October 26 - The Train

When the train came, you ran.
That was the first thing you learned. If they got you on that train, that was it. Nobody ever saw you again.
You never knew when it was going to come, it didn't follow any sort of schedule. And you couldn't go too far from the tracks because that's where they dropped off the supplies: food, mostly. If you could call it that. Subsistence rations. Just enough to keep you alive.
Booze, too. Bathtub vodka in recycled Coke bottles. Tasted like rubbing alcohol, but people drank it anyway, at least the men did.
In the winter they dropped off canvas tarps and musty wool blankets. Not that the weather was any different in winter. It was like late November throughout the year: Rainy. Cold. Occasional snow.
All the trees were bare and slick with rain. Muddy gravel and gravelly mud everywhere. No grass, no colors. Everything was grey.
Nothing grew. That's why you had to depend on the trains. In other prison situations--and this was a prison situation even if that's not what it was called--underground economies grew. People used what they had to get more.
Not here.
The means weren't there. There was no way to get a leg up on anybody. It was day to day survival and that was it. Stay away from the tracks but don't go too far.
Not that you could. Sure, there was freedom of movement. The area stretched for miles in every direction: Miles and miles of rain soaked numbing cold, mud, and dead trees. And then somewhere at the end of it, miles away, a high stone wall.
And the train tracks.
But nobody ventured out. They stayed in shanties and lean-tos. Rotted plywood walls and corrugated tin roofs. A pallet floor if you were lucky. Little kids ran around with no pants. Nobody talked much.
You tried to stay warm. You waited for the train. And when it came you ran and hid and watched as the big men, strong from three meals a day, and warm and dry in all-weather uniforms, jumped off to grab people and put them back on the train. It was the old and sick that got caught first. Them and the careless ones who'd let themselves get too close to the tracks so they would be in the best position to get the supplies they threw off as they left. The men would get four, five people, load them in a boxcar and shut the door. Then they would say something into their walkie-talkies, get back on the train, and leave.
They were always taken alive. The men from the trains all had guns but they hardly ever shot anybody.
"We're all vampire food, man."
That's what the talkative one said, always whispering through his teeth even though nobody was around.
"Think about it, man. They need us alive. That's why they give us just enough to keep us alive for when they load us on that train. Tell me I'm crazy. You've heard the stories, man."
You have. The stories about a colony of well-connected vampires holed up in a compound 100 miles from the middle of nowhere, and an off the books agreement with the government: stay put and we'll keep you fed.
And so, this place. This refugee camp. It made sense. So many different languages. So many powerless people. New people just showed up, no memory of how they'd gotten there. No communication with the outside world. No way out.
A box full of mice to feed to the snakes.
Other theories: human guinea pigs for medical experiments.
Genetic research.
Reality TV.
A farm for aristocratic cannibals.
There was no shortage of theories, but nobody really knew. All you knew for sure was when the train came you ran.