Ghost Train of Treblinka

by Hubert L. Mullins

  She could’ve possibly gone to the bathroom—it would have been easy to head up the steps and down the hall while Edmund and Bill talked inside the bedroom. But wouldn’t she have stopped by the room first? A shiver, both inside him and against his flesh, made him hyperaware, and he turned toward the door—it was standing open.

  Edmund stood up and walked over to it, the trio of foreigners barely noticing that he’d even sat down. A strong wind had picked up and was rushing inside, threatening to put out the nearest fire.

  “Shut that, would ya?” came the cry of one of the girls, just before going back to the game.

  Edmund stepped onto the massive, wraparound porch and looked out across the deadened Ozelki. There were no candles in windows, no chimneys sputtering smoke. They were truly alone at Krakus House. The smell of far off fires stung his nostrils. Edmund was trying to stave off a panic.

  He raced back inside, stopping short at the trio of travelers. “Hey, did you see Sophie? Did she go outside?”

  The girls both burst out laughing.

  “What? Tell me!” He was growing frustrated.

  Gerta, or maybe it was Margo, for who could tell, wizened up and said, “Yeah, she went outside. Just got up and left.”

  “What did she say? Anything?”

  Timothy said, “It was something about getting married, right girls? No, not that. Her boyfriend was going to propose to her. On the train!”

  Again, the girls were laughing, but Edmund barely heard any of it. He’d already spun on his heels and launched through the door.

  He wasn’t thinking clearly. The rational thing would have been to go get Bill, to possibly wake Matilda and Lena, but he had no clue how long Sophie had been gone. The conversation he’d had with Bill upstairs only lasted a few minutes, but if she left the house in a run . . . God, she could be anywhere.

  It was difficult choosing a direction. The warming weather had brought with it rain, and so the snow had washed away. He was following what he thought could pass as footprints, but that only took him down the hill and to the church. The dirt road became paved and if she’d left a trail, it ended there.

  He stopped, did a full circle, and screamed her name. Krakus House looked like a tall, looming monster with its lit windows and door still hanging open. If only he’d brought his IR camera, he could’ve possibly seen her in the dark. But that luxury didn’t exist, so he ran in the only direction where he knew the train would be, and that was toward Polvec.

  His lungs in this cold weather would never let him reach it, and he only prayed that this was the direction his friend had gone when she heard the call. If not, he was running further away from her.

  The damage of the train was spectacular, even though he could barely see it in the darkness. There was no moon out, no stars, and the sky was a canvas of dark purple. In fact, the only light he did have was something burning in the woods. Fire would probably light the darkness for days to come.

  Edmund called out her name again, and just when he was about to repeat it, the train whistled far off, in the direction he was headed. If Sophie was going toward it, then so was he.

  It whistled again, and it was the first time Edmund had noticed that it was changing. No more did it have the high, ear-piercing cry of a normal train. Now it was lower, demonic, like when the batteries in the cassette player his dad gave him started to die. Any lower and it would sound like a foghorn.

  Edmund cut through the woods, doing his best to keep a line of sight with Krakus House but failing because the terrain turned sharply downhill. Through the trees he could see the train’s slightly spectral glow. He caught faces in the cars, moaning wails and reaching hands. They didn’t see him—they saw the girl in front of him. Sophie was walking right toward it, not running, but quick enough that an exhausted, panting Edmund had trouble keeping up.

  “Sophie!” he screamed. His voice came out raw and ragged. “Sophie, stop!”

  She didn’t hear him, or at least didn’t want to hear him. She was enthralled, as so many others had been. This had been the march of anyone caught under the spell, and it was breaking his heart to see her running headlong into certain death.

  Sophie’s foot caught on a rock and she went down, but only for a moment. Immediately she regained her stride and started toward the train again. It was enough time, however, for Edmund to catch up, grab her arm and pull. She shrugged him off, as if he were some minor annoyance.

