Hell Train (15 page)

The fresh night air from the open door helped bring her to her senses. She checked her arm, and found it had stopped bleeding, but it felt infected. Leaning out, she saw a row of glowing oil lamps in the distance. The
Arkangel
had drawn to a stop just before the next station, Schlopelo, at the start of the platform. Without thinking twice, she tumbled from the carriage and hobbled across the tracks.

The station looked forlorn and derelict. There were no passengers waiting to board here. She ran up onto the slope to the deserted concourse. Whispy trails of mist hung beneath the station canopy like spiderwebs. Passing beyond the circles of dim light cast by the hanging lamps, she trod carefully in the gloom and called, ‘Is anybody there?’

There had to be someone. Why else would the lamps be lit? She glanced back and saw the great train idling, panting steam, catching its breath, as if waiting for her to decide what to do. It felt as if the
Arkangel
and its stations were colluding against her, deliberately unleashing this disgusting creature upon her to draw out her basest instincts.

The thought was absurd, but surely no more impossible than the pale reeking monster that had stalked her. The Conductor would probably be checking the compartments now to find out why the cord had been pulled. Thomas was useless, gone, caring for nothing but himself. She would find a way out of her predicament unaided. Some cold part of her heart had always expected that she would be required to do so.

Miranda peered into the shadows and saw what appeared to be stacks of luggage piled against the walls, so somebody must have been here. On closer examination she saw that the bags were covered in dust and cobwebs. At least there was a waiting room, even if it looked as if it had not been used in fifty years. She would sleep there if she had to, and set off for the nearest town in the morning.

She searched back along the platform, hearing a shuffling behind the rusted equipment that lay stacked against the station walls. Rats were watching her, but there was no sign of the ghoul. Perhaps it was unable to entirely leave the train. Who could begin to understand the arcane rules under which it survived?

As she walked, she saw that the station windows were crusted with grime and cracked from one corner to the next. The building appeared to have been long abandoned. But according to the map it was on one of very few rail routes through the country.

Pulling her jacket about her, she assessed her situation. She needed warmth, sustenance, medical help for her bitten shoulder, and it didn’t seem that she would find it here. But she couldn’t go back to the train, not so long as that thing was on board. Damn Scheffen—he must have known what could happen. That was why he’d been so willing to part with company cash—he hadn’t wanted to undertake the job himself. He had danced her about like a string puppet. And her husband had met the fate he most feared.

Something scampered across the platform, vanishing into the fog. She tried to see what it was, but dismissed it as a fox or cat. She was a country girl, not easily disturbed by creatures whose appetites she could understand.

She entered the wooden ticket hall, pushing apart cobwebs. Finding a dust-caked window, she peered inside. The room showed no sign of habitation, and yet something was moving about within.

She peered closer, startling a great red-eyed rat.

Stepping back, she let it pass, watching as its pink tail trailed across the floor, longing to beat it with a broom.

It was too cold to stay here, and too dangerous to return to the train. She had no jacket, no bags, and her shoulder hurt like Hades.

As much as she had at first felt safer at the station, she now also sensed something terribly wrong. An odd bitter smell of earth and animals and death, growing heavier by the second, and a faint sound, like a cow breathing. It was coming from above.

Slowly she looked up.

The Biter was hanging upside down from the ceiling. Its claws dug into the plasterwork, which sifted down onto her. Its shroud was folded about it like a great blanched bat.

There was no more screaming now. Miranda ran. The Biter dropped in near-silence and scuttled after her, enjoying the chase. Back out on the platform, she reached the edge of the tracks, dropped down and set off over cinders and gravel.
I can be too easily found on the station,
she thought.
It will be safer away from the lights. Royal family! Hunting its prey like vermin, so much for the dignity of fine breeding.

It was not following. That was good. No—not good. Enshrouded by the mist, she had not seen that she was entering the station’s siding, leading to a dead end.

Her hunter was in no hurry. It knew that she was trapped, and could close in for the kill at its leisure.

She realised what was bothering her. It had been here before. It knew the station’s layout. But how was that possible?

With the idling train still at its back, the Biter followed her at an ambling pace, raising its head to sniff the air, coming closer through the parting fog, waiting for the moment to strike. As it bore down on her, she looked up and saw it in magnificent triumph, stalking her with great patience, immensely tall and rotted, wreathed in scraps of glistening night air. There was an air of decayed nobility about it, as if even in life it had enjoyed preying on its subjects.

Miranda had reached the end of the siding, where coal was stacked for the tenders. She saw with a sinking heart that there was no possible way out. Climbing the fence and the embankment would take too long.

The etiolated creature was through with playing. It wanted to feed. It cartwheeled toward her, settling upon her like a vast bat, parting its needle teeth to take out her throat. It fidgeted to find the best position.

