by Tim O'Rourke
Turning my back on them, it was then I noticed those levers again – the ones with the words push and pull written above them in faded-out letters. Just as if I’d been punched in the face, the word which had been written on the back of the photograph flashed in the front of my mind.
With the Berserker’s breath hot against my neck and the song Heroes now blasting from the radio at an ear-splitting level, I closed my eyes and gripped the lever which had PUSH written above it. And as I did, I felt the Berserker’s claws slice through my neck. But there was one last sensation I felt before the world went black. I felt a hand softly close over mine, the one that had just pushed the lever.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kiera
Potter came from the waiting room and joined us on the platform. He had a look on his face that I had only ever seen once before, and that had been as he cradled Murphy’s dead body in his arms beneath the Fountain of Souls. Like me, Potter knew that we would never see Isidor again – the Berserkers would kill him.
To see such hurt on Potter’s face, and feeling as if my soul had been crushed, I headed back down the platform towards the waiting room. I was going to take Isidor with us, even if it meant dragging him kicking and screaming. As I passed Potter, he grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” he whispered, tears in his eyes.
“But we can’t just leave him,” I cried, glancing at Kayla who had rested Sam down on the platform. Kayla stood with her head down and was hugging herself. I didn’t need to see her face to know that she was crying, her shuddering shoulders told me that.
“Isidor needs to find his own path,” Potter said softly. “I just hope he finds Melody at the end of it.”
I tried to move off in the direction of the waiting room again, but Potter held onto me. “We don’t have time. We can’t risk all of our lives because of Isidor.”
Not wanting to hear what Potter had said, but knowing what he said was true, I looked at Kayla. I went to her and wrapped my arm about her shoulder. Then, as if getting his act together, Potter came charging towards us, picked Sam up off the platform, and barked, “We don’t have time for all this booing and wooing, save it for later.”
The train slowed as it reached the platform, but didn’t stop. The Berserkers were so close now that I could hear their barking and yapping from the opposite end of the platform. With Sam hanging over his shoulder like a ragdoll, Potter raced alongside the train as it passed through the platform.
“C’mon!” he yelled back at Kayla and me.
With my arm still firmly around her shoulder, I hurried Kayla alongside the train. It was a goods train, and one of the cars had a wide open door. Seeing this, Potter raced beside it and shoved Sam into the opening. With Kayla on a go slow, we were beginning to trail behind, and I looked up to see Potter leap from the platform and into the car.
“Hurry!” he roared, his claws outstretched towards us.
“Faster,” I yelled at Kayla who stumbled beside me.
“I don’t want to leave Isidor...” she started.
But before she had the chance to protest further, Potter had snatched hold of her wrists with his claws and was yanking her up and into the carriage. Her hair blew backwards like a streak of flame and the sky rumbled overhead.
“Take my hand!” Potter barked at me, as I raced alongside the train. “Take hold!”
Reaching out, our claws joined and he hauled me on board. The train lurched right as it rattled over the points at the end of the platform. Taking hold of a handrail fixed to the giant door, I looked out and back at the station. With the wind blasting into my face, I watched in horror as the Berserkers ran along the platform like a plague of giant locusts. They pulled the waiting room door open and hurried inside.
With my stomach aching like I’d been winded, I peered into the darkness and through the window set into the wall of the waiting room. Stifling a scream with my fists, I watched as the Berserkers circled Isidor. Why did he have his back to them?
Fight, Isidor! Turn and fight! I wanted to scream over the sound of the roaring wind, but the words wouldn’t come out. Then, one of those Berserkers swiped its claws through the air, slicing Isidor’s head from his shoulders. With blood slashing against the waiting room window, I sunk to my knees as the Berserkers set about Isidor’s body with their claws and dagger-like teeth.
Potter pulled me into the car and slid the door shut, as we sped away from the station and up into the snow-flecked mountains.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Isidor
The hand which held mine felt soft, delicate. Slowly, I opened my eyes and peered down at the rose which covered the back of it. With my heart racing in my chest, I looked up into the face which smiled back at me and two things struck me all at once. My heart was beating again in my chest, a feeling that I hadn’t felt since coming back from the dead and into the world which had been pushed. The second thing, my arms and hands felt different – lighter somehow – and I didn’t have to inspect them to know that I no longer had wings or claws.
I looked into her eyes and they were more beautiful than I had remembered them – Melody had become more beautiful. She looked just like she had in that photograph. She was no longer that uncomfortable fourteen-year-old girl in the grey dress, apron, and bonnet. Melody stood before me, her long, blonde hair curled around her shoulders like springs made of silk. Just as she had in the photograph, she wore a sleeveless summer dress which swished just above her knees. The rose tattoos covered her legs, arms, and neck, and they looked so real that I had to fight the urge to lean forward and smell their sweet scent.
