Things Beyond Midnight

by William F. Nolan

  Ventry squinted at the beckoning figure. Was it the killer himself, surprised and delighted at finding another passenger at this deserted night station?

  He slipped the flash into his shoulder knapsack, and eased a hand inside his coat, gripping the warm bone handle of the .45 at his waist. You’ve had one surprise tonight, mister. Get ready for another.

  Then, abruptly, he stopped, heart pounding. Ventry recognized the beckoning figure. Impossible! An illusion. Just couldn’t be. Yet there she was, smiling, waving to him.

  “Amy!” Ventry rushed toward his sister in a stumbling run.

  But she was no longer in sight when he reached the dimly illumined car. Anxiously, he peered into one of the smoke-yellowed windows. A figure moved hazily inside.

  “Amy!” He shouted her name again, mounting the coach steps.

  The moment Ventry’s boot touched the car’s upper platform the train jolted into life. Ventry was thrown to his knees as the coach lurched violently forward.

  The locomotive’s big driving wheels sparked against steel, gaining a solid grip on the rails as the train surged powerfully from Bitterroot Station.

  As Paul Ventry entered the coach, the door snap-locked behind him. Remote-control device. To make sure I won’t leave by the rear exit. No matter. He’d expected that. He could get out when he had to, when he was ready. He’d come prepared for whatever this madman had in mind.

  But Ventry had not been prepared for the emotional shock of seeing Amy. Had he really seen her? Was it his sister?

  No. Of course not. He’d been tricked by his subconscious mind. The fault was his. A lapse in concentration, in judgment.

  But someone had waved to him—a young girl who looked, at first sight, amazingly like his dead sister.

  Where was she now?

  And just where was the human devil who ran this train?

  Ventry was alone in the car. To either side of the aisle the rows of richly upholstered green velvet seats were empty. A pair of ornate, scrolled gas lamps, mounted above the arched doorway, cast flickering shadows over antique brass fittings and a handcarved wood ceiling. Green brocade draped the windows.

  He didn’t know much about trains, but Ventry knew this one had to be pre-1900. And probably restored by the rich freak who owned it. Plush was the word.

  Well, it was making its last run; Ventry would see to that.

  He pulled the flash from his shoulder pack, snapping on the bright beam as he moved warily forward.

  The flashlight proved unnecessary. As Ventry entered the second car (door unlocked; guess he doesn’t mind my going forward) the overhead gas lamps sputtered to life, spreading their pale yellow illumination over the length of the coach.

  Again, the plush velvet seats were empty. Except for one. The last seat at the far end of the car. A woman was sitting there, stiff and motionless in the dim light, her back to Ventry As he moved toward her, she turned slowly to face him.

  By Christ, it was Amy!

  Paul Ventry rushed to her, sudden tears stinging his eyes. Fiercely, he embraced his sister; she was warm and solid in his arms. “Oh, Sis, I’m so glad you’re alive!”

  But there was no sound from her lips. No words. No emotion. She was rigid in his embrace.

  Ventry stepped away from her. “What’s wrong? I don’t understand Why you—”

  His words were choked off. Amy had leaped from the seat, cat-quick, to fasten long pale fingers around his throat. Her thumbs dug like sharp spikes into the flesh of Ventry’s neck.

  He reeled back, gasping for breath, clawing at the incredibly strong hands. He couldn’t break her grip.

  Amy’s face was changing. The flesh was falling away in gummy wet ribbons, revealing raw white bone! In the deep sockets of Amy’s grinning skull her eyes were hot red points of fire.

  Ventry’s right hand found the butt of the Colt, and he dragged the gun free of its holster. Swinging the barrel toward Amy, he fired directly into the melting horror of her face.

  His bullets drilled round, charred holes in the grinning skull, but Amy’s fingers—now all raw bone and slick gristle—maintained their death grip at his throat.

  Axe! Use the axe!

  In a swimming red haze, Ventry snapped the short-handled woodsman’s axe free of his belt. And swung it sharply downward, neatly removing Amy’s head at shoulder level. The cleanly severed skull rolled into the aisle at his feet.

