Night Train

by David Quantick

  Poppy threw herself and Teddy onto the bed. It protested audibly as Poppy sank into the coverlet like a softly drowning doll.

  “This is my room,” she said. “You can get your own.”

  * * *

  Garland and Banks went out into the corridor again.

  “I’m not that sleepy,” she said.

  “I am sleepy,” said Banks, “but no way am I sleeping in one of those.”

  “Are they an affront to your masculinity?” asked Garland.

  “No, of course not,” said Banks. “Yes,” he added, a second later. “Besides, those beds are quite short. I’d have my feet on the dressing table.”

  “I can see how that might be embarrassing when the maid comes in,” said Garland drily, and opened the nearest door.

  * * *

  Her room was, fortunately, not quite as purple as Poppy’s. Garland removed her boots with some difficulty, found some wipes in a drawer on the dressing table and cleaned her face, and then – first checking under the coverlet (for what? Snakes? Tiny robot assassins?) – lay down and covered herself.

  Judging by the sounds coming from the next compartment, Banks had changed his mind about trying to sleep in a small bed, and was busily engaged in knocking everything off the dressing table with his boots.

  * * *

  Garland closed her eyes, and found she could not sleep. She found herself instead making an inventory of – was it really only a day? – the day.

  What did she actually know about the event she was experiencing? She was on a train, that much was obvious (discounting simulations, which she was sure would be a great deal less messy). She had met two people, both of whom – Poppy especially – were not quite normal. But then, Garland had to admit, she herself was not quite normal. When she had woken up in this place, she’d been unable to read, an ability which seemed to be coming slowly back to her. Then there was the fact that she could not remember who she was (she had to remind herself that Garland probably wasn’t her name, just a patch on her clothing).

  And finally there was the business with the world outside. While she had little or no memories to draw from, Garland was pretty sure that, last time she’d been able to check, the world had been in a lot better condition.

  Clearly things were falling apart, like the poem said (what poem? she wondered) and it was up to her to see what she could do about it.

  She was just trying to work out why she thought it was up to her to do something about it when there was a massive crash outside, and Banks started screaming like a maniac.

  * * *

  Garland slid off the bed, pulled her boots on in record time, and threw open the door. What she saw was hard to believe.

  Standing on all fours in the corridor, one enormous paw on Banks’s inert body, was some sort of bear. It was taller than a bear, and its fur was hard and sharp, and its snout was non-existent, but at some point in its ancestry it had been a bear. It was making a horrific noise, not so much a growl as an endless scream.

  “Banks!” shouted Garland. “Wake up!”

  If Banks could hear her, he gave no indication. Instead the bear thing, which was so much taller than a real bear that the top of its head was flattened by the roof of the train, turned its awful flat face to her – its nose as well as its snout being flush with its eyes, making its head look like a kind of horrible hairy plate with teeth – and screamed, this time a hissing, wet scream that sounded even angrier than before.

  “Easy,” said Garland, in a softer voice. The bear thing hiss-screamed again. It arced its arms out in a semi-circle, the claws pointing directly at her.

  “Banks,” Garland said, quietly, “can you hear me?”

  There was a silence, then:

  “Of course I can fucking hear you,” Banks said, quietly but angrily. “I’m trying to play dead.”

  “Sorry,” she said. She looked the bear thing in the eye. Doing so was discouraging: its eyes stared at her so wildly that she was convinced the animal was insane. She had no way of predicting what it would do next.

  Banks was silent again. Garland eased a foot backwards. The bear thing seemed to relax a little. Garland eased another foot backwards, and to her relief the animal did the same. It turned its head and sniffed the air. Perhaps it wasn’t interested in them at all.

  She slid her foot back quietly again. And then the bear went crazy.

  * * *

  It slammed its right paw into the wall beside it. The wall was thin, made of some kind of hardboard, and the claws went right through it. Enraged, the animal pulled its paw out, shook off some splinters of fake wood, and screamed again, this time with a raw, terrifying fury. Now it smashed its other paw into the wall, but hit a light fitting and the paw came back red from the glass it had smashed.

  The bear thing screamed long and hard. It kicked Banks’s prone form backwards with one iron-hard heel and stepped forward, hissing spit and heat at Garland. And then it lunged. Garland felt teeth on her neck, about to lock in and sever her head from her body. She smelt the animal’s boiling breath, and felt its harsh metallic fur. Then she was crushed against the wall of the compartment and then –

  Then the animal was no longer on her. Screaming, it tumbled backwards towards the outside wall. Its arms flailed as it seemed to be pulled back somehow, sucked into an invisible hole. Now it was on the ground, its thrashing legs almost touching Banks’s immobile body.

  “Get up!” Garland shouted. “Get up!” Banks opened his eyes, saw what was next to him, and scrambled away from the bear thing.

  “What the hell is happening to it?” he asked.

  They stared at the bear thing as it thrashed some more, screaming, its saliva bubbling in its mouth, its head twisting from side to side. Garland felt sorry for it in its death agonies: it could have no idea what it was or why it was dying.

