Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  ALL THOUGHTS OF her husband gone, Miranda sought only to save her own life. We cannot be far from the next station, she thought. I could leave there. Opportunity is everything, and I must make the most of it. But I must keep that thing away from me until we reach a stop. It needs to take another victim in my place.

  In her flight through the train, she stumbled from compartment to compartment, slapping the windows to attract the attentions of uncomprehending farmers and their dough-faced wives. It seemed that no-one else on board the Arkangel was prepared to come to her aid. What was wrong with them all? She was a gentlewoman—surely they would feel privileged to help her? She would beg and fall upon their mercy, and then feed them to the beast. Perhaps it would go to sleep once it had eaten its fill.

  She could hear the thing coming down the corridor.

  As she looked into another compartment full of dead-eyed peasants, Miranda started to have a bad feeling. There was something very wrong with them, that they would ignore the distress of an English lady. They showed no reaction to her predicament.

  ‘Somebody help me! Please!’ she called hopefully, trying to summon some tears, but they stared in mute incomprehension, clutching their ugly children and even their livestock tightly as if to protect them from an enemy.

  Kicking a brood of squawking chickens from her path, she jumped between the carriages, making her way along the length of the train. Finally she reached the compartment where she had left Isabella and Nicholas.

  Isabella saw her scrabbling at the lock, and went to help. She tried the door, but it refused to open from either side. ‘Nicholas,’ she called, ‘I can’t get it undone. Help me.’

  Nicholas shoved down the window to pull Miranda into the compartment. It was an undignified sight, the vicar’s wife half-wedged through the window, and as they were struggling, the ghoul burst into the corridor and seized her legs, dragging her back out.

  Nicholas and Isabella pulled hard, but the battle was already lost. The creature dug in its claws and hauled the screaming Miranda away through the carriage. It turned and looked back at them, baring its teeth like an angry, emaciated wolf, daring them to advance.

  Nicholas kicked at the lock on the compartment door and now it sprang open, as if the train had decided it was safe to release them. ‘What in Hell’s name was that thing?’ he asked. ‘Where is it going?’

  ‘We should find the Conductor,’ said Isabella. ‘Perhaps he will know what to do.’ Grabbing his hand, she pulled him back the way Miranda had come.

  ‘No, we must go to her aid. That foul creature had her in its claws.’

  ‘We can do nothing by ourselves,’ warned Isabella. ‘We need to get help.’

  The Conductor was at his habitual post in his alcove. He seemed annoyed at the disturbance, but surely he must have heard the screaming fight that had taken place just out in the corridor?

  He peered around at them, unhappy about being disturbed. An inky quill stained one hand. Nicholas could see that there was a little wooden office with a lamp on a narrow desk, and a brewing stove beneath it. ‘What do you want?’ the Conductor asked impatiently. ‘I’m logging my journey report.’

  ‘Did you not hear?’ asked Nicholas, filled with incredulity. ‘Some vile creature in a white shroud has attacked and kidnapped a passenger.’

  ‘Your English friend whose passage I arranged?’ The Conductor gave a small, helpless shrug. ‘She must have opened the coffin, despite all warnings to do no such thing.’

  ‘That fiend has her! We must do something.’

  ‘There is nothing to be done,’ said the Conductor. ‘And that fiend is a royal, sir, that carries a rare bloodline, as even your own royal family does.’

  ‘He wasn’t a victim of the war?’

  ‘No, that he was not. He succumbed to his affliction a long time ago. But he had to be removed before the army found him and broke open his vault in their search for treasures. We thought he would be safe in the company of an honest English lady. An erroneous belief, it turns out. There is nothing you can do to save her.’

  ‘But what is he?’

  ‘In life, a man who could only survive by dining on the flesh of his subjects. In death, a Biter, an unthinking ghoul that dies and is born again to feed once more on hot human flesh.’

  ‘There is no such thing.’

  ‘Is that so? And yet I think you saw it for yourself. Then I cannot help you.’ He began to close the door on them, but Isabella stopped him.