I had been too busy staring at Melody to realise that I was standing in a waiting room similar to the one I had just left. There was a tiny ticket booth, and a series of levers attached to the wall. But instead of benches, there were tables and chairs, like a small café where travellers could sit, eat, and drink while they waited for their train. As I glanced around this old fashioned-looking waiting room, I could see people seated at the tables. There was a teenage couple, and they sat across a table from each other, gazing into one another’s eyes. I could see that they were very much in love. There was a woman seated at a table nearby, and she was real pretty. Her hair was so blond that it looked almost white. She wore a long, brown coat with a fur collar and was busy reading a bunch of letters that were piled on the table before her. She looked familiar, very much like the pathologist I’d seen in the morgue where I had rescued Kiera from. But that would be impossible, right? There were two other people that I could see. One was male, and he looked ill. His skin was waxy-looking and his eyes were jet black. He stared down at his arm, and the skin covering it looked wrinkled and worn. The other one, I couldn’t tell if it were male or female, as a hood was pulled so low, that it hid the face.
I looked back at Melody again, she was still holding my hand and my heart was still pounding. Then, I did something that I had longed to do since her mother had taken her away four years ago. Pulling her close to me, I leaned forward and kissed her. Melody wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. Her lips were as soft and sweet tasting as those roses which covered her body.
Gently easing our lips apart, I brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek and said, “I love you, Melody.”
“I love you more,” she smiled at me, and I thought my heart was going to burst from my chest.
From beside us, someone said, “Aww, how beautiful you two look together. I must take a photo.”
Both of us looked in the direction of the voice at the same time, and there was a flash of white light. I blinked, and when I looked again, I could see that it was the person who had been seated at the table with the hood who had taken our picture. The hooded person lowered the camera, but still their face was hidden from me by the folds of the grey coloured hood.
Without saying another word, the hooded figure turned and strode towards the waiting room door.
“Hey!” I called out, realising whoever hid behi
nd the hood had just taken the picture I had carried around with me for so long. “I need that picture.”
The hooded figure turned back and looked at me. “I have other pictures, Isidor Smith,” it said, and its voice sounded so cracked and broken, that I still couldn’t tell if it were male or female. “And I don’t just have pictures; I have letters and all sorts of other stuff for the friends you’ve left behind.”
The door to the waiting room creaked as the person with the camera stepped outside. Letting go of Melody’s hand, I decided to follow. I yanked open the door and stepped out onto the platform that had been constructed from wood. It was old, and the boards wailed beneath me. I raised my hand against the bright sunlight that shimmered from above. Snapping my head left, then right, I looked for the person with the camera, but the hooded figure had gone – vanished somehow. In each direction, all I could see was a flat landscape. The ground was the colour of sand, but it was cracked and arid-looking and stretched for miles in all directions.
Melody joined me on the platform. “What’s wrong, Isidor?”
“We need to find whoever that was who just took our picture,” I told her. “We need that photograph.”
“Why?” she asked, taking my hand again.
“Because you leave it for me in that grate,” I said. “You wrote push on the back of it. If you hadn’t have written that, I would never have pushed that lever and I wouldn’t be here with you now.”
With a frown, Melody looked at me and said, “Isidor, I never left any picture for you. I never wrote that word on anything.”
“But you left me the photo so I would find you here,” I told her, and now my heart was beginning to race for a different reason.
“I never left a photo for you, Isidor,” she said again, looking as confused as I felt.
“Who did then?” I breathed.
“Whoever wanted you dead, I guess,” Melody said.
“Dead?” I whispered.
“You’re dead, Isidor,” she said. “Whoever left you the photo and wrote push on the back, led you here.”
With my heart racing faster and faster, I realised I had been tricked. The photograph had been used as bait to lure me to my own death. But whoever had taken that picture had said that there were other photographs for my friends. Did that mean that they were going to be lured to their own deaths too? I had to warn them.
“I have to go back,” I said.
“You can’t, Isidor,” Melody called after me as I raced back into the waiting room.
I yanked on the levers that were attached to the wall. I pushed them then pulled them, but nothing happened. “Why am I still here?” I cried out.
“Isidor, there is no way back, you’re dead. We both are,” Melody said softly. “It’s hard for everyone to accept at first, as this place seems so real, but...”
“I’ve got to go back and warn my friends, my sister, not to be fooled by photographs of those they miss the most,” I said, yanking at the levers.
“There is no way back,” she said, taking my hand again. “You’ll get used to it. I was scared at first, but it does get easier.”
“You don’t understand, Melody,” I cried.
“Not at first I didn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that my mother stabbed me in the heart, only to find myself sitting here at this station.”
With the sudden realisation I was dead – dead for real this time – with no chance of returning to the world that had been pushed or any other world, I began to tremble. But not out of fear for myself, but that of my friends. Who was the person behind the hood, the person who had tricked me with that picture?
As if sensing my fear, Melody smiled at me, and said, “Come with me, Isidor, we can catch the next train now.”
