by PW Cooper
The doctors did what they could. Nobody expected him to live very long, but no matter how he pleaded they would not kill him. When the time came to release him from the hospital they had put him on a train. They left him at the station for his family to collect.
That was the day after the bomb fell on his house. Nobody came. And he fell into the paper void, abandoned between two files. Outside the system.
He had crawled, pulling himself arduously across the floor of the train station with his one good hand. That was as far as he could make it, and it was where he'd stayed. People gave him food sometimes. He tried to get rid of it but he could not stop himself from eating. He tried to starve, but whenever the hunger grew too great he dragged himself to the garbage outside the station cafeteria and dug through the raw trash until he'd found enough to go on living. His body would not allow him to die. No matter how strong he thought his will the will of the meat was always stronger. He cursed the charity which allowed him to go on existing.
He had been here in the train station for... eight weeks perhaps? God, it felt more like eight years. If only the fucking clock worked, he could have measured his time somehow, something beyond the rise and fall of the sun. How he hated that foul sun! In darkness he could curl up and imagine that he was dead. Sunlight allowed no such escape. Sunlight showed.
How much longer would he have to wait? An infection would take him someday, spoiled food turned to poison. A scrape or cut festering? An old wound broken open? Or perhaps some of the local boys who came to the train-yard to throw rocks at the cripples would finally grow bold enough to fetch a bigger stone and bash his skull in. How ironic that would be, that the source of his worst torment would be the means of his deliverance!
The little girl was watching him with a strange look on her face. He felt a surge of annoyance. “What's your name, girl?”
She didn't answer right away. She licked her lips and seemed to think. Thought too long. “Sally,” she said. A lie, of course. He almost laughed. Did she really think he cared what her fucking name was? She must be a runaway. A war-orphan probably. Never mind, what did he care?
“Sally.” He smiled. It was not a pleasant sight; he knew that. Half of the face burnt away. The eye socket an empty hole, mouth running down like a streak of paint disrupted when the artist is shoved aside mid-stroke. “That's a nice name.”
She sat and the two of them talked for a while.
A woman spat on him. The little girl cowered. A bored boy tossed a despondent rock in his direction. The little girl flinched. An old man dropped a crust of bread. The little girl scrabbled out across the tile floor for it and brought it back clutched in her hands like a prize. She looked down at the bread crust. There wasn't much there to speak of. She held it out to him.
That touched him a little. She'd come from a good family, been raised right, that was obvious. Far more obvious was that she had never known real hunger. Nobody who had ever starved gave away bread. He took it and he thanked her.
He hated himself. Let the girl eat the bread. You should die. She should live. Let the girl eat this bread. He ate every crumb and licked his fingertips.
Maybe tonight he would do it. Maybe tonight was the night he would pull himself across the station floor and fall down onto the railroad tracks. Maybe tonight he would await the coming of the train. He was afraid, though, terribly afraid. Not of dying, no; he was afraid, rather, that he might not die, that he could be further reduced and yet struggle on. He couldn't take that chance. He couldn't bear the thought of living in greater pain than that which he now endured. Death was like every other fickle whore, happy enough fucking everybody else and turning her nose up when his turn came. Didn't he deserve this?
He asked the girl where she had come from. He asked her why she had come to the train station. He asked her if she knew where she was going next. He asked her when she was leaving. She did not answer any of his questions.
A pair of soldiers come down the long stairs. Not just any soldiers; their dark red coats reminded him of the overripe cherries he'd picked in the woods as a boy. Their black gloves and their black boots gleamed. She stiffened when she saw them.
So he'd been right. She was on the run. Paranoid too, if she thought these would bother with a runaway orphan. Never mind, let her think she was important.
When she scrambled up to leave, he offered her a final piece of advice. “Remember one thing, Sally. Whatever you do, don't ever trust a –. Keep that in mind, you'll be alright.”
She gave him the strangest look before she ran. She did not look back at him. He sank back into the darkness.
Maybe tonight would be the night.
* * *
You are running from the red soldiers.
The train station is enormous. It engulfs you. It is a mouth and the soldiers are its teeth. You do not know which way to turn, you simply run, careless of direction. You lose yourself in the crowd. People press in all around you. You cannot see anything but the great clock and the scattered lights in the ceiling. The sun is high outside. Six o'clock. The clock must be wrong? Nobody sees you. Everything seems turned inside out and upside down.
Trains arrive and depart in a rush of activity which seems never to end. People get on, people get off. Their faces are blurred and indistinct and all look vaguely the same. It is as though they are playing some complex game, the same people boarding and disembarking in a ceaseless loop. You want to vomit. You want to lay down and shut your eyes. You want to die. You want to sleep.
You cannot sleep. You must run. You run until your throat burns and your lungs ache but you cannot find your way out of the train station. Every hall seems to lead back around to the main platform and every staircase eventually returns to the same level. The crush of people is unending and unbearable. If you could be free of them, if you could only for a moment think absent the overwhelming roar of the crowd, you know you would find your way out easily. You feel as though escape is just beyond your grasp, slippy and indistinct, but nonetheless right there.
And then you see the door.
