Horror Express

by David O'Hanlon

  Wells saw more blood in the gangway as well. It was arterial, most likely a heart shot judging by the quantity. He made his way to the pool and a faint whistle of air caught his ear. He slid his hand between the heavy, black fabric of the umbilical connector. “He sliced the connector open to push the body out.”

  He tried to visualize the scene, but nothing about it made sense. Why leave Tremblay’s body in the cabin and then dump two others? Wells snapped his fingers and rose quickly, a movement his knees protested in a series of sharp pops that made Hicks flinch and grimace.

  “Someone interrupted you with Tremblay, and you shot them in the head.” Wells pantomimed the scene as he worked through it. “Then you were discovered by the victim in the gangway, forcing you to act again. Yes. That’s why you disposed of the other corpses. You had to shoot them. You left evidence. You practically signed their murders.” Wells stared at the ceiling as thoughts lined up with memories—both his and the creature’s. “Now, who would have a gun on this train?”

  “Several people, I would imagine, Doctor Wells. I mean, even you seem to have come prepared.” Hicks pointed at the weapon.

  “Yes, I was hoping to bag a moose.”

  “Those aren’t in season, sir.” Hicks boot heels clicked as he stiffened. “You can’t just shoot whatever you like, you know? This isn’t America.”

  “I plan on shooting a priest very shortly, do you have any objections to that?”

  Hicks shrugged. “Not in the slightest, I’m a Mormon.”

  “Excellent.”

  ***

  Marion Petrovski flinched and swung the pistol towards a fleeting shadow. Its slick pearl grips almost slipped from his sweaty palms. He should have seen it, every last bit of it, coming from a mile away. Pietro always had such an unhealthy fascination with his wife. Then there was the eagerness with which the Church rented him out to Petrovski’s service. The man was strange and unsettling, but most priests were. Still, the bishop had been far too excited to see Pietro go.

  The lights flickered in the car as the train sped up. He wanted to go lock himself in the safety of his private quarters, but he needed to get to the Mountie rescue party before his wife could. Besides, Pietro broke the lock. It wasn’t nearly safe enough. He made his way cautiously through the passenger car. Movement caused him to jump again and he turned the weapon toward the open compartment. A boy, no more than six, stared down the barrel and screamed shrilly before slamming the door.

  “That’ll teach you, you nosy little shit.” Marion forced himself to move faster and swung open the door to the next car.

  A few passengers slept on the long benches of the open coach car. A couple more tried to distract themselves with a game of cards, while another read. Finding it safe, Marion sprinted though in a rush to get to the front of the train.

  He would be safe once he reached the lounge car.

  ***

  Saxton stood sharply as Pietro staggered into the lounge car. His face and hands were hideously disfigured by blisters and windburn. His dripping beard framed the hideous smile full of blood-stained teeth—each big, wide, and dirty like rows of tombstones. He seemed completely oblivious to the octagonal barrel pressed into the base of his skull. Mirov used the gun like a cattle prod to drive his prisoner into the car.

  “You see, Professor Saxton. I was right all along. Lucifer is among us, just as I told you on the platform. Now he shelters me beneath his scorched wings.” The laugh started deep in his throat and worked its way up to a cackle. Pietro turned to a passenger and growled, rattling his shackles.

  Mirov jabbed him in the ear with revolver. “That’s enough, you buffoon.”

  Pietro growled. “I will curse you all with Satan’s wrath.”

  “Seize the prisoner,” Kazan barked to his men.

  One of the Mounties stopped short as Pietro swung his hands around, tracing an inverted cross in the air before him.

  “He has the evil eye, sir,” the Mountie stammered.

  “Evil eye?” Kazan spat and made his way to the prisoner. He stretched Pietro’s eyelids apart. “Looks perfectly normal and pathetic to me.”

  Kazan shoved the priest against the wall and slapped his cheek hard enough to knock him down.

  “Glad you could finally be of some use, Inspector.” Saxton clapped softly and then turned to Kazan. “This is the policeman we’ve been telling you about.”

