“Ten minutes. Ten hours. Maybe bad wire, or cooling fluid. Maybe leak. I need look.”

  Yuri eyed the CO2 monitor on his office wall. Fifty thousand parts per million. Getting close to toxic levels. It was a tightrope walk between worker productivity and plant health, but lethargy, and death, delayed crop yield.

  “Anything on radar?” he asked Dimitri.

  “We’re alone out here. Like Siberia.”

  Yuri was pleased it wasn’t Siberia. That hadn’t been a pleasant experience for him.

  “Has the Cowboy arrived?”

  “Hour ago. Currently with one of the volunteers.”

  Dimitri chuckled. He thought calling them volunteers was amusing. His driver was also amused by torture, rape, and murder.

  That was one of the problems with being a criminal. Your best friends tended to be the worst kind of scum.

  Yuri hit the button for the Punishment Room. “Cowboy, air out the workers.”

  He switched to the monitor view of the sleeping car. Chained by his wrists to the ceiling was an older man. White. Bearded. Flabby, like he’d quickly lost a lot of weight. An American, who’d run into some trouble in Mexico.

  Yuri usually passed up buying US citizens, because too often they had people searching for them. But that drawback made them half the price of Mexicans. And Yuri, who’d grown up under the auspices of communism, had a hard time passing up bargains. This business was all about the margins, and if Yuri could save a few bucks here and there, he could reach his goal that much sooner.

  So he bought some forgotten, old, broken gringos, and the Cowboy was applying some fear compliance.

  Yuri checked the CO2 levels again, then pressed the intercom.

  “Cowboy, you can finish with the volunteer after the stop.”

  The Cowboy stared up at the camera and raised a finger, indicating one more minute. Yuri scowled, unhappy with being disobeyed. But the Cowboy was someone that Yuri didn’t want to unduly annoy. Yuri had met many ruthless people throughout his career. Killers and torturers, sadists without a shred of emotion, some gripped by uncontrollable psychoses. But the Cowboy was one of the scariest. There was something so efficient, so commanding, about the Cowboy, that it bordered on supernatural. Even though Yuri was almost a foot taller, and over a hundred pounds heavier, he didn’t want to push it too hard.

  “Fine,” he said. “Be quick.”

  Yuri left the speaker on, watching and listening to the bound American scream as the tooth was yanked from his mouth.

  THE COWBOY

  The Cowboy holds the tooth—a molar—in front of Herb’s face as blood soaks into his beard, tinging the gray a soft pink.

  The former cop looks suitably terrified and agonized. But there is something else in his eyes.

  Defiance.

  “Something tells me you haven’t learned your lesson,” the Cowboy says. “Do I need to take another?”

  The Cowboy pokes the pliers into Herb’s open mouth, tapping the metal tips over the man’s incisors. Herb tries, comically, to push away the pliers with feeble jabs of his tongue. The Cowboy considers pinching the tongue, yanking it out. But that’s much more serious than it seems. The last man the Cowboy tried it on choked to death on his own blood, and Yuri wasn’t pleased. Plus, without proper cauterization, infection would set in. They were so close to reaching their quota, it would be counterproductive to weaken the workforce.

  But one more tooth won’t hurt anything.

  Well, other than Herb…

  The Cowboy grips a front tooth with a beautiful CLINK sound, and begins to squeeze.

  “The workers!” the intercom booms.

  Yuri is pissed. He doesn’t like to repeat himself.

  “Saved by the bell,” the Cowboy says.

  The Cowboy puts the tooth extractor pliers back on the wall of tools, selects a pair of small but sharp wire cutters, and walks behind Herb, pressing the Vaquero into the man’s back.

  “Stay still, or I’ll shoot your spine. You can still harvest opium while paralyzed. But trust me, you won’t enjoy it as much.”

  The Cowboy stretches up overhead, then snips the plastic band, freeing Herb’s hands. The man staggers forward, then drops to his knees.

