Ghost Train

by Stephen Laws

  There was somebody else here with her now. It was somebody she had seen in her dreams before. She had a vague recollection that she had once told her Daddy all about her dream visitor. It was the little boy who liked to speak to her. The little boy she knew her Daddy had known a long time ago as Robbie. He was standing in the empty grey before her and he was hiding his face because he did not want her to see and be frightened. Robbie was dead and his face wasn’t nice.

  Robbie was moving closer now, and she felt so sad. Her sadness was welling up in her throat, and she wanted to tell him that she was going to make everything all right for him. She didn’t want him to be lonely any more.

  ‘Don’t feel sad.’ Robbie’s voice was muffled, more difficult to hear than before. He was speaking slowly, articulating each word carefully so that she would not miss anything. ‘Nothing here is real. Not even me.’

  ‘Of course you’re real, you’re . . . you were a friend of my Daddy’s­­­­. You told me so in a dream.’

  ‘Yes. I was a friend of your Daddy’s. But I’m not real. I don’t exist. Your Daddy’s friend was killed in an accident when he was a little boy. I only exist in your Daddy’s memory. And that’s why I am. The Man made me to give your Daddy the bad dreams. Be careful, Helen. You can’t resist him for much longer. Just remember . . .’ The last word had come out all wrong, but Helen knew what he meant. ‘. . . re-­mem-­ber . . . that nothing is real. He can use what you’re frightened of against you. And he’s not a man at all, Helen. There is no Man. He only looks like that because he chooses to do so. His name is Azimuth.’

  It was a name that Robbie had mentioned before and she had not been able to hear properly. But here in the safe place, she could make it out at last.

  ‘You must get back and warn the others. Tell them what you feel. Tell your Daddy what you feel. He has escaped from Azimuth twice and because his mind has been touched by Azimuth, it has left him with a special power of understanding. Tell him what you feel and he’ll know what to do.’

  ‘If you’re not real, if you’re a part of my Daddy’s dreams, how can you speak to me like this? How can you be a part of my dream? How can you warn me about the Bad . . . about Azimuth . . . if he made you?’

  Robbie had turned away from her as if to leave. He made a noise which sounded like a broken sigh and which made her feel even sadder.

  ‘Why aren’t you doing what Azimuth tells you?’

  ‘Because,’ said Robbie, ‘. . . because there are some things that are even greater than Azimuth, Helen. What can be created can be used for good as well as bad.’

  Helen could feel that the safe place was slipping away. The Man . . . Azimuth . . . was somewhere out there in the blackness, temporarily locked out of her mind by the special feeling which even Robbie knew about.

  ‘What is it that keeps him out, Robbie? Tell me!’

  ‘You know what it is. Feel it. You must find out for yourself or it’s no good. You know how to stop him, Helen.’

  Helen could feel a door handle turning stealthily, could feel the pressure against the special door which was keeping Azimuth out.

  ‘How, Robbie? How do I stop him?’

  ‘You know . . . you can feel it . . . use it. Use it, Helen!’

  But the safe place had faded as the door handle turned and the door into her secret place swung wide to admit the Big Bad Wolf. Helen was falling and falling into that horrible purple blackness from which she had come.

  Helen was lying in bed again. Daddy had put out the light and everything was purple black. Once again, Helen thought: He can see what you fear the most. And she knew then that Daddy had not put the towel across the wardrobe’s eyes – she knew that without even looking. She knew that he was somewhere else and could not help her; knew that Azimuth had failed to convince her that she should love him as the other little girl so obviously loved him; and that something very, very bad was going to happen as a result.

  Helen refused to look at the wardrobe, clenching her small fists to her eyes as she heard the sound of furniture being moved in the darkness. A hollow, muffled thud as something heavy inched forward towards her.

  ‘I know who you are! You’re the Ghost Train Man! You’re not even real!’

  ‘No . . .’ said the slow, dragging voice in the corner of Helen’s bedroom. ‘No . . . but I’m very real to your Daddy. And now that I’m here, I can make myself just as real to you, Helen. As real as real can be. All for you.’

