Reaper's Fee by Marcus Galloway

wall, a window and a stool. Nick sat down on the cot, pulled the shade over the window and then closed his eyes. He drifted off to sleep eventually, but didn’t get any better of a rest than when he’d dozed off while sitting on one of the benches with the rest of the passengers.
    Whatever he’d paid for the room, Nick vowed he wouldn’t pay it again.
     
    Hours dragged into days.
    Towns came and went.
    The sun made its rounds in the sky.
    There were plenty of stops and starts along the way. After a while, Nick stopped keeping track of them, since doing so only reminded him of how much longer he had to be cooped up in that damn crate on wheels. Just because he wasn’t paying complete attention, however, didn’t mean that he hadn’t grown to learn the subtle sounds and feel of the train itself.
    When it rattled and squealed this time, Nick knew something was wrong.
    He was sitting on the bench that seemed to give him the fewest splinters, his head leaning against the window. As the train shook and the wheels screeched, Nick rubbed his eyes and forced himself to focus upon the window. Unlike the other times when he’d felt the train slow, there wasn’t a station or even a platform in sight.
    Cautiously opening the window, Nick looked outside. Since he didn’t have any point of reference, it would have been just as helpful to guess where he was on the map by the position of the clouds in the sky.
    “Hey,” Nick said to the conductor who hurried down the aisle. “What’s happening?”
    “Just making a stop,” the conductor replied.
    “Where are we?”
    “Wyoming.”
    “Where in Wyoming?” Nick growled.
    For the first time since the train had left California, the conductor actually reacted to the gruff tone in Nick’s voice. “Sir, you’ll just have to stay here and be patient. I’m going to find out right now.” With that, the conductor moved along to push his way past the rest of the anxious passengers.
    Nick let out an aggravated sigh, but he couldn’t blame the conductor for being terse. Even though he was sure someone in uniform would make some sort of announcement before too long, Nick wasn’t very good at waiting. He also wasn’t inclined to trust men in uniforms.
    Nick’s first impulse was to sit back down and try to think of something else while things were straightened out. That kept him appeased for all of three seconds before he was once more shifting and aching to get up.
    He couldn’t quite figure out what was bothering him until he took another long, deep breath.
    Smoke.
    He smelled smoke.
    He hadn’t been completely certain at first, but now that he’d pulled in enough of it for the taste to collect at the back of his throat, he would have staked his life on it. Nick went to the window again and looked outside. All he could see was the Wyoming landscape, and that didn’t give him anything to go on. When he opened the window and stuck his head outside to get a look further up thetracks, the first things he saw were the backs of the heads of all the other people who were doing the same thing.
    Even so, all Nick had to do was crane his neck to look upward in order to see the trail of black smoke snaking into the sky.
    “God damn,” Nick muttered as he tried to pull his head back into the train without losing an ear.
    As he got up from his seat, Nick had to shove his way through a small crowd as more and more passengers struggled to get to a spot where they could get a better view of whatever was holding them up. Nick lost more patience with each step he took. Most of those other passengers seemed to be more concerned with finding another way to trip him up rather than the scent of smoke growing thicker in the air.
    By the time he made it to the door leading out of the car, Nick practically exploded through it. Rather than step into the next car, he stepped to the edge of the iron grate separating him from a drop off the train. Nick held onto the grate and leaned out until he was well