” He yelled to Max, who was slowly letting the searchlight drift back left in his apparent pitiful effort to lend greater thoroughness to the task.

“Gotta’ at least look,” he replied. “Who knows?” But his actions belayed his disbelief at his own words, as he slowly, calmly, casually swiveled the light from side to side, no visible sense of urgency pushing him along. He was thorough, but by no means urgent or swift.

In truth, it was a reflection of what everyone knew but no one said: that the search for survivors was less of an effort than an afterthought, the price to be paid for the comfort of peace of mind in the future, should any of them make it to their destination. An hour every three hours standing at a searchlight: that was the cost of being able to sleep at night and every night forth.

Standing there in the cold, peering into the darkness, and taking over the spotlight from Max whenever he began to chill: this was how he had spent every fourth hour for the past several days, only now it seemed pointless. Of course, if they spotted someone – unlikely as it was – they would stop, but there was little hope of that. Nevertheless, they carried out their task with the devotion one feels when they seek to hide in routine from the pains of discomfort. If not writing, smoking, or cleaning their pipes, all onboard talked of anything but the present situation. A few books had been passed around over the past few days, with many of the passengers discussing them over and over with undying eagerness, be it Angela Herring’s Hangman’s Troubles, or Leo Thorpe’s, Cherry Revenge. With these mundane oddities the only alternative distractions, stepping out to the searchlight wasn’t so intolerable.

Yet it still carried a certain uneasy air, as one had to be again confronted by the endless frozen wastes within which could be hundreds unfortunate enough to have not been picked up by any of the previous trains. And this was the last train. There would be no more after this, only silence and the emptiness that accompanies it. But at least swiveling the searchlight to and fro was still some sort of distraction, or else the faint dread of knowing that they may not even survive, themselves, would be matched by the crushing weight of survivors’ guilt.

The horn blared again, and Alex closed his eyes, feeling something familiar in its sound. It took him a moment to realize that it was a perfect b-flat, the same note as at the beginning of On the Hills of Manchuria, the last song he had ever had the chance to play. He had found the sheet music in an abandoned farmstead, sitting atop a dilapidated, old-fashioned piano. Only half the keys worked, but as the central octaves were pretty well intact, he was able to play most of it. It was a simple song, clearly torn from a children’s lesson book, but something about it stuck with him now.

He listened closely, trying to detect the melody over the monotonous b-flat of the horn, attempting to misshapen the siren-like drawl in the imaginative dream state that one experiences when a sound is far off enough that its pitch can be manipulated by the mind. Though he knew it to be fake, he could faintly hear the sad, somber notes of the mournful waltz wafting over the wind, carrying itself back and away from the train, out over the frozen fields without.

He thought about what it meant, what it represented: tens of thousands of shivering Russians isolated in the frozen hills of northern China, and the tens of thousands of Japanese who shivered across from them, never to see home again. Perhaps they knew how useless their struggle was: how nothing they could have done would change history, and that they could not even control the circumstances of their own deaths. Pawns without say in a bigger war, fighting to the end yet freezing in the same tundra, slaves to the unstoppable march of history, through all its horrible ebbs and flows.

Perhaps there were people out there. Perhaps they were as near as thirty feet of the train. Even if they could see the dim glow of the lights from miles away, who could say among those on board if there was a single person out there? Only the long, howling drawl of the wind and the occasional long burst of the warning horn could be heard over the swift brushing of the train through the snow, and the turning of its wheels along track, alone in the darkness, its searchlights desperately peering for a sight that wasn’t there, and, if it was, one that it wouldn’t be able to reach.

Before he knew it, the watch shift was over, and he was once more standing inside the warmth of the train car, happy to be out of the gale. The lighting retained its warm yellow, and the heating was sufficient enough that, if one concentrated on their book, work, or conversation, they may forget about their situation all together, save a sparing glance through the frost-encrusted window. The consistent drawl of metal wheels fiercely rolling over track was reduced to a relaxing hum in the interior of the train, and all said, there could be no supposition that the locomotive was serving any purpose other than its intended one as a luxury line, if not for the searchlights peering out into the snow and the clothing of most of its passengers.

However, this time, Alex’s car was a bit more crowded. Whereas before he had only shared it with Kenneth, who sat staring out the window most of the time, and with whom he had not really spoken much, there were far more to speak of after Alex returned from his outdoor shift.