Old wood bound by black iron hasps, dark and pitted. It looks as though it has been clawed at by bloody fingers. The handle is heavy brass. You step closer.
You touch the knob. Cast one last look back over your shoulder. There is a long silver train pulling up to the platform, like a knife sliding into a wound. A solider in a red coat is pointing at you, his cries lost in the clamor of the station. And now he is coming for you. He draws his pistol from its glossy black holster.
The door is very heavy, a brush of cold comes up from the darkness beyond when you open it. There is a hideous clanging sound echoing from down that lightless passage, its source alien and obscene.
You plunge into the blackness, down a long stair. The stone steps lead ever downward in a slow coil. You touch one hand lightly against the wall as you run. The heavy wooden door swings shut on its own weight behind you, and all the glittering light of the train station disappears. They are coming for you. They are right behind that door.
As your eyes adjust to the gloom you become aware of a dull orange light at the foot of the stair, the kind of radiant illumination which spills from huge fire-hungry machines. Every step down is a torment of fear, of anticipation. You cannot go back.
The concrete wall is slick with a grimy liquid, something between mold and engine oil. The air is heavy and humid, it clings in your throat.
You come to the foot of the stair and look out into a vast underground chamber. The enormity of it makes you dizzy. Fires burn in the gloom like the twinkling of wind-blown stars. There are so many. Around the fires crouch ragged shapes with crooked backs and crippled hands that flutter out from beneath dirty rags to caress the flames, to pull fistfuls of warmth close. Some turn to look at you up there on the stair. Their eyes are freakishly wide and cold beneath their ragged cowls. They make no sound.
Enormous machines glisten wetly in the subterranean ghetto, great turning gears wheeling in the d
arkness, slick oiled joints clicking like teeth. Men and women scramble naked over the machines like fat pale spiders. Great pipes run along the ceiling. Steam hisses.
You tell yourself that this is not real. This is an illusion, a trick of the mind. You have not slept – not properly slept – for many days. You are delirious with hunger. You wonder what this place really is beyond the caul of the dream which birthed it. It must be something, it will become familiar soon. Your mind will regain itself. You will see a mechanical room with a great furnace, or perhaps an abandoned storeroom taken over by displaced refugees.
It does not happen.
The door at the distant head of the stair crashes open. You can hear feet pounding on the steps.
Water is lapping at the foot of the stair, dirty black and so thick with grime that it seems more solid than water, as though the floor itself is warped and swaying, rippling like tar and oil. You step down into it. The liquid seeps through your soft brown shoes, through your torn stockings, into the porous white cloth of your skirt. You wade out. It is not so deep. Up to your shins.
There is a light on the other side of the cavern. A rusted iron ladder leading out of the gloom. Across the water, past the fires that burn on the raised islands of warped cobble floor. You move through the water. The splashes of your footfalls echo. You feel like you have been swallowed, like you are down in the stomach of a great beast. You are a microbe, a morsel. Less than human and slowly being digested.
The men in red are at the foot of the stair. Their black gloves wrap around the rail tight enough to make the leather creak and sing. A pistol is drawn, a single shot fired into the dark. The water leaps beside you. Round yellow eyes turn in alarm, and a shrill moan is drawn from the collective throats of the under-dwellers. You stop dead still in your tracks.
A curse from the man on the stair fills the silence of the cavern. You are well away from the lights of the fires, invisible in the blackness. You turn your neck, straining to see. There are more of them now, four or five on the steps. You cannot see their faces.
You begin to move, to creep through the mire with measured and silent steps. You can hear them coming down off the stair. Starting into the water. Their tall black boots squelch in the muck as they fan out to search through the dark. You crawl on between the fires, between the machines, on towards the distant ladder.
You pass between two great devices, iron machines hissing and pounding and grinding. Naked gears crush together like teeth, eager to mangle a wrist or foot. There are three emaciated women sitting atop the machine, pale limbs hanging loose as though stitched on. Their bare bodies unearthly pale and glowing. One of them leans down towards you. She sniffs. She hisses. Her mouth opens and her teeth are sharp and yellow. You walk on, and they do not follow.
You are nearly at the ladder when another shot rings out, and you hear the heavy splash of a body hitting the water. You look back and you see a pale form face-down in the murk. The solider cocks back the hammer of his pistol, mouth twisted with disgust. The fire sputters at his feet. He kicks the life from it, scattering ashes. Sparks hiss on the water. Ash turns his shiny black boots white. You look, your eyes bleary and strained. You cannot believe it: you know his face. The hooked nose, the cruel eyes. It is the man from the school. The Captain.
He is looking right at you.
You stand frozen beside the machine. He raises his pistol and the sound of the turning gears beside you makes it seem as though he is a mechanical being, steam-operated or coursing with electric current. Not human. He is going to kill you.
There is something foul hurled through the under-dark. A handful of flung muck spatters across his blood red uniform. He curses and turns his aim away from you, shooting again into the cluster of pale bodies. A shriek. A rattling of anger like the shaking of old bones, and the masses rise from their fires. The dead have been roused. They are surging towards the island. The Captain shoots again and another body hits the water.
