Ghost Train

by Stephen Laws

  Now he was standing beside the slab and could see the curious stains on the roughly hewn rock as the two cowled figures hauled their captive over and held her firmly across it. Mark understood at last why the terrified girl could make no sounds. Her lips had been sewn together.

  The chanting of a single voice had been joined by others and the curious, lilting intonation seemed to hang heavily in the air. The sun was rising over the rim of the valley and rays of sunlight were stabbing across the sky. Mark found his attention drawn to one of the standing stones forming the circle. Atop the stone, on a kind of mounted pedestal, he could see an intricate carving. Even as he watched, a single ray of sunlight struck the carving, making it light up in a chiaroscuro of colour. In seconds, the stone pattern seemed to glow red hot. As the angle of the beam changed, another shaft of reflected sunlight burst from the carving. Mark swung round to see that it was shining directly onto the girl’s face as she lay spread-eagled over the slab, furiously twisting her head from side to side to avoid the glare. A cowled figure on the other side of the slab moved forward and seized her head in his hands as another moved to her side. The chanting was faster now, more urgent, and Mark could only watch in paralysed horror as the second man drew a long-bladed knife from the sleeve of his robe. The girl thrashed wildly at the sight of the knife but was held fast to the stone by the two men on either side who were holding her arms. The figure with the knife suddenly bent over the girl, doing something to her face, but Mark’s view was obscured. There was a loud and echoing scream of sheer horror and pain as the man stood upright again, and Mark could see that he had cut away the stitching from the girl’s lips. Now she was giving vent to her terror and the man seemed to be well satisfied with this. He nodded sagely as the screaming reverberated through the crowd, up to the uncaring sky, and the blinding light continued to shine on her upturned face and blood-flecked lips. Mark tried to look away but was frozen. The entire spectacle was cruel and hideous and he was powerless to do anything about it. The crowd of onlookers seemed to acknowledge each scream with a responding surge in their own song. The leader was gripping the knife in both hands and holding it over the girl. Her screams reached a new crescendo of terror as the leader slowly began to raise the knife above his head and the blade glinted sharply in the ray of light. The chanting had become a frenzied babble of sound and Mark wished that he could clasp his hands over his ears. He could not understand the language of these barbarians but he knew that the chanting was a vile blasphemy; an affirmation of evil; an anathema to mankind. When it seemed that the sound must burst his eardrums, at an unseen, unheard command, it ceased. And in that instant of silence, the girl’s expectant screams were agonising and dreadful. The knife plunged downwards and Mark could do nothing as it sheared into her breast up to the hilt. The girl convulsed as a wave of crimson pumped from around the knife, soaking into the virginal white of her gown, making it cling tightly to her body before splashing in rivulets onto the slab. One of the druidic figures had moved quickly forward from the crowd and Mark could see that he held a small, wooden miniature of a coffin reverently in one hand. He knelt quickly by the slab, dipping his fingers into the girl’s blood and anointing the small wooden figure in the coffin – the same miniature wooden coffin that Mark had seen earlier.

  The girl’s mouth was working soundlessly now in shock as the purple mist flowed in through the stone arches, obscuring the dreadful scene from sight.

  And then Mark had woken up screaming.

  Now, here in the station, watching the passengers bustling through onto the platforms, he relived the horror of that hideously vivid nightmare, one of a succession that increased in frequency and intensity every night and made sleep a thing to be dreaded. The dreams had started after he had recovered from his terrible accident fourteen months ago. But they were more than just dreams. They were real. They terrorised and haunted him. And he, in turn, driven by some terrible, almost irresistible Impulse, haunted the station day after day.

  Something was compelling him to cross the ticket barrier as he had done on that horrific day fourteen months ago. And an unreasoning fear of something unknown which lay beyond the barrier prevented him from doing so.

