Ghost Train

by Stephen Laws

  Daddy had pressed the tape recorder switch (she didn’t know why, but he seemed to think that it was important) and darkness had suddenly spread from the spools. Just like the purple ink which had spread from Daddy’s splayed fountain pen nib onto the desk blotter on that day she had crept into his study when no one was looking. Except that this darkness just grew and grew and grew. It didn’t stop in a round, purple spot, as it had done on Daddy’s blotter. It had continued to spread and now the room was gone, Daddy and the tape recorder were gone, Mummy was gone, the Other Man was gone.

  There was only Helen, sitting on the edge of the bed. And over there, in the same position and splayed out on a purple backdrop, the Bad Man lay crumpled like Helen’s Looby-­Lu doll. There were long strings fastened to the Bad Man’s hands, feet and head. Just like a big puppet. And the strings stretched way up into the purple blackness. The strings were glinting silver in the darkness and, as Helen watched, something far above pulled on one of them and the Bad Man’s head moved jerkily around to look at her. Another twitch, and the Bad Man was pulling his legs into a sitting position, clambering clumsily to his feet, wobbling and weaving. And Helen knew now just what the Bad Man was. He was a puppet – only a puppet, and puppets couldn’t scare anybody. With that realisation, she also knew that the funny feeling which held her immobile in the real world did not restrict her here. The puppet was dancing now, slowly and clumsily, its mouth a horrible black slot twisted upwards into a grin. It was dancing for her, wanting her to dance as well. If she would only step down from the bed and come closer . . .

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? Come closer, little girl, and we’ll embrace and dance like you have never danced before. We’ll dance for all time. I’ll be yours, you’ll be mine.

  Helen knew that the puppet was horrible. She would not dance. But it was not the puppet of which she was really afraid. It was whoever pulled the puppet’s strings: the Puppet Master. She let her concentrated hatred spill out towards the puppet. It was a hatred of anything that could enjoy frightening people so much. Because, she knew, making people frightened was something that this Puppet Master liked doing best of all. In an instant, the piano wire strings parted and the Bad Man collapsed into a disjointed jumble of twisted limbs.

  ‘Very good, little girl. Very good. The strings are cut. The puppet collapses.’

  Helen turned as someone stepped into view beside her, pulling the purple blackness momentarily aside like some plush, velvet curtain. The voice was smooth, purring like a sleek, contented cat, and Helen could see that he was a young man, perhaps younger than Daddy. He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. There was a pointed party hat on his head, just like the ones that you got out of Christmas crackers, and there were party streamers on his shoulders. His face was white, very white (like parchment, Helen couldn’t help thinking), the eyes were very dark and his hair glinted with an oily something. He smiled a lot, but Helen couldn’t really make out his face. It was like one of those old photographs of her grandfather that Mummy kept in the attic. Grainy, black and white photographs. And of one in particular, where Grandfather had moved while the picture was being taken and his face had become all smudged. This man’s face was like that . . . like a smudged photograph. And no matter how hard Helen looked, it seemed, by a trick of the horrible purple dark/light, that she could never see his face properly.

  Helen did not like this man at all. There was something particularly nasty about him. Most of all, she did not like that big, big smile and all those perfectly even, white teeth.

  ‘All the better to eat you with, my dear,’ said the man, flashing his vulpine smile as he moved to the puppet, nudging it with the toe of his shoe as if making sure that it was really dead, really only an inanimate object.

  ‘You can hear what I’m thinking!’ said Helen incredulously.

  ‘Oh, yes. I know all about you. And what you’re made of. Sugar and spice and all things nice.’

  ‘Where are my Mummy and Daddy?’ Helen was suddenly defiant and outraged.

  ‘Let us say . . . I have arranged a little diversion for them. A little amusement, n’est-ce pas?’

  Helen knew that the man’s last phrase was French. She didn’t know what it meant, but she didn’t like it. People who spoke French just liked to be clever. She knew, because Sharon Bellford’s Mummy had started Linguaphone lessons last year and Sharon kept coming up with these stupid French words just to impress everybody. And Sharon Bellford was a creep of the first order.

  ‘You’d better not hurt them.’

  ‘How can dreams hurt, little one?’

  ‘Am I really dreaming?’

  ‘That would be telling.’ The man performed a small pirouette, vanished from sight for an instant behind another swirling purple curtain and reappeared again at Helen’s left.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  The man appeared to give serious consideration to the matter for a few seconds. When he answered, it was as if he had found the perfect reply: ‘I am . . . the Puppet Master . . . the Prince of Dark Dreams. Yes, that’s exactly right. All that you see and hear is mine. The Master of this Kingdom. And soon, perhaps, the next?’ The man was laughing now and Helen guessed that if he could read minds then he was probably talking like that deliberately because she read a lot of fairy stories and they all had words in them just like that. She was not impressed. And the man’s face had suddenly clouded as if he had heard her again.

  ‘Where are my Mummy and Daddy?’

