Raildogs by Rejean Giguere

Author:Rejean Giguere
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, revenge, railroad, dark, disturbing
Publisher: Huron Publishing

Chapter 10

Salt Lake, Utah

Locomotive number 65652 pulling thirty-five freight cars neared the outskirts of Salt Lake. Cliffy was thinking about sitting on the deck with his feet up on the railing, watching the sunset. Then his cell phone rang.

For a second he looked at the thing like it was a foreign object. His elation at being home was soon swallowed up. He didn’t even want to answer it. Somehow he knew this was bad news. Real bad. “Number one.”

“Ah, yeah, boss, sixty-two here. We got problems,” said a shaky voice.

Cliff stalled long enough to pull out his book and flip through until he found number sixty-two. Brent Coney. Cliff had never heard of the guy. Expansion could be a bitch and now he had to deal with it. “What’s going on Brent?”

“Ah, someone locked the crew in a boxcar.” He hesitated. “Then they lit the thing up with gasoline.”

“What?” Cliff’s mouth reacted before his brain could think.

“They were burned alive inside the boxcar. It’s all over the news and everything.”

Jesus Christ. He looked around his boxcar and tried to imagine. Then it dawned on him, “Who was in the car?”

“Sorry, Sir. Number three for sure, and maybe four others.”

He couldn’t believe Dougie was gone. They’d been together since the beginning. With Albert down as well, that meant the gang was down to three of the original five. This was crazy. Cliff had been on the road for almost three days now, he was tired and his reactions were slower than he would have liked. He took a second before deciding what to do.

“Okay, Where did it happen and where is the rest of the crew?”

“Between Kansas and Topeka. We’re all at Doug’s place holing up until we could get ahold of someone.”

Cliff knew where the house was. “I’ll be there soon as I can, probably tomorrow afternoon. I’m leaving Salt Lake now.”

The train hadn’t even pulled into Salt Lake and he was already thinking about where he had to be to catch the eastbound. Now he had to get to Des Moines, which is exactly where he’d been heading three days ago when this all started.

Cliff was angry at having to change his plans again. Firmly, he pushed aside random images of the inside of a burning boxcar that were trying to invade his brain. He couldn’t imagine burning alive, but then he couldn’t imagine the torture that the other two guys had gone through either. None of it was making any sense.

No fucking sense at all.

*****

Reno, Nevada

Sarah steeled herself for the next five minutes. The cleaning lady was about to do her room. In other words, the old bag was going to walk in and walk right back out. She never did a thing.

She would point out items of concern, the dirt on the window or the dust in the corners, but the woman never listened. The cleaner knew Sarah would keep the place clean. All she ever did was walk a broom from the door to the window and back, spraying some air freshener on the way out.

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