  When the warring impulses and emotions converged on him again he was not surprised. It always happened that way. First the fear would dissipate, although its clutching tendrils remained encircled around his soul, forming an unbreakable umbilical cord stretching back to the unfathomable depths of the station platform. And, as the fear receded, as it settled into his bones and waited for his next attempt to cross the forbidden barrier, the Impulse would course through his mind. This was the worst of all. Because Mark could not ignore it, could not force it out of his mind. It was a feeling which he could not describe as easily as the fear. It seemed to emanate from outside . . . not inside, like the fear. It enveloped him, seeped through and into him. It whispered in a voice without words which his brain could not interpret but which his soul could understand. It drew him. It implored, begged and insisted that he do its bidding. With a strange velvet persuasion, it tried to tell him to turn round and walk back to the entrance. It told him that everything would be all right if he would only show his ticket to the inspector and pass through the barrier. It promised him that his problems would end; the fear would disappear; his mind as well as his body would heal, if only . . .

  And it was this emotion which, more than anything else, Mark felt was the indicating factor of his emerging schizophrenia. It seemed external, independent, a force completely outside himself. Something which seemed to have a will of its own; something completely divorced from his own psyche. Dual impulse. Two minds. Schizophrenia. It was all one and the same. And he didn’t need Dr Aynsley to tell him otherwise.

  He headed for the cafe, his usual refuge. The Impulse seemed to sense that it might lose the battle again. It was turning inwards on him, remonstrating and cajoling. Mark mentally flung it down knowing, at the same time, that it would re-emerge just as persistent as ever. If only it would leave him alone.

  Why the hell am I thinking about it as if it were a person or something? he raged silently as he entered the cafe and stalked to the counter. Because, my dear Mark, you’re schizophrenic. That’s why.

  ‘Coffee . . .’

  The middle-aged woman standing behind the counter in her neatly pressed British Rail uniform shot him a glance meant to kill at his abrupt manner, at the same time pouring coffee which slopped over the rim of the cup into the saucer. Mark pulled out his wallet to extract a pound note and a small newspaper clipping fell from one of the pockets onto the counter. Hastily, he snatched it up and handed the money to the woman. She banged the change unceremoniously down onto the counter. Mark moved to his usual seat at the cafe window. My seat, he laughed. I might as well ask British Rail to put a bloody reserved ticket on it.

  He cradled the cup in both hands and stared into it. The rush hour would be over very soon. The Metro on which he had travelled had been the last of the peak-hour trains. The crowds on the platform would soon give way to a steadily dwindling stream of late-comers and over-sleepers, hurriedly concocting excuses for their late arrival at work.

  Mark sat back, thrusting both hands into his jacket pockets, and found the newspaper cutting again. He extracted it, leaned forward and smoothed it out on the table before him. He practically knew the wording by heart:

  Mystery still surrounds events leading up to the fall from a high speed train of Newcastle father and senior civil servant, Mark Davies, in September last year.

  Mr Davies was found lying beside railway tracks in Doncaster after plunging from the 125 Edinburgh-to-King’s Cross train. The alarm was raised when passengers noticed that a door was open and a subsequent search revealed Mr Davies at the foot of the embankment in a critical condition.

  Police investigations have so far resulted in no explanation for the incident, despite an intensive six-month enquiry. Since that time, Mr Da
vies has been in a coma, under close examination in Newcastle General Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, unable to assist police enquiries.

  Last night, in a statement to the press, Detective Inspector Les Chadderton, officer in charge of investigations, said: ‘All we know for certain is that Mr Davies left Newcastle alone on the King’s Cross train to attend a meeting in Doncaster. During the journey, Mr Davies fell from the train. Despite interviews with all passengers on that particular train, no light has been thrown on the matter. We can only hope that Mr Davies will make a full recovery. Until such time, the circumstances leading up to the fall, whether by foul play or otherwise, must remain inconclusive.’

  Doctors at Newcastle General Hospital have indicated that Mr Davies’ physical recovery has been remarkable, but can give no indication when, or if, he is likely to emerge from coma.

