The Wrong Train

by Jeremy de Quidt

  “Don’t forget this,” she said.

  When he got to school his friends were standing on the path at the edge of the field, their bags on the ground around them. He looked at their faces as they talked, and it felt like he was watching a film of them standing there, talking.

  “Is this a dream?” he said.

  No one paid him any attention.

  “Is this a dream?” he said, louder, catching hold of one of them, Karl, by the front of his shirt. The shirt tore in his hand and the button came off, but he didn’t let go.

  “Is this a dream!”

  Karl shoved him away—saw that his shirt was torn and pushed him again, angrily, and then they were actually fighting. It started just like that. The others pulled them apart, and Richard put his hand to his lip and it was bleeding. Karl was staring at him red-faced.

  “What’s gotten into you, dude?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  They signed in at homeroom and everyone knew that Karl and he had had a fight, but they were all trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, only it had. He could feel his lip, fat and sore—like he’d gotten his finger on it and was pushing it against his teeth—and there was a big rip in the front of Karl’s shirt.

  When homeroom was over, some of the others were talking about walking down to the grocery store and buying stuff for a picnic, but he didn’t want to go and they stopped asking him. They just left him be.

  He thought he had things to do in the library, but he couldn’t remember what they were, so he sat at one of the tables by the bookshelves. As he sat there, someone came up behind him and put their hands over his eyes, and he thought it was the woman and he pulled the hands away, knocking his chair over as he leaped up—but it was Frank.

  It really was Frank. He was back for the weekend.

  He looked different—he’d bought new clothes at school, new shoes, and his hair was short—but it was Frank all right. He’d already called their mom to let her know he was here and she was coming in for lunch—she hadn’t known he was coming either, it was a big surprise for her too. He said they could all go and have coffee together.

  As Frank and he walked into town, their mom passed them in the car, stopped, and picked them up. She got out of the car and gave Frank such a hug. Richard sat in the back and listened to the two of them talking in the front. His mom was so happy to see Frank. They didn’t even seem to notice him. He watched their faces as they turned and chatted—they were so easy together, her and Frank.

  And he knew she loved Frank more.

  The realization came like some dark little flower blooming in his head—Frank who’d gotten into university, Frank who everyone liked more than they liked him, Frank who could play soccer, Frank who could never do anything wrong.

  For the first time ever, he hated him. Wished he hadn’t come home.

  The car started, making a knocking sound from underneath. His mom and Frank looked at each other, startled by it, and then they started laughing as the knocking got louder and louder.

  They just kept laughing; it wasn’t even funny—they just kept laughing.

  His mom was still laughing as she turned around to look at him, only it wasn’t his mom—it was the thin woman, dead and white, and she wasn’t laughing anymore.

  He opened his eyes with a start—

  he was lying in his bed.

  There was no car, no Mom, no Frank. Only his bedroom and bright morning.

  He began to cry.

  He cried huge, hopeless tears that slid down his face and fell onto the sheets. He screwed the sheets between his fists and pressed them to his eyes.

  The house was silent.

  Propped against the bottom of his open door was the toy blackboard they wrote messages on. In green chalk were the words Taken car to garage. See you after school.

  His mom had drawn a little car and a smiley face underneath it.

  He sat on the edge of the bed until he had no more tears to cry.

  In the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror. His face was empty and there were dark half-moons beneath his eyes. He turned the tap on, and the water dribbled to nothing in the sink.

  Like a dead man he walked past the bus stop, through the people in their bright summer clothes, the mothers with strollers and toddlers, through the traffic and the green trees.

  At school he didn’t even bother to talk and no one seemed to notice. He was waiting for it to happen. Waiting for the thin woman to come.

  But she didn’t.

  At lunch he found himself lying on his back with the others in the long grass at the edge of the field. Next year someone would have passed their driver’s test and have a car, but not yet.

  It was such a hot day. The sky so blue, so clear—boys with their sleeves rolled up, girls barefoot, carrying their shoes on the tips of their fingers.

  Ginny sat up.

  “Let’s play Dead Molly,” she said.

  “No!” He shook his head. “I’m not going to play that.”

  But he was the only one who didn’t want to play—it was such a good game. They used to play it all the time. He watched them as they lay down and closed their eyes, saw Ginny creep up and quietly put her face over Karl.

  “One, two, she’s coming for you—”

  “No!” said Richard.

  But they didn’t stop.

  He looked out across the field, his eyes searching for the tall woman in the gray dress, but he couldn’t see her.

  “Three, four, knocks at the door,

  Dead Molly, poison my cup,

  Dead Molly, wake me up!”

  Ginny screamed, Karl yelled, and everyone laughed—

  and that was all that happened.

  No thin woman, no dead face against his, just the sound of voices on the playing field and the bell ringing for the end of break.

  They picked up their bags and trailed in from the field. He kept waiting for it to happen, but it just didn’t, and in a way he couldn’t explain—in a way that felt like relief, like the passing of something dark and wrong—everything was suddenly more real.

