Horror Express

by David O'Hanlon

  ***

  Kazan rubbed his temples and leaned on the engineer’s stool with his elbows while he refocused. The connection with his satellite hosts was completely destroyed. Maintaining all of them was an exacting task anyhow. The two Englishmen were far more formidable than they appeared. Especially the doctor. Not that it mattered. Before the engineman had been cut off, and in half, he watched Saxton fall to his doom.

  Kazan took his time dressing in the heavy boiler suit. It was a little long in the sleeves, and tight in crotch, but it provided him with an extra layer of warmth. He pulled his heavy coat back on while he double checked the maps. After the train crashed, he’d be able to climb down the trestlework to the river below. The rescue crews would be working on both sides at first light. He checked a pocket watch dangling from a nail over the stove—slightly more than an hour of darkness remained. He would have to swim across and ape up the other side to find a suitable place for an ambush.

  The doctor would be coming soon. Kazan removed the pistol from his holster and aimed the weapon at the only door with cold stillness. He waited forty-thousand years to move once, this wouldn’t even be an inconvenience. He whistled “O’ Canada” as best he could manage with his torn lips. He was so close to getting it right, too. The handle began to turn vertically and he cocked the hammer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Saxton stretched up for the ad hoc rope of curtains Wells had tossed out to him. He missed, causing him to fall slightly. His shoulder bounced off the ground and nearly broke his grip on the axel box that he so desperately clung to. He swung his arm up quickly and switched his hands. He was losing feeling in his appendages, and the frozen winds blurred his vision.

  Two feet overhead, salvation flailed about wildly, popping playfully despite Saxton’s failing hold on the cold iron. His shoulder warmed with spreading blood from its meeting with the gravel. Luckily, there was still enough Heroin in his system to block the pain—most of it, anyhow. He braced his right foot against a thin ledge and pressed himself up.

  His fingers hooked the fabric and quickly twisted it around his fist. There was no easy path. Saxton pushed away from the axel box, swinging from the fabric like a circus acrobat. His feet skipped across the ground, and a well-polished shoe flew into the darkness as he kicked against the snow and gravel and braced himself for the short climb into the shattered window. He couldn’t hear the branches scratching along the side of the car until they were whipping across his body. One hand came free and he curled his legs up to his chest to keep from being pulled under the wheels. He regained his position quickly… not that it mattered.

  The buffeting winds blew him harder, spinning him around on the drapes, like bait on a hook. Certain death streaked by as he fought to get his footing. He stretched for the sill with muscles pulled to their limits. Ragged bits of glass bit into his palm as he steadied himself. He gritted his teeth and threw his arm inside. Something in the distance forced him to pause his ascent.

  The mountains loomed over the track. A thin red line of the coming sunrise burned across their peaks. It seemed a lot longer than a day since he’d seen one. He hung there, gazing at the majesty of the scene, wanting to watch it play out.

  Yes, there was still a bit more Heroin in him than he would have liked. He shook his head clear and pulled himself through the window, where he toppled across a bench and landed gracelessly in the floor.

  A less-than-heroic shriek escaped his lips as he rolled over and came face to face with the ravaged remains of a ghoul. Wells had thoroughly pulped its skull, to the point that it was unidentifiable as a human. Saxton pushed off the floor and walked unevenly for several feet before kicking off his lonely shoe. He leaned on the bar and examined the corpses. The underfunded Mounted Police didn’t carry sidearms. He was unarmed, out one very comfortable pair of shoes, injured, and alone.

  “James, you could have at least pulled me up before running away to get yourself killed.” He looked back at the decimated shelves and mirror.

  A gin he was unfamiliar with stood next to a bottle of scotch he was too familiar with. On the opposite side was Kazan’s vodka. Aside from them, nothing remained.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers.” He looked at one of the dead-again Mounties. “I’d say we’ve earned ourselves a drink.”

  ***

  The door eased open and Kazan’s finger took up all the slack in the trigger. The heavy door paused halfway through its arc, but no one entered. His breath rolled in a lazy fog as he waited. Still no one came into the engine. He leaned to the left to see through the gap.

