Convulsive Box Set

by Marcus Martin

  She smiled, nervously, realizing all eyes in the carriage were suddenly on her. She hurried away from the threshold to the A-listers and back towards her row, keeping her head down. Dan stood in the aisle, next to their seats.

  “What do you think?” Lucy whispered, leaning into him.

  “No idea,” he whispered back, “but stay close until we’re moving again.”

  “OK,” she replied, giving a reassuring grin to a nervous-looking child a few rows ahead, who quickly looked away. Lucy retook her seat and scoured the twilight for clues.

  After fifteen minutes the intercom crackled into life.

  “Attention all passengers, this is Lieutenant Gladwell. We have been advised by HQ to discontinue our journey to DC. We have received information that the capital has been compromised, and that we are to await further instructions. We will bring you more information when we have it, but for now we will be staying here.”

  The intercom mic clicked off, giving way to an upswell of voices demanding answers and proclaiming conclusions. As the bickering continued, the last of the daylight faded behind the mountains, and night moved in on their position.

  “We’re in the wrong carriage for information,” said Dan, casting his eyes around the scared-looking B-listers. “Someone in the other coaches will know the real reason we’ve stopped. They must do, otherwise they wouldn’t be on board.”

  At that moment the compartment door hissed open and the lieutenant entered, flanked by two other soldiers.

  “What do you think it means?” the lieutenant snarled in response to an anxious passenger.

  The soldiers hastened through the carriage and down to the deck below without a word, brushing aside those who got in their way. Lucy tiptoed over to the stairwell and tried in vain to catch some of the hushed conversation. The only noise to reach her was the clicking of weapons being loaded.

  The two soldiers who had flanked the lieutenant reappeared, now fully clad in combat uniforms. Helmets and flak jackets on, and assault rifles in hand, they made their way back through the aisle and into the next carriage, their guise and weaponry pre-emptively clearing their path.

  Lucy retook her seat next to Dan, who was facing the window. She studied his reflection in the glass of their cocoon, watching as his eyes tracked from side to side and trying to follow his gaze.

  A commotion in the adjoining carriage pricked Lucy’s ears. The doors hissed open and a terrified, bedraggled elderly man stumbled forwards. Gripping the geriatric by the scruff of his suit, a stronger man of around forty coerced his ward forwards. Without thinking, Lucy stepped out into the aisle, blocking the pair’s way.

  “Who are you and what are you doing with him?” she asked, directly challenging the strong man.

  “Lucy!” hissed Dan, rising from his seat.

  “I’m saving our lives is what I’m doing!” the man shouted back, his biceps showing through his navy blue checkered shirt, a dark brown beard embellishing his round face. “Now move!” he cried, jostling the old man forward again.

  Lucy edged back a few paces.

  “Luce,” Dan pleaded.

  She ignored him. With a heavy sigh Dan addressed the bearded man.

  “Tell us what you’re doing with him,” Dan stated, approaching the edge of their row.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, you people aren’t even supposed to be on this train!” cried the assailant.

  “What’s going on?” growled the lieutenant as his heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs.

  The old man mumbled incoherently, sobbing as he hung from his adversary’s grip, the soles of his feet barely touching the floor.

  “He’s bleeding!” yelled the bearded man to the lieutenant. “You know what we have to do, sir,” he added, lowering his voice.

  “Please … Please, it’ll pass, I know it will,” spluttered the old man, reaching again for his handkerchief as a hacking cough took hold. When he pulled the handkerchief away, the white cotton was speckled with blood.

  “Oh my god, put him down, he needs help!” cried Lucy, aghast.

  “He needs to get the hell off this train, is what he needs!” replied the bearded aggressor. “You know what’s coming for us if we don’t,” stated the man, addressing the lieutenant.

  The lieutenant said nothing for a moment. With his eyes cast downwards he gave the smallest of nods.

  “Come on, then,” said the vigilante, shoving the old man forwards. Lucy and Dan parted, stunned by the lieutenant’s endorsement of the situation.