  Finally it was silent, no longer twitching. Then, in one sudden move, it seemed to throw itself aside, its carcass landing in the debris of the smashed compartment. From a slick pool of its blood that had gathered where the animal lay in its death agony, something red stood up.

  It was Poppy. She was covered in the bear thing’s blood and in her hand she held part of its spine.

  “I came out when I heard you screaming,” she said.

  “I wasn’t screaming,” said Garland.

  “Whatever,” said Poppy. She dropped the handful of spine and looked across at the matted corpse.

  “Don’t tell Teddy,” she said.

  * * *

  They stood for a while by the animal’s body. Banks got down on one knee and looked over the corpse.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Garland.

  “I don’t know,” said Banks. “Clues, I suppose.”

  “Clues are the one thing we’ve got plenty of,” said Garland. “This place is full of clues. It’s answers we want.”

  “Nothing,” said Banks, standing up. “It’s just your average mutated giant killer bear.”

  “Shall we eat it?” said Poppy.

  * * *

  One of the compartments turned out to be a bathroom, the kind where the word “bathroom” is usually prefixed by the word “private”. It was a bit fluffy, but it contained a functional shower and bathtub.

  “I’ll go first,” said Poppy. Banks and Garland looked at her, drenched in blood and some guts.

  “You’re going last,” said Banks.

  * * *

  After everyone had showered, they cleaned their clothes as best they could and, while they couldn’t cook and eat the bear, they used the debris from the smashed compartment to build a fire back in one of the stripped compartments and ate some more of the slowly defrosting meat. Poppy had washed and shampooed Teddy and now she dried him over the fire. Teddy smelled slightly singed afterwards but nobody said anything.

  * * *

  “That’s it?” said Poppy. “That’s your plan?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” asked Garland.

  “Nothing,”
said Poppy. “Because it’s a nothing plan.”

  “I don’t think that makes sense,” Banks frowned.

  “I don’t think you make sense,” said Poppy. She held the teddy bear’s paw and tapped it against her palm.

  “Did you just high five yourself with a stuffed bear?” asked Garland.

  “No,” said Poppy.

  “We’ll continue this conversation when you’re not feeling so childish,” Garland said, and began to pick up the debris of the meal.

  “I think you’ve hurt her feelings,” said Banks.

  “Well, it’s a stupid plan.”

  “That’s not the point. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

  “Oh,” said Garland, “does this mean you think it’s a stupid plan as well?”

  “No,” Banks said hastily, “I meant – I don’t know what I meant. I was just trying to defend you.”

  “I don’t need defending,” Garland snapped.

  “Tell that to the bear,” said Poppy.

  “Fuck off!” Garland shouted.

  Poppy burst into tears.

  “Our enemies must be trembling in their beds,” said Banks.

  * * *

  Later, Poppy went to find Garland in her bedroom compartment.

  “I’m sorry I said your plan was stupid,” she said.

  “I’m sorry I told you to fuck off,” said Garland.

  “The thing is –” Poppy said.

  “Please don’t say it’s a stupid plan again.”

  “I wasn’t going to. I was going to say that it’s – it’s quite a simple plan.”

  “We’re on a moving train. It’s full of weird monsters and dead people. We don’t really have the luxury of evolving a complicated plan.”

  “All right. But what do we do when we get – where are we going anyway?”

  Garland looked at Poppy.

  “Wherever,” she said. “We’re going wherever we have to.”

  “The front of the train?”

  “Yes,” said Garland. “We’re going to find the driver, or whoever is in charge.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’re going to make them stop.”

  “How?”

  “Well, we could have a little chat,” Garland said. “Or you could hurt them. I’m not really fussed either way.”

  “All right,” said Poppy. “But might it not be better to keep going?”

  “We don’t know where we’re going.”

  “We don’t know anything,” Poppy said. “For all we know, where we’re going is better than where we are now. It might be the city, or the country, or the seaside.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to the seaside,” Garland said. “I think – look, I woke up here and I’d been chained up. Banks was being taken somewhere, too. I don’t know how you got here, but I’m pretty sure I was going to jail, or worse.”

  Poppy thought.

  “I got here on my own,” she said. “And I’m going to leave on my own.”

  “What? But we need you.”

  “I’m tired of being needed,” Poppy said. “I killed the bear thing, I showed you how to cook, I don’t owe you anything. I’m leaving.”

  “This is – you can’t leave.”

  “I’m out of here. Laters! TTFN,” said Poppy.

  “You’re not making any sense,” Garland replied.

  “Like you said, you’re on this train to be punished. Banks is too. But I’m not. I’m young –”

  “Thanks,” said Garland.

  “I’m fit. I mean, incredibly fit. And I’ve had my dinner. I can do anything.”

  Garland shrugged. “All right then. We could have used you but I’d rather you were gone if you’re going to be in the way,” she said. “When are you leaving?”

  Poppy frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just waiting for the right opportunity.”

  Banks walked in. He looked excited about something.

  “Look out of the window,” he said. “Look out of the window!”

  Garland drew back the curtain.

