Hell train, p.1
Hell Train, page 1
HELL TRAIN
CURSED MANUSCRIPTS
IAIN ROB WRIGHT
ULCERATED PRESS
CONTENTS
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Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Epilogue 2
TEASER FOR ‘WITCH’
Plea From the Author
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Dedicated to those crazy, freedom loving warriors of Ukraine. The heroes we never knew we needed.
Also, my thanks to you, for reading this book!
“I will be stronger than my sadness.”
- Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes
“You’ll always be late for the previous train and on time for the next.”
- Piet Hein
“There’s something strange in that man’s head.”
- Dinah Bellman, The Langoliers
FOREWORD
One of my favourite horror stories is The Langoliers. I love Stephen King’s novella, but I really, really love the TV mini-series. It’s hokey and low-budget and old, with a really odd little child actor, but there’s just something so… cosy about it. A bunch of strangers stuck on a plane trying to figure out where everyone else went. I love stories like that! Trap a bunch of strangers in a bar, an airplane, a boat… and it’s a recipe for a fun time.
The Langoliers is a common horror set-up nowadays, but like many things, Stephen King helped make it popular. My very first novel, Final Winter, followed this simple formula of sticking a bunch of strangers in a single cramped location and then messing with them for 300 pages. That time it was a crappy old pub during a snowstorm.
This time it’s something different.
The book you are about to read sticks thirteen strangers on a train and then subjects them to a not-very-good-time. It’s very much my love letter to The Langoliers, and I hope that shines through (there are even a few Easter eggs hidden for those with a nose for such things), but I also hope you find it unique and interesting. I have taken Stephen King’s seeds and grown them into a tree of my own. I hope you enjoy its stinky fruit.
Anyway, without further ado, please have your tickets ready as you step aboard… the Hell Train.
With love,
Iain
PROLOGUE
The sun stuck to the sky like an amber sequin. A crisp breeze carried the scent of spring. It was the perfect day for a train ride.
Dan Purvis rattled the keys in his pocket as he stepped aboard the refurbished Rail Class 350e, fresh from the depot and nigh unrecognisable from the last time he’d seen it. Modern grey contour chairs had replaced the scruffy ‘ironing board’ seats, and electronic destination tickers punctuated the end of every carriage. There were even brand-new LCD billboards displaying adverts and local information. Only an experienced train operator like Dan recognised the 350e for what it was – a twenty-year-old relic missing its fourth carriage – but the thing was, he loved the relics.
Maybe because I’m a relic too. My knees have certainly seen better days.
Trains were like people. Each had a history and a personality; each rattled and rolled in its own distinct way; and each possessed its own set of groans and grumbles. After eighteen years on the rails, Dan knew every train in the fleet from its bolts to its windscreen wipers. This one, because of the ongoing issues with its fourth carriage, he always thought of as ‘Shorty’.
Today, Dan was operating the route between the town of Whitegale and Birmingham’s bustling New Street Station. It was his preferred route, because he lived in Whitegale with his wife, Sharon, and the forty-five-minute journey was second nature to him. It was typically uneventful.
Yet, that afternoon, he felt oddly excited. Maybe it was the welcome scent of spring in the air after a particularly dreary winter, or perhaps he’d merely slept well. Whatever the reason, he was light on his feet and smiling as he passed through the rear carriage – something he liked to do before every shift to check that everything was in order. You never knew where a pile of vomit or a smouldering cigarette might be hiding.
Dan nodded dutifully to the passengers as he strolled down the aisle between the two rows of paired seats, greeting them out of professional habit more than a desire to say hello. Politeness was ingrained into him after so many years working with the public.
Despite how little of it they show back.
He stopped to check out one of the bright new ad displays. A thirty-second clip tried desperately to convince him to buy a Le Grande Mar ‘Good Guy’ robotic vacuum cleaner. By the time it had finished, he was actually in two minds about getting one for Sharon. Housework wasn’t as easy for her lately. The two of them were getting old. If only he had the money to retire and be with her… They had always spoken about Spain.
Sipping sangria on the beach. Spending our days reading Grisham and eating alfresco.
Where did our lives go so suddenly? I can’t even remember what we were like in our twenties.
In love. We were in love. We still are. I just had more hair back then. And more time…
Dan’s cheery mood turned sour when he entered the middle carriage and spotted a pair of ‘roadmen’. The ne’er-do-wells were everywhere lately, spilling out of Birmingham’s urban centres and causing havoc in the surrounding towns and villages. Along with dealing drugs, the hooded youths seemed hellbent on committing whatever crimes they could, for little or no reason. Two stabbings in Whitegale had occurred in the last year alone. People were frightened stepping foot outside their homes.
