Read Death Kit for Free Online

closed in. Trapped. I was brought here to do this. Diddy has killed a dark man in a dark tunnel. Diddy the Stupefied has never felt more alive.
    Looks up at the darkened engine of the train. Has no one seen him; isn’t anyone at this moment hurrying forward to apprehend him? Where are the watchers, where are the witnesses? Asleep? Drunk? Drugged? Bewitched? Get rid of all that light. Diddy pulls down the brace of naked lightbulbs and smashes it against the wall. True darkness (now). Still Diddy stands.
    How long can Diddy stand there by the body of the slain workman? Not long enough to feel all that he has to feel. He might as well return to the train.
    *   *   *
    Dried blood on his hands or clothing? A close check with the pocket flashlight turns up only some chalky stains on his trousers.
    Having dusted off his trousers, Diddy the Neat has started back without the aid of his flashlight; hopes not to be noticed by someone gazing out of a corridor window. Isn’t hard to walk in the dark as the blind have to do, if one knows the way. And Diddy has traversed this space before. On the return trip, sensation is reversed. Feels the proximity of the enclosing tunnel wall on his right, the great iron body of the train with its dirty, softly lit windows on his left.
    He has retraced his steps; when he reaches the third car from the end, mounted the train; passed along the corridor; regained the compartment. His compartment. Our compartment. As he takes his seat, hears the priest and the girl talking quietly. But Diddy can’t, for the hammering of his heart and the air hissing in his ears, grasp what the suave male voice and the lighter voice of the girl actually say.
    For the others, nothing in our situation has changed. Only for Diddy. Who locks his arms against his chest. Waits for the aunt, someone, to say “Well?” Someone to ask if he’s found out anything more about our predicament. Diddy is readying his lies, prepared to explain that he found no one, that he never got off the train. But nobody asks.
    What are the priest and the girl discussing? Him? Do they know? No, that’s absurd; they can’t know anything. What’s their conversation about then? Stamp collecting may be safely ruled out, since the girl is blind. Perhaps the priest is offering, the girl receiving, a dose of consolation. For the condition of blindness. Or, for the fact that she—along with all of us—is marooned on this dark immobile train.
    The train lurched forward. “At last!” exclaims the aunt. “We’re starting.”
    â€œNo,” whimpers Diddy. The train hadn’t started, really. Just testing. First, the giant takes a small brazen step. All the obstacles cleared away?
    â€œAbout time, too!” says the stamp dealer.
    Another convulsive movement, in which the creaking train seems to hurl itself backward a few feet.
    â€œOh!” the girl exclaims. She must be confused.
    Diddy is confused. He wants the barrier to be impassable, wants a motionless memory. The skull of the workman, broken open. Man, the upright animal, fallen.
    The train is really starting (now). Unevenly, shuddering and jerking. But in earnest. The overhead fluorescent lights in the compartment go on, first sputtering, then locking into a continuous flow. A collective “Ah…” Diddy’s eyes hurt, he covers them with his hands. He is a stone without eyes. Anything to shut out the image of the bleeding heavy animal he’d left sprawled against the train. Though still enclosed within the tunnel, the train is (now) moving along smoothly. It can only go forward, dangerously metallic and earth-bound. Diddy encapsuled in the train crushing the workman’s body. Foolish of Diddy to have expected to feel a telltale bump when the front wheels of the train passed over the body. Matched against the weight and velocity of the train, flesh and bone yield like water.
    If that’s what