A New Jeopardy

Part Five
By Jo Anzalone

Obviously, Cort and Bud did not see how quickly the tunnel through the mountain was coming up on them. Terry, his eyelashes blinking off the assault of flakes, saw it dimly, aghast at how very close it was. "DOWN!" he shouted. "Get down NOW!"

Cort turned, shocked at the sight of the wall of rock only yards away. Vaguely he heard Terry's snow-muffled cry, "DOWN!" Then the whole world was only black.

*********

Sponge Bob was livid. Epi hath no fury like a sponge scorned. Soundlessly he entered the rear of the engineer's cabin, an enormous wrench clutched in his hand. Conveniently, the engineer was nowhere to be seen, else, no doubt, some terrible fate would have been his lot. The Squarepantsed One looked from the throttle to the brake...and smiled, light from a swinging lantern reflecting off his enamel-coated maxillary structures. *WHACK* and the brake was rendered inoperable. Then, taking the wrench, he jammed the throttle into high speed overdrive.

Speaking urgently into the train's single communications device, he shouted, "Code red! Code Red!! Danger Will Robinson! Polar Express carrying passengers infected with deadly, highly contagious bunnybear syndrome. Suggest only way to save rest of humanity is dynamiting trestle over Bottomless Gorge, Kentucky." Ripping the device from the wall, he tossed it through the window. Still smiling, he climbed out on the side of the speeding locomotive, and just before it entered the Blue Mountain Tunnel, he leapt into the night, his spongieform self acting like a sled in the deep snow.

Everything was black. "What happened?" shouted Wanda.

"We're in a tunnel," Berti replied, "and the train seems to be gathering speed."

"A TUNNEL!" cried Sue. "Cort is on the ROOF!"

"Probably not any more," Hando said helpfully. Indeed, the young sheriff with the delightfully swingy hair WAS no longer enroofed.

"I thought the sheriff was in the baggage car?" Teller whispered to Lucilla.

"He is," she replied, nodding in only one direction, much to the delight of her brain cells.

"But Sue just said he was on the roof," he continued, genuinely puzzled.

"He is," Lucilla nodded, "or...was."

Teller turned in his seat, facing her fully, his seagreen eyes flashing. "I may be new," he rumbled, "but I'm not stupid!"

Lucilla smiled patiently. "If you read carefully, you will note the descriptive word 'young' in use with the sheriff formerly on the roof."

"Yes," he said, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"It's self-explanatory," she shrugged, "Cort is younger than Biebe."

"There are...two...sheriffs?" he asked, his brow creasing.

"And a cop and an FBI agent," she beamed.

"Himself has a predilection towards the law?" Teller inquired.

Lucilla's eyes skimmed past Colin and Hando. "Not always," she grinned, "not always." Studying his lean face, she added, "I think you need to rent a few DVDs, Teller, so you'll know who is who."

"DVDs?" he repeated, totally in the dark in spite of the train no longer being in the tunnel.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, recalling that Teller was a man of the 1950's. "Movies...that look like little round silver records."

Teller sat back in his seat, looking out the window, attempting to digest this bit of information. His thoughts, however, were distracted by the pair of dusty boot tips banging against his window glass. "Um, Lucilla?" he said, turning again towards his traveling companion. "Could...that...be one of the sheriffs?" he asked, pointing toward the window.

Phyllis, overhearing the question, looked quickly at the window. "Aieee!" she screamed, instantly recognizing the torn knee denim above the banging boots. "HIMSELF!"

"Himself?" repeated Alex, also turning to stare at the window. Lachlan was already on his feet, sprinting toward the rear door, Zack hard on his heels. Joined by Alex, the three characters peered around the outer wall of the passenger car. Sure enough, Himself hung down over the window, his freezing fingertips clinging desperately to the small ridge at the top edge of the roof.

Zack and Lachlan scrambled up the small ladder to the roof and with Zack holding onto the young airman's legs, Lachlan stretched out and grabbed Himself's wrists. "I've got you!" he called, his voice nearly whipped away in the wind. "Let go!"

                             

"I...I can't!" Himself gasped. "My fingers are...numb."

Lachlan tried to straighten one of Himself's forefingers.

"OW!" Himself cried, "You're breaking it!"

"STOP!" shouted an authoritative female voice. Lachlan and Zack turned to behold Phyllis, her eyes filled with a desperate determination. "You will NOT break Himself's fingers!"

