Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (motivational novels .txt) 📕

rocks into the air, until it finally digs into the road and charges forward. Dalessandro keeps the pedal to the floor and his gaze locked with laser intensity on the fleeing train—now maybe 200 yards away, going at least 110 miles per hour—the spinning red light of the caboose like a beacon in the night.

The train is moving erratically now—throwing great gouts of sparks off its hindquarters—speeding up and slowing down like a wounded animal.

Pedal slammed down to metal, Dalessandro, gaining on the beast in fits and starts, silently curses the mental case at the controls.

“MR. CHECKOV! MR. SULU! WARP SPEED—!”

Marky Ferri hollers over the noise of the engine in his best William Shatner, slamming a clenched fist down on the dead man’s switch so hard the impact raises stars in his bleary vision.

The cab lurches in a spasm of grinding gears, the powerplant behind the cab bellowing up through the superstructure of the train in a deafening roar. Marky grabs for a handrail to steady himself, but he misses the metal bar and staggers backward, tripping over the unconscious body of the engineer.

Marky tumbles to the floor.

The train shudders furiously, the engine accelerating again, and Marky crawls back toward the console. “SPOCK! BONES! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK! THE KLINGONS ARE ATTACKING, THEY’RE ATTACKING!”

Marky claws his way back to the console and grabs for the dead man’s switch.

The switch snaps off in his hand, and Marky topples backward. His head hits the bulwark, and a dagger of pain shoots through his skull.

He collapses to the floor next to the engineer, instantly passing out.

Over the space of ten minutes, Oswald manages to drag the string of terrified passengers a grand total of five cars closer to the caboose—despite the fact that the train is keening out of control, and the dome lights have flared out with the failing electrical system, and the elderly woman with the artificial hip has to rest every fifty feet or so, and Gerbil won’t let up on her constant nagging.

“And another thing,” she says as Oswald drags her down the rumbling, flickering, deserted aisle, yanking the chain of humanity behind her toward the second-to-last car. “You just drop this bombshell that you’re leaving the business without a word of warning to me.”

“What am I—a human resources department?” With one violent nudge, Oswald throws open the aft-door, the metal tracks screaming. He clutches the 8-gauge shotgun in his sweaty left hand.

“I would expect a little notice,” she says.

“Shit happens,” he says, urging Gerbil across the noisy platform. “C’mon, everybody, we’re moving, we’re moving, we’re hurrying!”

They stagger into the parlor car. “Jesus Christ,” Gerbil comments, scanning the dark interior.

Moonlight shines down through the sky windows, illuminating the disaster area. Broken glass, flower vases, and silverware litter the aisle. The booths are soaked with liquid from overturned pitchers, and some of the linens have slid off onto the floor. Pale blue smoke wafts from behind the counter, and carafes roll across the damp carpet with each violent pitching motion of the train.

“Come on, everybody, almost there!” Oswald side-steps an overturned coffee urn and drags the slow-moving brigade toward the far hatch.

“Shit happens?” In the flickering cabin Gerbil is still harping on Oswald’s poor people skills. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

Oswald starts to muster up a response when he notices a pair of figures crouched down under the last booth on the left like two children playing hide-and-seek. “Don’t shoot, brother,” says one of the figures, peering up at the shotgun—a young black man in a conductor’s uniform, a Rorschach pattern of coffee spilled across the front.

“We didn’t see a thing, man, we just work here,” says the other figure, a bald geezer in a stained fry-cook apron.

“C’mon, the more the merrier,” Oswald tells them, yanking the cook out into the aisle by the nape of his shirt. The twosome joins the line dance.

The train bangs over some rough track, sending up another plume of sparks

“OKAY, EVERYBODY—LISTEN UP!” Oswald pauses in front of the final hatchway leading into the caboose, taking a moment to address the team. “I WANT EVERYBODY ON THE CABOOSE! RIGHT NOW! IN AN ORDERLY FASHION! COME ON! CHOP-CHOP! WHILE WE’RE YOUNG!”

“Take the wheel!—Take the wheel!—TAKE IT—GODDAMNIT!!” Dalessandro rolls down his window. The noise of the train and the wake of wind blasts through the Navigator, which is shaking so furiously it feels as though it’s disintegrating.

“JESUS, JIMMY!”

Jack Morelli reaches across the seat and grabs the wheel. The needle is pinned at 120, and the Navigator’s chassis is threatening to crack apart as it tommy-guns wildly over stone rail beds, the front quarter panel only inches away from the midsection of the train.

“I’m gonna take my foot off the accelerator!” Dalessandro hollers over the din.

“Jimmy, don’t!”

“I want you to stomp down on it the minute I take my foot off!”

“Jimmy—!”

Dalessandro climbs out his window, the deafening shriek of metal wheels and the cold steam-blast of the train engulfing him.

The Navigator swerves. Dalessandro holds onto the window frame for dear life. The train drifts to the left as the Navigator drifts to the right. Jack Morelli struggles with the wheel, and stomps on the gas pedal.

In the darkness of the back seat Jilly Morelli is cheering and howling inarticulate cries of encouragement. He rolls down his window, and he starts squeezing his fat ass out the opening. It’s a compulsive act—very little premeditation to it—and it is visible in the rearview mirror.

“JILLY, NO!”

It’s too late. Both men are halfway out their respective windows.

Dalessandro gets his left boot on the lower ledge of the driver’s side window, and lifts himself up closer to the train. The train looms. The Navigator careens closer and closer to the hurling iron. The noise is so terrific now that all Dalessandro can hear is a severe ringing noise pinging off the inside of his skull.

“JESUS-H-CHRIST!!”

The hard part for Dalessandro is getting his hand on the greasy step-rail hanging down between the two center coaches. He makes a grab for it, and