Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘I know our final destination,’ she told Nicholas. ‘There was never any question about it. We’re going into the mouth of Hell itself.’

  Nicholas set his jaw. ‘We’re not going to Hell. We’re going to London. We need something to fight them off with. The soldiers. They may have died but they were never meant to be on board. You heard what the Conductor said.’ The nearest compartment housed several sleeping infantrymen. On the luggage rack above them were their officers’ rifle-cases. He swung inside and pulled two down before they had a chance to wake up. ‘Do you know how to use a gun?’

  ‘If the target is a rabbit.’

  ‘Fine. Think of them as big rabbits.’

  Nicholas clapped his hands. ‘Wake up, men, we are under attack.’

  The soldiers snapped to alertness. Before they could question why one of their old compatriots had taken their guns, Nicholas pulled them to their feet and showed them the advancing horde. ‘These godless creatures intend a hellish death for us. Will you help me fight them?’

  ‘You have my gun,’ one of the soldiers pointed out.

  ‘Surely there are more?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said another.

  ‘Then break them out.’

  ‘Who are we fighting?’

  ‘The undead. If it helps, think of them as Germans.’

  The soldiers set to work without any further questions, tearing the lids from the crates in the luggage rack and pulling out rifles. The boredom and confusion of their unwarranted journey had now yielded a purpose close to any soldier’s heart: the possibility of committing acts of violence.

  Armed and ready, they advanced upon the undead passengers. Then they loaded, aimed and fired.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE PLAN

  THE TRAIN RACED on through the darkness, gathering speed, its great wheels heating on the rails, sparks flying, setting fire to the forest beside the tracks. At the treeline, Isabella could see the bonfires of Hades, fast approaching. From inside the train came flashes of light as the soldiers warded off the travelling dead.

  The Conductor turned to his acolytes. The soulless were a trial; they rarely concentrated on anything for more than a minute or two, and forgot what you told them even more quickly. ‘Remember,’ he shouted to the ranks of peasants, ‘there is a living soul on board the train. Keep her occupied. Let her try to hold out until we reach our final destination. You can overwhelm her allies. Go after them now and make her lose heart when she sees she is standing alone. Either way, she must lose.’

  Among the resurrected passengers, Thomas and Miranda had joined the newly undeceased. At this early stage, they yet retained some small remnant of their former humanity, and looked about themselves in puzzlement, trying to understand what had happened.

  ‘This is not fair,’ Miranda said, bristling with indignation. Her wounds were truly terrible to behold. In time she would heal and bear a passing resemblance to her living self. It was the smallest recompense for being doomed to travel on board the Arkangel for all eternity. ‘I had high hopes for my life, and now it has been cut short.’

  ‘If you think life’s not fair, wait till you’ve tried living death for a while,’ said the Conductor.

  ‘Thomas,’ Miranda snapped at her shuffling husband. ‘Do something. Don’t just stand there.’ She studied him for the first time. ‘You look dreadful.’

  Thomas caught sight of himself in the window, a blackened bubo-riddled walking corpse. He looked at Miranda, who was missing most of her face. ‘Have you seen yourself? You’re not exactly the radiant bride I married.’ he scoffed. ‘Actually, you weren’t even radiant when I married you. I’m not following his instructions.’ He pointed over at the Conductor. ‘He’s got plenty of slaves to do his dirty work. Come on.’ He grabbed her hand.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘To the restaurant car. We may be dead but we’re still English. I’d like a cup of tea. And some decent biscuits.’

  NICHOLAS AND ISABELLA stood at the head of the soldiers, who were braced across the corridor of the third carriage, firing at all who came within range, but they were fast running out of shells. Besides, the bullets did little more than knock their attackers back a few feet at a time.

  ‘We couldn’t alight at the stations,’ Nicholas reasoned, exploding a cowhand, ‘but what about in between them? I jumped and survived.’ He threw open the door of the train. Together, they looked down at the rushing ground.