  ‘Tiresome, my little one. Tiresome. But . . . as you wish.’

  And in an instant, Helen could see a fairground with a huge, spinning Ferris wheel and closely crowded sideshows. It was night, and she could hear the jumbled babbling noise that thousands of people always made when they were together in one place. All kinds of music drifted up to her from the sideshows as she wheeled above the fairground. She could see the Big Dipper, plunging and veering across the sky on its nightmare trellis framework of steel girders. Daddy and Mummy were sitting in the front seat of the front carriage. The Other Man was sitting in the back, hands clinging tightly to the rail. There were no other passengers. All three of them were sitting, staring blankly ahead as if frozen in time. Mummy’s hair was streaming out behind her; there was a red mark on her temple where the Bad Man had hit her. The rollercoaster was plunging downwards into a dip, and Helen could see that there was no track at the bottom leading sharply up to the next crest. There was only a black, gaping hole dug into the earth at the bottom and the track led straight downwards into this. Before she could shout any kind of warning, the carriage went roaring downwards into the hole, the sound of clattering wheels echoing loud and then fading, fading . . . as they vanished underground into uncharted depths. Helen could feel herself floating nearer to the hole. She felt sure that she would follow.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Not we. They. They’re going to a place where their worst bad dreams live.’ Again, the purring voice, like a cat playing with mice.

  ‘Stop this. Stop it and take us all back.’

  ‘Little Helen,’ said the Man in an admonitory voice, ‘they’re grown-­ups. And grown-­ups only care for themselves. They always think they know what’s best, even when you know they’re wrong. They always win, don’t they? They’re always telling you what to do. They know best – at school and at home. They’re always so right. But they’re not perfect, Helen. Not by any means. In fact, they’re hardly ever right. I can tell you that because I know. Look at your Daddy! He should be looking after you, shouldn’t he? He should be spending much more time with you, shouldn’t he? Lots more time with you than he has been – you know you’ve felt that yourself. You can’t lie to me. Because I can see what goes on inside your head.’

  ‘That’s not fair. Daddy had an accident. He was away for a long time in hospital getting better. He nearly died.’r />
  ‘And since he came back, do you really think he loves you as much as he did before the accident?’

  ‘He still loves me. Of course he still loves me. He told me so. And I know. That’s a hateful thing to say!’

  ‘But you know you’ve felt that way, Helen. Grown-­ups! They only care for themselves. They’ve got no time for the important ones. The important little ones like you, Helen. Your Daddy doesn’t love you any more. Because I can read minds – you know that – and I know.’

  Helen could feel tears brimming behind her eyes. She was struggling against submitting to the inner sorrow which the horrible Man seemed to have conjured up inside her. He was saying things that she knew she had thought in the past; things that had never really formed as straight and positive in her mind, because they were nasty, horrible thoughts and too unbearable to keep inside. But the Man had seen. And the Man said that he knew. And if he could read her mind, then surely he could read her Daddy’s­­­­ mind as well.

  They were back in the purple place again. The Bad Man still lay collapsed on the ground. The bed was still there and she was still sitting on it. Another swish of the curtain and the Man with the smudged face was standing before her with his arms crossed, looking at her sympathetically, as if he knew the way things were and that Helen had to accept it. She managed to keep the tears back, because crying was no good. It wouldn’t help her against the Prince of Dark Dreams.

  ‘Your Daddy doesn’t want you, Helen. He’s proved that, hasn’t he? If he really loved you, he would be here – I wouldn’t be able to stop him. But he isn’t. He’ll stay where I’ve sent him because he doesn’t deserve your love. But I want you, Helen. I have great plans for you. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted. You can live with me in this place forever and you can do whatever you wish. So long as you also do my bidding. Grown-­ups have no say here. They don’t belong. I will love you, Helen. I’ll love you to death.’

  A little girl had suddenly appeared beside the Man. She was wearing a purplish kind of nightdress that drifted around her like smoke, blending into the background, and Helen wondered if she had been there all along or if the Man had suddenly brought her out of thin air. The Man was standing aside, displaying her to Helen with a sweep of his hand as if she was some kind of special show-­thing. The little girl was moving humbly closer, awed by his presence. She was dark-haired, with clear, deep blue eyes and a wisp of a smile. Helen supposed that she was a couple of years older than herself.

  ‘This is someone very like you, Helen,’ said the Man. ‘Her name is Angelina and she knows what I say is true.’ The little girl was looking up at him, as if anxious to state her case. The Man nodded and, for a second, Helen could see only the smile and no other detail of his face at all. Just as if he had moved before the picture was taken, Helen thought again. And the Man looked back at her knowingly.