  Helen dug deep inside for the feeling which she knew would make everything all right. It wasn’t as strong nor as tangible as she had felt it before. But it was there somewhere, deep down inside, and it was the only thing that could save her, if she could find it and use it properly. But she was so frightened, and the more frightened she became, the stronger the Ghost Train Man became and the harder it was for her to remember how it felt. Another heavy, dull thumping on the thick pile of the bedroom carpet, just like the time when Mummy and Daddy had moved the wardrobe from one end of the room to another when they had been decorating. Making the wardrobe ‘walk’ on its pointed edges, Daddy had called it: thump, thump . . . and thump.

  Daddy and Mummy and the Other Man were in the place where their worst nightmares lived – the Ghost Train Man had said so. Bad things were happening for them too and, for an instant, Helen’s fear for her parents was greater than her own. And the spark of that feeling was the key to the special secret inside. Helen grabbed for it, fanned it like someone would fan the dying embers of a campfire in a forest, hoping that the fire would keep the dark creatures in the deep, dark forest at bay. A flame licked upwards, and Helen knew that the dark shapes behind the trees were shrinking back from the flame into deeper shadow. She embraced it, let it grow – still not understanding it – but letting it grow anyway, feeling how pure it was inside her and knowing that if she were a grown-­up she could never do it, because it was too complicated for grown-­ups.

  Now she knew that Azimuth had made all dreams one. That irrefutable fact came to her as she climbed higher and higher inside and let the feeling make the bedroom and its monster freeze and fade. Daddy, Mummy and the Other Man were all in the same dream. And everything was going to turn out bad, everything was so horribly wrong . . .

  And Helen could see . . .

  . . . Joanne was frozen on the bed, watching as Mark collapsed and shrivelled like a vampire confronted by a crucifix in one of those Hammer films that Mark liked so much. But this wasn’t a movie. Mark was crumbling and disintegrating and she wanted to turn away, but she could not. Mark was kneeling in the ruins of his own decay; an arm had fallen away, the fingers still clutching and gripping at the air; the flesh had all but peeled from the now hairless skull like old paint from an outhouse wall. And his face . . . oh God . . . his face. Something gave a reverberating snap deep inside him, like a damp log spitting sparks on an open fire, and Mark’s rib cage split apart as his entire body collapsed inwards into a ruined pile. The head tried to turn and look up, but couldn’t make it. The vertebrae had disintegrated. The skull rolled away, cracked apart like a month-­old eggshell and began to crumble into powder . . .

  ‘. . . So the best thing you can do is just take your punishment, son. I mean, you’ve got to be made to pay . . .’ The purple mist was spangling before his eyes as it always did. Mark could feel himself sliding as the unrelenting pressure squeezed his windpipe closed. Somewhere, he could hear the rustling of clothing . . .

  . . . And Chadderton squeezed and squeezed as hard as he could to choke off that hysterical, mocking laughter that issued from Trafford’s throat. His wife had burnt to death but, somehow, she was still alive. Still alive and burning forever. Trafford had made it happen, had wanted it to happen. And he kept on laughing as if it was the best joke in the world and Kill you kill you kill you, Trafford. You fucking bastard, I’m going to kill kill kill you . . .

  . . . And the bedroom doorway was
opening slowly and Joanne felt herself drawn to it, expecting another nightmare to be standing in the door frame. But it was Helen. She’d had a bad dream and wanted to get into bed with her mother. Joanne knew that when she looked back, the decayed, crumbling remains of her husband would be gone. She was right. There was something much worse there now. It was Dr Aynsley, the Wild Man, and he was crouching feral and naked on the deep pile carpet watching Helen as she walked sleepily into the room, not seeing him. His eyes were glinting, his face smeared with a strange blue paint and his teeth looked too sharp to be human. His face was streaked by matted hair, there were patches of fur on his body. He had an erection. And he looked at Joanne with an expression that said: She can’t see me. You know she can’t. And I’m going to finish off the job and really enjoy it. He was scrabbling forward now as Helen approached.

