by Robert Clark
Impact
A James Stone Thriller
Robert Clark
For Tom.
The best big brother I could have ever asked for.
Prologue
It was the rumble of the train that woke her. Like the ripples of a distant earthquake reverberating for miles around. The gentle, steady vibrations worked up through the steel tracks into the body of her car, creating a subtle buzz in the dashboard. As it crept up into the steering wheel, it quivered through her wrists, and stole her from her slumber.
She felt different. Not quite there. Still halfway in a lucid dream. The space between spaces. Her mind was elsewhere, lost in a chasm of impossibilities. Not one of her normal trips. She tried to bring it back, reel it in from the quagmire. But something snagged it, held it in place.
She tried to move, but that too was hard. Exhausted eyes drifted this way and that, weighed down by what felt like cement. Her head hung. Her chin pressed into her chest. She didn’t like this feeling. She didn’t want it. With everything she could muster, she pulled her head up and looked through the windscreen.
Why was she in her car? Surely she hadn’t gone out for a drive in this state, had she? Or was this part of the dream? Was she actually at home, tucked up in bed with the fallout of a heavy binge causing her to hallucinate? No, she’d drank more than that before. She’d smoked weed and taken pills and not felt like this before. This was something else entirely. Something unknown.
Her head teetered and landed back against the headrest. It was definitely her car. She could feel the metal prongs sticking up between the padding, pressing into the back of her skull. She’d meant to get it replaced when she had the time, or the money, or motivation to waste money on mundane shit. It had been on a list as long as her arm of shit that needed sorting at some indefinable time somewhere in her future.
Her mouth tasted like shit. The kind of cottontail numbness that seemed to be a dentist’s specialty. The dryness made her want to gag, but strangely, she didn’t feel like she had it in her to heave.
She tried to move her hands, but they wouldn’t budge. Slowly, she cast her eyes down. Every slight movement carried the heft of a wrecking ball. They rested on the panel between the steering wheel. Not tied down or stuck. But immovable, like they weren’t her arms at all. But they were. There was the ring. Her mother’s old engagement ring, all faded and scuffed from forty years of marriage and five years thereafter settled on her thumb. She’d never taken it off. Not once. Even when everything went to shit and things had to go, the ring had remained. It would until her dying day. It was the last link. A final strand of a worn out rope.
The sight of it on her motionless hand scared her. She didn’t like this. Whatever game was being played, she wanted out. She wanted to go home and get under her blanket and pretend like nothing had happened. She wanted to be free of this, whatever it was, right this goddamn second.
She tried to open her mouth, to protest and shout and call an end to whatever this was. She’d been through enough already. This was too much.
Then she felt it again. The rumble. Low and prominent like a distant explosion. Stronger than before, but still not much more than a tremble. What was it? Her eyes drifted back up to the windscreen, slow and lethargic. Out into the fading light. Where was she? She could see trees packed in close together, and banks of mud and grass. What was this place? She couldn’t remember being somewhere like this. No road she’d been on looked like this. The light of dusk barely stretched down through the trees, but the meagre light of the sky illuminated something ahead of her. Two little lines, snaking off between the mud banks and the trees. Not a road. Not a dirt track. This was something else, glistening sombrely in the evening light.
Then she realised. Not a dirt track. Not a road.
A train track.
Fear didn’t hit her straight away, although it was present in her mind in an instant. It consumed her body like a slow poison, contaminating everything it touched. And, like an old steam locomotive gaining traction, her heart began to pump faster. The tempo increased. She could feel it, beating away inside her like a drum in an empty stadium. It didn’t help her. It didn’t bring back control. It just intensified the panic.
She wanted to move. She had to do something. The train was coming, and the turn in the tracks ahead was too close to give the conductor room to slow. It would kill her if she didn’t act fast. She forced her mind to action. Forced life into her lost limbs. As though she was practicing telepathy, she commanded her arms to move.
They did, slowly and clumsily, like the arms of an animated puppet. They slid out from the steering wheel and slapped like dead weights against her thighs. She didn’t feel the impact, whether through loss of control or determination to her task, she didn’t know. Her head drooped to the side, causing her body to flop against the driver side door. More progress.
The rumble grew louder. It jiggled the car so much so that she could feel it inside of her. She willed her arm up towards the door handle. All she needed was a small movement, a little force, and another shove and she would be free. But her hand wouldn’t move.
She tried again, putting every iota of willpower into her arm. Her fingers twitched, just a little. Then her wrist inched up, scraping against the door. She was so close.
The train grew louder. The sound of the horn jolted her. It was close. Too close. She had to move. Her fingers rubbed against the handle. She willed them to work. Saw as they slid in behind the latch. Now, pull. Pull. Pull.
Through the windscreen, she saw lights. Nothing more than a small glow reaching the trees and the bank at first, but with every passing second they grew brighter, stronger, closer. Too close. Too damn close.
She wrenched her hand, but her fingers pinged out. No. She didn’t have time for failure. Try again. She worked them back into place. Pushed them further into the gap between the door and the latch and tried again.