  The lieutenant followed the two men down below. Lucy mustered her senses and rushed after them.

  “You can’t be serious,” she protested. “You’re not actually gonna leave him out there alone? He’ll freeze to death if nothing else!”

  “Quiet, ma’am! You don’t know what’s at stake here,” cried the bearded man over his shoulder. There was a flash of fear in his eyes. “I’m doing this for all of us,” he insisted through gritted teeth. His voice wavered ever so slightly as the rear carriage door loomed close.

  “There must be another way. Something we can do?” pleaded Lucy, stalling for time. “We need to talk about this first – rationally!”

  She slipped around the lieutenant and appeared at the bearded man’s side, placing a hand on his arm as he reached the back of the train. The lieutenant intervened, wrenching Lucy’s hand away.

  The bearded man relinquished his ward.

  “Pl– Plea–” stammered the old man, facing his captor. He spluttered again, showering his shirt and shoes with blood; a small number of flecks landed on the bearded man’s boots.

  “Eugh!” cried the bearded man in horror, kicking the emergency exit door wide open. Cold air rushed in. “Go!” he urged the old man, pointing to the black outside.

  The whimpering geriatric shuffled half a pace towards the open doorway and turned to face his jury, imploringly.

  “Go!” roared the aggressor, this time spinning the elderly martyr back around and shoving him out of the train.

  The old man fell downward onto the tracks with a cry, landing heavily upon the sharp stones and timber beams. One shaky limb at a time, the splayed victim raised himself back onto all fours, a shuddering mess of weeping, coughing, and spluttering. He swayed precariously, staggering back to his feet and, blinkingly, turning to face the vessel from which he’d been ejected.

  The strong, bearded assailant finished hastily mopping up every last drop of blood from both the carriage floor and his shoes. He chucked the speckled tissues out towards the old man where a gust of wind snatched them off into the darkness.

  The venerable victim looked up at his executioners, clasping his trembling hands together as he shuffled back towards them. The bearded man leaned out and grabbed the emergency door, slamming it shut again. His brow was knitted, and his thick eyebrows converged downward on the bridge of his nose. The moustache covering his lip twitched as he stared out at the old man.

  The lieutenant peeled away from the window, cursing. Dan took his stead, filling the vacant space next to Lucy and the bearded man.

  Light spilled out from both decks, partially illuminating the wild grass and ferns swaying either side of the rails.

  Lucy’s attention shifted to the lieutenant’s voice behind them as he spoke to the train driver via the guard’s private intercom.

  “A hundred yards won’t be enough,” interrupted the strong man, approaching the lieutenant. “Tell him we need to move at least a mile forwards if we’re going to be safe.”

  The lieutenant revised his order to the driver. With a creaking lurch, the train began to edge forwards. Lucy turned back to the window and watched as the old man fell away into the darkness. His outstretched hand vanished, replaced by desolate stretches of track.

  Something struck the right side of the carriage with a bang. Then another bang, this time from the roof, prompting screams from the top deck. The train plunged into a higher speed, throwing Lucy and Dan off balance.

  The lieutenant
rushed upstairs, grabbing an assault rifle as he went, closely marked by the bearded man. Dan and Lucy followed.

  “Turn all the lights off!” shouted the lieutenant. “Now!”

  The terrified passengers sprang into action and extinguished the reading lights. Only the dim LEDs lining the aisle remained lit.

  The passengers’ reflections in the windows vanished and Lucy’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness outside. Glimpses of moonlit branches flickered in and out of the window view as the train continued to accelerate.

  The train clattered over the tracks, loudly jostling in every direction.

  “There! Out there!” cried a passenger, pointing into the darkness. As the occupants huddled to see, a second clang resonated across the roof. Lucy spun around. With a third clang the carriage ceiling buckled inwards, in the shape of a great fist. The lieutenant leapt under the metal depression and fired three rounds directly into the roof.

  The passengers screamed in shock, deafened by the blast and belatedly covering their ringing ears. The carriage jolted again, sending the lieutenant off balance as the train hurtled forward at full tilt.

