by Stephen Laws
‘Ahhh. Very, very clever, Sensitive.’ The words hissed like water on live coals. ‘But then, if I were to show you what I really am, you would go mad. All men have fear and I can find it. I am the Ultimate Fear that lives in all men.’
‘What are you?’ Mark asked again in disgust.
‘I am the rails, the generator, the locomotive . . . At last, I have flesh.’
Beyond the Man, Mark could see through the front windscreen as they hurtled onwards, impossibly fast.
‘You said you wanted to talk to me.’
‘Ah, yes. To talk. I will taste of all men when I arrive. The Man Who Sought but Could not Find will be tasted soon – just as I tasted his woman. The soldier and his woman are inconsequential, the holy man, too. But you . . . ah, you . . .’ The Ghost Train Man was pointing at Mark with one long, bone-white finger. ‘You will not be like the others.’
‘Why do you want me?’
‘All upon whom I have set my hand, I have tasted. None have denied. But you . . . you have thrice denied me. Now I cannot take your mind. None has ever done this before. All have been tasted. You are . . . dear to me . . . and you can give me so much. Here! Look back . . .’ And suddenly, the Ghost Train Man had swung his arm and the cabin was gone.
They were standing in an empty nothingness, a limbo, the abode of the demon. Mark clamped down his own mental defences, knew that if he clung tightly to his self-will, no harm could befall him.
‘See! See here!’ cried the Ghost Train Man.
Mark saw a church, saw a group of children kneeling before the altar rail. He saw a priest – a bishop – in full regalia, passing along the line of children, blessing them. He looked closer and saw himself as a child. Sitting not far behind him was his mother, weeping into a handkerchief and wishing that her husband, Mark’s father, was here to see. The bishop placed his hand on the little boy’s head, and Mark remembered how he had felt then. It was his Confirmation. And despite the lightheartedness and unconcern that Mark feigned when he was playing with his friends in the schoolyard, he felt strongly that this was the right thing to do. The other kids would joke about it all, and dismiss it offhandedly. Mark would joke about it too, because all the others did so. But, secretly, he felt it deeply. And now, in this nowhere place with the Ghost Train Man, he realised that he still felt it, even though he had not been to a church service since Helen had been baptised. Indeed, he had not even been inside a church again until he had gone with Chadderton to speak to Father Daniels.
‘See?’ said the Ghost Train Man with indulgent glee. ‘And now . . . see!’
Mark was twelve years old. He was sitting in a classroom, talking to Father Wilson who had been dead now for fourteen years. Mark was telling him that he wanted to be a priest. And Father Wilson was asking him why.
‘I just think I should be, Father.’
‘Now you know that’s no answer. Why the sudden decision, my boy?’
After a moment’s hesitation, Mark said shyly: ‘Well, the other kids sort of went through with the Confirmation, you know . . . like . . . it was something that you just do. It didn’t really mean anything.’
‘And it meant more to you, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Well . . . yeah. I felt strongly about it, Father. So I think perhaps that I should be a priest or something.’
Father Wilson slapped him on the back and laughed. ‘You’re a good boy, Mark. You feel things more deeply than the others. You’re sincere. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But you’ve got your boyhood ahead of you yet. You’ve got a lot of living to do. Let it rest for a few years and then, if you still feel the same way, we can talk about it again . . .’
The image had gone. Mark and the Ghost Train Man stood facing each other against a backdrop of nothingness.
‘That doesn’t make me special,’ said Mark.
‘Ah, but yes . . . it does. There is much to savour here, Thrice Denied! You offered yourself to the Other. You gave freely. And that offer still has its mark in your blood. It is always a part of you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Renounce your offer before me. Bow down and worship me. Acknowledge me as All and I will make you Man Supreme among Men. I will embody and walk within you. I will be of your mind but I will not taste you. All things will be yours when this vessel arrives.’
‘Walk within me? But you’re doing that in the train. You’re turning this train into your own flesh. You haven’t any need for my body.’