  Oh no no no no . . .

  Joanne could see the iron railing which the Wild Man had used to smash down their front door. It was lying, scarred, solid and heavy by the side of the bed. Suddenly, the paralysis was gone and Joanne was lunging full length across the bed to grab the iron spike. Aynsley was scrabbling across the carpet towards Helen and why, God, oh why couldn’t Helen see him? Why couldn’t she hear her screaming a warning to get out and run away? Why did she just stand, rubbing her eyes and moaning softly at the distant memories of a bad dream? Joanne swung the railing sideways and up as she lunged forward. The bedroom had become an endless stretching plain between herself, Aynsley and Helen. And now she was running towards them as Aynsley, all perspective distorted, reached for her daughter with a hand that suddenly seemed bigger than the room. Joanne raised the railing to its fullest height.

  You won’t have her! You won’t!

  The railing started its long descent . . .

  . . . Helen could see that all the bad dreams were one. And the good feeling was flowing and blossoming inside her like warm sunshine, chasing the shadows. Am I too late? she thought. And now the dark clouds were racing and the sun was pouring through. Helen could feel it. She could understand it in the way that only a seven year-­old child could understand it. And, more importantly, she could use it. It did not matter that Daddy was not here to hang the towel over the wardrobe’s eyes because, now, she could do it herself. The wardrobe was halfway across the room, its big eyes glowing in the dark just like the Bad Man’s eyes, as Helen leaned towards it and draped the towel around them. It was only a wardrobe now. Helen was spreading outwards, following shafts of rich, warm sunlight into the Land of Shadows, and she knew that this would be the hardest part. Something, somewhere, was moaning: low and throaty. And the moan was building, rising in volume and pitch until it became a shrieking, roaring noise filled with pain, anger and frustration. She could not let it do what it wanted to do because what it wanted was wrong and she hated anything that could want to frighten people so badly. She knew what she wanted, knew what she needed to do now more than anything else . . .

  . . . And the tape spools were suddenly right there before her. Helen seized them from the machine before they could fade away again. She was tearing them, ripping them apart and destroying the evil that was on them.

  . . . Loud, loud shrieking and pain and falling, falling, falling . . .

  The metal railing fell from Joanne’s hands, thudding heavily to the carpet as she staggered away; just in time to see the stranger who had grappled with Aynsley roll away from the prostrate form of her husband. And she just had time to think: He was strangling Mark and I was going to kill him . . . before the walls of the bedroom began to tilt and sway. Joanne put out a hand to stop the wall from slamming into her, trying to halt its crazy swinging, and then knew that she was lying on the floor and her mind was sinking into unconsciousness. A dreamless, nightmare-­free sleep.

  Mark felt the pressure go from his throat, spasmed and began to cough in lungfuls of air. The purple mist had gone. The Ghost Train Man had gone. Suddenly, Mark was back in the bedroom, lying on the carpet next to the tape recorder. Chadderton was beside him, struggling to rise to his feet, and Mark thought: Oh God, is this part of the same nightmare? But things were different now, he knew that. The dream had ended and somehow he was back in his own home.

  Chadderton had seen Trafford’s face become Davies’ face at the last moment. He had seen what he was doing and had pulled away, believing that he had nearly killed him. All the time he had been strangling Trafford, that horrible, damned laughter had been echoing in his head, driving him on. But the laughter had changed and become a deep and desperate screaming, and Chadderton had thought: That’s stopped your laughing now, hasn’t it, Trafford? Now I’m going to kill you and stop your laughing forever. And then the face had become Davies and everything had changed.

  Chadderton tried to roll up and stand, but his legs would not support him. He could hear Davies coughing and gagging next to him, and started to say: ‘What the Christ . . . ?’ but the words would not come just yet. He looked up and saw the little girl standing over the tape recorder. The spools of tape were clenched in her small white hands and Chadderton could see that she had torn them to pieces. There was blood on her fingers but her face looked as blank as when they had burst into the room and saved her from Aynsley.

