Above His Station (4 page)

I was in a heap of trouble.

‘You’re in a heap of trouble,’ said the rat.

‘I know,’ I said to it, clambering back onto the platform. ‘But you needn’t act so smug! Tigers eat rats just as much as people.’

‘True,’ said the rat, skipping through the iron bars of the gate. ‘But I’m over here and you’re over there, so I’m as safe as fucking houses.’

Hearing a sound like a motorcycle ticking over, I peered over the edge of the platform and then I saw it. A bloody massive tiger! I’d only ever seen one up close many years ago when Molly and I had taken the children to Marwell during the school holidays, but this one looked a lot bigger. Disconcertingly, the white fur around its mouth was tainted with blood. I prayed that meant that its belly was already full and it wouldn’t be interested in me, but I couldn’t pin all my hopes on it not being a greedy bastard and wanting seconds.

‘It’s all right for you, spouting off advice!’ I said to the rat, crossly. ‘Can’t you do something useful like tell me how to get out of this place?’

‘You’re the one that works here. Don’t you have a key?’

I patted down my pockets even though I knew perfectly well that I didn’t have one. I assumed that I would be allocated a set once I’d officially taken my post.

‘This is my first day!’ I replied

To which the rat said: ‘Bummer.’

The tiger roared and I saw one of its paws swipe up at the edge of the platform. I knew those things could leap quite a distance, but as high as the platform? Possibly. And knowing my luck - probably. I didn’t fancy risking it. The tiger swiped again with a paw as big as a box of biscuits. It was toying with me, seeing if I was a threat – which clearly I was not. A petrified old man with no weapons and nowhere to run was hardly a threat to anyone or anything. I was nothing but an easy meal. I began to wonder what it felt like to be eaten alive. Would I pass out from the shock of it all? Or would I be conscious enough to feel every excruciating moment? I’d seen one of Attenborough’s programmes once about tigers and I could picture it clearly I my head, which didn’t exactly fill me full of confidence. Tigers were very strong, but only capable of short bursts of speed. They would lie in wait, crawling through the grass on their bellies, and then when their prey least expect it they would burst out, going for the legs, trying to fell the zebra or gazelle or what-have-you. Once it was down they would gorge on their kill and wouldn’t have to eat again for several days. I didn’t think that I would make a very attractive meal; my skin sagged from my bones and I was hardly what you might call obese, but I supposed that the tiger wouldn’t be all that fussy.

‘This is madness!’ I cried, believing the statement to be fact. ‘How can this be
happening?
’

‘Rule of thumb, Gramps,’ said the rat, ‘when the World turns to shit, it’s survival of the fittest and don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly look at your peak.’

‘Where are its keepers?’ I yelled. ‘Where are the police? Where’s the bloody RSPCA when you need them? The amount of times that I’ve given
them
help over the years, the least they could do is return the favour!’

If I’d had time on my hands I might have considered a good sulk, but seeing as I didn’t, I set my mind back to the task at hand. Luckily for me, I happened upon a brilliant idea. I rushed back to the end of the platform and peered over the edge again. I could see the tiger at the other end and thankfully it hadn’t spotted me (although it knew full well where I was because I could hardly go anywhere). I crept down onto the tracks and made my way back to the emergency telephone. Positioned directly underneath it was a basic toolkit used by the maintenance engineers during the night-time hours if they needed to make urgent repairs to the tracks or tunnels. This station wasn’t in regular use, so I imagined their work wouldn’t bring them down here very often, but it still need to be maintained just in case. Either way, it mattered not a jot as I came across exactly what I was looking for. The toolkit contained various screwdrivers, hammers and spanners, plus an adjustable wrench. I smiled and stowed the metal box under my arm.

I had only taken one step back towards the platform when I felt movement in my trouser pocket. As I was holding the toolkit I couldn’t catch my Swiss Army knife before it slipped out and went clattering onto the tracks with a noise loud enough to wake the dead – and not to mention alert the tiger to my exact position.

I cursed (rather out of character, I admit) as I watched the tracks splutter and spurt electricity. I didn’t dare try to pick up the knife for fear of getting a few thousand volts through my system, but I thought it strange that the tracks were live and yet the tiger had somehow managed to navigate its way through the tunnels without getting fried to a crisp. It was either a very lucky cat, or it was fully aware of the dangers of the third rail.

