The train derails just north of Churchill,
Manitoba, at midnight. Provincial Minister for
Natural Resources Alan Voss is thrown from his
seat, pinned beneath a twisted steel beam. His
staff vanishes into the dark, leaving him alone
with a broken radio and a map marked with a
faded railway line that doesn’t exist on any
official chart.
He stumbles through kneedeep snow toward a cabin
marked "Voss 1923" — a name he never chose.
Inside, a rusted locket lies on the table, its
chain snapped. The photo inside shows his
greatgrandfather, also named Alan Voss, standing
beside a locomotive crew in 1923. A handwritten
note reads: “The track ends where the land
remembers.”
By dawn, the temperature plummets. Alan’s phone
dies. The only shelter is the cabin, but the
walls are lined with old newspaper clippings
about vanished expeditions, all tied to the same
railway line. A rule etched in the wood of the
doorframe warns: No one leaves until the last
train arrives.
He finds a journal detailing how each Voss
generation has been cursed to retrace the route
of a phantom railway, built by an Indigenous
elder who was betrayed by settlers. The final
page is blank.
At midday, the wind shifts. Tracks appear in the
snow — narrow, iron rails leading away from the
cabin. Alan follows them, guided by the sound of
a distant whistle. He reaches a clearing where a
locomotive sits frozen in time, its engine
glowing faintly. The driver’s face mirrors his
own.
A hard rule bites: The last train cannot be
boarded by anyone who has ever held political
office. Alan’s hand trembles as he touches the
door. The engine roars to life.
He turns back, but the cabin is gone. The snow
now hides the tracks. In the distance, a new
train approaches — not from the south, but from
the north, where the Arctic meets the unknown.
