Night Train

by David Quantick

  Garland walked along the carriage. The racks contained more of the creatures, about four or five in total. They were all dead, and all clearly the victims of some kind of powerful assault. One or two were missing body parts. She turned to go back to the others and stumbled on something. She bent down and picked up the object, round and sticky in her hands.

  It was Teddy’s head.

  “You are one hard bastard,” she told it.

  * * *

  Back in the other carriage, Poppy was delighted to see the teddy bear’s head. She began cleaning it at once.

  “I’m glad someone’s happy,” Banks said. “What do you think happened in there?” he asked Garland.

  Garland shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “If I’m honest, I don’t think it was the bear.” She looked at Poppy, who was jamming Garland’s pencil deep into the bear’s neck.

  “Really?” said Banks.

  “Most likely option,” Garland replied, as Poppy crammed Teddy’s head back on.

  “Fixed!” she shouted. Teddy wobbled his approval.

  “You haven’t eaten anything,” Garland said, looking at the untouched can in front of Poppy.

  Poppy shook her head.

  “Sugar’s bad for you,” she said. “Besides, I know where there’s a fuckload of food.”

  “I wish people would stop using that word,” said Banks.

  “Food,” Garland said. “You mean like cans and so on?”

  “No,” said Poppy. “Not like cans. Food.”

  She stroked Teddy’s bloody fur.

  “Real food,” she said.

  * * *

  This time Poppy led them through the carriage of dead animals.

  “Stay close,” she said.

  “We’re with you,” Banks replied.

  “I was talking to Teddy,” Poppy said.

  * * *

  Garland took the opportunity to study the carriage again. She could see now that the animals had not been so much placed in the racks as thrown into them.

  “Who did this?” she asked.

  “Too many questions,” Poppy replied. She made Teddy’s head shake in disapproval.

  Garland looked at the marks on the floor. Most of them were clearly streaks of blood from something heavy being dragged about, but one or two could be footprints. It was hard to tell. Then she felt Banks grab her arm. She looked up, and saw what he saw.

  In front of them was a door, but not the same kind of door as the other carriages had. This door did not belong in a train at all. It was enormous, filling the entire end of the carriage. It was made of some kind of thick metal and instead of a handle, it had a large wheel at its centre. Twin bolts kept it firmly shut.

  In two sharp movements, Poppy slid back the heavy bolts.

  “Give me a hand,” she said to Banks, and began to turn the wheel.

  “I’m not sure this is –” Banks began.

  “Oh, what could possibly go wrong?” said Garland, and pushed him aside.

  Garland and Poppy began to turn the wheel, which was as stiff as if it had been glued into place. Banks joined them, and slowly the wheel loosened.

  “Get back,” said Poppy, and they moved aside as Poppy first twisted and then spun the wheel.

  “Get back,” she repeated. Banks and Garland moved further away. Poppy span the wheel again with an annoyed jerk and they started at a loud hydraulic hiss from the door.

  Poppy heaved at the wheel and the door began to open. Clouds of white steam flowed from behind it. With her free hand, she carefully placed the teddy bear inside her jacket and grabbed the kitbag from Banks.

  “Be careful,” she said. “It’s quite cold in there.” And she yanked the door open.

  * * *

  Enveloped in white clouds, Garland and Banks followed Poppy into the carriage. Poppy was right: it was cold in the carriage. Thin rimes of mist covered the windows, which looked almost cracked from their webbings of ice. Their breath sat in the air, lumpy clouds of silver.

  “There goes your theory,” said Garland. “The alternating carriage thing.”

  Banks looked around the carriage. There were no seats or tables. Instead, the carriage was full of tall, wide metal cabinets, each bigger than a man. He opened one. Inside it was the frozen body of an animal, possibly a cow.

  “I told you,” he said. “Buffet cars don’t count.”

  * * *

  Poppy had produced a knife from her jacket and was hacking at a carcass.

  “This is good meat,” she said. “Much better than your cans.”

  “I like my cans,” said Banks, sounding hurt.

  “A varied diet is best,” Garland said. She opened another cabinet, this one full of small, frozen packs of something.

  “There’s certainly plenty of meat. But it’s too big and too frozen to microwave. How do we cook it?”

  Poppy gave her a look. “With fire,” she said. “How do you normally cook meat?”

  She strode on, opening cabinets and throwing packets of meat into Banks’s kitbag.

  “Fire?” Garland said.

  Banks shrugged.

  “Just go with it,” he said.

  * * *

  The carriage seemed very long, and it was only when the train reached a bend and the carriage bent with it that Garland saw that it wasn’t one carriage at all, but a series of carriages.

  “How long is this thing?” she asked after they had been walking for several minutes, each minute colder than the last one.

  “The larder?” said Poppy. “Quite long. Which means plenty of food for us.”

