“Will you please slow down?” she gasped.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, and despite his frostiness he seemed it. He slowed to a more moderate speed. Dylan gratefully matched his pace and continued her questioning.
“Is there a town or something nearby? Somewhere where the phones do work?”
“There’s nothing in this wasteland,” Tristan murmured.
Dylan bit her lip, concerned. The later it got, the more worried she knew her mum would be. One of the conditions of Joan allowing her to make the trip had been that she would call as soon as she arrived and met her dad. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed – she’d been unconscious for a bit on the train – but she was sure that Joan would be expecting her to get in touch soon. If she phoned Dylan’s mobile and got the answerphone, she’d start to worry.
She also imagined her dad waiting at the train station for her. Maybe he’d think she hadn’t wanted to come, that she’d chickened out. That would be awful. No, he knew which train she was on. He’d hear that the train had crashed, or got stuck, or whatever had happened. Still, she needed to let him know that she was okay. She supposed by the time all of this got sorted out it would be too late to head up to Aberdeen this weekend. Hopefully he would be willing to buy her another ticket. Although really the train company should give me one for free at least, she thought. Joan would be even less willing to let her go after this, though. Maybe he could come down to Glasgow instead.
But then something else made her pause. If there was no town nearby and it was already late afternoon, what were they going to do once it got dark?
She gazed around her, hunting for signs of civilisation. Tristan was right, though: nothing.
“You said you’d been here before,” she began. By now they had traipsed to the top of the hill and were going down a particularly sheer section of the other side, so Dylan kept her eyes on the ground, watching every step. If she had been looking at Tristan’s face she would have seen the wary, cautious look that came into his eyes. “When was that, exactly?”
Nothing but blanket silence from the boy walking beside her.
“Tristan?”
So many questions, so early on. It seemed an ominous sign to Tristan. He tried to lighten the mood by laughing, but Dylan drew her mouth into a grimace and this time she really did look at him. He rearranged his features into a more convincing expression.
“Do you always ask this many questions?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
Dylan was stung into silence. She turned away from him, looked up at the sky where the clouds were painted steely grey and darkening with each passing minute. So that was it, Tristan realised.
“Afraid of the dark?” he asked. She wrinkled her nose, ignoring him. “Look,” he said, taking control, “it’s going to take longer than this light will last to get where we’re going. We’re going to have to rough it I’m afraid.”
Dylan made a face. She had no experience of camping, but was fairly sure that any activity which involved sleeping outdoors with no access to a kitchen, bathroom or warm bed was not for her.
“We haven’t got a tent. Or sleeping bags. Or any food,” she complained. “Maybe we should head back to the tunnel and see if anybody’s there looking for us.”
He rolled his eyes, arrogant and patronising again. “It’s way too late to do that! We’d end up wandering around in the pitch black. I know a sheltered spot. We’ll survive. You’ve been through worse today,” he added.
Oddly, Dylan hadn’t thought much about the train crash. Once she’d got out of the tunnel, Tristan had assumed control so thoroughly that she had simply followed his lead. Added to that, it had all been over so fast that she wasn’t really sure what had actually happened.
“See that?” he asked, pulling Dylan from her thoughts and pointing to a ruined cottage about half a mile away, nestled in a narrow valley at the bottom of the hill. It looked long abandoned, with a tumbledown stone wall outlining the boundary. The roof had several large holes in it, the door and windows were long gone and it seemed as if another ten years might finish off the crumbling walls. She nodded mutely, and he continued. “That’ll keep the cold and wind out a bit.”
Dylan was unconvinced. “You want us to stay there tonight? Look at it! It’s falling apart. I mean, it’s only got half a roof! We’ll freeze!”
“No, we won’t.” Tristan’s voice dripped with scorn. “It’s barely raining at all. It’ll probably stop soon, and it’s much more sheltered down there.”
“I am not staying there.” Dylan was resolute. She could not imagine anything less comfortable than spending the night in a damp, cold, ramshackle hovel.
“Yes, you are. Unless you want to keep going by yourself. It’ll be dark soon. Good luck.” The words were spoken coldly, and Dylan was in no doubt that he meant them. What could she do?
Close up, the cottage did not look any more attractive. The garden had attempted to reassert itself as wilderness, and they had to fight their way through thistles, brambles and tufts of thick grass just to get through the front door. Once they were inside, things improved slightly. Even without the windows or door, the wind was cut considerably, and the roof at one end was almost completely intact. Even if it rained during the night, they had a reasonable chance of staying dry. The place looked like it had been ransacked, though. The previous owner had left various possessions and a few rickety bits of furniture, but almost everything was broken and strewn carelessly across the floor.
Tristan led the way in, righting a table and chair, and upturning a bucket for him to sit on. He gestured to Dylan that she should take the chair. She sat gingerly, thinking it might collapse under her weight. It held firm, but she couldn’t relax. Without the howling wind there was a very awkward silence. Added to that, now she no longer had the walk across perilous terrain to keep her occupied. There was nothing to do but sit and try not to stare at Tristan. She felt incredibly ill at ease, trapped inside the cottage with a virtual stranger. On the other hand, the day’s trauma was beginning to sink in, and she was desperate to talk about what had happened. She eyed Tristan, wondering how to break the silence.