  Mark read the clipping three times before he finally folded it and put it back into his wallet. It was as if he were reading about someone else. Some other Mark Davies who had broken nearly every bone in his body and spent eight months in a coma. His entire memory of the incident was gone. The police had waited eight months for him to recover, only to find his mind an absolute blank. He couldn’t even remember boarding the train. And then the nightmares had begun.

  The police file on Mark Davies lay on a shelf somewhere gathering dust while Mark Davies himself sat in a railway station cafe, sipping coffee and going slowly insane.

  Mark took another sip. He could feel his internal conflict beginning again. The Impulse to get up, walk to the ticket barrier and cross over onto the platform warred with the unknown terror of something that lay beyond and of what would happen to him if he did pass over. Mark’s hands were trembling, he was spilling coffee. Slamming the cup down into the saucer, he ran his hand through his hair and glared hopelessly towards the cafe door.

  Three

  ‘Come on, I’ve told you before. You can’t sleep here . . .’

  Martha felt a rough hand on her shoulder, shaking her from deep sleep. And as the luxurious comfort of sleep left her, she became aware again of the aching rheumatics in her bones. The euphoria, the sense of well-being engendered by the bottle of cheap red wine which she had scrounged earlier from a couple of drunken students in the waiting room, and which had led to her impromptu slumber on the station bench, was a distant memory. Only the icy cold of the empty station, the unyielding solidity of the bench and the rough hand on her shoulder were real. Reluctant at first to leave her pleasant dreamland, Martha whimpered and groped blindly at the intruder. But the grip on her shoulder was unrelenting.

  ‘Come on, you old bag. Before I get the police.’

  Martha rose creakily to a sitting position and, as her vision adjusted, saw the ticket collector standing over her. She had seen him before. He was called Eric Morecambe or something. He was a pig. Muttering under her breath, she groped for the two plastic carrier bags on which she had been lying and which contained all her worldly goods. As she staggered to her feet, the empty wine bottle, wrapped in the newspaper she had cadged from the man with the gimpy leg earlier in the day, rolled from the bench and shattered at her feet, eliciting a groan of impatience from the ticket collector.

  ‘Out!’

  ‘All right, all right! Bloody stations. Can’t get a bit of peace. Always some bloody little Hitler interfering. Public servants, you’re supposed to be . . .’

  ‘Get out of it, before I kick your arse all over the station.’

  ‘Twenty years ago . . .’

  ‘Yeah? Well, that was twenty years ago.’

  Martha shambled towards the main entrance, mumbling curses under her breath. Within seconds of leaving the station, she had forgotten her encounter with the ticket collector. Such occurrences were much too frequent to remain in her memory. They had all merged into one, amorphous argument that seemed to have lasted for years. It might as well have been the same man, the same station, the same argument.

  She trudged slowly down the silent, empty street. A forgotten derelict. In her mind’s eye now, she was fifteen years old and reliving an argument she’d had with her stepfather, the old bastard! She’d really told him where to get off that day, she had. That was the day she had finally left home. She would show him, show everyone, that she would make it on her own; be bigger than any of them would ever be. And, in her own mind, she had. Martha had relived that argument over and over again; each shouted phrase, the same words repeated in a random order, improving on it each time. Suddenly, the memory was gone. Locked away in cold storage in another part of her brain.

  She suddenly became aware that she was standing beneath the harsh blue light of a street lamp, her breath rising in steaming clouds. She had long since left the town centre, lost in her thoughts, and now stood by a railway embankment wall on the riverside. She knew where she was now. She’d got her bearings. A hundred yards ahead, a section of wall had collapsed, giving a clear view across the River Tyne to Gateshead. And then she remembered where she had left something very important.

  She shambled forward until she reached the opening and stopped for an instant to look out across the dark, industrial skyline. The silent river moving sluggishly to the sea: the giant spectres of cranes, keeping a lonely, silent vigil over the waters. She couldn’t be sure, but she was vaguely aware that she’d lived over the river somewhere once upon a time; with a husband and kids. Yes . . . there had been kids. But the memory faded, too elusive to grasp.