  She was right. Garland estimated that they had passed at least fifteen metal cabinets, each one of which contained a few carcasses or a collection of meat in packets or boxes. Nothing was labelled, which was not ideal, but on the other hand nothing seemed to be particularly weird. It was all fine, she decided, unless you didn’t eat meat. Garland wondered briefly if some of the cabinets contained vegetarian options, but after thinking about what she had encountered so far on the train she decided that this was unlikely.

  * * *

  “Here we are,” said Poppy, stopping suddenly at another massive steel door.

  Banks and Garland helped her turn the wheel, and they stepped into a normal carriage. Poppy dumped the kitbag on a table and sat down.

  “This should keep for a few days,” she said.

  “Have you done this before?” Banks asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “You mean you haven’t?”

  “I just got here, I think,” Garland said. “And Banks was happy back there with his cans.”

  Poppy wasn’t listening.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  She pulled a large haunch of meat from out of the kitbag.

  “Can I have my supper now, please?”

  * * *

  Garland hacked a few chunks of meat into reasonable-sized pieces. Poppy reached into her jacket and pulled out some crumpled paper plates and a fistful of plastic knives and forks.

  “Nice,” said Banks. “But all a bit cold.”

  “I told you,” Poppy said. “We just need fire.”

  “I’ve got this,” Garland said, holding up her lighter.

  “Don’t need it, thanks,” Poppy said.

  She got up and stood in the middle of the carriage.

  “Stay where you are,” she said.

  “What are you doing?” Banks asked.

  “Getting fire,” Poppy said.

  Suddenly she balled her fist and punched the carriage floor. Her fist went through it as if it was made of water.

  “You’ll lose your hand –” Banks began to say, as Poppy’s arm disappeared through the floor.

  She grimaced for a second. Her arm flexed as if she was groping for something and then, with a sudden wrench of muscles, came back up.

  In her hand, Poppy held a tangle of cables, fizzing and sparking with electricity. She ripped the cushion from the seat opposite her and plunged the wires into it. It sen
t out smoke that reeked of plastic foam, and then caught fire. Poppy dropped the cables, which spasmed and sparked across the floor, and threw the meat onto the flaming seat cushion.

  “Fire,” she explained as Garland and Banks covered their faces.

  * * *

  After a few minutes, during which they almost got used to the stink of the burning seat cushions, Poppy pulled the chunks of meat off and dropped them onto the paper plates.

  “Back in a minute,” she said, and carried the burning cushion into the toilet. They heard a hiss and then Poppy returned.

  “All done,” she said. “Tuck in, everyone.”

  * * *

  It was, so far as she was aware, the weirdest meal Garland had ever eaten, but it was also pretty good once she let her brain delete the strong odour of burning foam. She could have done with some vegetables, but the meat was hot, and filling, and tasted entirely of beef and not, say, something from a nightmare. Afterwards she sat back and felt comfortable for the first time since she had woken up.

  “You haven’t eaten your meat,” Poppy said to Banks.

  “I have a few reservations about this meal,” Banks said.

  “I don’t care,” said Poppy, and crammed Banks’s portion into her mouth.

  “I’m sure we’ll find some more cans soon,” Garland told Banks.

  * * *

  After everyone who was eating had finished eating, and Poppy had tidied up by taking all the debris of the meal away and putting it into the toilet, Garland said:

  “Do you know anything about what happened to you?”

  Poppy frowned.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “It might make me unhappy.”

  “When we found you, you were hiding in a toilet with a bloodstained teddy bear,” said Garland. “Were you happy then?”

  “I don’t know,” Poppy said, and she almost pouted. “I don’t want to think about that either.”

  “It’s OK, we won’t press you,” Banks said.

  “Good,” Poppy said. “Because then I might get cross.”

  She smiled and stroked Teddy’s head. Garland shivered slightly: after what she’d seen, she had a feeling that making Poppy cross would not at all be a good idea.

  * * *

  After a while, Poppy fell asleep.

  “She looks quite angelic like that,” Banks said quietly.

  “That’s because she doesn’t snore,” Garland said. “When you sleep, it’s like you’re having an argument with yourself.”

  “When I snore,” Banks said, “it’s because the armies of the night are moving through my soul. Also, because my nose is blocked.”

  They contemplated Poppy for a while until she stirred in her sleep, let out a sharp cry, and settled again, Teddy clasped in a firm grip against her chest.

  “I think,” said Banks, “that I’m a bit scared of Poppy.”

  “I think you’d be stupid not to be,” Garland said.

  “Can’t we just leave her here?” Banks said. “That was a joke,” he added.

  “Was it?” Garland said.

  * * *

  Time passed. All three of them slept, so deeply that nobody was woken by Banks’s snoring.

  They didn’t hear the noise from above them either, as something crashed across the roof over their heads, backwards and forwards, seeking a way in.

  * * *

  Banks slept a dreamless sleep, as though even his dreams had been deleted.

  * * *

  Garland slept deeply. She dreamed she was standing in a small room. Outside she knew, but didn’t know how she knew, a large crowd was waiting for her. She looked up. In front of her was a mirror. Garland studied her reflection approvingly. She looked good; confident, poised and ready for anything.

