Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Never—I’d rather...’

  ‘What? Kill yourself?’ The Red Countess’s girlish laughter turned into the wheezing cackle of an old woman. ‘And how will you do that, exactly?’

  ‘Damn you.’ Fighting his way out of the suite, Thomas staggered into the corridor.

  The Red Countess rose and followed. She seemed to move without walking. As she came for him, she stopped before a compartment that held a sleeping farmhand and reached in, sucking the youth and vitality from him for the fun of it, strengthening herself. The absorption of such innocence restored her so that she became more beautiful with each passing second. Youth and sensuality was returned. She seemed to glow within the gloom of the corridor, lighting it with her presence.

  Thomas had reached a deserted section in the first of the second class carriages. Leaning against the wall he stopped to look back, but his eternal suitor was suddenly nowhere in sight.

  He was disgusted with himself. He had felt ashamed after visiting the whores of Rotterdam on an ecumenical trip, but this was far worse. Tearing off his shirt, he went to a window and pushed it down, allowing the cleansing rain to splash in on his chest. He watched the storm-lashed forest hurtling by. The train was stifling, unholy, claustrophobic. Every passenger had their own grotesque tale of failure and demise to tell, and each one seemed to lead to another ghastly cascade of events. He leaned out of the carriage to feel the raindrops on his face.

  As he raised his eyes, he sensed the Red Countess hovering overhead, on the roof of the carriage, her scarlet silks billowing. She roared down toward him, an avenging scarlet siren. She was outside the train, looking in at him, not subject to the laws of gravity.

  ‘I am not finished with you yet,’ she yelled. ‘You are not permitted to decide the outcome of your test.’

  ‘This is witchcraft!’ he screamed. ‘How did I ever stand a chance against you?’

  ‘You men of the cloth have such vanity,’ she hissed in his ear. Reaching in, she seized him by his shoulders and pulled him upwards, clean out of the carriage and up onto the rain-slick roof.

  ‘Get away from me, you godless whore!’

  ‘Oh, it’s always God when it suits you, isn’t it? I’ll show you what I really am.’

  As the storm-wind hammered at them and the branches of trees slashed past, her wizened face began to blacken and rot away, strips of her flesh flying off into the night, melting to putrescence until her teeth and her skull shone in the darkness like ivory.

  She came at him in all her wild anger, thrusting her rotting hands around his throat, but Thomas was determined not to go down without a fight. His foot found purchase on the train’s steel trim and he fought himself upright as she bore down on him, slicing at his face, knocking him back.

  He kicked out at her. He had never hurt a woman physically, but the Countess had not been a woman for a very long time. He crawled along the juddering roof as she clawed her way toward him, her nails shrieking on the metal.

  The Red Countess stalked Thomas. Even in her half-flayed form, she remained a regal spectre. She stood tall and magnificent, her red silks flashing about her in the maelstrom of rain and steam.

  Coiling, she sprung upon her victim.

  As the Arkangel raced downhill toward its final destination, the pair fought on the roof of the rushing train, the Red Countess trying to force Thomas over the edge. The rocky slopes flashed by in scalding steam-filled blasts.

  Thomas grabbed at her face only to find that the remains came away in his hands like a fleshy dish-cloth, oozing between his fingers, leaving behind a rotten shell.

  The Red Countess elegantly stepped out of her silks and her skin as though disrobing before a lover, and became a ragged skeleton, leaving her mortal flesh behind. Her bony arm extended to seize Thomas by the throat. Her leathery tongue thrashed lasciviously about in her skull—reaching forward, she thrust it into Thomas’s mouth, to remind him of his eternal nightly duty.

  Just let me die, anything other than this, thought Thomas. The Red Countess had her eyes closed in ecstasy.

  She had not seen that the train was approaching a tunnel.

  She embraced her new lover, crushing the life from him, and he held her tight to prevent her from seeing. Wait, he told himself, wait.

  At the last possible moment, Thomas shoved her away as the wall of the tunnel approached.

