by Stephen Laws
‘How do you know?!’
‘Trust me!’
‘But if we stay in here, we’ll fall!’
‘If you step out into that corridor you’re as good as dead!’
‘Oh, God!’ The soldier screwed his eyes shut, pressed his girlfriend tightly to him.
Mark could hear the girl saying: ‘It’s not real! It’s not real!’ Chadderton’s grip on his hand was almost breaking his fingers. Mark plunged deep into the place in his own mind that knew Azimuth and dug deeper than he had permitted himself to go in the past. Between clenched teeth, he began to mutter.
‘It’s not real. I deny you. It’s not real.’
Chadderton and the girl were chanting with him now: ‘It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s not real!’ And Mark felt anger inside him rising and building like a flood. Anger at the obscene thing that had claimed so many lives; anger at what had been done to his own wife and daughter. Aynsley burning. Chadderton’s wife burning. The dreams. The fear. The deaths. Building and sweeping, gathering momentum, Mark was gathering power. And then it burst out of him.
‘God damn you! IT’S NOT REAL!’
The carriage seemed to lurch, the girl screamed and Mark looked down. The floor had returned to normal. As if in defiance, Mark moved swiftly across it. Bringing his feet down heavily and still with the anger inside, he began banging his walking stick on the floor, swearing and cursing in rage, damning Azimuth to hell. The soldier was muttering: ‘This can’t be happening.’ Chadderton laid the priest back on one of the seats. The carriage lurched again and Mark steadied himself against a wall, feeling something there in the very fabric itself. Maleficent anger, hostility and . . . evil. Mark withdrew his hand. It reminded him of a dream when he had felt life in one of the standing stones and had seen a network of veins and arteries in the dark, rugged stone. There was an undead life in these walls.
‘Oh God, Chadderton,’ said Mark, suddenly knowing; ‘Azimuth has become the train.’
And then Mark heard the voice in his head.
You have found strength, Sensitive.
It was the sound of death and disease. It was all the horror and abomination ever visited upon mankind, encapsulated in the form of a single voice. It was an unclean, undead filth; an absolute anathema to any living creature. The essence of an unbelievably hostile, rapacious and malefic intent. It was the touch of crawling vermin. All of this communicated instantly to Mark.
He spasmed, choked and fell to his knees, the walking stick rattling away across the floor. He clutched at his head to rip the presence of the voice from his mind, and then Chadderton was shaking him by the shoulders, pulling him into one of the seats and holding him there forcibly as he struggled.
‘It’s speaking to me, Chadderton.’ Mark clutched at his temples. ‘Oh God, it’s horrible.’
‘Fight it, Mark! Fight it!’
And suddenly, Mark knew that he did not have to fight it. His mind was closed to its influence. It could not make him do anything he did not wish. But it could speak to him, could communicate with him. And that voice, when it came again, swamped him in nausea.
Fight me? How?
Mark fought down his revulsion. ‘It’s all right, Chadderton. It can’t get into my mind. It can never get back of its own accord.’
Thrice Denied. No sweeter Food than thee.
‘It’s talking, but I can’t shut it off!’
‘Mark, listen to me! Let it talk . . . let it talk . . . we might find a way to stop it.’
So speaks the Man Who Sought but Could Not Find! Yes, let me talk, Sensitive. So long have you hungered to know. So long have I hungered to have you. We will talk. But first . . . You must come to Me.
Mark felt vomit rise, could taste its burning sourness at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard. ‘It wants me to go to it.’
‘But you can’t!’ hissed Chadderton.
Mark channelled his mind, squeezed the slowly developing power and knew that he had momentarily blocked any transmission back to Azimuth. He knew that in a matter of seconds, Azimuth would break down his defence. ‘We can’t just stay in here. The only alternative I have is to stay here with you and wait until this train, or whatever the train has become, arrives at King’s Cross. Don’t you see? King’s Cross is the end of the line. Once Azimuth gets there, he’ll hurtle off these tracks and be free forever.’