  “Sophie? Sophie!” he said, circling in front. Her eyes were filled with starlight, as if under some trance. She wasn’t blinking, but tears were running down her cheeks as if her mind was trapped inside a body working on its own accord.

  “I’m getting married,” she said. Her voice was steady. “Bill is waiting and he’s going to propose.”

  “No, Sophie, he’s not here! It’s the train. We have to go.”

  Edmund put an arm around her waist and dug in his heels but she kept marching forward. Sophie was small—not more than a hundred and thirty pounds—but she was moving with unnatural resolution, and when Edmund tried to wrestle her to the ground, she slammed an elbow into his back so hard that he coughed and dropped to his knees. Sophie broke his grapple and trudged on.

  They were nearing the train, and Edmund’s body was wracked with pain, both from the exertion of chasing after her and now the blow against his back. Sophie was limned in bluish-white light as she still marched toward her death. The engine was sitting quietly, the hiss of steam the only sound. Sophie would die in the next thirty yards.

  Edmund found his strength, found his feet, and took off running after her again. They cleared the treeline and were now back on a road, or at least what served as one now, days after the train had left trenches all over the place. Sophie stepped up to the edge of one such trench and went tumbling down the side until she reached the curved bottom, landing in a mud puddle. Edmund was able to make the same trip with less struggle, and that time allowed him to catch back up again. Sophie was climbing up the far-side of the trench and Edmund grabbed her foot. She wasn’t wearing any shoes, her toes frigid beneath the wool sock.

  She kicked back, but he was expecting it. One foot came down close to his head and he narrowly dodged her slamming it right into his jaw. The dodge made him lose his hold on her, and he fell back on his bottom, still clutching one of her socks. Sophie scrambled up the side and continued on.

  Twenty yards to go.

  Edmund lifted himself out of the mud, and on the other side waited Otto, standing by the engine, a wall of machinery at his back. Sophie kept going, closing the distance between herself and the man who would rip her head off with a wrench.

  Ten yards to go.

  He was about to yell her name again, but knew it was useless. So Edmund made one last-ditch effort to save his friend. He broke into a sprint, ran around Sophie and put his back to Otto for longer than he’d ever wanted, and grabbed her around the waist. Edmund lifted her off the ground, like a linebacker, and carried her away from the train.

  The sound the engine made almost caused him to drop her, so loud and close it had been. Edmund couldn’t carry her down into the trench and make it up the other side, so he ran alongside the unending trainset, dodging reaching hands and cries of help, much like when he first encountered the train. Sophie was kicking him, slamming fists against his head and back but he did his best to ignore the pain. Otto was chasing him down, and would be on him soon if he didn’t get around the trench.

  Luckily it ended abruptly and he was able to head back toward the trees. When he stole a glance back, he found Otto, a look of pure rage on his face. Had anyone snatched a victim so close to death from him before? Edmund didn’t think so, and if he didn’t put some distance between himself and that wrench, the ghost would have them both.

  Optimistically, they made it another twenty yards before Edmund’s arms started shaking and he knew he’d never carry her back all the way to Krakus House. His body was so taxed, and that was without the girl fighting to get fre
e, as if he were some rapist who’d pulled her into a dark alley. There was going to come a point, probably in the next few steps, when Edmund was going to have to drop her. What would he do after that? Simply run off or wait his turn?

  Edmund wasn’t a runner.

  He had managed to pull away from the slow-moving Otto, and the man trailed them by at least thirty yards. Edmund put Sophie on the ground and tried to hold her face so that she looked at him. Her starlight eyes were speckled with madness, and she didn’t see him, nor hear him. Her attention was on Otto, the Entity, the one who promised her that Bill was on the train with a big, shiny ring.

  “Sophie, please! Listen to me! It’s Edmund. If you’re in there, please stop running. Please stop going to him. You’re going to die, Sophie!”

  She wasn’t looking at him. He had her arm, and then his fingers slipped to her hand, and then she was gone, walking toward Otto. The big German man had stopped and slung the wrench over his shoulder. He kicked his leg out and locked it, as if telling Edmund that he’d won. His hand stretched out, and it looked for a moment as if he were going to ask Sophie for a dance.