  Yet, horribly, the bony fingers increased their deadly pressure.

  Ventry’s sight blurred; the coach wavered. As the last of his oxygen was cut off, he was on the verge of blacking out.

  Desperately, he swung the blade again, missing the Amy-thing entirely. The axe buried itself in thick green velvet.

  The train thrashed; its whistle shrieked wildly in the rushing night, a cry of pain—and the seat rippled in agony. Oily black liquid squirted from the sliced velvet.

  At Ventry’s throat, the bony fingers dropped away.

  In numbed shock, he watched his sister’s rotting corpse flow down into the seat, melting and mixing with the central train body, bubbling wetly.

  Oh, sweet Jesus! Everything’s moving! The whole foul train is alive!

  And Ventry accepted it. Sick with horror and revulsion, he accepted it. He was a realist, and this thing was real. No fantasy. No dream.

  Real.

  Which meant he had to kill it. Not the man who owned it, because such a man did not exist. Somehow, the train itself, ancient and rusting in the high mountains, had taken on a sentient life of its own. The molecular components of iron and wood and steel had, over a slow century, transformed themselves into living tissue—and this dark hell-thing had rolled out onto the Montana plains seeking food, seeking flesh to sustain it, sleeping, sated, through the frozen winters, hibernating, then stirring to hungry life again as the greening earth renewed itself.

  Lot of strange things in the Little Belt.

  Don’t think about it, Ventry warned himself. Just do what you came to do: kill it! Kill the foul thing. Blow it out of existence!

  He carried three explosive charges in his knapsack, each equipped with a timing device. All right, make your plan! Set one here at the end of the train, another in the middle coach, and plant ,the final charge in the forward car.

  No good. If the thing had the power to animate its dead victims it also had the power to fling off his explosive devices, to rid itself of them as a dog shakes leaves from its coat.

  I’ll have to go after it the way you go after a snake; to kill a snake, you cut off its head.

  So go for the brain.

  Go for the engine.

  The train had left the main rail system now, and was on a rusted spur track, climbing steeply into the Little Belt range.

  It was taking Ventry into the high mountains. One last meal of warm flesh, then the long winter’s sleep.

  The train was going home.

  Three cars to go.

  Axe in hand, Ventry was moving steadily toward the engine, through vacant, gas-lit coaches, wondering how and when it would attack him again.

  Did it know he meant to kill it? Possibly it had no fear of him. God knows it was strong. And no human had ever harmed it in the past. Does the snake fear the mouse?

  Maybe it would leave him alone to do his work; maybe it didn’t realize how lethal this mouse could be.

  But Ventry was wrong.

  Swaying in the clattering rush of the train, he was halfway down the aisle of the final coach when the tissue around him rippled into motion.

  Viscid black bubbles formed on the ceiling of the car, and in the seats. Growing. Quivering. Multiplying.

  One by one, the loathsome globes swelled and burst—giving birth to a host of nightmare figures. Young and old. Man, woman, child. Eyes red and angry.

  They closed on Ventry in the clicking interior of the hell coach, moving toward him in a rotting tide.

  He had seen photos of many of them in the Lewistown library. Vanished passengers, like Am
y devoured and absorbed and now regenerated as fetid ectoplasmic horrors—literal extensions of the train itself.

  Ventry knew that he was powerless to stop them. The Amy-thing had proven that.

  But he still had the axe, and a few vital seconds before the train-things reached him.

  Ventry swung the razored blade left and right, slashing brutally at seat and floor, cutting deep with each swift blow. Fluid gushed from a dozen gaping wounds; a rubbery mass of coil-like innards, like spilled guts, erupted from the seat to Ventry’s right, splashing him with gore.

  The train screamed into the Montana night, howling like a wounded beast.

  The passenger-things lost form, melting into the aisle.

  Now Ventry was at the final door, leading to the coal car directly behind the engine.

  It was locked against him.

  The train had reached its destination at the top of the spur, was rolling down a side track leading to a deserted mine. Its home. Its cave. Its dark hiding place.

  The train would feast now.

