Period Piece

You are the Warrior.

And not even time itself can match your pace.

Charging forward, you pitch blindly into the shadows, caution now nothing more than luxury. Time is scarce, the fleeing beast may yet escape...but with your spear pointed ahead, and your mind on the hunt, no mere prey shall escape your fury.

And yet, for all your speed, you see a thick cloud of ash and tempest beginning to blot out the moonlight above. Wind billows all around, and the air is pregnant with electricity.

Though cunning as the day is long, even the beast knows to fear the approaching thunder...

The walls of its tubular, bronzed body were a modern sort of rounded and aerodynamic, but they seemed to be formed of some kind of riveted plate metal from the Depression era, and the air inside it felt at least ten degrees hotter than the cool nighttime air outside. Plastic seats were lined up along the curved walls, split by a straight and narrow aisle and facing each other like seats on a subway train. Toss in a man with a baby, a young woman with a bible, a snoring grandma, a faceless business suit, and a coughing homeless man in a stenchy flannel shirt, and well, it wasn't too much different from one after all.

The moment she boarded, without any voluntary input from her brain, Jacqui's face automatically fell into a certain sullen scowl. It was a preconfigured expression she'd always equipped when riding subway trains; a look that suggested she was handing out knuckle sandwiches to anyone who dared to bother her, and also that she was all out of mayo. This face - "resting bitch face", some called it - had saved her from countless confrontations over the many years she'd spent riding the underground rails, and, aside from her trusty umbrella, may have been the single most useful asset in her entire traveling arsenal.

"...THIS is the exalted holy train that Allan guy was going on about?" Jacqui side-mouthed to Heqet with a disappointed smack of her lip. "Kinda dumpy for a one-way ticket to God's house, isn't it?"

The bible-clutching girl probably thought Jacqui didn't see her raise her eyebrow suspiciously, but she was wrong.

"Maybe! But it mostly definitely sure is the place we need to be!" Heqet replied, flipping herself around so Jacqui could see her magical tramp stamp compass. The arrow was indeed aligned with the train's forward trajectory, which, per the laws of magic, meant Heqet was right again.

Jacqui dismissed it with a shrug and turned to look at her available seating. Selecting a train seat was a critical skill that all public transit users learn to master quickly, as a poor choice could irrevocably trap you with the world's worst traveling companion, and you'd never get a better chance at avoiding that than the moment you stepped on the train. A spectacular and complex series of calculations flashed through Jacqui's head, eliminating the inescapable odors of the homeless man, the terrifying snore of the grandma, and the ticking whine-bomb most people call "babies".

Business suit it is, she decided. Let's just hope he's not a tech startup selling cheap domain names or something...

The suit didn't even notice her sit down, attention buried in a sleek and very expensive-looking smartphone. For that matter, nobody in the car seemed to acknowledge her presence at all, save for bible lady, now seated across from her. She was also the only one appropriately dressed against the backdrop of the old train, wearing a faded blue sheer blouse and a high-waisted black maxi skirt that both probably should have stayed in the 1957 they came from. And, more noticeably, beneath her short Italian-cut black hair burned a fiery pair of bright blue eyes that Jacqui couldn't help but noticed had been strangely fixated on her this whole time. When she glared back, the girl tsked and turned her face away in offense.

"Well, this sure oughtta be fun," Jacqui grumbled, rolling her head over toward Heqet. "Are you POSITIVE there's no fast-forward spirit frog spells you can cast to make this part of our journey any less boring?"

"I'm afraid not, Jacqui!" Heqet replied in polite disappointment. "Aside from my enchanting smile, the only magic I have is this omnidirectional objective-based arrow on my back! And that ability is only relative to space, not time! The two are very different and very incompatible types of magic, at least on this plane of existence anyway, ha ha!"

"Alright alright, fine...". She slouched back in her seat and sighed loudly, doing her best to get comfortable despite the thick heat as the train began to lurch its way forward. "Guess I'm just worried I'm gonna run out of dream time doing stupid mundane bullshit before we even GET to God, and then the whole thing will be for nothing."

Heqet placed a caring foot on Jacqui's cheek. "Aww, you're worried you won't have time to come to terms with the deep inner meaning of the quest you didn't even know you had?"