  The screaming in Helen’s head had gone now. She knew that she had found that feeling, had used it against Azimuth, and that he . . . it . . . had been chased away. But she also knew that she had not beaten him for good. She had not killed him because he could not be killed. The screaming had stopped and there was a new sound inside her head. It was the horrible little girl. She was giggling and laughing. She knew that, although Helen had stopped Azimuth from getting what he wanted now, there was a greater plan soon to begin that Helen could never stop.

  My Catalysts are coming and the Great Tasting will still take place, Helen. Now it was the voice of the Ghost Train Man speaking through the evil Angelina. Nothing can stop that. And you can’t even help your Daddy any more. Helen knew that Azimuth was right. In the real world she had been in shock. And what she had been through in the Bad Place had sent her even deeper into her own mind. Because only there could she rest and get better. There were so many things that she wanted to tell her Daddy about Azimuth. So much she could tell him that he could use. But she knew now that she could never do that. She was in deep shock. She could not speak, could not warn Daddy about what Azimuth had been planning for so long . . . Azimuth’s pain and anger had vanished now. It had been a minor defeat. He could not stay in their minds as he would normally have wished; Helen had prevented this by using the power. But the One who was Chosen and had Denied would never know what that power was, because Helen would have to stay in her Safe Place for a long time until her mind could heal. As Helen pulled the safe, white curtains across her mind, Azimuth was laughing, knowing that the Time of Arrival was imminent and could not be prevented.

  Mark stood up, rubbing his bruised larynx, and stumbled across the room to where Joanne lay. Chadderton was on his feet now, bent double with one hand on the counterpane to balance him. Joanne was moaning as Mark picked her up. ‘Oh Mark, I had a terrible dream . . .’

  Mark looked back into the corner of the room. Aynsley still lay there, unconscious now, like some battered rag doll that had been thrown across the room by a petulant child.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ Chadderton was easing himself up onto the bed, rubbing his forehead. ‘I think I must have cracked up.’

  Mark helped Joanne to the bed, eased her gently down and looked back to where Helen stood by the tape recorder. The spools of tape were hanging in shredded ribbons, falling to the carpet like discarded party decorations. Mark moved quickly to her, swept her up into his arms, holding her close to him. Instantly, she was asleep and Mark, not knowing yet what had happened, was weeping freely as he realised that, whatever had happened, Helen had saved them all from something worse than madness.

  Twelve

  The King
’s Cross-­to-­Newcastle train was late.

  But for once, Grace had not blamed Philip. Thousands of commuters, all on different errands and heading for different destinations, swarmed over the station as they had done for many years. And none of the faceless thousands paid any heed to the thin, dark-­haired man with the stooped shoulders and the big, big smile; or to his wife with the bouffant hair-­do; or the small daughter with the ringlets, as they stepped down onto Platform Eight with their two suitcases and carrier bag. After all, there was nothing special about them, was there? Faces like any others: three of the faceless thousands. Faceless. And no one suspected anything of the Face which hid behind their masks.

  The Gascoynes moved up the stairs which led to the overtrack bridge. They were in no particular hurry as the other passengers pushed and jostled past, not noticing that all three wore the same identical smile, shared the same secret and had the same purpose. Grace carried a suitcase. Philip carried a suitcase. Angelina carried the plastic carrier bag. And all the time, as they ascended the stairs, they smiled. Smiled, smiled, smiled.

  Eric Morpeth had not turned in for work today and Tadger Wright was not at all pleased. For the past week he had been listening to him moaning on in the pub about how unwell he had been feeling and it had started to get right on Tadger’s nerves. If he was going to go off sick, if he fancied a few days in bed and a couple of early afternoons on the beer, then why the hell didn’t he just go ahead and do it instead of bending every bugger’s ear about how bad he was? Tadger stood at the ticket booth at the foot of the ramp from Platform Nine’s bridge, punching tickets. And each time he punched a ticket, he was punching a hole right through that little fucker Eric’s eyeball and hoping that he really would catch some sort of bug while he was skiving. Then he would have to be on the sick and it would serve him right, an’ all.