“What do you think happened? With the train, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Just crashed, I suppose. Maybe the tunnel caved in or something.” He shrugged his shoulders and stared at a spot over her head. Everything about his body language told her that he didn’t want to talk about it, but Dylan wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“But what happened to everyone else? We can’t have been the only survivors. What happened in your carriage?” Her eyes burned with curiosity.
He shrugged again, standoffish and disinterested. “Same as yours I suppose.” His eyes flitted away and Dylan could see he was uncomfortable. How could he not want to talk about this? She couldn’t understand it.
“Why were you there?” He looked up sharply at that, startled, and Dylan quickly elaborated. “What I mean is, where were you going on the train? To visit someone?” Suddenly she wished she hadn’t asked. Something had flashed in his eyes that she didn’t like, a defensiveness.
“I was visiting,” he said. “My aunt lives up there.” His tone was final, shutting down the conversation.
Dylan drummed her fingers on the tabletop as she considered him. Visiting an aunt seemed innocent enough, but she wondered if it was something more sinister. Why else would he be so mysterious, so shifty? Was she isolated in the middle of nowhere with some sort of criminal? Or was she just being silly – paranoid after the shock of the day?
“What will we do for food?” she asked, more to change the subject than anything else, because his aloofness was unnerving.
“Are you hungry?” He sounded a bit taken aback.
Dylan thought about it and found, to her surprise, that the answer was no. She had last eaten after school on the way to the train station. A hurried hamburger from a greasy café choked down with a warm Diet Coke. That had been hours ago. Although skinny, she ate like a horse.
Joan always joked that she’d wake up one day and be twenty stone. Normally she would have expected to be ravenous. Maybe loss of appetite was a symptom of shock.
“At the very least we’ll need some water,” she said, although even as the words came out she realised that she wasn’t thirsty either.
“Well, there’s a stream out back,” he answered, humour in his voice. “Can’t say how clean it’ll be, though.”
Dylan thought about drinking from the mucky stream. The water probably had mud and bugs in it; it wasn’t an appealing suggestion. Besides, she thought, if I drink the water I’ll need to use the bathroom, and there doesn’t seem to be one. The clouds were bringing the night unusually quickly, and the idea of going out alone in the dark to find a suitable spot was not one she wanted to think about. There were nettles and thistles to consider, plus she would be too scared to go very far, so she would have to worry about staying within earshot. It would all just be too embarrassing.
He seemed to read the thoughts in her eyes. Although he turned his face away to stare through the window into the evening, Dylan could see the telltale lifting of his cheek. He was laughing at her. She narrowed her eyes and glowered in the other direction, out of the hole where the back window had once been. She could see next to nothing, just the outline of hills in the distance. The onset of night was making her nervous.
“Do you think we’re safe here?” she asked.
He turned back to look at her, his expression unreadable. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly, “there’s nothing out here.” The sense of isolation in his words was as chilling as the thought of unknown things scurrying about in the dark, and Dylan shivered involuntarily.
“Cold?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a fireplace over there. I’ve got matches – I can probably get it going.”
He stood up and loped over to the stone fireplace, which sat under the remaining piece of roof. The chimney-breast must have strengthened the wall, because this part of the cottage was in the best repair. There were still a few logs strewn about beside it which he gathered and carefully arranged into a precarious tepee shape. Dylan watched him work, captivated by his quiet concentration. As he reached into his pocket, he glanced in her direction and she hastily went back to staring out of the window. Red coloured her cheeks and she hoped he hadn’t caught her staring at him. A low chuckle from the direction of the fireplace confirmed that he had and she squirmed in the chair, mortified. The sound of a match striking was accompanied by a light wafting of smoke. She imagined him holding it into the firewood and trying to coax out the flames, but resolutely kept her eyes away from him.
“Barring a sudden gust of gale-force wind, we should be a bit warmer in a few minutes,” he said, standing up and ambling back across the room to his makeshift seat.
“Thanks,” Dylan mumbled, and meant it. She was grateful for the fire; it chased away the dark that was creeping over the land. She turned slightly and gazed into the flames, watching each one jump and leap over the logs. Soon the heat began to radiate out of the hearth, bathing them both in warmth.
Tristan went back to staring out of the window, even though there was nothing to see. Having used up all of her nerve broaching conversations that had been shut down before they could really begin, Dylan did not dare interrupt his brooding. Instead she folded her arms on the table and leaned her chin on them, staring away from him and into the fire. The dance of the flames hypnotised her and before long she felt her eyelids droop.
As the curtain of sleep closed over her, she heard the wind rushing around the crumbling walls of the cottage. Though she couldn’t feel the chill of its touch, she heard the wailing as it whistled through cracks and crevices, searching for a way in. The sound was eerie, frightening. She trembled uncomfortably, but tried to stifle the movement before Tristan noticed it.
