Terror Illusion

by James R Conway

Karen Wilson had been born and raised in the area around Leeds.

  Her father and mother had owned and run a bookshop in the city for many years and Karen, with her older sister Jane, used to help their parents in the shop after school, unpacking boxes of new books, stacking the shelves, dusting off the books and generally helping around the shop. As a result, both girls had grown up with a love of books.

  The Wilson girls’ parents, Fred and Barbara, had encouraged their daughters’ interest in reading, which they saw as critical to a proper education. Both girls had gone on to university. Jane, who was four years older than Karen, had gone to the University of Durham to study Graphic Design and now ran a successful design practice in Leeds. Karen, on the other hand, pursued her love of books and did a degree in Publishing at the University of Birmingham.

  While Jane had returned to the Leeds area after university, Karen had found that most of the good jobs in publishing were in London and had moved to the Big City when she landed a job with one of the major London publishing firms.

  On Thursday morning, Karen set off from her mother’s house in a pleasant suburb of Leeds and caught a bus to the railway station in the city centre. It had been overcast when she had left home and by the time the bus reached the railway station, it had started to rain. She pulled up the collar of her raincoat and dashed into the station buildings.

  Karen had promised Jonathan that she would think up some ideas about his retirement to talk about over lunch but up to now, she had drawn a blank. Perhaps she would come up with some ideas during the train journey.

  She bought a day return ticket to Ravensgill Bridge and looked at the departures board for details of her train. There it was, the train to Carlisle, stopping at about seven stations before Ravensgill Bridge. She had never been on this line before although she had heard that many people considered it to be one of the most picturesque railway lines in England.

  She checked her watch, ten minutes until departure. She made her way to the platform where the train was waiting. The train consisted of just two carriages with a driver’s cab at each end. The diesel engine was idling quietly as she got aboard. She was travelling lightly this time, just a small briefcase that she placed on the table in front of her.

  She was surprised to see that she was the only person in the carriage, in fact the only person on the train and that made her a little nervous. She decided to stand by the open door and watch the people on the platform and the other trains pulling in and out of the station.

  A uniformed conductor walked up the platform, a ticket machine on a strap over his shoulder.

  “Mornin’ ma’am,” he said as he stepped aboard Karen’s carriage at the door where she was standing.

  “Good morning.”

  Karen felt more comfortable now there was someone else in her carriage and she returned to her seat. A few minutes later the carriage doors hissed shut and the train pulled out of the station.

  Karen watched the station buildings slide away as the train gathered speed.

  “Ticket please!” said the conductor.

  Karen reached into her purse, pulled out her ticket for Ravensgill Bridge, and handed it to the conductor. The conductor looked at the ticket.

  “Ravensgill Bridge, eh?”

  “Yes, I’m going to have lunch with a friend who lives there.”

  “It’s about an hour to Ravensgill,” said the conductor, “about six stops before then. I’ll tell you when we are getting close. Are you coming back today?”

  “Yes, later this afternoon.”

  “I might see you again, then. We take this train up to Carlisle then bring it back again. Now, Ravensgill Bridge is what we call a request stop so when you get on the platform to come back you’ll see a phone. You just pick it up and tell the dispatcher where you are and he will call the driver and tell him to stop and pick you up. You got that?”

  “Yes. Thank you very much.”

  The conductor clipped the edge of Karen’s ticket and handed it back to her. Then he walked though the connecting door to the next carriage.

  When Karen looked out of the window again, the train had cleared the urban sprawl of Leeds and was now travelling alongside a river through a hilly wooded area. Karen’s thoughts turned to her lunch meeting with Jonathan and what she might discuss with him. Of course, the problem was that Karen did not really know anything about Jonathan except that he was retired and he lived in an old railway station - the railway station where she would be meeting him in less than an hour. She was puzzled as to why he was retired at such a young age – there had to be a story behind that. He was obviously struggling to find something to challenge him in his retirement and he seemed to be especially interested in movie special effects. She didn’t have much to work with but what she had was interesting. This could be quite a challenge, thought Karen.

  Karen realised that, as she had been lost in her thoughts the train had now emerged from the wooded valley and was now travelling through open moorland. In the distance, the hills were shrouded in low cloud. Everything around looked very green as a result of the rain. She thought that the train might have stopped in a couple of stations while she had been lost in thought and now the train was slowing down for another stop. It looked like a small market town, a river or canal running alongside the tracks as the train pulled into a very old fashioned looking station, obviously dating from the Victorian era. This was Skipton. After a short stop, the train started again. Karen checked her watch – about half an hour until the train reached Ravensgill Bridge.

  The train continued to wind its way through the magnificent, rugged scenery, moorland split by valleys with streams running off the hills, sheep feeding on the sparse vegetation. Karen found it a very stimulating but relaxing ride. After about three more stops, the conductor came back into the carriage.

  “Ravensgill Bridge next stop, miss,” he said.

  “Oh! Thank you!” said Karen and she picked up her briefcase from the table in front of her. The train started to slow down as it approached the station and Karen stood up and waited for the automatic doors to open.

  The train came to a halt, the doors opened and Karen stepped out onto the platform. She looked along the platform and saw Jonathan waving to her. Behind her, the doors of the train hissed shut and with a roar of its diesel engine, the train pulled out of the station.

  Karen walked along the platform towards Jonathan and he walked to meet her. As he reached her, he smiled and extended his hand.

  “Karen, thank you so much for coming,” he said and they shook hands. “Did you have a good journey?”

  “Yes. It’s such beautiful countryside once you get out of Leeds”.

  “It gets even better north of here, further up the line.”

  They were walking towards the main station building.

  “This is my house,” said Jonathan. Karen smiled.