  “Now take your wire out of the floor clamp,” the Cowboy says, tucking the snips into a vest pocket and walking around to Herb’s front.

  The ex-cop fumbles with the wire, unable to open the mechanism.

  “Just squeeze the sides. It opens like a clothespin.”

  More fumbling. This man is incompetent. The Cowboy wonders how Jack Daniels put up with him for all those years.

  “Hands above your head, you idiot. Now.”

  Herb raises his hands, and the Cowboy presses the gun to his temple and leans down, feeling for the clamp while locking eyes.

  Herb’s eyelids flutter—

  —and then the weakling tilts sideways, feebly pawing at the Cowboy’s chest before passing out flat on his face.

  The Cowboy unclamps the wire just as Herb begins to sob.

  “You’re inhuman!” Herb wails.

  This amuses the Cowboy. “I’m completely human. Depravity is a wholly human trait.”

  “I can’t… I can’t take any more.”

  The Cowboy faces the wall of tools. “Stop being a baby.”

  “I CAN‘T!” Herb screeches, pounding on the floor of the train car.

  Then there’s screaming. Screaming that cuts right into the Cowboy’s head, threatening to squat there and cause a migraine.

  “Shut up,” the Cowboy warns.

  Herb doesn’t shut up. It’s so loud it makes the Cowboy’s eyes ache.

  “Shut up!”

  The Cowboy considers kicking the hell out of him, but Yuri is probably watching, getting angrier and angrier that the volunteers haven’t been aired out yet. So instead of an ass whupping, the Cowboy grabs Herb’s wire in a gloved hand and yanks it, hard, practically jerking the cop to his feet. Herb struggles to heft up his kettlebell and the Cowboy drags the cop out of the Punishment Room.

  “Wait until this train is mine,” the Cowboy says. “The first thing I’m going to do is fill your mouth with razor blades and then sew your lips closed.”

  The threat seemed to work, because Herb instantly shut up.

  YEARS AGO

  TOM AND JERRY

  Not long after MotherBitch got murderdead, FatherAss took the twins to a grief counselor. This counselor, a humorless moron named Dr. Bartholomew, believed in expressive therapy. That is, he insisted the siblings use artistic expression to come to grips with their feelings. This involved drawing, painting, writing, sculpting, and, ultimately, making videos.

  Tom and Jerry knew that Dorkter Barfolopew was major lametime, but they did have a lot of fun with the video camera. They’d sneak into FatherAss’s room as he slept, and make movies of them taking turns pissing on his legs. This was incredibly difficult to do without busting up laughing. Equally hard was staying straight-faced the next morning at breakfast, searching their father’s eyes for incontinence shame.

  They never showed those movies to Dorkter Barfolopew. But they did show him elaborately staged reenactments of MotherBitch’s fiery demise, using red and orange crepe paper streamers as the flames, taking turns flailing about and screaming while a Halloween smoke machine filled the room with glycerin clouds.

  The dorkter thought it was cathartic.

  The twins thought it was hysterical.

  They also reenacted the death of their schoolmate, Travis Hitchen, who drowned in a pond by the park. Jerry flailed around in FatherAss’s pool, spitting water and screeching for help, as Tom taped the theatrics. When Jerry as Travis eventually succumbed to the water, they applied blue make-up to his face and had him float on his back, staring blankly into space.

  It required several takes, because Jerry kept blinking, complaining that the chlorine hurt. But eventually, the twins got the shot.

  Dorkter Barfolopew was neither offended, nor worried, about the production, which the twins titled Tragic Swimming Accident Part 2. Nor was the idiot psychotherapist inclined to ask about Part 1, which was more proof that the hack was simply cashing FatherAss’s checks without any true concern for the twins’ mental health.

  While Tom and Jerry were particularly proud of Tragic Swimming Accident Part 2, especially the quick cuts and Dutch angles used to emphasize the drama and horror, they both preferred Tragic Swimming Accident Part 1, where they tied a barbell around Travis Hitchen’s legs and pushed him into the pond.