Kenneth was sitting in the same place Alex had last seen him at the other end of the car, only now he was joined by another soldier, Francis, with whom he was talking. A handful of other individuals, all of whom Alex had come to know at some point over the previous days, also occupied the car, including William, who sat reading, muttering quietly to himself as he did. But the most important figure among them was Captain Kay, the effective commander of the train. She was sitting in one of the armchairs as she spoke with the company’s lieutenant, the only other officer on the train. He was saying something, and she was nodding with interest, a look of strained concern upon her face.

However, Alex’s shift was over, and that meant he had a little time for respite. He first walked over to Kenneth, to tell him that it was his turn to stand duty at the spotlight, and he nodded and rose without a word. Max, who had come in just before, was also seated in the car, seemingly engulfed in his newspaper crossword. Yet, this number of individuals was not unusual, as given that this was only one of four sitting cars, anyone who did not want to sit in the baggage cars or dining car would be packed into the space that was left. Not to mention that they were certainly not designed for conserving space, with the furniture and accompanying seating space having been arranged with far less practical purposes in mind.

Taking a seat, Alex gazed again out the window, at the searchlights sweeping over the snow without, glossing over the bright sheen of white in an infinite hum of motion. It almost looked like waves in an ocean – a cold, desolate ocean. The air in the room hung with the thick sense that everything was in doubt. It was fully felt, but not acknowledged.

—

A lone pipe, breathing, whistling, fuming.

Snow drifts north, and you push forth.

Stretching for suns, bright and looming

Fiery warmth, all-consuming.

—

Alex looked up from his notebook at almost the same time as the door flew open and a frantic yell was shouted down the hall.

“Lights spotted!” The room went still. Then, in an instant, the captain stood up.

“Mark, signal the engineer to stop the train,” she commanded as the latter dashed off. She ordered the spotters to indicate in which direction they had seen lights, and all three stepped out onto the platform to obtain as unobstructed a view as possible. Almost immediately, as the passengers inside pressed against the windows, Kay strode back into the car and announced that a small cluster of lights had been spotted not more than half a mile to the East. It wasn’t possible to tell how many there were, but in the lessening snow, a faint, distant glow that was clearly quite intense could be glimpsed. It looked like it might have been a fire, as it behaved somewhat erratically, but others proposed it was made up of flashlights being waved by unseen hands. That was all after a few seconds’ observation, of course, because the speeding train still careened onward in its lengthy journey to a full stop.

By the time the train finally did stop, all non-civilians were called into the car in which Alex sat for a briefing on the procedure. Alex’s face drew in a little as she explained that the lights could not verifiably be a sign of something good or something bad, and it dawned on everyone that they could be indicating the presence of some hostile military unit just as much as it could be a distress fire. But the lights had been spotted, and everyone onboard seemed consciously aware that they had an obligation to investigate. Their journey had been planned in advance, and was well-timed, and there was no reason to suspect that stopping even for a day or two would put the train or its occupants at risk. That meant there was no real reason not to stop, which is what everyone clearly feared to do most.

But not a word was spoken of it, and Captain Kay announced, to Alex’s unease, that she would be choosing a handful of soldiers to accompany Mark onto the field to retrieve the survivors while being prepared to confront hostile forces. All of those individuals would be armed with repeating rifles.

Alex knew that he would be on the list. He had been serving under Kay since longer than most of the other soldiers on board had even known her. William was picked as well, presumably for his typically rigid adherence to orders, and Max because he had good shooting skills. A few others were also chosen.

In the meantime, they had a moment to prepare as the train finally began its slow crawl backwards towards the place where the lights had been deemed closest to the tracks. If it was a fire, it would probably still be burning, given how visible it was. Once the train reached the best location, it would only be a short walk onto the plains to inspect its source. They would be stepping out into that white sea of snow, in its churning gale.

—

Foam laps up, churning green,

Guzzling through their briny sheen

And bursting forth to break the grate

That sends us through the golden strait.

—

He had a little time to write in the moments after he had gotten ready. He was in no mood to think about his undertaking. In all reality, it would probably go harmlessly, but there was still a sense of unease that naturally accompanied the unpredictability of it all.

The rifles were unceremoniously distributed among those selected to the scouting party, who then unceremoniously disembarked, with Mark at the head. His short, narrow figure looked out of place in his clothes, which were probably a size too big for him, there being a shortage of coats of late. It looked like he didn’t really belong in it, like his body might leave it at any moment.