All that passed through my mind relatively quickly, barely registering as I watched the tiger lock its eyes with mine. I felt like I was in one of those old Road Runner cartoons, when a starving Wile E. Coyote would stare longingly at the bird and see it all plucked and steaming as if it was fresh out of the oven (I would be Road Runner and not Wile E. Coyote, just so there’s no confusion).

The tiger made its way towards me and I was frozen to the spot, unable to move my feet. I tried to force my brain to understand my commands, but it was as if I was speaking double-dutch. If I didn’t move soon the beast would block my only escape: the gate at the end of the platform. Gripping the toolkit tighter, feeling the sharp corners dig into my side, I plucked up my courage and ran. I was nowhere near capable of the speed required, and I had just cocked my leg over the barrier when I felt a whoosh of air by my right side. I began to make my way back over to the gate, but as I glanced over my shoulder I saw a trail of blood from the edge of the platform and felt something wet on my leg. I had not even been aware that the tiger had mauled me, but my trousers had three large slashes in them and so did my thigh. I almost collapsed as the pain kicked in, the realisation delayed by my confused state. I was forced to drag my right leg behind me as I stumbled over to the gate. As I lost my grip on the toolkit, it crashed to the ground and the tools spilled out all over the platform. I quickly grabbed the adjustable wrench.

‘That looks painful,’ said the rat, nodding at my leg.

‘That’s because it is!’ I said, widening the wrench’s head so it would to fit the bolts fixing the heavy iron gate to the wall. ‘Now shut up so I can concentrate!’

The rat mimed a zipping motion across its mouth.

‘I can’t budge it!’ I yelled, casting the wrench to the ground in frustration. ‘It’s seized up.’ Losing my strength, I slumped down onto my backside, getting a closer look at my wounds. The cuts didn’t seem to be all that deep, but they burned like hellfire. I was done for. With no way out, no weapons to defend myself with and no energy to use them even if I did, contemplating my imminent end seemed the sensible thing to do. But just as I’d almost got used to the fact that I was going to die, I saw a flash of orange as the tiger leapt up onto the station platform. Now my death was even more of a certainty.

The tiger lowered its head with its eyes fixed upon me, its muscular shoulders swaying to and fro and it placed each padded paw carefully on the platform. It was almost as if the beast was grinning at me, as if it knew that I was terrified and it was enjoying every second of it – quite the opposite to my appreciation of the situation, of course.

‘I can’t bear to look,’ said the rat, slapping its paws over its eyes.

I wanted to do the same. The tiger was doing a very good job of intimidating me; growling constantly, building in volume and pitch, making the ground beneath me tremble. As my fear blotted out my senses, making me blind to everything apart from the tiger, I watched the beast’s nose twitch. And then, I can only describe it as if some unseen force had grabbed hold of the tiger by its tail and yanked on it, causing the tiger to explode in a splatter of guts and blood. My fear then freed my senses, allowing me to appreciate what had happened with clearer eyes.

The vibration that had been so strong before was not the tiger’s growl, but the sound of an unannounced train arriving at Regal Street – and just in the nick of time too! The tiger’s tail had been over the edge of the platform and the vacuum had sucked the beast right into the train’s path, killing it instantly as it mashed it against the platform.

What remained was very much like those rugs that Big Game hunters used to have adorning their huts in the old films. The tiger was completely flat, all its organs compressed from its interior out of any available orifice. Its head was almost intact, and it would probably have fetched a pretty penny from a taxidermist had it not been for the fact that various internal organs had forcibly pushed themselves up its throat and out of its mouth.

I steadied my breath as I pulled myself up to my feet.

‘You are one lucky fucker,’ said the rat, and I was forced to agree.

Limping over to the train, I noticed that it was the same one that I had arrived upon a couple of hours before. It only had two compartments; the passenger car and the driver’s car. Stepping over the tiger’s body I cupped my hands to the windows. The car was empty. Something was up with the electrics as the doors wouldn’t budge, so I walked along to the driver’s side and tapped on the glass. Strangely, that car was vacant also. Desperately needing to have some sort of discussion with someone to gain another perspective on the situation, I turned to my singular source of conversation.