  Nothing.

  The door moved another two inches and stopped. Kazan crept closer to it, careful not to make too much noise and to stay out of the moonlight. He knelt slightly, then pivoted into the opening with his pistol high. Still nothing. He slammed the door open and stepped fully into the night.

  Then the shovel met his face, sending him reeling into the engine and onto his back.

  Wells dropped down from the roof. He propped the shovel over his shoulder as he entered the car and adjusted his windblown hair.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  “You’re too late.” Kazan climbed to his feet. “You can’t beat me, doctor.”

  “I might not be able to defeat you, chap.” Wells gripped the coal shovel like a cricket bat and winked. “But I’m most definitely going to beat you.”

  Kazan eyed his pistol across the floor. It might as well have been on another continent. He drew his sword. “No reason to keep the beast at bay. Let me show you what the Captain has taught me. On guard.”

  The shovel swung viciously and Kazan parried it away, dodging awkwardly in the confines of the train engine. The weapons clashed again—pieces of wood chipped from the shovel handle. Kazan forced Wells into the boiler. His coat smoldered against the searing iron. Wells struggled to create space.

  “You’re far mightier than I ever imagined, doctor. It’s a shame I didn’t find you as a younger man, you would have made a great host.”

  “I would sooner die.”

  “No, you will die sooner.” Kazan moved a hand to the spine of the sword and pushed hard.

  Wells groaned as the edge pressed down, parting the flesh and grating against the bone. He stomped Kazan’s foot and then brought his knee back up hard into the Cossack’s groin. Kazan twisted away, partially fileting Wells’ forehead. The doctor kicked him away and swung the shovel. It clanged off Kazan’s bald head and again across a knee cap, followed by the other, until he was on the floor. He lashed out with the sword, but Wells batted it from his hand and drove the shovelhead down on his wrist. The metal struck the floor with a crunch, Kazan rolled away howling in pain and propped against the wall.

  “Oh dear, not again.” Wells scooped the severed hand up in the shovel. “You’re not a very handy fellow, are you?”

  “You laugh now.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. He squeezed the stump hard to allay the bleeding. “Pain is an unfortunate consequence of wearing flesh. In my home I never needed it. We are pure there. What your friend Tremblay called atomic power, we call our natural state. We aren’t just powerful. We are power itself! The personification of force. Pietro thought of me as a divine being, and he was right. What else could I be that controls you like puppets?”

  “There are plenty of parasites that do just that. You’re a roundworm that talks. And too much, quite frankly.” Wells raised the shovel and lined it up for a kill shot.

  The doctor lunged forward and Kazan removed his grip on his own wrist. The arteries spurted across Wells’ face, blinding him while Kazan dodged the blow. The shovel sparked against the metal wall. Kazan slammed Wells’ face into the doorjamb and then threw him against the stove. He calmly picked up the shovel and swatted the doctor across the cheek with it. He pressed the edge down on Wells’ throat and leaned lightly on the handle.

  His eyes began to glow. “I guess I’ll be wearing you after all.”

  “Or fucking not
,” someone said behind him.

  Kazan recognized the voice a split second before the Cossack sword burst from his ribcage. He spun, swung the shovel up and knocked Saxton away. The lanky Englishman looked around the room for another weapon, his eyes paused on the pistol and then turned back to Kazan, who smiled brightly—his eyes burning bright red.

  “I much prefer you anyway.” Kazan drew the shovel back for a skull-splitting blow but it struck the overhead light instead, shattering the bulbs and casting the car into gloom.

  Wells jerked the weapon from his hand, but Kazan responded quickly. He charged into the doctor and wrapped him in a bearhug, driving the sword straight into his chest so that it pinned them together. Kazan lifted him—the creature’s hiss-wheeze laughter filled the engine.

  “You can die here, Doctor Wells, but I’ll be taking your mind with me.” The train went black, but his eyes glowed brightly.

