In Case Of Emergency: an action-packed short story

Aravinya

'Something from the menu?' Aravinya asked the pre-teen boy in seat 9A.

'No, thank you.' The boy held up a newspaper. He had scrawled a message on the front page in thick black marker pen: the passenger behind me has a gun.

Aravinya read the message twice. Surely she had misunderstood. The frightened look on the boy's face assured her that she hadn't.

He wore a puffy jacket over a black cotton shirt. He was of Eurasian descent, with large, serious eyes and a tight-lipped mouth. A mess of black hair was escaping from his grey beanie. He looked sporty or at least fit. The hand which wasn't holding the newspaper was wrapped around the armrest in a death grip, as though he expected the train to crash at any moment. No-one was seated next to him.

Aravinya's heart was racing, but she kept her expression neutral. She resisted the urge to glance at the woman seated behind the boy.

The stations had surveillance cameras but no metal detectors. When the train crossed the border from Belarus into Kamau, customs officials had checked passports, but they hadn't actually searched anyone. The sniffer dogs were trained to look for drugs, not weapons. It was possible that a gun was on board.

A hundred people rode this train, eight of them in this cabin. Their lives were in Aravinya's hands.

The train rocked gently as the track sliced a curve around Mount Kharsum. On the other side of the rails was a deep valley, barely visible through the snowflakes scraping across the dirty plexiglass. Inside, the heating vents kept the cabin almost uncomfortably warm. The hot air kept ruffling Aravinya's blonde pixie cut. Her feet sweated inside her high heels.

This was the first class cabin. The seats were leather, not vinyl, and the passengers had meals delivered to their seats rather than having to walk to the dining car. It was also closest to the driver, which was what concerned Aravinya most right now. The woman with the gun could be a Besmari terrorist, planning to seize the train.

'Something small, perhaps?' Aravinya pressed. She hoped the boy realised she was asking about the gun, not the food.

'No.' The boy's voice wavered.

Aravinya had hoped for more information. He had given her nothing. That might mean that the woman behind him knew he was aware of the gun. He didn't want to give her any indication that he had warned Aravinya.

Of course, this could be a prank. But Aravinya had to take it seriously.

Like all Kamauans, Aravinya had served two years in the military after she turned eighteen. She had learned to use a gun and to stitch a wound, but she had never seen actual combat. After her daughter was born, she had trained for this job as a train attendant. One of the classes was entitled In Case Of Emergency. But it hadn't covered this scenario.

Aravinya nodded politely to the boy and pushed the food cart further up the aisle.

The woman in seat 10A, directly behind the boy, was in her mid-twenties. She had tan skin and curly hair. She wore jeans and a polar fleece vest over a dark blue sweater. She had a flat nose and equally flat eyes. She looked at Aravinya like a Siberian tiger examining potential prey and deciding it was too small to chase.

One of her hands, clad in a fingerless glove, was empty. The other was hidden beneath her tray table. Possibly it was simply resting in her lap.

Possibly not.

'Something from the menu?' Aravinya asked.

The woman shook her head slightly.

'Sorry?' Aravinya leant forward, as though she needed to hear better. But even from this angle, she couldn't see the hand under the table.