Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Isabella—the creature—’

  ‘Calm yourself. There is nothing to be done.’

  ‘My wife—I saw it all, like some terrible feverish nightmare! I fear I have gone quite mad—the minions of the Devil, stalking the earth, and only a servant of God is privileged to see them!’

  ‘No, I saw the creature too. Stay here,’ she told him. ‘Get back your breath. I must find Nicholas.’ She could not bear to tell him what had happened.

  ‘I need to...’ He reached out to her in thanks.

  ‘No time now. You must rest and restore your strength. Please, I’ll come back shortly. I must go.’

  She ran back along the corridor, to where she had last seen Nicholas. She found him slumped in a compartment, holding his head.

  ‘You saw what was happening to Miranda,’ said Isabella. ‘Why could you not save her? Why could neither of us—’

  Nicholas shook his head in puzzlement. ‘I saw it and yet I didn’t, not truly. Did you?’

  ‘Yes, but it was as if it was somehow happening in a dream—and yet it was all so clear to me. And the other passengers, they all appeared to be in the same state. What is happening to us, Nicholas? The Conductor—he holds the key to this.’ Isabella grabbed his hand and pulled him from his seat.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nicholas demanded to know, even as he allowed himself to be pulled along by her.

  ‘The Arkangel is not just a train.’ She peered in at the compartments as they passed. Passengers stared into space or dozed, oblivious to the horrific events that had unfolded outside. ‘Look at them all, you’d think they were dead. They are not of this earthly existence.’ She pointed ahead. ‘Don’t you feel it? We are different to them. We live and breathe, and feel. Look there. I see him at the end of the carriage.’

  The lights flickered as the Arkangel shook over badly joined rails. Isabella and Nicholas were thrown against the corridor wall, but the Conductor never lost his balance. His straight back was turned to them, his pale hands knotted behind him. He seemed utterly unperturbed by the events of the last few minutes. A terrible thought occurred to her. Perhaps what was taking place now happened on every trip, over and over, and once started, it could not be stopped.

  ‘We have to speak further with you,’ Isabella demanded. ‘You must tell us what is occurring.’

  ‘You are just passengers on your journey, as others have been before you, and others will be after.’ The Conductor turned and gave a graveyard stare.

  ‘Ask him specific questions or all you will get is absurd riddles,’ Nicholas warned.

  ‘We want to know about the train,’ said Isabella. ‘What is the Arkangel?’

  ‘You have not yet earned the right to that knowledge,’ said the Conductor.

  ‘You make it sound like some kind of a game. Well, what if we don’t want to play? We can just get off at the next station.’

  ‘If you do, the game is over and you are lost.’

  ‘What do you mean we’re lost?’

  ‘By boarding the Arkangel you entered into a contract. If you leave before you are tested, you forfeit your soul. If you fail your test, you are damned for all eternity.’

  ‘Oh this is madness!’ cried Nicholas. ‘This is the twentieth century, man. Your peasant beliefs hold no more credence. The war has brought about the end of superstition. Men are killed by the machines they have built to destroy one another, not some—’

  ‘What would happen if we found a way to win?’ asked Isabella.

  ‘Well, that would change everything.’ The Conductor made it sound as if the idea was unthinkable.

  ‘You mean that nobody has ever won.’

  ‘Of course not. How could they?’

  ‘We’re wasting our time with him,’ Nicholas told her. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘We’ll simply get off,’ he said, watching the dark countryside flashing past the window.

  ‘How would that be possible?’ Isabella dropped into the nearest seat, overwhelmed. ‘You heard his terms. If we alight the train before its final destination, we forfeit our souls. We will be damned for all eternity.’

  ‘Only if you believe in such claptrap.’

  ‘I do, Nicholas. It is how I was raised.’

  ‘And for those who have no faith? What happens to them?’

  ‘Everyone has faith of one kind or another.’