Jacqui grinned back. "Nah, I just really like the idea of kickin' God's ass for fuckin' with my body like this."

Again she felt Bible Girl's gaze burning against her skin from across the aisle, probably in response to her colorful linguistic proclivities. On the surface, Jacqui wanted to inject her own feelings into a single raised finger to project back at her, but, at the behest of her protesting uterus, she decided it would probably not be wise to instigate another throwdown. She'd already been through enough fight scenes for one night, hadn't she?

Yeah, why ARE so many people trying to fight me tonight? she wondered, frowning at a speck of dust on the floor as the train rattled its way up to cruising speed. Not that I can't handle it or anything, I mean fuck, sparring with people is my natural element...but this is starting to get a little ridiculous.

Maybe this all IS some kind of weird dream message or something...maybe there's a subconscious metaphor man trying to beat a message into my head about why religion is actually important and why I'm apparently an asshat for being agnostic. I mean, there ARE a bunch of vaguely-religious people in this dream trying to literally beat...well, something into my head.

Dammit, I was just startin' to warm up to this dream, too. I was gettin' all geared up for my ragtag romp through dreamland to go bash God's teeth in as revenge for giving me my period, but fuck...now it just sounds like arguing with my parents over why I stopped go to church...

...you know what, maybe I should just ignore that part and focus on the bashing part for now, she nodded to herself resolutely. They say violence is never the answer, but that's only because they're asking the wrong question. Violence is definitely the answer when the question is dreams. Or video games. Now if only I could GET to the violence before I die of fucking boredom...

"...swear to god I'd kill for some music to listen to right about now," she happened to say out loud.

And the faceless business suit next to her happened to reply, "I've got plenty of music here."

That voice seemed familiar...

She turned her head.

"Would you like Ballroom Blitz again, or something else this time?"

...and not the GOOD kind of familiar.

"...SPECTER!" Jacqui shouted, throwing an accusatory finger in the apparition's face.

Specter could only grin as the whine-bomb down the aisle exploded into awakened crying. The man holding the baby groaned loudly in defeat and stood up to jiggle and pat the baby back into submission, casting a dirty look back at Jacqui over his shoulder.

Jacqui ignored him for the bigger fish to filet in front of her. "Where the fuck did YOU come from?!"

And as Specter's mouth opened to deliver the answer, she preempted it with "...and don't give me any of that existential 'we all came from nothingness' bullshit either."

With a mild garnish of disappointment, Specter shook their head and replied, "You say that like I ever left, my dear. I've been around this whole time. You're just a little slow in catching up."

"So you've been...waiting for us?" Heqet asked, curiosity and caution tenuously balanced in her voice. "How did you know this train would be our next destination? Do YOU have a magical objective arrow on YOUR butt too?"

"I should hope not," came the answer, a sparkling smile trailing after. "No, somewhere between the loaded hints and the persuasive suggestion I dropped, I think I just sort of ended up in the right place at the right time. Sometimes I just think I'm a very lucky person."

"Cut the crap," Jacqui cut in, physically slicing the air with a sharp hand motion. "Where the hell did you disappear off to when we were back at the café? And why'd you turn the entire place against me like that?"

Specter shrugged the fanciest and most nonchalant shrug imaginable, complete with a curly flourish of black gloves. "What can I say now that I haven't already said earlier? I'm a born troublemaker. And wherever I go, trouble gets made."

Two eyes narrowed as one eyebrow raised. No way Jacqui was buying it. She said so.

"Suit yourself," was the response. "You can't refuse to buy the truth forever."

Tension bound the words for a moment as the train let out a whoosh of steam outside. Jacqui tried hard to keep her eyes fixated on Specter's. If movies had taught her anything, it was that in any good exchange of heated dialogue, the victor was usually the one who could hold their menacing eye contact the longest without breaking. But, once again, the aura of darkness hovering just above Specter's face prevented her from identifying its features. There was no way to tell if she was staring the demon in the eye or straight up the nose. She wanted to switch angles, try to get a better perspective, but on some inner level she realized it would have been a fruitless effort, and she didn't want to lose the staring contest by breaking eye contact anyway, so she remained motionless.

