Disclaimer: I don't own any aspects referred to in this story.
Chapter 28:
An Icy Race
"Make like a cheetah and speed us out of here!" the Conductor yelled. Smokey took one look outside, made a small gasp, and ran back in, pulling a lever. Anna heard the wheels churning underneath, and the Polar Express started moving.
The train accelerated in a straight line, away from the breaking ice. It flowed gracefully, away from the breaking ice. It also moved backward, away from the breaking ice. The Conductor turned an annoyed gaze on the engineers. "Turn this sled around."
Smokey pulled another lever, the wheels suddenly stopping. Anna held onto the roof as the train skidded on the ice. Smokey then pulled the first lever again. The train's wheels moved, this time propelling the engine in front of all the other cars.
"Shouldn't the train be refreezing the ice?" Anna head Jack mutter to the Conductor.
The Conductor looked over. "Keep your voice down, Jack. These are higly classified secrets, you know. To answer your question, it doesn't work that way. If the train were on the tracks, then we'd have a frozen lake and operational force field. As it stands, we need to get back on track, literally, to fix this mess. To get on the tracks, we need to get past this lake."
Anna looked over at Jack and the Conductor. "So we need to get off the lake, and all this will go back to normal?"
Jack and the Conductor looked down, surprised that Anna had overheard. "Yes, in a manner of speaking," the Conductor said.
"Wait, what's that over there?" Elsa asked, pointing in front of the train.
Everyone turned to look. A small pass between the mountains stood straight ahead, shining in the moonlight. As Anna squinted, she saw that the shine was coming from metal. Two long metal bars, with smaller bars hammered in between them, lead through the pass away from the lake. Train tracks. The way out was straight ahead. But the Polar Express was skidding on the ice, moving to the right of the tracks.
The Conductor looked down at the engineers. "Alright, you two. This is gonna be just like it was several years ago. If I call out 'right,' you go right. I call out 'left,' you go left. Timing must be instantaneous. Got it?"
Seeing the nods, the Conductor looked ahead. "Here's hoping that we're lucky. We'll need to be very precise in our train-track alignment."
"Oh. I can help with precision, sir," Olaf said.
Olaf then went forward, sitting down behind the train's chimney. He pulled out one of his arms and closed his eyes. The detached arm stuck straight out. Olaf's torso started turning, the hand pointing straight at the tracks. Anna grinned. Olaf had turned himself into a pseudo-compass, pointing where they needed to go.
The Conductor nodded. "That'll work smoothly." He started calling out directions based on where Olaf's hands were pointing. Most of the time, the directions were straightforward, 'left' and 'right.' But sometimes, he'd spice it up by throwing in a variation, like 'toss a ritchie' for right and 'hard to port' for left. The system seemed to be working. Slowly, but surely, the train was getting closer to the pass.
A strange sound made Anna turn around. Her eyebrows shot up. Most of the black sand was still far away from the Express. However, they were slowly gaining. A few dark horses had sped ahead of the group and were getting dangerously close to the Express.
"Um, guys?" Anna exclaimed.
Jack, Elsa, and the Conductor turned around to look. Jack grimaced, turning to the Conductor. "I have an idea. You keep on giving directions. The sooner we're off this lake, the better. I, Elsa, and Anna will take care of the rest." When the Conductor opened his mouth to object, Jack interrupted "We'll be as safe as can be. We won't take any unecessary risks, I guarantee it. Unless you have a better idea?"
The Conductor looked concerned. Eventually, he nodded, turning back to give directions.
Jack looked at Elsa and Anna. "Who wants to play a game?"
Elsa frowned. "This is no time for a snowball fight, Jack."
"It's the perfect time for it," Jack said, grinning as he started forming snowballs. "We need to stop those nightmares from advancing. Hit the ones that get too close. Keep a score. Highest number of hits wins."
Anna nodded. "I'm game."
Elsa throught about it and nodded. "Alright. What have we got to lose?"
"That's the spirit. Now throw like your lives depend on it, because they do."
Anna nodded at Jack, grabbed a snowball, and threw. It hit a nightmare dead in the face, causing the nightmare to skid and fall onto the ice. Another nightmare then came running up to take its place.
And so began the race. While the Conductor gave out directions with help from Olaf, Anna and the others threw snowballs or ice beams to freeze and stop the advancing nightmares. It was easy at first. Only one or two nightmares moved ahead of the advance force, making them easy targets for frosty projectiles.
Then the enemy learned. Several nightmares and fearlings rode out to the side, breaking the ice and freeing even more enemy forces. Soon Anna, Jack, and Elsa had to hit three nightmares, then five, seven, then more. It was all Anna could do to keep the enemy on her side of the train from getting to the Express.
There was a close call or two as well. One nightmare seemed to dodge all the snowballs and run straight up to the engine side. As the creature prepared to jump, a small item flew out and destroyed it. Anna looked at the others, but they hadn't seen the item. Jack and Elsa were too busy firing snowballs while the Conductor and Olaf were focused on aligning the train with the tracks. Anna turned around to see the small projectile fly back to a figure in a newsboy cap. It was the Hobo. He nodded his hat in greeting, putting a finger to his lips, then pointed back to the sand forces approaching them. After that, the object would occasionally fly out to be added to the all the other projectiles. It flew faster than the snowballs. If Anna hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have seen it.
Anna turned around to check progress. The Express was so close to the tracks. Just a few more feet, then they'd be clear.