This country is getting worse. In every way. People only think about themselves.
As expected, the two roadmen glared at Dan as he walked by them. One was a white lad with bright, staring eyes. The other was an older black lad with dark, beady eyes. Both had their hoods up over their heads and bandanas over their mouths – a key part of their identity. A braver – or larger – man might have told them to show their faces, but Dan chose to ignore them in the hope they would alight at the next station. The stories he could tell about courageous train drivers taking on troublemakers were endless, and few ended well for the driver. Dan had once made the mistake of shushing a pair of drunk ladies on a Saturday night. One had spat in his face. The other had poured vodka over his head.
It shouldn’t be my job to deal with thugs. The police should arrest them.
To keep from losing his temper, Dan marched into the last carriage. It was the same as the other two, except it lacked a toilet cubicle and instead housed a cramped operator’s cabin at the front. Four passengers currently occupied this section of the train – an old couple holding hands sat in one of the face-to-face table sections, while a heavyset young black man in a shirt and tie sat a few seats away. Last, there was a long-legged, middle-aged gentleman in loose jeans and an olive-green jumper sitting in an aisle seat. The afternoon shift was quiet, but Dan was working until ten, so there was plenty of time for that to change.
And then back home. Hopefully before Sharon falls asleep. Maybe we can doze off to an episode of River Monsters together.
“Excuse me, driver?” the old lady called out from beside her husband.
Dan smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you know which train we need to take from New Street to Gloucestershire?”
“Um… you know, I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s platform eleven, but you’re best off asking at the ticket office. Sorry.”
“That’s quite all right,” said the old man next to her. “I’m sure there are far too many routes for one man to remember.”
“And they change constantly,” said Dan, tucking his hands into the pockets of his navy-blue blazer. “About as often as the weather. Are you both off on a day trip?”
“Funeral,” said the old man.
“Oh, my condolences.”
The man waved a wrinkled hand dismissively at Dan. “Bah, it’s only a second cousin. I barely knew the man, but when you reach our age, funerals are the only thing on the calendar.”
His wife gave him an elbow. “Oh, Eric! Don’t be so morose. You’ll have the man scared to grow old.”
Dan chuckled. “I think the train’s already left the station on that one. Anyway, you folks enjoy your trip. Safe journey.”
The old man grunted. “That has more to do with you than us.”
“You have a point. I’ll be sure to watch my speed.”
Dan continued on to the front of the carriage, his mood growing ever brighter.
Bradley Martin, the dawn shift operator that Dan was relieving, stood outside the operator’s cabin door, yawning and stretching, his eyes bloodshot. The poor sod had likely been at the King’s Heath depot for five thirty that morning, and it was now 1 pm. Dan hadn’t taken a dawn shift in years. He felt tired at the mere thought of it. He and Sharon were both night owls. They loved to read together in the silence of a sleeping world.
Bradley waved wearily when he saw Dan. He had tied his navy-blue blaze
“You okay to drop me off at Ronchurch, mate?” Bradley asked Dan.
“Yeah, of course. How was the morning shift?”
“Busy, as usual. We can’t all get the cushy afternoon runs like you.”
Dan smirked. “You’ll get to pick your own hours when you’ve been doing this as long as I have.”
“Hey, this is just a temporary gig, mate. That’s what I said four years ago and I’m sticking to it.”
“That’s what they all say, but this life has a way of keeping you.” Dan chuckled to himself. “Perhaps it’s the calming thrum of the motors, or the quiet dignity of getting people to where they need to go.”
“Or maybe it’s the steady pay cheque, mate. Anyway…” Bradley stood aside to allow Dan inside the cabin. “Your chariot awaits, sir.”
“Thanks, Bradley.”
There wasn’t enough room inside Shorty’s cabin for two, so Bradley sat outside on a nearby passenger seat, pulling out his mobile phone and tapping away with a stylus on a ridiculously large screen. At some point in his late forties, technology had passed Dan by. Televisions had got thinner, mobile phones larger, and suddenly it had all ceased to interest him. Progress had stopped for him shortly after the arrival of self-checkouts at the supermarkets. He just hoped to retire before trains started operating themselves.
I’m too old to learn to do something else.
Come on, Dan, you’re barely past fifty.
But this is a young man’s world. Too many flashing screens and tiny buttons. It took me nigh on a year to learn the Internet.
Dan grinned as he watched Bradley tapping away at his screen. Honey, I’m on my way home. Bradley had recently got married and his wife was six months pregnant. Dan was envious. He held few regrets, but having never had children was one of them. Not that it had been his fault. Sharon had never been able to.
It’s not her fault either. Just a twist of fate.
But fate can be a sonofabitch. It’s not fair.
