The convoy of terror

Some members of Black Sugar had arrived early at Argus Station to begin preparations. They were railroad workers loyal to the Valastro family, who owned the rail, automotive, and maritime transportation. Rusalka Valastro, a wendigo who lived by hiding her identity, managed and monopolized the Union of Transport Workers using the Belcher Company as a front. She was one of the oldest members of Peppermint and participated mostly in the dirty deals perpetrated by smugglers, drug dealers, members of the clergy and royalty.

One day, her two sons and the oldest of her grandsons had made a business trip by train to Sahmar, from which they never returned. When they were missing, she asked Bubblegum and Jawbreaker for information about an attempted kidnapping or planned attack on her family. With no results, the church came to her aid with the same excuse they presented to Konstantine; that clergy people had been attacked and murdered. Rusalka agreed to help the church dispose of the waste, lend her trucks and trains as long as they could give her some response, and the church of course did not refuse to lend a hand. Since then, 5 years have passed and she still has not obtained any clue as to the whereabouts of her family.

Two month ago, Darius, Aurelio and Gedeon arrived with the long-awaited answer. Rusalka furiously lunged against the furniture and walls, destroying everything in her path. When she was reassured by the request of her children and her daughters-in-law, she agreed to collaborate with the cause. After thinking about the situation with a cool head, she handed over to them most loyal and reliable employees to recover the body of her family members and unleash her longed for revenge. The employees, mostly beastmen crosses, also had missing relatives, and this only made the devotion to recovering them to the extreme.

It was a holiday weekend, so they took advantage of the moment to infiltrate. The platforms were packed with passengers who boarded the trains to San Angeles, Verdix and Sahmar for the holidays. They waited for the commotion to increase and to reach the freight transport platform. The locomotive that would be coupled to the wagons and that would finish assembling the convoy formation was yet to arrive.

It was almost 12 pm and the macro train of 800 m in length and one hundred wagons was ready to leave. It loaded an average of 1,300 tons of cargo of common, refrigerated and money containers. The Orsys-Sahmar corridor had a route to cover of more than 19 hours, with scheduled stops to rest to be made in three batches: 6 pm, 12 am and 3 am. It transported 112 workers subdivided into the different wagons, of which half were infiltrators working for Bubblegum and SugarKube.

The first and second carriages were that of employees, while from the third to eighth carriages in the front of the train were the wagons that contained money destined for the church, the sekretnys, loudmouths, canaries and the very royalty of Sahmar that amounted to 5.1 million nevas, the rest of the wagons from the ninth to the fifteenth carried documents and experimentation material, from the sixteenth to the fiftieth, kidnapped and sick people to end the last fifty wagons that transported refrigerated corpses.

The stationmaster gave notice of the start of the train's start-up. More than half boarded the employee car and the rest of those present dispersed into the motorman's cabin and the monte wagons. The driver carried out the last inspection and verification of the instruments, pressed the engine start button and started the journey.

The journey to Sahmar continued as expected. They had already passed the first stop and it was after 6 pm. They were approaching another secret stop, near an old railway bridge whose mechanical depot had been abandoned years ago for the public eye. The motorman noticed that the traffic lights were on and the signs indicated that the road crossing was enabled. Everything was going well but then, it seemed strange to him that there were people gesturing to stop on the side of the tracks.

He honked the horn and when he was about to call the central, a call went into his panel. It was the stationmaster of that depot who ordered him to stop to couple the other car. The motorman asked for explanations as to why they were not inside and instead the employees remained outside performing maneuvers. The answer from the other side was that there was a short circuit and the mechanics were fixing the damage to prevent fires.

The machinist accepted that fact as true and went on with his task. He removed the traction and with the air brake caused a depression to tie the train well and set the dynamic brake. The convoy slowly entered the depot at considerable speed to slow down. The stop was announced and people began to get off to stretch their legs, wash themselves and eat something.

A girl with black hair and blue eyes, dressed in a suggestive way in the Belcher Company uniform approached the motorman and his companion to offer them drinks and when everyone was out of the wagons, the girl continued offering drinks left and right, only to finish face to face with the leaders of the delivery.

They were high-ranking members of Bubblegum and SugarKube who looked at the girl with lustful eyes and taking advantage of the stop that would last half an hour, they took her inside one of the wagons with the excuse of giving her a informative walk inside the convoy. Not a minute passed and the girl came out smiling, looked at the mechanics and nodded. An almost translucent black mist began to form at the feet of everyone present. Those who ended up in a deep trance were the envoys of the information guilds and the other infiltrated enemies, so the assault went quickly and precisely as planned.

**

Vlad, Patrizia, together with the orcs sent by Mario and Ramona's ant people, were finishing preparing the site for the mass wakes. They worked day and night non-stop to make hundreds of coffins that would soon be occupied. Ray was in charge of creating a space in the Gray Strip for this purpose. A hotel-hostel and a hospital were built for those who stayed several days, since for some clans and races, the funeral services would take up to a week to finish. The trees and vegetation created the feeling of being the last place where the victims could go to rest, undisturbed for the rest of eternity.

The bird people quietly delivered the notifications to the bereaved, the vampires would be the security and keep those who got out of control at bay and finally the demons and some witches offered the catering. Ray watched the development calmly from the window of one of the sixth-floor rooms while Tanji, Tuk, Salma, and Latifa finished ordering the plates.

Today he was impatient and his prayers continued throughout the day. The day after tomorrow, the person who changed his life will arrive, but he did not have the courage to show his face. His frustration and his anger grew in such a way that Meraki convinced him to go pick up that person to avoid a massacre in his group. Meraki knew that his father wanted to thank that person and start a more pleasant conversation, but recalling the terrible memories of Ray, he preferred to go in his place.