When Anna turned back to continue firing, her heart sank. While Jack and Elsa had cleared out the black sand advancing on the sides, the enemy at the back was all but touching the train's rear. Anna watched as several nightmares jumped onto the roof, looking at the group with rageful eyes.
One particular nightmare came up, carrying the darkly-clothed man from before. He looked down at the group with a condescending smile. "A good effort, but ultimately useless. Now, how about a new game? Snuff out the lights," the man said as his horse started walking slowly on the rails.
Anna looked over at the others. Jack and Elsa had varying degrees of concern on their faces. The snowballs dropped from their hands. Jack moved ahead of Anna and Elsa, his staff raised defensively to protect them.
Anna looked at the dark man, her eyes narrowed with determination. Then Anna did something that surprised even herself. She pulled her hand back and threw the snowball. The snowball hit the man square in the face, causing him to fall off his horse. The dark figure got up, looking straight at Anna, a look of hate in his eyes.
Suddenly, a loud scraping sound ocurred below their feet. The dark man's eyes turned fearful. He lunged straight at the group, hands outstretched. A light suddenly appeared, pushing the man and all the black sand off the Express.
Anna looked down to see light coming from the wheels onto the tracks below them. The light spread throughout the tracks and the wheels of the Polar Express. So they had gotten past the lake after all.
Anna turned back to see the lake had refrozen. No sign of water or those dark, sandy creatures. Instead, the lake appeared frozen once more, with tracks above the ice this time.
The Conductor turned back, nodding. "Well that's more like it."
Anna looked over at her sister. A smile came on both their faces. The two sisters hugged, joined by Olaf. It was a long hug, one that indicated gratitude that they had all made it.
Anna pulled away. "I can't believe we won."
Elsa nodded. "I know. It looked really close at the end."
Jack moved in to join the group. "And we have a clear winner this time." He turned to Anna. "It was close, but I would say that hitting the Nightmare King counts for a few extra points. Congratulations, Anna."
As congratulations and gratitude were shared, Anna turned back to where the Hobo had stood. Strangely, the Hobo was no longer there. Only a small snow flurry blew by on the spot where he stood.
The Conductor cleared his throat, an ashamed expression on his face. "Yes, congratulations everyone. I'm sorry I got you all into this mess. I should have found an alternative fix for the engines than bringing passengers up."
Anna shook her head. "Are you kidding? Seeing a whole caribou herd? Riding a train like a sled? Having a snowball fight on a frozen lake? That was awesome. Sure it was dangerous, but it was awesome."
The Conductor smiled. "Glad you see the positive of this." He turned to the engineers. "Need any other help from this group."
Steamer shook his head. "Nah. With no black sand, the rest of the way should be as smooth as a hippo's stomach. We should be fine now."
The Conductor nodded, turning back to the group. "Excellent. What say we get you all back to the passenger car? I would say that's enough excitement for the trip up."
Elsa and Jack nodded. "Agreed."
Anna grinned. "Great. Will we take the roof again?"
The Conductor shook his head. "No. This time, we're going inside the train cars. The doors aren't locked from our side, so we can travel back with ease."
Anna grinned. "Sounds good. Can't wait to see what else is in the Polar Express. Let's go."
As the group left, no one saw the small wisp of black sand pull itself from the spinning train wheel to lay behind the wheels. The wisp twitched angrily. Pitch had been so close to winning. Now all of his plans were ruined. How could this have happened?
The sand could tell Pitch's thoughts, so it knew what he was thinking. Pitch was going over his plan, wondering how Jack could have gotten there. It had been so easy. When Pitch had heard about the last time the ice had broken on the Polar Express route, he had been very surprised. A single pin had broken the ice. For a single moment, the forces trapped underneath had been freed. If they had all woken up early enough instead of lollygagging as the ice cracked above them, they would have taken the Express and maybe even set up a forward command beyond the shield. And that had happened by accident. If the same circumstances could be replicated, then Pitch and his forces would certainly take the Polar Express. The shield would have fallen with no new energy to reinforce it and Pitch would have strolled into the North Pole taking over.
The only thorn in this plan was the Guardians. Still, most of those fellows would have been too busy to notice him, what with Christmas around the corner. Jack was the only wild card, but that had been the point of turning him human and sending him to the past via the Northern Lights. With Jack out of the way, and the other Guardians busy helping get Christmas ready, looking for Jack, or doing their own work, nobody would have been able to stop him. So how had Jack gotten back to the present?
The wisp then felt Pitch remember something. Time was a little flexible with the Polar Express. It could travel to different points in time, depending on its passengers. The Polar Express must have picked up Jack and a few other people in whatever time period Jack had been in, then moved to the present to continue its run. Time travel cases were so rare, Pitch hadn't even considered it
And now all of Pitch's plans were ruined. That had been a last-minute plan, one that Pitch had desperately needed to work. Now all that was left was to wait another ten centuries before making another move. There was nothing else that could be done.
Wait, there was one thing. Pitch had noticed the small wisp of black sand hiding underneath the Polar Express. The wisp could feel Pitch's evil grin as a final scheme came into his head. The sand heard Pitch's voice as if he were whispering right next to it.
If the sand could smile at the plan, it would. This would be a delicious plan. One that wasn't a plan of invasion, but a plan of revenge. Something to get back at Jack and the friends he had protected. It might seem petty, but it would haunt those kids for the rest of their lives.
And that covers one of my favorite scenes from the Polar Express film. Hope you all enjoyed the battle. As always, please rate and review.