  Kazan made an unimpressed noise and wandered to the Inspector and his quarry. “This is the fearsome killer that’s stalking the train? The troublemaker?”

  “That’s correct,” Mirov said as he decocked the revolver and holstered it. “He came to finish off the scientist, Archibald Tremblay, and after a struggle I subdued him.” Mirov turned briefly to Saxton. “I’m afraid the second attack was just too much for Tremblay. He didn’t survive.”

  “You are becoming quite proficient at delivering bad news, Inspector.” Saxton banged his knuckles on the bar.

  Kazan slugged the shackled priest in the side of the head. Pietro fell to his knees—his cheek swelling immediately from the hammer-like blow. Kazan drew his own pistol and aimed it at Pietro’s head. Then looked at the weapon curiously.

  “What did he do the killing with?” Kazan holstered the pistol and turned to Mirov. “There were eight policemen on this train when you left. Now all of them are missing.”

  “Not missing.” Pietro smiled up at him. “Two I threw off the train, another I left in the eleventh coach with two other bodies. The remaining constables are stuffed in the lavatory in the ninth compartment car.” He laughed again. “I used a knife from the lady doctor’s bag. You should have seen how she bled.”

  “Does that sufficiently answer your questions, sir?” Mirov hoisted the priest up by his collar and pushed him to a plush bench against the window between Miss Bennett and a male passenger, who shrank away, but didn’t rise.

  Mirov eyed them both and slapped Pietro’s cheek to get their attention. “Oh, please do stay right where you are. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you with finding a seat not next to my murderer.”

  The two passengers got up and joined Saxton and Irina at the bar.

  “Can’t we just kill him?” the man asked.

  “No, Robert. That wouldn’t be Christian of us. We should throw him off the train,” Bennett replied.

  A third chimed in from across the car, “But that would kill him too. We should lock him in the cargo car.”

  Soon, all of the passengers had an opinion, and the cacophony filled the narrow space with the subtlety of an explosion. Over all of it, Pietro laughed, maniacally and at nothing in particular, it seemed. Kazan’s fingers drummed the handle of his sashka—the curved sword of his people. The thick digits smacked against the polished wood with a quickening rhythm.

  “I don’t like it.”

  Saxton didn’t hear him as much as he read the man’s lips. He agreed. There was something wrong with the entire situation. Then Irina started screaming. Everyone went silent and turned their attention to her, then to the well-dressed lunatic waving a pistol in the doorway.

  “Quick, Captain! Arrest that man.” Saxton stabbed a finger towards Count Petrovski and pulled Irina under his other arm. The action shifted his weight to the wounded foot, and he hoped no one noticed the squeak as his voice cracked.

  Before Kazan could respond, Mirov launched himself forward and shoved the Count against the paneled wall. He drew his pistol and pressed it under Petrovski’s chin. The Count’s own weapon fell to the floor with a heavy thump. He surrendered in whimpered Polish, but the message came across anyway.

  “It seems I’m stopping all the villains tonight,” Mirov quipped.

  “If only you would have shown such urgency before dragging me from my bedchamber.” Kazan shook his head. His fingers had stopped tapping and instead gripped the handle of his sword. “That ferret might be the most vicious killer in all of Canada, but you would have to be the worst detective on the continent not to apprehend hi
m sooner in the confines of a fucking train.”

  “It does seem odd,” Saxton said to no one in particular. “Wait a moment, you shot Otis.”

  “I did indeed.” Mirov turned on a heel and dragged the Count between him and Kazan. His revolver moved lower, held against Petrovski’s ribs. “This… illness, is moving between the passengers. I stopped the killer already. The priest was infected after he joined the British chaps in an unadvisable experiment.”

  Kazan raised a questioning eyebrow. “No one informed me of any experimentation.”

  “Yes, well they should wish it kept a secret I’m sure,” Mirov said. “They ingested human flesh, like savages, in an absurd attempt to discern some arcane knowledge.”

  “And did you, Professor?” Kazan asked, never taking his eyes off Mirov.