As Lachlan pulled Himself, er, himself, back, Phyllis knelt in the snow, the thin fabric of her Fuegan gown instantly wet. Leaning forward with a character holding each ankle, the Texan smiled down into Himself's upturned seagreen eyes. Then, not taking her eyes off his for a moment, she cupped her palms around his icy left hand, and blew warm breaths upon it. Himself's fingers prickled painfully for a time, then he felt his own warm blood beginning to circulate through them again. She repeated her action with his right hand, her breaths coming deep and filled with the heat of her inner being. Himself blinked 'yes' with his eyelids and a slight nod as a signal for her to pull back.

Once again Lachlan stretched out, gripping Himself's wrists. This time the warmed fingers uncurled their hold on the ridge, and with a mighty heave, Zack pulled Lachlan and Himself to the center of the roof. Phyllis instantly gathered Himself's head and shoulders into her lap, raining kisses on his worn face. "I'm...all right," he managed to whisper before a great shiver took his whole body.

"We must get him inside," Phyllis said, wrapping her arms tightly about him.

As the three of them lowered Himself gently down the ladder into the waiting Alex's arms, Himself gasped, "Terry? He...he was with me."

Zack and Lachlan exchanged meaningful looks. There had been no trace of the K&R agent anywhere. Himself saw the look and shivered again. "Cort?" he asked hopefully. "Bud?"

"No," Zack replied, shaking his head regretfully. "Not even Jack Rabbit."

Himself closed his eyes, deep emotion filling him. Four of his favorite characters. All gone. Phyllis was concerned. His piece of collar and scrap of cuff had offered him no protection at all from the brutal cold. "Hurry!" she cried urgently.

Marti turned her head as the back door of the passenger car banged open and Zack, Alex, and Lachlan carried Himself's sagging form inside. "Hmmmm?" she thought to herself. "I may have crunched his motorcycle, flopped him onto his face on sidewalks, had him fall off more horses than you can count...but never would I be so cruel as to hang him off a runaway train in the midst of a blurry blizzard with only a piece of collar and a scrap of cuff for protection!" She glared righteously at Joimus.

"How do YOU know the train is running away?" Joimus remarked, arching her eyebrow at the Queen.

Never would Her Martiness reveal that that was what she herself would have had happen at this critical convergence of events in the storyline. "Hmmmmph!" hummmphed the Queen, turning her back on Joimus to engage in a deep study of Jeff's jaw line.

Just then East burst through the front door of the passenger car. "The train is running away!" he shouted.

Marti turned slightly, smirking at Joimus.

"WHAT?" cried Anna. "How can that BE?"

"It...it... looks like Sponge Bob jammed the throttle," East explained, his chest heaving attractively due to his being somewhat perturbed.

 

"Where is he?" growled Hando, stepping into the aisle. "Let me at him!"

"He's gone, Hando," East continued. "He must've jumped off the train."

Hando brushed roughly past the young horse wrangler and made his way to the engine, his seagreen eyes narrowing when he saw the broken brake handle. Ando had, of course, followed the Melbourner. It was her formerly Welsh eyes that first noticed the single communications device on the entire train had been ripped from the wall.

 

Pointing that fact out to Hando, she wondered aloud why Sponge Bob would have done such a thing. Hando, however, was busily tracing his finger along their route on the map conveniently hung on the wall just above the jammed throttle. "Shit!" he spat, using for the first time that particular digestive expletive in an epi. Ando jerked her eyes from the dangling wires of the missing communications device to Hando's finger on the map. A small light showed the present location of the train as it hurtled along the tracks toward...toward... Bottomless Gulch, Kentucky.

As the two of them watched in fascination, a little *poof* poofed out of the map where the extremely long, not to mention terribly, terribly high trestle crossed the gulch. Ando's eyes widened hugely. "The trestle is... gone?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Hando just looked at her, his eyes blackly green. "Can...can...you stop the train?" she asked, her voice shaking. His eyes moved down to the broken brake handle and hers followed their path. "Ohhhhhh...," she gasped, her voice trailing away.

Maximus entered the rear door of the passenger car, his lips pressed tightly together. He walked partway up the aisle, then stopped, squatting beside Buggie's seat. Slowly he ran his tongue over his lower lip, then softly said, "Biebe's gone."

                                

Buggie's fingers kept on with their expert reweaving of a broken basket even as tears filled her eyes. Maximus stood, resting his palm gently on her shoulder. Gradually she turned her head, looking up into his somber face. "You are... sure?" she murmured. He nodded sadly, mutely. She turned, then, back to her wicker work, blinking rapidly.

He watched her silently a long moment, then, shoulders heaving a long sigh, he turned, noticing for the first time the groupling gathered about the shivering Himself. "What happened?" he asked.