  ‘How can such a creature be defeated?’

  ‘It cannot.’

  ‘Please. I know you. I have seen you before.’

  ‘Indeed you have, young lady,’ the Conductor conceded. ‘And on the course of this journey, perhaps you will remember when and where. I daresay we shall speak of this again. Now, I think you should return to your compartment and concern yourself with your own welfare. It is time for the vicar’s wife to face her demons, and either she will prove herself or she will be taken. There is nothing you or I can do.’

  ‘But surely we can aid her in some way?’

  ‘There are people dying needlessly all over this great land. Would you help all of them too? You Westerners, how you love to interfere in matters you do not understand. Have you ever thought that perhaps the rest of the world does not welcome your intervention?’

  With that, he was gone.

  ‘Nicholas, we must go after her,’ said Isabella, grabbing him. ‘We can’t just leave her to her fate.’

  ‘He’s right, Isabella. What can we do?’ he asked. ‘This is not our land. We are meddlers here, nothing more.’ In truth he did not wish to fight something so ungodly. If it had come to take Miranda, she must have done something to anger it. ‘Let’s do as the Conductor says. Who knows what fate might befall us if we fail to follow his instructions? And how do we know that this is not all some nightmarish delusion?’

  Isabella had no choice but to obey. There was nothing she could do alone. Reluctantly, she stepped over the smears and blots of blood, following Nicholas back to the safety of their compartment.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE DECISION

  MIRANDA LOOKED BACK and saw that the Biter was having trouble seeing clearly. There seemed to be something wrong with its eyes—once they must have witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms, but now they could barely find the way ahead. A caul had formed on the corneas, hardened in sickness and death. It wanted its seal back, obviously. She had torn her way out of her brocade jacket and freed herself from its grasp, but how could she make her escape when there was nowhere to run to?

  And why had Nicholas not tried harder to save a compatriot? He and Isabella had headed in the opposite direction, and her husband was trapped inside the creature’s casket. The other passengers would not help her distract the creature. She was alone.

  The Biter appeared to be in no rush. It moved in an extraordinary fashion, as if in terrible pain, or fighting against a strong wind, its bones old and cracked. Every step was an effort, but it sucked at the bloody strands of peasant flesh in its teeth and gained strength. Perhaps it had been incarcerated for too long, and needed to eat more.

  It crossed Miranda’s mind that she might be safe if she returned the seal. But why should she? In times of war, the spoils belonged to the victor. She had reached the end of the carriage. She tried the door, but the lock was stiff and would not give. She turned to see the Biter coming closer. Suddenly it left the floor and sidled up the sides of the corridor, stretching its limbs across them like a pale spider. It seemed as if it could gain purchase on the walls and run along them more easily than dealing with the rocking floor.

  Then, as it neared her, it opened its mouth to reveal row upon row of its gleaming, bloody needle-teeth. It was still chewing on a piece of farmer, but it was ready to bite again.

  The train shunted sharply, dislodging it from its perch in the corridor. Miranda staggered back and fell hard. Rising to her feet, she punched at the door and now it gave, allowing her t
o leave the end of the carriage. She seemed to have become turned around, and could no longer tell what direction she was facing. The train was playing games with her, twisting back on itself, as non-orientable as a Mobius strip. More sure of herself when it came to diamonds and emeralds, she pressed hand to her breast and felt the gold chain with the royal seal coiled snugly inside her shirt.

  But the Biter followed. With renewed strength it scuttled along the ceiling above her head, defying gravity.

  At the next junction between the carriages all was a chaos of rushing wind, steam and smoke and fog. Miranda attempted to see through the mist of her own fear and keep moving. Be rational, she told herself. The creature is clearly not feeling in the peak of health. Sometimes when the carriage juddered, it nearly fell. She could keep ahead of it.

  The Biter lunged and seized her from behind. As it opened its stinking mouth, its tongue uncoiled, split down the middle and wrapped itself around Miranda’s neck.

