Most nights, he’d sit, fighting his bladder and his tongue, struggling to swallow, trying not to have acute taste-buds, ignoring the hurt in his mouth until the lump was solid in his stomach. “There’s lovely,” Mrs Jones would say. “Bless the bread and bless the child.”
In the dining carriage, there was lava bread on every table.
The communicating door opened. The racket rose by decibels, pouring in from the canvas-link between carriages where the din was loudest. A cold draught dashed into his face. Someone entered the dining car, someone who shifted a lot of air. The newcomer moved carefully, like a fat man who knows he’s drunk but has to impress the Lord Mayor. A grey-white shape appeared in the dark and floated towards Danny, scraps of chalk-mark and neon squiggles like those sighted people have inside their eyelids coalescing into a huge belly constrained by vertically striped overalls, an outsize trainman’s hat, a pitted moon-face. Danny saw the wide man as if he were spotlit on a shadowed stage, or cut out of a photograph and pasted on a black background.
He recognised the face.
A huge paw, grimy with engine dirt, stuck out.
“Gilclyde,” boomed the voice, filling his skull. “Lord Kilpartin-ger.”
Not knowing what else to do, Magic Fingers offered his hand to be shaken. Lord Killpassengers enveloped it with his banana-fingered ape-paws and squeezed with nerve-crushing, bone-crushing force.
Agony blotted out all else – he was in the dark again, feeling the vice-grip but not seeing His Lordship dressed up as Casey Jones. Burning pain smothered his hand.
It was a bad break. At the end of his wrist hung a limp, tangled dust-rag.
Then he felt nothing – no pain. No sound. No smell. No taste. No feeling.
For the first time in his life, he was completely cut off.
VI
Even beyond the usual assumption that quiet English children were aliens, there was something about Vanessa.
She made Richard feel the way grown-ups, even those inside the Diogenes Club, felt around him when he was a boy, the way a lot of people still felt when he was in the room. At first, they were on their guard because he dressed like the sort of youth the Daily Mail reckoned would smash your face in – though, in his experience, teds were as sweet or sour as anyone else, and the worst beatings he’d personally taken came from impeccably-uniformed school prefects. Once past that, people just got spooked – because he felt things, saw things, knew things.
Now he knew about Vanessa.
He was almost afraid of her. And this from someone who accepted the impossible without question.
Sherlock Holmes, brother of the Club’s founder, said: “When you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth.” Less frequently quoted was Mycroft’s addendum, “And when you can not eliminate the impossible, refer the matter to the Diogenes Club.” It was recorded in the Club’s archives, though not in the writings of John Watson, that the Great Detective several times found himself stumped, and fielded the case to his contemporary Carnacki the Ghost-Finder.
It was barely possible that a gigantic conjuring trick could rearrange, or seem to rearrange, the carriages while the train was steaming through the darkened countryside. The archives weren’t short of locked-room mysteries and like conundra. For some reason, especially from the 1920s and early ’30s. The Scotch Streak dated from then, so it could have been built to allow baffling disappearances. However, an uncanny explanation required less of a stretch of belief. Richard couldn’t see a point to the carriage substitution, and pointlessness was a frequent symptom of the supernatural. Haunted houses often had “treacherous” doors, opening to different rooms at different times. It should have been expected, by know-it-all Harry Cutley for instance, that a haunted train would have something along these lines. However, the switcheroo wasn’t on the train’s list of previously recorded phenomena.
Where was everybody? Harry was downwind, last seen heading towards Second and Third Class. Annette and Myles were in the misplaced dining car. Arnold the Conductor, omnipresent earlier, was nowhere to be seen.
Were the other passengers where they should be? Though it was easy to get distracted by fireworks, this investigation was supposed to be about protecting the American couriers.
Three compartments had blinds drawn and DO NOT DISTURB signs hung. One was Annette’s and she wasn’t there. Another was Vanessa’s and she was with him.
