Ghost Train

by Stephen Laws

  The face filled the sky, rushing down to him. And it was black now. Everything was black. There was purple pain at his throat. Purple, boiling pain tearing at his throat. And the terrible pain helped Eric to find the scream which had been building inside him. He screamed and screamed and screamed. But the screaming was always in his mind. And Eric went quietly to his death.

  Six

  When Aynsley stood up from the corpse, wrenching the pointed iron railing from the ticket collector’s throat, he knew that he had pleased his Master.

  Come, the Master had said. And he had left the sanctuary of the abandoned railway carriage and followed the fluttering of wings along the track. It was getting dark now and Aynsley had kept to the shadows as he moved, losing all sense of time and not knowing how long he had shambled along by the side of the tracks; the beating of wings always ahead of him and leading him to his destination. When the wings flurried away from the track and up a steep, grassed embankment, Aynsley followed on all fours, crawling like an animal, clutching at the tall grass for support. There was a wall at the top; part of it had fallen down and he could see a small street beyond.

  There, said the Master. And Aynsley had torn the rusted metal railing from the embankment fence before returning to the long grass again where he crouched, waiting for his next instruction.

  Wait, said the Master. He sat still and silent for a long time. Just as he had waited in the railway carriage. Eventually, the Chosen Food had come.

  Aynsley had moved quickly and had not been seen. He had killed the man in the manner that the Master had instructed him. And the Tasting of fear had been good.

  Aynsley slumped cross-­legged into the long grass beside the body, head cocked to one side like an attentive child as he waited for further instructions. A marionette with its strings cut. He had obeyed as he knew he would always obey. He had been wrong to call Him a ‘Voice’. He was, always had been, his Master. And all he wished was to serve.

  Good, said the Master, The Tasting of the little man’s fear was good. And now, the Time of Arrival is almost upon them. Three have been chosen. My Catalysts. But first, One Who was Chosen has twice denied Me of the Tasting. He must be tasted. Aynsley began to nod his head vigorously in understanding and agreement. Now! said the Master; this time so loudly that Aynsley could hear the echoing in his head. He pulled himself awkwardly to his feet and looked back down the embankment to the railway lines. There was a flurry of wings in his head again, like a pigeon in a loft. And, as he watched, Aynsley became aware of the power in the railway lines: a throbbing, powerful, living force which he alone could see and feel. The power in the rails would show him where to go. And when the power could go no further, when the lines could go no further, the flapping of leathery wings in his mind would lead him. And when he got to where he was going, the Tasting would be good.

  ‘Davies . . .’ muttered Aynsley. He began to descend, his foot catching in a tangle of weeds. He fell the rest of the way, crashing through the grass and tangled roots, rolling into the gravel-­filled gully at the side of the track. The steel rail beside him was surging with power. He scrabbled forward on his belly until the rail lay directly before him, only inches from his face. It was alive. Yes, the rails were alive. With each pulse, he could see the veins and arteries in the metal and realised that the line itself was an artery of Something Much Greater. He knew what he had to do. He gripped the rail tightly with both hands and felt the power flowing into him.

  This way . . . this way . . .

  Aynsley gave a stiff, exaggerated nod and then began to laugh. A low, chuckling laugh which began deep down inside and gradually convulsed him. There was no humor in it. The laughter was not human. He climbed to his feet again and began to follow, shambling forward in the deep shadows of the embankment, one foot moving awkwardly after the other.

  ‘Davies . . .’

  Seven

  Mark had been talking for over an hour.

  The sun was beginning to go down, throwing the city skyline into bas relief as it crept down below the horizon. Clouds of starlings flocked and swarmed in the darkening sky towards the city centre, clustering for the night on every available ledge of every available building, their noise almost drowning the traffic sounds of the homeward-­bound nine-­to-­five population.

  Chadderton sat and listened, his head on one side, a chubby forefinger placed thoughtfully against his temple. The bottle of whisky on the table beside him was nearly empty but he did not feel the alcohol’s effect. It took a lot more than that to get some reaction from him these days. Yes, sir, a lot more. Davies was describing every dream that he had experienced and Chadderton realised that it was as if some inner floodgate had been opened inside him. It all just poured out. And it confirmed what he had always thought about the man sitting opposite him.

  Davies was deranged.

  He was telling him about another dream now, but the format was the same as all the others: standing stones, prehistoric carved rocks, burial chambers and sacrifices; the product of a sick mind. Davies had clearly lost control and Chadderton was faced with two choices: Davies’ mental problems were simply a result of his fall from the train, or – and this was a much more crucial possibility – he was suffering from the same ‘disease’ that all the other poor bastards travelling on the King’s Cross train had contracted. Davies was alive. And Chadderton realised that even if he was no longer in charge of operations, someone would still listen to him if he was able to turn up with living evidence. Inwardly, he cursed his own shortsightedness in the Davies affair. Perhaps wrongly, they had assumed that a surviving victim of an attack who had no memory of the incident would be of no further use to them. But he now realised ruefully that Davies should have been given a continuous intensive examination by experts in the months following his emergence from coma – and screw the lack of resources and manpower. Of course, the media interest and coverage had not helped matters. Even Davies’ psychiatrist – who was it? Aynsley, yes that’s right, Aynsley – had not been given the full, inside story.

