And so when Derek returned home that evening, he knew that there was no way out of a long weekend abroad – and not just abroad, but many thousands of miles away. Of course, most people would have been thrilled, but Derek was in a bad mood as he parked his Toyota Prius in the drive and walked past the row of smiling gnomes up to the front door. His wife, Samantha, was already in. She had a job at the local council and had recently been promoted. She had managed to save the council thousands of pounds by closing down the local library – and on top of that, she had sold all the books as well, making them a healthy profit on the side. There were lights on upstairs. Cecily would be in her room, probably re-reading those vampire books she liked so much or watching Stranger Things on her laptop. She had already seen it seven times.
“I’m home!” Derek shouted as he entered the hallway.
“Dinner in five minutes!” his wife called back from the kitchen.
And that night, over fish fingers and chips (Samantha was not a great cook) Derek told his family the news. He already had the dates of the trip. They would be flying in just three weeks. The hotel was booked, the tickets to Hamilton purchased.
“Honestly, dear. I’m not sure we need to go to New York,” Samantha protested. She was a small, round woman with horn-rimmed glasses that hung on a loop around her neck, and hair that changed colour every few months, but was never any shade that hair could naturally be. She always wore expensive clothes and large amounts of make-up. Sometimes, she would spend two or three hours just doing her nails.
His daughter was more vocal. “I’m not going!” she exclaimed.
“Cecily—” Derek began.
“Daddy, I’ve got a party that weekend. Everyone’s going to be there.”
Parties were important to Cecily. She was in her second year at Headway Manor, one of the most expensive and exclusive private schools in the country. Every weekend the girls competed to see who could throw the most lavish party, and this time it was the turn of Eleanor Range, who was her best friend and whose parents were enormously rich. They would have spared no expense to keep their daughter happy. There would be live music, wonderful food and loads of boys. It was out of the question that Cecily could miss it.
“Why can’t Jeremy just send us a case of champagne or something?” Samantha suggested. She glanced nervously at her daughter, who was on the edge of tears.
“It’s all been arranged,” Derek insisted. “I know it’s not something we particularly want to do as a family, but there’s no way out of it. Jeremy is my biggest client. I can’t afford to offend him. This is my career we’re talking about! We’re just going to have to go. And let’s look on the bright side. It’s all free. It’s only five days. Maybe we’ll have a good time.”
But none of them were smiling as, three weeks later, they disembarked from the plane at JFK airport, jet-lagged and exhausted after the seven-hour flight. Even the first class seats hadn’t lifted their spirits. Samantha was tight-lipped. Cecily was plugged into her iPhone, her eyes focused on her feet. Even Derek looked crumpled and defeated after the long flight. He was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and a tie, which is what he wore every day. Like Samantha, he was a very short man and a little overweight. In fact, Cecily was the only slim one in the family. She towered over her parents, which somehow gave the impression that, although she was only fifteen, she was the one in charge.
There was a chauffeur waiting for them at the arrivals hall and a limousine parked outside, but still the family refused to cheer up. They waited patiently until their luggage had rolled off the conveyor belt (of course it was last) and then trooped out as if they were heading for prison rather than a long weekend in one of the most exciting cities in the world.
The Wilmott Hotel was at the very southern end of Sixth Avenue, next to the district known as SoHo – and this disappointed them too. It seemed very shabby and, as Samantha quickly pointed out, there was too much litter in the streets. The Wilmott was an old-fashioned place – all pillars and potted plants – with a doorman in a frock coat and top hat, and everyone in suits with “W.H.” printed on the lapels. True to his word, the chief of Tambo Chemicals had put the family into the executive suite on the eighteenth floor. They had a living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. But the wallpaper was faded, the view – across six lanes of traffic – hardly spectacular, and the beds were both smaller and less comfortable than the ones they had left at home.
“I H8 NEW YRK” Cecily texted to her best friend, Eleanor, before they had even taken the elevator back down for dinner. “I AM SO BORED!”
“MISS U” Eleanor texted back. “BIG PARTY 2MORROW. SO LAME YOU CAN’T B THERE!”
Thinking of the party made Cecily all the more miserable. If she wasn’t there, all of her friends would use the opportunity to talk about her. And they probably wouldn’t say very nice things.
The family ate dinner together. The food was good, but the Johnsons didn’t enjoy the service: the waiters who kept sidling up to the table to check that everything was all right, or to refill their water or to wipe away the crumbs. All in all, they would have preferred to have been left alone. But at the end of the meal, Derek made a speech. He could see the way the weekend was going and he knew he had to cheer them up.
“This hotel is all right,” he announced. “And we can eat and drink whatever we want. Tambo will pick up the bill. After all, this is meant to be a celebration – I won the court case! And tomorrow we can see the town. We can do some shopping. Macy’s. Saks Fifth Avenue. Let’s treat ourselves.” He snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. “Waiter! Can you bring me your most expensive bottle of champagne!”
“That will be the vintage Bollinger,” the waiter said.
“I’ll have two. And a bottle of vintage lemonade for my daughter!”
“MY DAD SUCKS” Cecily texted secretly, holding the phone under the table.
