Horror Express

by David O'Hanlon

  The electricity stretched from the man’s flailing limbs and shot towards the copper accents of the passenger car. Wells threw himself into the previous coach as the electrocuted man’s fingers moved too close to the decorative handrail. The whips of energy lashed out and around the bar.

  It sounded like a cannon barrage when the generator exploded beneath the car.

  The blast tore the door from its hinges and it sailed overhead, twisting and toppling through the narrow passage. The pressure wave blew out the car’s windows, and the arctic winds howled like feral wolves as they rushed through fractured frames. Even with the new ventilation, the smell of overcooked sausages hung in the air and oozed into the next car with Wells. He sat up and looked back.

  The car was now blackened, but the moonlight painted a brutal picture. A gaping hole in the floor smoked as the draft moved across it with a banshee’s wail. The man’s lower body had been vaporized by the blast, and his torso leaked in a smoldering lump in the adjoining gangway.

  Archibald Tremblay staggered out of a ruined compartment. Bits of glass sparkled in his curly blond hair. A rivulet of blood trickled from a busted ear drum and down his collar. He coughed and fanned the air, stumbling blindly into the next car where Wells caught him by the arm and moved him to an open seat.

  “Damn it, Archibald, was that necessary?”

  “Huh?” Tremblay snapped his fingers next to his left ear and then his right. “That was really loud!”

  “Yes, believe it or not, I noticed.”

  “I can’t hear a word you’re saying, but I think I’ve killed the monster!”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t kill everyone. That blast could’ve derailed us. And stop yelling.”

  “Huh?”

  Wells growled and turned Tremblay’s head so that he could speak to his less-damaged ear. He spoke slow and loud, just to be sure. “We need you in the lounge, you buffoon. Saxton wants to test the passengers.”

  Tremblay nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s great news. I have the most wonderful idea.”

  “I think we’ll skip your ideas for a moment.” Wells looked across the blackened coach car and focused on the smoking gap. The shattered boards looked like teeth in a devil’s mouth. He huffed. “Wait here! I need to fetch some personal effects from the boxcar, and I can’t get across that hole with them.”

  “Zounds, that was something else. I didn’t consider the possibility that he would touch the copper.”

  “Yes, well, it was terribly frightful before the arc flash as well.”

  Tremblay nodded and reached for his glasses, only to find them missing. Wells bent and picked up the twisted frames from the hardwood of the open coach.

  “Did you lose these, Archibald?”

  Tremblay smiled wide and Wells saw a tooth had been knocked out in the blast.

  “Thank you, Doctor Wells. I was looking for those.” He examined them far longer than anyone should have needed to. “A bit worse for wear, I’m afraid. Who do you think the man was?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and a puckering at the hole of my ass. I don’t imagine either is a good omen. Wait here.”

  Wells used a broken door frame to skirt the maw. The frozen earth streaked by beneath him in near pitch blackness. He held his breath as the wood popped noisily under his weight. The divide was no more than four-feet across, but that was far more than he could jump at his age. He reached the other side without incident and pointed a fierce finger at Tremblay.

  “Do not touch anything else, Archibald. No more traps and, certainly, no more electricity. That sort of stuff,” he gestured to the still cooking cadaver, “results in this sort of stuff. Just don’t be helpful. Stand there and wait.”

  Tremblay gave him a thumbs-up.

  ***

  The caboose rumbled, the peal of an explosion echoed from another car. Pietro brushed his sweaty bangs behind his ears and listened intently for a moment.

  “Woe, woe, woe to all the inhabitants of the earth. The angel’s trumpets do sound.” He pressed his bloody finger against Fredrick’s quivering lips. “Shush now. This is the will of our true God.”

  Pietro stared down at the brakeman, whose head lay in his lap, but he didn’t see the Canadian. Rather he saw the Indian, twelve-years-old, if he chanced a guess. Pietro didn’t mean to kill him. He always choked them, and most of them liked it. They certainly didn’t try to escape him. So, he squeezed harder. He paid good money for the child’s services, and he just wanted him to settle down.