  The pond was murkydark and muckydeep, but they were able to record some blurry underwater flailing and a lot of air bubbles that, when they broke the surface, sounded like faint screams.

  It was all over very fast; much faster than the elaborately acted Part 2, and Tom lost at rock-paper-scissors which meant diving into the murkydark and cutting poor Travis’s legs free so the death appeared to be an accident.

  Jerry got that part on video as well, and Tom really hammed it up, pretending to try and rescue Travis, pulling the boy ashore and even trying mouth-to-mouth for real. Jerry got some great shots of Travis’s chest going up and down while Tom blew into it, and then stopped the production because Tom was doing such a good job that he feared Travis might actually come back to life.

  So Tom pulled Travis back into the pond, face-first to make sure he was fully murderdead, and the twins sneaksnuck back to their house without being seen. After a shower, they buried Tom’s muckydeep clothes in a bag, in the woods, at their special place.

  Dorkter Barfolopew never saw Part 1.

  Some months later, the Dorkter suffered a personal tragedy while driving when an unknown assailant dropped a cinderblock from an overpass onto his windshield.

  In their video reenactment, Jerry rode his bike under the same overpass while Tom simultaneously filmed it while dropping a fake foam rock they’d bought at a Halloween store. They had to do five takes before the lightweight rock actually hit Jerry, because the wind kept blowing it off course. But when it did hit, Jerry did a dramatic scream and fell off his bike onto the grassy embankment. Then they got close-ups of Jerry writhing around, covered in ketchup and ice melt salt to simulate the blood and broken glass.

  The twins loved their sequel, but agreed it wasn’t nearly as much fun as Dorkter Barfolopew Has A Crushing Defeat Part 1.

  Pretending was hellahella funfun.

  But nothing beat murderdeath for real.

  PRESENT

  JACK

  Something jabbed me in the side, and I swung my head around and noticed Waddlebutt, standing next to me in the bathroom. On my knees, he was about even with my waist.

  I spat, put my hand on the pedal to flush the toilet, and as my vomit swirled away the penguin pecked me again.

  “What?” I gave the bird my full attention. “You trying to cheer me up?”

  He pecked again, this time grabbing my sweater button in his beak.

  It wasn’t sympathy. It was robbery.

  Waddlebutt managed to yank the button free, then waddled away to add it to his nest. I placed my hands on the toilet to stand up, hit a button, and got squirted in the face.

  Harry’s bidet.

  The thought was gross, but my stomach had emptied two dry heaves ago. I managed to make it to my feet, turned on the sink faucet, and splashed some water on my face.

  I avoided the mirror. I didn’t want to see my face, because I’d just want to punch it.

  “Herb… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m going to find you. I swear it. I will find you.”

  My vow sounded as hollow as I felt.

  We were on the road again, having just blown through Nashville. I checked my phone GPS and saw we were nearing the Kentucky border. It was about ten to seven, but I needed to hear my husband’s voice, so I called Phin earlier than promised.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  I couldn’t glean anything from his tone. Was he still angry? Did he hate me?

  Of course he hates you. You’re the worst person to ever live.

  “How’s Bud? Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  I closed my eyes. I wanted so much for Phin to be there, holding me tight as I sobbed into his shoulder. That was impossible. It was also stupid. Look what happened to Herb because of me. I needed to keep Phin as far away as possible.

  Instead, I would have settled for a kind word. Anything. A half-hearted I love you. A mumble that he understood.

  But I didn’t deserve even that.

  So I did what any deservedly self-loathing jerk would do. I picked a fight.

  “If you can’t trust me enough to support me, Phin, then maybe we shouldn’t be together.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  “I should be able to tell you I’m doing something, and have you back me up.”

  “I can’t back you up, Jack, because I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing.”

  His tone was even and neutral, so I knew I was getting to him.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “You’re baiting me. What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong? I was just watching my best friend, the one I left for dead, get tortured live on darknet. And I can’t tell you about it because your body and mind are still damaged from the last time you went all white knight and tried to save me.

