This story starts with Chapter 1, which you can read here.
She pulls her Canon camera from another pouch on her backpack and snaps a photo of the train car which had been darkened for the night.
Several times during the night she was wakened by the occasional shaking of the train car and unsettling dreams. In each, her sleeping brain moved her along a path winding through a forest where back feathers littered the green ground. She had the sense she was being followed by something that would disappear behind the trunks of thick trees just before she could get a glimpse of whatever it was. A vision of a bird lying in the middle of a small pool of glistening carmine flashed in her mind as the presence following her seemed to close in.
The lights were still off in the train car but the dream troubled her enough to convince her to give up on sleep. Getting to her feet she stumbled through exhaustion and the unexpected movement of the train and goes in search of coffee. The café car was lined with refrigerated cupboards with glass doors. She opens one and twists a twenty ounce dark bottle around so that she could read the label. It was a root beer emblazoned with an outline of California with a star on Southern Coast and “San Juan Capistrano” lettered next to the star. She left the bottle and closed the cupboard door, which snapped shut with the help of strong magnets designed to prevent the foods and drinks from falling onto the floor when the train moved along the tracks she reasoned. At the counter, the smiling attendant produced an empty cup and suggested she not fill up the cup all the way to the top to allow room for cream and for the movement of the train. He handed her a lid in exchange for the two dollars she produced from a black wallet with the image of a white skull and cross bones with a pink bow on the right side of its skull.
Back in her seat she sipped coffee and pulled her laptop computer out of her bag. She opened Microsoft Word and tapped in a description of her dreams and a brief note about the ride thus far.
Just before 8 a.m. her overnight train journey came to a close as they slowed to a stop with an employee announcing over the P.A. system that they had arrived in Klamath Falls a few minutes early and that the café car would be open as soon as they were again underway.
Now it is up to you to choose what should be done next. Please leave your vote in the Comments section:
A. She wheels her heavy bags along side of eight train cars towards the engine to alert the conductor or another employee regarding the absence of the young man who was in her car.
B. She wheels her bags towards the station to find a cab driver who will drive her and her luggage to the apartment she has already arranged.
Definitely A
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