  Perhaps Davies had picked up from his intended killer a strain of this . . . ‘mental bug’ . . . or whatever the hell it was. Perhaps the ‘bug’ had run its full virulent course while Davies was in coma, leaving him now with only a trace, a non-­psychotic trace. Perhaps? Perhaps? Chadderton believed that the best thing to do was to go along with Davies for the moment and try to persuade him to help them; persuade him to go back and submit to examination by specialists. Perhaps they would find something . . .

  Davies was telling him about another dream, again of standing stones – a horribly graphic dream of a girl with her lips sewn together. And, as he talked, Chadderton remembered how his own horror had happened. He reached down to the table and poured the remainder of the whisky into his glass. He gulped it down in one draught and began absently to caress the scar tissue on his forearm as he listened to Mark’s talk of dreams. Davies was describing a dream where he had been transported to a long avenue of standing stones on a remote isle. And something that belonged in a nightmare was chasing him . . . finally catching up with him.

  ‘Oh, God . . .’ Mark suddenly stopped. His face looked deathly white.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘When I woke up, I went to the bathroom. That’s when I heard my daughter calling out in her sleep. I went in to comfort her and she woke up. She told me that she had seen Robbie, that he had visited her before. She knew that he was dead, knew that he belonged to the Ghost Train Man . . .’

  ‘You mentioned it to her, that’s all. You must have told her about your dreams, or maybe she listened to a conversation you had with your wife. Kids can be very impressionable.’

  ‘No!’ snapped Mark fiercely, ‘that’s just the point, don’t you see? I never mentioned anything about the dreams to my daughter. Why should I? And I never even told Joanne anything about that particular dream. But Helen was dreaming of Robbi
e! Jesus Christ, I don’t understand how . . .’ Davies was running a hand through his hair, and then a sudden realisation hit him. ‘If what I’ve got is some kind of unknown hallucinatory mental disease, I could pass it on, couldn’t I? I could be contagious. Perhaps Helen’s­­­­ caught something from me.’

  ‘Take it easy . . .’

  ‘You’ve got to drive me home, Chadderton. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘You said that you would do anything you could to help, Davies.’

  ‘I will. But you’ve got to drive me home now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve been gone all day. Jo will be worried sick about me.’

  ‘I want you to undergo an examination under intensive medical supervision, Davies.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll do anything you say. But for God’s sake drive me home now.’

  ‘Okay.’ Chadderton stood up, draining his glass. ‘We’ll need to tell your wife all about it, I suppose.’ Mark was pulling on his jacket, looking at his watch again. And Chadderton thought about what he had said about being contagious. He had pulled him away from a train, had practically carried him back to his hotel room and had spent all afternoon cooped up with him. If Davies was right, then there was a fair chance that he might have transmitted whatever it was to him. In his heart of hearts, Chadderton couldn’t have given a shit. He was dead inside already. ‘The sooner we get you into an observation ward the better. Don’t worry about your wife and kid. If what you say is true, we’ll look after them.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Okay, Davies. They.’ Chadderton pointed to Mark’s half full whisky glass. ‘You want that?’ Mark shook his head. Chadderton picked it up and drained it.

  ‘Please. We’ve got to hurry. I’ve a . . . feeling . . . that something bad is going to happen. Something terrible. I’ve got to go home, now.’

  Chadderton pulled on his coat and carefully scrutinised Davies as they headed for the door. All right, he thought. I’ll take you home. But then we’re both heading south, even if I have to hold a fucking gun to your head, Davies.

  Eight

  Joanne could wait no longer. She flipped through the small note-­pad on the telephone table in the hall until she found the number for Aynsley’s clinic, picked up the receiver and dialled. Helen was in the living room, sitting on the carpet and watching a video cassette of cartoons that Mark had recorded for her last week. A medley of cartoon noises drifted into the hall as Joanne listened to the ringing tone at the other end. After a few seconds, a young woman with an all-­purpose accent answered.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Hello, my name’s Mrs Davies. I was just wondering if my husband has been in to see Dr Aynsley today.’

  ‘Well, Dr Aynsley hasn’t turned up today, I’m afraid. But if you like, I can check his appointment sheet.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Joanne waited and worried. She remembered how Mark had been this morning; his disconcerting, faraway look, the deathly white pallor of his face. And she remembered how she had felt. A bad feeling that had crept into her mind increasingly of late: I don’t think I can stand much more of this. But she had pushed that thought out of her mind again. Mark needed her now more than ever. And she needed him. She remembered Mark saying: I know what I’ve got to do. Within half an hour he had left the house again without saying another word, without giving her any of the assurances that he usually gave. It was almost four-­thirty now and Joanne cursed herself for letting him go out again in that state, and for not doing something about his absence earlier.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Davies?’