‘Go to Azimuth?’ said Chadderton. ‘Where?’
Instinctively, Mark knew where. ‘Up front, in the locomotive.’
‘But what can you do, Mark? You’re the only one who understands this thing. If it kills you, what then?’
‘I don’t think it wants to kill me. In some sort of way, I’ve become special to it. It wants me, yes . . . in a way I don’t understand. But it can’t manipulate me and it can’t use me. God in heaven, I don’t know what it wants me for. And I don’t want to go. Frankly, I’m scared shitless . . .’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘It’s the only thing I can do. As you said, I might find out something that we can use against it. Some way we can stop it.’
Chadderton tried to speak again. No words would come. And Mark realised that, for the first time, Chadderton had called him by his first name. It was a trivial, insubstantial thing in the face of the horror they were facing; but somehow, to Mark, it seemed important. He stood up.
‘As soon as I step out into the corridor, use the flask and seal the door again. We can’t afford to take any chances. When it sees me coming, I don’t think that it’ll move against you.’
‘Mark, you know that you’re walking straight into hell, don’t you?’
‘I know it.’
And then Mark pulled open the carriage door and stepped through. Chadderton slid the door quickly shut, hastily pouring Holy Water down the seal, watching as the liquid runnelled and splashed onto the floor before looking back at the soldier and his girlfriend, knowing that they both believed, as had Father Daniels and himself, that everything was unreal; that they were living a terrible dream that would soon dissipate when they awoke.
When Chadderton turned back to look, Mark had gone.
‘Will passengers please move back from the platform,’ echoed the speaker at Darlington station. ‘The train arriving at Platform One will not be stopping at this station. I repeat: the next train arriving at Platform One will not stop. Passengers are requested to move well back from the platform.’
The waiting travellers on Platform One had never seen so many porters on one platform before. A line of uniformed figures moved people back from the platform edge as the speaker repeated the same message over and over again. The voice was distinctly strained, and the unease of the porters was communicating itself to the passengers.
‘Move back, please.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘The train isn’t stopping, that’s all. It’s safer if you get back.’
‘Safer? What the hell’s going on? What’s wrong with the train?’
And then the wind came.
A cold wind carrying the memories of a thousand winters and the prospect of one great Winter to come. It ruffled the clothes, bit through fabric and chilled the flesh. Slightly at first, but growing stronger, like the onrush of air preceding the approach of an underground train, except that this wind lacked all warmth. Growing and growing. Harsh. Colder than death.
‘Move back from the platform, please! Move back!’
The wind had suddenly become a gale, blasting into the station with the force of nightmare. Porters’ caps were whipped into the air. Luggage toppled. A woman sprawled full length on the platform, followed by another. And another.
The shrieking of the wind was matched by the shrieking of human voices on the platform as the passengers began to panic and rush for the ticket barriers. But the sucking wind would not be denied.
&nb
sp; The first passenger to roll over the platform edge was a young executive. His briefcase burst open, releasing a flurry of papers dancing wildly in the air. A middle-aged woman followed, arms flapping uselessly. And then another . . . and another . . .
Those passengers who had reached the ticket barriers clung to railings and placards as the sucking wind tore at their bodies. Fingers were pried loose, bodies tumbled backwards through the air and over the platform edge.
And then the Ghost Train screamed through the station, horn howling exultantly.
Mark stepped over the first body, trying not to look at the shattered head, and began to move down the corridor. More bodies lay ahead of him, twisted and broken. The compartment next to their own was wrecked. A woman and two men lay on the floor; a young boy across one of the seats. The window had been broken by the passage of another body and a fierce wind ruffled the boy’s hair as the train sped on. The floor felt wet and slippery underfoot but Mark did not have to look down to know that it was blood. The train lurched; he put out a hand to steady himself and felt something wet and warm. Hastily, he pulled his hand away. But it was not blood. Giving a grunt of disgust, Mark wiped a slimy, viscous green fluid from his hand against the rim of an opened sliding door.