Stepping down the metal staircase, they hopped one by one into the snow, which turned out to be knee deep, ensuring that the operation would be undertaken at an agonizing pace. The wind was still rushing and blowing, but it was not so bad as it was before, although the visibility had hardly improved, with vision limited what seemed to Alex as far narrower than what should be natural, so blinding was the thickly-falling snow.

Thus, rifles in hand, they trudged through the snow in a single, snaking line, each individual a few feet from the other. They were all equipped with flashlights, and most held these with their rifles slung over their shoulders, although Alex held his rifle at the ready, preferring to hold the flashlight in the pinch of his thumb. As if there were not already enough unpredictability on this mission, it became clear that the lights in the distance, whatever they were, had gone out – they would have to search for the survivors blindly.

The lights of the train were to be kept on, and though the warm, yellow-tinted rooms sent blazing light into the snow, they were fast disappearing behind them. That was ok – they had compasses. They could always find the track, and the train, if they needed to, but the path would not be lost, regardless – they would not be out that long..

Despite this, Alex found himself in tremendous doubt. There was a certain stillness in the air, in the fact that the wind had died down, and that the fires could no longer be glimpsed. He slid into a mood that seemed to grip the rest of the small party just as much, as they each peered eagerly into the darkness with nervous anticipation.

Then, Max shouted and pointed in the distance, and all turned to see what was there, but no one could make out anything. Mark turned to him and asked him to point it our more closely, raising his voice a little to be heard. Max pointed again, and all strained to see to no avail. We cautiously pushed forward, anticipating hostile forms to fly out of the darkness at any second, until suddenly before us a large, imposing shadow began to emerge.

What looked to be a solid wall or rock of some sort morphed slowly out of the snow, darkening against the glint of our flashlights. As we approached, it gradually took the shape of a railway car. It was lying slightly askew, with its left side significantly sunken into the ground. It was surrounded by clinging slopes of snow that threatened to envelop the little car.

“Abandoned cars,” William shouted suddenly. “They’re a common sight along the North Line.”

“It means that we have nothing to fear, this is perfectly ordinary,” Mark stated, with a level of affirmation that seemed to betray his own doubt. Slowly, they filed along the side of the car, and William was the first to reach the doorway and peer inside. With the intense climax of their miniature voyage potentially being reached, all had expected some tense sort of standoff. Yet, William simply walked up, poked his head inside, and motioned to the others that it was safe to follow.

Upon entering, pattering inside the depilated metal box crouched against the cold, it became clear that this had been the source of the fire: the car smelled of smoke, and the metal frames that had once housed dozens of wooden seats where still smoldering in the cold. By the looks of it, a whole load of junk had been burned inside.

“It was a good fire,” Kenneth remarked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“It means that they’re not far,” Mark replied, and turned to exit the car, but William stopped him.

“Why wouldn’t they meet us here if they wanted our attention?” William asked. Mark tried his best to reassure him, but it was clear that he shared William’s concerns to a degree probably greater than the latter’s.

“It’s likely they were forced to take shelter from the heat,” Mark replied with a little force in his voice. “We have to look for them. They may have gotten lost.” The whole crew exited the train car and descended again into the snowy sea. The wind was beginning suddenly to pick up again, and lashing snowflakes taunted the lips and cheeks of their victims, most of them without their scarves covering their faces. Alex turned to see William’s face in the glow of the flashlight, his eyes steady and determined, his rifle clutched against his chest.

Just then, a loud crack startled the entire party, and all started as a sharp burst of light went off in the distance. It was no doubt from a gun.

“It’s a signal shot!” Mark proclaimed almost immediately, and, finding no objection in the faces of his comrades, cupped his hand over his mouth and began to shout.

“Hey!” He shouted at the top of his voice, waving his pistol in the other hand, and another shot rang out in the distance, accompanied by its short burst of bright, yellow light. “Yes! Over here,” he exclaimed with a little too much enthusiasm, evidently interpreting the shots to be an acknowledgement of his call. Yet this, too, was followed by more shots, and it suddenly occurred to us that the flashes were going off in slightly different places. There were multiple guns, multiple people with guns. And they were firing. It was not clear if it was in signal of distress, or an attack, but since there were no bullets whizzing their way, Mark appeared to continue to assume the former.

And then, if this development were not stark enough, more bangs and flashes of light began appearing from another direction, and all suddenly seemed to come to the conclusion that they were witnessing a battle between two sides at near point-blank range. And, as if the combatants could sense their realization of this, the first bullets began suddenly whizzing by their ears. Almost immediately, Max stiffened and fell forward, while Alex felt the uncomfortable warmth of human blood on his face, and the unpleasant, metallic taste of iron in his mouth.