It was Heqet who snapped the string around the conversation. "...wait, how exactly are you selling the truth if you're born to make trouble? Wouldn't that mean you're really selling lies?"

Not that it could be verified, but Specter did seem to break eye contact to retrain their gaze on the frog, tone now tart. "...is not truth the greatest lie of them all?"

"By definition, no!" Heqet replied in a decidedly forced capacity of over-pleasant helpfulness as she puffed out her chest with a froggy burp. "Semantics suggest that if truth were a lie, then by definition it should no longer be 'truth', despite the actual truth of the statement being that the truth IS a lie. Semantics are an easy pitfall for logic, commonly used to distract or derail conversation from a more vital talking point!"

"Heqet, please," Jacqui interrupted with the infamous finger to the lips, "...don't use the word 'derail' while we're riding on a train."

Heqet nodded and flashed a tiny, webbed thumbs-up.

"...fine," Specter admitted with a sigh. "Since we apparently cannot converse in anything less than blunt textbook honesty, I'll give you some truth that's a bit more...solid."

"'bout time," Jacqui said with a sniff. "No more tap-dancing around the issue. I want the hard skinny on who the fuck you are and what the fuck you want."

"Ahem," Specter began, leaning back to use their trademark elegant sign language while explaining, "...let's start by assuming you're right, and this is all nothing more than a dream. In a dream, everyone you see is there for a reason. Everyone serves a purpose. The entire dream world is a stage, and everyone upon it has their own speaking part. No role is without purpose, no line without meaning. Every inch of the dialogue is significant in some way."

"I told you no more fucking tap-dancing. Get to the point." Jacqui felt another white-hot stare coming at her from Bible Girl, but still didn't feel like acknowledging her just yet.

"...my point," Specter responded, with a pang of composed frustration, "...is that like everyone else here tonight, I too have a purpose in your...ahem, dream. And, as I clearly articulated before, that purpose...is to make trouble."

Jacqui threw her head back against the seat and grumbled something about being back to square one.

"I'm here for no other reason than to torment you," the shadow continued, smiling once more at Jacqui's frustration. "So, in accordance with the 'dream' motif you keep suggesting is the logic of your situation here, perhaps you ought to think of me as...your inner demon. I do seem to have quite a knack for pushing all of your buttons, don't I?"

Jacqui didn't reply, but continued pursing her lips in different configurations, trying not to admit to herself that all of her buttons were indeed being pushed tonight.

Not one to be left out of a conversation though, Heqet jumped - almost literally - at the chance to be relevant again. "...inner demon? Of course! That would definitely explain why our progress has been so slow on what should otherwise have been a straightforward search for infinite, cosmic truth!"

"I thought you were on a quest to locate God," Specter corrected, again red-flagging the attention of Bible Girl.

"Same difference!" Heqet replied forcefully, her boundless pleasantness barely covering the piercing conviction in her voice. "I already told you the one about semantics earlier! If Jacqui locates her God and resolves her quarrels with them, she'll understand infinite cosmic truth and become one with her own universe, thereby breaking the spell and awakening from her dream - metaphorically speaking, of course - thus allowing her to live out her remaining mortality with the confidence of her purpose within it backing her every action!"

Specter tugged a glove back into place. "You sound quite sure of yourself on that one. It almost sounds like you're deriving your confidence directly from the energy it takes to shout those words into existence...'fake it until you make it', I think it's sometimes called?"

"Or! Maybe! Before we can locate! God! Our FIRST objective! Is! To vanquish! Jacqui's! Inner demons!" Heqet announced, each word wrapped in the shining light of righteous, polite fury.

"Yeah, you fuckin' tell 'em, Heqet!" Jacqui stood up and joined in, now that they were using words she actually understood. "C'mon Specter, let's go! Why don't you just get on up so I can vanquish you right where you stand?"

"Violence...so much violence...".

Jacqui's head turned. The voice was definitely not Specter's voice, unless Specter could also do a flawless southern belle accent. Rising slowly from her seat, hands trembling with the power of the Book clutched tightly in her hands, Bible Girl approached the trio, her blue eyes positively smoldering with the zeal of someone who quite possibly believed they could act as Judge, Jury, AND Executioner.