The next day, at ten o’clock, they left the Wilmott for their first day of sight-seeing, beginning with the Empire State Building, which was too hot, too crowded and actually too tall. New York was cloudy and when they finally got out onto the observation deck on the 86th floor, there wasn’t actually that much to observe. The Rockefeller Center also disappointed them. It was just another skyscraper. They had lunch at a deli where all the customers were shouting and the servers were rude. In the afternoon they took each other’s photographs against the flashing neon signs in Times Square and then walked in Central Park until Samantha complained her feet were hurting. The Jimmy Choo high heels that she had bought had definitely been a mistake. At last, they went back to the hotel.
The following day was Friday, and in the morning they went to the Metropolitan Art Museum which, they all agreed, was too big and generally too full of art. In the afternoon they went shopping and bought new shoes, new shirts, new skirts and new socks … not that they needed any of them, but what was the point of shopping if you didn’t buy anything? That night they saw Hamilton … or at least, some of it. Cecily fell asleep after half an hour and Samantha said she didn’t like hip-hop or American history and as the show was full of both, they left at the interval.
The trouble was that the city was exhausting them. Perhaps if they had planned their time a little more carefully they would have been able to travel less, but they had bounced up and down Manhattan as if they were trapped in some sort of demented pinball machine. And getting around wasn’t at all easy. The pavements – or sidewalks – were crowded and even a couple of blocks were too much to cover on foot. On the other hand, all three of them hated the New York taxies, which were cramped and uncomfortable with nasty plastic seats, and the drivers never once so much as wished them a good day, leaving any discussion to the pre-recorded voices of TV celebrities who urged them to “buckle up” and “enjoy the ride”.
And the traffic! It seemed to the Johnsons that they had wasted hours trapped in those yellow tin boxes, waiting for lights that refused to change, or finding themselves stuck at intersections with
everyone blaring and swearing and policemen whistling and nobody actually moving. Visiting the tourist sites was bad enough. Getting there was even worse.
It was Cecily who suggested, on the third day of their visit – it was Saturday – that they should use the subway system. They were heading “uptown” to the American Museum of Natural History, which, according to the guidebook, was on 81st Street and, travelling from the Wilmott Hotel, about as far as it was possible to go without actually leaving Manhattan.
“I don’t want to ride in another taxi,” Cecily exclaimed. She had already texted exactly the same sentiment to her friend, Eleanor. “They’re smelly and they’re slow.” Her eyes brightened. “Let’s take the subway! We can be like real New Yorkers. That’ll be cool.”
“I don’t know, dearest,” her mother said. “The subway’s very dirty in New York. And maybe it’s not so easy to find the way you want to go…”
“I think it’ll be fun!” Derek Johnson was surprised to find himself agreeing with his daughter. It wasn’t something that happened very often. In truth, though, he was also thinking of all the cab fares he had paid out since they had arrived in New York, and which might not be covered by Tambo Chemicals. It seemed they couldn’t even go round the block for less than ten dollars. “You go north. You go south. How difficult can it be?”
“Derek, there are all these different lines, local stops, express stops…”
“We’ll ask the concierge.” Derek had made up his mind and, as a highly successful lawyer and a senior partner in his company, it wasn’t his habit to change it.
The three of them took the elevator down to the ground floor, and while Samantha adjusted her lipstick in the ladies room and Cecily texted Eleanor to find what had happened at the party, who had been talking about her and what they had said, Derek enquired how the three of them might reach the American Museum of Natural History using the subway.
The concierge, like his name, appeared to be French. He spoke with a heavy accent that Derek found hard to decipher. At first, he seemed surprised that any guest of the Wilmott should want to travel on public transport, but once he had accepted that Derek was serious, he raised his eyebrows and provided the necessary information. “Of course, sir. It is very simple. You can take the 1, the 2, the 3 or the 9 uptown from Houston Street, which is just two blocks from the hotel. Get out at 86th Street and walk a few blocks south and a couple of blocks east. Or you may find it easier to head over to Spring Street where you have the choice of the C, the E or the B – but not the A because that’s the Express, and look out for the B train because it doesn’t always stop at 81st Street, which is the station you need for the Museum of Natural History. The N and the R trains leave from Prince Street, which is actually nearest to the hotel, but you’ll need to make a change at Times Square. Or you can pick up the same lines at West Broadway if you prefer.”
“What was that about the 1?” Derek asked.
But the concierge had already turned to another hotel guest and, not wanting to look ignorant, Derek decided to let it go. He’d got the general idea. Lots of trains stopped at 81st Street. He just had to pick the right one.
The family left the hotel, crossed Sixth Avenue and made their way through SoHo. Even finding the entrance to the subway was difficult. It didn’t have large signs in red and blue like the London Underground. Instead, there was a single green light over a narrow flight of stairs, which they might well have missed if they hadn’t noticed people going in and out. It wasn’t even the station they actually wanted. Derek had planned to go to Houston Street, but he must have set off in the wrong direction because this was Spring Street. However, at least it was a name that the concierge had mentioned and the three of them set off down the steep, concrete steps that led them below the level of the road. Almost at once, Derek felt uncomfortable, wishing that he had stuck to the cabs. The walls were white-tiled and grimy, like a restroom in a cheap motel. The ceiling was low. The air smelled of dust and oil. But he remembered that this had been Cecily’s idea. It had been the only enthusiasm that she had shown since they had left Portsmouth. He didn’t want to disappoint her now.