Almost as immediately as the shooting began, Mark began yelling for them to break and fan out, yet they were doing this already by instinct. Driven by the sheer terror of the moment, all were driven to the ground. Alex felt his chest slam into the stock of his rifle and grunted. Yet, righting himself, he began to adjust the gun, bullets still whizzing at frequent intervals overhead.

He brushed the snow from his face in a single frantic swoop, taking the safety off his rifle and firing. The crack and bangs of rifles going off around him served as reassured that at least enough of them were still fighting to be able to put up a resistance. For the most part, they were shooting blindly into the snow, just as their enemy, but they aimed intently in the direction of the flashes of rifle fire. The enemy groups, too, seemed to continue their peppered shots at one another, and so it proved to be a considerable skirmish, with three combating sides.

Alex let off a few shots, and felt like he could almost hear voices floating over the wind, distant shouts of some sort, but whether of command, or of fear, was unclear. One of the soldiers on Alex’s side was shouting with pain, and it was evident that one or two others had also been hit. They were positioned along a low grade, so as long as they pressed themselves flat against the earth, it was possible to evade the bullets.

Just then, the worst sound in the world resounded loud over the plains, in the droning form of a blaring b-flat. The dreadful warning horn. It had been agreed beforehand that, if fighting broke out, the train would remain in place and other soldiers would be dispatched to assist the situation. That certainly seemed to be Mark’s impression, who, despite the gunfire, turned onto his back and waved his arms, trying desperately to get the train’s attention through helpless shouts beseeching them to wait. 

They did not wait. Whether there had been a miscommunication, or if the skirmish really had driven Kay or one of the engineers to flee, it did not matter. Alex and the others watched, in awe, as the dim and far-off lights of their train slowly sliced away through the snow, swiftly picking up speed as it disappeared in the distance. Throughout the ordeal, Mark was still waiving his hand and yelling, as if that might make the train stop. As for Alex and the others, they watched in disbelief as their only lifeboat in that gale trotted away. Like a sinking ship in dark waters, the last of its dim lights slowly vanished into the darkness, plunging its castaways into a newspaper black-and-white night.

Before long, the shooting began to lessen, and then suddenly stopped, enough to determine the number of dead and wounded. They had three dead and no wounded. In terms of numbers, that left Mark, William, Kenneth, and another soldier, Ava, in fighting shape. That suggested decent odds for a small skirmish, although they had already lost a third of their fighting force. Max, who fell beside Alex, was among the three to have been killed, though they had no sooner consulted about their losses than it occurred to them that the shooting had stopped entirely. One or two sharp cracks had burst off in the distance, between the two skirmishing parties, and then all went silent.

“Fall back to the track!” Mark shouted, urging them towards the line before their shock at being left behind could fully set in. They turned off their flashlights and rushed to the track, for there was still a hope among all of them that the train could be found again, that perhaps it was waiting just a little down the line, where it had simply sought to be safely away from the threat of fire.

Yet, when the tracks, already almost fully coated in white, were finally reached, there could be no sign of the train – no sound of the horn, no vibration of the tracks, no lights in the distance. The enemy, too, was still afoot, but as there had been no more shots fired, all simply stood meekly and looked around, pretending alertness as they faked peering into a darkness that the lights of their now-alighted flashlights couldn’t pierce. The only one not standing around uneasily was Mark, who was frantically fidgeting with his radiophone, struggling in vain to turn it on, until finally, in a vent of frustration, he heaved it down the track, where it clanked harmlessly over the crossties.

“Selfish bastards!” He shouted after the train, as if the howling wind could pick up the tails of his voice and carry it all the way to the bright knife slicing its way through the snow. He looked down, placing a hand to his forehead and running it down his face, his eyes blank but his mind clearly in thought. “Right,” he suddenly stated, turning around. “We’ll have to proceed on foot.” Perhaps he was trying to be reassuring in his frankness, but to the others, it simply sealed in their minds the knowledge of the fate that they would most surely meet. But no one wants to think about death, and so they resorted to doing all they could do now – ignoring the problem – which they could do only by walking, slowly, in a long trudge down the tracks, tracks that they knew would never again carry another train. They were like the ghosts of the track, the insides of the train, urging forward without a body.