  Light quickly flooded the forest as Edmund’s blood turned to ice. The train was coming to meet its conductor and latest victim. But Otto dropped his hand. He looked toward the light and the wrench fell to his side, a look of bewilderment upon his dead face. Edmund also saw it, and quickly realized this wasn’t the light of a train—this was two lights—headlamps—and they were coming right toward the ghost.

  A black SUV raced in front of Sophie and plowed right into Otto with such force that the ghost went flying off into the muck. Edmund couldn’t believe what he was seeing, couldn’t believe that a ghost could be affected by the grill of a car, but either way he was glad that it could.

  The window was down and Brian Harrick stuck his head out and said, “Well don’t just stand there, mate, grab ‘er and get in!” The hatchback lumbered open.

  Edmund didn’t wait around for Otto to come back, so he grabbed Sophie, who’d changed directions to follow the flying ghost. He pinned her arms to the sides and dragged her to the back of the SUV. Hands reached out and helped him load the kicking woman inside, and the vehicle started rolling even before Edmund hopped in on top of her.

  “Hang on, we’re going back to your place!” said Brian from behind the wheel. The SUV jerked around, and for a brief moment he caught Otto standing back up and running toward their taillights.

  “Hey, Edmund.”

  And there in the backseat of the SUV was his friend.

  It was Addey.

  He couldn’t process what he was seeing because so much was happening at once. Sophie was still fighting them, still screaming out for Bill. And just when the SUV left the dirt path and the wheels landed on pavement, the train was back, coming up behind them with a stream of smoke and fury. It let out a guttural growl, flames belching from the wheels.

  The pilot rammed them in the bumper, and because it was angled—and because they were designed to not-so-gently nudge cows from railroad tracks, it lifted the vehicle off its back wheels. Had Brian not quickly pumped the gas, the SUV might have tipped over, but instead it slipped off the train with a frenzy of sparks and kept on going.

  There was no beating the train, no outmaneuvering it. They could go no place where it couldn’t follow. The trees provided no cover, nor the buildings, nor the bridges. If the SUV wasn’t hindered by the terrain, then neither was the train. If they could’ve turned around, run alongside the trainset in the opposite direction, they might have stood a chance, but it had chosen a strategic spot to pin them—train cars on one side, trench on the other.

  They were fortunate that the rain had caused one end of the trench to collapse, so Brian was able to jerk the wheel hard left, putting them on course to arrive at Krakus House. The train was still coming, but as Edmund held down Sophie’s hands, he noticed through the tinted back windshield that it was falling behind.

  Brian pulled the SUV right up to the front door, parking next to Timothy’s tiny car. Edmund could see Matilda standing in the doorway, a throng of people behind her, but his attention was snatched away as the train came just feet from their back bumper and then veered off to the right, heading down the hill behind Krakus House. He was about to hop out, but then the engine appeared on the other side, having circled around the building like a giant constrictor about to squeeze the life out of its prey.

  Edmund now noticed for the first time that someone was lying across the next row of seats in their SUV, holding a bloodied hand to his side. It was Marcus, Brian’s associate. He’d either been shot or stabbed, and now that Edmund had seen the wound, he couldn’t shake the stagnant, coppery smell of blood that permeated the SUV’s interior. The cars kept moving outside, the engine disappearing back down the mountain. Edmund could see no end to it, no beginning. It had become a giant ring.

  “Sophie?” Bill screamed, pushing his way past Edmund when he saw his girlfriend. The starlight disappeared from her eyes, as if the veil brought on by the train could no longer stand while proof otherwise was in front of her. She collapsed, her body going limp in his arms.

  “Get her inside,” said Matilda, stepping out into the cold, hair whipping around her face. “All of you, get inside.”

  “Addey?” said Bill, carrying Sophie inside. “What the hell is going on tonight?” He looked to Edmund for answers but found none.