  A lonely foghorn echoed mutely as she clambered over the fallen stones and started down the steep, grassy slope of the embankment towards the railway lines. Reaching the shallow, gravelled gully which ran alongside the main track, she strained to see across to the other side. The dark blue night was still and silent and, even with her poor eyesight, she had no difficulty in making out the scrapyard sign almost directly opposite. Good! Martha turned to her left and began a slow waddling march, counting out her steps aloud as she moved and cursing when her unsteady feet stumbled on the shifting gravel. Two hundred steps later, she had found the treasure trove. Rummaging through the weeds beside an abandoned bedstead, her numb fingers found what they were looking for: a can of diluted methylated spirit. She looked around suspiciously, sat down painfully in the weeds, unscrewed the rusted can and lifted it awkwardly to her mouth. A dent in the can suddenly straightened out with a hollow, reverberating clank, spilling a liberal amount of the mixture over her chin and down the front of her overcoat. She cast an anxious glance around her, half expecting to see the shambling form of the ragged tramp from whom she had stolen the can. Lifting it to her trembling lips once again, she took a deep swallow. It made her vomit. But that didn’t matter. She always vomited after the first swallow.

  And as Martha drank, she became aware of the magic again. She smiled as it became clearer with each swallow, knowing that the magic was her magic and no one else could ever know about it. No one else could hear the sounds that the railway lines made.

  Thrum . . . thrum . . . thrum . . .

  It was a warm, comforting sound.

  After half an hour had passed, Martha was in the same frame of mind that she had been in before falling asleep in the station. But even through her haze, she knew that she must not fall asleep in case they came out of their hiding places and came looking for her. She had seen one when she had first hidden the can. It had been hiding in the long grass watching her. She had thrown half a brick at it and it had scampered away into the darkness. Bloody things! She hated them . . . and feared them. But she knew that as long as she stayed awake they would keep their distance. In the past, she had never seen more than one or two of them at a time. These were the spies, sent to watch for her; waiting for the moment when she fell asleep so that they could summon the others to swarm all over her. She had dreamt once that they had crept up on her while she had been sleeping in the bandstand in the park. They were in her hair, crawling and squirming; in her cloth
es, trying to bite out her eyes. She woke screaming. But she should have known better. She was safe in the park. They lived down by the railway, by the riverside, and would never venture from there. She was safe on the embankment as long as she stayed awake.

  Slowly and painfully, Martha dragged herself to her feet, cradling the can in both arms like a sleeping child. Perhaps she had better leave, just in case she did fall asleep . . .

  She began to stumble back down the track in the direction she had come from, crooning a tuneless, wordless song in time to the sloshing of the methylated spirit inside the can. Dimly, she became aware that a wind seemed to have blown up. The grass at the top of the embankment was hissing angrily, but she paid no heed to it. The fact that she could feel no wind on her face and that she did not have to strain forward against its force, did not register with her. Only when she had reached the spot where she had originally descended to the railway line and was moving up the embankment towards the gap in the wall did she notice the ominous, almost stealthy, rustling of the grass. A thrill of warning was trying to fight through her subconscious into her conscious mind, struggling to shake off the effects of the drink. Something at the back of her mind was trying to tell her to get away from this place as quickly as possible. Martha stopped, clutching the can of methylated spirit tightly to her chest and watching the strange, rippling effect of the grass above and beyond. Something was moving along the top of the embankment. Something which had been keeping pace with her as she walked and was now lurking in the deep grass ahead. And with horror mounting steadily in her befuddled brain, Martha realised that there was more than one thing in the grass. There were lots of little things. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of things that squirmed, rustled . . . and squeaked. A high-pitched babble of sound, increasing in intensity and emanating from the shadowed, weaving grass above her. Martha took a faltering step back, watching as the grass thrashed in an ever increasing frenzy. Another step, and another. And then she was back in the gully at the side of the railway track.