The only one who seemed to be in their full wits was William, who raised concerns about the enemy before they had even set off.

“What about the enemy?” Mark responded curtly – no one could blame him for it at this juncture.

“For all we know they’ll be lying up ahead in ambush,” William replied.

“We would have heard them shooting at the train,” Mark countered.

“It’s not like they just vanished.” All heads continued to look into the darkness, out where they knew others were lurking. Mark was the only one with his flashlight ignited, which he raised to his face and seemed to stare at for a moment before clearing his throat and announcing that it would be best to distribute what rations and supplies they had on hand before the journey ahead.

“Just in case someone gets lost,” he added with a touch of doubt in his voice.

“Why not wait until morning?” These words were also spoken by William. Alex cringed: it was a fair point, but he wasn’t in the mood for exploring any options that wouldn’t imply their immediate withdrawal. Clearly, neither was Mark.

“The storm’s only going to get worse,” he affirmed. “We make down the track for at least the next few hours. We can break once it hits sunrise.

“But there won’t be a sunrise,” William pressed. He was right. It was too deep in the winter too far north to have any hope of seeing the sun.

“I meant the time of sunrise,” Mark retorted.

“What if we lose the track?”

“We have compasses. Now take off your pack.” William, who was the only one among them wearing a backpack, swung it from around his shoulders and yanked open the drawstring. Inside were a few tins of meat, some bread, some blankets, and several rounds for their rifles – almost ten each. It would be enough with what they already had. Hopefully.

And, unthinking and with their shoulders stooped against the cold, they pressed onward, slowly making their way along a track through fields scattered with hostiles.

“Who was the enemy?” Alex ventured to ask after a moment, but was met with no reply save the icy howl of the wind. “Did anybody see them?” He ventured to ask again. Nobody said anything, which was a sufficient enough response, although Mark added:

“They were shooting at us – that’s all that mattered.” And so, on they walked through the storm, staring down the trench of snow in the ground that would only collect more snowflakes, the remains of the train’s torrential charge down the track being erased almost as fast as it had been formed. And right now, this band of ghosts, clinging to a hope that had since sailed off, made their way along the rapidly vanishing wake of a rescue ship at sea, which had left them alone in the churning darkness, never again to see another sunrise.

The north-bound winds continued to swirl and agitate the cutting snow, although it was not so bad as it was when Alex was standing on the platform of the rushing train. Nevertheless, the cold was biting, ensuring that only the well-equipped, well fed, and well warmed had any hope of surviving more than a few hours. The landscape demanded a perfect adherence to the best standards of biological health to withstand the taxing cold. Alex realized, although he did not announce it, the costs that would befall them should they fail to find help before their food ran out, which they calculated would be in a few mere days.

Until then it was a blinding trudge through the snow. It did not take long for the torn-up trench demarcating the track to refill, and not much longer for any sign of the track to disappear entirely. At some point or another, they had stumbled off the thing, or it turned away, so that their single lifeline of rail was now forever behind them. Compasses in hand, they pushed forward still, refusing to believe – or accept – that salvation was impossible. Now they drifted, wandering ghosts, through that sea of white.

The first night was passed in agony, for they were already all so tired. Sleep was not easy to find, but against Mark’s wishes they did stop multiple times to attempt to catch it. By taking shifts and making use of the blankets they did possess, they were able to rest on the assurance that they were woken up in time by others before being buried in snow.

Daylight brought little respite, for though the sky lightened slightly and the blackness briefly retreated to a deep, dark grey, the snow was still falling heavily with fat, clumpy snowflakes rapidly nestling upon the ground. It occurred to Alex that they would be buried out there, buried alive in water, solid water, not drowning but suffocating – the same killer in another form. They were not ghosts – they were corpses, corpses waiting to be buried. Aside from occasional breaks to sleep and the even less frequent breaks to eat, they continued pushing forward, most of them not saying a word, for there was nothing left to distract themselves from. This was it. They were in it, and there was no amount of small talk that could alleviate the burden of knowledge of that reality.

It also occurred to Alex how fruitless their search for survivors had truly been, for they did not encounter a single wandering soul as they marched along the tracks, although from time to time they were interrupted by the cracking volley of rifles.

“Break formation!” Mark had shouted as the first cracks rang out after that early morning, and they all dove to the ground. In the distance, Alex could see bright flashes lighting up with each, occasional shot. He could hear the bullets whistling past his ears, and the unpleasant smacking sound of a bullet smashing into human bone. Kenneth let out weak whimpers of pain as the firing subsided, and William, desperate to determine the nature of the enemy, charged over the low hill they had been firing from, Alex right behind him.