  She hit the brick surround and was smashed to smithereens like tinder sticks thrown at a wall, to be dispatched beneath the thundering wheels of the Arkangel like so much ghostly offal. Only the train could take her life again.

  Exhausted, Thomas dropped hard to the roof and slid, lowering himself back through the window, crashing onto the floor of the carriage. A tumbling card—the Queen of Spades—settled on him, all that remained of the Red Countess.

  He felt the floor beneath his body rocking him back and forth. In retrospect, he supposed, the test had been too easy.

  After a few minutes, he climbed to his feet and made his way back to try and find Isabella. He found her heading towards him along the corridor.

  ‘I won!’ he cried excitedly, not entirely believing it himself. ‘I thought I had failed but I defeated her!’

  Isabella ran to him and held him tight, grateful to see that he had made it through the ordeal alive. And yet he looked wrong somehow.

  ‘Are you well?’ she asked, pulling away to study his face, trying to avoid the reek that emanated from him.

  Thomas glared back, shaking his soaked head. ‘I am well, but that woman... like all of her kind,’ he spat. ‘How they deceive us.’

  ‘Thomas, Nicholas is back on board and must undergo an ordeal set by the train. We are approaching the last stop. There must be something we can do. If only we could halt the engine.’

  He stared strangely at her. There was a feral glint in his eye. ‘Why should I trust you? Miranda dead, then Nicholas disappears. How do I know you’re not lying? And as for that bitch...’

  ‘Thomas, you know she was sent to test you.’

  He ignored her. ‘Bitches. How I hate them. I’ve always hated them. They’re all the same. It’s always the women. Behind every despot, every tyrant, every politician, every embezzler, every censor, there’s a woman pushing and pushing and pushing. And you. It all began with you. This is all your fault.’

  ‘No, I had to leave the town, Nicholas said he could take me away—’

  To her horror, she could see his true character. The woman hater. The seducer. The cheat. And if I can see it, so can the Arkangel...

  When he came at her she thought she would be ready to fight him off, but he was stronger than she imagined. Gripping her tightly by the shoulder, Thomas’s free hand closed around her throat.

  Her fingernails caught his lip and tore it clean off his jaw, like ancient meat. Before her horrified eyes, the flesh rippled with putrefaction and fell away from his face, riddled with fat white maggots. His nose fell off. One of his eyes dropped onto his bony cheek. He did not seem to understand what was happening. His ears slid down his head. His skull gleamed through rank flesh like a caramel apple. Still he would not let go.

  Screaming, she tried to push herself free of his arms, but they stayed locked around her, even though they no longer seemed to be attached to his body. Thomas’s remaining eye rolled in and he dropped, crumbling into stinking carrion.

  Isabella found herself holding the only part of him that had remained intact—his beating, bloody heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE CAST

  SHANE CARTER TURNED the card over in his pocket. The Queen of Spades. A good luck charm for the Hammer meeting.

  The rain battered the leadlight windows of Bray’s oak-panelled dining hall. He heard creaking trees, the pop and hiss of radiators, someone laughing softly in the hall. He could smell luncheon cooking, the comforting aroma of puddings and pies.

  He’d thought it would feel like being summoned to court, but he had been the first to arrive, and instead it felt
as if he had called them. If he had been English, he would have been embarrassed about that, but he had an excuse; he was a foreign interloper. Last night after finishing his pages he had tried watching English ‘telly.’ He had found himself faced with two channels that largely consisted of windmills, puppets and pottery wheels, interspersed with elderly men smoking pipes while they discussed Harold Macmillan in Old Etonian accents. It was a world apart, and made very little sense to outsiders.

  Floral teacups had been laid out for half a dozen, chairs assigned, as if this was a daily ritual. There were footsteps in the corridor.

  First through the door was Michael—impossible to think of him now as Mr Carreras—shadowed by Emma, who was looking more radiant with each passing day. A conceited part of him thought that her wellbeing might have something to do with his own sexual prowess.