  They walked into a room which had doors on each side, one set of doors leading in from the platform and the doors on the opposite side of the room leading out onto a road. This was the public part of the station where passengers purchased tickets for their journeys at a small ticket window. These days the small window was boarded up and there was an impersonal electronic machine on the wall of the ticket hall, which accepted cash and credit cards and spat out tickets according to the buttons that passengers pushed.

  “My part of the station is through here,” said Jonathan, unlocking a door at the side of the ticket hall. He pushed open the door and Karen stepped into a living room.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” said Jonathan.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Take a seat.”

  Karen sat on the sofa and Jonathan walked through to a small kitchen area and put a kettle of water on to boil. Then he walked back into the living room and sat down in an easy chair opposite Karen.

  “This is a fascinating place,” said Karen.

  “I’ll show you around when we’ve had a cup of tea,” said Jonathan. “So, h
ave you had any thoughts since last week?”

  “Actually, I haven’t been able to think very clearly this last week. I was hoping a day out in the country might help to clear my mind.”

  “That’s exactly why I moved here,” said Jonathan. “I find it very inspiring.”

  The whistle on the spout of the kettle began to sound and Jonathan got up to make the tea. He returned with a tray containing the teapot, cups and saucers, a milk jug and a plate of biscuits.

  “You know, I don’t really know much about you,” said Karen as Jonathan poured the tea. “What did you do before you retired? Why did you retire so young? I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs but I need a bit more information if I am going to be able to help.”

  Jonathan passed over a cup of tea to Karen, sat down in his easy chair and stared out of the window towards the hills. He sat in silence for a minute or two.

  Karen could see that he was gathering his thoughts and she decided to give him time to think. She sipped her tea.

  Eventually Jonathan spoke.

  “It’s difficult to know where to start.”

  “Do you mind if I make a few notes?” said Karen, pulling a pencil and notepad out of her briefcase.

  “No, of course, no problem, go ahead.”

  Karen could see that Jonathan needed some encouragement.

  “Quite often, my writers get overwhelmed by the idea of having to lay everything out in sequence from start to finish so they don’t try to write that way. They just pick a starting point and work from there. Sometimes they work forwards, sometimes they work backwards from where they started. Eventually they pull it all together. Why don’t you try that?”

  Jonathan appeared to relax and started to talk. Karen discreetly made notes as he talked.

  “Well, I’m not actually retired, strictly speaking. I’m disabled, although you probably wouldn’t notice. A few years ago, I was in a pretty bad car crash. I was quite badly injured and I was in a coma for three months. The broken bones healed fairly quickly but I had a head injury and that’s what caused me the biggest problem.”

  “How so?” said Karen.

  “Well, I had some brain injury and it really slowed me down. I get tired very easily and I think and move more slowly than I should at my age.”

  Jonathan paused for a second or two, then continued.

  “You know, a head injury is one of the most difficult disabilities to live with because you look so normal on the outside, but inside you’re struggling.”

  “You look and sound pretty normal to me,” said Karen and she immediately realised that she sounded crass. She continued quickly, “But it must be very hard.”

  Karen felt that she sounded so lame. She was feeling really awkward and embarrassed. Jonathan smiled and reassured her.

  “Don’t worry! Don’t feel bad! I could be in a wheelchair. I could be in a vegetative state or still in a coma. I’m really quite lucky. But I could not keep going with my career. I went back to it after I recovered but I couldn’t keep up with the pace. I tried to work part time but in the end it became too hard.”

  Karen felt relieved. Perhaps getting Jonathan to talk about his former career might throw up a few ideas.

  “What type of work did you do before you retired?” said Karen.

  “I was in the movie business.”

  “A film actor?”

  “No! I worked in the technical side, special effects. I worked on quite a few films. My name was pretty much the last one on the credits, at the end of the movie after everyone had left the theatre.”

  Karen laughed. Jonathan seemed to be much more relaxed now.

  “Where were you working? At Pinewood Studios?”

  “Actually I did start my career there and I went back a few times to do special projects, but I spent most of my time in California. You know, Hollywood, Los Angeles, around there.”

  “How long did you live there?”

  “Twenty years, roughly.”

  Images of sunny California beaches, palm trees, surfboards danced through Karen’s mind and then she looked out of the windows towards the hills, shrouded in low cloud.”

  “And you came back to this?” she said, nodding towards the window.

  “It would probably take me a very long time to explain all the reasons that I came back, but I can tell you that the weather was not one of them!”

  Jonathan thought for a few moments, then said, “Do you mind if we go for a walk while we talk? If we walk across the bridge, there’s a path that leads to the stream and then down to the village. Maybe we can get some of lunch there.”

  “Is it very far?”

  “Not really. About a mile to the village. We can come back along the road. It’s shorter”

  Karen sensed that Jonathan had something important to say and she thought that perhaps walking and talking might make it easier for him.

  “That would be a great idea,” she said.

  “I’ve got a spare pair of Wellington boots that should fit you,” said Jonathan. “The path can sometimes be a bit muddy in winter.”

  Jonathan went into a back room to get the boots and Karen pulled on her overcoat. After a few moments, Jonathan returned wearing an overcoat and wellington boots carrying a spare pair of boots for Karen.

  “Try these on for size. I’ve got another pair in the back room if they don’t fit.”

  Karen grunted as she pulled on the boots and then stood up and stamped her feet on the carpet.

  “These will do just fine,” she said. “Let’s go! Lead the way!”

  They walked out onto the platform, which was empty of people. The next train was not due for a couple of hours.

  “The path is this way,” said Jonathan, pointing to the north end of the platform.

  They started off at a brisk pace.

  Chapter 4