Glancing up, Rie could see that she must be about halfway across the pond by now.
Maybe she could pretend she was a pirate. Or a sailor, on an important trip to find hidden treasure. Or maybe even-
Rie's thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice.
Surprised, she looked right, then left, and then behind herself too, searching for the source of the voice. Maybe somebody else was enjoying the garden too, despite the fact it appeared to have been deserted for some time now.
But as hard as Rie searched, she could not see anybody else by the pond. She knew frowning took too much strain, but right then she did just that, feeling very puzzled.
Rie flinched.
She had definitely not imagined that.
“Who's there?!” she called, wrinkling her nose. If this was somebody's idea of a prank, it wasn't very funny. Did they not know who she was?
“Who's there?!” Rie repeated, refusing to be intimidated by this intruder. “Come out why don't you?!”
“You heard me, didn't you?” Rie replied, folding her arms stubbornly.
And then something caught her eye to the right.
Suddenly, Rie felt a little bit scared. Holding her breath, she cocked her head slightly to get a better view. Sure enough, the surface of the water had been disturbed, and small, delicate ripples began to appear.
Closer... closer...
Rie lurched forward.
Why?
Why?
She realised that her boat was being jerked around with some force.
What was happening?
Grabbing onto the sides of her little wooden vessel, Rie cried out.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
With one last violent jerk, the boat ceased to move.
Silence.
Rie dared to breathe.
Her mind raced, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not comprehend what had just happened.
Something wet touched her ankle, and a feeling of dread came over her as she realised that her boat was letting in water. It didn't take long until it began to capsize to the left, and Rie tumbled out, into the freezing cold water.
Luckily, she was not unaccustomed to swimming, and was able to tread water almost immediately. But the temperature of this pond was unnatural. Rie struggled to catch her breath as her hands clutched at the quickly disappearing boat.
And then it was gone, under the water.
The little girl began to whimper- the grassy embankment seemed so far away now, and the water was so terribly, terribly cold.
Rie looked down into the pond, trying to make out shapes, trying to decide whether or not she could put her feet down, but it was hopeless. No matter how hard she squinted her eyes, she couldn't see below a few centimeters.
But wait.
She could make out something. Something dark, moving slowly towards the surface of the water.
Rie quickly realised that this wasn't a good thing at all.
Think, think...
Thousands upon thousands of thoughts ran through Rie's little head as the dark shape came nearer and nearer.
What is this thing?
Rie wasn't sure. But it looked like..
No.
That was impossible.
Rie only had seconds to try and push this thought to the back of her mind before something else broke the water's surface.
Something white.
And before she had time to do anything, two ice cold hands gripped her shoulders, staining her pale pink yukata robe with thick, red blood.
That last thing Rie saw was a woman's cruel smile.
And then silence again.
Silence.
Silence in the Azagao garden.
THE END.
LAST TRAIN BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Mike Driver
Arthur Jennings made the train with seconds to spare.
The whistle sounded; a shriek that sliced the rising tide of night and even before its echoes died and the train lurched from the station platform Arthur was already facing the full horror of the last train home at Christmas.
As Arthur expected every seat was occupied; reservation tickets fluttered like grey bunting from the back of every headrest while commuters crawled and fought for every spare inch and crevice of space; jamming their possessions into over-head racking and narrow alcoves that groaned with every manner of suitcase, rucksack and department store shopping sack imaginable.
Arthur made his way slowly and deliberately down the length of each commuter carriage in turn, squeezing past those who spilled out into the narrow aisles, but unable to find a single spare seat anywhere. By now sweat and grit made his collar itch, his eyeglasses had steamed and had begun to slip down on his nose and he was growing ever more irritable. Arthur hated confinement and crowds; he had a strong aversion to the press of flesh and tight spaces brought on intense feelings of claustrophobia that were the result of childhood trauma. Already he could feel the familiar hammer pulse at his throat and the twitch in the muscles of his jawline that told him he needed to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.
Finally, after an interminable trek, that seemed the equivalent of walking the full way to his destination, Arthur finally came upon the oasis of the buffet car.
“Sorry mate,” said the bluff server at the counter, as Arthur approached, “we’re sold out. Everything’s been taken by them vultures,” he indicated with a broad thumb the carriage from which Arthur had just emerged. “I haven’t even got the electricity to make you a cup of tea.”
Arthur was distracted, as the train rounded a set of cross-ties and swayed softly back and forth on the rails he could make out the faint outline of another carriage beyond the end of the car.
“What’s beyond that door?” Arthur asked, pointing to the end of the carriage.
“Dead rolling stock,” said the server dismissively, wiping a dirty glass on the bottom of his rail-issue orange apron.
Arthur’s perplexion showed on his face.