  Then there were two familiar faces, though for once not painted with light upon a giant screen; Thorley Walters, taller than expected, rotund and merry-faced, Santa in autumn. And Frances Matthews, slender, debonair, in a silky grey suit and cufflinks, every bit the monochrome hero, friendly and sensible.

  Freddie Francis had come along, relaxed, chatty, hands in pockets. Technically speaking, he was still working with Amicus, having scored a hit for them with Dr Terror, but there seemed to be no bad blood between the two studios. Shane had heard that he still preferred the atmosphere at Hammer. Although the Amicus head, Milton Subotsky, shared the same cinematic ideals of mood and atmosphere that fascinated Francis, Subotsky was famously antagonistic and hard to work with. Amicus was a production house, not a studio, although it poached stars from Hammer and liked to think of itself as equal. But everyone knew that Amicus was the pretender, making lofty artistic promises before always returning to the bottom line of the budget sheet.

  Shane rose and shook hands with everyone, feeling increasingly nervous as the group was joined by two more figures who arrived together, an ill-matched duo lost in quiet conversation. Peter Cushing was in his fifties, gaunt and small-boned, but the litheness of his movements suggested surprising youth and fitness. Christopher Lee seemed even taller and grander than he had expected. It was rumoured that Lee was the son of an Italian Countess, that he had aristocratic passions that included fencing and languages, but on screen he often seemed cold and aloof. Did he ever smile with his eyes?

  Perhaps that was the secret of his friendship with Cushing. Everybody loved Peter; his warmth and authority lifted the dullest scripts. It made Shane wonder how successful Hammer would have been without the pair of them.

  Christopher Lee gravely shook his hand. Peter Cushing smiled at him with great, watery blue eyes. He felt embarrassed by their deference, and nervously fingered the script pages on the table. Emma had sat with him typing until 2:00am, but the last section was still unfinished.

  ‘Have some tea,’ said Carreras. ‘It’s single estate, high-grown Ceylon. Thought we might break out the good stuff for a change.’

  Tea was poured. Cake appeared. Everyone relaxed into their chairs. He realized that Carreras was waiting for him to begin. Shane cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m aware that Mr Cushing told the press he always wanted to make a film set on a train. And when—Michael—suggested I should write something with the same location, it chimed with my own ideas to develop such a project. I’ve always felt there was a theme at work in the Dracula films, the eternal battle to keep the Devil held at bay. I’m proposing we explore that idea in more detail. I see the train as a great repository of fates and fables, like Chinese boxes. That sounds kind of grand, I know. Let me see if I can simplify it.’

  His confidence grew as he outlined the script. The assembly remained silent, only interrupting to concur or add a comment. He couldn’t imagine such a meeting happening like this in Hollywood. The executives would have been making power plays by now, cutting each other’s hearts out.

  Lee steepled his long fingers, listening gravely and intently. When Cushing wanted to speak he merely sat forward slightly, and everyone turned to him. ‘I wondered—have you any preference about the roles you’d like us to play?’ He elegantly rolled his Rs. His language was clearer than glass, so that he never needed to raise his voice.

  ‘Well, I hadn’t really—’

  ‘Only I rather think I’m a little long in the tooth to play your vicar, although I’m sure Christopher could manage the deserter, Nicholas. Would I not be better suited to play the Brigadier?’

  ‘I daresay he has me earmarked for the Conductor,’ said Lee, ‘an agent of evil.’ He gave a deep mirthless laugh. Everyone else laughed, just in case they were turned to stone.

  ‘Certainly that was what I had in mind,’ said Shane.

  ‘Veronica Carlson would be good for Isabella,’ said Freddie Francis. ‘And Barbara Shelley for Miranda?’

  Was this really how films got made in this country? It seemed an extraordinary way to hold a script session. They were already talking about casting without having read a word he’d written. Surely there was a point where the politeness ended?

  ‘It occurs to me that you could have some doubling up,’ said Carreras. ‘Roy Ashton’s brilliant at changing people’s appearances, and it might stretch the team a bit to have them playing more than one role.’

  ‘Interesting metaphysical idea,’ said Francis, ‘as if the tests were being played over and over with the same protagonists.’