  ‘He’s right,’ Angelina said, ‘everything he says is true. He can see right into your mind. He can see what you fear the most. I was just like you once. And my Daddy didn’t love me . . . even my Mummy didn’t love me. But now I’ve given myself to the Prince and he’ll keep me for ever and ever. And the grown-­up world can’t never tell me what’s right and wrong again. They can’t never tell me what to do. Because anything I want, I can have. Anything you want, you can have. There’s a time coming soon, Helen, when everything’s going to change. The grown-­up world is going to be different. And it’s people like us that will be in charge.’ Helen could see how passionate Angelina was becoming. Her lip was pouting, she was trembling. ‘And they’re all going to be sorry. Very sorry. You can be part of it all, Helen. All you have to do is give your love to him. Isn’t it wonderful? And if your Daddy doesn’t love you, does he deserve your love?’

  Angelina stood back and looked at the Man again. He was nodding. He was pleased and she was so glad that she had said all the right things. The Man was turning back to Helen, holding his hands wide apart as if to say: ‘There you are! Out of the mouths of babes, my little one. What more is there to be said?’

  Something was wrong. A tiny part of her mind had responded immediately to what the Man had said about her Daddy. Because, no matter how much she disliked the Man, she knew that what he was telling her was partly true. She had felt sometimes as if her Daddy had changed, and that perhaps he had no more time for his daughter. Helen was fighting down that part of her which believed the Man because another part of her mind was telling her to be careful. And the thought suddenly came to her that, just because the Man could read minds, it did not mean that he was bound to tell the truth. He could lie about things to get his own way, couldn’t he? It was a thought that Helen struggled to keep hidden from the Man; she knew that there was a way to mask her thoughts from him, but she hadn’t quite found out what it was yet. The Man had sensed something. The glittering, pearly smile had faded slightly. Anger was beginning to smoulder in the eyes, just before his face shifted and blurred again.

  ‘Helen. You mustn’t hide from me like that. I can see. I know. And you mustn’t hide from me.’ Angelina seemed frightened now. She was standing back from the Man and it seemed to Helen that her nightdress was billowing slightly in a small wind. Billowing and curling around the little girl like the shrouds of darkness all around. As Helen watched, it seemed to her that Angelina was no more than a ghost. A flimsy picture from a storybook. A story­book where the wicked witch could become an innocent little girl if she wished. There was a sweetness about Angelina that wasn’t right. It was like eating too much chocolate and feeling sick, like Helen had done last Easter when Aunt Emma had given her those Easter eggs. The chocolate was nice but when you had too much and felt sick, the thought of eating more was bad . . . really bad . . . And it seemed that Angelina was like that. Sickly sweet, thought Helen. You’re no good. You’re wrong. And Angelina was suddenly gone from sight as if she had never been.

  ‘Helen!’ The Man’s voice was echoing in her ears, loud and threatening and just like the voice from a bad dream that calls your name through the bedroom doorway and you know . . . you just know, that . . . something . . . something horrible . . . is going to come in.

  ‘You’re hiding from me, Helen. You mustn’t do that. I want you.’

  Helen did not want to look at the Man, because she was frightened that he might become something else – something that she did not want to see. But she hung onto that feeling which she knew was keeping the Man from her deep thoughts, still not understanding it and knowing that, because she could not understand it, the Man was still able to work his way in behind her eyes to see what was there. In that instant, she heard again in her head something that Angelina had just said: He can see right into your mind. He can see what you fear the most. And then she remembered something else that she had first felt instinctively about the Man when the Bad Man Puppet was dancing before her: her instinctive hatred for anything that could enjoy frightening people so much.

  ‘Helen . . .’ The voice was slow, like a tape running down. Slow and horrible and thick with menace. Helen clung to the feeling which was keeping the Man out of her mind as he floated around the periphery, trying to get in and not liking it when he could not. She could not keep him out for very long, that much she knew. And what would happen when he did get inside after she had disobeyed him?

  He can see right into your mind. He can see what you fear the most.

  It was bedtime and Helen could not sleep again because the wardrobe standing in the corner of the room had two round handles on it, just like a pair of eyes. Those eyes were watching her in the dark and waiting for the moment when she fell asleep so that it could start moving forward, casting off its wardrobe disguise. She was calling to Daddy now. Daddy was always there, laughing and telling her that it was only a wardrobe. He would hang a towel across the door handles, as he always did – making it blind. He would kiss her and put the lights out, telling her that he loved her and that she should go to sleep
or she would never get up in the morning for school. And when Helen looked across, the towel would be wrapped firmly around the door handles that looked like eyes and everything would be all right.

  But Daddy wasn’t here now. He was somewhere else. Somewhere where his dark dreams lay. And there was nobody to put the towel over the door handles.

  . . . anything that could enjoy frightening people so much.

  ‘I know who you are!’ Helen shouted, her eyes screwed tightly shut, her hands held tightly together on her lap. ‘You’re what brought my Daddy the bad dreams. You’re what’s been making him not able to get well. It’s you!’ And with the knowledge came a flood of that peculiar feeling which kept the Man away. She was not lying in her bed at night with the wardrobe any more. She was in another, lighter, empty place. Somehow, she knew that the Man could never get her here. But she could not stay here for very long and could not keep the Man back unless she could find out what the feeling was that kept him at bay.