  ‘In your small world, perhaps. Not in mine. Not with what I’ve seen of man’s ways. In London a man may be damned and have a whale of a time. And you believe all this credulous claptrap.’

  ‘Tonight you saw a woman pursued by a supernatural being and torn to pieces beneath this train,’ she cried. ‘What more would it take to convince you?’

  But even as she spoke, she knew the answer. If Nicholas was to be tested, it would certainly make a believer of him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE MAJOR

  BEHOLD THE Arkangel.

  A diabolical machine, thundering through the turbulent night, pistons pumping, steam building pressure, lights a-flicker. The flashing squares capture so many separate tableaux, their silhouetted inhabitants framed and frozen, each telling its own story, of loves and betrayals, lingering hatreds, hard lives and violent deaths. For a moment the carriages are swallowed by dark trees, then they appear again, rocking and racing through the war-torn world.

  The train was moving fast once more on its pre-ordained journey. Nicholas continued to watch from the window, annoyed that Isabella should believe he was no longer the master of his own fate.

  ‘Miranda failed,’ said Isabella miserably. ‘Thomas is in the guard’s van. He nearly died too.’ Nicholas tried to comfort her but was unable to do anything useful. ‘There are just two more stations before we reach the terminus. Which one of us must confront the Devil now? Who will be next?’

  Nicholas had had enough. Jumping to his feet, he backed out of the compartment into the corridor. He needed air and rationality.

  ‘This is the most appalling superstitious nonsense,’ he told her. ‘Nobody is going to be ‘next’!

  Suddenly two British soldiers sprang as if from nowhere, knocked him over the head with their pistol butts and dragged him away.

  Isabella screamed. The Conductor appeared in the doorway, blocking her exit.‘You cannot help him,’ he said. ‘You of all people should know that he must do this alone.’ He closed her compartment door, and she found herself unable to open it. She hammered on the window, but the inside blind dropped down as if it possessed a will of its own, as if the train itself was once more choosing to act against her.

  NICHOLAS SLOWLY CAME round. The train was moving through the night, swaying softly in a dark lullaby. Everything seemed calm and orderly once more. The back of his head hurt. The horror of Miranda’s death... had that really just been a fever dream? If so, where had she gone?

  He looked about. Opposite him slumped a portly, balding man with a fat, weak chin and a clipped moustache, sleeping with his mouth open.

  Nicholas rubbed his sore head. The man was wearing the drab olive uniform of a British army officer. He checked his epaulette; the fellow was wearing crowns. A Major.

  Something was wrong. He felt constrained. The soldiers who had jumped him had chained his left hand to the door handle. Regulation army handcuffs, cheaply finished but strong and unbreakable. The officer opposite grunted, shifted and snored. The carriage rocked. He awoke with a start and looked about.

  ‘What the deuce—oh, it’s you.’ The Major’s blue eyes flared at him for a moment, then lost interest.

  ‘Hey,’ said Nicholas, ‘Why am I like this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the Major. ‘What did you do with your uniform?’

  ‘What uniform? What happened?’ Nicholas rattled the handcuff.

  ‘The war may be over for you, Lieutenant, but you’ll address me as Major Carstairs, damn you.’ He tapped Nicholas’ left wrist with his swagger stick, a gesture intended to remind hi
m why he was handcuffed to the handle of the door. ‘You won’t get away this time. We usually shoot men like you. Thought you’d slip back home in civvy clothes, and instead you managed to get the whole town chasing after you. Not too bright, was it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘It may surprise you to learn that you’re still in the British army,’ said Carstairs. ‘You don’t get away from us that easily.’

  Tethered to the door, Nicholas fell back in his seat, dumbfounded.

  IN THE NEXT compartment, Isabella pulled at the lock, but it remained stuck fast. Then, entirely by itself, it slid slowly open, an invitation from the Arkangel.

  As much in confusion as relief, she ran out into the corridor and checked the next compartment. She slid back the door. ‘Nicholas, are you all right? What on earth has happened—’

  The Major tipped at his forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Mamselle, there’s no talking to the prisoner.’

