Hell Train

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Why would I have a match? You know I don’t indulge in tobacco.’

  ‘Thomas, this is no time for your lies. I know you creep into the garden for a pipe. Light the lantern.’

  Thomas did as he was bidden and brought the lantern over. Miranda craned forward.

  ‘Well, is he wearing his ceremonial gold? Is that his royal seal?’

  Thomas looked down at the body for the first time, raising the lamp and turning up the flame. He found himself standing before the open coffin, frozen, dumbfounded. His mouth dropped open.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE FOG

  THE ARKANGEL INCHED along tracks rusted with disuse. The thick grey fog crept between the pines to the cut and tried each window of each carriage, like a swamp miasma seeking to infect all who passed. The Conductor solemnly walked ahead of the train, along the centre of the track, as if at the head of a funeral cortège. He raised a red flag before him, allowing the engine driver to set a pace. The carriages shone with a murky brilliance. There was hardly any sound now. Even the sodden birds had fallen silent.

  Nicholas awoke and found Isabella alert, watching from the window.

  ‘How long was I asleep?’

  ‘I have only just awoken. I had the most terrible dream. I dreamed that someone jumped from the train and fell into the valley, to be torn apart by wolves.’

  ‘These are just anxieties that enter your slumber. You mustn’t worry so much.’ He stretched and looked about the carriage. ‘I’m cold and thirsty, and I have no luggage, no razor, no clothes to change into.’ He had always prided himself on his smart appearance. ‘I’ll have to buy supplies at the next stop.’ Then he remembered the sign warning passengers. ‘Except that we are not supposed to alight at the stations before our destination.’

  ‘The vendors come to the windows of the train. We used to have them at Chelmsk. Most of them were blind or maimed. Accidents were always happening in the foundry.’ Isabella watched the train’s slow progress from the window. ‘So thick and grey out there, as if the world has been wiped clean away.’

  Nicholas checked his pocket map once more. ‘There’s no way of telling where we are,’ he muttered, ‘no way of knowing where we might be going.’

  ‘The fog is like a shroud. It frightens me.’ Isabella sat back, nervously chewing a nail, silenced by her anxiety. Nicholas knew it was important to keep her engaged, to stop her succumbing to flights of fancy. She was, after all, a peasant girl, and he knew they were prone to superstition.

  ‘The Conductor is walking in front of the engine,’ he said. ‘Did you get a good look at the soldiers who boarded at Snerinska?’

  ‘Yes, but I think they’re English.’

  ‘We won’t cross the border until after Zoribskia, but the last stop is obscured. All the maps have the same defect. A printing error, perhaps.’

  ‘No. Something is not right. They don’t want us to know where we are going.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because if we knew, we would leave the train by any means possible. We would throw ourselves from it if we could.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What is happening? Isabella, if you know anything more than what you have told me...’

  ‘You would not believe me if I did tell you. We are peasants who start at shadows and trust in fairytales. We make sacrifices to the spring and watch for omens in the fields. And you are a fine London gentleman.’

  ‘Stop that. Just tell me.’

  ‘It is in our legends, our stories, our nursery rhymes. Our elders spoke of a train that passed the town at midnight on the eighth full moon of each year. No-one ever saw it. We were not allowed to look. We just heard the whistle.’

  Just then, as if it had been called upon to do so, the Arkangel’s mournful whistle sounded. Isabella glanced out of the window into the thickening fog. ‘Those who board the train must risk their souls. Each will find himself alone, and none can help any other through his ordeal.’

  ‘Isabella—’

  ‘We cannot get off, and we cannot stay on.’

  ‘My love, you are not making sense! Listen to yourself! What does any of this mean? You have never travelled before—’

  Isabella would not be interrupted. ‘It’s just as the stories foretold. My father, my grandfather, all the men told of it. The women were never meant to know, and so we were shielded, but there are images in my head, if only I could order them.’