“Old carriages,” explained the server. “That lot’s for the knacker’s yard. Don’t know why they’ve got us moving them, mind. In the old days there used to be plenty of shunting stock but these days, what with all them cuts, they get us to move anything we can just to save money. Criminal really it’s like asking a thoroughbred to pull a drayman’s cart. But what can you do?”
The dirty glass looked no cleaner but the server placed it back on the shelf behind him anyway.
“Can they be used? By passengers I mean?”
The server shook his head. “It’s all locked off,” he said cheerily. “Besides there’s no power back there, it’d be cold as a witch’s tit. They’re shutting me down in a minute, no point lighting and heating a kitchen that can’t serve.” He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I hear we’re being sold. Apparently some German consortium is buying us. A business like ours, like I said, it’s criminal.”
Arthur nodded in agreement though his mind was elsewhere.
He made his way back towards the depth of population that occupied the carriage immediately before the buffet car. Party hats and a sing-along had broken out amongst a group of office workers who wanted Arthur to know that there wouldn’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time. Arthur nodded politely as each grinning drone grabbed at him and encouraged him to join in the chorus, but Arthur fixed a tight grin on his lips and kept his own council. Eventually the lights in the buffet car extinguished and it was only a few more minutes before the server appeared with his bright orange apron folded in his hands. He gave Arthur a friendly nod of recognition as he passed before he stumbled and rocked his way through the carriage and on towards the next, briefly joining in a chorus of We Three Kings as he passed. Arthur took his chance and slipped back into the now silently dark buffet area.
The wash of freezing air that hit Arthur took his breath away. His glasses immediately fogged and he was briefly blind, feeling with his hand for the supporting rail to keep him upright. The door gently closed again and rattled within its loose mooring. Arthur wiped his glasses clear on his tie and replaced them on his nose. He looked around to see if anyone had observed his actions, briefly considering backing out, back into the full carriages to be lost amongst the mass of Christmas revelers. But the prospect of solitude and quiet compared to the drunken cacophony behind propelled him forward.
Arthur pulled at the slack door handle and the cold assaulted him for a second time. He was about to step forward to open the corresponding door of the old rolling stock when some inner sense stopped him. He glanced down. White gravel and railways sleepers hurtled by in the gap between the two carriages. There was no companionway; only the heaving buffers, cabling and two small steps set on either side of the rushing chasm. The distance was no more than a few feet but it would require Arthur to stretch one foot out over the abyss, whilst relinquishing the firm hold he had on the doorjamb. He swallowed tightly at the prospect. But before thought and rationality could overcome his impulse he stepped out and found the footing of the other step. For a few moments he tottered precariously over the rushing ground, his hand swung wildly trying to catch a firm grip before it alighted on the handle of the old carriage, the stunning cold burnt his flesh, briefly welding it to the sub-zero metal, but miraculously the handle turned and door swung easily inwards.
The corridor of the carriage in which Arthur now found himself was immeasurably dark. The wall beside him was blank and unforgiving without a single window to light his way. The serving assistant had not been wrong; this really was old rolling stock of a fashion that Arthur was sure no longer existed in working fashion. The separate corridor ran down the side of the train whilst the seating area’s consisted of dark cave-like interiors of pew-like seats, facing towards each other, which Arthur had not seen outside of a black and white movie.
Arthur pressed his forehead against the grubby internal window and peered inside. The interior of the seating area was lit by a pale sickle moon that showed at a small oblong exterior window. It appeared to be empty. The door mechanism was an old fashioned brass ring, set flush with the plane of the door, Arthur twisted the semi-circle of metal and the door slid easily open. The interior was like a refrigerator, Arthur’s breath plumed around him and the base of his spectacles steamed once more.
Once inside Arthur discovered that the old carriage was at least dry and despite giving off a dank odor of age and decay, it offered a few comforts, not least its separation from the rapacious demands of the Christmas revelers. The seating was basic and upright and appeared to be upholstered in a dark coarse dusty material, and backed by paneling made from knotted oak, burnished and polished to a pleasingly high sheen. A cloud passed before the thin moon and the interior darkened appreciably. At that moment it felt to Arthur that the cold invaded even more harshly and he was forced to clutch his jacket around him for warmth.
Arthur huddled in the corner nearest the entrance door his legs drawn up, his jackets draped over his body, and his arms wrapped around his slim chest and it was in that position that the gentle rocking motion of the train encouraged him to drift towards sleep. And as he fell into slumber his last thought was of the small dirty oblong window set in the polished oak near the roof of the carriage that faced him across the companionway. He had seen a window like that a long time ago, but his tired mind could not hold the thought
Arthur woke with a start. It felt as if the train were shunting backwards and forwards in short spurts, the whine of the engines increasing and decreasing until finally the movement became smooth and train seemed to be gliding on gossamer rails silently cutting through the night. Relieved Arthur drifted back towards sleep once more, he felt oddly comfortable; wondering perhaps if the heating had been reconnected to the old carriages after all and with that encouraging possibility he allowed his eyes to drift closed once more.
