Chapter 6: High Steaks Operation

“It’s all down to passenger demand,” the Steward nodded sagely, seeming to confirm my thoughts. “Only three sleeper carriages to Fort Worth, this time. There can be up to five, during peak season.”

Hold on a minute, I thought to myself, as I headed back to my cabin, bemused. Clearly, the remaining two carriages still existed, given the comments of the Steward. That also lined up with my own recollections, which featured passengers dining in the Club Car, ones who I didn’t encounter during my little door-to-door session. Sure, there was a chance they were all absent, or didn’t answer the door, but my gut feeling told me that wouldn’t account for everyone I saw, not when I put together everyone I’d come across, over the past few loops.

Not gone, then, but absent for the time being, meaning I couldn’t rely on another in those carriages to get past my current problem. That was fine. In fact, I was happy for this interruption in the route, because if whatever was causing this time loop was reacting to my actions and putting obstacles in my path? Then it meant that I was probably doing something right. Besides, I already had a plan, and it could be done with just the Club Car’s assistance.

So I made my way over to my designated table, and for the umpteenth time, I sat down for dinner on the Caledonian Sleeper. Instead of ordinary anything sensible, however, I instead asked only for the Margherita Pizza Baguette, a decidedly odd invention that I usually wouldn’t be caught dead eating. Well, that and the obligatory still water, of course; pizza is good, but it’s also really dry. The water arrived without issue, allowing me to wet my whistle, but it was when the main course arrived that my plan really kicked into gear. Namely, I picked up my knife and fork, and did my best Mr. Bean impression, utterly failing to cut into the hard baked crust with the ordinary knife.

“Um, can I have a sharper knife for this?” I asked plaintively, when the waiter finally took pity on me and came over to see what was wrong.

Now, the menu didn’t include steak, which would have been my preferred port of call, so I simply had to ask for a sharper knife instead, and hope that whatever I got was up to standard. I was pretty sure it would be, though; I mean, what kitchen worth its name wouldn’t have a fine selection of knives? Sure enough, I soon had in hand a proper, sharp knife, with a gleaming black hilt and a serrated edge to boot. Then, to the bemusement of the wait, I promptly discovered how to eat my pizza with the ordinary knife.

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I could tell he thought I looked like a moron, but he didn’t complain, nor did he reclaim my new knife: he was a waiter, after all, and waiters don’t interfere with the inclinations of the customer unless there’s a manifest issue. So, I got to keep the sharp knife, and when I polished off my baguette, I moved to phase two of the plan.

“Is there a toilet in the Club Car?”

Before you ask, yes, there was a toilet; I’d already passed it on my way into the dining carriage, but I asked anyway, and sure enough, I was pointed back towards a nondescript set of doors in the direction of my cabin. I gave my thanks, and only once the waiter was otherwise occupied did I head for the facilities, palming my knife along the way. All part of the act, you see, to establish a reason for me to leave the table, and an expectation from the waiter that I would be otherwise occupied. In reality I passed the toilet and returned to the sleeper carriage. Taking the knife into a firm reverse grip, I held it at the exact height that I could remember from before, and knocked firmly on the door.

Mister Meth opened up, just as he’d done previously, and that was when I struck. No small talk, no chance for him to process what was going on or attempt to scream. Just a sharp length of metal, straight through his eye and onward to the brain stem. I twisted the serrated blade back and forth, just for good measure, but by then he’d already gone limp, allowing me to push him back into his cabin, following along myself and closing the door behind us. A smooth entry, with no loud noises and no blood left outside to attract attention. Mission success.

Of course, you may be wondering just about now: how could I kill a man like that? Was I not a lawyer, and secretly a member of a three-letter agency, or the special forces? The answer to that was no, and in fact, there’s a very good reason I didn’t freeze up, hesitate, or lose my lunch throughout that entire fracas. The person I killed wasn’t real. After all, real people don’t rewind the clock, replaying the same night over and over in some insidious loop. He wasn’t truly dead, because he’d be right back, the next time I fell asleep. He wasn’t truly alive, so there was no issue with getting him out of the way for a bit, while I ransacked his belongings. Simple, right?

Of course, now that I’d finally gotten inside, I did still have to find the drugs I’d gone through all this trouble to obtain. That proved to be harder than expected, much harder. Oh, sure, there was drug paraphernalia aplenty; bent and broken needles, thin dustings of white powder, the occasional credit card left out in the open, and so on, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find any actual product. I was beginning to think that my unfortunate victim had already taken all of it into his bloodstream, when my eyes caught an open drawer at his desk, and a quick rifle through it found me in possession of a very old, very curious book.