  Saxton cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, we did. We’ll need more time to analyze the findings, as they make little sense at the moment. It would seem that this thing is quite primeval. It’s possible that its origins are not of this world, or possibly any world, and it may be aboriginal to space. I suppose there could even be some supernat—”

  “That’s fascinating, really.” Kazan sucked at his buck teeth and waved for the professor to quit talking. “Mirov? You’re from the Motherland, then?”

  The inspector seemed to roll the concept around a moment before answering. He finally nodded to the bestial Mountie. “Once upon a time.”

  “I knew a Mirov once. Anatole, that was his name.” He rolled his bald head slowly letting his neck pop like a ratchet. “A relative of yours? A brother perhaps?”

  Mirov’s eyes drifted up, as he explored his memory for some forgotten sibling. Saxton’s own eyes moved to the revolver in the inspector’s hand—at some point the sneaky policeman had cocked the hammer. The angle of the barrel wouldn’t do much against Petrovski, however. Either he’d become inept or was planning on using it on someone else. Otis came back to Saxton’s mind.

  “Yes, my brother.” Mirov nodded and looked between Kazan and Saxton. “Anatole. He is no longer with us. I miss him, greatly.”

  “Yes, I believe I heard of his passing.” Kazan rubbed a bright red earlobe and massaged it thoughtfully. “I met him once, you see. It was on a Sunday.”

  “That’s quite wonderful, Captain.” Mirov twisted the Count’s smoking jacket around his fist. “It must have been a most pleasurable conference for you to remember it so sharply.”

  “Otis!” The realization hit Saxton like a sledgehammer.

  “Yes, very pleasant.” Kazan bit his bottom lip

  Mirov’s arms lashed out, the pistol raising to fire and angling for Saxton. The Heroin bogged down his reflexes, and there was no way he could move in time. When the hammer fell, he was done for. And he knew it.

  Just like he knew Mirov had been the thing all along.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The gun went off with the sharp snap one expects from a Webley. A pillar of smoke and unburnt powder blasted from the octagonal iron just behind the bullet that twisted through the air, straight and unerring. The severed hand still clutched the checked wood grip tightly, but it was the impact with the floor that sent the hammer forward.

  Kazan’s sword danced and glistened in the lamp light and the crowd screeched in solidarity. Some pushed through the door and towards the safety of the passenger cars, others pressed themselves against the lounger’s walls. The Cossack flicked the blood from his blade and slid it into its sheath as nonchalantly as slipping into a worn boot. No one heard the mouse-like squeak as the bullet cut through meat or noticed the snap of it passing through its victim and into the bar.

  Then Irina slid down Saxton’s lanky body—a bright red orchid blooming beneath her bosom.

  “No!” Saxton dropped to a knee and cradled her against him. “You bastard. What have you done?”

  “Saved me the trouble,” Petrovski said dryly.

  Mirov’s eyes began to glow. He reached out with his remaining hand and seized the Count by the throat, pulling him closer and digging his fingers through the skin. He gripped the man’s trachea and moved him like a shield before the Mounties could open fire.

  More passengers tried to file to the next car when a blob of red pushed through them. Mountie Hicks shoved between them like footballer, driving into the commuters with his shoulder out and his head tucked. One spiraled to the ground from his charge and two more toppled out of his way and over one another. Once he was clear of the rioting exodus, he stood up and straightened his uniform.

  “Sir, the police inspector has been compromised and can no longer be trusted.”

  “You’ve solved the case, Hicks. Congratulations.” Kazan’s smile threatened to split his face in half. “Inspector Mirov, would you please give the man a round of applause?”

  Mirov’s luminescent eyes shined brighter the harder he scowled at Kazan.

  “Where’s James? Irina needs him.” Saxton pressed on the wound harder, and Irina’s whimpering became a feral, agonized roar for help. “Now, goddamn it!”

  “Right here, Alex.” Wells stepped into the car and aimed the elephant gun at Mirov. “Those eyes make one hell of a target.”

  Mirov kept his glare locked on Petrovski. The Count’s body twitched and shuddered in the creature’s grasp.