  Her reflection looked back at her and extended its hand to shake. Garland took it. She shook hands with her reflection for a moment, and then turned to leave the room and address the crowd.

  * * *

  Poppy slept, and dreamt the dream she always dreamt.

  * * *

  In the dream, she is skiing –

  Interlude Two

  In the dream, she is skiing.

  The snow is deep and endless and it seems to her, as she races across it, that the slope of the mountain has shaped itself to her skis. She barely has to turn, and there it is, waiting to take her further on. It’s almost like a moving carpet under her, sensing which way she wants to go, letting her choose her own speed.

  There is nothing in the dream but her, and the snow. The mountain is bare, and there are no people. This suits her. In the dream there is nothing else, but in her other life, the waking life, there are too many people. She puts this thought from her mind, and skis.

  She can ski as long and as far as she wants in the dream. There is, after all, nobody here to stop her.

  She feels the air around her, cold and powerful, urging her on. The wind is chill but not sharp, and she can almost see it enfolding her and pushing her on. The whistle of the wind blends in with the noise her skis make on the snow, every sound adding to the speed with which she moves.

  A bump in the snow is a launch pad to send her racing through the air. A sudden dip only adds momentum to her flight. The wind is at her back and no matter how far she skis, the ground only seems to move downhill for her. She remembers an old saying: may the road rise with you. Here the snow road seems to both rise and descend for her simultaneously.

  She moves like a bird, like a shark, like a fox. Nobody can stop her, and nobody will. She is alone and she is in control. On she skis, barely aware of the sticks she is holding, the sunglasses over her eyes, the gloves on her hands. There is nothing but speed, and snow, and her.

  * * *

  After a while the dream, as dreams sometimes do, becomes aware that it might be only a dream. Her mind starts to look for cracks in the story, flaws in the logic. She has been skiing downhill for a long time; longer than normal, surely? She never gets out of breath, she never feels tired, her muscles do what she asks without complaint. All this is possible, but is it likely? She isn’t hungry, or thirsty, or even bored; and yet all she has done for hours is ski. Her mind tries to reject the doubts, but they keep coming back. Where is she? Why does this mountain never end? Why are there no trees, no rocks, no people? For the first time she loses her rhythm, skis too close to a snowbank. She regains control easily, but her confidence isn’t the same afterwards.

  And then she sees, below her, the town.

  * * *

  The town is not like the mountain. Where the mountain is clean, and white, and bare, the town is a dirty grey mess. Where the mountain is simple, the town is chaotic. And where the mountain lets her fly like an arrow, the town looks jealous, like it would crowd in on her and happily see her fall.

  The town is getting nearer, and she can’t see a way to ski away from it. The mountain is turning into foothills now. She remembers another saying: first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain. The town looms up at her now, and she can see individual, grim houses. She can see cars, filthy with grease, steaming down narrow roads. And people, hunched, pushing grubby wagons. She can see, somehow, that the wagons are full of scrap.

  She very much doesn’t want to go towards the town, but she finds she cannot stop. Almost the skis have a mind of their own, racing eagerly towards the town, towards –

  – towards the road.

  * * *

  She is skiing towards a road, and she cannot stop. She tries to brake, to twist the skis to one side, even to make herself fall: nothing works. She is skiing towards a road and she cannot stop.

  * * *

  She flies, improbably, into the air, like a brave stunt girl attempting an insane jump. But there is nowhere to jump to.

  First there is a mountain.

  A truck hits her first, side on, so she is only thrown across the road. Then she is hit again, by a car coming the other way, and this time she slides underneath it
.

  Then there is no mountain.

  When she wakes up, she cannot move. She tries to move her arms, then her legs. Nothing works. Nothing seems to be there. Nothing is there.

  Then there is a mountain.

  When she wakes up again, there are doctors around the bed. She assumes they are doctors, anyway, because they have white coats and glasses and clipboards, and they are smiling. Clearly they are all top-flight medical professionals who have come to tell her the good news.

  “You have made a complete recovery,” one of them will say.

  “In some ways, you are fitter than before,” another will add.

  “Your teammates are insistent that you join them in training immediately,” says a third.

  * * *

  None of these things happen. Instead, the doctors – who are, for reasons she never quite understands, not really doctors, but some kind of scientists – explain to her that, against all odds, she has survived her accident, which they insist on referring to as “the realistic simulation”. It seems that her mind was correct about the dream and she had not been skiing at all, but – she can just remember now, underneath the pain and the fear – testing out a new and, yes, realistic training program for the forthcoming games. She was an expert skier who believed herself to be at the very top of her ability, but there were those in the government who felt that this was not enough, to be at the top of her ability, and that she could do better.

  As a consequence, normal training was not enough for her, and she was placed in machine simulations, which replicated part of her training with computer-generated imagery, and part with physically demanding recreations of actual movement. This had the edge over other simulations in that it gave the mind the illusion that it was skiing and as a consequence ensured that the body had no outside distractions. As far as mind or body were concerned, they were skiing down a mountain.