  ***

  “No!” Saxton cried out as his only friend was impaled. His eyes flashed to the dropped shovel, a wrench next to the stove, and the pistol under a steam pipe.

  Then they reached the tunnel.

  He slid across the floor but misjudged his distance in the pitch black. His face pressed against the pipe and he hoped Kazan didn’t hear his cheek sizzling against it. Blood gushed around his teeth as he bit down on his lip to keep from screaming. He found the pistol and rose to a knee, aiming it as best the injuries and painkillers would allow.

  “You were right, James. Those eyes do make wonderful targets.” He fired all seven shots at the vermillion orbs. They disappeared in the darkness, and Wells moaned in pain.

  When they passed through the other side, pale light returned to the engine, and Saxton could just see the outlines of the bodies. He drew the sword slowly from the two men and rolled Wells over onto his back.

  “Are you alright, James?”

  Wells gawked up at him. “Are you daft, Alex?”

  “Like I thought, just a flesh wound.”

  “Quite. Trivial, even,” Wells whispered raggedly.

  “Come on, we don’t have time to dawdle.” He hefted Wells from the floor and draped him over his neck.

  “Wait, it’s not dead. Not yet.” Wells tried to get his feet under him, stumbling as he was dragged. “Remember Mirov? It’s in the liver, Alex. Not the brain. We have to finish this.”

  “We are.” Saxton propped Wells up and then retrieved the scotch bottle from beside the door. “When you want to sterilize something, you use alcohol right?”

  He struck his lighter to the piece of cloth shoved in the neck and tossed the bottle next to Kazan’s body. The green Highland Park bottle burst open and splashed across the Cossack just before the fluid ignited. His coat and trousers caught quickly, then the coal-dust saturated boiler suit. His body was a funeral pyre in seconds.

  Saxton lifted him up. “See that, old chap. Nothing to worry about.”

  Kazan’s corpse sprang up, screeching louder than any train-whistle. Saxton covered his ears against the wailing. The burning body shambled through the darkness. The creature sprang from the blazing corpse and coiled on the floor like a snake, three feet from them. Both men managed a scream before the thing launched itself at them again. Saxton brought his hands up instinctively and it bit into his palm. Tendrils unfurled and ensnared his arm as it surged toward his face and slithered into his mouth.

  Wells acted within the limits of his injuries and gave Saxton a hard uppercut to the chin, slamming his teeth together. The body of the vile serpentine thing fell to the floor curling around itself in the knots, writhing as if it didn’t know it was already dead. Saxton doubled over and fell to his knees heaving. The creature’s head bounced across the floor with its tendrils flailing for anything to hold onto. The professor vomited again, wiping an indigo ichor from his lips.

  “I think this is our stop, Alex.” Wells helped his friend up and they limped to the edge together.

  There was no spectacular jump.

  They just stepped off the platform as the train rushed onto the battered bridge—its supports laid in ruins among the roiling waters two hundred feet below. The whole thing collapsed under the weight with a cacophony of snapping timber and rending steel. The train twirled in the air, spiraling like a dart before it hit the rocky river below. The impact and frigid waters worked together, turning the boiler into a bomb. Pieces of it blasted in every direction, falling around them like iron sleet.

  Saxton and Wells slid along the snow-covered ground, toppling down an incline. They reached for handholds, for each other, for anything at all, but continued falling. Branches whipped them, rocks bashed against their tumbling bodies. They blasted off the side of the mountain, falling though a frozen sky. Saxton came to a sudden halt, smacking against a stone ledge. He caught Wells’ arm and kept him from falling into the wreckage below.

  With a pained groan, he dragged him up to safety. They leaned over the edge and stared at the destruction. Saxton rolled over and stared at the orange-pink sunrise.

  “You think it’s dead?” he asked.

  “If that didn’t kill it, then I’m all out of ideas.” Wells laid back and sighed, shivering violently. Shrapnel snapped and tinkled softly throughout the woods.

  “Hang on, James. I called for help. It won’t be long now. and we’ll be rescued.”

  “That’s wonderful, Alex.” Wells nodded slowly. “I think I’ll just have a rest until they get here.”

