Night Train

by David Quantick

  “If you hear a crunch,” she said, “run for it.”

  * * *

  The train rounded a bend, lurched to one side, and threw them back in their seats.

  Banks gave Poppy a stern look.

  “Relax,” she said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Put them back,” Banks said. “Throw them away. Drop them down the toilet.”

  Poppy said, “But they only work on someone who’s had the jab. And we haven’t.”

  “We don’t know that,” Garland said.

  “We don’t have any other weapons,” Poppy said. “No guns, no knives, nothing. Just these,” and she thumped the table with her fists. “So if something happens to me, you two flesh bags are buggered.”

  “Nice,” said Garland. She sighed. “She has a point,” she said.

  “Too right I have a point,” Poppy said.

  They finished eating. Banks cleared up the debris.

  “Why do you do that?” asked Poppy. “Tidy up after?”

  “Because it’s messy otherwise.”

  “But nobody cares.”

  “I care.”

  “This place is full of dead bodies, blood, guts and all kinds of stuff. A few packets and cans won’t make any difference.”

  “It makes a difference to me,” said Banks. He found a bin behind a table and shoved the rubbish into it. He put the kitbag over his shoulders.

  “Ready?” said Garland.

  Banks nodded. Poppy patted her pockets.

  “Ready,” she said.

  “Don’t do that again,” said Garland, and set off down the carriage.

  * * *

  Behind them, far enough away to be inaudible under the noise of the train, there was a thump, then another, then a third. Something was on the roof, and it was getting nearer.

  FOUR

  The next carriage was a buffet car.

  “See?” said Banks. “I was right.”

  He put down the kitbag and began opening cupboards.

  “Cans!” he said, his eyes glistening. “Look!” he said, holding up a can.

  “More purple,” said Poppy.

  “This isn’t purple,” Banks said, “it’s mauve.”

  “What kind of food is mauve?” asked Garland.

  “Guess we’re going to find out,” Poppy replied.

  Banks tore open the can, stuck in a finger and licked it clean.

  “Blueberry,” he said.

  “Blueberry what?” Poppy asked.

  “Just blueberry,” said Banks.

  “My favourite,” said Poppy.

  Banks opened all the cupboards. They were crammed with cans, and juice boxes, and packets of dried food.

  “Wow,” said Garland. “We hit the motherbuffet.”

  * * *

  “We just ate,” Poppy said, as they sat down to a table covered in food.

  “I know, but we can’t carry all this. Besides,” Banks said, his mouth full, “blueberry.”

  Poppy shook her head.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said. “Nobody touch my skis.”

  * * *

  In the bathroom, Poppy washed her face. After a moment’s thought, she drank some water from the tap. It tasted fine, so she drank some more.

  “What does not destroy me,” she said to the mirror, “makes me want to pee.”

  Just then the light went off.

  * * *

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Turn the light back on!”

  Then she remembered that there was no light switch. She went to the door and turned the handle but it didn’t open.

  “I’m stuck in here!” she shouted.

  * * *

  In the darkened car, Banks swore as he got up.

  “Banged my head,” he explained.

  Garland got to her feet unsteadily.

  “Did Poppy leave her coat?” she asked. “The bottles.”

  “On the back of her seat.”

  “Good.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sure,” Garland admitted. “But I think I should go and find Poppy.”

  * * *

  “I can’t get out!” Poppy shouted.

  “There must be a short circuit in the lock,” said Garland.

  “Must there?” shouted Poppy. “Who needs an electronic lock on a toilet anyway?”

  “I’ll file a complaint,” Garland said. “Can’t you smash the door?”

  “Why is it always me who has to smash doors?” Poppy asked. “Don’t say anything, I know the answer.”

  And she balled her fist.

  * * *

  “Banks! What are you doing?”

  “Putting the cans back in the kitbag.”

  A pause, then Garland said, “Why?”

  “Because they’re rolling around in the dark.”

  “Could you perhaps do that later? I need you here.”

  “What for?”

  A sigh in the dark.

  “Just. Come. Here.”

  * * *

  Poppy’s fist hit the door. There was a flash of light, and a sharp pain through the top of her arm into her shoulder. Her chest jolted and she fell to the floor.

  * * *

  Garland heard the thump.

  “Poppy?” she shouted. “Get this door open!” she told Banks.

  “I’ll need a lever.”

  “Get a fucking lever then.”

  “I really hate that word.”

  * * *

  There was a lot of clanking and banging, followed by some hissing, and then Banks was beside her again.

  “Here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Heating pipe.”

  Garland found the edge of the door. She was about to stick the end of the pipe in when she accidentally touched the edge of the doorway. An electric shock jerked the pipe away and she grabbed her hand.

  “The door’s electrified.”

  “But the power’s out.”

  “Yes, I can see that. And the door’s electrified.”

  Garland thought.

  “It must be a separate circuit,” she said.

  “Or a fault.”

  * * *

  Poppy lay on the floor. Her head was bleeding and her eyes flickered in their sockets. She was conscious but she could not move.