  What unnerved Nicholas most was that Isabella seemed calm and rational. Instead of denying her fears, he tried to reason with her. ‘But why us, Isabella? We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘It’s not you, Nicholas.’ She turned to look in his eyes, shame blanching her face. ‘It’s because of me.’

  ‘You? But what could you have done?’

  ‘I left the town of my birth.’

  ‘Do you not see that this is precisely what they tell you to keep you from leaving? Your elders need young breeding stock. Without you the town would grow old and die. So they invent these fables to frighten you and keep you prisoner.’

  ‘No, Nicholas,’ she said gravely. ‘There is something more. The further we travel, the more I remember. I think I first learned it from the game. My mother kept it hidden in the attic behind a locked door, but I knew where she kept the key. I played it, and I know what is in store.’

  ‘From a children’s game? You might as well play cards and believe that by turning over the Queen of Spades you are soon to die.’

  ‘The game was created by the foundry elders to pass the time while they waited for their metals to anneal. I remember the train now, growing as big as our house. The noise, the smoke. I remember how terrified I was. What I tell you is not fanciful, Nicholas, it is based on the truth.’

  ‘Please, Isabella, I believe you’re suffering from shock, after our flight from the town.’

  ‘I think you’re right. My poor Josef.’

  ‘I wish to God there had been no need to hurt your Josef, but it was him or me. You need to rest now. The journey will not be easy.’ He pressed a hand against her forehead. ‘Lie back and try to sleep some more.’

  ‘You’ll wake me before we reach the next station?’ She looked at him with pleading eyes.

  ‘Of course. We’ll leave at Schlopelo if you like and make our way across country. There must be a way that we can avoid the troops.’

  The train whispered on through the deadening fog as if passing through limbo on its way to purgatory.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE BITER

  IN THE WAVERING light of the oil lamp, Thomas saw.

  The corpse was covered in a stained white silk shroud, its folds held together by a gold chain, at the centre of which was a spiked oval seal marked with a red enamel letter H. Set within the seal, pearls and opals alternated with sapphires. The Crown Prince’s chain of royal office. The precious stones shone darkly.

  ‘I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Thomas,’ said Miranda. ‘If he has been scratching at the lid, then of course we must open the shroud at once.’ Unsqueamish about such matters, she reached in and carefully removed the seal from around the shrouded corpse’s neck. She had to push behind its rancid head to do so, and was forced to bring her face close to the Prince’s cracked yellow lips while opening the clasp.

  The two halves of the seal came apart. She raised the chain and swung it in the light of the lamp, the gems illuminating her face. When she examined the back she found herself looking at the largest emeralds and rubies of all. Her heart beating faster, she carefully lowered it into the pocket of her tunic.

  ‘Miranda, what on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘It’s worth a fortune,’ she snapped back. ‘I know a collector in London who will pay us handsomely.’

  ‘You know a man? What man? How can you know such people?’

  ‘I had a life before you, you know.’

  ‘So I am coming to understand. Open the shroud and let me see.’

  ‘That,
I think, is man’s work.’ Miranda stepped back to allow him access. Thomas swallowed hard and came to the coffin side. Gingerly he reached in and unfolded the shroud’s opening. He stared at the jaundiced creature lying exposed before him.

  Although he could not see its lower half, the corpse seemed to be immensely tall, longer by far than the coffin into which it had been folded. Patches of green mold and rank outcrops of mildew covered the exposed areas of its head and throat. This was not the body of a young man killed in his prime. Atop its yellowed oval skull, clumps of dry brown hair thrust up like pond-reeds. Its pustular eyes were sunk deep back in their sockets, its jaw clamped shut as if to keep a secret. Something was moving within its right ear. A maggot stuck its head out and twisted blindly in the air.

  Indeed, it was hard to imagine that this had ever been a normal man. Beneath the shroud it wore the royal military tunic of its house, emblazoned with crests and golden chains, but the jacket was only slightly better worn than its occupant. Parts of the fabric around the sleeves had rotted away. Upon the bare sections of its arms, lengths of yellow bone could be seen through broken, pustulent skin. The creature was barely of this world or the next.