  Lucy pressed her face to the glass and stared downward. Odd shapes flickered in and out of the lower deck’s lighting spill, blending with the night. Lucy’s heart skipped a beat as two dark limbs raced forwards alongside the track in great strides only to vanish as quickly as they appeared.

  Two more pangs struck the carriage – this time at the rear of the top deck. With a great wrenching sound the emergency exit disappeared, ripped from its hinges entirely.

  At that moment the entire world spun. Lucy was thrown into the air as the carriage revolved beneath her. The emergency lighting immediately cut out, plunging her into total darkness as the train rolled, throwing its occupants around like a blender.

  Time went into slow motion as Lucy tumbled helplessly through the darkness, immersed in the screams of her fellow passengers. She ricocheted off seats, luggage racks, and bodies as the momentum flung down the carriage. In her last seconds of consciousness she registered the cold rushing air hit her face.

  GRIT

  Convulsive Part II

  ONE

  No

  ______________

  Lucy awoke with a gasp and looked around her. Feeble, clouded moonlight flickered through the trees overhead, offering little illumination of her surroundings. As she blinked to regain focus, Lucy became aware that she was naked.

  Her head was pounding. She folded her legs in close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, shivering violently as she drew short, sharp breaths. A dull pain began to make itself known from lower down her torso. She lowered her fingers and tentatively prodded. The pain was immediate and severe. She clamped her hand across her mouth to stifle her own yelp as it rang out into the tranquil night. Two broken ribs.

  The shivering wasn’t helping. Her intercostal muscles went into spasm to keep her core temperature up, tugging at the broken bones as waves of cold rippled through her body.

  Lucy’s hand moved to her head; a swollen lump had formed beneath her thick hair. Through the frigid grogginess and pain a single thought clawed its way to the front of her mind: Dan – where was Dan?

  Lucy’s heart rate soared as disordered memories of the attack and derailment flooded back. She tried to recall events methodically, but her brain was fuzzy. Think. Think! The train … The darkness … The creatures! The bearded guy had known about them. Something had scared him enough to throw an old man off the train. But why? Lucy clenched her jaw in a bid to stop the chattering and refocused. Coughing, she thought. Every time the old man coughed, the bearded guy got more aggressive. And the old man had been coughing blood. A memory from the San Francisco evacuation center resurfaced – the father with the bloodied leg hadn’t been allowed to board the train. Could blood be the link? The thing that the creatures could sense?

  Lucy frantically checked her body for bleeding. Unable to see in the darkness, she patted herself, feeling and sniffing her limbs for traces.

  Nearby leaves rustled loudly in the darkness and she froze once again. Heart pounding, ears pricked in the direction of the sound, she dared not move.

  Her ears became more attuned to the subtleties of the night; to the wind forcing its way through creaking branches and the faint sound of water lapping against stone. Another dry twig snapped behind her, this time causing her to spin around involuntarily. She immediately recoiled in pain, bent over double as her damaged ribs throbbed.

  Gasping, she dropped her head to her knees and silently wept. The warm tears rolled down her cold, naked limbs. Where was Dan?

  ***

  When Lucy woke up again it was day. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but found herself lying on her side in a fetal position. Dirt clung to her face and limbs.

  She raised her head from the ground, seeing her surroundings for the first time. Ahead of her lay forest stretching off as far as she could see, a dense expanse of soaring pines and woodland ferns. Cautiously, she rose to her feet, stooping over slightly as a hand instinctively covered her broken ribs. She lifted her fingers away and examined the damage; her skin was unbroken, but the dark bruising was already starting to show.

  Lucy performed a full turn where she stood, taking in her surroundings properly. She wasn’t far from the forest boundary – through the edge of the trees she could see water. The memories of last night began to piece back together afresh.

  A trail of her abandoned clothes led away from where she’d slept. Lucy began to retrace her steps, out of the forest and to the river’s edge where she found the train track. Her eyes followed the rails ahead, soon coming to rest on the distant wreckage. It must’ve been a mile or two away.