It was the wind, nothing more.
Chapter Six
When Dylan opened her eyes, she was on the train again. She blinked, confused for a moment, but then accepted this bizarre turn of events with an almost imperceptible shrug. The train jostled and juddered as it jumped over the points, then settled down into a gently vibrating rumble. She closed her eyes again and rested her head against the seat.
It felt like only a second later, but when she opened her eyes something felt different. Perplexed, her brow furrowed. She must have dozed off again. The harsh lights of the carriage hurt her eyes, making her squint. Shaking her head a little to clear the cobwebs, Dylan shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The woman’s bags were taking up a ridiculous amount of space and something sharp from a bright orange carrier was digging painfully into her ribs.
She remembered promising to text her dad to tell him she was on the train and, with some difficulty, squeezed her phone out of her pocket. One of the oversized carrier bags shifted with her and rolled dangerously close to the end of the seat before the woman opposite her reached forward and shoved it back. Dylan heard her tut angrily but ignored her. Flicking the screen to life, she began to text.
Dad, on train. Not running too late at…
A sudden jolt of the train jarred her elbow and ripped the phone from her fingers. She made a grab for it with her other hand, but only touched the bottom edge, sending it spinning further out of her reach. With a horrible snapping sound, it clattered to the ground and she heard a scrape as it skidded across the carriage.
“Crap,” she muttered quietly. Her fingers scrabbled around on the floor for a few seconds before they came into contact with the phone. It was sticky; some idiot must have spilled their juice on the floor. Dylan pulled the phone up to inspect the damage.
Instead of juice, her phone was covered in a thick, dark red substance that trickled down her heart-shaped phone charm and dripped slowly off the end, falling to create small explosions on the knee of her jeans. Looking up, she met the eyes of the woman across from her for the first time. They stared back, lifeless. Blood tricked from her scalp and her mouth hung open, grey lips pulled back in a scream. Dylan looked around wildly and spotted the two Rangers fans she had tried to avoid. They were lying with their arms around each other, heads together at an angle that just looked wrong. Another jolt of the train made them flop forward like puppets, their heads held on to their necks by thin threads of sinew. Dylan opened her mouth to scream as the world was torn apart.
It began with a hideous screeching noise, a sound that set Dylan’s teeth on edge and sawed at every nerve in her body, as metal collided with metal and ripped apart. The lights flickered and the train seemed to buck and jerk beneath her feet. She was flung forward in her seat with incredible force, sprawling across the carriage directly into the monstrous woman in front of her. The woman’s dead arms seemed prepared to embrace her, and the gaping mouth stretched wider into a hideous grin.
“Dylan!” The voice, unfamiliar at first, pulled her back into consciousness. “Dylan, wake up!” Something was shaking her shoulder, hard.
Gasping, Dylan yanked her head up from the table on which she must have fallen asleep and gazed into a pair of concerned blue eyes.
“You were screaming,” Tristan said, his voice anxious for once.
The terror of the dream was still raw. The woman’s death grin hovered in front of Dylan’s eyes, and adrenaline pumped through her veins. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t. Gradually her breathing slowed as reality reasserted itself.
“Nightmare,” Dylan muttered, embarrassed now. She pulled herself upright, away from his stare, and glanced around. The fire had long since died but the first light of dawn had begun to brighten the sky and she was able to see her surroundings clearly.
The cottage looked colder in the morning light. The walls had been painted cream at some point, but that had long since faded and begun to peel away. The holes in the roof and the missing windows had allowed damp to seep into the walls and now patches of green moss were spreading across the surface. The careless abandon of furniture and possessions was sad somehow. Dylan imagined someone,
at some point, lovingly arranging the room with items that held meaning and emotion. Now they were just discarded and neglected.
For some bizarre reason, the idea made her choke up. Her throat tightened and tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. What was wrong with her?
“We should get going.” Tristan broke through her thoughts, bringing her back to the present.
“Yeah.” Her throat was husky with emotion and Tristan glanced over at her.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” Dylan took a deep breath and attempted to smile at him. It felt unconvincing, but she hoped that he didn’t know her well enough to see through it. He narrowed his eyes slightly, but nodded.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked brightly, trying to gloss over the awkward moment. It worked, to an extent.
He lifted half of his mouth in a smile and moved over to the door. “We walk. That way.” He pointed with his arm and then stood with his hands on his hips, waiting for her to join him.
“Now?” Dylan asked, incredulous.
“Yup,” he replied shortly and disappeared out of the door. She stared at the doorframe he had just vacated, aghast. They couldn’t just go. Not without having a drink from the stream and trying to find some food, or maybe even having a quick wash. She wondered what he would do if she just sat there and refused to follow him. Keep walking, probably.
“Dammit,” Dylan muttered, getting hastily to her feet and chasing clumsily after him.
“Tristan, this is ridiculous.”
“What now?” He turned to look at Dylan, exasperation clear in his eyes.
“We’ve been walking for hours and hours and hours.”
Ferryman Page 4