"Leroy Adelaide? Christina Adelaide?" A tall man asks from the train's main hall. Streaks of starlight pass through the stateroom with rosewood panels and ivory accents. The man and woman inside look out at the porter, inspecting a large leather-bound book.

"How can we help you?" Mr. Adelaide asks. Nervous, he stands and starts toward the tall man. "I assure you we're supposed to be in this room. If the ledger says otherwise, it must be mistaken."

"Oh, don't fret, sir," the man in the hall laughs. "I'm just trying to confirm you and your wife are, in fact, Leroy and Christina Adelaide. And that it's spelled A-D-E-L-A-I-D-E. This right?"

"Yes..." Leroy hesitates.

"Very good," the porter nods. He looks inside, bows to Mrs. Adelaide, and waves to their daughter. "I don't, though, have the child in my book. May I ask her name?"

"Do you have my Belgian chocolate?" The girl with ribbons in her hair calls through a mouthful of Chantilly. She's finished her hot cocoa and now lifts the cup to kiss its last drops.

"I'm afraid not," the tall man chuckles. "But please allow me to take away your empty saucer. May I come in?"

"Yes, thank you," Mrs. Adelaide smiles. She offers the tall man the mug as he enters their chamber. He takes it, looks it over for a moment, and then casts it against a wall. The little girl yelps. Her mother takes a step back. Her father takes a step forward. China dust rains down.

"Who sent you?" Leroy barks. "What are they paying you? I'll fight you! You can't do this to me and my family!" The tall man, whoever he is, does nothing more. He stands cordially, albeit coated in porcelain powder, while Mr. Adelaide puffs out his chest. His whole frame resonates with his voice, Leroy bellowing his words. He yells not to scare the man but in the hopes of drawing an ear from another passenger or an actual porter, but under the rush of the train's wheels and whinnying of its steam, he's no more than a mouse. And after his outburst, Mr. Adelaide looks the size of a mouse, too. No rescue party comes for him, nor does he tackle the stranger. There's no fight. There's no scuffle. He just stands there, and his eyes glare an empty glare. The man across from him offers a corkscrew smile in return.

"Mr. Adelaide, I'm no hired gun," the tall man explains. There's no menace in his form, and his tone is almost familial. His words, though, are sharpened. "You stole from me. You ran from me. And you did it all without even trying to cover your trail. I'm here to collect."

"You..." Leroy gasps.

"I'm Ustinov," the tall man grins. Mr. Adelaide, after pushing his wife and child into the far corner, throws up his hands. Vacillating between open palms and fists, he's unsure of whether to plead with or box the intruder.

"I'm sorry!" Mr. Adelaide spits. "Look, I can get you more money. I'll make it back. I promise you!" The man's down on one knee. His hands are folded in prayer. Ustinov sighs.

"I don't want your money," the tall man speaks.

"Right... Right... That's fine..." Leroy stutters. "Your horses! I can get you new horses! I can get you better horses!" The man smiles, wishing, wanting, and hoping for the gangster to accept. Ustinov, still a stolid figure who's yet to do anything to generate Mr. Adelaide's terror, looks on plainly.

"I don't want your horses," Ustinov states.

"I see... I'm sorry I wronged you, but I did it for them!" Leroy Adelaide yells, pointing to his wife and daughter. Mrs. Adelaide watches breathlessly while her fingers cover her child. "And... And I can still make it right. Just give me a week! Just give me a chance!"

"Mr. Adelaide, when you first met my associates, what did they say would happen if you crossed me?" Ustinov asks. He bends down now to meet Leroy on the floor. Frost fills his veins as the tall man nears.

"I... I don't know..." Mr. Adelaide whimpers. "I really don't remember..."

"I'll tell you what," Ustinov recounts. He offers a hand and makes Leroy take it. Together, they stand. "They told you I'd come for your blood. Now, like most, I'm sure you assumed that was just a bit of theatrics. Mr. Adelaide... Mrs. Adelaide... And little Miss Adelaide... It was not." Ustinov, who's smiled throughout this encounter, grins again. It's different now. He's different now. Daggers of every size and shape spill out from behind spider web lips. His skin splitting from ear to ear, rows of crooked teeth overflow from his mouth.

Mrs. Adelaide's fingers turn to brick in front of her child's face. Mr. Adelaide's fingers go for the shape inside his vest. Quickly coming back out, they don't hold a wallet, they grip a gun. All too experienced in similar affairs, Leroy Adelaide's left hand plunges a small revolver into Ustinov's chest. Fire. Splashes. Sulfur smoke. With each of five shots, Christina Adelaide shudders and her daughter shrieks; however, the flashes serve only to illuminate the worms creeping beneath Ustinov's skin. The bullets all found their marks, but metal bits inside his flesh neither drop nor deter the saw-toothed man. With one hand, Ustinov hoists Leroy Adelaide up high. Leroy kicks and screams, but he can't break free of Ustinov's simple hold. The tall man, pulling Leroy close, licks his cheek. He nibbles on it.

