And it Didn't Look Good

Transcribed verbal recollection from what I consider the Zero Hour.

Its shortly after midnight on Nov. 3rd in the Windy City. Union station is packed with the crowd of people heading east. They are as hostile as I've ever seen, shoving their way through the masses of strangers with complete disregard for their fellow traveler. I find a sparsely populated corner and sit down, determined to out last the monotonous torture device known as Headline News for the two hours I am to wait for my train, barring delays of course.

-note- For those of you that don't know Headline News is it's own cable channel, that repeats a handful of stories, every forty minutes, for twelve hours at a time. Again, and again, and again.

The monitor for my train shows a twenty minute delay after the stories begin to repeat for the first time. After the second series is over, my train listing says one hour behind. I've now been waiting for an hour and twenty minutes. I just want to get home before noon.

After a cool few hours of waiting, I'm dozing off intermittently. I groggily open my eyes to see the monitor now says 314 Missouri River Runner, KCY to CHI CANCELLED. I must not be awake yet, that can't be right. How can you cancel a train? They run on a closed loop. Its not like they can just park and let the other trains go by.

I take a minute and rub my eyes. The people traffic has died down. No, more then that, there are no people around. None. I glance up to the ticket window and they have pulled down the big steel curtain, which is odd for two reasons. For one, they never close, the tickets are sold in person round the clock. For two, why would they install a big freaking steel curtain on the ticket window in the first place if, by design, they never close?

Thoroughly confused I look at my watch, I've been sleeping for a couple hours past my planed departure, heavily too, I have an ache in my back and neck from sleeping with my chin on my chest, and my head is throbbing. Wow, I mean, really throbbing, holy... I'm bleeding profusely from the head. No wonder I didn't wake up, something bonked me really good. I dig through my pockets and find a napkin and hold it to my head, probably not has firm as I should to stop the bleeding but dang that smarts. I still have my wallet, valuables, and luggage, so I wasn't mugged. I have no clue who did this or why.

I look up to see headline news is still on. At least something is remotely normal here. Its a silent image of a train, derailed. In the darkness all you can see are the leaping flames from the engine, lighting up the macabre sight of what seems to be dozens of wounded, groping bodies. I get that pre-vomit acid feeling in my mouth, like I've been sucking on a nine volt battery. It must be live feed from a helicopter, because it is circling in, closer and closer to the carnage. The caption reads: Camp St. Teresa Escapees Topple Train.

Wonderful, theres an angry mob in KC and they somehow knocked my train over. At least it looks like they're paying for it, there is no way all of those bodies are from inside the train cars. Which makes sense because it would take a whole mess of people to knock over a passenger train, going at least 60mph.

What would possess a person, let alone a mob of people, to lunge at a fast moving train with only their bodies? Rats have more sense then that. What are these people mindless? Part of some cult or something?

The TV chopper pulls out and there is an absolute ocean of people all heading east from the crash site. Rioting in the streets. These guys are REALLY pissed about whatever happened in that camp. They march east for about twenty minutes while I watch. The National Guard has set up barricades. There are clouds upon clouds of tear gas in front of the mob. That ought to disperse a normal crowd, I'm thinking, but these guys are nuts. They get within about a hundred feet of the barricade, and the NG opens fire. Wow, not "less then lethal" fire either, they are full blown mowing them down. I understand civilian rioting can't be ignored, but that's far too excessive for what my expectations were. I get sick.

-note- This is where I had one of my not so proud moments. I lost it. My stomach evacuated itself all over the chairs in front of me. And I mean a lot. I was heaving on all fours for the better part of five minutes. It came out of my nose, my eyes were watering so bad I couldn't see, my hands were planted in it, and I didn't care. This was where I was when I figured out that there was something major going on, something big. And it didn't look good.