A ticket inspector lay like a broken doll in front of him, face contorted. Mark stepped over him, looking at the walls and ceiling of the corridor and seeing the same viscous green stuff trickling downwards. Slime was flowing everywhere; oozing and congealing.
He reached the end of the corridor, ignoring the scenes of horror in the first-class compartments. He thought of Joanne and Helen safely in hospital and fingered the small silver crucifix around his neck that Helen had given him long ago, in another life. He turned at the end of the corridor, and shrank back as he saw that the partition joining the carriages was a tangle of impenetrable web. A familiar horror threatened to swamp him. He clutched tightly at the crucifix and willed the web to vanish. Suddenly, it was no longer there and Mark could hear a low, hideous chuckling in the recesses of his mind.
‘Damn you!’
Mark passed through into the next carriage. It was a second-class, open-plan compartment. But it looked like a slaughterhouse. Mark fought down his nausea, forced himself to press on, refusing to look at the grotesque, huddled mass of bodies.
‘Ma-maaaaaaa!’ something screeched under his foot. Mark leaped back in alarm. Glassy eyes stared sightlessly up at him from the floor. It was a broken doll.
Mark kept moving. There was more of the slime in here. It was beginning to run across the windows, dripping from overhead. He knew what was happening. Even now, he could see veins and arteries mutating from the woodwork and metal like a tangle of green creepers. And the farther he pressed on, the more pronounced was the change. As if the mutation had begun from the locomotive and crept back along the train.
He knew when he had reached the first carriage. Standing in the doorway, it seemed as if he was about to enter the innards of some abominable creature’s gut: a pulsating, green mass of viscera. Bodies littered what had been the carriage floor and Mark knew that, in time, they would be absorbed into the very fabric of the thing itself. Only slight vestiges of the carriage remained; a patch of daylight where part of a window had not yet been absorbed and covered; irregular humped shapes of tangled green which had once been seats. An incongruous suitcase jutted from an all but mutated overhead rack. And everywhere, the pulsing, throbbing movement of some terrible life.
Mark stood back against a partition wall, holding his hand over his mouth. In his mind he remembered Joanne saying: Why you, Mark? Why you? And, for an instant, he thought of flinging open the partition door and chancing fate by throwing himself into space for the second time. He was shaking; a low, horrified moan escaped involuntarily from his lips. He could not control his fear. And he knew that Azimuth must know that.
How can you stop feeling fear? he thought. And then he knew that there was no way in the world to avoid it, in the face of what he was doing. Again, he was aware of the laughter that was not laughter, echoing somewhere. And with the laughter, with the knowledge that Azimuth was enjoying his fear, came more of the rage that had vanquished it before. Mark realised that it was the most effective way to combat it. He slammed his fist hard against the wall, felt the pain bite into him. He punched hard again, felt something crack in his finger and then let the pain fuel the rage.
‘Damn you to hell, damn you, DAMN YOU . . . !’
He blundered ahead into the first carriage, ignored the bodies as he trampled them underfoot, gripped the green tangle that was Azimuth’s muscle, sinew and artery to steady him as he moved. He felt the dripping, stinking stuff on his head and shoulders but still he plunged on. And then he reached the front of the carriage. He knew that the locomotive could not normally be reached through a passenger carriage; but also knew, well before he saw it, that the mutating carriage would have formed a link to the locomotive solely for his benefit, enabling him to pass through. Ahead lay a pulsating, living corridor forming a bridge to the engine. Mark moved on, saw that the generator had become something that was part-machine, part-animal. It still functioned, powering the train as it thundered onwards, exuding red steam that stank like a charnel house. Tubing, wiring, conduits and gauges mingled and formed with muscle, sinew and gristle.