Something stirred him from sleep. Arthur had the curious sensation that he was being watched. He opened one eye and glanced around. Blinking behind his spectacles to clear his head and focus his vision. He blinked again, and then he saw it; a single eye staring at him from the darkness.
Startled, Arthur tried to quickly reconcile the sight before him. He rubbed his eyes and in the recessed corner of the seat opposite the vague shape of face emerged. The light shifted and the further contours of a chin and forehead appeared from the half gloom. Arthur swallowed, the small hairs prickling and curling on his forearms and at the base of his neck, as if they had been held to a flame. It was a face Arthur knew “Bobby,” he breathed and his breath formed an icy cloud around his mouth.
The moment seemed to last an eternity. Slowly Arthur moved his head to one side to see the familiar figure more clearly but it disappeared. He moved his head again to the other side; the eye socket became a whorled knot, the chin became a shadow where the corner of the pew met the wall and the forehead was revealed as just a patch of thin light from the fingernail moon.
Arthur let out a relived sigh and his slumped back in his seat with relief. Of course it couldn’t have been Bobby’s; that was a distant memory, so distant it was hard to remember how it had even happened all those years ago.
#
Bobby saw it first.
The carriage sat on a disused spur, its rusted wheels set solid on equally rusted rails. Arthur Jennings was nine years old, Bobby was eight. They stared in barely contained delight and astonishment. It appeared to an old boxcar standing alone, with no engine in sight to drive it and no one around to tell Arthur and Bobby they were trespassing on rail company property. The door at the front of the car was missing and from inside it appeared that a great sooty-black tongue was protruding. Arthur and Bobby approached cautiously.
Time and the weather had taken its toll; the external wooden panels, beaten and worn by wind and rain, had faded to the colour of milky coffee; the tarred roof had lost its covering and the exposed bitumen beneath had bubbled and wept; but it was the tongue that held their attention, the great grey black tongue that lolled from the mouth…
“What is it?” asked Bobby nervously.
Arthur stayed silent and approached cautiously. He had never seen anything like this before.
“Arty, what’s making it do that?”
Arthur approached the protruding black mass and studied it closely.
Tentatively he reached out a hand to touch it, noticing the coarse seams and criss-cross stitching along the edges. He studied the mass from every angle, sizing it up while Bobby hovered at his shoulder.
“Mail sacks,” he said at last.
Bobby looked puzzled.
“Mail sacks,” said Arthur again, “like in the great train robbery.”
With an effort he pulled one of the sacks free from the mound and held it out for Bobby to see. The sack had been flattened and compressed to the thickness of a single envelope, it hung stiff in his hands like an oversized blackened pillow case, dried and desiccated by sunlight and its long period of storage packed tightly with a thousand others.
“Where’s the money then?” asked Bobby. “Did the train robbers take it all?”
“This isn’t the same train,” explained Arthur p
atiently, “these are just empty mail sacks. Millions of them,” he estimated.
Puzzlement played on Bobby’s wide face.
“Watch this,” said Arthur. He slammed the empty mail sack he held against the open doorway of the carriage. It’s dry and brittle face cracked; another whack and it broke clean in half, a film of grey black dust rose like smoke from the fracture.
“Cool,” breathed Bobby.
Then Arthur noticed something else. The space where he had removed the sack remained; as thin and clean as a knife cut. It gave him an idea.
Rapidly he began to remove more and more sacks making the opening wider. Bobby helped him, not really understanding what they were doing, but enthusiastically sliding out stiff mail bag after stiff mail bag until together they had pulled enough of the flattened sheets to create a narrow letter-box opening that a boy of their age could wriggle inside.
“We can go deeper,” said Arthur admiring the rigidity of the structure. He pulled at the thick roof to test his theory; the small hollow seemed as solid as if it had been carved from a rock face.
Over that entire afternoon Arthur and Bobby burrowed and quarried, sliding out rigid mail bags and returning them to the top of the pile until their burrowing created an ant’s nest of interior tunnels with antechambers just large enough for each of them to occupy.
Arthur sat hunched in his tight dark chamber, sweat beading his brow, when suddenly he began to feel nauseous. The excitement and exertion had occupied his mind until now but in these quiet moments of silence and solitude it was if the dark walls were pressing in upon him. He touched the ceiling above him and felt it give slightly beneath his fingers, black dust filtered down into his eyes and mouth, blind panic began to course through him; he had to get out of there. Beads of sweat ran into his eyes, his pulse ticked alarmingly at his throat and he scrambled half blind towards the fissure of light at the opening. The cold air hit his face and gratefully he gasped it in as tumbled out through the narrow opening onto the graveled siding before the carriage.
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