The Ghost Train Man laughed, eyes sparkling in unholy glee.
‘Yes, this vessel will be my own flesh. But I have need of disciples, Sensitive. My chosen, through whom I may embody and feed, with all mankind to feed upon. First will come the Great Tasting. Then will come a gathering of those who remain. We shall breed them, Sensitive. Breed them for the Tasting as your own kind breed cattle. And of my chosen, you shall be supreme! All can I give you!’
Mark felt his mind tilt as it was assailed by visions of what Azimuth promised. Images of gratification in every form jumbled for space in his brain. He saw himself as a king with the remnants of a shattered mankind subservient to him. He alone would choose the sacrifices to Azimuth. Power and glory for ever and ever. A supreme being with mastery over all. He saw cities being toppled and rebuilt at his command, saw in that brief instant every imaginable form of pleasure . . . and pulled back, slamming down his defences before he could be irrevocably lost in his own mind.
‘Bow down and worship Me. Renounce your offer and acknowledge Me as All.’
‘No! You want me to . . . renounce . . . because your possession of me would be all the sweeter. I renounce you!’
‘Do not spurn me, Sensitive! I sensed your promise when first I made to taste you. For too long a time have I been trapped within these lines. Riding these rails, feeding and tasting of pitiful creatures’ fear. Such as you are rare to taste. I have a claim on you. You are mine. And the promise you made to the Other must become a promise to Me. I waited for you to return. But you resisted. And your resistance was sweet.’
Again, the hissing, sibilant sound of water and fire. ‘Do not spurn Me, Sensitive. You should be overjoyed that I have wanted you.’
‘Go back to Hell where you belong!’ shouted Mark.
The Ghost Train Man’s face was flowing and changing as anger consumed him. Contorting and spreading like a wax mask in a flame. Mark could feel waves of hate radiating at him. Deep inside, fear was scratching and struggling to be free and Mark knew that this of all things would work to Azimuth’s advantage. He fought back, thought of Joanne and Helen, fuelled his anger. He thought of the months of lost life; of this hideous parasite feeding from his mind. He thought of all the other men, women and children who had been consumed by this monstrosity. And, as he fought, Azimuth’s rage grew stronger. Mark knew that now, free will or not, Azimuth meant to destroy him. The blurred face before him was shifting and changing. Mark fought down his own fear and horror as the eight jewelled eyes of a spider appeared on the darkening visage. A sibilant voice was hissing at him: You would have died without Me. And now, I may not have you, I may not embody within you, Sensitive. But here . . . in my domain, in time, I can destroy your mind.
Mark felt his resolve slipping. He turned away from what the Ghost Train Man was becoming. He screamed his anger and rage and knew that he was going to lose.
And then, he grasped at his shirt, found the small silver crucifix and gripped it tightly. In that instant, he saw Helen in a hospital bed, still in shock, knowing that she had not moved for over three days. But, as grief for his daughter flooded his soul, he could see that she was sitting up in bed. Her eyes were clearing.
‘Daddy . . .’
A nurse was hurrying across the ward towards her, was trying to restrain her, trying to make her lie down again. Helen’s eyes were flashing and angry.
‘
The Bad Man!’
‘There’s no bad man, dear. Now come on, try to sleep. Just lie down and relax!’
Mark could see that Helen was looking upwards straight at him, as if he was floating near the ward ceiling. Instinctively, he knew that his daughter possessed a special inner power that could help him, but that she was not strong enough now to save him from Azimuth.
‘The Bad Man!’
Mark felt his last defence crumbling when he saw the small shadowed shape walking noiselessly down the ward towards Helen’s bed. He knew that the nurse could not see the newcomer as he finally drew level on the other side of Helen’s bed. One arm was held upwards across his face, shielding it from sight. The other was held out across the bed to Helen, and Mark realised that the small figure was almost transparent; he could see the bed right through him. Helen’s hand moved across the counterpane and grasped that of the little boy. She looked up at her father with an increased intensity as Azimuth finally crawled through Mark’s defence.