  No, he hadn’t meant to end that boy’s life.

  The Filipino that followed, that one he meant to kill. And the two girls in Singapore the week after. The pleasure their death throes gave him couldn’t be matched. He tried. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but nothing could satisfy him so completely. It was the Moroccan girl that cured him of his pederasty. Though he hired her for sex, she was no whore. He paid two month’s wages because she wasn’t. She was more than just pure, he learned later. She was an angel.

  He cut her throat while he thrust himself inside her. She didn’t fight him. Her blood poured around his tightening hand. She held his face, gazed into his soul. He screamed his hatred at her as he quickened his thrusting. And with her last breath, she forgave him. He never returned to his ship, instead finding a monastery and swearing himself to God.

  “Where is He?” Pietro stroked Fredrick’s face. “Prayers and penance and, still, the urges. He never took them from me, no matter how much I begged. I prayed until my knees were pustulating sores. Flayed my flesh with leather and steel.”

  He ripped open his robes. The raised, pale flesh of a cross-shaped scar rested beneath matted chest hair.

  “I swore everything I had to Him, and He would not satiate my hunger.” He touched the long blade of the amputation knife to the man’s philtrum, resting the steel on his lips like the comforting finger of a mother. “Because His Word is blameless and His Way, perfect. Don’t you understand, my sweet boy? God made me, and every monster like me. Don’t you see it now? He has deceived the world.”

  Fredrick managed a high-moan.

  “Rejoice, however. Satan is here to shield us under his burnt wing. I have seen the Fall through His eyes. I have felt the frozen lakes of Hell as if His skin were my own. He showed me all of this, gifted it to me. That false god that I have served so diligently,” Pietro shoved the blade up Fredrick’s nostril and into his brain, “why, he can’t even say hello.”

  The brakeman’s eyes grew wider as his body shuddered. His fingers curled and clawed at the floorboards. His legs ran in place and then slowed to a crawl.

  “It hurts now, but you will feel nothing but His love in the next world.”

  Pietro twisted the knife with a squish. The man’s boots danced nosily against the floorboards and then fell still. The priest twirled Fredrick’s hair around his fingers and rocked them both in place.

  “Rest now and rejoice in Lucifer’s love.”

  ***

  The crowd shouted over each other, raising their voices higher and higher with every unanswered question. Some pushed to get closer to Saxton and Mirov, others lingered in the back, content to grumble obscenely. Everyone wanted an answer, but no one wanted to shut up and wait for one. Beneath the chaos Saxton heard a term being thrown about. It didn’t mean anything until the conductor heard it and slugged an overdressed man of equal inebriation for saying it.

  “This is my train, you dandy. You won’t say such things about her.” He wobbled as he straightened himself and collected his jacket from the arm of a nearby seat. “The Horror Express, you called her? Because someone had an accident? Childish buffoonery.”

  Saxton cleared his throat. “Sixteen, actually. That we know of.”

  “Is that right?” The conductor whistled. “Sixteen accidents, then? It’s a fine bit of luck you were here then. Anyone else might have concerned yourselves with keeping me up to date with the proceedings on my own damn tra
in.” Spit flew in every direction as he rambled. “I suppose I’ll just give you my cap and you make all the decisions now. Is that what you want?”

  “Of course not, I bloody hate trains. A gentleman needs nothing more than a fine horse.”

  “Jesus, how old are you?” the well-dressed man asked.

  Saxton’s response was interrupted when the conductor threw his hat at him.

  “Ladies and gentleman, meet the new conductor of your Horror Express. Have a pleasant trip, you ingrates.”

  Saxton slapped him hard across the cheek and pushed him into a seat. He stuffed the hat back onto the man’s balding head and turned to the crowd.

  “That’s enough from all of you.” Everyone settled at his boisterous call. “Especially you, you bell end.” He jabbed a finger at the man in the fancy clothes.

  A few people murmured, drawing Saxton’s eagle-like glare, at which point they hushed.

