“This door isn’t supposed to look like that,” Zander said, crossing his arms as he inspected the door Ash had kicked through.

  “Yeah, it kinda broke,” Nicolas rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I may have bumped into it by accident.” Nicolas wasn't the best liar, but he thought this one was good enough.

  “Eh, no worries.” Zander grabbed the door, moving it out of the way so it'd be easier to step past “We'll get someone to fix this thing once we get to the station.”

  Nicolas followed him through the doorway, continuing all the way to the caboose where the large stacks of boxes were.

  “So, what’s your job?” Nicolas asked. He remembered how cold Zander's hand felt; like he had been handling ice. “Is there a freezer or something in here?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Nothing,” Nicolas replied. “Never mind.”

  “Well, my job is basically the same as yours. We just load and unload stuff; they'll tell you what to do when we get to Bonney Lake.”

  So that's where we're heading.

  Just as Zander was about to pick up one of the boxes, there was a loud crashing sound further up the train, making them both turn toward the door. “What was that?” Zander asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nicolas replied, though there was a sinking feeling that Ash and Ryan had run into trouble. It’d been a while since they left, and now, it sounded like someone was throwing tables through doors.

  Another loud crash echoed through the walls.

  “Train hoppers,” Zander said, his voice sounding less soft than it had the moment before.

  “What makes you say that?” Nicolas asked, but when he turned his head toward Zander, he realized that he had bigger problems to worry about.

  Stranger danger.

  “Because I’m looking at one right now.” Zander’s eyes were locked onto Nicolas’; only, they were no longer their previous color. Because his eyes had become shadows, dark as black holes, his void sockets stared at Nicolas like a predator that had found its prey.

  He's not human.

  In less than a second, Nicolas was running past the broken doorway, not slowing until he made it to the door that Ash and Ryan had disappeared through.

  He slid it open, quickly stepped into the next train car and slammed the door closed, pushing down a little metal piece that he prayed was the lock.

  As soon as the metal piece clicked in place, Zander's head smashed into the door faster than what seemed possible, sending a dark, ink-like liquid splattering against the window, his blackened eyes glaring violently at Nicolas like a bloodthirsty shark.

  “You think this door can hold me?” His voice sounded distorted, like a robot and a black-metal singer had a child together.

  If Nicolas wasn't scared as a cat in a hurricane, he might have responded; but it turns out, sometimes fear can save your life.

  Nicolas ran through the train as Zander either kicked or punched the door: And Nicolas knew that if Ash could break through it, so could Zander.

  The whole door jerked violently as he kicked it again, and Nicolas ran like all of hell was chasing him until he made it to the next door.

  He slid it open, and the soft hum of white noise had become replaced by the sound of wind brushing violently against the metal train. In between the two train cars, was a large hinge that connected them together. Below that, there was no floor, no roof, no walls; just that foot-wide metal hinge. There were also no guardrails, but with the kako behind him fueling his body with adrenaline, Nicolas stepped onto the vibrating metal, crossing it like a bridge. As soon as he made it to the next train car, he slid the door open, and continued running through the train, but not before locking that door also.

  He would have ran forever, he definitely felt like he could have: But two more train cars later, Nicolas hit a roadblock.

  His hands hit the metal door in front of him, but the door remained in place. He kicked it—punched it—pressed his whole body against the door, but against these efforts, the door didn’t move.

  Nicolas wasn't the only one who locked doors, but this one was somehow locked from the other side.

  I’m trapped!

  He threw his fist at the door in anger, but it remained closed. Something behind him shook violently, and closely; and Nicolas knew he only had seconds to think of a plan. He grabbed the only thing that looked even close to being a weapon, which happened to be a metal pole only about a foot and a half long.

  Then, he turned his attention to one of the windows beside him, which was now letting through an ominous red tint of sunlight; the dust particles looking somehow darker: The room, getting colder with that strange, ice-cold energy that didn't feel real.