‘It’s completely empty,’ I said to the rat. ‘But then…who was driving the train?’

‘You tell me. Like I said, you’re the one that works here.’

‘And like I said, it’s my first day!’ I snapped.

‘Well…you sure know how to pick ‘em,’ said the rat.

‘Don’t I just,’ I muttered. The excitement had made me forget my wounds and I hissed as I felt my torn flesh seeping blood. It was as if the rat could read minds as well as talk, for it said:

‘You need to get stitched up, mate. You think there’s a first aid kit onboard?’

I took a painful step back and considered the rat’s suggestion. All the trains were equipped with first aid kits these days, front and rear compartments, but the only problem was, ‘I can’t get inside. The doors are jammed.’

‘So smash the bloody window!’ said the rat.

And then I said something that would make me grin like the Cheshire Cat whenever I recalled it after the event: ‘But…that’s vandalising company property.’

‘Fuck company property!’ said the rat. ‘Get that spanner and smash the bloody window. After what’s gone on topside, do you really think anyone’s going to give a shit?’

As much as it went against my grain, I smashed the wrench against one of the windows. It took several attempts before I even put a scratch in it. Giving up, I managed to jam the wrench into the small gap between the doors’ seals, and with a bit of strenuous effort that made my shoulders ache, I successfully wedged open the doors just wide enough for me to squeeze inside.

The compartment was just as I’d left it, for it had only been two-and-a-bit hours since my occupation, but as I moved up and opened the door into the driver’s car, I noticed something new. A navy-blue uniform was lying in crumpled heap on the floor. But not only that, next to it was a white shirt with the tie still fastened at its collar, a thermal vest that had seen better days, some underpants that were in an even worse state, even a pair of socks were discarded on the floor next to some shoes. What on earth had gone on? Had the driver lost his marbles? Don’t get me wrong, my old next-door neighbours were into a bit of naturism from time to time (how I kept a straight face as I spoke to the wife over the garden fence, I’ll never know), but most nudists don’t usually have a spontaneous compulsion to do it whilst they’re driving a flipping train!

‘You’re lucky this train came by when it did, mate!’ said the rat. ‘Thank god for timetables, eh?’

‘This station isn’t
on
any timetables,’ I corrected the rodent. ‘I wonder what made the driver return. Had he come to pick me up? And why on earth did he get his kit off?’

It is a little known fact that rats can frown. I know this because I have seen it.

‘You really don’t know?’ it asked. ‘Where the fuck have you been? On the Moon?’

‘I’ve been stuck down here for almost 3 hours!’ I said. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘Best you get that leg of yours sorted out first, mate,’ said the rat. ‘You’ll be sat down then so it’ll make it easier.’

‘How will that make it easier?’ I asked.

‘Because then if you pass out you wont have so far to fall.’

‘I see,’ I said, grabbing the first aid kit from behind the driver’s seat.

Something in the corner of my eye made me flinch and the hairiest bloody spider I’ve ever seen in my life scuttled out from under the control panel. I leapt in shock and stamped on the thing, squashing it flat.

‘Did you
have
to do that?’ asked the rat, in an accusatory fashion.

‘I hate spiders,’ was my defence. ‘Ever since I was a boy and my father threw one in the water when I was taking a bath. He said he was ‘
teaching me to face my fears
’. It made me less afraid of spiders, but even more afraid of baths - hence why they used to call me ‘Pongo’ at school.’

‘I can relate,’ nodded the rat.

We moved into the passenger car, where I pulled down my ripped trousers. I flinched as the material tore at my wounds. As I’d earlier surmised, the cuts weren’t that deep; the tiger’s claws had only caught me a glancing blow and they looked worse than they actually were. Even so, I shuddered to think how close I came to my end. At my age, I accepted that death was approaching at pace, but not quite at that speed, thank you very much!

Sat in my underpants with my trousers down around my ankles, I rummaged through the first aid kit. I hadn’t expected to find a needle and thread to stitch up my leg, so I wasn’t that surprised not to. I was fine with that as I dislike needles profusely. I dislike having my leg raked by a man-eating tiger profusely too, of course, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t sew up my own leg even if I wanted to, and I could hardly ask the rat to do it. Who knows what germs I might catch?