Chapter 24 The Runaway Ride
The things you leave behind often determine the speed and direction of the future you are heading toward.
The deafening SCREEECH! of tortured metal faded into the stormy night, leaving Cass alone on the stone platform. She watched the black mass of the boxcar, carrying Evan, Jonas, M. Cole, and the still body of Ben, rush away down the steep, downward incline of the tracks. The light from the restored Sentinel, was now a steady, pure white beacon high on the cliff, which seemed to mock the desperate chaos below.
Cass felt a terrible, crushing weight of isolation. She had freed the car, but in doing so, she had stranded herself. She was miles from any road, and the storm was beginning to gather its strength for a second, fiercer wave.
“No, no, no,” Cass muttered, rubbing her bruised palms. She couldn’t just wait. She couldn’t trust Evan’s makeshift physics to get them safely to the Bell Tower. They needed help, and she needed to follow.
She quickly scanned the deserted station house, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow. The engine was long gone, the heavy freight cars unusable. But then, tucked into a small, open-sided shed near the track’s entrance, she saw it.
It was an ancient maintenance car, a rusty, rickety hand-car, the kind operated by pumping a large lever up and down. It was covered in thick grime and looked more like a museum exhibit than a working vehicle. It was small, unstable, and clearly designed for two men, not one exhausted, small girl.
“Well, you’ll have to do,” Cass muttered, giving the thing a harsh kick.
She wrestled the heavy, rusting cart out of the shed and, with a desperate heave that made her back scream in protest, shoved it onto the track. It landed with a jarring CLUNK.
The next part was almost comical in its desperation. Cass gripped the large, cumbersome pump handle, standing on the narrow, slippery platform. She pushed down, then pulled up, trying to find the rhythm of the machine. The cart groaned, shrieked, and then moved forward an agonizing three feet.
“Come on, you big, lazy lump!” Cass yelled, pouring every ounce of her remaining strength into the pumping.
She found the rhythm, a lung-burning, frantic up-down motion. The cart slowly picked up speed, the rusty wheels complaining loudly as they rolled over the ancient, uneven rails. It was noisy, slow, and bounced violently, but it was moving. Cass, bent double over the pump handle, was chasing a runaway train in a vehicle designed for a stroll.
She kept pumping, the fear of failing Ben fueling her muscles. The station quickly disappeared behind her, replaced by the dark, windswept coastline.
Inside the runaway boxcar, the atmosphere was thick with terror and the smell of hot, burning hemp. The car was hurtling through the night, a massive, accelerating metal coffin. Evan, Jonas, and M. Cole were braced against the interior wall, gripping the heavy hemp ropes that snaked through the railings.
“Brake! Brake, Evan!” Jonas shouted over the deafening roar of the wind and the screech of the metal wheels.
Evan and Jonas pulled on their sections of the thick rope, using their bodies as anchors, dragging the heavy fiber against the steel railing to create friction. The rope smoked immediately, the rough fibers cutting deep into their palms despite the dry coats they had wrapped around their hands.
“I’m pulling, Father! It’s not enough!” Evan gasped, his arm muscles bulging with the impossible effort. The car slowed slightly, then quickly picked up the lost speed, defying their frantic efforts.
M. Cole, bracing herself, crawled toward Ben, who was still unconscious but seemed stabilized by the dry coats. She checked his pulse, her expression grim.
“He’s stable, but the internal shock is getting worse,” M. Cole shouted above the din. “Jonas, the coil! The cursed rope! The coil is still in the guitar case, right next to him! That energy is still drawing the curse toward him!”
Jonas stared at the guitar case, realizing the horrible mistake. They had been so focused on protecting Ben's body that they hadn't separated him from the cursed object, the very magnet for the Bell's final price.
“We can’t touch the coil, dear!” Jonas yelled back. “It’s covered in the curse! We have to secure the rope against the side of the car, use the metal of the box car as a conductor to draw the magic out of Ben and dissipate it into the earth!”
“We need a distraction, then,” M. Cole said, her eyes fixed on the distant, looming shape of the Bell Tower, now visible as a dark, angular sentinel against the churning horizon. “We need to stop the curse’s movement before we reach the tower.”
Evan, focusing on the dark track ahead, suddenly pointed. “Look! Ahead! The old causeway!”
The tracks ended abruptly at a massive, crumbling stone bridge, the old causeway that led over the rocky shallows directly to the Bell Tower island. The track, which had been straight for the entire descent, now bent into a dangerous, high-banked curve right before the bridge.
“The curve is too tight at this speed!” Jonas yelled, panic surging through his voice. “The boxcar will derail! We’ll flip into the tide, and Ben will be swallowed by the curse!”
“Then we have to slow down now!” Evan screamed, pulling on the smoking hemp rope with a desperate, final strength.