  Paul Ventry used the last of his strength on the door. Hacking at it. Slashing wildly. Cutting his way through.

  Free! In a freezing blast of night wind, Ventry scrambled across the coal tender toward the shining black locomotive.

  And reached it.

  A heavy, gelatinous membrane separated him from the control cabin. The membrane pulsed with veined life.

  Got to get inside... reach the brain of the thing...

  Ventry drove the blade deep, splitting the veined skin. And burst through into the cabin.

  Its interior was a shock to Ventry’s senses; he was assailed by a stench so powerful that bile rushed into his throat. He fought back a rising nausea.

  Brass and wood and iron had become throbbing flesh. Levers and controls and pressure gauges were coated with a thick, crawling slime. The roof and sides of the cabin were moving.

  A huge, red, heart-like mass pulsed and shimmered wetly in the center of the cabin, its sickly crimson glow illuminating his face.

  He did not hesitate.

  Ventry reached into the knapsack, pulled out an explosive charge, and set the device for manual. All he needed to do was press a metal switch, toss the charge at the heart-thing, and jump from the cabin.

  It was over. He’d won!

  But before he could act, the entire chamber heaved up in a bubbled, convulsing pincer movement, trapping Ventry like a fly in a web.

  He writhed in the jellied grip of the train-thing. The explosive device had been jarred from his grasp. The axe, too, was lost in the mass of crushing slime-tissue.

  Ventry felt sharp pain fire along his back. Teeth! The thing had sprouted rows of needled teeth and was starting to eat him alive!

  The knapsack; he was still wearing it!

  Gasping, dizzy with pain, Ventry plunged his right hand into the sack, closing bloodied fingers around the second explosive device. Pulled it loose, set it ticking.

  Sixty seconds.

  If he could not fight free in that space of time he’d go up with the train. A far better way to die than being ripped apart and devoured. Death would be a welcome release.

  Incredibly, the train-thing seemed to know that its life was in jeopardy. Its shocked tissues drew back, cringing away from the ticking explosive charge.

  Ventry fell to his knees on the slimed floor.

  Thirty seconds.

  Lie saw the sudden gleam of rails to his right, just below him, and he launched himself in a plunging dive through the severed membrane.

  Struck ground. Searing pain. Right shoulder. Broken bone.

  Hell with it! Move, damn you, move!

  Ventry rolled over on his stomach, pain lacing his body. Pushed himself lip. Standing now.

  Five seconds.

  Ventry sprawled forward. Legs won’t support me!

  Then crawl!

  Into heavy brush. Still crawling—dragging his lacerated, slime-smeared body toward a covering of rocks.

  Faster! No more time... Too late!

  The night became sudden day.

  The explosion picked up Ventry and tossed him into the rocks like a boneless doll.

  The train-thing screamed in a whistling death-agony as the concussion sundered it, scattering its parts like wet confetti over the terrain.

  Gobbets of bleeding tissue rained down on Ventry as he lay in the rocks. But through the pain and the stench and the nausea his lips were curved into a thin smile.

  He was unconscious when the Montana sun rose that morning, but when Sheriff John Longbow arrived on the scene he found Paul Ventry alive.

  Alive and triumphant.

  00:15

  THE ZURICH SOLUTION

  This is a new story inspired, in part, by an old one. The late Henry Kuttner’s first sale was “The Graveyard Rats,” to Weird Tales, way back in 1936. It remains a classic of grue. As I wrote this story, Mr. Kuttner’s sharp-toothed rats ate their way into my pages; they form a vital (and loathsome) part of this present crime-shocker.

  I won’t say anything more about “The Zürich Solution,” but I’ll give you some sound advice. Never enter an open grave.

  You might get bitten.

  THE ZURICH SOLUTION

  Ansford Enterprises in downtown Boston. A rising tower of polished storinglass, ribbed steel and stressed concrete. The penthouse. Charles Murdock Ansford’s private office.

  He’s in his highback wheelchair, facing the window. Custom job: glove leather and chrome. He swings the chair around, stares at his wife through deeply-pouched falcon’s eyes. The white hair seems to flame on his head, framed by the sunlit window. “Well, why are you standing there? Our conversation is over. I have work to do.”