  ‘We can’t jump. We’ll be dashed to pieces.’ Isabella’s rifle recoiled violently as she blasted a hole through a yokel.

  ‘And that would be worse than what exactly?’

  ‘You know we would simply be reborn on the train. There has to be something else. I think there’s another reason why there’s no end destination on the map.’

  ‘They wouldn’t get many passengers if they put ‘Chelmsk—Hell Express’ on their routes, would they? It’s over.’

  ‘No it’s not. I have a chance. I gave way to my own foolish curiosity, but I might still be able to make amends. I think I know of a way to save us. We need to find the map of the Arkangel’s route.’

  Leaving the soldiers to hold the front line, they made their way back to the last framed corridor map and examined it. One route vanished into darkness and storms, the other appeared to lead to greener pastures. Set at the top of the map was a series of tiny sepia photographs of the Controller, the Conductor and the train.

  ‘The Controller has been there all along,’ said Isabella. ‘Come on. We need to search the carriages behind us.’

  Nicholas followed her, intrigued.

  ‘Nicholas, where was the Red Countess?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to find her luggage.’

  They pushed their way back to the first class suites.

  ‘Here.’ Isabella pulled back the red velvet drapes of the Red Countess’s stateroom and began to search through her stacked valises.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Nicholas, puzzled.

  ‘Something like this.’ She removed an elegant, sequinned scarlet dress from the Red Countess’s case. ‘Cover me for a minute.’

  Nicholas raised his rifle and shot a few peasants until Isabella returned. She had wiped the blood from her face, corseted herself into the gown and tied her hair up. She looked battered but radiant.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ he asked.

  She checked herself in the Countess’s mirror. ‘I have a plan. I need powder and lipstick.’

  ‘You’re not going on a date.’

  ‘Yes I am,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to beat the Devil.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE CONTROLLER

  ‘THERE, WHAT DO you think?’ She stood before Nicholas, resplendently dressed in the low-cut gown of lace-edged scarlet silk, her hair neatly arranged in ringlets. She had done her best to powder her face, and had sprayed herself with the Countess’s most expensive perfume.

  ‘Well, I suppose you look less indecent with some clothes on, but I really don’t see the point in dressing up for your arrival in the bloody Underworld. Have you seen it out there? It’s like a scene from a medieval painting.’

  ‘Stay close to me, but don’t interfere, no matter what happens. I need to find the Conductor.’

  With Nicholas warding off the marauding passengers, they searched the train. The Conductor was in the next carriage, and had no wish to be seen supervising his rampant acolytes, in case Isabella accused him of cheating.

  ‘Ah, sweet Isabella, the last to fall,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How beautiful you look. Have you come to confront me? Is that your response to the challenge?’

  ‘I’m not going to fight you,’ she told him. ‘You’re just a servant. And a dead one, at that. I demand to see your superior. My uncle.’

  ‘Ah.’ For the first time, the Conductor was stung. ‘I wondered if you would decide upon that. Of course, it would be appropriate, seeing that you
r own family was complicit in the building of the Arkangel.’

  ‘At first I could not recall my uncle’s face, for he left us when I was young. I could only remember him in shadow at the engine shed. You were foolish enough to put his photograph on the map.’

  ‘Well, I am afraid you cannot see him now. You can’t go in there without going through me. There are no exceptions, not even for family members.’

  He stepped aside to provide a glimpse of the private compartment behind. Isabella looked in and recognised the corpulent Controller in the stovepipe hat from his photograph, and vague memories of family gatherings when she was very small. He was sitting in a velvet armchair, enjoying an absurdly long cigar, entirely unconcerned with the lunatic behaviour of the train’s occupants. She studied his sweat-sheened face.

  She wanted to find a way across the threshold, but at the last moment her nerve had failed her. She remembered the last time she had seen him, the horror of the virgin sacrifice that had haunted her childhood. No-one had ever mentioned him again. Her father had eventually convinced himself that he had no brother, just as the town had convinced itself that there had been no train.

