Ghost Train

by Stephen Laws

  Mark heard the crackle of the public address system echoing through the vaulted chambers of the station. It should have been announcing the arrival of the King’s Cross train. But it wasn’t. It was speaking to Mark.

  Welcome back, Mark. You’ve been away so long. I’m so glad to have you.

  The knot of fear twitched, spasmed like a foetus in a womb. And now Mark was moving down the ramp towards the King’s Cross platform. The Impulse was right. It had not lied to him. Everything was going to be all right. The aches and pains in his body were gone now that the Impulse had taken over. It was directing his body down to the platform; one leg after the other, click-­click-­click.

  The King’s Cross train was coming.

  Mark could hear its approach in the rails. His sensitivity had been heightened and he could hear things that no other human being could hear. He knew that no one else could hear the thrum-­thrum-­thrum in the steel railway lines. A hollow, metallic booming like the continued slamming of a distant piledriver. The lines were surging with power as the train came and Mark reached the platform, wondering why no one else could hear it. It reminded him of something as he stared at the lines, the invisible power swelling and rising. It was like . . . like the dream. The dream of the standing stones last night. Of a jutting, angular, dead stone which had suddenly pulsed with life, revealing a network of veins and arteries. It was the same power. The same power that Mark had sensed in the stone was surging in the lines . . .

  He had dropped his walking stick. He heard it clatter with a brittle echo on the station platform. But it did not matter. The Impulse was telling him that he would never need it again. And now the other passengers could hear the train coming and were moving closer to the edge of the platform. Mark was moving forward too, just like that time so many months ago. He would board the train, just as he had done before. And then everything would be all right.

  The throbbing and booming of the rails was quickening, building to a crescendo, the individual beats of the piledriver merging into a continuous, deafening surge of sound.

  Look, said the Impulse. Look. Here it comes.

  Mark turned to look and felt the imprisoned fear kick inside him again like an unborn baby. The train was hurtling into the station.

  He saw the billowing clouds of steam boiling and writhing across the track, and a small voice somewhere at the back of his mind was telling him that steam trains were antiquated relics that no longer ran on main lines; they had been replaced many years ago by high-­speed diesel locomotives. But another, stronger voice was commanding him to watch. And as the King’s Cross train burst from its shroud of steam, Mark was suddenly eleven years old again, standing in a deserted funfair and watching as the hideous nightmare from a billboard came to life.

  The Ghost Train bore down on Mark and he could only stand and watch as the contorted, oil-­streaked engine which was also somehow the face of a leering demon thundered out of Hell towards him. Mark could see its eyes, could smell its fetid breath as it hurtled greedily towards him. He could see the cadaver leaning from the driver’s cabin in its funeral garb, a peaked driver’s cap perched above empty eye sockets. He watched as it tugged hard on the train whistle and heard the engine give an answering shriek in maleficent glee. He could not see the graveyard denizens who rode in the carriages of the nightmare express but he knew that they were there, waiting for him, keeping a seat for him. The lurid green paint which Mark had seen flaking from the billboard all those years ago was now the paint which flaked from the fiercely pulsing, breathing boiler of the mutating monstrosity.

  Oh, God, thought Mark. Must I board this?

  No, Mark. You do not want to board. Move forward to the edge of the platform.

  The train had reached the end of the platform and was sliding towards him like a juggernaut. Steam was spewing around it and he could see that its mouth was opening to take him. Black, iron-­ridged lips sliding back from glistening, ragged teeth. Orange light from the raging furnace in the depths of the train’s maw spilled like luminous saliva across those eager teeth.

  Step off the platform, Mark.

  The fear inside him had ripped free from its constraints and was born again within him. But it was too late. Too late.

  Mark stepped off the platform . . .

  The roar of the approaching train filled Mark’s head as he pitched forward, the station swinging before his eyes in a drunken arc. There was a pain in his arm; something had hit him there. He was falling. And then Mark felt himself hit the ground hard although there was no pain. He was on his back, looking up at the steel girders and murky skylights of the station roof. He knew that he must be lying across the tracks.