“The next train?” I asked her, feeling lost.
“I’ve been waiting here for you all this time,” she smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
Then, leading me back across the waiting room, we went back out onto the platform. There was a wailing sound from above and I looked up to see a sign swinging in the wind on a set of rusty hinges.
The Great Wasteland Railroad, it read.
Sitting together on the platform, with my crossbow on my lap, we held hands and waited for the next train to take us away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kiera
The train rattled its way through the mountain passes and over bridges that spanned giant valleys. With the door open just an inch or two, I sat silently and watched the cold, winter sun rise above the storm clouds which were fading away into the distance.
Kayla had cried herself to sleep and lay on the dusty floor next to her friend Sam. Every so often, Sam would stir and cry out in his feverish stupor. Potter sat with his back against the wall of the carriage and smoked. We didn’t speak. I wanted to ask him if he were keeping secrets from me, but now wasn’t the time. I was still in shock from seeing Isidor get slaughtered by those Berserkers. And as I pictured them in my mind’s eye as they approached Isidor from behind, I glanced over at Sam. He looked like one of them.
Closing my eyes, I let the cold air which blasted through the gap in the door cool my face. I thought of the photograph Isidor had carried with him. He had been wrong about that picture. Even though he was in the photograph with Melody, he had died before meeting up with her again. As I sat, feeling the rocking sensation of the train as it raced forward, I suddenly got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I opened my eyes and looked for the rucksack I’d brought with me from Hallowed Manor. Reaching out, I dragged it across the floor of the carriage towards me. Then with my hands shaking, I unfastened it and reached inside. With my fingers brushing over the picture of my dad and me, which Potter had taken from my flat in Havensfield, I sat and stared at it. Gooseflesh ran over my skin as I realised what was wrong with the photograph.
I couldn’t ever remember that particular photograph being taken. If I couldn’t remember it being taken, then it never had been – not yet, anyway. The reason why I couldn’t remember posing for that picture with my dad was because, like Isidor’s photograph, it hadn’t been taken yet. So how was I holding it in my hands?
“Are you okay, sweet-cheeks?” Potter suddenly asked me.
“No, not really,” I whispered, unable to take my eyes from the photograph in the frame.
Potter came and sat beside me. “What’s wrong?”
“This picture’s wrong – it’s all wrong,” I told him.
“It’s just a picture of you and your dad,” he said, and again there was a dismissive tone to his voice, which made me wonder if he were hiding something from me.
“It’s not just a photo,” I said, looking at him, wanting to see the reaction in his eyes. “This picture hasn’t been taken yet.”
Potter broke my stare and looked down at the photograph. He didn’t say anything, not at first. “You’re in it.”
“But I don’t ever remember having this picture taken,” I told him, not taking my eyes from his.
“You could never remember all the photographs that you’ve ever been in,” he tried to reason with me.
“My dad had jet-black hair,” I told him. “In this picture, he has wisps of grey – he is older looking in this picture than when he died.”
“So what are you trying to say?” Potter asked, and again he didn’t make eye contact and lit another cigarette.
“My dad is alive in this world, and this picture proves I meet up with him again,” I whispered, praying that it was true – that I was going to see my dad again. If I had a heart it would have been racing with joy.
“Kiera, I found that picture in your flat,” Potter said, exasperated. “You would have never known about it if I hadn’t have gone and got it for you. That picture holds no significance to what we’ve been brought back to do. It’s a fluke that you’re even holding it now.”
I sat and stared down at the picture. Then, with my fist, I smashed the glass and removed the photograph
from its frame and turned it over in my hands.
“I was meant to have this picture,” I whispered. “It’s a sign.”
“What are you talking about, Kiera?” Potter sighed.
I held up the picture with my trembling hands and showed him what had been written across the back. Someone had scribbled just one word, and it read, PUSH.
‘Dead Statues’
Book Three Kiera Hudson Series Two
Coming soon!
Author’s Note:
Isidor told Melody about his dream to write stories. He called them his
Penny Dreadfuls – because he feared they would be so dreadful people wouldn’t even spend a penny of their money buying them. Shortly after Isidor’s death at that remote Railway Station, I woke one morning to find a brown envelope stuffed through my letterbox. I opened it to find four short stories. They were called, “There Are tigers”, “Ratbag”, “Paisley End” and “A Story”. These were the stories which Isidor wrote between the ages of fourteen to sixteen. After reading each of these dark little tales, I could see that each had been inspired by what Isidor had seen and learnt about the humans during his adventures above ground. When checking the envelope to see if there was any sign or clue as to who had sent them to me, there was only one word scrawled across the front...
Over the page you will find that collection of short stories by Isidor Smith.
The Penny Dreadfuls
By
Isidor Smith
For Melody Rose
Copyright 2012
Published by Endra Press
‘There Are tigers’
“Don’t go home via the underpass,” she said, looking at her grandson.
“Why not, Nan?” Michael asked.