"...can I help you, Mary Lou Ann Summers?" Jacqui asked, reciting every southern stereotype she could think of off the top of her head.

"My name," she continued, visibly trembling with a certain furious trepidation, "...is Charlie."

Another whoosh of steam sounded off as only Jacqui snorted. "Charlie?"

"Like Charlotte," she explained with a scowl. "...'cept I prefer Charlie."

Jacqui rolled her eyes. "Alright Charlie, whatever fluffs your pillow...now fuck off and let me rattle this demon's skull a bit."

"Demon...?" Her eyes flashed. "The only demon I see here is YOU! Threatening to beat on a plain and simple businessman just 'cause he won't share his music with you!"

Jacqui again rolled her eyes, but recent experiences tonight told her to keep a steady hand on her weapon. "Oh, don't be stupid, there's more to it than just THAT. Maybe you should just sit your ass back down and mind your own business."

"Preventin' violence IS my business!" Charlie fired back, taking another step in between them. "And I do not take my business lightly, young lady. I swore to uphold the family values of the Gospel, and uphold them I shall!"

She upheld the Gospel in her hands for good measure as she pushed herself even further into Jacqui's bubble. That was her second mistake.

"...alright, listen...Charlie," Jacqui replied, glaring back while still trying to keep Specter in her sights. "You just stepped into my personal space. My patience is dangerously thin right now, and if my bleeding vagina has anything to say about it, I'm probably gonna smack you upside the head with my umbrella if you don't get your tits out of my comfort zone in the next five seconds."

With a stubbornness that might have cost anyone else an arm and/or a leg, Charlie doubled down on her presence, puffing out her chest even further into Jacqui's comfort zone and breathing deep the fumes of her own fervent fire. Despite the hot tension building in the air, Heqet remained firmly affixed to her shoulder, curiously interested in Charlie's invasive presence.

"That's a mighty dangerous attitude to be coppin', I'll have you know," Charlie replied, low and intense, her face blocking out the image of Specter behind her altogether. "Pa always said it was people like you what needed the Gospel the most."

"I don't need a goddamn Gospel," Jacqui answered through clenched teeth as the train creaked its way through a turn. "Why would I need a Gospel when I'm already taking a train to go see God IN PERSON?"

Charlie's gaze levelled. "And what are you plannin' on doin' once you meet Him?"

Jacqui studied her blankly for a moment, but couldn't resist the opportunity and broke into a sick grin. "...I'm probably gonna deck him right across the face."

Her whole body quivering with an appalled horror, Charlie shouted back, "...you're HORRIBLE!"

"And I might smack HIM upside the head with this umbrella," Jacqui continued, twirling it casually.

Charlie put her hands to her ears. "OBSCENE!"

Jacqui pulled her hands away. "...and then I'm gonna kick his nuts right into his guts."

"BLASPHEMY!!!" Charlie screamed, close enough to spray her words over Jacqui's face.

The car rocked again, and seemed to pick up speed. Shaking with every staggered breath, she looked Jacqui as squarely in the eye as possible, demanding her attention as she spoke:

"...young lady, you may THINK you're ridin' a train into heaven, where God Himself awaits you at His pearly gates...but that kinda attitude don't get nobody into heaven. No, my dear, I'm afraid you're ridin' shotgun on the southbound train to Hell!"

Jacqui rolled her eyes and tried to push past her to confirm whether Specter was still sitting silently in their seat, grinning like the demonic asshole they were, but Charlie refused, once again upholding the Gospel between them.

"But I'm here to tell you, it's still not too late," Charlie continued, her eyes glowing so bright now that they seemed to suck all the color from the rest of the world. "You still got time to save yourself from the fiery furnace you're throwin' yourself headfirst into. You still got time to experience the light fantastic and the power divine that comes from the truth of the Gospel! You still got time to get yourself right with God before His final hour of judgment dawns upon you!"

Jacqui graced her with no reply, and Heqet almost took the chance to ask for more information, but Charlie cut her off to continue preaching.