  “Yeah. I’m a bit tired myself.”

  He watched his breath steam and dissipate in the early morning air. Ice particles sparkled brightly and danced against the colorful sunrise. He closed his eyes, and the cold didn’t seem to bother him anymore.

  “This one was your fault.” Wells coughed hoarsely. “You brought it onboard.”

  Saxton groaned and sat up. “You won’t even let me die in peace, will you?”

  “Of course not.” Wells managed a weak smile.

  Saxton laughed softly and laid back in the snow. “Am I still invited to New Year’s?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It wriggled in the cold air. The skin was ragged, flayed from the blast. The wyrm was almost dead and then it hit the water with a hard slap. It squirmed and twisted what remained of its body. The water was rushing, moving too fast for it to find a host. It bounced off rocks and chunks of ice, fading in and out of consciousness. A blue-black slick followed behind it as the lifeblood oozed from its body. It wondered if it could use the blood as a conduit to infect the microorganisms swimming around it. But it didn’t need to worry, after all. The sturgeon streaked through the water like a ghost and then the wyrm was deep in its belly. There was more than one way to skin a cat, as the humans said.

  ***

  Mountie Earl Hicks watched the bridge collapse through his field glasses. It was the horrible sort of ending she deserved. Though he missed most of the voyage, he had seen more than enough once he boarded the train. Steam and dust rose into the air, and bits of train and ice shimmered in the embryotic rays of the dawn.

  The boom of the exploding engine rattled snow from the branches overhead, well after he watched the blast itself. He sucked his teeth as another avalanche blasted down the snow-covered mountaintops and into the river below.

  Hicks threw the field glasses as far as he could manage and climbed down from the roof of the compartment car. Dickson, the only other surviving Mountie, tapped his shoulder and offered him a lit cigarette. Hicks accepted and took a thoughtful pull on it, holding the smoke and staring at towering plume of snow and earth rising in the mountains.

  “The Countess is awake. She’s asking for that professor fella.” Dickson squinted at the mountains and shook his head. “Do you think they made it?”

  Hicks let the smoke roll from his nose. “Doubtful.”

  “They’re smart men, those English. Maybe they had a plan.”

  “I don’t think that was something either of them did very well.” Hicks took another drag and handed Dickso
n the cigarette back. “Nothing could have survived that and anything that did, shouldn’t have.”

  “Understood.” Dickson nodded at the meandering passengers. “They all seem fine. We did something right in all this. There’s a telegraph in the post. I’ll get word to the next outpost. and then I’ll inform the Countess.”

  “No. I’m in charge now. It’s my responsibility.”

  Hicks dismissed Dickson with something resembling a salute and wandered to the river, massaging his ears the way his mother would. He plopped down in the snow bank and watched the river run just below his boot heels. Silver flashes of fish scales caught his eye and a squirrelly little laugh escaped him. The action caught him off guard and he looked around to make sure no one heard it. He couldn’t understand how anything lived in such cold.

  Hicks threw himself backwards, lying in the snow, thinking about sturgeon, and staring into the pastels of morning. His arms started moving, absentmindedly making angel wings. His thoughts drifting to more pleasant times. He tilted his head back and looked at the train cars. One of the boxcars had lost its door and bodies were strewn about with the luggage.

  “Yeppers. Definitely getting all the blame for this one.”

  ***

  Ahanu shook the snow from his black braids and tossed the fish into a basket by the door of his cabin. The traps were mostly empty again. Out of the six crappies, only one was big enough to keep, plus the two sturgeons. It wasn’t a good catch but it was enough. Besides, his wife could make a meal of anything. It was even edible occasionally.

  He knocked his boots against the door frame and went inside, where his wife busily worked the mortar and pestle. His seven-year-old son ran in a circle, bare-assed, singing a song he’d made up about a dancing moose. Ahanu kicked the boots off and hung his jacket by the door. He watched his son running a little longer, chuckled at the boy, and then headed to the back room. No one would notice if he took a nap.