‘No!’ shouted Helen and Mark felt something powerful beyond words flowing from her. He felt it blast into and through him, cleansing his cobwebbed mind. He felt Azimuth retreat from the attack. He felt it wither and retreat, spewing hate and malice. The screaming echoed louder and louder, then began to diminish.
Helen lay back in bed, closed her eyes and slept again.
Robbie was gone.
Mark felt all sensibility leave him. He pitched forward into a blank, safe place and knew nothing.
The speaker at York station repeated its message over and over again.
‘Passengers are requested to leave the station immediately. Please follow police instructions and leave the station by the nearest exit.’
It had been a much more difficult task to evacuate the station than had been anticipated, even with police supervision. Two trains, unaffected by the sudden and inexplicable fixing of the King’s Cross line and unaware of the danger, had arrived at other platforms, disgorging a flood of passengers. Keeping order was almost impossible as the milling crowds were hastily directed towards the exits. Something was very, very wrong. The speaker continued to repeat its message. The sense of unease began to grow; there was a feeling that something was coming.
Then came the pounding sound in the rails and the approach of a great wind.
The atmosphere had changed. An instinctive rising tide of panic began to manifest itself in the bustling passengers. The entreaties of the speaker and the shouted police commands to evacuate the station in an orderly manner fell on deaf ears. The panic swelled and suddenly there was a chaotic rush for the ticket barriers. The station echoed to frenzied screams as the terrified crowd swarmed at the barriers in a desperate attempt to get away from the station. Passengers who fell to the platform were crushed underfoot. Police struggled desperately to control the crowd, their own instinctive fear at the unknown approaching horror suddenly overcoming their sense of duty as they joined the fearful stampede.
A great roaring filled the station. The superstructure began to vibrate. Windows and overhead skylights suddenly exploded, showering the crowd with deadly shards of glass.
When the mutated King’s Cross train rounded a bend and screamed towards the platform, the first passengers to see it were insane even before it exploded into the station.
Ten
‘No. Let me stay dead. You promised . . .’
You cannot dwell within Me until you have completed your bargain.
‘I did everything that you told me, Master. Everything.’
No, not everything. Four of the Chosen Food still live. I must taste them.
‘Oh, Master. I’m so tired. Please let me die.’
No, I will give you strength. When the four are tasted, then you may join Me.
Death’s abyss gave way to swirling patterns of light as new life began to focus and merge. Swimming upwards from the depths of a dark, dark lake towards the speckling of light on the surface. Higher and higher; faster and faster. And now, exploding upwards into the light. Breathing.
Phil the Tiger pulled himself up from the floor. He looked at what had been his wife and child, looked at the carnage around him and was well pleased. Grinning, his face streaked with blood, he looked down to where the knife still protruded from his stomach. He pulled it out slowly, marvelling at it. There was a five-inch gaping wound there; an intestine glinted blue-white in the aperture. But Phil was not dead. Dark fire surged in his veins, and he let it flow, let it blossom and spread. The essence that was Philip Gascoyne mingled with another essence, of Azimuth. And then, eyes glittering, the Undead Catalyst pulled itself stiffly to its feet, swaying from side to side, the gory knife fixed in its fist. It laughed. And the laugh was not human. It looked at the knife in its hand, examining it thoughtfully, and then laughed again before dropping it to the bloody floor.
It shambled down the carriage towards the rear of the train, paying no heed to the broken bodies that lay sprawled and contorted in its path. It trod on broken limbs and scattered luggage as it flopped and clawed its way stiffly past the buffet car and into the guard’s van.
The guard lay awkwardly in his small office compartment, a radio receiver clenched in his fist, the radio wire wrapped tightly around his neck. His face was blue, eyes starting from his head. But the Catalyst ignored him as it moved to the glass case housing the fire axe. At the second leaden kick, the glass shattered and the Catalyst pulled the axe free. For a second, the Catalyst swayed from side to side, the axe swinging loosely in its grasp. Then it left the guard’s van, clutching the axe firmly. It laughed again.