  But the sound of the train roared on and on as if it was passing by, and Mark knew that the Impulse had gone. It had fled from him. And he could feel cold, grey dread in the pit of his stomach. People were shouting. There was a hand clamped on his arm like a vice and a blurred face was swimming into view, obscuring the rafters and skylights. A face looming large and white above him. He knew the owner of that face.

  It was the stranger who had been watching him in the station. He was saying something to Mark, hissing something into his face. Mark wanted to lash out at that face, make it go away, but he could not move his arms.

  ‘Come on. Get up, you bastard. Get up.’

  Mark could not control the nausea; it surged upwards into his mouth, spewing across his shoulder and over the stranger’s hand. It clogged in his nose, blinded and choked him. And to Mark, it seemed that the fear within him had finally found a way to get out.

  ‘Christ . . . come on. Get up. It’s all right.’ And then, louder to someone else: ‘He’ll be all right. I’m a doctor. No need to worry. He’s okay.’

  Mark felt himself being dragged to his feet. The station was swinging around and tilting again. For the first time, he could see that he was not on the line at all. He was still on the platform. Crowded passengers filled his field of vision; looks of concern, babbled voices and the sound of the public address system echoing tinnily, distantly angry. Now his arm was around someone’s shoulder. His legs felt like rubber. When he tried to walk, he slumped to one side. He felt himself being carried.

  Am I dead? Mark asked himself. Am I really dead?

  When the purple mist returned to seep into his brain and he drifted into unconsciousness, it brought for the first time no dreams of horror or death.

  Part Two: Chadderton

  One

  The purple mist held no terror. Somehow its hue ­seemed less poisonous. It curled and broiled now in tenuous wisps, not like a cauldron, and when Mark held up his hands it parted before his groping fingers like cobwebs. He pulled it apart like a flimsy curtain and was instantly awake.

  He was lying on a sofa. Shafts of afternoon light were spilling across his face from the picture windows which occupied half the wall adjacent to him. He could make out the tops of the city skyline just above the lower frame of the windows and struggled up on one elbow to look around. He was in someone’s living room or lounge; decorated barely by a bureau, two upholstered chairs and a coffee table. There was a bland, framed landscape on one of the pale blue walls. A door to the left led into a bathroom. He could see a shower curtain and hear water running. No . . . this wasn’t someone’s lounge. It was a hotel room.

  He swung into a sitting position. Someone had taken off his raincoat and jacket. His shirt sleeve had been sponged and it clung wetly to his arm, still bearing the faintly acrid odour of vomit. A single document lay on the coffee table, a soft-­backed folder of some kind: Annual Railway Accident Report – Department of Transport.

  And then, with a feeling of grey nausea in the pit of his stomach, Mark remembered the station. He had given in to the Impulse. In desperation, and despite the fear, he had let it take him through the ticket barrier. He had gone insane and had tried to commit suicide. No . . . no . . . that was
n’t right. He had not tried to commit suicide. Something had tried to kill him. He knew it with a conviction and clarity of mind that astonished him. The tumult and confusion which had been tormenting him for so long and the doubts and fears about his sanity all seemed somehow a thing of the past. Something cathartic had happened to him on the platform. Something that he could not explain. He had given in to . . . something . . . it had taken control, and it had tried to kill him. But it had not been his subconscious. He had not finally lapsed into schizophrenia. Something else had been inside his mind, living there ever since the accident. It had tried to kill him but it had failed and, as a result, had somehow been expelled from his mind. As a result of its failure, the canker had fled. The parasite was gone and Mark’s mind felt pure and newborn, strangely cleansed. And . . . something else. There was something else about the clarity with which he could think and see things. Something new and different. . . he could think so much more clearly . . .