  Nicolas didn't have a plan, but he knew he had to get away from Zander as soon as possible. He swung the metal pipe at the window as hard as he could, and the collision pierced his ears with the high-pitched shatter as shards of sparkling glass filled the air like a grenade.

  Hot, summer wind blew into the ice-cold train car as another loud crash shook the door, followed by the high-pitched sound of something snapping in half.

  Here goes nothing, Nicolas thought to himself. It was his only chance, and he knew it.

  Nicolas stepped toward the window, placed his foot on the window ledge, reaching his arm outside the train, his fingers grasping for anything to grab onto as the wind wrapped itself around his finger, reminding him of when he used to stick his hand out of the window of Sam's car. He still clutched the metal bar in his other hand, when at last his fingers wrapped around something.

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  Before he could even think about how sturdy it was, Nicolas inhaled a deep breath, before stepping through the small window, squeezing tightly on whatever outside part of the train he was gripping onto.

  The wind seemed to hit him all at once. It was so powerful that it almost sent him falling onto the ground, the peaceful hum of the train replaced by the violent roar of wind rubbing against his body like a category-five hurricane.

  The ground below him looked like no more than a deadly blur zipping passed, the wind blowing at his face so powerfully that it made it hard for Nicolas to even breathe. He squinted his eyes, and pulled himself higher up the side of the train, his other hand searching desperately for something higher to grab; the metal bar in his hand clanging against the side of the train. Zander would no doubt see the open window in a matter of minutes, seconds maybe: And when he did, he would surely be following behind.

  Nicolas’ hands groped the train in panic, the thought of falling to death seeming less scary than the thought of being killed by a kako.

  At last, his hand found a place to grab, and Nicolas pulled himself higher up, getting further from the ground, and further from the window. His feet slid helplessly, desperately searching for something to hold their weight, and when his feet did find a ledge, he pushed himself even higher up. It felt like trying to climb up a skyscraper that'd been sucked into a tornado.

  At last, his fingers wrapped around the top of the train, his heart beating unhealthily fast, but at the moment, Nicolas didn't feel it. All he could feel was the wind, hitting him with so much force that it made his plain baby-blue T-Shirt look plastered to his body.

  Nicolas pulled himself up the side of the train, and threw one leg over, before crawling onto the roof as it sped further and further away from Portland.

  He crawled a few feet away from the edge of the train, before slowly rising to his feet despite the wind trying to throw him into the air.

  He was no longer trapped, but the moment of freedom lasted only a few seconds.

  Nicolas heard the loud, high-pitched crash among the wind as another window shattered in the next car over.

  Nicolas turned his eyes toward the back of the train as a black tentacle rose out of the newly broken window, grabbing the top of the train and lifting Zander's demonic body up the side like a spider. Dark drops of some kind of black liquid dripped out of his hollow, soulless eyes, only to be flicked off his cheeks in splatters, flying through the air behind the train like ashes. Black, ink-like ashes.

  The kako, who hadn’t looked like a kako when Nicolas first met him, remained hovering above the roof of the train, eight long tentacle arms rising out of his back; four of them holding Zander up, the other four pointing toward Nicolas, like shotguns ready to blast his head off.

  Nicolas turned away, attempting to run up the train, but the powerful wind seemed to force him closer to the monster that was hunting him.

  “There’s nowhere left to go, Nicolas!” Zander taunted, his voice sounding louder than the wind itself, though it didn't rattle his ears in the same way.

  He took another slow step, the creature behind him having no trouble holding on.

  Nicolas squeezed the metal bar in his hands as he fought against the force of air, but his steps were too slow, and he knew then that, just like before, outrunning the creature was impossible.

  You can’t run from your problems forever, Nicolas.

  Sam's words rang silently through his head, as he turned his gaze back to the demon behind him: The not-so-itsy-bitsy spider.

  Someday you’re going to have to face them.

