The train pulled out of the station slowly, gathing speed as the coalman shoveled coal into the furnace.
Monty sat in his chair, hidden behind a newspaper, his face a pasty white. He peeked over the paper at the man who had gotten on at the stop. The man looked over towards Monty, who quickly ducked back behind his paper and tried to position himself so he was behind one of the many bodies standing in the train. His breathing quickened as his mind ran through the options. I could give up, he thought. Just turn myself in and be done with it. He wiped a sweaty palm against an equally sweaty forehead. Monty peeked over the paper. There was really only one option. He stood up and turned around, walking towards the back of the car as quickly as he could. The man glided after him through the semi-crowded train car.
Monty reached the back of the car and slipped out the door. He locked it behind him and stood between the two cars. The train had speeded up quite a bit and the ground was a blur beneath him. The dead brown grass of summer on either side of the railroad tracks looked like a soft pillow of escape, but Monty knew the soft pillow was in reality incredibly hard soil that would--at the very least--hurt a whole bunch if he hit it going fifty miles an hour.
Monty Goo licked his lips nervously and started climbing up the ladder leading to the top of the train. As he neared the top, the glass in the locked train door shattered and an arm--HIS arm--reached through and unlocked the door. Monty looked at the arm in horror and quickly scrambled to the roof of the car. He started crawling towards the front of the train as fast as his knees and arms could safely inch him along. He looked back--nothing. Monty pulled himself along, willing himself not to look at the landscape rushing by. Somewhere off to the side a cow mooed, but the noise quickly diminished as the train rushed by, no pause for anything.
Monty looked back again. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the man's head over the edge of the train, his cold eyes never leaving Monty. Monty turned back towards his task at hand. He realized then that he would never escape the man if he continued at his current snail pace. Goo slowly rose himself to his feet, arms wavering as he desperately tried to keep his balance. He moved forward slowly, as if the wide car were a tightrope.
He spared a glance backward, in time to see the man walking calmly towards him, ten feet back at the farthest. Monty gulped and forced himself to walk faster.
It was an odd site, the two men walking on the roof of the car, one terrified out of his skull, the other calm and collected. Goo reached the edge of the car, a scant five feet ahead of the man following behind him. He shut his eyes and jumped like he had never jumped before--that being accurately and quite far. He opened his eyes when he was on the next train car.
The scene repeated itself for four more cars, with Monty barely staying ahead of the mysterious stranger, until finally he reached the very front of the train. Acrid black smoke poured out of the stack. It engulfed Monty, covering his neatly pressed suit, turning his face black, but he didn't care. What could possibly have driven this man to follow him so far? Monty slumped to the ground and looked up as the man finally reached him.
"I guess this is it." Monty said, his pained voice reflecting both the weariness of his soul and his sore knees.
The man looked down at Monty with contempt. "Why did you run?"
Monty looked up at him, "You don't know how it is, living with her day in and day out."
"I grew up with her."
Monty shifted slightly, wincing as he did so. "It's not the same." His face fell.
"She only likes you. She loves me." He said miserably.
The man's expression didn't change. "You have to come back."
Monty spat on the train's roof. The spittle sizzled on the hot metal surface. "I'd rather let a squirrel gnaw on my eardrums then listen to her for one more minute."
The man sighed. "Then I'm afraid I have no choice."
He produced a six-shooter from his belt. The sunlight glinted off the silver metal as he lowered the barrel to aim at Monty.
Monty quickly raised his hands in a show of pitiful cowardice. "I'll go."
Monty sat at the table, while Lenore Goo bustled around the kitchen doing something or another. A blackened brick of a pancake sat on the plate in front of Monty. He poked at it with his fork.
"Jenny came over while you were gone, she said that--" Lenore continued, but Monty tuned her out as best he could. He was actually quite good at it by now. He dropped his fork and sighed, looking out the window. Thoughts about the pleasant alternative he had been offered on the train top rolled through Monty's mind. If only....
Oh well, he thought. He looked out the window and saw The Man--his nefarious capture and return to this matrionical monarchy warrented the title in Monty's mind--walking down the front walk towards the house.
The Man stopped when he saw Monty in the window. He grinned in a way that was both friendly and menacing.
Monty looked around him, the pancake brick, the constant whiny voice of Lenore, the squeaking of hinges as The Man entered--no doubt coming to quell any thoughts of escape Monty might have.
Monty looked at these things and sighed deeply. He softly laid his head on the pancake and wept.