  Her brain flashed back to the events as they came to her: being thrown from the back of the tumbling carriage, falling through the darkness and plunging into moving water. She remembered washing up on the shore, kicking off her sodden shoes and clambering onto the rocky riverside, panting, shivering and disoriented in the darkness. She remembered the distant screams coming from the train as she’d stumbled over the rocks, away from the river and into the forest, removing her dripping wet clothes as she went.

  Standing at the river edge now, naked, with one arm covering her breasts, she looked upon the distant wreck with a pang of fear: Dan was in there.

  Following the trail of damp clothes she reached her underwear. Casting her eyes around, she quickly uncovered herself to wring them out. Her knickers felt horrible as she pulled them up her legs; cold, and soggy. She put on her equally wet bra then left the riverside, returning to the nearby tracks.

  Her T-shirt and trousers were nowhere to be seen, so she pressed on, keeping her arms wrapped around her exposed torso. Tiptoeing along the track barefoot, Lucy made slow progress as she tried to avoid the sharp stones in-between the coarse timber sleepers.

  Details of the disaster came into focus as she neared the wreckage. The train had derailed at a corner which swept around a large rock face overlooking the river.

  The track up ahead was bent out of shape, marking the point of derailment. The front engine carriage had careered into the mountainside and now lay parallel to the rock face, while the rest of the double-decker carriages were strewn out behind like a mechanical snake.

  The second carriage had slightly mounted the engine carriage with the momentum of the collision, meaning that it now protruded upward, its innards spilling out onto the defunct machinery below.

  Freshly carved ravines in the ground between the buckled track and the wreckage itself showed where the mighty train had skidded to its final resting place. Some carriages were upright, others on their side. One was almost completely inverted, resting at an angle against a neighboring wreck.

  Items of luggage were dotted all around the site, along with clothing and food, all thrown clear of the train. As well as the first bodies.

  Lucy hesitated, taking in the grim, contorted angles of the motionless victims. She swallow
ed, wetting her dry throat, and pushed forwards, looking only for Dan.

  Amid the debris one item caught her attention. Face down, sprawled open, its spine elevated off the ground, lay her notepad. She snatched it up, tucking it under her armpit, and continued towards the nearest carriage – the B-list carriage.

  With trepidation she crept towards it. A body lay outside the lower-deck floor: the bearded executioner.

  Lucy gasped as she saw the deep gashes where claws had struck his head and neck. Rather than being blood red, the wounds were greyish-purple, and the whole body had a sheen to it. Shuddering, Lucy abandoned the bearded man’s body and continued towards the carriage that lay on its side.

  The doorways of the upper and lower decks were horizontal, side by side, almost two meters off the ground. The staircase inside was redundant; to get into either deck she’d need to climb, but shards of glass lay scattered all around.

  She put her notepad down and removed the bearded man’s shoes, pulling them over her own feet. They felt damp. A scarf lay a few yards away on the grass. She retrieved it and, with some effort, succeeded in tearing it roughly in two, gnawing at the thread to break it. Lucy wrapped half around each hand, forming a thick protective layer over her palms, then approached carriage B.

  She positioned herself in front of what had been the upper deck’s emergency exit. The metal hinges were twisted and torn where the door had been ripped off. Lucy jumped upwards, wrapping her fingertips around the door frame. Pulling with all her might, and using whatever purchase she could find with the bearded man’s shoes, she heaved herself up and over the lip of the threshold.

  She tumbled forwards, landing awkwardly in the luggage rack below. Extracting herself, Lucy clambered as far left as she could get so that she was flush with the new ‘wall’ – formerly the roof.

  The carriage was littered with bodies, luggage, and glass. Both columns of seats stretched ahead, one set stacked above the other, protruding from the new right-hand-side ‘wall’ – what had been the floor. Limbs hung out of the seat gaps like branches, at odds with the stripped tree that protruded through the nearest window frame, its own branches each clinging on by a sinew.