by Stephen Laws
Father Daniels tried to speak up, his voice quavering. ‘No, I’m sorry, I think you’ll find that’s right. And the booking is quite specific, an entire first-class compartment on one of the ordinary King’s Cross trains. Not a 125. They don’t have separate compartments, you see . . . and we . . . need a compartment . . . to ourselves . . .’ The priest’s words dissolved into the handkerchief with which he now nervously wiped his lips.
‘This is extremely irregular,’ began the ticket clerk, leaning forward and trying to take advantage of Father Daniels’ hesitation.
‘Look!’ said Chadderton, pushing forward to the counter. ‘Never mind all of that. Just check for six tickets in the name of Father Daniels. You’ll find they’re there.’
The ticket clerk fired a glance at Chadderton which was meant to wither. Chadderton returned the glare and, conceding defeat, the clerk moved off into the recesses of the office to look for the tickets. Mark wondered what Chadderton must have been like in the force. He supposed that he had been one hell of a policeman, someone you could not afford to cross on any account. Mark could not think of anyone he would rather have with him at this moment. He continued to scan the station, his eyes eventually drifting to the ticket barrier which had been the focus of his fear for so long. He wondered whether he would be able to pass through again, secretly hoping that he would fail and that he would have to return to Joanne and Helen.
The clerk returned with a wad of tickets in his hand. Sulkily, he clipped them and pushed them over the counter, muttering something about people in high places pulling strings at the expense and inconvenience of the normal paying customer. Mark wondered whether the clerk had any idea what might be pulling his own strings in the not so distant future, if their attempt should not succeed. Father Daniels took the tickets and picked up his bag. With Chadderton close by his side, they turned to join Mark. For all the world it looked as if Chadderton was playing the part of an undercover policeman, guarding the priest and – more importantly – what he had in his bag. Chadderton shot Mark a glance.
‘Nothing,’ replied Mark in answer to the unspoken question.
The three men walked purposefully across the station towards the ticket barrier.
Mark remembered that walk well. He knew exactly where the ‘no-man’s-land’ boundary began; knew every square inch of the run-up to the barrier. When they crossed the line and he felt no overwhelming panic, no impulse to turn and run, he was surprised. The last time he had passed through, something else had been in charge of his body. Something that wanted him dead. Now he was passing through of his own volition. A strange exhilaration momentarily overcame the fear. Father Daniels handed three tickets to the inspector, who clipped them methodically and handed them back. They passed through.
Mark felt a hand close on his arm. Chadderton was standing next to him.
‘How do you feel?’
Was that genuine compassion on his face? On Chadderton’s face? ‘I’m okay,’ said Mark, suddenly moved by emotion. ‘But we’re really in its domain now. God knows what’s ahead of us.’
‘We’ll do all right.’
They crossed the bridge spanning the line, carefully studying everyone around them before starting down the ramp towards Platform Nine. The public address system announced that the King’s Cross train was on time and would be arriving in fifteen minutes. Mark remembered how he had seen that train the last time he had been on Platform Nine. He remembered the billowing steam, the locomotive that was more animal than machine. He remembered the ragged, ghoulish passengers from a childhood nightmare; the cadaverous train driver flapping and beckoning from a yawning window. He shuddered. Chadderton looked anxiously at him and Mark knew that he was wondering again whether he had ‘felt’ anything.
‘Someone just stepped on my grave, that’s all.’
They reached Platform Nine.
There were about thirty or forty people on the platform, Chadderton calculated. A gaggle of schoolchildren clustered around what he supposed were two teachers. Their brightly coloured luggage, smothered in stickers, was stacked neatly in trolleys. Businessmen, families, a few students with rucksacks. He wondered if Azimuth’s chosen three were here and what was going through their minds at this very moment if they were. Their minds, he thought. Perhaps they don’t have minds any more. Maybe they’re just walking puppets: embodied versions of the nightmare.