  “There is a sickness onboard this train. It is an unpleasant thing that drives the victim quite mad. This illness, this parasite as it were, has resulted in the deaths that you are carrying on about. It is for this reason that no one is to go off alone. We stay together, and we make sure that no one else gets infected. We think we have isolated it, but very shortly we will conduct a test to make sure that it has not spread to the rest of you.”

  “What kind of test?” someone asked.

  “The kind that’s mandatory.” Saxton clasped his hands behind his back and glared across their number like a taskmaster. “If anyone would like to forgo taking the test, they will be removed from this train. Don’t get too excited, however. For we will not be stopping during said removal.”

  The passengers grew quiet again. Some squirmed anxiously, but they kept their mouths shut. An unpleasantly round, flabby man in the corner coughed and raised his hand.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “Shouldn’t we be avoiding each other?”

  “I would like nothing more. However, this contagion is driving people to murder. As such, there is safety in numbers.”

  A few people agreed, but most just looked around suspiciously. Some found makeshift weapons—pens, jackknives, bottles, and the like—with their sweaty hands. Saxton’s eyes darted around the crowd, feeling the tension as they tried to move just a little further from one another.

  “Settle yourselves. There’s no reason to believe anyone here is infected, and if they are, Inspector Mirov is here to protect you.” Saxton bit the inside of his jaw at the thought and continued his address. “I, and my colleagues, have been busy trying to save the lot of you and haven’t had the luxury of indulging in rumor, but allow me to address the one I hear you all whispering about. There is no madman onboard this train.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “By Jove, what animal could do this to you?” Wells pulled a battered tarpaulin over Jones’ body and went to the olive footlocker.

  He rummaged in his pocket for the key while rubbing tears from his eyes. He opened the lock and tossed the layers of neatly folded clothes to the floor. He removed the long, cloth-wrapped package beneath with far greater care. Wells flipped the lid shut to use as a table while he unknotted the twine and pulled back the old quilt from the tamboti case. His fingers slid across the African wood and traced the carved, serpentine form of Mamlambo, the Zulu river goddess.

  Wells flicked the case’s brass latches and raised its lid. The contents were packed carefully in red velvet, which he unfolded with slow reverence. He stroked the sterling inlay that Miss Jones’ had specially engraved for his sixtieth birthday.

  The kill of the Wolf, is the meat of the Wolf.

  His head lifted sharply. He returned to Trudy’s body and knelt beside her. The cooled blood soaked into his pants leg, and a pain of realization made his heart ache even more. He jerked the tarp back and fought for the clinical dispassion he needed to do his job. Lifting her chin, he observed the bruising and tapering of the wound. The cut was deep on the left side, then grew shallower as it went straight across. If the cut came from behind, like he originally surmised, there would have been a distinct curvature to the wound.

  “You did this to yourself. You were trying to keep it from learning what you knew.” Wells stood and found Miss Jones’ coat resting next to her medical bag. “But what is it that you knew, my dear?”

  He sniffled as he dug out the battered, leather journal, and thumbed for the last entry. He squinted at the tiny letters, smiling sadly.

  “Blasted American penmanship. Uncivilized chicken scratch.”

  The porter’s cirrhosis created an environment inhospitable to the parasite, forcing it to find another body. The corpse of Tom Brandt was still intact, having frozen to death, but thawing in this boxcar started the necrotic process. I believe the presence of the parasite, combined with the physical exertion of reanimating the tissue turned Brandt’s body into an incubator that accelerated the spread of postmortem bacterium. This required the acquisition of a new host. That’s why it moved again, taking over Otis.

  Apart from having his brains shot out, he was suffering from syphilis, based on the swollen kidneys and liver. It spent so long inside that caveman that I don’t believe it can use a modern human for very long. It adapted to that simpler life. This parasite has slept through most of our history. Alcohol, tobacco, medicine, pollution, all of it would be foreign to this parasite. Substances that effect brain chemistry and alter the blood quality are disrupting its ability to control us. This might be a sufficient method to identify it in a host.