  He ducked lower down, hoping to get as little wind as possible as the kako crawled toward him like a spider climbing up a waterspout during a typhoon.

  Nicolas closed his eyes, said a prayer in case this didn't work, then he jumped.

  His feet launched off the train, and the power of the wind was suddenly the only thing Nicolas felt. It was like being thrown off a building; his whole body seemed to spin and twist, and blurs of light zipped through his vision like light around a blackhole as the wind gripped his small body.

  Then, after what felt like a ride through a hurricane, Nicolas landed less than six feet from where Zander stood.

  The sudden change in tactics seemed to surprise him, because he didn't try to dodge the bar in Nicolas’ hand. It hit him in the shoulder, sounding like he had hit a punching bag.

  Nicolas ducked as something flew past his head, the sudden movement causing him to slip and fall onto the metal roof.

  His shoulder collided with the metal with a thud, sending a wave of pain through his arm that, like his racing heartbeat, he wouldn’t really feel until later.

  Nicolas looked back up at Zander, having barely enough time to move his head over to dodge the long, skinny metal pipe Zander swung down. It hit the roof with a noise so loud it made Nicolas’ ears ring, causing both the roof and the thin pipe to bend and dent upon impact. The kako lifted the pipe up to swing again, but when he brought it back down, it connected with the bar in Nicolas’ hands instead.

  The collision sent a vibration through his fingers, so strong that the shockwave ripped the bar right out of Nicolas’ hands.

  It spun randomly through the wind, seeming to pause, before falling into the gap between the train car and the caboose, only a few feet away.

  Something wet and cold wrapped itself around Nicolas’ neck like a python, and he barely even had time to react before one of the kako’s long, black tentacles picked him off the ground by the neck. The tentacle felt cold as ice, but like the cold wind that radiated from the supernatural creature, it felt only half real.

  Nicolas’ feet weren’t touching the ground anymore, and all he could see were the black, hollow eyes of the kako, and the ink that dripped from them like demon tears as Zander lifted him off the train.

  “You can't outrun me, Nicolas!”

  It looked like Zander was going to say more, but before he could, the speeding train turned sharply right, and as if gravity had momentarily shifted off balance, Nicolas and the kako were suddenly pushed off the side of the train.

  He reached out in an attempt to catch himself, but the kako still had a grip on his neck, and Nicolas didn't think he had any intentions of letting go. It felt as if he was falling in slow-motion, but at last, the kako found a grip somewhere.

  Nicolas however, did not. Instead, his fall was stopped by the metal hinge-type connector in between two of the train cars as his back hit the hard, vibrating metal, knocking the breath out of his lungs and sending a jolt of pain through his spine. His ears filled with an excruciating noise that reminded him of nails on a chalkboard. Nicolas had landed between the two train cars, and sparks flew wildly from the metal pipe that Nicolas had lost moments before.

  It's still here!

  Only, it had somehow wedged itself into a large, circular hole, the rusty tip pressing itself against the wheel of the train, creating tiny sparks that looked more like shooting stars at the high speed and causing the tip of the metal pipe to glow with heat from the intense friction.

  A few stray sparks spun in the violent winds, two of them landing on Zanders face, instantly changing from golden flakes of burning metal, to black, freckles of darkness as they landed on the kako's forehead.

  The tentacle that was wrapped around Nicolas’ neck tightened, Zanders eyes dripping with a black ink-like liquid as his lips cocked back in a snarl, the way Nicolas imagined a wolf might snarl at a rabbit before slaughtering it.

  But Zander wasn’t slaughtering anyone.

  I have nothing to lose now.

  Nicolas’ fingers had already wrapped around the metal pipe, pulling it out with all the strength left in him. It was as hot as Hades' kitchen, but the other end was hotter. He pulled it out of the hole where it had become stuck, and before Zander could react, he pushed the glowing tip of metal through the kako’s chest.