  It started to drag her back inside, but Miranda held tight to the handle of the carriage housing the observation car. It was strong enough to take victims by surprise, but not much more than that, and she was surely the equal of a sickly dead royal. The thought that it was holding her by its tongue was disgusting enough.

  But then the Biter pressed its fingers into her throat.

  THOMAS WAS TRAPPED inside the coffin as securely as if he had been sealed in it after his own death. The great casket shifted above the racing rails as the train coasted a bend on raised track. He felt the floor drop again, and sensed he was inches from oblivion.

  He tried to shift his weight back and forth, to swing the casket onto a safe perch, but without the benefit of sight he could not tell if he was placing himself at greater risk. He would have to fight down his fears and wait for someone to release him.

  But the crawling darkness planted fresh horrors in his brain and he felt the walls close in over him. He kicked and hammered at the coffin lid, but now the box was being so violently buffeted that he found it impossible to keep up the pressure. If he stopped for a moment, he knew that his terror of the suffocating dark would overwhelm his senses, spiralling him into hysteria.

  The wind hit the wall of the train in a broadside. As the casket swung and slammed against the guard’s van, the wax cracked and a glimmer of light entered.

  With a scream of triumph he kicked out, and the hinged top half burst open. Thomas found himself hanging at a steep angle over the rushing tracks. He tried to sit up, but was buffeted by rushing air. Grabbing the edge of the doorway, he attempted to pull the coffin back toward the van, but the weight of the wood worked against him, and he fell further toward the rails.

  ‘Damn you, Miranda!’ he yelled, ‘this is all your doing!’ He saw now that he had made the mistake of marrying a greedy, vain, selfish social climber. And it had taken this monstrous journey to realise the error of his ways. Snatching at the chains ensnaring the coffin, he pulled upon them with all his strength.

  MIRANDA WAS LOSING consciousness. Black sparks danced before her eyes like cinders. Dimly remembering the seal, she pulled it from within her shirt and thrust one of its spiked ornamentations into the Biter’s bifurcated tongue. It gave a scream and she felt the sticky meat retract into its jaw.

  The hellish creature had the advantage of height and a dangerous mouth, but she had her wits. She made a dash for it, heading back to jump over the coupling. To reach her, the Biter had to straddle itself between the carriages, but its reach was long, and it had her again, stretching forward as fast as a darting cobra. It settled on her to feed, taking a tentative bite out of her left shoulder.

  Miranda shrieked and kicked out with the heel of her boot, catching the Biter’s rotted shin and knocking it off-balance. The hock of her arm seared as if it was being cauterised in a smithy’s fire. The ghoul rolled to its feet, shook itself down and slunk back to watch her, trying to understand why she showed so little fear.

  Miranda was a force to be reckoned with. From her earliest days, as one of six children at her family home in Leigh-on-Sea, she had been required to hold her own against five bullying brothers. She had married a man who would give her security, knowing that he would not be able to exert control over her. All her life she had waited to seize some grand opportunity and be tested on her own mettle, and now her moment had come.

  She would not surrender easily. The ghoul was eyeing her from its corner, like a whipped dog watching its master eat.

  With a grunt of pain, she tore the embroidered trim from the sleeve of her shirt and wrapped it around the bite as tightly as she could bear, praying that it was not infected. She transferred the precious seal to the pocket of her skirt.

  She had damned well earned the right to keep it. She would remove some of the precious jewels from their settings and sell them anywhere, to anyone. Then she would take the rest to London and auction it to the highest bidder. Even if she was only paid a fraction of its true worth, she would be free to start her life anew, away from her whining husband with his roving eyes, his wet little hands, his snide asides, his pathetically low aspirations. She was glad to be rid of him. How typical that she had been forced to undergo this ordeal alone. She had always known that Thomas would never be of any use in a crisis. He had always been afraid of his own shadow. He had always hidden behind his Saviour. How would he react if she told him she no longer believed in God, that her parents had only wanted her to marry him for status?