  “Brilliant as always, my dear.” He returned to her body once more and kissed her cool forehead. He stroked her hair and gently closed her eyes. “You don’t want to see what I’m about to get up to.”

  ***

  “You have to admit, the Horror Express does have a certain ring to it.” Mirov propped open the door to the crew car. “Do you actually have a test in mind? A real one that can detect your monster?”

  “I’m working on it. This is really James’ department.” Saxton retrieved an iron candle from a shelf mounted crookedly to the wall. He tested the light, shining it dimly on his palm. “Blast. I need something concentrated. Brighter too.”

  Mirov reached into this vest pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound flashlight. He wiggled it between thumb and forefinger. “They’re the latest fashion.”

  “That just might work.” Saxton reached for it and Mirov closed his fist around it.

  “Just what do you plan on doing with it?” He shifted his right leg back and settled his weight on it. “Out of curiosity, I mean. Your scientific methods are… intriguing.”

  “Nothing of any usefulness, I’m afraid. I need Tremblay up here. He’s hellbent on this radiation theory of his, and we need to find a way to test for it. He just might be right after all. James will have a much better idea of how to test people, but in the meantime, we have to do something.”

  “So, you’re bluffing?” Mirov relaxed slightly, uncurling his fingers. “You want to give them a fake test to fill them with confidence? Am I understanding that, correctly?”

  “Something like that. They can’t feel like this is an uphill battle. Hopelessness in a confined space full of scared people is sure to result in chaos and panic.”

  “Did you learn that in the military?” Mirov let the light fall into Saxton’s palm.

  “No, the classroom. I see it at the start of every semester.” He held up the light and nodded. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”

  “No worries. I’ll go find your physicist now.” Mirov turned into the gangway.

  ***

  Tremblay sulked on the floor, leaning against the doorjamb. His trap did work, just far more efficiently than he expected. He didn’t see what the doctor was so angry about. Sure, one car was partially destroyed, but the monster was a brisket. Provided it was the monster at all. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would have been in any of the rear cars or soaked in blood if they weren’t under the influence of the creat
ure. He beat his fist against the floorboards but still couldn’t hear the thump.

  “It better had been the damn creature for all the trouble it’s caused.”

  The wind bawled through the ruined car, or maybe it just whispered. The only sound he heard was the damn ringing and a sharp whistle that accompanied a godawful chill. He sputtered his lips and pulled his jacket tightly around him. He didn’t need to hear it to know it was sharp and penetrating, even huddled in his little corner. Then he felt a new sensation, still cold but a different kind of sharp and penetrating. A sudden warmth followed, spreading wetly down his side.

  The low steam oozed just above the growing blood stain. Tremblay’s eyes drifted to the sensation. He gawked at the frost-nipped fingers curled around the knife handle. The fist twisted and the blade tore open his lung. The wiry beard scoured his neck and his assailant’s hot breath crept across his cheek.

  “What waits for you when you die? What does your science promise you?” The priest’s voice was barely a whisper to Tremblay’s damaged eardrums. “Where is God in all your infernal knowledge? For my God is here, Archibald.”

  The physicist reached back, weakly clutching at Pietro’s hair. It was wet and half-frozen from the winds. The long knife withdrew from his side and dripped before him. Pietro brought the edge to his throat. Tremblay couldn’t see him, but he felt the tension as Pietro pressed their faces together—the muscles moving, rising. He realized the bastard was smiling as the blade started to part his flesh.

  The car lit with a flash and roared with a man-made thunder even Tremblay could hear. Pietro’s presence disappeared instantly. Bits of wood fluttered down onto Tremblay’s lap. The young scientist slumped to the floor. His vision blurred and each ragged breath seemed to tighten his chest further.

  He watched Pietro’s robes flap as the lunatic ran down the aisle and slammed the door shut behind him, then came another titanic roar and flash of light. He managed to turn his head, but the process caused him to cough a bubbling puddle onto the floor—across the divide was Wells with the express rifle clutched tightly against his shoulder.