Father Daniels sat wearily on a bench. He had hardly spoken a word since they had picked him up from the vicarage. He had simply listened to everything that was said. He neither declined nor assented to any view. And Chadderton could not blame him. Perhaps he thought that he was living a dream, just as Chadderton himself had thought not so long ago.
Mark stood behind the bench, leaning on his walking stick and keeping an eye on the people round about. Chadderton’s initial dislike and disdain of the man had gone. He himself had been through hell once, had been attacked in his own mind twice, and that alone was enough to send anyone screaming to the madhouse. He had come to terms with that, but he realised now that Davies had been living through a particularly hideous kind of hell for almost fifteen months. His life had been practically destroyed. He had been living ever since the accident with that frightful thing inside his brain. And he had been fighting it all the way. That took more courage, more tenacity, than Chadderton could ever admit to possessing himself.
The public address system echoed tinnily again: ‘The Edinburgh to King’s Cross train will be arriving at Platform Nine in two minutes.’
Mark remembered the sound of that loudspeaker as he had last heard it. He realised that the voice of Azimuth had been speaking, but that he alone had been the one to hear it. Father Daniels got up from his seat, clutching the briefcase. Close together, they moved forward, with Mark covering the rear and Chadderton watching the people in front as they milled towards the platform’s edge.
Two porters were approaching from offices set back from the ramp which led up to the bridge. Chadderton spotted them immediately. Instantly, he had a vision of two of Azimuth’s puppets moving forward to force them over the platform as a third crept up from the other direction. The porters came towards them, apparently engaged in harmless conversation. Chadderton hissed Mark’s name and pointed.
‘Is it them?’
Mark saw the two porters. ‘I don’t know. There should be a third.’
Chadderton looked anxiously around for signs of another uniformed figure. Mark gripped his walking stick like a sword as the porters drew nearer. Chadderton shuffled backwards, pushing the priest back from the platform towards the bench, keeping his gaze fixed on the porters. Somewhere, someone said: ‘Here comes the train!’
Mark could not immediately bring himself to look back up the tracks. He did not want to see that thing from a forgotten billboard again. There was no sign of a third porter.
‘Here it comes!’
The displacement of air told Mark that the King’s Cross express was hurtling in towards the platform. He turned stiffly to look, forcing himself to see, half expecting that the monstrous Ghost Train would be thundering in towards him again. But there was no Ghost Train. Only the King’s Cross train, as it finally rumbled into Platform Nine.
The two porters passed them by, oblivious of their presence. Chadderton guided Father Daniels away to one side, towards the train and away from the porters. Mark moved up behind. Now there was a rush of passengers towards the train as it finally came to a halt.
And then everything happened very fast.
Chadderton yelled, ‘Look out!’ and Mark saw someone lunging through the crowd towards Father Daniels. Chadderton spun the priest round and away from the thrusting figure. Someone screamed. A woman’s face, wild and contorted with rage, suddenly jerked into Mark’s vision as he tried to reach Chadderton. She had appeared from nowhere, clutching at his face with sharp, red fingernails. Mark knew that she was trying
to blind him. He had time to see a gout of saliva spew from between champing teeth before his arm went up to protect his eyes. A hand raked his head, tangling in his hair. And then Mark struck out with his walking stick, feeling it jam under the woman’s ribs. She shrieked and fell. More people were screaming and Mark looked up to see that the man who had tried to attack Father Daniels was lying on the platform, struggling to regain his feet. A young girl, little more than Helen’s age, was clinging to Chadderton’s arm. She was shrieking like an animal, burying her teeth in the exposed flesh of his arm as he tried to shake her free. Chadderton punched at the small head and tugged her by the hair. One of the teachers pushed forward and tried to restrain him, shouting hysterically, ‘She’s only a child. Stop it! She’s only a child!’
But now Mark knew instinctively that the little girl was more than just a child; he pushed forward, bringing the walking stick down heavily across the small demon’s back. The girl cartwheeled to the platform. A porter suddenly leaped past Mark, obviously intending to restrain Chadderton. For an instant, Father Daniels obscured the form of the man lying on the platform as he clutched the briefcase close to his chest. But Mark could see the glint of metal in the man’s hand and shouted a warning to Chadderton. The latter tried to pull the priest out of the way as the man thrust upwards, but the porter had closed with Chadderton and gripped his arms.
