by John Hummel

Created on: October 04, 2008

DEAD IN HIS TRACKS

Tendrils of thick, murky fog rolled slowly off the river, devouring the traim yard the way a snake swallows its prey. Overhead, sodium arc lamps buzzed like giant insects, turning the creeping mist from white to sickly orange.

"Kevin, I don't know about this. Are you sure it's safe? Maybe we should just go around." If the trepidation in her voice wasn't enough, Denise's expression certainly conveyed how doubtful she was about continuing with their present course of action.

"Aw, it's okay Denise. I been through here hunnerds of times," he said with the braggadocio of a teenager, confident there was pretty much nothing he wasn't prepared for. "'Sides, we walk 'round to the overpass an' go that way, takes us like, twenty minutes. This way's like, five. C'mon, it'll be fun!" Kevin ducked through the hole in the fence and entered the coupling yard, not waiting for her response.

Kevin, her best and really only friend she'd made since moving to Martin from the big city, had harangued her all day, until she'd finally agreed, to go to the river that night for a bonfire party the Martin High seniors held every fall.

It'd been a big change for Denise, coming from urban sprawl, coming from a school where security checks occured more often than attendance checks and the people were cold and indifferent, to Martin, a one horse town where total strangers smiled and said hi to you on the stret. It took getting used to.

Kevin, the kid next door whom she shared class with, had made the trasition easier: saying hi to her, asking her questions, and generally pestering her until she had no choice but to become his friend. And now he was taking her to finally become one of them, a local. Just one of the kids who went to a school with Martin the Martian for a mascot and precious little to do on the weekends except hang out with friends.

She reckoned it did sound fun; better than listening to sirens and gunplay. She shrugged and scurried through the mesh, snagging and nearly tearing her jacket. Momma'd tear a strip off her if she did that.

Denise came to where Kevin skulked behind a boxcar. She placed her hands on his shoulders and peered around him.

"This is perfect. With the fog it'll be a snap. Let's motor." Kevin tugged Denise's hand, pulling her along at a half-trot out into the rail yard.

The two figures darted through the shrouding fog, flitting from boxcar to boxcar, wending their way towards the far end of the yard where the web of rails slowly intermeshed, converging

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