It worked. The handle turned, and she pushed at the door. It opened, just a crack at first, but it was open, ready for her to lean into it.
Two bright white lights appeared around the corner. She had just seconds left. The horn blared out again and brakes screeched in protest, so close it rattled her mind as she threw her weight into the door. Prepared for freedom.
Something caught her. Stopped her from falling. She felt it, trapping her in place. Her seat belt. No. She couldn’t let this be it. She tried to move her hand for the clasp. The train was so close. The horn so loud. Lights so bright. The brakes piercing. Slowing. But not enough. Too little time. Her hand brushed against the clip, but her fingers wouldn’t work. She looked up and saw the lights almost upon her and she knew it was too late.
She closed her eyes and thought of her parents.
And then…
One
If it weren’t for the sandwiches, I might have got away with it. The guy pushing the trolley was just doing his job. He wasn’t to blame. But I could tell that it was the long pause he allowed the passenger at the table opposite that cured her indecisiveness. Those damn sandwiches.
The train carriage was only about half full as it skipped through the fields of northern France, and with the light all but faded from the world, I couldn’t help but feel sedated by the carriage’s comfortable, cosy aura. There was something to the confined silence that made me feel like I could get up and chat to any of the surrounding passengers like they were deep-seated friends, like only we in this whole wide world were privy to this solitude. Like nothing else mattered. We were all equals here.
Of course, I didn’t. I couldn’t. And as the feeling washed over me like a hot shower, I felt myself relax a little too much. I looked across to the table opposite me, at the woman sitting alone there. She was old and tired and looked like she’d make an exce
llent grandma. Perhaps it was that gentle quality to her that loosened my guard. And I smiled.
She did not return the gesture.
And that would have been it, if not for those damnable sandwiches.
I never quite agreed with calling the men and women walking up and down the carriages of a train checking tickets and selling confectionary from a cart a “guard”. In America, they called them “conductors”, which is equally absurd. They didn’t guard the trains, or conduct them hither and yon. If I had to pick the lesser of the two evils, I’d go with conductor. It sounded more in line with the job. Less of an ego inflation.
I caught sight of the train conductor hauling his trolley of delights. He spoke in a low, raspy baritone, offering his wares to each passenger in turn like it demanded in his job description. Some passengers passed. Some bit, taking sweets and packets of crisps and sandwiches and cups of steaming coffee. It took the guy nearly ten minutes to work his way down to me.
‘Anything for you, sir?’ he asked in his hushed tone. He spoke French which - luckily for me - I knew enough of to get by.
I ordered a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. I readied the money while he prepared my drink and made the exchange without any problem. His eyes lingered briefly on my bruised knuckles, but offered no comment.
Then he turned to the woman sitting at the table opposite.
‘Anything for you, madam?’ he asked.
She raised her hand to shoo him away, but then she changed her mind. Her hand drifted back to her lap. It was positively thrilling to watch. Enthralling, like watching Caesar deliberating whether to raise or lower his thumb.
‘What sandwiches do you have?’ she asked.
The employee ran her through the options. They sounded a damn stretch better than those I’d seen on English trains, but I was content with my tea and chocolate bar. I was halfway through both before she made up her mind and ordered. The employee nodded and fetched her request while she dove into her bag for some money.
‘Oh, and a newspaper, if you have any,’ she said in afterthought.
The employee nodded again and placed the sandwich on the table, along with a cup of coffee and a packet of mints.
Then he picked out a newspaper.
And my stomach turned to ice.
‘Merci,’ said the old woman as she took the newspaper and exchanged it with a handful of coins. The train conductor counted it out and thanked her before moving on his way.
I sat stiller than a statue being eyeballed by Medusa while the old woman busied herself with her sandwich, peeling back the plastic wrapper and taking it out. She took a bite and picked up the coffee, chasing it down with a sip. Then she placed the sandwich back in the wrapper and the cup on the table and picked up the newspaper.
I saw her shoulders stiffen from across the carriage. All hunched up like a rat had run across her table. I saw her eyes fixate on the black-and-white image that took up a third of the front page. I practically felt the blood drain out of her as she read the title.
British Bomber Spotted in Bruges.
If only she’d passed on the sandwiches.
The old woman didn’t react straight away. She didn’t scream bloody murder and thrust a pale, wrinkled, accusatory finger at me in terror. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the initial repulsion as she put together the pieces, I might have had a chance to escape. But I couldn’t. She knew. Maybe she knew I knew. So she was playing it cool for now.
In the dusk light, I had no idea how far from the next station we were. All I could make out from my window seat were sleepy fields and sullen forests. Not a single sign of civilisation anywhere. I didn’t know if that worked in my favour or hers. A longer journey might give me more chance to escape, but it wouldn’t exactly take an age to wrap her wrinkling fingers around her phone and call the authorities.
I wanted to get up, but I didn’t dare. If there was even the slightest chance she hadn’t realised, I couldn’t give her more evidence. Instead, I shrivelled up against the window, slid down in my seat, and tried to focus all my efforts on learning how to transform myself into a train seat. All I could see of her was the sleeve of her coat.