"Listen, one woman to another, I know you're...in pain right now," she continued, gesturing awkwardly southward instead of elaborating, "...but you've gotta understand, nothin' on God's green earth heals faster than the might and the light and the right of the Gospel! A few cramps ain't nothin' against the Almighty Jesus! All you gotta do is let him into your heart, devote yourself to the truth, and I swear to you now, the healin' power will set you free!"

"Oh! Like a bodily possession kind of thing?" Heqet managed to cut in with a scoop of sugar and a cup of sunshine. "The god enters your body and allows you to commit sin against him, absorbing all the negative energy of your sins and redirecting it back into the ether? Is that it? Am I even close?"

The twisting fury that had now taken residence upon Charlie's face suggested that her answer was definitely the wrong answer. Jacqui felt her body automatically tense up, preparing for what seemed like another inevitable fight.

But wait! shouted a tiny voice in the back of her mind. Didn't Charlie say earlier that her goal was to PREVENT violence? How's she gonna uphold those Gospel values by pickin' fights with random strangers?

...especially fights she's guaranteed to lose?

"You..." Charlie said, slowly shaking a finger at Heqet as she eyed the frog suspiciously. "Maybe YOU'RE the reason the Gospel can't get through to her...what'd you say your name was?"

Before Jacqui could say "don't answer that", Heqet answered that. "My name's Heqet! I'm Jacqui's spiritual liaison and adviser! It's a pleasure to meet you and your fascinating religious diatribe!"

"...Heqet...?" Charlie repeated, shaking her head distastefully. "That don't sound like a wholesome, Christian name...".

"It probably isn't! I'm a pan-dimensional ethereal concept given physical form to move around within this particular realm of reality!"

A tiny gasp escaped Charlie's lips. as she pointed a finger at Heqet. "...so it IS you causin' all this, ain't it?"

"I'm really not certain what specific 'this' you're referring to," the frog answered without missing a beat. "I'm just here to help!"

"Help?" Charlie repeated incredulously, her voice now courting the rages of passion. "You're about as much help as a candle in a gas station! You've been holdin' this young lady back from the light fantastic, probably helpin' her walk straight into the fires of the Devil's own Oblivion!"

"'Oblivion'?" Heqet perked up - inasmuch as being any perkier was even possible. "Is that where we're headed now? Oh no, did we board the wrong train?"

"Don't you try to trick me!" Charlie screamed defiantly, holding up The Book like a shield. "I know you're just actin' dumb to get me off my guard! I know what kinda cheap game you're playin' at! And I sure as Jesus know a DEMON when I see one!"

"...a demon???" Heqet blinked, then turned to Jacqui with an excited hop. "Ooh! Jacqui! She must be talking about our resident self-identified inner demon, Specter!"

"Heqet, I don't think she's--"

"I'm talkin' about YOU!" she shrieked, eyes gleaming bright enough now to compete even with the frog's. "I can see right through that devil's façade you call a smile, right down into the throbbin' lump of coal you call a heart! Your words are a plague and a poison, and in the name of God my father, I so swear I will purge you from this Earth!"

Jacqui almost laughed in her face, but quickly realized that while SHE might be able to fend off a loony preacher woman high on her own rambling, Heqet most likely would not. Poor little thing would probably ask to join Charlie's cult and end up getting squished by the Good Book itself.

...which was almost exactly what happened next.

Jacqui shuffled left just in time to dodge a wild and heavy swing of the book, slapping the back of Charlie's head as she stumbled forward. As the girl struggled to regain balance, Jacqui noticed that yep, Specter was no longer sitting in the formerly occupied seat...

God dammit...

And when she turned to face her new enemy again, Charlie was already on her feet, charging forward with another two-handed book bash attack. Fortunately for Heqet, Jacqui's tactical mind was already two steps ahead of the action.

Time slowed. Charlie raised the book overhead. Jacqui pulled back. The book came down in a wide arc, and Jacqui's outstretched palm pushed up. And the moment the two collided, Charlie lost possession of her weapon and her shield, and Jacqui's umbrella hand came around from behind, trapping Charlie in between the bar of the umbrella and the imposing wall of Jacqui's considerable front bumper as the train jostled and rocked its way down the tracks faster than ever.