The three of them pulled together, their effort was a synchronized spasm of raw, animal desperation. The car shrieked in protest, sparks flying from the tortured wheels, and the speed dropped fractionally, but not enough to safely navigate the curve.
“It’s not enough!” M. Cole cried out. “We have to throw weight off! Jonas, Evan, look! The back side of the car! We can toss the old metal drums!”
Lying scattered in the back corner of the empty boxcar were two massive, rusty metal drums, relics from the slate mining days. They weighed hundreds of pounds each, filled with old gravel and sludge.
“We have to toss them off the outside corner of the curve!” Evan realized. “The centrifugal force will pull the car inward and help stabilize the turn, and the weight reduction will help us slow down!”
Jonas looked at the drums, then at the railing, which was barely shoulder-high. “We’ll be inches from the edge! We’ll be thrown off!”
“It’s the choice, Father!” Evan insisted, letting go of the rope and rushing toward the nearest drum. “It’s the life or the risk!”
Evan, bracing his splinted ankle against the rolling floor, slammed his body against the first massive, rusted drum. Jonas rushed to help, his old strength returning in the face of imminent disaster. Together, the two men strained, using their weight and leverage to push the drum toward the side railing.
M. Cole, meanwhile, continued pulling on the rope brake, trying to maintain every tiny reduction in speed.
With a final, gargantuan push, Evan and Jonas tipped the first drum. It rolled with a loud CRASH and tumbled over the side railing, slamming into the rocks below with a terrifying, crunching sound.
The boxcar instantly lurched violently to the opposite side, listing heavily. The speed dropped noticeably, but the terrifying force of the upcoming curve was still too much.
“The second one!” Jonas yelled, already moving toward the last drum.
They repeated the agonizing process, Evan and Jonas pushing with a unified strength, M. Cole shouting encouragement while pulling the smoking rope. The second drum went over the side.
The car shuddered, the metal frame groaning, but the speed was now manageable. They had a chance.
Evan rushed back to the rope and joined his mother, pulling the final brake. The car slowed further, creeping around the dangerous curve.
As the boxcar rounded the bend and straightened for the final run over the causeway, Evan looked ahead. The Bell Tower was massive, dark, and close. And on the small, stone causeway leading to the Tower’s base, he saw the dark shape moving.
It was a woman, small and determined, pushing a cart. The cart was piled high with fishing nets and old sea gear. And resting on top, shining faintly in the Sentinel’s powerful white light, was Evan’s familiar, empty guitar case.
“The grandmother,” Jonas whispered, his voice catching in his throat. “She’s there. And she’s moving the coil to the Tower. She’s already across the causeway.”
Evan saw the woman stop at the base of the Bell Tower. She didn’t look up at the runaway boxcar. She began to quickly unlatch the guitar case.
“We’re too late! She’s going to seal the cursed coil in the Bell Tower now!” Evan yelled, grabbing the hemp rope and preparing to jump out and run the final distance.
But as he made to jump, Jonas grabbed his arm, his grip surprisingly firm. “Wait! Evan, look at the causeway! Look at the tracks!”
Evan looked ahead, his heart freezing in his chest.
The old stone causeway, decades of brutal tides having taken their toll, was not a continuous bridge. A fifty-foot section right in the middle, a crucial connecting piece, had been completely washed away by the storm.
The tracks did not go straight across. They ended abruptly at a massive, impossible GAP of black, swirling tide water.
The track was broken. The Bell Tower was on an island.
“The momentum will carry us to the edge, but we’ll plunge straight into the high tide!” M. Cole cried out, her eyes wide with terror.
The three of them stared at the black, terrifying gap of water rapidly rushing toward them. The car was slowing, but it was still moving too fast to stop before the break.
“We have to jump! Now!” Jonas screamed.
Evan looked at the still, innocent face of Ben, swaddled in coats, lying in the middle of the car. He couldn’t jump and leave Ben to plunge into the black, cursed water.
As the boxcar rushed toward the fatal gap, Evan noticed something impossible. Right at the edge of the broken track, barely visible in the Sentinel’s bright light, a thick, dark shape had been stretched taut across the opening, connecting the broken track to the Tower causeway.
It was a single, massive piece of wood, a heavy, soaked, cross-section of old lumber, barely spanning the gap. It was not a bridge. It was a single, treacherous ramp.
And sitting on the other side of that ramp, on the Tower causeway, was the woman, Lila’s grandmother, who had just finished unlatching Evan’s guitar case. She was staring right at the approaching boxcar.
Had the grandmother, in a final act of twisted protection, created a single, fragile ramp to save Ben from the sea, or was the ramp a deliberate, terrifying trap to ensure the cursed boxcar reached the Bell Tower, carrying the final, necessary sacrifice?