They bought three tokens from one of the old-fashioned machines that stood against the wall … or tried to. It was actually quite difficult to work out exactly what sort of ticket they wanted and how much they should pay, and then they found that Derek’s dollar bills were too crumpled and the machine wouldn’t accept credit cards. Fortunately, there was a ticket seller in a booth, sitting on the other side of a dirty glass window. She scowled at them as she handed the tokens across – although Derek thought that he too would hardly have been smiling if he’d had to work down here all day.
The platform was another level further down, reached through a thickly painted iron gate that seemed to turn only reluctantly. As Derek pushed his way through, he had the impression that he was being eaten alive, that he was entering the bowels of some gigantic creature. The platform was almost empty with just a few people standing in clusters, some staring into the gloom of the tunnel, others reading the Saturday edition of the New York Times. There were more passengers on the other side – Derek could see them through the forest of steel girders that supported the ceiling. The light down here was hard and unwelcoming. Gusts of warm air scurried over the concrete, adding to the sticky heat.
“You know, maybe we should take a cab after all,” Samantha said. She had painted her lips that morning with bright red lipstick. Now they formed a highly visible O of disapproval. “It’s not very nice down here.”
“Well, my dear, we’ve paid…” Derek didn’t care about the money, but he didn’t fancy climbing back up the steps. And anyway, it was never easy hailing a cab without the help of the hotel concierge.
“Derek, I just don’t feel comfortable. Which train are we meant to take?”
“I think he said the 9,” Derek replied. In truth, he couldn’t remember what he had been told.
“I don’t think the 9 goes from here. I’m sure we’d be more comfortable in a cab. What do you think, Cecily?”
Cecily, who was once again plugged into her iPhone, didn’t hear what her mother had said, but raised her eyebrows in disdain.
Any further discussion was ended by the sudden arrival of a train, crashing out of the tunnel and roaring and rattling down the full length of the platform: a series of silver boxes scarred with graffiti and with shafts of bright white light spilling from a long line of windows.
It was the A train.
“Is this the right train?” Samantha asked.
“I suppose so.”
“Maybe we should ask someone.”
“I don’t think it matters, my love. They all go uptown, which is the direction we want. We might as well take it now it’s here.”
The three of them clambered onto the train. Samantha stepped through the door as if she knew they were making the wrong decision, but had no choice in the matter and would regret this for the rest of her days. Derek followed sheepishly behind. Cecily came last, lost in her music, which echoed faintly from her ears. There were perhaps a dozen people sprawled out on the hard plastic chairs. A couple of them glanced briefly at the Johnsons, identified them instantly as tourists and then forgot them. The doors screamed out a warning signal and then slammed shut.
With a jerk, the train moved off, then picked up speed, disappearing into the tunnel.
“This is the A train Eighth Avenue Express heading uptown to Inwood 207th Street. The next stop will be West Fourth Street.” The amplified voice came out of speakers built into the carriage ceiling. None of the passengers seemed to notice it.
“It’s the right train,” Derek muttered, then called out the words a second time so that Samantha could hear.
Samantha nodded and they all sat down.
In fact, Derek had to admit, the train was a lot faster than any taxi would have been. It whooshed through the tunnels, suddenly exploding into the stations and hurtling along the platforms as if it couldn’t wait
to be out again. It barely spent a minute at West Fourth Street before the doors thudded together and it was off, racing through no fewer than ten blocks before stopping once again for breath. Above ground, the traffic would have been tied up in its usual knots – with red traffic lights, horns, piercing police whistles, angry faces. And this was an awful lot cheaper. Perhaps, after the museum, they might even use the train a second time to go back!
The A train stopped at 34th Street and again at 42nd. People got on. People got off. This all seemed quite normal and Derek was able to relax, knowing exactly where he was. If he got out at 42nd Street, he would be back in Times Square, close to the theatre where they had seen Hamilton. But it was then that everything went wrong. The train stopped stopping. It ignored fifty and fifty-one. In fact it gave all the fifties a miss … and the sixties too. It seemed that the driver had gone mad! Derek saw the flashing lights of 72nd Street, but the train didn’t stop there either. They seemed to be hurtling through the darkness as if they were going to leave Manhattan altogether.
“What station is the museum?” Samantha asked, and Derek could hear the edge of panic in her voice.
“It’s not until 81st Street,” Derek reassured her.
“Then that must be the next stop.”
But the A train didn’t stop at 81st Street or 86th or even 96th. It didn’t stop anywhere. None of the other passengers in the carriage seemed at all concerned, but then they were all lost in their own worlds, nobody speaking to anyone else, so it was impossible to tell what they were thinking. 103rd … 110th … 116th… It was only as they arrived at 125th Street and at long last the train began to slow down that Cecily looked up and unplugged her iPhone.
Scared to Death--Ten Sinister Stories by the Master of the Macabre Page 17