It stumbled back in the direction of the first-class carriages.
‘This is Flight Two-Niner-Seven to Flight Control. Over.’
‘This is Flight Control. Go ahead, Two-Niner-Seven.’
‘What the hell is going on down there? The entire countryside is just a massive criss-cross of light beams. Somebody playing dot-to-dot down there? Over.’
‘We’re aware of the situation, Two-Niner-Seven. Proceed on a circular course and await further instructions. Over.’
‘Where the hell are the landing lights, Flight Control? We can’t make out anything in this crazy zig-zag. Over.’
‘Continue on a circular course, Two-Niner-Seven. We’ve got a crew out marking our own lights with beacons and flares. Over.’
‘Flight Control, we . . .’
‘Didn’t catch that last one, Two-Niner-Seven. Over.’
‘We’ve got a systems failure here, Flight Control! Stand by. Over.’
Silence.
‘Flight Control, this is Two-Niner-Seven! We’ve got a massive systems failure here. It’s crazy. None of my instruments are making any sense. I’m going to have to put her down now.’
‘Two-Niner-Seven! The flares and beacons are being placed at . . .’
‘Flight Control, we don’t have time. We’re coming in. Over and out.’
Three minutes later, Flight 297, with its one hundred and thirty passengers and twelve crew, hit a housing estate.
‘Developments, Brigadier?’
‘We’ve sent up two helicopters for an infra-red scan of the train and received only one brief report before communications broke down again. There was a rather panicky, garbled message about the actual appearance of the train but we couldn’t make any sense of it. However, it would appear that everyone on the train is dead.’
‘My God! And the helicopters?’
‘Both crashed. Systems failure. We’ve sent men out to the line to observe as the train passes. But we’re not getting anything back. We’re experiencing the same kind of communications breakdown. No one has come back to report. Have you heard anything further from Jackson at Eastern Region in York?’
‘Nothing.’
‘We have to assume that the helicopter report is accurate and t
hat there is no one left alive on that train. And if we assume that the thing is going to increase its speed at the present rate, it will hit King’s Cross like a bomb. I’m therefore authorising a controlled derailment. Since we can’t touch those bloody railway tracks, I’m sending out a squad to blow up a stretch of line outside Doncaster. That seems to be the only way we’re going to stop the damned thing.’
Chadderton watched as the soldier finished applying the tourniquet to the priest’s arm. They had sat him up in his seat so that the blood would not flow so freely.
‘Here,’ said the soldier, ‘hold his arm up like this.’
Chadderton took the priest’s arm and the soldier went back to his girlfriend.
‘What’s going to happen, mister?’ said the girl, her voice trembling; little-girl fear and helplessness still registering on her face.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Chadderton, feeling weaker and more helpless than he had ever done in his life. There had been no alternative to allowing Mark to leave the compartment and go to the foul thing that was driving the train. But Chadderton still felt bad. Mark was walking straight into hell. And there could be no guarantee, despite his new-found ‘instinct’, that he would ever come back again. Helpless, Chadderton sat looking at the priest. They had tried repeatedly, since Mark left, to get him to recover. He remembered what Mark had said about Father Daniels being the only person who could stop Azimuth; about the exorcism being the only thing that could halt it. He remembered the look of fear on the priest’s face when they had been attacked in the church vestry and, for an instant, he wondered if Father Daniels’ fear reflected a lack of faith in his own ability to vanquish what he had seen. He wondered whether an exorcism would ever stop Azimuth in its tracks; or whether the priest’s own fear had militated against them from the very beginning. He thought of the abomination that had been in his own mind, revelling in his hate and horror. He thought of his wife; of a neatly trimmed, well-kept back lawn and a car that was in the garage when it should not have been there . . .