  ‘Isabella, he’s mistaken me for someone else.’

  ‘Ah,’ it dawned on the Major, ‘you didn’t tell her.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Your fancy man is a deserter, young lady.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Apparently the British Army wasn’t to his liking, Ma’am. He left just as things were getting interesting. By a stroke of luck some of us appear to have found the same train home.’

  Behind Isabella, two privates appeared. The Major waved his stick at them. ‘Get this young lady back to her compartment.’

  Nicholas gave Isabella an imploring look as she was bundled away protesting, one soldier holding either arm. ‘No!’ she called, ‘Nicholas! This is your test! Be careful!’ She was pushed into an empty compartment further along the carriage.

  ‘You won’t be seeing your boyfriend again, love,’ said one of the two soldiers, smirking at her. ‘If you get lonely, just knock on the wall and we’ll come and see you all right.’

  They closed the door, laughing, and locked it. She didn’t understand; all the doors seemed to work differently at different times. The Arkangel could turn upon itself like a funfair maze. She had no choice but to leave Nicholas to his fate.

  IN HIS SEAT opposite the Major, Nicholas strained at his handcuffs.

  ‘You know, you might have made Captain if you hadn’t made such absurd accusations against our Brigadier,’ said Major Carstairs. ‘You should plead insanity at the trial.’

  Nicholas barely found the voice to speak. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t remember your own reasons for desertion?’

  ‘No. Tell me.’

  ‘You accused your commanding officer of being a lunatic. Said you saw him cut a private’s throat with a straight razor. But you didn’t. You turned coward under fire and imagined it. It was your own fear of dying turning on you. It wasn’t because we had a madman in our midst. We’re the army, nobody’s mad here.’

  Nicholas tired to think. The Major’s story seemed not entirely true, nor yet completely false. His head throbbed. He struggled to understand what was happening. ‘I don’t remember... only pieces.’

  The Major leaned forward, speaking confidentially. ‘Look, we’ve all seen the most frightful tragedies at the front that appear barely possible when you look back on them. It’s been a tough war on all of us, and it’s far from over yet. I must say, I had high hopes for you. You were well-liked by your men. But I’ll see you get a fair hearing.’

  There was a rap at the door. A senior officer stuck his head into the compartment. Blue-chinned and long of face, his small dark eyes were set under a heavy forehead. ‘Ah, Carstairs. We’ve found some brandy. We’re in the forward car. Care to join us?’

  ‘Oh, jolly good, Brigadier,’ said the Major. ‘I’ll be along presently.’

  Nicholas stared at the Brigadier as a bloody image flashed into his head. He saw the officer hunched and armed at the base of a flooded trench, cutting a young soldier’s throat with an army-issue razor.

  ‘Good Lord, that’s him!’ he said, ‘he’s insane.’

  ‘He’s not insane, he’s a British officer. Now look here, lad, you must try to get control of yourself.’

  ‘I saw him a moment ago with a razor in his hand. Drinking the blood of his own men.’

  ‘No,’ said the Major patiently. ‘You saw him in the doorway here.’

  ‘I mean in my mind’s eye. I remember now. We were in the Piccadilly trench.’ The unit had named all of the earthen passageways after London streets, so that new recruits could find their way about. Trouble was, half of them were from the country and didn’t know Oxford Street from a hole in the ground. Everyone got lost from time to time. And on one of those occasions, Nicholas had blundered upon a scene that he had tried very hard to erase from his mind. An officer taking the life of one of his own men. But now he was remembering more with each passing moment.

  ‘You know where you went wrong?’ said the Major. ‘Your mistake was to panic. The only crime in the British Army is failure to obey.’

  Nicholas had some vague recollection that he was to be tested, and tried to think fast. His head was full of an obscuring mist. He needed to adapt to what he knew.