‘Look out!’
A passenger saw the knife and screamed, and the scream alerted Father Daniels to his danger – Mark was too far away and could do nothing. Instinctively, the priest slapped out with one hand. The blade connected with his palm, slicing flesh, but was diverted from his heart. Displaying an agility that Mark thought he could never possess, the priest swung the briefcase round in an arc. Mark heard the heavy thud as it connected with the man’s head and he went sprawling to the platform for the second time. Chadderton had pushed the porter away and seized Father Daniels, dragging him towards the train with Mark following close behind. Pulling open a carriage door, he bundled the priest inside and turned back. Mark saw alarm register on his face.
‘For Christ’s sake, Davies! Watch out!’
Mark just had time to turn and see that the woman who had attacked him previously had recovered the knife from the platform and was swooping towards him with the weapon held blade downwards. The rage on her face was not human and Mark knew that he was trapped. A porter suddenly appeared between them, fumbling towards her. There was another scream and Mark saw the porter crumple forwards over the woman as the knife plunged into his chest. The little girl was shrieking. Mark clambered aboard the train and Chadderton slammed the door viciously shut.
We’ve failed! We’ve failed! Philip screamed inside his head as the solid concrete of the platform slammed the breath from his body. They had been told that the priest must not board the train. And they had failed Him. Terror mounted in Philip at the prospect of the wrath of their Master. He turned in time to see Grace pull the knife free from the porter’s body. The people around them had fled in confusion and passengers were now beginning to look curiously out of their compartment windows at the commotion. Other passengers further down the platform had seen nothing of the incident and continued to board the train, unheeding.
Get up, said the Voice in Philip’s head. He began to whimper. There is no failure. The priest has fear! It is good. Now you have a greater task to perform. Board the train. And Philip, grateful that his Master had decided not to take vengeance, struggled to his feet, grabbed what had been his daughter and hauled her upright. Grace was beside him now and they were running down the platform to the rear of the train, leaving the crumpled body of the porter bleeding on the platform. A small group of people were congregating around the body. A young man turned him over and saw the blood.
‘Somebody get a doctor, for God’s sake.’
Philip, Grace and Angelina clawed their way aboard the train.
Tadger Wright pushed through the small group of people around his mate’s body. Everything had happened so fast, there had hardly been time to react. One second, he and Archie Elphick were walking along the platform, talking about the darts match in the Lamb and Thistle. The next, people were screaming and fighting as the train came in. Before Tadger could move, Archie had sprinted forward into the crowd and was struggling with some fellow Tadger had never seen before. Archie was always a fast mover; he kept himself in good shape – not like that little waster Eric Morpeth with his big-mouthed tales of escapades on the football pitch when he was a kid. Three blokes, one of them a priest, seemed to have dived on board the train as quickly as they could to get away from the bother. As the crowd pulled away from the aggro, Tadger just had time to see a man, a woman and a little girl legging it down the platform. Now, there was something terribly familiar about them. Then he saw Archie lying in his own blood, and the bloodstained knife beside him.
‘Oh God, Archie. No.’ Tadger pushed aside the young man who was bending over Archie.
And then Tadger saw something that he could not explain.
Practically all the train doors were wide open as passengers streamed aboard. Normally, he and Archie would have gone along the platform to shut all those doors when everyone had finally boarded the train. But now, as he watched, the train doors from the bridge end of the platform to the rear of the train suddenly began to slam shut one after the other with a reverberating series of crashes that echoed through the station. It reminded Tadger of a row of dominoes standing on end. At a given command, someone had pushed the first domino and started a swift chain of collapse. People were still boarding at some of the doors as they swung savagely shut, and Tadger saw one old lady go full length on the platform. Her daughter was already on the train and Tadger heard her cry out and try to get back onto the platform to help her mother. But the door was stuck fast.