  It was like lightness.

  He couldn’t really remember what had happened in the evening, but the end of the day came and he climbed into bed and slept, dreamlessly.

  But he might just as well have closed his eyes and opened them again, because suddenly it was morning. There was a frost on the road outside the window. The trees were bare, and he knew that was how it should be.

  In the bathroom the taps worked, the water steamed into the sink, and he put the plug in and watched it fill. He looked at himself in the mirror, and it was him. It really was him, and he felt such a wave of relief.

  This was the real world.

  It was daylight, and it was real.

  He could hear the radio on downstairs.

  He got dressed by the radiator and went down, sat at the table, and his mom asked him what he wanted.

  And he said, “Toast.” And she didn’t know why he laughed when he said it.

  She cut the bread and put it in the toaster, and as she did her phone buzzed on the counter.

  “You keep an eye on these,” she said, and she picked up the phone and opened a message. He saw her face brighten.

  Something cold began to creep through him.

  She was looking at the phone, reading the message, and her face had a wistful look to it.

  “It’s not the same when he’s not here, is it?” she said.

  Richard stared at her. It felt as though the world was sliding from beneath him; he felt the skin on the back of his hands crawl cold.

  There was a knock at the back door.

  “That’ll be Pam,” his mom said. “I said I’d give her a lift. I’ll do the toast; you do the door. Go on.”

  The knocking came again, louder, more insistent.

  He put his hand on the door and hesitated.

  His mom was already buttering the toast.

  The knocking ca
me louder still.

  His mom turned and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Go on, then,” she whispered, then silently mouthed the words.

  Open it.

  Now even the pool of light the lantern cast was getting smaller and smaller, drawing the boy closer to the man.

  “I don’t want to hear any more stories,” the boy said.

  “You should have told me one of your own, then,” said the man. “Can’t say I didn’t give you a chance, can you? Can’t blame me for doing all the chin-wagging if you’re not going to do any.”

  “I don’t know any stories.”

  “Don’t know the capital of Egypt, don’t know any stories—what’s the world coming to?” He laughed. “Come on—Jack and Jill, there’s one. Hickory Dickory, there’s another.”

  “They’re nursery rhymes.”

  “Still stories.”

  “For babies.”

  “Still stories,” the man said. “That’s what I’m wanting to hear, you see. I’m wanting to hear your story. Everyone who gets off the train gets the chance to play my little game. I ask them for a story, and if I don’t like it they get to play my little game.”

  It was as though that thing that had been creeping out of the dark had arrived. The boy hadn’t believed it would, but now it was here.

  “I’m not going to play,” he said.

  “You don’t know what it is.”

  “I’m not going to play it!”

  The man didn’t answer.

  He turned and looked at his bag. It sat on the bench next to him—cheap brown leatherette, frayed at the handle, with dead leaves and dead flowers, all dry and shriveled, poking out of the top.

  “I expect you’re wondering about my bag,” he said, patting it and looking back at the boy. “Toby and me have been collecting flowers. Nothing like a nice bunch of flowers to brighten a place up.”

  “They’re dead,” the boy said.

  The man looked at the flowers.

  “No,” he said. “Bit of water, that’s all they need. Little bit of water in a pot. Have them right as rain.”

  “Is this the game?” the boy said.

  The man looked up at him and smiled. A thin smile.

  “You’ve got to tell me a story first,” he said.

  “All right, then,” the boy said sharply. “Here’s a story: Stupid old man keeps telling a boy who got on the wrong train—and is cold and tired and fed up—stupid stories he doesn’t want to hear. The end. There, that good enough for you?”

  The man looked at him carefully. For several moments he didn’t say anything, then he said, “And?”

  It wasn’t what the boy had expected.

  “And what?” the boy answered.

  “And what happened then?” the man asked softly. “What was the end of the story?”

  The boy couldn’t think of anything more.

  “Then the train came,” he said uncertainly, “and the boy got on it and went home.”

  The man pursed his lips as though thinking about this very carefully. The little dog sniffed at the boy’s foot. The man looked down at him and tugged at the leash, as though he was a distraction to his thoughts.

  “Oh, no,” he said at last. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

  “What do you mean?” said the boy.

  The man smiled.

  “For a story,” he said. “It won’t do for a story. Where’s the bit that happens in between? The bit between me telling the stories and you getting on the train. Where’s that bit gone?”

  “There isn’t another bit,” the boy said.

  “Oh, but there is,” said the man. “I didn’t like your story, so there’s my little game.”

  The boy took a step back, but behind him was dark, deep as a void.

  “I’m not going to play it,” he said.

  “Which one did you like the best?”

  “I didn’t like any of them.”

  “No … ,” the man said, shaking his head. “You have to say which one you liked the best.”

  “Is this the game?” the boy said.

  The man beamed.