  Miranda was not watching. She peered into her pocket and ogled the seal, captivated by its glittering gems. ‘This is the source of his power,’ she whispered, ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The royals have different blood. They draw their strength in other ways.’

  ‘Whoever told you such nonsense?’

  ‘You heard Mr Scheffen yourself. Besides, it is a well-known fact that the purity of their bloodline sustains them.’

  When she looked back, the Prince appeared to have shifted somehow. He was leaning more to the left side of the casket. The carriage had emerged from the fog and was picking up speed, passing over points to round a curve.

  ‘Miranda, I really think you should put the seal back in place. I feel something harmful may come of this.’

  ‘Who is there to see? Who will know?’ She dangled the chain before him. ‘We can remove those of Mr Scheffen’s papers that bear a mention of the seal. We can refix the lid and seal the wax with a taper. Stain the damaged woodwork with some of your boot polish.’

  ‘Miranda, it is a sin.’

  ‘Oh, sins.’ She continued to flaunt the twisting gold rope at him. ‘It is a sin to be poor as church mice. Is it so very wrong to wish for a comfortable life?’

  ‘Actually, yes—the Bible says the humble shall be rewarded.’

  ‘The Bible, always the Bible.’

  ‘Miranda, you married a vicar.’

  ‘You were in line for a better diocese then.’

  ‘Miranda!’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, Thomas!’ And at that moment she realized he was not castigating her, but pointing behind. And she slowly turned, with a sense of mounting dread.

  Something behind her was moving.

  It was rising from the casket. Freed from the binding seal, it sat up. It was not at all happy about being re-awoken. Now it rose and rose.

  Its eyes had now shifted to the front of their sockets and were burning red. It gave a terrible skull-grin—the widest mouth Thomas had ever seen. Its teeth were brown needles, its gums rotted away. It towered immensely above Thomas in its reeking shroud and mouldering tunic, its eyes fixed upon its releasers.

  It was impossibly tall.

  Thomas searched for an escape route. The door to the guard’s van was on the far side of the coffin, and closed. Miranda, turning, could only stare in mute shock. The ghoul had a mouth like a mirthless laugh, a gaping grin that split its bony skull. Its head seemed to almost touch the ceiling.

  Thomas was transfixed, and found himself stepping toward it in awe. A bad move, as it happened, for the Crown Prince of Carpathia bent sharply from the middle of its spine with a gunshot crack and seized him in its needle teeth, biting hard. Shaking Thomas like a dog, it nipped a chunk of cloth and flesh from his shoulder.

  Thomas screamed and fought back, trying to avoid the creature’s clutching talons. But the flailing, ridiculous fight did not go his way—the ghoul was far too powerful. That great mouth might grin and snap at anything that took its fancy.

  They crashed across the compartment. The creature’s strength was now borne of little more than leverage, but it was driven by powerful urges that sent energy to its flailing limbs.

  Miranda had stared in shock at the fight unfolding before her eyes, but with Thomas’s pained shriek, she awoke as if from an enchantment. She tried to pull the skeletal monster away from him, but it thrust a bony elbow at the side of her head, sending her reeling to the floor.

  Turning back to Thomas, it grabbed at him again like a dog worrying a rat, until it spotted the slender onyx crucifix at his throat. Snarling, it bodily raised him in the air and slammed him to the wood floor of the van, hoping to dislodge the cross. Miranda slipped the great seal inside her jacket and backed away. Then she called to the creature and taunted it. This, it must be said, was a wifely show of support rather than an indication of any real feeling she had for Thomas.

  The Carpathian ghoul stared back at her for a second or two, then returned its attention to the little vicar, picking him up almost playfully once more, digging its talons into his flesh, jabbing at his chest, wrapping long fingers around his shoulders. Finally, it stuffed him into the gaping coffin and slammed both sections of the lid down hard. Bored now, it looked for something new to play with.