That was a puzzle. Besides the couriers, Mrs Sweet and the sinister vicar (one of whom must be a spy) should be here. They couldn’t all be crammed into one compartment playing whist with nuclear missiles. In theory, the British Government had other agents to deal with that sort of mess, kitted out with exploding cufflinks and licences to kill. In a pinch, Richard could muddle in. The Club had been dabbling in “ordinary” espionage since the Great Game of Victoria’s reign. Edwin had served as an Intelligence Officer in the RFC during the First World War (“No, I didn’t shoot down the Bloody Red Baron; what I shot was a lot of photographs from the back of a two-seater – if it matters, each exposure got more Huns killed than all the so-called flying aces put together.”) before taking over Carnacki’s ghost-finding practice.
“Have you seen any Americans?” he asked the child.
She solemnly shook her head and stuck out her lower lip. She wanted more attention paid to her.
He looked again at her label.
“Who is Lieutenant-Commander Coates?”
She gave a “don’t know” shrug.
“Not your Dad, you said. Where are your parents?”
Another shrug.
“Lot of that about,” he said, feeling it deeply. “Where do you live, usually?”
A small sound, inaudible – as if the girl weren’t used to speech, like a well-bred, upper-middle-class Kaspar Hauser in spaceman pyjamas.
“Come again, love?”
“Can’t remember,” she said.
Richard had a chill, born of kinship. But he was also wary. This was too close to where he came from. If the train could come up with Worst Things to get under Annette’s or Harry’s skin, it could sidle up close to him and bite too.
“Vanessa What?”
Another “can’t remember”.
“It must be Vanessa Something. Not Coates, but Something.”
She shook her head, braids whipping.
“Just Vanessa, then. It’ll have to do. Nothing wrong with ‘Vanessa’. Not a saint’s name, so far. Not forged in antiquity and refined through passage from language to language like mine. Richard, from the Germanic for ‘Rule-Hard’, also ‘Ricardo’, ‘Rickard’, ‘Dick’, ‘Dickie’, ‘Dickon’, ‘Rich’, ‘Richie’, ‘Clever Dick’, ‘Dick-Be-Quick’, ‘Crookback Dick’. Your name – like ‘Pamela’, ‘Wendy’ and ‘Una’ – was invented within recorded history. By Jonathan Swift, as it happens. Do you know who he was?”
“He wrote Gulliver’s Travels.”
So she remembered some things.
“Yes. He coined the name ‘Vanessa’ as a contraction – like ‘Dick’ for ‘Richard’ – for an Irish girl called ‘Esther Vanhomrigh’.”
“Who was she?”
“Ah, she was a fan of Dean Swift, you know, like girls today might be fans of Tommy Steele.”
“Don’t like Tommy Steele.”
“Elvis Presley?”
Vanessa was keener on Elvis.
“Miss Vanhomrigh was Swift’s biggest fan, so he invented a name for her. He preferred another woman called Esther, Esther Johnson, whom he called ‘Stella’. I expect he made up the names so as not to get them mixed up. Stella and Vanessa didn’t like each other.”
“Did they fight?”
“In a way. They competed for Swift’s attention.”
“Did Vanessa win?”
“Not really, love. Both died before they could settle who got him, and he wasn’t entirely in the business of being got.”
Best not to mention the author might have married Stella.
>
How did they get into this? He didn’t set out to be a lecturer, but he was recounting things he didn’t think he remembered to this inquisitive, reticent child. Talking to her calmed him.
“Are we being got?” she asked.
“I’m afraid we might be.”
“Please don’t let me be got.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Vanessa smiled up at him. Richard worried he had just given his word in the middle of a great unknown. He might not be in a position to keep his promise.
But he knew it was important.
Vanessa must not be got.