  Outside, she could hear the others talking.

  * * *

  “We need to shut off the power to the door frame.”

  “We need the lighter.”

  A few seconds, then Banks’s face illuminated by a flame. Banks stuffed paper and cloth into a juice container, and lit it.

  “There have to be cables somewhere,” he said, getting down on the ground.

  “That panel,” said Garland. She pointed down at her feet and handed Banks the pipe.

  “OK,” said Banks. He set down the flame and began to prise the panel off. The pipe snapped.

  “I thought you hated that word,” said Garland.

  * * *

  Poppy tried to move. She could feel the muscles tense and flex in her shoulders and at the top of her legs, but her limbs refused to move.

  I’ve been short-circuited, she thought to herself, and wondered if that was possible.

  * * *

  “We need more pipe,” said Banks.

  “We need more light,” Garland corrected him, as the flame guttered out. “What’s that?” she added.

  Further down, back the way they had come, something loud was happening.

  * * *

  Poppy felt it more than she heard it, a rattling thunder of movement.

  * * *

  “It can’t be,” Banks said.

  “Can’t be what?” asked Garland.

  They listened to the clatter of approaching feet. It was heavy, and determined.

  “Soldiers,” said Banks.

  * * *

  Poppy could hear them now, shouting, running in step. She tried to move towards the door, but her limbs were dead weight.


  She flexed a muscle in her back, and felt her body shift.

  * * *

  “How can there be soldiers here?” Garland said.

  Banks thought. “The station,” he said.

  “What, the doors opened back there and a load of troops got on?”

  “The train must have stopped for some reason.”

  Garland was silent.

  “Poppy!” she shouted.

  * * *

  Poppy inched towards the door, every muscle in her thighs and shoulders and back straining at every millimetre of territory gained. She could see nothing, but she estimated that her feet were now almost touching the door.

  Kill or cure, she said to herself, and with every ounce of her remaining strength she forced her muscles to push her dead legs at the door frame.

  * * *

  “I can see them!” Banks said. He grabbed the pipe.

  * * *

  There was a burst of flash from the door frame and Garland recoiled, showered in sparks. The door fell away.

  Poppy, dragging herself to her feet, put a hand on Garland’s shoulder.

  “Reversed the fucking polarity,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. I shocked the system more than it shocked me, I think.”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “Well,” said Poppy, “that’s life.”

  She stepped out unsteadily into the compartment.

  “Bit dark, isn’t it?” she said.

  * * *

  They stood there, in a train carriage with no light.

  “Where’s my jacket?” said Poppy.

  “On the back of a seat,” Garland said. “Not sure it’s much use against a platoon of soldiers.”

  “Platoon?”

  “At least.”

  “Fully armed, presumably,” said Banks. “And keen to get on with it, by the sound of them.”

  The sound of running men was a lot closer now.

  “What have we got?” asked Poppy.

  “You, and a metal pipe,” said Banks.

  “Could be worse,” Poppy said.

  “How?” replied Garland.

  * * *

  They braced themselves as the noise got closer.

  “How many of them are there?” Garland asked.

  “Platoon,” Poppy reminded her.

  “I don’t know how many that is.”

  “It’s enough,” Banks said.

  * * *

  They could hear shouting now, words in a language none of them recognised. They could see lights, torches probably.

  “Any second now,” Banks said, gripping his metal pipe tightly.

  * * *

  The door of the carriage was flung open and a soldier marched in, shouting.

  Then the lights came back on, startling them and the soldier who stood in the carriage. He stepped forward, hand covering his eyes.

  “Security ch –” he began.

  There was a terrible noise behind him, like meat being crushed. There were shouts, and screams, and some guns went off.

  The soldier turned round and ran back to join his comrades. The door slammed behind him.

  * * *

  Poppy stepped forward. Banks grabbed her arm, and she shook him off. Garland followed her to the door. They stood behind the glass, trying to see what was happening.

  A hand slapped against the glass, covered in blood. It slid down in its own red trail and vanished.

  Silence.

  * * *

  They waited a full half-hour before opening the door.

  * * *

  “Remember, there’s always one who isn’t dead,” Banks said.

  “Not this time,” Garland replied.

  The soldiers were in a terrible mess. Most of them had been killed quickly and efficiently – a severed head here, a punctured chest there – but some were less lucky, and had been battered against bulkheads, or partly cut in half. It was as if a very angry whirlwind or a small gang of chainsaws had barged its way down the carriage. This impression was not disproved by the path the thing that killed the soldiers had literally cut through them, a path that ended suddenly at the end of the previous carriage.

  “Where did it go?” Garland asked. “And by ‘it’,” she added, “I mean ‘whatever the hell that was’.”

  Poppy pointed at the ceiling.

  “Up,” she said.

  There was a large ragged hole in the ceiling. It was covered in hair and blood, like a demon’s plughole.

  “Which way did it go?” Banks said.