You run. A metallic din fills the ghetto, like the scraping of metal against metal. The earth shakes. A train is passing overhead. You struggle through the swampy darkness. One of the men in red screams. Pale bodies are crawling over him like great insects, tearing at his limbs, sinking their rotted teeth into his flesh. Muzzle flash and fire.
The floor gives out beneath you and you slip neck deep into semi-liquid. One gasp before your head slips under. It smells foul, a wound gone septic, as thick as molasses and dribbling from the ceiling. The ladder is not far. The surface of the water burbles. The machines grind. You begin to swim, struggling to keep your mouth above water so that you can breathe.
The gunfire stops as you grasp the bottom rung. Are the red soldiers all dead? How many pale bodies sinking into the mire? You pull yourself up. You want to cling to the ladder and shiver. You cannot stop. You crawl up to the next rung and then the next, and then your feet are on the lowest rung and you are moving upwards.
You find a heavy iron trapdoor at the top of the ladder. Your heart sinks. It will be locked. You reach up and push against it. It gives. It isn't locked; you push harder. It opens. The earth shakes.
A spark of gunfire cracks against the rung just beneath you. The soldiers are following you toward the ladder. One stands waist deep in the mire with his pistol trained on you. You shove open the door and pull yourself up.
The sunlight explodes upon you, so bright it stings your eyes. You stagger out with your hands over your face. The ground is rough and broken beneath you. Gravel, you think. You lost both your shoes in the clinging muck. Your foot catches on a high metal rail and you stumble. There is a roaring in your ears.
You force your eyes open against the light. You are in the train-yard. The great silver train has left the platform and is coming right at you, gleaming in the sunlight.
You scramble away; the soft soles of your feet are cut at by sharp rock. The train roars past you, shimmering like a mirage as it builds up speed. The first of the guards is crawling up through the door, you can see his black-gloved hands wrapping around the edge of the trapdoor. There is nowhere to hide. You run after the groaning train and throw yourself after to catch the guard-rail as it passes. The force of it almost yanks your arm off, but you manage to pull yourself up onto the rear platform and collapse there in a heap. The great station shrinks in the distance. The soldiers emerge from the dark, their uniforms filthy. One of them raises his gun and squeezes the trigger. The ricochet clangs against the skin of the train like the striking of a bell.
You snatch at the door behind you. The wind rushes around you, groaning hideously and tearing at your clothes. The door swings open and you fall inside, kicking it shut after, panting and weeping.
There is a stillness inside the train. You can hardly feel it moving.
You rise, shaking and holding the wall for support. The floor is carpeted, swirling patterns inscribed with gold thread. Crystal light fixtures shimmer on the walls. Gold plated knobs on the hardwood doors. Paintings on the walls, pristine countrysides, pastoral images rendered in soft watercolor and blurred oils. The frames and latches of the windows are bound in silver.
Black footprints follow you down the hall, sinking into the lush carpeting. You rub your skin, trying to get clean but only feeling more and more dirty. The opulence of the train car is suffocating, crushing in on you. You look at it and feel dirty, feel less.
You go back and press your face against the door at the rear of the train. Through the round window you can see the rail-yard disappearing in the distance. You are passing into the city, the glittering war-torn city. The destitute and the maimed and the staving of the world stare after the train – after you – as the great gleaming thing shivers down the rail, gentle as silk drawn along a length of wound cord. They seem unreal seen through the window, less than possible. You decide that they do not exist.
The world must be beautiful and fine, you think, and nothing in it coarse. You would like to remain in this train car forever, cut off from anything ugly. Ther
e is only this.
You think back to the fever dream of the basements – and you realize now that it must have been a dream – and you know that such things cannot exist. Not in this silver world.
You trudge down the hallway. The foul marks on the immaculate carpet behind you grow fainter with each step. You are becoming pure, leaving the filth in your past. There is a man at the end of the passage. He is ancient and beautiful. His white whiskers are neatly trimmed and his coat buttons gleaming, looking as though they are polished three times a day at least. He wears soft white gloves and his uniform is stately gray. His cap fits snugly on his white-crowned head. His cheeks are ruddy and warm and his mouth looks quick to smile. His shoes shine and his eyes twinkle beneath brushy gray brows.
In a moment he will turn his head and he will see you. He will come quickly down the hall and you will stand there frozen in your muddy tracks and he will ask sternly after your ticket, and when you have none he will eject you from the train. He will give you to the men in the red coats. In a moment, he will see you.
The train stops, suddenly and violently. A protracted lurching that sends you tumbling to the floor.
You reach blindly for the first door within reach and you twist the handle. It is not locked, the gold-plated knob turns in your hand and you enter the compartment.
There is a man in a silk bathrobe with a pipe clutched in the corner of his mouth, smoke spilling from beneath his waxed mustache. There is a woman wrapped in fur, her face covered in blood. She is holding her nose and sobbing and the blood is dribbling all over the white ermine fur wrapped about her neck. She is hunched on the floor with one hand reaching up towards the seat, as though she is trying to pull herself up. Two small children, a boy and girl, are standing on their seats and screaming. There are sticky sweets in their hands, chocolate smeared around their panicked mouths.