  Mrs. Ansford. Laura. Young enough to be his granddaughter. Tall and extremely attractive. Pale skin, almost translucent. Large forest-green eyes. Hair the color of dark burgundy, brushed back, ribboned in velvet. She’s upset. Tears glitter along her cheeks. “It’s not fair, Charles. You can’t fire him!”

  “Hah! Can’t, eh? Already have. Right here in this office, not ten minutes ago. Told him to get his ass out of my building.”

  Her voice trembles between rage and confusion. “But, why? He’s the best district manager you’ve ever had! He’s doubled your export sales to Europe. I just don’t understand the reason for all this. What has Ben done?”

  A snarl. The old man’s blue-veined hands tighten on the chair. “He’s done you, that’s what he’s done!”

  Laura looks stunned. Ansford wheels abruptly to his desk—a white glacier of chrome and shining glass—picks up a metal cannister, brandishing it like a weapon. His hooded eyes shine. “Think I was fooled? Think I didn’t know? It’s all here—in sound and color. You and Ben Carrick, rutting like animals.”

  She stares at him. His words, verbal blows, have left her bruised and silent.

  Now Ansford’s voice softens. Oiled sarcasm. “I’m disappointed in you, Laura. You really should have conducted your sordid affair with more discretion.”

  She moves to a side cabinet, pours a jolt of Scotch, swallows it. The drink gives her the courage to face him again. Calmer now. “It’s been lonely... with you gone so much of the time. All those trips to Zürich. Ben was around when I needed someone to talk to. What happened between us... Well, it wasn’t planned, it just evolved.”

  Ansford is enjoying himself. His thin mouth tightens into an iced smile. “Don’t bother lying to me. We both know why attractive young women marry overage cripples.”

  Her eyes are steady. “I never pretended to marry you for love, Charles. But I do care for you... worry about you.”

  “Bullshit! What you worry about is how long you’ll have to keep waiting for my money, how long I’ll last.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “The point is, Laura dearest, your lover boy is out. Finished. I don’t like thieves who try to steal my property.” His eyes radiate power. “He didn’t buy you, I did.”

  A cutting
edge to her tone: “I should hate you.”

  “Go ahead. But it won’t change anything. I’ve never required love from you—or anyone else.”

  She moves to the door, speaks with her back to him. “I’m going to find Ben and tell him goodbye. I owe him that.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you tell him. But just make him understand that it’s ended.”

  An orange late-model GT Ford Mustang. Parked on a shaded street under a sweep of trees. Two people inside. Ben and Laura.

  Carrick is thirty-five. Tanned and handsome, with dark, calculating eyes. Wearing a custom-cut sports jacket. Tailored shirt and slacks. His face is flushed with anger as he looks at Laura, who is upset, trembling.

  “You’re acting exactly the way he wants you to act,” Ben tells her. “Don’t you know that old bastard enjoys seeing you crawl?”

  Laura shakes her head, eyes not meeting his. “We should never have let it happen. We have to stop.”

  “Stop, hell! You know damn well we can’t.”

  And he pulls her tightly against him, kisses her. A violent, hungry exchange.

  “But, Ben—he’ll know. He has pictures of us... hidden cameras... We can’t go on seeing each other. Not now.”

  Carrick doesn’t respond. He stares out the front window of the car. “What are you thinking?” she asks.

  “The next night you’ll be alone with him in the house... which night?”

  “Thursday. Tomorrow night. The servants have Thursdays off.”

  “Well...” Ben says softly, “I’m going to kill him.” His tone is flat and emotionless.

  She clutches his shoulder, breathing quickly. “No, Ben—that’s insane. Just saying it is insane!”

  “He’s half dead already. Heart’s about gone. I’ll just be speeding up the process a little. It’ll be an accident... I’ll make sure it looks like an accident.”

  Laura turns abruptly away from him. The line of her jaw tightens. “I won’t listen to this.” She opens the door, steps out. “It’s over, Ben. I’m not going to see you again. Ever.”

  And she walks rapidly away from the orange Mustang.