(Image by Steve Brandon from Pixabay)
In the distance, they heard the clanking of the wheels on the track as the train approached from around a curve. It came to a halt with a breathy screech and a porter stepped out of the car.
“Come on John, I can’t wait to see what our sleeping car looks like.” Marissa tugged on John’s hand and they hustled over to the porter. John showed the porter their e-ticket on his phone and the porter directed them to the next car down where the sleeping berths were located.
They entered the car and were shown to a compartment about midway in the rail car. Their porter opened the sliding door and showed them their quarters. John and Marissa looked at each other quizzically. This was a sleeping room? Two bunks, one sitting practically on the floor and the other pulled down from the ceiling. There was barely room to stand between the beds and sliding door. And there appeared to be nowhere for their luggage.
“Holy shit!” John exclaimed. “We paid how much for this crackerbox?”
Marissa pasted a hearty smile on her face. “You know we got a really great deal! I gotta admit, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it’s our anniversary trip, and we’ll just make the best of it.”
John doubtfully shook his head but realized the wisdom of this wife’s words. There was no use complaining about it now. He shoved his carryon under the lower bunk and squeezed his backpack into the small space on the left of the door. Taking Marissa’s bags, he did the same with hers. “Well, which bunk do you want, top or bottom?”
John woke to a long loud steam whistle blast. It sounded like something out of an old western movie. There it was again. Their compartment was pitch black and he could hear Marissa gently snoring in the bunk below him. Something felt funny about his clothes. His jeans felt heavy and stiff and his shirt fell rough like it was made of burlap. Definitely not the tee shirt that he went to sleep in. What the hell? He felt around the ledge next to him for his cell phone but couldn’t seem to locate it. He pulled the curtain back covering the window to let in some moonlight.
John stared out the window, not believing his eyes. This was no modern world underneath a full moon and stars, it was an entirely different scene that his confused mind struggled to comprehend.
“Marissa, wake up!” John slid off the top bunk and he squatted in front of his wife’s sleeping form. “Marissa, honey, you need to get up. Something’s crazy is going on!”
Marissa rolled over and eyed him sleepily. “What’s the matter?”
Just then the sound of booted feet came clacking down the aisle toward them. John thought to open the sliding door and see who was approaching, but instead of the metal door, securely locked the way he’d left it, there was nothing there but a hanging drapery. Feeling like he was losing his mind, John pulled back the covering and stared at the tall man, dressed in what looked like a cowboy costume, complete with a 10-gallon hat, who passed by their compartment and continued down the aisle.
John hastily let the drapery fall back closed and turned to Marissa, who was now sitting up and feeling around for her cell phone. “Honey, just look out the window and tell me what you see. I don’t know what the hell is going on here!”
Marissa turned sideways and pulled the curtain away to look outside. John couldn’t see her face but he heard her fearful gasp. “John, where are we? That is definitely not Illinois landscape out there!” She rolled back around and put her feet on the floor beside John. “Why am I wearing this old dress?”
John felt around for a light switch, he knew the porter had shown him it was on the wall about shoulder height. His roving hand encountered a small metal lantern bolted to the wall instead. And the floor beneath his feet was wooden planks, not the industrial carpeting that was there when they boarded.
There came that long blast from the steam whistle again and they could feel the train slowing down. But there was nothing outside, at least on their side of the train, that indicated a train depot or even any suggestion of a town. It was empty rolling prairie on their side.
Marissa’s breath caught in her chest. “John, this reminds me of that 1800’s steam engine we toured at the Illinois Railway Museum. Remember the whistle sounded just like that.”
With the moonlight pouring in the opened curtains they could see a little more of their surroundings. John reached for the backpack he had stowed in the corner earlier, and he found a leather saddle bag instead of his nylon backpack. “This just can’t be real!”
The train screeched to a stop and the hiss of brakes accompanied the final long whistle. “Stay here, I’m going to see where we’re stopped.” He felt under the bed for his Nikes and ended up dragging out a worn pair of boots, complete with spurs on the heels. “That figures”, he said as he pulled them on his feet, fitting perfectly like he’d been wearing them for years.
He walked to the end of the car and looked out the door. A deserted depot presented itself outside the door. A wooden saloon was next door with a lone horse hitched to a post in front. The door refused to open and John looked around for a porter or any other travelers. There was no one in sight. His eyes fell upon the plaque over the door and he remembered the story told by the old Indian woman at the Railway Museum that he had Marissa had laughed at and dismissed.
The name of their train was TimeTraveler Express.
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