  * * *

  The train was no longer inside the mountain. It was outside again, speeding through a night-time blur of darkness and sudden light. But the light was no longer random; instead, it was coming from enormous, regularly-spaced lamps.

  “Where are we?” said Garland.

  “Are we slowing down?” Poppy asked.

  “I think we are,” Banks said. “Look!”

  * * *

  Beneath the windows, they could see other tracks running alongside them. Further away, more lamps. Then, incredibly, low banks of concrete.

  “Are those platforms?” Garland said.

  “I think they are,” Banks said. “I think we’re coming into a station.”

  “Fuck,” said Garland. She looked at Poppy.

  “I think the right opportunity just came along,” she said.

  * * *

  Music came from the speakers again.

  A song where someone was talking about days.

  They hardly heard it.

  It was a sad song, as though the days were never coming.

  But it was only a song, and the train was slowing.

  * * *

  The train was slowing down, and making a lot of noise about it. Sparks flew on either side, and the rails groaned and roared.

  “This thing must be incredibly long,” said Banks. “I hope it doesn’t overshoot the platform or we’ve got a lot of walking to do.”

  “Walking?” said Garland. “We’re not getting off.”

  “I am,” said Poppy. “I was thinking of ripping out a door and jumping, but this is much better.”

  “We have to get off,” said Banks. “Don’t we?” he added uncertainly.

  “We have to find out what’s going on,” Garland said. “We need to find someone in authority.”

  “I expect there’ll be someone on the station we can ask,” Poppy said. “There might even be an information desk.”

  Garland gave her a look.

  “I don’t think an information desk will have the answers I need,” she said.

  “No, but they might have a number for a taxi,” said Poppy. “Joking.”

  “We’re still not stopping,” said Banks.

  “Oh no,” said Poppy. She tried to get a better look out of the window.

  “Maybe we’re slowing down for another reason,” Garland suggested. “Letting another train pass.”

  Banks looked out of the window again. There was nothing out there but lamps and low concrete platforms. None of the other platforms had trains beside them, or people waiting for trains, or any signs of activity whatever.

  “Another train?” he said. “I’m not sure that there are any other trains.”

  * * *

  “Are we stopping or not?” Garland asked, a few minutes later.

  “Why don’t you ask the driver?” Poppy said, a bit snappily.

  Poppy pulled the kitbag up from the floor.

  “I’m going to need this,” she said.

  Garland grabbed the strap.

  “It’s not yours,” she said. Poppy snapped it out of her hands.

  “He’s coming with me,” she said, indicating Banks. “So should you.”

  “I need to find out what’s going on!” Garland shouted.

  “You can find out what’s going on when we get out there,” Poppy shouted back.

  Garland muttered something.

  “What did you say?” asked Banks.

  “She said,” Poppy answered, “that she’s not going out there.”

  * * *

  Garland slumped to the floor.

  “I can’t get off,” she said. “I can’t face – whatever. I just can’t.”

  “OK,” said Poppy, shouldering the kitbag. “You stay here, we’ll go out there. Worked out fine, didn’t it?”

  “Wait,” said Banks. He put his hand on the bag.

  “What?” said Poppy.

  “I’m not sayi
ng she’s right –”

  “Oh great.”

  “– but we don’t know what’s out there.”

  Poppy sighed heavily.

  “We don’t know what’s in here, either,” she said. “I mean, apart from the mutant killer animals. And the weird rooms full of blood. And – oh yeah, the carriage full of dead people. Hey, maybe we should stay on the train. It’s great.”

  “Go,” said Garland.

  “We’re going to,” said Poppy. “No permission required.” Banks looked at Garland.

  “Go,” she said again.

  Banks shook his head. “I can’t leave you here,” he said.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” Garland replied.

  “You heard her, you don’t owe her anything,” Poppy said. “Let’s go.”

  “Sorry,” said Banks. “I’ve had my fill of leaving people behind.”

  “Your funeral,” said Poppy. She stuffed Teddy further into her jacket and pushed past them into the corridor.

  * * *

  There was a door at the end of the carriage which faced onto the platform opposite. Poppy stood by it, grasping the handle in readiness.

  “What if it doesn’t open?” Garland said.

  “I’ll pull it open,” Poppy replied. “Or off.”

  She drummed her fingers impatiently on the side of the corridor. Little dents appeared in the metal.

  “I think we’re stopping,” Banks said.

  “Finally,” Poppy said, and curled her fingers around the door handle.

  * * *

  The train was stopping. With a slow scream of metal on metal, it bumped and hiccupped and whiplashed until every carriage finally settled.

  “Is it still moving?” said Poppy.

  “No, just feels that way,” Banks said. “We’ve been moving for so long it’s going to take a moment to get our –”

  “– land legs,” said Garland. She looked out of the window. Banks was right. Even though the platform couldn’t possibly be moving, it swam about in her eyes like it had loosed its moorings.

  “Well, it was nice knowing you,” said Poppy. She looked, for a moment, lost and sad. Then she rapped Teddy’s head with her knuckles and grinned.

  “Adventure time,” she said, and pulled the handle.