Ahead of him, he saw the incongruously unchanged cabin door. The door leading into the driver’s cabin itself. Inside that cabin, he knew, was the very essence of Azimuth. Forcing himself forward, denying his fear the opportunity to overtake him and send him screaming back the way he had come, he saw himself reach out for the door handle. It felt hot, but he gripped it tightly all the same. Beyond the door lay the creator of Mark’s worst nightmares. Before he could give himself time to dwell on that prospect, he tugged at the handle and flung the door wide. Instantly, he smelt the familiar pungent smell of ozone.
He stepped inside.
A figure which had been seated at the driver’s panel stood up and turned to face him as he entered. Mark saw the jet-black, Brylcreemed hair, the malevolent idiot’s grin that was somehow much too wide. The glittering green marbles of eyes, fixed on him like a snake. The figure wore the same shirt, the same dress-ring. There was a small trickle of blood on his neck, running down from his greased hair, where Robbie had struck him with the railing.
‘Hello, Mark,’ said the Ghost Train Man.
Nine
‘This is the Director of Operations speaking.’
‘This is Jackson from Eastern Region. I’m afraid that we have a severe problem here, sir.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard a preliminary report. A runaway train.’
‘I’m afraid that it could be considerably worse than that. We also have an inexplicable and massive communications failure. The train passed through Darlington a short while ago. Seventeen people have been killed. They fell onto the line.’
‘Killed? Oh my God . . . They fell onto the line?’
‘I’m still awaiting full details, sir. We’ve lost contact with Darlington.’
‘This is terrible . . . terrible . . . How in God’s name did the train get to Darlington? I understood that it was to be diverted.’
‘That’s my point, sir. We’re not able to divert the train. The King’s Cross lines appear to be fixed and we just can’t change them.’
‘That’s ridiculous, Jackson. What on earth do you take me for?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. But if you check with the people at your end you’ll find that the same thing has happened. We just cannot change the line. All traffic has been stopped here; we narrowly avoided a derailment at Darlington.’
‘I just can’t believe this! Are you seriously telling me that . . . Wait . . . Have you had any crews out to change the line manually?’
‘Yes, sir. Three men are dead. Electrocuted.’ Silence, then: ‘Can you hear me, sir?’
‘Yes . . .’
‘They tried to divert the line manually. They were killed instantly.’
‘But the King’s Cross line . . .’
‘. . . isn’t electrified. No, sir.’
‘Signal box reports?’
‘We can’t get through to any north of York. Hell, we can’t get through to anybody north of York now. But we have received divisional reports that a number of boxes on the King’s Cross route appear to have been destroyed.’
‘Christ, what’s going on . . . ? What about the train itself? Do we know what has happened on board?’
‘We’ve no way of knowing, sir. All communications are dead. I’ve sent observation crews up ahead to intercept the train as it passes. But none of them have reported back.’
Silence.
‘Sir?’
‘We have to get the army and the police involved, Jackson. An emergency plan. I’ll arrange for King’s Cross to be evacuated at once. I suggest that you suspend all operations and do the same at York. We can’t have any more deaths.’
‘We’re in the process of doing that already, sir, but there’s something else you should know.’
‘Yes?’
‘The train will be here in York in about twelve minutes. We may not have time to evacuate the station completely.’
‘Twelve minutes? That’s ridiculous. The train only passed through Darlington at . . .’
‘Yes I know, sir. But we’ve estimated that the train is travelling at 200 miles per hour.’
‘But no train . . .’
‘No, sir. No train can travel that fast.’
At the very last, Mark had known that it could only be him.
‘What in God’s name are you?’ he said, leaning back heavily against the cabin door, trying to keep as much space as possible between them.
‘You know who I am. I am the Ghost Train Man.’
‘I know that you’re trying to use my fear against me, Azimuth. I know that you don’t really look like that. You’ve been in my mind, dug into my childhood nightmares and taken on that guise because you think it will frighten me.’