  The guard’s van fell suddenly silent. There was just the closed coffin, with the creature on one side of it and the vicar’s wife on the other. It watched her, assessing, cocking its head as if receiving messages from the beyond. It looked about itself, understanding its surroundings. Its brain had not functioned fully in life, and was operating far less effectively now. It seemed to have trouble keeping its balance.

  Miranda backed up to the guard’s van door and opened it a crack. She slipped through as the creature reached the side of the carriage in a single stride, seizing hold of the door. It looked into the dark gap between the carriages, and down at the racing tracks below. Then it cracked its neck and looked down at its shroud, failing to find its dimly remembered seal in place. It frowned in disappointment, then in fury.

  And it strode after Miranda.

  In the third class carriage beyond the guard’s van, peasants lay their heads upon one another’s shoulders, in the depths of sleep. A pig roamed the floor, looking for tidbits. A snoring old woman sat nursing a fireplace grate that had been badly wrapped in newspaper. Disturbed by the noise, the oldest and filthiest of the peasants rose to his feet and wearily drew out a butcher’s knife, expecting trouble.

  The ghoul stuck its long-necked head into the corridor. Its height was extraordinary. It bent to pass through the door and stepped into the swaying passageway, its mouth widening even further, as if yawning. The old peasant looked up. To Miranda’s mind he seemed rather unsurprised by the appearance of an Englishwoman being chased by a dead member of the Carpathian royal family. The ghoul reached past Miranda and bit off the top half of peasant’s head, spitting out his skull as you would the top of an egg.

  When it bit, it took out crescent chunks, leaving teeth marks in its victims’ flesh like pie crusts. Blood sprayed in an arterial fountain. It bit again and again until the peasant was finally able to fall. He landed on the floor in chewed pieces, unrecognisable as a human.

  The ghoul was free and growing in strength, a supernatural force rejoicing in its power, yet also seeking its own return to dust. It needed the seal, but Miranda had taken advantage of its bloodlust to run ahead. It darted angrily forward, jumping and snapping and biting chunks out of the wood, the iron, the train itself. It lived to bite and feed.

  Then it swept along the corridor, heading for the fat little commoner who could only run and scream, the one who had pocketed its most important possession.

  Miranda slammed the door between the two third class
carriages and fled into the one beyond. Glancing back through the window in terror, she was suddenly unsure what to do. Pressing her hands against her eyes, she tried to think, but the obvious answer—to give up the seal—simply did not occur to her. She thought briefly of hiding it, magpie-like, to return to her treasure later, but even this parting felt painful. The seal was casting its spell on her, as it had on so many others.

  The great wide-mouthed ghoul watched her go for a moment. It knew there was nowhere for her to hide, so it strode back into the guard’s van—perhaps to check its coffin, but who knew what it was thinking?—and stood listening intently to the hammering within.

  Thomas’s worst nightmare had come about. He was sealed inside the reeking casket, gasping for breath. He reached around at the padded walls and felt the coffin slide about as he fought to free himself.

  Then he felt it sharply tilt, his feet rising up before him, the top of his pate slamming against the coffin head.

  The creature had slid open the guard’s van door. It swayed for a moment, framed in the rushing darkness, then kicked the coffin out.

  Inside, Thomas deafened himself with his own screams.

  The coffin lurched and dropped but got stuck halfway—it now hung from the side of the racing train, entangled in the loading chains that swung between the wheels. The ghoul looked over the side, but his rheumy eyes could not focus clearly on the hanging coffin. Even in life, the Crown Prince had not been renowned for his courtly wit and military decisiveness. He was glad to be rid of his imprisoning home, but now he tried to recall the most important thing, and remembered that his royal seal of office had been snatched by a commoner. It was always the same. In life they had tried to touch the hem of his ceremonial robes with their filthy fingers, begged him to bless their disgustingly meagre belongings.

  With a weary sigh, he set off along the carriages once more.