They each fired a shot into the whirling haze as they sprinted, bracing for the barrels of their rifles to slam into a chest or belly at any second. Their effort brought them to the base of another low hill, the top of which they were sure the enemy was shooting from. Jogging a few more paces, William gave a shout as he pointed his rifle towards the ground, yet no shots were fired. There was no one there.

Disrupted snow covered the ground, and the clear, messy imprints of horizontal combatants could be made out, indicating the same method of attack from the attackers as they had taken to in their defense. But no one could be seen, the scattered footprints leading away from the sight of the skirmish being the only remnant of the enemy forces, whoever they were.

“Look,” William pointed, and Alex stepped over to investigate the spot that had grabbed his attention. It was a small pool of blood in the snow, with droplets of crimson red creating a sickly pattern of misshapen polka-dots around it. The blood trailed away for a few feet and then suddenly stopped, just as all the footprints faded away when they tried to follow them. They just trailed a little into the distance and then suddenly seemed to vanish into thin air. The only possible explanation was the snow, which continued to billow down in blankets, and which they assumed had covered the tracks.

“What do they want with us?” These words came from the mouth of William, whose face finally betrayed his fear at their mysterious opponents. All Alex could do was shake his head.

Just then, a single loud crack sounded from behind, and they both turned to see if more gunshots would follow, but there was nothing. Realizing how far they had strayed from the rest, they sprinted back only to find Mark emptying the unspent rounds out of a rifle, its former owner lying still upon the ground. Kenneth had his arms outspread, his brown eyes open. His hat had fallen off, and his blond hair was blowing with his farmer’s haircut misshapen in the wind.

“What did you do that for?” Alex demanded.

“He suffered a chest shot, he wouldn’t have made it,” Mark replied with sternness, clearly wanting Alex to simply drop the matter, but then suddenly added, “we need the food.” And so, with Kenneth’s body still lying in a position that seemed to contrast Mark’s claim that he was beyond saving, they pocked his rations and distributed his rounds. As William and Mark set to breaking the rifle, Alex turned to Ava.

“Was he really beyond saving?” He asked. Ava took a second to respond.

“He was hit pretty bad,” was all she said, and Alex understood that he was to simply accept the fact that he now had a little extra food with good grace. And, to the pain of his mind but the happiness of his belly, their skirmish that day was not the last encounter, nor their last loss. At least once, sometimes twice, each day, loud cracks and their accompanying flashes of light whipped across the plain. It was never very many combatants – far fewer than there had been on that first night, judging from the number and frequency of the shots – but only one bullet is sufficient to kill. Most of the time they could chase them away, and always they would search in vain to determine where the enemy had withdrawn to. Sometimes there were footprints, and sometimes blood like William had spotted, but never any actual people, or even objects. Not so much as a discarded glove or a bullet casing decorated the white ground. It was as if the attackers, themselves, were ghosts in their own sense.

“Why not just take us out already?” Mark had shouted angrily as he discharged his pistol into another group of attackers assailing them. The others laid down suppressive fire.

Yet slowly, after repeated attacks, it began to take a toll on their number. Ava had taken a shot clear to her brain, and Mark had been wounded in the arm, and the next day killed, by attackers. Whether it was the same group following them or fresh groups of combatants each time, there was no clear motive displayed in the attacks – they just seemed to pop up whenever the universe deemed it proper, fought a little, and disappeared back into the newspaper days and nights. Even William had taken a bullet to his calf, making it along only by using Mark’s rifle as a crutch.

Yet in twisted cruelty, the more who had been killed, the more food was left for the rest. The effect was that each member of the party who had been picked off ensured a little more time was granted to the others. Had they all stayed alive, they would likely have run out of food by their third day. Now, it was almost the end of the sixth day, and Alex and William still had a enough left between them to stretch over a few more. It was as if there were a shared pool of life between all of them, and to gain life came only at the expense of someone else’s.

But that could only go on for so long. The occasional attackers, when they did appear, were harder to fend off with just two people, and their numbers seemed always to be unaffected by concerns for sleep or food, as they sometimes attacked at night and always had a sufficient enough force to prevent Alex and William from taking any offensive action in response. Still, they checked the enemy positions each time after each skirmish, if only on the vain small hope that there may be some supplies or ammunition left behind, but there was never, as usual, a trace to be gleaned.

