Time folded in on itself. The sterile, air-conditioned train car vanished. The pulsing orange hell outside the windows ceased to exist. The hum of the overworked environmental systems faded to a distant buzz. For James Liam Jr., the universe shrank to the four feet of aisle carpet between the plush cloth seats. It shrank to the body on the floor, the shocked faces of the living, and the cold, familiar protocols snapping into place in his mind.
The woman's eyes—a pale, watery blue—stared past him at nothing. The crimson of her suit was a vulgar, vibrant splash against the muted grey of the cabin, a color so loud it seemed to scream even in death. The makeshift shank in her chest was a brutal, functional thing. Not a weapon of passion, but of opportunity. Something fashioned quickly, quietly, from something to hand. The broken end of a luggage handle, maybe, sharpened against a hard surface. It spoke of intent. Of foresight.
"Don't anyone touch anything," James said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a tone of authority that had been absent for eighteen months. It was flat, calm, devoid of emotion. A cop voice. "Everyone, step back. Now."
The small cluster of passengers, who had been hovering like stunned moths around the terrible light of the corpse, jolted and shuffled backward. Their movements were jerky, uncoordinated. A man in a golf shirt bumped into a seat and flinched, as if it had attacked him.
James's eyes scanned the immediate area without moving his head. No obvious murder weapon—this was it. No signs of a struggle. Her expensive leather handbag was still tucked neatly in the crook of her arm. This wasn't a robbery.
He looked down at Conductor Evans, who was still kneeling, his hands hovering uselessly over the body as if he could somehow wish it back to life. "Evans. Get up."
The conductor looked up, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. "I… I checked for a pulse. There wasn't… there wasn't anything."
"I know. Get up. You're contaminating the scene." The old jargon felt foreign yet comfortable on his tongue, like a suit he'd outgrown but could still put on.
Evans scrambled to his feet, wiping his hands on his pants as if they were dirty.
James kept his own hands in his pockets. He didn't have gloves. He didn't have a badge. He had nothing but the ghost of his training.
"Did anyone see anything?" he asked, his gaze sweeping over the half-dozen pale faces in the immediate vicinity. "Anyone hear anything before the scream?"
A woman with severe glasses and a trembling lip shook her head. "I was… I was dozing. I heard a… a gasp. Then the scream. It was so short. Then nothing."
"Did you see anyone near her? Before or after?"
More head shakes. Muttered negatives. They were all trapped in their own bubbles of shock, their worlds reduced to the image of the dead woman on the floor.
James's mind, a tool he'd let rust and blunt, began to turn again, grinding through the facts with painful, familiar friction.
Killed in the last car forward of the one I was in. In a public space, but seemingly with no witnesses. The scream was cut off. That suggests a hand over the mouth, or the shock of the wound itself was instantly fatal. The weapon is improvised. The killer didn't come prepared. They saw an opportunity and they took it. But why? Why her?
The train gave another slight lurch. The orange light pulsed against the blackened windows, casting the scene in a sudden, garish strobe. In that flash, the blood on the carpet looked black. The woman's fixed stare seemed to accuse them all.
The businessman from James's car pushed his way through the connecting door, his face flushed with indignation. "What's the holdup? What's going on in— Oh, my God."
He stopped dead, his bluster evaporating, his jaw going slack.
Behind him, others from Car C were peering through the open door, their faces pale ovals of curiosity and fear. James saw Tom Miller trying to shield his children's view, his own face a mask of horror. He saw Leo the artist, his sketchbook forgotten, staring at the body with a kind of ghastly fascination. He saw Christina Garcia, standing just behind the crowd, her sharp eyes taking in every detail of the scene, of him, her expression unreadable.
"Get back," James said, his voice hardening. He moved to block the doorway, becoming a barrier between the two worlds: the world of shocked, living passengers and the world of the dead. "Everyone, back in your seats. Now."
"Who put you in charge?" the businessman snapped, finding his voice again, using anger to mask his terror.
"There's a dead woman on the floor," James replied, his voice low and cold. "Unless you want to be the one to explain to the authorities how the crime scene was trampled by a dozen panicked civilians, I suggest you do what I say."
The word authorities hung in the air, a bitter, hollow joke. What authorities? The world was ending outside. There were no authorities coming.
But the command in his voice worked. The businessman scowled but retreated. Tom shepherded his family back. The crowd at the door thinned.
James turned back to the scene. Evans was just standing there, shaking.
"Evans," James said. "The train. You said you have internal comms. I need you to lock this down. Seal this car. No one in, no one out."
"I… I can't," Evans stammered. "The system… The Voice… it controls the doors. I can make announcements, but the security protocols are automatic. I can't just lock a car."
A fresh chill went through James. They were trapped in a moving building with a killer, and the building itself wouldn't let them contain the threat.
"Then we do it manually," James said, his mind racing. "We need to secure the body. Preserve the scene as best we can. And then we need to talk to everyone. Everyone in this car." He looked at the shocked, silent passengers of Car B. "Did any of you know her?"
A few mutters of "No." "Never seen her before."
"Did she speak to anyone? Argue with anyone?"
More negatives.
She'd been alone. A businesswoman, traveling by herself. An easy target.
The orange light pulsed again. The environmental system whined, struggling against the impossible heat outside. James looked from the dead woman's face to the black, pulsing windows.
Two apocalypses. One outside, vast and impersonal, burning the world away. One inside, small and intimate and brutally human.
His shame was still there, a cold stone in his gut. Marcus Johnson's face was still there in his memory. But now, it was joined by this new face, this woman with the surprised blue eyes. Another life ended. Another failure.
But this time, the killer was still here. On this train. Maybe sitting in one of these very seats, watching him, pretending to be shocked.
The cop in him was fully awake now, and he was angry. Not at the world for burning. Not at the system that had cast him out. He was angry at the selfish, violent act of one person who had decided that in the midst of the world's end, their own private hatred or greed or madness was more important than the fragile thread of humanity holding them all together.
He was a disgraced cop. A murderer in the eyes of many. He had no badge, no authority, no right to do this.
But there was no one else.
James Liam Jr. took a deep breath of the dead, scentless air and turned to face the living.
"Alright," he said, his voice quiet but clear in the straining silence. "Here's what we're going to do."