Dan closed the operator’s cabin door and stuck his master key into the console. After performing a quick system check, he started up the electric motors and signed his name into the operator’s log. Each carriage was self-propelled, but the main thrust came from the motor carriage up front. Like the rest of the train, the operator’s cabin had been upgraded and now had the latest radio equipment and CCTV. The cabin even had a new car smell.
A knock on the door. Bradley’s voice.
Dan opened the door and asked what his colleague wanted.
“I forgot to warn you,” said Bradley. “There’s a right mess on the tracks about two miles up. Might turn your stomach if you’re not prepared for it.”
Dan frowned. “What is it?”
“A proper bloodbath, mate. The foxes must have had a good night. I called it in, but you know what they’re like. It’ll probably get left there to rot until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Okay, I’ll keep an eye out.”
Bradley nodded downwards. “Talking of bloodbaths. What on earth did you do to your hand?”
Dan brought up his left hand and saw blood. He rotated his wrist, but there was no wound on his palm or on the backs of his knuckles. His shirt cuff was tinged red. “I have no idea. I’m not even sure it’s my blood.”
Bradley grimaced. “Best get yourself cleaned up, mate. Can’t drive a train one-handed.”
“I’m pretty sure you can, Bradley.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” He chuckled. “Anyway, prepare yourself for the mess on the tracks. It’s a shocker.”
Dan nodded and slipped back inside the cabin. Dead animals on the track weren’t uncommon. Sometimes they got hit by trains. Other times, small prey got hunted out on the open tracks, where they found themselves penned in by wire fences and steep embankments. It wasn’t uncommon, so for Bradley to mention it…
There were a few minutes left before departure, so Dan used the time to open up the first aid box on the wall. He unbuttoned his sleeve and exposed the cause of the bleeding – a short, deep gash marking his wrist four inches up from his palm. Now he was aware of the injury, it throbbed and stung, so he covered the cut with a medium-sized plaster and used antiseptic gauze to clean the blood off his hand. He could do nothing about his stained shirt cuff except tuck it up underneath his blazer.
It was time to leave.
Dan honked the departure horn and waited another two minutes before closing the carriage doors. With a throaty whine, the train moved, battling inertia and picking up speed. By the time Shorty’s rear carriage left Whitegale’s single, seventy-foot concrete platform, Dan had got the motor up to fifteen miles an hour. By the time he reached Ronchurch, he might get her up to sixty.
A few minutes later, as Bradley had warned, the train approached a massacre. Dark blood stained the track for a dozen metres, and glistening entrails coated the rails like chunky salsa. The carcasses appeared to be from rabbits, five or six of them slaughtered in a neat, evenly spaced line. Dan put a fist to his mouth to keep from retching. It really was stomach-turning. At least with the massacre being in the centre of the tracks, none of the passengers would see it.
The blood on the tracks caused a temporary loss of friction, but nothing to worry about – just a slight wobble – and within seconds, the train had hurtled past the grizzly mess.
Dan eyed the CCTV monitor, studying the two roadmen to see if they were behaving. The hooded youths appeared to be chatting with two other passengers – a lad and a girl – on the other side of the aisle. If those passengers knew what was good for them, they’d avoid an argument. It was never worth it.
Ten minutes passed, and the train approached Ronchurch station. Dan applied the brakes evenly and pulled down on the thrust lever, bringing Shorty to a smooth, controlled stop. Once the last of the momentum bled away, and the wheels settled on the rails, Dan hit the door release. No passengers waited on the platform, but he still needed to linger for a minute, else he would run ahead of schedule.
Bradley knocked on the door. Dan opened it with a smile. “You off, mate?”
“Yeah, another day done. I’m not working tomorrow, so I’ll probably see you on Wednesday. Give my love to Sharon.”
Dan cleared his throat. “Sure thing. I hope everything’s okay with the baby. Go safe, Bradley.”
Bradley went to leave, but stopped and turned back. “Hey, did you see what I was talking about on the tracks? I think it’s burned into my brain.”
“It was a bloodbath, just like you said. Try not to think about it.”
“I’ll try, but it was so strange. The way the bodies were all arranged in a line along the tracks… Oh, and that’s not the only weird thing I saw today. Pay attention to the tunnel up ahead. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a work of art. Some people have too much time on their hands, I swear.”
“Sounds like you’ve had quite the day, Bradley. Try to enjoy your afternoon.”
“You too, mate. See ya!” Bradley exited the train through the nearest passenger door and headed towards some concrete steps leading out of the station and onto the main road.
Dan waited out the rest of the minute before closing the doors, then got Shorty moving again. He checked the dot matrix for upcoming line information and to make sure nothing was coming the other way.