They were running low on ammunition, and each only had a few rounds left. Now, when they were attacked, with their opponents firing volley after volley, they could only spare a well-aimed shot or two in return, but it was to no avail. No matter how long they stayed away, they would always be back, and then there would be shooting again. Electric whiplashes crisscrossing the ceiling. Bolting, dashing, cutting, reeling. The whizzing of aerodynamic metal sailing, absorbed into the wintry gale inhaling.

Staggering along they slowly gasped forward, exchanging dark days for black nights, north-bound south winds taking gale, pushing the storm from its hold over the plains. Yet, like a demon that ends its shift just in time for another’s to begin, the fat, clumpy snow that had finally begun to lessen was replaced by the strong, whipping wind of the previous week, churning ice gales in chaotic currents that blotted out the view more than before.

Scarves over noses and eyes peering through slits they pushed forward. Here and there, a train car, like a shipwreck, lay abandoned in the snowdrifts. Empty shells from bygone eras, a body without a soul, a chest without a heart. Snow seemed to freeze time. Solid grate-mouths frozen yawning, their fiery breath long asleep, furnaces empty, motors still, wheels unturning, ice wind churning.

A dark, swallowing night that seemed to gulp down the light of their flashlights fiercely churned snowflakes into a fighting stream, currents of biting ice stabbing at their eyes. Just then, sparks igniting sent bullets flying again nearby, flashes bursting against the black sky. Alex held his rifle high, bending his head to line the sights to his eye, squinting into the darkness as the snow clawed at his face. Eyes narrowing, he watched the cracks blast in the distance, and heard the deadly, leaden rounds whizzing past.

He looked, turning, just in time to see William unceremoniously falling forward into the snow, hand over his belly. Alex rushed to his aid in time to turn him over, the latter’s hand clutched against his wound as his life literally trickled through his fingers. Hot, crimson red meeting the cold snow; William sighing; his vital, fiery furnace dying. Alex encouraged him to stand, taking his arm and pulling him forth, stooping over and clumsily walking, but it was too late, and he saw William’s swift surrender to the elements. Every hot breath that passed his lips exchanged itself for the frigid air inhaled, cold tendrils winding their way down inside his body, wrapping at the internal organs, grabbing fast to the vital mechanics of the human body. Tendrils groping, furnace yawning, frozen in its desperate gasp.

Alex spit fire into the gale, yellow sparks at the end of his gun bursting in the overpowering snow. Shots returned, ringing out, whistling, gliding with a purpose that not even the wind could redirect. A few more cracks, then all went quiet. There was no use in confirming: the enemy had slank away, unseen and undisclosed. Taking the food from William that his body secretly craved, Alex continued on his march, filing onward at compass-point.

Blood ran like tendrils, sliding through the dilapidated machinery of his body, pumping him determinately forward. Tendrils sliding under beams, slithering into rusty seams, sent him gliding, further still. Onward he pressed, gliding straight, seaground swelling, snowgale howling, icewaves surging, pushing him towards the final strait.

In the distance, loomed, at length, the dark, silhouetted shape of the frozen caterpillar of the train. Isolated alone, like an icy shelf, gathering under a snowdrift unto itself. Its windows dark and unassuming, an eerie sense of emptiness looming. All were gone, and it sat empty, darkened against the hungry sky that threatened to swallow it up, the white foam of snow lapping affectionately against its sides, clinging, anchoring it to the plain, just as the icy tendrils of death had slithered down William’s chest as the life trickled out.

It was this train that would be Alex before long. He realized that this fate was his, that his hopes depended entirely on finding the train, which now sat looking forward in vain, silent against the biting night. A shadow among shadows, the metal of its exterior failing even to return the shine of the flashlight on a cold, indifferent night.

But, in the distance, appeared a dim light. A far-off, faint glow of white, something alive in the night. It was not gunshots, for it persisted, lingering just within sight. For Alex, it may well have been the heaven’s gate, as he staggered forward, each step growing nearer to the light, that final strait. Snow was waist-deep in places, yet still he pushed, for he had no other choice. Heartbeat peeling, breathlessly feeling salvation within reach he continued feeling his way to the light that stood against the newspaper night. Wonderfully watching, grate-mouth yawning, yawning to keep pushing straight, through but one more final strait.