  It had taken the train to make her realise who she was. It had given her this chance. She offered silent thanks to the Arkangel.

  And then she slumped down on the floor and cried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE HALT

  SHE CRIED FOR her worthless waste of a marriage. She sat crying and bleeding, alone and helpless, pushed up against the wall of the car. The Biter was creeping closer and closer, like a jackal scenting death. It had unfurled itself beside her and was opening its jaws an inch at a time, preparing to attack once more. It bit down tentatively—almost tenderly—on her shoulder again, in exactly the same place as before.

  This time she was ready for it. Throwing up her arms, she fought to dig its jaws apart. The needle-teeth pierced the heels of her palms but she would not allow them to close over each other, any more than she would permit herself to release the seal and return it.

  Beneath them, the wheels hit a set of points and the carriage sharply shook. The Biter fought to steady itself, but its feet started slipping. In another moment it would be forced to release her.

  The pain in her shoulder prevented Miranda from thinking clearly, but she knew she could not stay on the train for another second. Knowing that she was no longer strong enough to keep the creature at bay, her only hope was to reach up and pull the brass chain of the communication cord above her head.

  The Biter pushed down as Miranda shoved herself from the wall. Grabbing for the chain, she yanked hard.

  The Arkangel’s whistle shrieked. Its wheels locked as if the engine had suffered a heart attack and seized up. It began to slide to a halt. The centre of gravity shifted. Bags fell from luggage racks, and passengers on their feet in the other carriages were pitched forward. Caught off-balance on its raw, spindly legs, the Biter lost the last of its grip on Miranda and slithered away along the corridor.

  AT THE OTHER end of the train, the sudden stop swung the coffin violently back through the open door of the guard’s van. Unfortunately, as it did so the top lid caught the wall and slammed shut once more, trapping Thomas back inside. He screamed himself hoarse, but there was no-one to hear him in the chaos of the sudden halt.

  IT WAS THE Conductor who found Miranda and helped her to her feet. He offered no other aid or condolence, but clicked open a carriage door and allowed it to swing wide, revealing the stars and treetops. An escape route.

  The fresh night air from the open door helped bring her to her senses. She checked her arm, and found it had stopped bleeding, but it felt infected. Leaning out, she saw a
row of glowing oil lamps in the distance. The Arkangel had drawn to a stop just before the next station, Schlopelo, at the start of the platform. Without thinking twice, she tumbled from the carriage and hobbled across the tracks.

  The station looked forlorn and derelict. There were no passengers waiting to board here. She ran up onto the slope to the deserted concourse. Whispy trails of mist hung beneath the station canopy like spiderwebs. Passing beyond the circles of dim light cast by the hanging lamps, she trod carefully in the gloom and called, ‘Is anybody there?’

  There had to be someone. Why else would the lamps be lit? She glanced back and saw the great train idling, panting steam, catching its breath, as if waiting for her to decide what to do. It felt as if the Arkangel and its stations were colluding against her, deliberately unleashing this disgusting creature upon her to draw out her basest instincts.

  The thought was absurd, but surely no more impossible than the pale reeking monster that had stalked her. The Conductor would probably be checking the compartments now to find out why the cord had been pulled. Thomas was useless, gone, caring for nothing but himself. She would find a way out of her predicament unaided. Some cold part of her heart had always expected that she would be required to do so.

  Miranda peered into the shadows and saw what appeared to be stacks of luggage piled against the walls, so somebody must have been here. On closer examination she saw that the bags were covered in dust and cobwebs. At least there was a waiting room, even if it looked as if it had not been used in fifty years. She would sleep there if she had to, and set off for the nearest town in the morning.

  She searched back along the platform, hearing a shuffling behind the rusted equipment that lay stacked against the station walls. Rats were watching her, but there was no sign of the ghoul. Perhaps it was unable to entirely leave the train. Who could begin to understand the arcane rules under which it survived?