Earthquake

Dispute

After checking that Andy was fast asleep and mum had enough helpers to look after the injured, I rounded up my troups for a pep talk.

"Right, you guys have been chosen to scout out the other carriages. I want to know what state they're in and whether it's possible for us to move to safer ground. If not, when you find people bring them back here to be looked after. Obviously don't put yourselves in danger but we need to help as many people as we can." I solemnly stared into each of their faces, "Any questions?"

"Yeah. Why should we do this? Surely by going outside we are endangering ourselves?" Retorted a sarcastic voice.

I looked up, unsurprisngly the voice belonged to the boy from the corner, his arm still bleeding freely. 

I gave him a look of disgust, "You don't have to come if you don't want to, but by the looks of it," I gestured to his arm,"You're not too bothered about endangering yourself."

He shrugged. 

"I want you guys to travel in pairs.."

"Why are we taking orders from a 12 year old girl? This is an emergency not some stupid team building exercise." He crossed his arms and glared truimphantly at my annoyance for being, not only interupted but being called 12 years old. I did not look like a 12 year old! 

Luckily Daisuke stepped in, "Listen boy. I don't know who you think you are but if you don't want to help people stay here and shut up. Darcie knows what she's doing." 

I gave him one last glare then said, "Right, let's go. Use phones as torches because we only have the emergency one, try and put some layers on because it's getting cold." 

As everyone started to file towards the door at the safe end of the carriage I stopped the boy. 

Speaking quietly so as not to disturb the others, I hissed, "Who do you think you are? You can't just say things like that!" 

"The name's Jack," he smirked ending his sentence with a wink. 

"That is so not what I asked!" I growled, grinding my teeth together

"Technically, it is..." He said over his shoulder as he strode towards the door, "You coming, grumpy?" 

Up until that point I had wholly committed to obeying my mum's instructions. But as I looked at his smug face I found myself grabbing the nearest coat and shoving past him out the door. There was no way I was going to let him put one of the others in danger or do something stupid. Who makes jokes like that when they're in a situation like this? 

"Jesus, it's cold." I gave the tiniest half smile when I realised 'Jack' had disobeyed my orders and stepped outside with just his t-shirt on. 

"No time to go back, we want to get moving before it gets any darker," I said, satisfied when I heard him follow, grumbling. 

I lost my half smile as soon as I realised what had happened ahead; peering through the gloom we could make out the end of the bridge. Although the carriages this side of the collapse appeared undamaged, the ones that had reached the end and were back on solid ground were all lying on their sides. I gulped as I imagined the train veering off the tracks as the driver lost control. This was not good news. 

I found my little group huddled up ahead and although Daisuke was surprised to see I had come he quickly decided that it was for the best. 

We tried the door of the next carriage up and it opened easily, revealing a cargo hold filled to the brim with crates. Some had snapped open, their contents appearing completely random, ranging from fluffy socks to backpacks and wine bottles. Realising there could be something useful like blankets, we left behind two of the men to sort through it and take anything of use back to our carriage. 

Moving on to the next compartment, I suddenly realised how quiet the night was. Surely if a train had just crashed there should be people calling for help, or something. Anything would have been better than this suffocating silence. 

The next compartment proved to be another anticlimax. After Daisuke and the man who was supposedly ex-US army heaved open the door, we found it only contained food supplies for the buffet car. Again, we left behind two people to ensure our carriage was fed. 

This meant that as we approached the third carriage, all that remained of our expedition was the army guy who's name I had discovered was Wes, the small female doctor named Kiyoko, Daisuke, me and Jack. 

That was no where near enough.