  A figure emerged from the bathroom, standing framed in the doorway, holding a dark jacket and sponging the lapel with a cloth. Mark instantly recognised the slightly paunchy figure, the greying temples which bordered thick, ruffled hair that looked as if it had not seen a comb for some time; the rumpled tie pulled away from the collar. It was the face that had been watching him in the station, that had unnerved him so much when he made his first attempt to cross through the ticket barrier. It was the face that had loomed above him after he had stepped off the platform. Undoubtedly, the owner of that face had pulled him away from death at the last instant. The face of the watching stranger.

  ‘You’re awake.’ The stranger spoke matter-­of-­factly, glancing at him only briefly before resuming his work on the crumpled jacket. ‘This place stinks of puke.’

  ‘Who . . . ?’

  ‘Now comes the movie cliché: “Who are you? Where am I? What happened? And what am I doing here?” Right? More importantly – is this stain ever going to come off my jacket?’ He moved to the picture windows and opened a vent, hanging his jacket over the back of a chair beside the radiator. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’ll have to be whisky, ’cause that’s all I’ve got. Try to keep it down, will you? I’m paying enough for the room as it is – I don’t want to have to pay for the sofa to be cleaned as well.’

  ‘Just who the hell are you?’ asked Mark, suddenly angry.

  ‘Don’t you recognise me?’ The stranger crossed to the small bureau and took out a half-­full bottle of Bell’s which he placed on the coffee table before vanishing into the bathroom.

  ‘No. Should I?’ But the man’s face was familiar.

  ‘You’ve got a short memory, Mr Davies. I’m surprised at you. But then again, your memory isn’t one of your strong points, is it?’

  The stranger re-­emerged holding a whisky tumbler and the water glass which he had liberated from its holder above the basin. He sat opposite Mark, pouring two large measures and proffering the whisky glass to Mark. Mark drank quickly, feeling the fiery liquid burning in his gut and wondering how in hell the man knew who he was.

  ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’ The stranger’s eyes were penetrating and direct as he sipped at his whisky, leaning forward and cradling the glass in both hands. It was a directness which threatened to throw Mark off balance.

  ‘I asked who you are,’ Mark retaliated.

  ‘You are Mark Davies. Thirty years old. Married with one daughter. You were thrown from the King’s Cross train by a person or persons unknown on September 25th, last year. You spent eight months in a coma with nearly every bone in your body broken. You made a miraculous recovery but your memory of the incident was wiped clean. No one else on that train saw or heard anything. As a result, the Special Police Team set up to conduct an enquiry chased around in ever decreasing circles before vanishing up their own arses. Why did you try to commit suicide, Mr Davies?’

  ‘Who the hell are you and why have you been watching me?’ Mark drained his whisky fiercely, banging down the glass on the coffee table. He fought the urge to get up and leave. For the first time since the accident, it looked as if he might be able to pull together the loose strands of his life . . . of his mind . . .

  Something new in my mind . . . so clear . . . I can think so clearly.

  ‘My name’s Chadderton, Mr Davies. I’ve been hanging around in that station for the past six weeks, watching you.’

  Chadderton. The newspaper article in Mark’s pocket. Detective Inspector Chadderton . . . ‘Officer in charge of the investigations’. And then Mark remembered where he had seen him before: in the early days when he was recovering from his coma and life seemed to be a drifting, disconnected limbo between waking and sleeping. Chadderton had spoken to him then; had visited him at the hospital. But he had looked much younger then, more in control . . . my mind . . . so clear . . . something has happened to him since then . . . He had never seen Chadderton again after those early days (or months). Only a continuous stream of unfamiliar official faces, some of them uniformed . . . but never Chadderton.

  Chadderton had crossed to his jacket and taken out a small black leather wallet. He made to throw it at Mark.

  ‘There’s no need. I remember who you are.’

  Chadderton returned to his seat, refilling their glasses and handing the tumbler back to Mark.

  ‘Why have you been watching me?’