She didn’t move. Just stayed planted in her seat. Maybe she hadn’t joined the dots. Maybe I was safe. But my face was still on the front page, and there could be God knows how many others on this very train, in this very carriage reading that same newspaper and imprinting my face into their consciousness.
I sunk lower into my seat and pulled my coat tight around me. The carriage had some heat pumping into it, but not nearly enough. I pretended like the cold was the chief of my concerns and tried to think what I’d do next. What was there for me to do? I was on a train that had come from Bruges, heading straight to Paris. There had been only a handful of stops so far, and the clock in my head told me we couldn’t be more than a few hours till our final destination. Police in Bruges would be going over every bit of evidence they could to find me. I’d only been there for a day, but I’d caused enough trouble to stir up a reaction. If the press knew I had been in their country, how much further ahead were the police? Did they know I was on this train? Were they waiting at the next stop, armed and ready to take me down by force?
I couldn’t sit around. I couldn’t wait for them to take me. Getting on the train had been a stupid, irrational decision. I should have been more careful.
Slowly, I pushed up out of my seat, forcing myself not to engage with the old woman again, and drifted out into the aisle. As soon as I was free of the seat, I spun around and hustled in the other direction. I kept my hands in my pockets and my head low, pretending like I was focused on not bumping into any of the passengers sitting in aisle seats.
Up ahead, a young mother and her little girl had got up, and were walking towards me. I sidestepped into a vacant seat and let them pass. Foolishly, I caught the eye of the mother, and saw something behind her eyes. Something I didn’t like to see. Something that made the back of my brain tingle. Something that made the darkness back there stir.
I pushed on, adopting a stride that could be granted a man in desperate need of a lavatory. I didn’t engage any of the other passengers. The warm, comforting familiarity had dissipated. These people were my enemies. I needed out of their nest.
At the end of the carriage, I chanced a final look back. The old woman had left her seat. I glanced up and saw her at the far end of the carriage, talking to the employee I had seen before. A shrill finger rose and pointed at me.
Shit, shit, shit.
The train conductor was just a small, lithe man. Not trained in the art of terrorist hunting, but even so he called out to me. Whatever he said, I didn’t register. Instead, I spun once more and ran for the carriage door.
The carriage was old. As I pressed the button to open the door, it hissed and slid achingly slowly apart. I forced my way through, ignoring the shouts and protests of both the train conductor and the other passengers, and ran the length of the next carriage as fast as I could. People dove out of my way, their faces a mixture of shock, disgust and rage as I barrelled past them. I could hear heavy footfall behind me, but I had no time to look. I had to keep going.
I hammered the button at the next door and forced the doors aside with my hands. I couldn’t keep running forever, I would run out of carriages soon enough. I needed another plan.
The third carriage was quieter. Those sitting inside had not yet been perturbed by the disruption. I slowed to a steady jog and headed for the exits halfway up the carriage. A group of teenagers lent up against the doors, barring the emergency stop handles while they listened to music through their headphones. If I could activate the emergency brakes, I could get off the train, but waiting for it to slow would surely be my downfall. I needed a faster exit.
And there it was. Above the window of the nearest table and tucked behind a layer of protective glass was a small tool. No bigger than a toy hammer, the pointed tip was sharp and sturdy, and had but one use.
In case o
f emergency - or a speedy exit for a wanted fugitive - break glass.
The sign beneath it warned of its use, and the consequences for using it irresponsibly, but those were not my concerns. I was all for being irresponsible. I ran across and leapt onto the table. The family of four screamed in horror, the father barking his protests. I paid them no mind and punched the protective glass to free the tool.
I grappled with the tool as sounds of my approaching enemies drew close. Time was almost out. I only had time for one strike, then I would have to leap out. I swung my hand back like a woodchopper with an axe and brought the small tool down on the pane of glass with everything I had.
The howl of whistling air drowned the sound of shattering glass and terrified screams. I didn’t stop to see if anyone was hurt. Didn’t have time. Instead, I steadied myself on the table, took a deep breath, and jumped.
Two
Note to self for future reference: never jump from a moving train.
As soon as I left the safety of the train, I realised the gravity of my actions. I had expected to hit the ground just a few feet below, and barrel roll until either I came to a stop or hit a tree and splattered myself across the French countryside. That did not happen. The ground was not so close.
Or so dry.
The noise was too disorientating to understand. The rattle of steel on steel as the colossal train thundered across the bridge made the rush of cascading water below seem like an afterthought. Even the screech of the train’s horn blaring into the darkness made little sense to me. All I could grasp was the fall.
And the impact.
Competitive divers are told to hit the water like an arrow. They’re trained to force their body as straight as possible as they slice into the surface, because anything else would likely mean death or paralysis. Water is not as soft as it looks in a bathtub or a cup. It’s hard and resilient and will kick the arse of even the most prestigious divers if they screw it up even a little. So as I plummeted faster and faster towards the river below, only one thought entered my mind. And it was screaming not to fuck it up.