They were by the compartment with the DO NOT DISTURB sign. He saw a THROUGH TO PORTNACREIRANN notation. The blind wasn’t pulled all the way down, and a spill of light wavered on the compartment floor. In that, Richard saw a pale hand dangling from the lower berth, thin chain fixed to the handle of a briefcase on the floor. It was one of the couriers.
At least they were safe.
Vanessa put her eye up to the gap and looked in, for a long while.
“Come away,” he said. “Let the nice Americans sleep.”
She turned and looked up at him. “Are you sure they’re nice?”
“No, but they’re important. And it’s best to leave them alone. There are other people I want to find first.”
“Your friends? The pretty lady. The scowly man. The blind person.”
“Danny’s not blind. Well, not now. How did you know he’d been blind?”
She shrugged.
“Just sensitive, I suppose,” he prompted. “And, yes, them. I left them in the restaurant but I, ah, seem to have mislaid the carriage. It used to be there” – pointing at the connecting door – “but now it isn’t.”
“Silly,” she said. “A restaurant can’t get lost.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“No, I haven’t,” she declared, sticking up her freckled nose. “I’ve learned quite enough already.”
Richard was slightly irked by her tone. He might have said Vanessa’s education could hardly be considered complete since she’d omitted to learn her own full name. But that would be cruel. He understood too well how these situations came about.
“The supper carriage is through that door,” she said. “I peeked, earlier.”
She led him by the hand, back towards the connecting door.
“We should be careful,” he said.
“Silly silly,” she said. “Come on, Mr Richard, don’t be scared . . .”
When anyone – even a little girl – told him not to be scared, his natural instinct was to wonder what there was not to be scared of, then whether the person giving the advice was as well up on the potential scariness or otherwise of the situation or entity in question as they might be.
The subdued lamps in the train corridor had dimmed to the point when everything seemed moonlit. The glass in the connecting door was black – he had a nasty thought that the carriages could have shifted about again, and there might be cold night air and a nasty fall to the tracks beyond.
He let Vanessa’s hand go, and looked – trying to show more confidence than he felt – towards the door. He was over twice the girl’s age, and should take the lead; then again, twice a single figure wasn’t that much. He didn’t really know how old he was, let alone how old he should act.
He hesitated. She gave him a little push.
The train noise was louder near the door, the floor shakier.
Richard told himself he was opening the door. Then he found he actually was.
Beyond was . . .
VII
Something had given her an almighty thump. And had got to Danny Myles.
Annette came to on a table. Forks were driven through her shoulder-straps, pinning her to Formica. She couldn’t sit without ruining her Coco Chanel. Obviously, this was the work of a fiend from Hell. Or a jealous wife.
The table rattled. Was the Scotch Streak shaking to pieces?
A length of something spiny, like over-boiled stringy asparagus with teeth, stretched across her mouth. She clamped down, tasted bitter sap, and spat it away. It was the long-stemmed rose from the place-setting.
She carefully detached the forks, trying to inflict no more damage to her dress, and sat up. Wet, sticky blood pooled on the tablecloth. Then she noticed a paring-knife sticking out of her right thigh. Her stocking was torn. She gripped the handle, surprised not to feel anything but slight stiffness. Upon pulling out the knife, a gush of jagged pain came. She ignored it, and improvised a battlefield dressing – another useful trade learned in the War – with a napkin and cocktail sticks.
Sliding off the table, she looked up and down the dining carriage.
Danny Myles was backed into a space between the last booth and the door to the galley, hugging his knees, face hidden. He trembled, but she couldn’t tell if it was with silent sobbing or the movement of the train.
She saw no one else, which didn’t mean no one else was there.
Someone had forked and knifed her. The skewering had been too deliberate, too mocking, to be the result of a directionless phenomenon like the common-or-garden poltergeist. Something with a personality had skewered her. Something that thought itself a comedian. The worst kind of spook, in her opinion. Or maybe she’d been pinned by a mean person who wasn’t here any more. Never neglect human agency. People could be wretched enough on their own, without calling in ghosts.