"Himself almost froze while dangling off the side of the passenger car," the Countess explained.

"Dangling off the side of the car??" Maximus repeated, not understanding.

"It was that or be smucked by the mountainside," she continued. He looked blankly at her. "The tunnel," she added, "the Blue Mountain tunnel. He was on the roof. When the train entered the tunnel."

                                
(Note: This is the actual entrance to the Blue Mountain Tunnel...though in late spring, not winter.  Also taken from car on way back from NYC concert in May 2006.)

"And he was not alone, Maximus," Joimus added seriously.

He looked down at her, his eyes filling with concern. "Who?" he asked, his voice gone all low. Well, his voice was always low, now wasn't it? But this was way lower than even that.

"Terry," she said, her eyes darting toward annsmac. His breath sucked in with a sharp hiss. "And Cort," she added, watching as Sue strode back and forth up and down the aisle, coiling and uncoiling her whip. His nostrils flared. "And...Bud," she sighed.

                                  

"Him, too?" Maximus gasped.

"Him, too," she whispered, almost afraid to look at Berti.

"By the gods!" he exclaimed. "Why...WHY were they on the roof?"

"The Captain," she murmured, "he...he was...hopping."

"On the ROOF?" "Yes, I fear so."

"So that is why he was not in the baggage car," Maximus sighed.

"What happened to Biebe?" she asked quickly.

"I almost had him," he said, then his voice becoming growl-like, added, "but HE frightened him." The General pointed a finger at Steve, who cringed slightly.

                                  

Buggie, her head tipped down, turned her eyes in the direction of the fruit photographer, her fingers relentlessly weaving the wicker. She would not forget.

"What happened to him?" Joimus pursued.

"He must have fallen off the end of the train," Maximus said, shaking his head.

As Buggie's mind filled with the image of her beloved sheriff lying broken across the icy rails of the Polar Express, a sharp wicker end pierced her fingertip slightly. She watched the small drop of blood fall onto the basket, then turned and stared at Steve again. Maximus' revenge would be as nothing compared to hers. She began to hum softly as she added more wicker to the cobra basket, giving it the appearance of a container for... fruit.

Bunny nudged Sid. "Buggie's humming."

"I know," he replied studying the Floridian's face. "My return to villainhoodiness may be delayed further."

"Truly," Bunny agreed, then added, "Though revenge is not exactly the same as mayhem for mayhem's sake." She smiled at Sid affectionately. "And no one does that better than you, my dear." He grinned, pleased at her perspicacity.

                                

Ando staggered back through the front door of the car. "We're doomed!" she cried.

"DOOMED!" "Not AGAIN!" Marti said, rolling her eyes.

Maximus strode up, cupping his hands around Ando's upper arms in support. "The...the brakes," she stammered, "they...they're gone!" She sagged a bit, not at all, of course, because she enjoyed the sensation of Maximus holding her arms or that she would, in any way, take advantage of the moment.

"Is there more?" he asked, his eyes searching her distraught face.

"Yes," she gasped, "more!"

"WHAT more?" Susan cried.

"Throttle jammed," she blurted, her eyes going all wild.

"Who did this?" Maximus asked.

"The SPONGE!" she cried. "It was the sponge done the deed!"

Maximus moved quickly, settling Ando into a seat, then dashing toward the engine. Joimus followed him. It was becoming obvious that a character let out of one's sight was unlikely ever to return.

In the cab of the engine, Hando was covered in sweat as he tried to wrench the wrench out of its jammingness in the throttle. It was no use. It had been inserted and then broken in such a way that it was impossible to remove. He turned as Maximus and Joimus entered the cab. "The sponge was diabolical in his cleverness, General," he said, wiping his brow. "Who knew?"

"Indeed," Maximus said, his eyes taking in the disabled controls.

Joimus walked over to the route map. "What is this?" she asked, noting a tiny heap of ash in central Kentucky.

"The trestle," Hando sighed. "The trestle's gone."

She wiped part of the ash away, uncovering the words "Bottomless Gorge."

"Oh, MY!" she whistled, then looked at Maximus. "This is...bad."

"How bad?" he asked, but the expression in her blue eyes supplied his answer so he changed his question to, "How long?"

                                       

Joimus looked at the little marker light on the map. "Before dawn," she whispered. "Probably earlier."

He walked to the open doorway and hanging onto the handrail, leaned out, very Jack-like, staring into the darkness ahead of the train. How handsome he looked with his rust-colored cape billowing out behind him. Joimus smiled fondly at the sight and, were it not for the fact that they'd lost five major characters and were hurtling towards certain doom, would have been happy.                                    

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