  “Let’s worry about that later,” Poppy answered. She bent down over a dead soldier. “Look at this,” she said, lighting the soldier’s face with his torch.

  “Definitely dead,” Garland noted.

  “And this one,” Poppy said, shining the torch on another dead man.

  “Oh,” Garland said.

  The two soldiers were identical. So, they soon discovered, were the two next to them. And the next.

  “They’re all the same,” Banks said. “Same faces, same eyes, all the same.”

  Garland thought of a hand reaching out of a mirror, and said nothing.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “First, let’s ransack their corpses,” Poppy replied. “Give me that kitbag.”

  Banks handed her the bag. “Practical,” he said. “I like it.”

  Poppy searched the pockets of the nearest soldier. They were empty. She moved on to the next soldier.

  “No money, no ID, no house keys,” she said. “No food, no concert tickets…”

  “I expect they have lockers,” said Banks.

  “No pictures of sweethearts, no lucky charms,” Poppy went on, moving to another soldier. “No dog tags.”

  “Can we go?” Garland said. “This place is creeping me out.”

  “Plenty of torches, though,” Poppy said. “Wait, this one doesn’t have a torch.”

  “You’ve done him already,” said Banks.

  “Sorry,” said Poppy. “They all look alike to me.”

  She stood up.

  “Guns,” she said, and began to gather up the dead soldiers’ weapons.

  * * *

  Back in the buffet car, they inspected their haul.

  “We don’t need all these guns,” Banks said. “There’s only three of us.”

  “Strength of ten men, me,” said Poppy, loading a couple of rifles over her shoulder.

  Garland looked at one of the guns. It had a recess in its side, like a shell.

  “That’s a thumbprint,” she said.

  She picked it up, aimed it back down the train and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. Garland tried again with another gun, then another.

  “Personalised weapons,” she said. “The rifles will be the same.”

  Poppy dumped her guns on the floor.

  “At least we have lots of torches,” she said.

  * * *

  “So how come the power came back on?” Banks asked, when he’d finished packing the kitbag.

  “The soldiers must have had access to the electrics,” Garland suggested.

  “Maybe they just pulled a fuse out,” said Poppy.

  Banks’s face took on a thoughtful look. He said, “If they did that, they must have had a –”

  “Manual?” said Poppy.

  “Map,” said Banks.

  He ran back into the other corridor.

  * * *

  “I’ve searched them all!” Poppy called to him. “I really am good at ransacking,” she told Garland.

  * * *

  Banks found a soldier with more rank badges than the others.

  “I’ve found the commander,” he said.

  * * *

  “I did him too!” Poppy shouted. “I looked in all his pockets!”

  * * *

  Banks rolled the officer over. He was lying on a crumpled sheet of paper.

  * * *

 
“You should have looked under him,” said Banks, returning to the carriage.

  * * *

  “No one likes a smartypants,” said Poppy.

  * * *

  Garland spread the map out on the table.

  “Well, this makes no sense,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Poppy. “I was expecting something that was more of a, you know, map of the train. Not –”

  “What is this?” Banks said.

  The map was a collection of seemingly unrelated symbols arranged in the rough shape of a figure of eight. The symbols were unfamiliar, and bore little or no resemblance to one another. Some were pictograms, but part of no language they could recognise. One or two were numbers, quite a few were letters of the alphabet, and one, bizarrely, appeared to be a photograph of a cat.

  “This is fucked up,” Poppy declared.

  Garland flipped the map over.

  “That’s more like it,” she said.

  On the back of the map was a schematic drawing of a train carriage, showing the wiring, the heating pipes and the ventilation ducts. They could see the audio grilles, one or two plug sockets, and a small drawing of a box, highlighted in red.

  “There,” said Banks. “Fuse box.”

  “Great,” Poppy said. “If we ever need to change a fuse, we can.”

  Garland folded up the map and put it in the kitbag.

  “You might as well throw that away,” Poppy said.

  “Maybe we’ll meet someone who can explain it to us,” said Garland.

  “If we meet someone,” Poppy said, “then we’re not going to need a map, are we?”

  Garland ignored her.

  “Next carriage, anyone?” she said, and strode off down the carriage.

  * * *

  They stood at the door of the next carriage. It was a perfectly normal carriage door, but Banks hesitated before opening it.

  “Get on with it,” Poppy said.

  “I was just thinking about whatever it was killed those soldiers,” Banks said. “It might have gone in there.”

  “It might have,” said Poppy. “It might not have. There really is no way of telling.”

  Banks still hesitated.

  “I’ll open it,” Poppy said.

  “No,” said Banks.

  “What is it?” Garland said.

  “It’s just – the more carriage we go into, the greater the risk,” said Banks.

  “That’s showbusiness,” Poppy replied. “Now get out of the way.”

  “Every carriage we enter,” Banks said, “the danger is worse. I think we should –”

  “What? Ask someone what’s in there?”

  “Obviously not,” said Banks. “But I don’t think we should go rushing in.”