  ‘Does that mean we get paid twice over?’ asked Thorley Walters. Everybody laughed. No.

  ‘WELL, I THOUGHT that went rather well,’ said Emma, hanging back after the others had left the lounge.

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Shane. ‘I’m pouring sweat. My hands were shaking.’

  ‘I don’t know why. They seemed to think your ideas were very sound. We have some lovely young writers in here sometimes, very earnest, utterly clueless. Michael listens to all of them. He still wants the finished script tomorrow morning, you know. They’re all heading off before lunchtime.’

  ‘Then I have to write another role for Peter Cushing,’ said Shane. ‘This is too great an opportunity to miss. Are you free later?’

  ‘I’m typing up scripts until around seven. More rewrites on The Mummy’s Shroud, not that I imagine they’ll save it.I could meet you back at the pub.’

  ‘It’s a deal. It’s cold in my room, though, and I keep finding dead beetles around the bed.’

  ‘It’s the time of year. Perhaps we could set up in the snug and work there.’

  ‘Emma...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If this doesn’t fly, if they turn it down, I’ll have no reason to stay. I don’t know where that leaves us.’

  She smiled back at him. ‘Look, there’s a window of opportunity. We have a cast. We need a script. If it doesn’t work out, don’t worry. It just means that I’ll never see you again.’

  He watched her swing her handbag onto her shoulder and head for the door. She didn’t seem to have a care on the world. This was her home. She fitted in perfectly, like Isabella in her family’s town. If he failed to deliver, or was turned down, she’d no doubt express disappointment or even regret, but he knew she wouldn’t wait around for him. Writers were ten a penny. Despite the warm welcome he had been given, he felt sure that someone else could be brought here on Monday to deliver another script, and the same process would begin all over again. The smiles. The tea. The kindly persuasion. The endless politeness.

  There were no more chances left for him. LA was a bust. He had burned his bridges there, and there was no other work on the horizon.

  It was tomorrow or nothing.

  He had an advantage. He was a storyteller. He could do that anywhere, write about pretty much anything if he had the research to hand, and if he gave this his best shot, who knew what the future might hold? Because the next piece of work was always the one that held the key to his fate. And the British seemed more honest. In LA he’d felt more like the victim in one of his own horror films, bled dry by sinist
er creatures who were only after his life force.

  He returned to the inn and set to work once more.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE SPECIMEN

  ISABELLA LOOKED DOWN again, but now there was no beating heart in her hands.

  Has she been hallucinating? She thought back, trying to understand what was real and what was false, sifting the events out from each other.

  When Miranda had been tested, Thomas had been locked in the coffin. She had seen Nicholas face his demons, but those had turned out to be real. The soldiers who arrested him were still sitting further along the carriage. All of them had seen the Red Countess board the train, and the dying victims had been played by damned passengers. The Arkangel was enlisting its performers as they were needed from the stations through which it passed. All of them were puppets commanded to appear, being called into service to allow the Devil his day. That was why the Conductor had performed a rigorous selection process at each of the stops.

  It meant that the dice were loaded against any of the living surviving their tests.

  ‘If Nicholas fails, I will be the only one left alive,’ she said aloud as the full horror of the thought hit her. The only one left on a train filled with the soulless dead.

  Exhausted and fearful, she entered the nearest compartment and dropped heavily into a seat, to find that she was not alone. Sitting opposite her was an elderly man in cream-coloured tropical clothes. His myopic, watery blue eyes peered out from a kindly face at her, eager to engage. She had seen him boarding the train at Snerinska. Above him on the luggage rack were a set of leather suitcases, a butterfly net and a steel box with straps.

  He looked harmless enough, but she knew better now than to trust anyone.

  ‘Dear me,’ said the old gentleman, ‘are you quite all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry—it’s just, well, it has been an eventful journey.’ She made an attempt to tidy her hair while covertly studying him. He had looked like any other passenger when he boarded, but then so had the murderous Professor Io. Had he been a part of her test? Real or imagined? Dead or alive? How could you tell?