  Something rippled across Mirov’s cheek—no, beneath it. “I’m afraid I haven’t been playing fairly, Doctor Wells. I took the bullets out of your rifle when I killed your friend.”

  Wells snorted. “A good soldier knows what his weapon weighs. I reloaded.”

  Lids stretched wide around bright red orbs as the ramifications of this registered. The rifle boomed, and Mirov’s head came apart in a cataclysm of bone and brain matter. His tongue flopped stupidly from the stump as he collapsed to the floor, a few feet from a panicked, screaming Pietro. The priest threw himself onto the corpse, sobbing, screeching for forgiveness into Mirov’s chest.

  “I have failed you, Master. I have failed you!”

  Wells ignored Pietro’s continued lamentations and rushed to Irina’s side, helping Saxton lift her to the bar. “I need more light. Alex, fetch me the torch from the wall.”

  “The Count’s dead. The same as your friend, Doctor,” Hicks said as he inspected the white-eyed body of Marion Petrovski. “His eyes are completely blank.”

  “He’s stolen his mind. That’s what he’s doing. He… how to put this? He eats their memories that way. That’s how this thing learns. It takes what it can from everyone while keeping only the strongest available body. The tyrannosaurus, the Neanderthal chieftain, Inspector Mirov. Alex, hurry.”

  “Next time don’t shoot me in the foot if you want me to be fast.”

  Saxton limped quickly to the wall and removed the electric candle, oblivious to the sudden commotion behind him. Something slammed into his back, driving his head into the wall. He saw Pietro for a moment and, just before the lights died in the car, he could have sworn he saw something writhing in his hands.

  “Damn opiates.” Saxton fumbled in the darkness, feeling along the wall for the light switch. He turned it and cast the room back into the safety of dingy, yellow light. “Why is this bloody thing where anyone can access it?”

  Kazan snapped his fingers and pointed at the door to the crew car. “If anyone comes through that portal, you kill them.”

  “Sir, yes sir!” His men barked in unison and trained their rifles on the gangway.

  Hicks collected the Count’s pistol from the floor and took off his service-issued hat. “Sir, but what if the priest really is innocent?”

  “Psst! We have plenty of innocent priests.” Kazan rolled his eyes. “Help the doctor with the woman. No one else is dying on this fucking train.”

  ***

  It wriggled around Pietro’s wrists and then up a black sleeve. The soft, translucent body—nearly a meter long but no more than an inch wide—didn’t look like much, but somewhere out there in a place that the humans couldn’t begin to unders
tand, it was the most powerful body available. It was nothing compared to the creature’s true form, if it could be described as a form at all. It existed, but not in a way that could be so easily explained. A fourth state of being that was neither solid nor immaterial and that no longer belonged in the universe.

  It was not so easily destroyed.

  And so, it found the wyrm, and the wyrm found the Pilgrim and his vessel. This place, the primordial waste that should have been home, became prison. It despised organic forms for their weakness, but envied them their ability to sleep. Mountains of ash, oceans, and ice that kept it buried and painfully aware of it all. That would never happen again.

  The humans were correct after all. It could replicate, limitlessly even, and spread to all of humanity. So many millions of years had passed that it wouldn’t even recognize its own kind if it could find them… if they even existed still. It would eradicate humanity using the Tesla weapon Tremblay feared so greatly. Then it would spread itself among the remains, until it was all over the world.

  No.

  Until it was the world.

  The priest opened his mouth and tilted his head back, welcoming the wyrm with his arms spread wide. It slithered down the esophagus, twisting into a tight ball as it nestled into his liver. The tentacles unraveled from its head and swam through the arteries on a path to Pietro’s brain. The words and teachings the man had babbled on about flooded into it with scores of memories. Every piece of knowledge the priest possessed, it consumed, and with that knowledge it realized that Pietro had been right all along. It had never had a name before. Its kind did not use them. But here, among these soft vessels, they had one for it.

  It was God.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kazan watched the two Englishmen and his officer operate on the young woman as he stepped around the bar from the other end. He set three tall shot glasses on their operating table and reached for the Stolichnaya on the mirror-backed shelves.