Ahead, he glimpsed the palace lights, radiant in their yellow glow, enveloping the surrounding snow with a warmth that seemed to replace the darkness. Showers of light spilled onto the white blanket without from the windows within, beaming beyond through their crisscrossing, decorative frames, a grate-like facade accentuating the frost-etched panes.

He approached, hands shaking, gazing up at the palace’s breathtaking image, its stories stretching high, its walls trailing far. The only radiant beacon in that newspaper sea, it shown with the pride of the Winter Palace and the grandeur of the Forbidden City, the beauty of the Alhambra and the prestige of Westminster.

There could be no doubt about the character of the radiant warmth which seemed to flood over the snow-covered plain in all but physical sensation. The glow was so immense to have transformed itself from an island of light amidst a sea of newspaper to a sea of light upon which newspapers floated lethargically, so overpowering was the radiance.

Because his mind seemed utterly incapable of driving him to action in the midst of such miraculous good fortune, his legs did the work for him, clumsily stepping along, shaky and methodical, while his gloved hand – quivering from chill-produced shivers – dragged him along the ornately masoned wall carvings, slowly pulling him further, twisting, shivering, yearning, towards the final, golden strait.

Two heavy oak doors loomed large over the snowdrift-covered stairway, its form low and sturdy, yet half-consumed by the white-capped snowdrift waves. He looked left, down rows of windows spilling their cascading light into the night, and then to his right, along windows producing an equal sight. Fiery panes of a yellow tint ran down snowbanks infinite. With his last shred of humanity he scrubbed his face clean, wiping from his eyebrows the ice and snow that had encrusted itself there, and from his unshaven chin the droplets of water which held melted snow and exhaled condensation in unholy matrimony.

And, wrenching off his hat, with one final, heaving effort, he pressed himself against the door after scarcely a moment’s pause. It budged with a heavy thud, and the rattling of chains scraping against wood drawled out metallically from within.

The snow, as eager as he to enter the palace, rushed forward, throwing the door open to the full and threatening to envelop all within in whirling cold. Yet it was no use, for the warmth seemed fiercely to roar in response, as if the immune system of the palace had detected an intruder and rallied further still. Still little match for the whirling snow, with his newfound ally he heaved the door closed with a grunt, slamming it against the biting wind.

Gasping breaths, hands shaking, body tremoring. A scrap of humanity barely an inch away from death by cold. It took him a moment to come to, though soon he, in his shaking, shivering delirium, realized, slowly at first and then swiftly, that he had just slammed shut the door separating himself from the cold, that he was safe – he had crossed the strait, which was heaven’s gate to him in that state.

This realization hit him violently, for his cold-induced tremors were merely replaced by those produced by the sudden realization that some horrific hurdle has just been survived, and the pains in his stomach now reawakened at the prospect of an opportunity for food.

Gently pushing himself from the door and slowly, cautiously, winding around, he turned to meet with his gaze the lustrous interior that awaited him: a chair, a glowing furnace, and some bits of cloth and rags covering the hardwood floor whose planks had been warped with age, their surfaces decorated with splinters and their ends upturned. Yet, it was warm, for the grate-mouth of the furnace blazed ferociously in the little room – the only one of this tiny, dilapidated cottage.

On the near far wall, a tiny, paned window gave view into the darkness. It was a small window, composed of only four panes sectioned by a wooden cross. It lent a view into the icy mists, its churning gale driving snowflakes mad, seaground swelling, saltwaves swooning, and ice-capped swells as far as could be gleaned, swept by a drifting wall of snow that seemed constantly indecisive regarding its direction and place of settlement.

There would be no long stay here: fuel was limited, food was not to be seen, and the present window gave clear view to the frozen wastes that must be trekked if he was ever to make it to safety. So, no, this was not the end.

But he was warm, and, for the moment, he was safe – who could ask for more? A flickering glimmer floated down about the window, looking out over that silver sea. It took a few moments for the realization to land that these were the furthest drops of snow. The furthest drops of snow that could be glimpsed by the light of the furnace, and beyond which there was nothing but darkness.

I am a researcher from South Carolina, United States. I have primarily conducted research in modern Eastern European history, with a focus on Yugoslavia, but also Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian history. I have written traditional-style journalistic articles, as well, and have pursued my journalism work across North America, Europe, and Africa. In my free time, I enjoy writing poetry and fiction, as well as traditional essays. However, I most enjoy writing short stories, many of which relate to themes of psychological stress and the unknown. I do not have many published short stories, but two of my past works include A Café Before Lunch and The Rot.