There were ghosts here, though.
“Danny,” she said.
He didn’t hear her. That tinkled a warning – Danny heard everything, even when you didn’t want him to. He could probably smell or taste what was whispered in the next building in a room with taps running.
“Danny,” she said, louder.
She went to him, feeling stabbed again with every step.
He wasn’t dead, she saw, but in shock, crawled back into his shell. He looked up and around, seeing nothing.
Danny “Magic Fingers” Myles held up useless hands.
“Busted,” he said. “Gone.”
She knelt by him and examined his hands. No bones were broken. She found no wound of any kind. But they were dead, like sand-filled gloves.
“Salauds bodies,” she swore. Nazi bastards!
She knew what the Worst Thing was for Danny Myles.
His head jerked and he flinched, as if he were being flapped at by a cloud of bats. He knew someone was near, but not that it was her. All his senses were gone. He was locked in his skull.
She took his arms and stood him up. He didn’t fight her. She tried to reach him – not by talking or even touching, but with her inside self. She projected past the bony shields around his mind, to reassure, to promise help . . .
She didn’t know if the damage was permanent – but she squashed the thought, screwing it into a tiny speck. He mustn’t get that, mustn’t catch despair from her, to compound his own.
It’s Annie . . .
Because it was her way, she tried kissing him, but just smeared her lipstick. She held him tight, her forehead against his.
He wriggled, escaping from her. The napkin bandage came loose and her leg gave out. For support, she grabbed a tall trolley with shelves of dessert. It rolled down the aisle, dragging her. She bumped her head against the silvered frame. Cream and jam smeared the side of her face, matting in her hair. The trolley got away, and she was left, tottering, reaching out for something fixed . . .
Danny walked like a puppet, jerked past the galley, pulled towards the end of the carriage. Annette had seen people like that before, in shock or under the ’fluence.
“Danny!” she called out, frustrated. Nothing reached him.
She repaired her bandage. How much blood had she lost? Her foot was a mass of needles and pins. She wasn’t sure her knee was working properly. Her fingers weren’t managing too well knotting the napkin.
Danny was at the end of the carriage. The door sli
d open, not through his agency – the train had tilted to slam it aside. He vanished into shadow beyond, and fell down. She saw his trouser-cuffs and shoes slither into darkness as he pulled himself – or was pulled – out of the dining car.
This had gone far enough.
She reached out, slipped her hand into the alcove, and took a firm hold on the communication cord.
She had felt this coming. Now, here it was.
“ ‘Penalty for improper use – five pounds’,” she read aloud. “Cheap at half the price.”
She pulled, with her whole body. There was no resistance. She sprawled on the carpet. The red-painted metal chain was loose. Lengths rattled out of the alcove, yards falling in coils around her.
No whistle, no grinding of brakes, no sudden halt.
Nothing. The cord hadn’t been fixed to anything. It was a con, like pictures of life-belts painted on the side of a ship.
The Scotch Streak streaked on.
If anything, the din was more terrific. Cold wind blew, riffling Annette’s sticky hair.
Between the carriages, one of the exterior doors was open.
Another earlier flash-forward came back to her. An open door. Someone falling. Breaking.
“Danny!” she yelled.
She scrabbled, tripping over the bloody useless chain, got to her feet, one heel snapped. That had been in her Worst Thing vision. Slipping free of her pumps, she ran towards the end of the carriage, as light flared in the passage beyond. She saw the open door, had an impression of hedgerows flashing by, greenery turned grey in the scatter of light from the train. Danny Myles hung in the doorway, wrists against the frame, body flapping like a flag.
She grabbed for him. Her fingers brushed his jersey.
Then he was gone. She leaned out of the train, wind hammering her eyes, and saw him collide with a gravel incline. He bounced several times, then tangled with a fence-post, wrapping around it like a discarded scarecrow.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18 Page 61