  The train still circled as they gathered together and went inside. Addey and Brian carried in a very weak, very pale Marcus, and placed him on the floor by the fire. Both the Swedish girls looked as if they’d been crying, probably after a heavy reprimand from the old woman. Edmund pushed his way into the common room, thankful for the warmth, and was about to start his long, unending barrage of questions when Matilda hobbled past him and stood on the porch.

  “You, boy!” she yelled. “Back inside!”

  Edmund peered back out into the night, and if not for the slight glow of the train, he might never have seen the man standing twenty yards down the hill, past their cars. His wavy hair and long jacket gave him away.

  It was Timothy.

  “Tim!” yelled Edmund, but he was feeling an eerie déjà vu. “Get back inside, bud. That thing will snatch you right up.”

  Timothy had heard Edmund, but he’d heard the train first. He turned around, looked at him with little galaxies in his eyes, and said, “Crimson Halo is playing a concert just for me! They’re on the train!” He turned back and started off.

  Edmund knew it was a losing battle the moment he stepped off the porch. The engine had circled back around and came to stop just in front of the awestruck, oblivious man. Otto stepped off and Edmund froze in place, still twenty yards away and powerless to do anything. Timothy ran right toward the towering ghost and was met with a quick slash across the throat. A spray of blood cascaded off to the side as the man’s knees buckled and he slammed them into the ground before falling over on his side. Otto looked up at Krakus House and flung the blood off the wrench. A chorus of screeches and cries erupted behind Edmund. Clearly there’d been an audience.

  Otto scooped up the dead man—hell, dead boy—and carried him toward the first train car. Timothy’s head lolled back and forth, hanging on by only a thin strip of sinew. Otto chucked him over the edge and then went back to the engine.

  There were many things that night that would haunt Edmund forever. But the one that struck him the hardest was seeing the dead man pitch over the edge of the window and then, stand right back up, now bathed in an eerie mist. Timothy’s head was still hanging by threads, but he was able to look out and see Krakus House, see the assembly of those still living, and realize he was dead. He put his hand through the window, screaming for help, and then the others in the car swelled around him—ghosts of different times. Most had been there for eighty years, but tonight, Timothy joined the fray as a recruit.

  The engine’s whistle blared so loudly that the windows vibrated, and then it was circling
Krakus House once again. Edmund wondered if it even planned to ever leave.

  Polvec

  January 16th, 2019

  In all the years he’d been prowling the countryside, he never felt so strong as he did in the last month. As he hung from the side of the engine, curtesy of Otto Herzog’s body, he watched the winding form of the train as it went on for miles. Three to be exact, as there were currently just over five-hundred cars connected to the trainset. No real train could pull so many, not a steam engine at least. The Entity was still bound to Poland and didn’t know how the world had progressed outside the borders. Perhaps there were flying trains by now, eighty years after he’d melded with his current body.

  He’d been smart enough to cripple Poland because of what had happened back in the lair. After all these years of dealing with mortals, they still managed to surprise him. And even though he was careless sometimes—it was hard to remain so vigilant and cover so much area—the Entity always regained control.

  But tonight he knew something bad had happened, something to do with the Pole and the two Brits who’d fled with his latest two would-be victims. The Entity knew the hearts and minds of those aboard the train, and could sometimes read those he called, but it was sporadic, hardly reliable. That was one of the tradeoffs to becoming the train. He might have gained much power, but he’d also given up a lot. If he’d been able to read the minds of those fleeing in the large SUV, perhaps his mind would be put to ease.

  But no matter, he encircled Krakus House, that hive of ungodly madness, and headed back toward Polvec. The countryside was barren, the people gone. He was confident most everyone around had either come to the train under the spell, or had been killed and loaded onto it just the same. The Entity fancied himself a siren, singing a lullaby that lured the humans and crashed ships. The destruction wrought by the train was beautiful, but no longer could he hide. Eventually, word would get out. His only hope was that by then, it would be too late.