  ‘Go. Turn around and walk away.’ Angered by her hesitation, the Conductor shoved at her. ‘Silly, arrogant little girl! Look at you, parading in a noblewoman’s clothes. Did you think it would make you like her? Did you really think you could change anything?’

  The Conductor gave into his anger and lashed out at her, knocking her to the floor. Yanking her to her feet, he gave her another hard crack across the face. Nicholas stepped forward to intervene, but as he did so the wound in his chest burned as if it was being pulled apart.

  The Conductor slammed Isabella against the wall of the carriage, bearing down on her. ‘You have no idea how much I hate the living,’ he said. ‘You always think you can make a difference.’

  The soulless had broken through the soldiers’ line of defence and were bearing down on them. Nicholas had used up all his ammunition, and had split his rifle stock on the head of a gurning farmhand. Now he looked up to see the Conductor raising his fist again. Nicholas tried to pulled him away, but it was like shifting steel. As the Conductor’s fingers closed around Isabella’s throat, he ignored the searing pain in his chest and searched for another weapon among the men he had just destroyed.

  He spotted a pair of swords on the belts of two felled soldiers and pulled them free.

  Isabella felt herself losing consciousness. Nicholas lunged forward and rammed the blades at the Conductor, but the pain in his chest was now so severe that he could barely see. Thrusting the sword points into the Conductor’s startled wide eyes, he felt them come out through the back of his skull, pinning him to the carriage wall.

  Although he was speared clean through the sockets, the Conductor continued to thrash about. ‘Your world will burn,’ he cried. ‘Your world will burn!’

  The Controller could hardly be expected to ignore the commotion outside his compartment any longer, particularly after a pair of bloody sword-tips had come through his wall. He slowly rose, tapped his cigar and came lumbering out of his cabin to see what the fuss was about.

  As the leader of the Satanists who built the train, the Controller presented a grand figure. He was older and vastly more dissipated now, but his appearance still filled Isabella with childhood terror.

  ‘Hello, Uncle. I need to speak to you,’ said Isabella, trying to control the quaver in her voice.

  The Controller admired her form. In her borrowed gown she appeared transformed, grown up and beautiful. He studied her and sighed. ‘Well well well, my little Isabella. You, of all people. Why must there always be a virgin?’

  ‘I don’t belong here, sir. And this man—well, he’s not perfect, but he doesn’t deserve to go to Hell.’

  ‘But you will. Especially you. The virgins always go.’ He checked his watch. ‘I don’t like the idea of you being abducted by a foreigner, going off and leaving the family without sons for the foundry. I was most surprised to hear you had boarded the Arkangel. The Conductor tried to tell me he had lured you here, but I think he was trying to make the best of the situation. Running away, though, it’s not very loyal of you.’

  ‘You disappeared when I was six.’

  ‘I began my indenture to the Dark Angel. I followed my duty.’

  ‘The sign above our inn had a painting of a sacrificed virgin. But that was standing long before the foundry was built.’

  ‘Indeed it was, because there have always been rituals in our town, sacrifices to ripen the wheat, sacrifices to make the fruit trees abundant, sacrifices so that the midwives would bring more boys than girls. You should know that. Our family was involved in all of them.’

  ‘So the building of the train—’

  ‘—was the next logical step. We’ll be arriving very shortly, my dear. A little behind schedule, but that can’t be helped. There’s nothing you can do to stop the Dark Angel now, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘It’s too late. Those who come this close to our final destination are doomed to stay on board forever.’

  Anger replaced Isabella’s fear. ‘That’s cheating!’

  ‘What did you expect? Enjoy these last few moments. Let me look at you in this form, one last time. You were always my favourite niece. I never imagined you would grow up to be so beautiful. Come—have a drink with me.’ He took her arm, leading her into the dining car.

  ‘Is that it?’ called Nicholas. ‘Is that your big plan? We’re about to burn for all eternity and you’re going for cocktails?’ Disgusted, he turned and punched a coal merchant in the face.