If the look on her face said anything, it suggested that Charlie was...uncomfortable. Maybe she didn't like intimacy with strangers, or maybe she was deathly allergic to close contact with other women, or maybe she just didn't like the thought of Jacqui being the one in control instead of her or her God.

"...now that I've got your attention," Jacqui said, fully aware of what the situation looked like, yet trying to play it serious anyway. "I've got two very important reasons why you really need to stop swingin' that Bible around. Number one, you're a terrible shot and it's gonna take you all damn night to land a single hit. And number two, if you don't back the fuck off and leave me and my little frog friend alone, I'm gonna start fighting back. And I swear to your God and mine, I'm afraid I might snap your tiny little spine in half if I do."

"...y-you wouldn't dare!" Charlie spit back, trying unsuccessfully to worm out of her grasp while giving more of her frown to Heqet than to Jacqui. "And even if you did try, I know my God will protect me! For the Lord almighty shall deliver me from evil, yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no--"

"Please..." Jacqui interrupted, buttoning her lips. "...shut the fuck up. My uterus is allergic to idiocy and doesn't like the pollen you're spitting out right now."

"...what?"

"Sorry, I can't metaphor properly tonight."

"Just...let me go!" Charlie insisted, making a move to push herself away but unsure of where exactly to place a handhold.

Jacqui sighed, unsure whether watching the girl struggle was worth standing through the incoming aggravation from down below. "...only if you promise to stop acting like such a little shit and leave us the hell alone for the rest of the evening."

Charlie frowned, but, taking another glance down at her position - a move which Jacqui might have easily mistaken for being hit on by someone who'd suddenly become unsure of their sexuality - she nodded in assent.

"Good," Jacqui nodded back, releasing her with a hip bump. "Now please just fuck off and leave us alone."

Lip trembling as her pout intensified, Charlie glared at her a moment longer, then stormed off toward the door at the end of, throwing it aside in rage as she left. Jacqui rolled her eyes and turned back to face the rest of the passengers, noting that every single one of them were all staring back at her.

"Show's over, assholes," she said, to the homeless man in particular. "The fuck you lookin' at?"

"...I hope you realize what you've just done," Baby Daddy replied, his face frozen in terror like he'd just seen the first meteors of Armageddon out the window. "...Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...".

"No shit, Sherlock," Jacqui scoffed, hands on her hips. "I literally just proved that a second ago."

"Many underworlds such as Hell have an innumerable number of furies!" Heqet added, as a matter of fact. "I find it hard to believe that humans can out-fury their own perceived religious demons!"

"You've never been a human, have you?" Jacqui asked, dryly.

"Nope, indeed I have not!"

"AND", Baby Daddy continued, raising a finger as he made his way over to the side door, "...you just let that fury right into the engine car of the Midnight Train Going Everywhere...".

She gave him an asynchronous blink. "...and...?"

"Have you even noticed how fast this train is moving?"

On cue, the old steam engine Train coughed and hissed loudly, just as Jacqui had forgotten it had been doing this entire time. Glancing out the window into the black nightscape beyond, shadowy shapes seemed to whiz past in shuffling madness, not even stopping long enough to greet the eyes. And further up on the edge of the horizon, the moon was spinning in circles like a basketball on a fingertip.

Still, that probably wasn't the WEIRDEST thing she'd seen all night...

"I still don't understand--" she almost finished saying before a sudden jolting motion tossed everyone in the car forward as well as floorward.

The whole train staggered, metal plating buckling and groaning as the roar of the wheels beneath them intensified. As the car eventually evened itself back out, she felt the train picking up even more speed, pounding like a steam-engine roller coaster.

With a cry of panic, Baby Daddy shook Snoring Grandma awake and, together with Homeless Man, they tugged open the door of the car, filling it with an immutable roar of wind and steam and rumbling wheels and the droning bells of an upcoming train station.

And before Jacqui could even respond, all four of them jumped off at the station one by one.

"...the fuck...?!" Jacqui tried to pick herself up, but between the unstable rattling of the car and that inescapable paralysis in her gut, it might not be happening anytime soon.