  ‘You’re a fascinating man. I originally came up here to interview you. But I didn’t have to seek you out. When I arrived at the Central Station, you were already there. Pacing about like a demented lion in its cage. What is it about the station, Mr Davies? Why do you spend so much time there?’

  ‘How long have you been watching me?’ Mark asked again.

  ‘Six weeks.’

  ‘You mean you’ve had a team of people watching me?’

  ‘No, just me.’

  ‘Wait a minute. You’ve just been hanging around for six weeks. A detective inspector . . . in a rented hotel room . . . watching me for six weeks. That doesn’t hold water.’

  ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’

  ‘I didn’t try to kill myself. I . . . fell.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Great. You just walked straight up to that platform and stepped off. If I hadn’t been watching you, been right behind you and hauled you back, you would be a stain on the tracks by now.’

  ‘You’re not in the force any more,’ said Mark, instinctively knowing that he was right. How did I know that? How in God’s name did I know that?

  Chadderton sat back in his chair, a wry smile spreading across his face. ‘Very perceptive. And you’re absolutely right – ­I’m not a policeman any more. I’ve been relieved of duty, as they say. I am no longer “officially part of the investigation”.’ Mark could hear the quotation marks around Chadderton’s words. ‘But it prob­ably won’t surprise you to know that, although the file on Mark Davies is still open, there’s bugger all in the way of active investigation going on, seeing as how we’ve . . . they’ve . . . been able to come up with less than sweet Fanny Adams since Mr Memory was picked up from the embankment.’

  ‘Hold on! Hold on!’ Mark held up his hands in a placatory gesture. ‘Let’s get this right. You were in charge of my case. Now you’re not. In fact, you’re not even a policeman any more. And to all intents and purposes you say the police have given up; have unofficially closed the book on me. Yet you travelled up here from London to interview me anyway. You saw me in the station and decided just to hang around and watch me rather than try to talk to me. Why the hell were you watching me? All right, my behaviour’s been bloody erratic – I admit it – but do you mean to say that it was fascinating enough for you to stand watching me for six weeks?’

  ‘Just as well I did keep an eye on you, isn’t it? Bearing in mind what happened . . .’

  ‘Look! I owe you! You saved my life, but I thi
nk you should do a little more explaining.’

  ‘Did you try to kill yourself? Is that what you’ve been hanging around the station for? Is that what you’ve been trying to pluck up the courage to do?’

  ‘No, I didn’t! And no, it’s bloody not! Don’t talk in circles with me. Either answer my questions or I’m walking out.’ Mark gulped at his whisky again, the warmth in his stomach spreading to the rest of his body. He was beginning to feel very tired and his leg was starting to ache badly.

  ‘I’ll explain everything to you. Everything. But first, you’ve got to be totally honest with me, and tell me – did you try to kill yourself and is that why you’ve been going back to the station day after day?’

  Mark felt at an impasse. Chadderton’s attitude was offensive and aggressive, but it was intriguing. He had been angrily blunt and direct with him; he had given Chadderton an ultimatum, but he had sidestepped it and Mark felt that Chadderton was used to being obeyed. But he had to find out what was going on – no matter what.

  ‘The honest answer is this: since the accident, I’ve been recovering not only physically, but mentally. I can’t remember what happened to me on that train. But ever since I got out of hospital I’ve had this compulsion . . . this Impulse . . . to go back to the station, buy a ticket and cross through the ticket barrier again.’ The Impulse has gone. It’s been cast out. But it’s not dead. It’s still alive . . . somewhere . . .■not far away . . . but still alive . . . and prowling. ‘At the same time, I’ve been terrified to cross through. Terrified at what might happen if I do. That’s what I’ve been doing in the station. I’ve been torn between two impulses. That’s why I’ve been seeing Dr Aynsley – my psychiatrist. ’ Aynsley was my psychiatrist . . . no . . . no . . . he IS my psychiatrist. He’s not dead.