  “This is the bit I like the best,” he said. “Go on, tell me which one.”

  The boy shook his head almost in disbelief.

  “You mean, I’ve just got to say one?”

  “That’s it. Train will come,” said the man. “Always comes after we’ve played my little game. I tell you what I’ll do—one last story to help you make up your mind.”

  “It was a complete steal,” his mom said. “It was under all this stuff right at the back of the shop—I’m not sure they even knew they had it.”

  She was always poking around in junk shops, and everything she brought home was always “a bargain,” always “a complete steal”—always a pile of rubbish. Their house was full of the stuff already—1950s lampshades, Formica tables, cupboards with sliding glass fronts. It was hard to find room for anything else, but somehow she always seemed to manage it.

  “Come on,” she said. “Help me get it out of the car.”

  Jos put down what he was doing and followed.

  Whatever it was, it was wrapped in a blanket—and that was all he could see. She’d had to put the backseat down to get it into the trunk, and as he tried to pull it out the blanket came loose, but his mom covered it up again so he couldn’t see what it was.

  “Not till we get in,” she said.

  It was made from dark wood, he’d glimpsed that much at least, and it felt like a chair, but the blanket was all the wrong shape for that—not enough bits sticking out—and it weighed a ton.

  “You get this in on your own?” he said.

  “No,” she said. “Man at the shop helped me.”

  With effort they carried it through the door and stood it in the middle of the little front room. It only just fit. His mom stood there grinning, her hand on the top of the blanket.

  “Ta-da!” she said, and whisked it off like some showman in a theater.

  Jos stared.

  “You’re kidding me!” he said. “That is so cool.”

  Beneath the blanket was a black oak chair. No wonder he hadn’t been able to make out what shape it was—the front of it was a wooden seat with legs carved like the trunks of small trees; the armrests were like that too—curved branches with oak leaves winding through them. But the back of the chair was the thing.

  It was a solid carved bear.

  There were no back legs to the chair; the bear just stood upright holding the arms and the seat in two huge paws. Its mouth was open to show its teeth. At some time they’d been painted, but the paint was made to look old and tobacco stained, like the wood of the chair.

  “Go on, sit in it,” his mom said.

  Jos settled himself into the seat and leaned back against the bear’s head. The muzzle was hard and knobbly and just about head height. It wasn’t comfortable at all.

  “Was it some kind of ad?” he said.

  “No,” she said. “It’s really old—from Germany. I saw one like it in a magazine once. I knew what it was soon as I saw it.”

  He craned his head around and looked at the bear again with new attention—at the black wooden muzzle and the black carved eyes. It looked like it might have been old, but then his mom bought any old junk.

  “What did you pay for it?”

  “Nowhere near what it’s worth,” she said.

  “Is it worth a lot?” he asked, suddenly more interested.

  “Might be,” she answered. “But I don’t think I’d want to sell him.”

  She never wanted to sell anything. When his mom bought something, it stayed bought. He only had to look around the house to see that. She tilted her head to one side, as though admiring the bear’s better features, then picked up Jos’s beanie from the back of the sofa and popped it over its head.

  “Look,” she said. “He’s smiling.”

  Jos looked at the bear, and it seemed to him that if it was smiling, it wasn’t
that friendly a smile—the eyes were too hard and there were far too many teeth for that.

  In fact, he wasn’t quite sure what he thought about the chair at all, and that didn’t change over the coming week. It was all right during the daytime, but in the half-light at the end of the day he’d stand and look at it, and there was something that he didn’t like. Something uncanny-valley about that bear, as though if Jos were to turn away and then quickly back, he might just catch it move. His mom only laughed at him when he told her that, and all his friends thought the chair was a complete joke—they’d taken turns to sit on it when they came around—but they didn’t have to be there at the end of the day as it grew dark, not like Jos did.

  It was maybe the week after his mom had brought it home that the clocks went back. He came in from school to an empty house, threw his bag down, made himself a snack, and sat on his own in the front room, looking out along the darkening street while he flicked through the messages on his phone. It was one of the days when his mom worked, so she wouldn’t be in for an hour yet, and though it wasn’t dark enough to put the lights on, shadows had begun collecting in corners and, unusually for him, he felt uncomfortable being on his own in the house.

  He found he’d sat in the black wooden chair. He wouldn’t normally have chosen it, and it was almost a surprise to him that he had, but it had been a long day and he couldn’t be bothered to move. So he just sat there with his mug of tea and his phone, looking out at the street. There was something soporific about the smoothness of the wood under his hand, and he could feel the hard muzzle of the bear on the back of his head. It felt damp, as though his own breathing was really the breathing of the bear against his neck.

  The change, when it came, was so sudden that there wasn’t even a pause between the two moments—maybe he’d looked down at his phone and then up—but he wasn’t in the front room anymore. Same chair, same clothes, but not the same place. His phone just showed a screen of white noise.