Tadger stood up and began to run the full length of the train, giving loud, wordless cries. He flung himself at one of the doors and wrenched at the handle. The door would not budge. Surprised faces watched him as he continued to run down the platform towards the locomotive. Even now, the train was beginning to move slowly out of the station and Tadger could hear the cries of outrage from passengers on the platform who had not been able to board.
‘Hey, what’s going on here?’
‘My wife’s on that train . . .’
‘What in bloody hell is that driver playing at?’
‘I’ve got an appointment. This train can’t pull out until I’m aboard.’
The train was picking up speed and Tadger began to yell at the top of his voice as he ran. But there was nothing he could do.
Two
Chadderton bustled ahead down the train corridor with Father Daniels behind and Mark bringing up the rear. The passengers had reacted in stunned silence when they had tumbled aboard, and Chadderton had decided to move on down the train as quickly as possible in search of their compartment. Mark heard a middle-aged man say: ‘Some stupid idiot slammed the door shut and the train began to move before that young man’s fiancée could get on. It’s absolutely disgraceful!’
‘Chadderton!’ hissed Mark as they continued on their way. ‘Where do you think they’ve gone?’
‘They’re bound to be on the train,’ he replied without turning. They arrived at their first-class compartment. Chadderton slid the door wide and pushed Father Daniels inside. Mark slipped in stiffly, his leg aching again. Then Chadderton followed, slamming the door shut and staying close to the windows to watch for signs of anyone approaching down the corridor.
‘They tried to kill me,’ said Father Daniels incredulously. ‘Did you see? That man tried to stab me.’ The priest was staring at the palm of his left hand. Mark saw that it was bleeding badly. Blood glistened darkly on his cassock. Mark moved forward, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. Father Daniels sat quietly, looking at his hand in disbelief as Mark wound the cloth tightly around the wound.
&
nbsp; ‘How bad is it?’ asked Chadderton, his concentration still fixed on the train corridor.
‘It’s not good. I don’t think it’s an artery. But it’s still not good.’
‘Why did they do this?’ asked the priest.
‘They’re possessed, Father. By Azimuth.’
The train was sliding past Platform Nine when Mark suddenly felt something happening in his mind. Waves of vertigo began to spill over him. He sat back heavily in his seat, gulping in air. For a second, he thought that he might pass out. He fought back, willing himself to remain conscious. Chadderton had seen him and came over to him quickly.
‘What’s wrong? You getting one of those feelings?’
‘No . . .’ said Mark weakly, ‘this is something else.’
‘Put your head between your knees,’ Chadderton urged him and began to force him down.
‘No . . . no,’ replied Mark, waving him off. ‘I’ll be all right.’
Chadderton could see that he had gone chalk white. There were beads of perspiration on his brow. The scar on his hairline showed livid again in exactly the same way it had done that night back in the house. He was trembling.
‘Oh, God . . .’ he began to mumble into his clenched fist. ‘Oh, dear, dear God.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Chadderton snapped. ‘Come on, Davies! What’s wrong?’
Mark looked hopelessly up at Chadderton.
‘I can remember. I know what happened to me on this train. Oh, my God. I can remember.’
‘What happened?’ Chadderton heard himself ask.
‘I wasn’t thrown from the train at all, Chadderton. No one threw me from the train. I jumped.’
Joe had been working as second man on locomotives for six months, serving his time before he could become a qualified driver, and he had been on the King’s Cross run with George before. All the way down from Edinburgh, they had chatted about the forthcoming football match at St James’s Park. George was good company on long runs like this, and he was a damned good driver. But Joe could not understand why George had moved the train out nine minutes before it was scheduled to leave. He had studied the working timetables back at the depot at the same time as George; he had double-checked them again. And both of them knew just exactly when their train was supposed to leave Newcastle Central Station. They had even talked about it on their way down. There would be an eleven-minute wait before they started off again. And yet, George had set off again within a couple of minutes of arrival, without saying a word.