"My... My... You've traveled a lot..." Ustinov whispers to the blood running down Mr. Adelaide's chin. "I can taste cities, fields, and oceans in you... Wheat, water, and the view from a penthouse suite..." Leroy winces as Ustinov drinks. Yet even as he whines, he's not without hope. Struggling against the demon, Adelaide's hand comes loose. Adelaide's left hand. Adelaide's left hand still gripping his gun. He roars. He rips his pistol up and fires it inches from his attacker's face. A prayer. This last shot burns with ferocity toward Ustinov's skull. A dream. But the bullet sails by bone thanks to an unnatural swerve of the monster's head. A nightmare. It only singes his hair. The bullet smashes into the stateroom's ceiling and shatters the cabin's only light. Little Miss Adelaide cries out. Mrs. Adelaide's chest falls flat. Mr. Adelaide is without hope.

Starlight settles over the scene. Ruby dust rains down. In the darkness, the little girl is blind, but she can feel her mother's tight arms around her waist and hear her quickening heart inside her head. The air is wet. It smells of iron and smoke. A flash from a passing star. Mr. Adelaide now rests with extinguished eyes, crumpled against the floor. His lips are frozen in a silent scream. A hole rimmed with rose petals sits where his heart should be. The horse trader reclines in an upholstered chair and devours a hunk of meat. Black again.

Little Miss Adelaide squeezes her mother in the ebony air, pressing her face into her dress and clinging to the frantic drumbeat inside her mother's chest. The girl sobs. The girl gasps. Her mother, beside her and around her, is her only world. And then she's gone. The girl's hands, an instant ago clasping her silk, now grip only cold black air. She's alone. She weeps. More tears flow in one moment than a child should ever shed. The girl's fingers reach out, touching nothing, nothing, nothing, and then a hot tide spreading over the floor.

Light. An instant of white from another nearby star. Mrs. Adelaide, her blouse shorn free and missing an arm, is slumped next to her husband. She doesn't move. She doesn't breathe. She just lies in the center of a circle of invasive red while the grim reaper sits reposed on his plush throne, ripping the flesh from her torn-away limb. Her girl's hands are covered in her mother's blood, and then the child's own scarlet begins to spill down her cheeks. In the last moment of this light, the girl scrambles forward. She rushes to her mother. She hugs her. She clutches her. She presses her face into her mommy.

"Wake up, Ma... Open your eyes, Ma..." Little Adelaide whispers all alone in the night. She tugs at her mother. She pounds on her. The woman doesn't respond. The girl's ear is to her mother's breast. She listens. She waits. There's only silence. Surrounded by the unsympathetic midnight, the girl screams. "Wake up, Ma! Open your eyes, Ma! Why aren't you moving, Ma?"

The child stays there, wishing on a heartbeat that will never come, while in the corner, a black beast chomps and chews. A thud. A footstep. Ripples in the water. Ustinov kneels. He's beside the little girl now, a shadow in the darkness. He pats her. He pets her. He strokes her hair. The child's knotted about the cold woman on the floor.

"I'm sorry fortune had this in store for you," Ustinov breathes. "I can't change the fact that you're going to die. But I'll let you choose. How would you like me to kill you? I can do it quickly, snapping your neck in but a second, or I can make it linger, keeping you conscious until the very end."

Giggles.

"Little girl, did you hear me?" Ustinov asks. "Are you all right?"

Laughs.

This isn't the answer the fiend had expected from his quarry, and he's ill-prepared to react. He sits and listens to the laughter. Another fated star flares outside the window. Stark light from a faraway world casts a glow about the room. Ustinov's face is painted scarlet, and his brow, lips, and cheeks are pulled back, perplexed by the laughing little girl. But now, in this flash from the other side of the sky, the devil sees the truth. The sound. The laughs. Not from the girl. From her mother. From the animal still inside her. From the thud. From the footstep. From the ripples in the water. From the last of her heart. The dying Christina Adelaide rears up, her child against her chest. She stares into the face of her killer.

"Marry a man like Leroy and you know your life isn't going to be easy..." Christina hisses. "You learn how to run... You learn how to steal... You learn how to hide a gun... And you learn how to shoot it..." The woman lifts her sole arm off her side, plucking a gun – larger than her husband's – from the folds of her dress. She points the pistol into Ustinov's still-shocked face. She pulls the trigger. Fire. Heat. Vindictive metal. She buries a bullet inside the beast's brain. She succeeds where her husband didn't.

Ustinov's knocked back, and in the moment he falls to the floor, Christina Adelaide pushes her child away. The starlight flickers. As the last of the light leaves the room and the last of her life leaves her eyes, the woman commands her daughter.

"Run!"