  ‘Yes.’ Frightened now. Her heart thudding loudly in her chest for no reason she could immediately identify.

  ‘No, I’m afraid Mr Davies didn’t have an appointment today. Why? Should he have?’

  ‘No . . . I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘But I see that he does have an appointment for Wednesday morning at ten. I’m afraid we have no idea what’s happened to Dr Aynsley, Mrs Davies. He hasn’t phoned in – so I’m not sure whether alternative arrangements can be made yet. Can I ring you back? We’re in rather a turmoil today. There was a break-­in last night, you see . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m awfully sorry. Yes of course. If you could ring me, please, I’d be very grateful.’

  There was only one other alternative now, Joanne thought as she replaced the receiver. The station. He must have gone back to the station. She walked quickly back into the kitchen, locking the door and window. When she returned to the living room, Helen was kneeling forward only a few inches from the television screen, scrutinising Daffy Duck as a low railway bridge slammed him from the roof of a fast-­moving train. His flattened body rattled across the tracks like a spinning ten-­penny piece.

  ‘Come on, darling. We’re going for a drive.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Eyes still glued to the screen as Daffy straightened himself out again.

  ‘I think we’ll go to the railway station.’

  ‘Will Daddy be there?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘All right.’ Helen tottered to her feet, pressed the ‘off’ switch on the video, just as Daddy had shown her, and pulled the plug from its socket in the skirting board. For some reason she could not understand, Joanne felt emotion choking up into her throat as she watched Helen run into the hall, jump up onto the telephone seat and pull her anorak from the peg on the wall.

  ‘Why is Daddy at the station?’ asked Helen five minutes later, her rag doll, Looby-­Lu, cradled in one arm as Joanne closed the front door and locked it. ‘Has he been away or is he going somewhere?’

  Joanne thought: Both, my love. And we can’t do anything to help him. Then, she answered: ‘He’s been away and I expect he’ll be waiting for us to collect him now.’

  The car stood a little way off in the driveway in the shadow of a hedge which stretched the two hundred-­foot length of the drive to the road. It was very quiet tonight, but then it was quiet most nights in this neighbourhood. Fields bordered the back of the house and their nearest neighbour, Mrs Frederickson, lived five hundred yards away down the hill and out of sight.

  Joanne wondered what she would say if she found Mark sitting on a bench in the Central Station, or huddled over a cup of coffee in the buffet. Kind, sympathetic words? Or harsh ultimatums? She just did not know. Let’s wait and see if he’s there first, she thought. But what if he isn’t there? What if I search and search and can’t find him? It was a possibility that she refused to acknowledge.

  ‘Do you promise to be good, Helen? No bouncing around on the seat or I’ll have to strap you in.’

  ‘I’ll be good.’ Joanne opened the back door of the car and Helen scrambled inside, neatly arranging Looby-­Lu on the seat next to her, folding her small rag arms across her lap. Joanne got into the car, squirted water onto the misted windscreen and let the wipers clean it off for a couple of seconds. The engine turned over at once and Joanne drove slowly across the crackling gravel towards the two gateposts at the entrance to the drive. Slowly, because she had once scraped the car door against one of the posts when she had approached too quickly. She remembered breaking the news to Mark, ringing him up at the office that day.

  I’m sorry, I’ve bumped the car.

  You’ve had an accident? Oh God, are you all right, Jo?

  Yes, yes. I’m fine. It was just a scrape on the paintwork, that’s all.

  What happened?

  I scraped a gatepost.

  Where? In town?

  No . . . no . . . it was the gatepost in our driveway.

  You mean . . . you haven’t even got the car out of the drive?

  . . . No . . . she managed to squeeze out, on the verge of hysterical giggles. He was laughing now, roaring with laughter, his voice slightly distanced as he rolled back in his seat, holding the telephone away from him. And now she was laughing too, uncontrollably.

&nbs
p; There had been lots of laughter then. But those days seemed far away now. The gateposts loomed up on either side of the car and, since the accident, Joanne was especially wary at this point. Perhaps, she thought, we should get them taken out. Why have gateposts when you haven’t even got a gate or . . . ?

  Helen’s scream ricocheted in the confines of the car, high and shrill, turning Joanne’s nerves into solid ice: ‘Mummy, Mummy! There’s a maaaaan . . . !’ And from the corner of her eye, Joanne could see that the hedge was thrashing wildly at the side of the car as if it were alive. There was a flurry of movement and something crashed through the hedge and slammed down onto the hood. The car jerked as Joanne’s foot came off the clutch; the engine spasmed, lurched and died. Before Joanne could register what she had seen, the windscreen starred like a giant cobweb as something hard swung against the glass.