  So instead I told him, “The problem is you don’t respect me.”

  “Of course I respect you. And I love you.”

  Crap. Giving me what I needed was fighting dirty. I changed tactics.

  “Maybe it’s an age thing,” I said.

  “What is?”

  “I’m ten years older. Wiser. Know things you don’t know. Maybe you’ll never know them. Maybe waiting for you to catch up to my emotional level is a fool’s game.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself?”

  I was not. But my words made me feel worse, so I knew I was onto something.

  “If I asked you to do something for me, no questions asked, would you do it?”

  “Of course,” Phin said.

  “Then let this one go. Pretend I’m on vacation. Stop questioning me, stop judging me, just let me work this out.”

  Phin didn’t answer. I braced for him to yell, because I was being a completely hypocritical, unfair, psychotic bitch.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Fine? Since when did my drug abusing, criminal, hard ass husband get so pussy whipped?

  And how was I supposed to keep the fight going when he was giving me what I said I wanted?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said, feeling like I’d flushed my entire will to live down the toilet with my vomit.

  “Jack… I love—”

  I hung up on him.

  Then I sobbed into my clenched fist and tried to find strength in the fact that I was a worse person than I thought.

  HERB

  He couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen so many stars.

  Growing up in Chicago, stars were in short supply. The city’s own illumination, coupled with pollution, meant that astronomy was a hobby for those with telescopes. But kneeling outside on the ground, somewhere in the Great Plains, Herb could see millions of stars. They were so bright that Tequila’s eyes shone like they had an internal light.

  It was startling. And beautiful.

  And the wrong time to run.

  Herb was used to the bone-gnawing cold of Midwestern winters. The kind that got inside your jacket and tore at your bare skin underneath, had become so commonplace that Herb often forgot to wear a hat, even when the wind-chill was ten below.

  Outside the land train, without a shirt or shoes, it felt ridiculously cold, even though it was probably no cooler than fifty-five degrees. Herb had gotten used to slowly broiling in the furnace of Mexico, and being half-naked, emaciated, exhausted, and in pain, made the cold all the worse. The winds cut like knives. The teeth that Herb was grateful to still have chattered together.

  It was the wrong time to run.

  There would be other chances.

  When it was darker.

  When it was warmer.

  When they were closer to civilization, because as far as Herb could see, in all directions, there were no lights from towns or houses or even cars.

  Wrong time to run.

  “Fuck that,” Herb said. “Let’s do it.”

  Using the hand snippers he’d swiped from the Cowboy’s vest and shoved down his pants during his Oscar-worthy screaming performance, Herb cut the wire on Tequila’s chin, and then cut is own.

  Pulling out the wire felt terrible, and at the same time felt amazing.

  “Gimme the pliers,” Tequila said.

  Herb complied, and his friend picked up his kettlebell and walked over to the nearest slave. Herb heard him whisper, “Free yourself and pass it on,” before handing the man the snips.

  When Tequila returned, Herb wiped away a tear with a shaking hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was so anxious to get away, I didn’t think to help any of the others.”

  “Neither did I,” said Tequila. “But the more people escaping, the harder it will be to catch us.”

  Good point.

  Herb squinted at the plains around him. The ground was cold and hard, lots of rocks, not the best terrain for bare feet. Not much cover, either. Some bushes, and mountains in the far distance, but a whole lot of flat everywhere he looked.

  “Where’s the Cowboy?” Herb asked.

  “In Car #4. There are still four cars to air out. Two minutes per car, we’ve got about an eight minute head start.”

  “Can you run?”

  “Watch me.”

  Tequila hobbled ahead of Herb, into the cold, cold night, and Herb followed.

  JACK

  It was a little after three in the morning, and I was embracing insomnia like a long-lost love. Heckle and Jeckle were on pullout bunk beds in the living area. Or maybe they were sharing the same bunk bed. The privacy curtain was drawn, and I had no desire to check.