Edward slowly began waking up from his nap. He could hear the noises of the train – the rush of air past the windows, the clacking of the wheels on the rails, a quiet conversation somewhere behind him. He checked in with his undead. “Everything going well?”

  “He used to be so carefree about us. We could go months without him checking up.”

  “Aww. He cares!”

  “What do you think we did?"

  “They grow up so fast!”

  “Nothing broke.”

  “Everything's fine!”

  He couldn't tell which voice was which in his head. But he could tell that there were six different ones. He shifted a little in his seat to get more comfortable. “Okay, good. Is one of you... in charge of the others?”

  “That would be me, sir.” came a cultured voice that he had not yet heard in his head. “You can call me Hayden, I'm the one that looks like a well-preserved zombie. You raised me about a year ago, less than a week after my death.”

  Bernard remembered that one. It was quite a well-preserved corpse when he got it. “Nice to meet you, Hayden. Now that I'm awake, what makes you think that the squirrel is also a thinking undead?”

  “Well sir, partly because we have been talking to it. Then it came back into cargo with us. Right now, it's currently fighting with your violin teacher. It's up in his rib cage, trying to gnaw on his bones. He is having some flexibility issues getting it out.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It took most of Bernard's self control to continue sitting there with his eyes closed, pretending to still sleep. He wanted to jump to his feet and run back to cargo, where his undead were. “Why are you fighting? Is this normal??”

  “Actually sir, it's quite normal. The old man said fighting like this was the second best way to learn our limits and exceed them. We've made up a nice little arena back here. It's been almost nonstop combat since the train got up to speed. There are breaks when we pull into a station though.”

  A sudden kick to his shin brought his eyes open. He focused on Melody in front of him.

  “You were having a nightmare.” She said.

  “What?”

  “You were having a nightmare. So I woke you up. You got all tense, started moving around a little, breathing sped up.” She looked at him like he was a little slow.

  “I suppose I was.” He sat up. “Food cart yet?”

  “It should be soon. We'll need to transfer trains in an hour as well. You didn't have that much time left to sleep in.”

  He looked around the train car as he stretched. “What did you do with your squirrel?” He asked.

  Once again, she looked at him like he was mentally slow. “He's off playing with your friends. They didn't tell you?”

  “They did. I hoped they were lying.” He sighed. “Well, at least that's one secret I won't have to worry about keeping from you on this trip!”

  “Do you have a lot more? Secrets, that is.” She asked with false innocence.

  “I doubt it.” Bernard was sure that he hadn't done anything else illegal. He was less sure about his undead.” Some days though, it's hard to be sure.”

  The food cart showed up not long after. She got a matcha latte and a chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and cheese. He had black tea and some scones that were clearly baked in that morning.

  “Nothing like fresh scones.” He mourned.

  “Do you always complain? Or is it just on train rides? Actually, forget that. I can't wait until we get to the wilderness past Sterling!” She seemed excited for some reason.

  “It's just the last couple days have been somewhat intense. I'm not really a pessimist.” He used some tea to swallow a bite of dry and tasteless scone. Then took another bite. He needed the calories.

  “Do you know that they bet on the matches sometimes? My squirrel says he won two favors for lasting over five minutes against your Death Knight! Do they do this often?” She had a smile on her face that he really didn't want to disappoint.

  “Guys. Hayden.” Bernard said in his mind, “Do you do these fights often?”

  “As often as we can sir.” Hayden replied. “Whenever we can make a good arena be sure it's shielded from view. One of your undead can cast a good illusion spell. We've been using that most nights in the undead field back at your school.”

  “All the time.” He told Melody with purely feigned confidence. He took another sip of his tea to wash the dry crumbs from his mouth.