  ‘Could I have a cigarette?’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve, asking for favours. All right, just this once. I’ll see what I can do.’

  The Major heaved himself up and left the compartment, glad of a chance to stretch his legs. Nicholas studied the handcuff attaching him to the door. He gave it a few experimental kicks with his boot. It was too strong to break, and there was no way of removing it from the handle.

  What the hell have I got myself into? he thought, and then; Perhaps this is the life that might have been, had I stayed in the war and not fled back to England. How I behave will determine if I keep my soul or lose it.

  If she hadn’t boarded the Arkangel, Miranda might have spent decades as a vicar’s wife in Henley-Upon-Thames or wherever Thomas had agreed to take the diocese, running sewing circles and complaining bitterly about her lot in life. Instead she had experienced another version of her destiny, one in which she fought back from her husband and paid the price for her greed. He thought of the track ahead diverging in a hundred different directions, like all the paths of life. The Arkangel had switched him onto a different track in order to test his mettle.

  I must not let my most base flaws destroy me, thought Nicholas. The train is searching out my weaknesses. It must not find them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BRIGADIER

  MAJOR CARSTAIRS PASSED what he thought was the Brigadier’s compartment, but oddly, the blind was down.

  He tried to peer around the edge of the blind. The Brigadier’s bloodshot eye suddenly appeared in the gap, making him jump. He returned the Major’s gaze, warning him away. Carstairs stepped back, startled, and bumped into a young private. ‘Robertson,’ he snapped, ‘what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Robertson apologised. ‘Looking for the Brigadier. Been summoned.’

  The Major pointed to the compartment door. ‘Well he’s in there, but I don’t think he wants to be—’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Just then the Brigadier yanked his compartment door open a few inches. ‘I’ll take care of this, Major,’ he said, dragging Robertson inside and slamming the door shut in the Major’s face. The blind on the window shot up for a moment and was hastily pulled back down.

  Major Carstairs attempted to peer in under the blind. He moved his face close to the glass. Suddenly, there was a gasp and a dreadful, familiar gurgle. A single spurt of scarlet spattered the blind.

  ‘Everything all right in there?’ called the Major.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ said the Brigadier. A violent kick. More gurgling and thuds. Then silence.

  ‘Oh, well then—right-ho.’ The Major walked away, confused.

  He returned to his compartment and handed Nicholas one of
his own cigarettes. They were of a better quality than the straw-filled coffin nails he filched from privates, but he decided to spare one. He seated himself opposite his prisoner. ‘The oddest thing,’ he began, then shook his head, glancing back into the corridor, rattled.

  ‘What is it?’ Nicholas asked. ‘What did you see?’

  The Major frowned. ‘Nothing. I’m tired. That’s what comes of listening to your infernal nonsense.’

  ‘I once met an officer on his third tour of duty who told me he had begun to enjoy the taste of his own men’s blood,’ Nicholas said. ‘It was the only way he could survive the madness.’

  ‘I thought I saw blood,’ said the Major thoughtfully, continuing to look outside.

  ‘I knew it.’ Nicholas was elated. ‘I’m right.’

  The Major reached a decision. ‘No. It’s you. You have to be kept away from the others.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You’re quarantined. We can’t have you infecting any more impressionable lads with these paranoid delusions. What if they all started thinking like you? Where would the British Army be if people started believing their leaders were mad?’

  ‘But others could be in danger.’

  The Major’s nerves were jangled. It had been a hellish tour of duty, ending in a rout. He had tramped more European streets than a Latvian whore. ‘Let it go, old chap. For my sake. We’re all exhausted.’

  Nicholas slumped back in the seat, watching the Major. Survive the test, he thought. You have to think this through yourself. You need a plan. You need—

  ‘I need the toilet.’

  The Major sighed. He would get no rest on this journey. ‘I can see you’re going to be a nuisance all night. Come along.’ Digging about in his fatigues, he produced a key and unlocked the handcuff.