"Heads up, Jacqui!" Heqet's voice cut through the noise.

"Oh what now..." she groaned, lifting her head up just far enough to see.

The other car door up ahead had opened, and a familiar pair of nylon-covered legs in a thick maxi skirt emerged. Breathing hard, holding a long steel shaft in her hands, Charlie hovered over her menacingly.

"You..." she intoned, voice barely audible over the chaos of the still-accelerating train. "...I don't know who you think you are...but I've seen how you treat the Gospel, and I've seen the Godless demons you keep as company. And I know now what must be done...".

She adjusted her grip on the rod's rubber handle, wielding it more like a sword. Jacqui glanced around for her own weapon, but the umbrella had been knocked beneath the far seats, out of reach.

Shit, this could be a problem...

"Jesus once said that He is the Light, the Way, and the Truth..." Charlie continued, eyes aflame with the fury of the Lord as she took a step closer through the noise. "...and that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life...".

There's no way I can get to the umbrella in time, Jacqui noted, thoughts flying left and right as she tried to quickly form a battle plan. Heqet's at least out of harm's way, that's good, but then again she can't help me from over there either...SHIT. Think!

"It's nice to think I'm a shoo-in for eternal life," Charlie carried on, seemingly unfazed by the jostling of the car as she continued walking forward. "That no matter what happens to me in this crazy life of mine, I'll depart on up to heaven when I die. I almost wish you could come with me, just so you could see what you're missin'...".

Fucking uterus...I can barely even pick myself up...not good...

"...I almost wish we could've been friends," she said softly, hard to hear over the cacophony around them. "Maybe I could've helped to show you the light. Maybe I could've been the one to save your soul from the eternal damnation you're throwin' yourself into...but there ain't no room in heaven for maybes."

The train lurched and squealed even louder, belching smoke dramatically behind her enemy like curtains on a stage. Jacqui again tried to push herself up, crawling down the corridor on her hands and knees.

"I know you're plannin' on fightin' the Lord when you meet him," Charlie intoned, blue eyes blazing. "You think you can just play by your own rules, and get what you want cause you're good at violence. Well I'm gonna tell you right now, the Lord Jesus does not take kindly to such sinful conduct, and as he has instructed me to do, I shall do my part in upholding the values of Gospel by preventin' violence right at the source."

Oh fuck, please don't tell me she's gonna--

"So in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," she continued, brandishing the weapon at arm's length, "...I baptize thee. Let the old be stripped away by the righteous fires of the Almighty, and let the new grow in its place. Cast off your old, dirty body and be reborn in the fires of Heaven above, that all such disgust and impurity be wiped away and made whole once more, forever and ever, glory be to God, AMEN!"

It was then that Jacqui finally realized what the steel bar in her hands was. It was the brake lever from the engine car, still glowing hot with the red wrath of the engine's coals, sharpened to a point like a fire poker where she'd somehow snapped it off. Charlie was going to give her a literal baptism by fire and brimstone.

She felt the pistons scraping, steam breaking on her brow. Charlie had stolen the handle, and the train it wouldn't stop going, no way to slow down.

And if I don't do something quickly...

"Jacqui, there!" Heqet shouted, pointing at something on the floor.

Her head snapped to attention. Yes! There! Lying just within reach was - just as Charlie had been harping about this whole time - exactly the salvation she needed.

Charlie drew the weapon above her head.

Jacqui reached out and grabbed hold of salvation.

The handle came down.

She picked up the Gideon's Bible, open at page one, and slammed the pages shut over the end of the lever, catching it between her palms. Charlie screamed in disbelief as she watched the red-hot weapon pierce and scorch the pages of the Holy Book, tarnishing the very Word of God itself.

Twisting her arms left, Jacqui wrenched the weapon out of Charlie's grip and cast it aside, struggling through the cramps to get back on her feet. The car shuddered even harder as the train continued to accelerate, possibly breaking the sound barrier now, for all she knew.

And when she'd finally made it to her feet, and rammed her knee into Charlie's midsection, the car leaned into another turn, groaned and buckled, then with a deafening shotgun sound, pitched over and over and over as the screaming train ran itself right off the rails and into Hell itself.