  Isabella and the Controller sat opposite each other. He pawed at her hand, a cat playing with a new toy. Outside, the sky was flickering with streaks of vermilion. Every few seconds the horizon erupted.

  ‘We are approaching the final stop. I envy you, Isabella. The terrors you’ve experienced on this journey are nothing compared to those that await you. Don’t be sad. All our passengers fail. We are only human, are we not?’ He checked his pocket watch as it began to chime.

  ‘Only human. So you are human too.’

  ‘Yes, the only living human allowed to stay aboard the Dark Angel for each of its journeys between life and the underworld. I built it, after all.’

  ‘But you must stay on board for eternity.’

  ‘That was my end of the bargain. It’s not such a hardship. Every voyage is different. No two passengers are ever alike. You’d be surprised what fun we have.’

  ‘Then if I too have failed, I must accept my fate.’

  Nicholas was watching through the carriage window, outraged. ‘What? You’re giving in, just like that?’ he bellowed. ‘You’re the only one who could have saved me! Well, thanks a lot, Little Miss Virgin!’

  Behind him, the dead passengers advanced once more. One soulless soldier reached out and dug bony white fingers into his shoulder.

  ‘Join us...’

  ‘And you can clear off, for a start.’ Nicholas punched him in the eyes.

  But he had a fight on his hands, holding back the damned while Isabella flirted with the corrupt Controller.

  Outside, the sky was fully afire. The train was gathering speed, preparing for its arrival in the land of eternal torment. And although Nicholas fought back as bravely as he could, he knew in his heart that the real battle had been fought and lost.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THE CATACLYSM

  NICHOLAS HAD FIRED his first rifle in Algiers after being chased from an illegal camel race by a pair of angry Spanish gamblers, and the trenches had taught him rougher manners. Confronting the fears that had driven him from his comrades had brought fresh courage. Tearing a machete from the hands of a befuddled fieldworker, he wielded the dull, heavy blade against the heads of the attacking horde, splitting a considerable number of soulless skulls before it was finally pulled from his grasp. Soon the carriage was awash with gore, and his right arm
was aching.

  Even though he had been pinned through the eyes with swords, the Conductor was determined to make his announcements. ‘We will shortly be arriving in Hell,’ he called. ‘The train terminates here. All change. Please remember to take all your belongings with you.’

  And inside the Controller’s apartment, seated opposite the grand Satanist himself, Isabella cast down her eyes, contrite.

  ‘I could not imagine that I would be a match for you and your train,’ she said sadly.

  The Controller raised his wineglass to her. ‘Don’t feel bad, my sweet child. I hope you take it as a consolation when I tell you that you got further than anyone else has in years. Take a look out of the window and tell me what you see.’

  Looking through the glass, she watched a scene that would have made Hieronymus Bosch feel sick. Here and there, groups of men could be faintly discerned, employed in pointless, impossible tasks; the rolling uphill of a giant eyeball, the lowering into a pit of an immense ear, soaring tangles of absurdly complex machinery operated by hundreds, designed to cut a grape in half or tear the petals from a rose, men climbing human pyramids to redirect the stars or change the shapes of lightning bolts, and all the while a screaming, singing cacophony of voices, a reek of burning flesh, a sting of brimstone, a corrupt hint of perfume, a sense of all things spoiled, betrayed, poisoned and unforgiven.

  ‘This is the Hell you expected, yes?’ said the Controller. ‘Suppose I was to tell you that it is not Hell at all?’

  ‘It hurts my eyes to look upon it,’ Isabella admitted. ‘What do you mean, it is not Hell?’

  ‘This is what your church would have you believe awaits poor sinners. Such images adorn the walls and windows of your places of worship, to frighten you into belief and obedience. But the underworld does not exist in any single frame of time. It flows continuously back and forth. And it is not a great land of fires and tortures. Let me show you the real Hell.’