As the ghoul prepared to feast on her blood, Miranda knew that these were the last moments of her life, lost in the darkness of a strange land, far from the country she loved, abandoned even by her cowardly husband, the man she had been foolish enough to marry. All she felt now was the disappointment of not having appreciated the rules of the game.

Reaching down, the Carpathian buried one clawed hand into her wounded shoulder, causing her to yelp in pain while it snatched back the royal seal with the other. She saw its mouth, smeared with her blood. Its eyes were growing brighter.

T
HE RAILWAY SIGNAL
changed its position with a clang. Back on the train, Nicholas heard a terrible inhuman cry out in the night and ran to the window. ‘God, what is that?’ he asked Isabella. Unclipping a torch from the carriage rack, he shone it into the dark.

There, in the siding, something white was hunched over, feeding.

‘Hey, driver,’ he shouted, leaning from the window, ‘more light!’

The driver heard his call and raised the train’s fierce main beam. It caught the signal and the scene beyond it. The Biter reared up above Miranda, baring its bloody teeth, lost in sensual gluttony.

Nicholas saw the raised light from the train hit the siding signal. It threw a huge crucifix of shadow over the ghoul, transfixing it. Miranda seized the unexpected moment, shoving the unholy creature back into the centre of the cross.

The Biter flinched in pain and looked up to find itself trapped within the negative cruciform. Much to its surprise it burst into flame, as Miranda screamed with delight.

The Biter’s body scarred in bloody segments as it shifted about, trying to free itself. The crucifix of shadow seared its skin. Miranda seized the moment to snatch back the seal. As the train curved towards her, she scrambled to her feet and ran.

The
Arkangel
’s wheels turned more quickly as it began to pick up speed and leave the station. Miranda was losing blood, losing consciousness, but she had regained her booty, and now there was only one thought in her head—
Get back on board before the chance is lost
. In its death throes, the burning ghoul managed to roll free of its trap. Summoning the remains of its dying strength, it soared up and strode behind her.

Hunter and pursued were caught in the glare of the train. As the
Arkangel
rolled forward, its headlight grew more intense. Miranda looked up in time to see the Biter’s flaming form come at her, its screaming mouth agape. It was in agony, and nothing would stop its attack.

Isabella had seen the ghoul catch fire from her window. Now Miranda was running toward her, bloodied, wailing, the creature closing in behind her. Opening the door, she leaned out as far as she dared and outstretched her arm, calling to her.

Miranda knew that if she could reach help she might still leave the Biter behind. But even now, when she had a slender chance to save herself, she fought to retain the monarch’s golden seal, gripping it tightly to her breast. It was all she had left.

‘Damn you!’ she yelled in the creature’s startled face as it appeared beside her, ‘Don’t you think I earned this? You’re dead, what do you need it for?’ But of course the ghoul had more need of it than she, for without it there could be no true rest.

Miranda had managed to hang onto the seal, but its spikes were searing her palm. Still she would not relinquish it.

She had almost reached the carriage.

Isabella’s fingers touched Miranda’s—she had hold of her, but Miranda had the gold seal in her other hand, and the demon was reaching for it, its hands opening and closing in a grasping gesture, then seizing and dragging at the chain, determined now to remain attached.

Miranda pulled at the golden rope but it would not come free. Pressing its advantage, the Biter used the chain to pull itself forward. The creature’s spindly legs kept pace beside the train. The righteous flames that tormented its skin had burned out, and it was starting to revive.

Miranda tried to pull the chain toward her, but the Biter would not let go. Her greed had locked them both in place, conjoining their fates. The train was rapidly approaching the signal, which reared up before them like a great standing cross.

The Biter swung in to avoid it, but there was another smaller signal behind. She saw it happen moment by moment. The second signal’s metal arm went through the Biter’s rotten flesh, slicing it open at the hand and the shoulder, severing its limbs and freeing its yellow head, which bounced and tumbled away from the train as its body collapsed. It was an undignified end for a man who had once been a crowned prince of Europe. She wanted to laugh in the face that rolled over and over, still eyeing the seal.

Suddenly released, Miranda fell back, covered in the Biter’s gore—she was free, still holding the burning chain as the train passed her. But why was it growing hotter? The seal was still in the control of its owner, it was as if it had a mind of its own. Looking down, she saw the Biter’s lopped-off hand, still tightly gripping the chain.

She was free, and had managed to pace beside the train. Its doors and windows were tauntingly close.

Miranda felt the chain move, and looked down as the end with the clasp snaked out into darkness and under the rolling carriage, lost from sight. She tried to stop in time to pull it free, but it was too late.

It felt as if it was wrapping itself around the axle of the train’s wheels, and although she tried to let go her flesh was stuck to it now. The seal was holding her back. Suddenly the chain went taut, then pulled hard.

It dragged her underneath the hurtling cars, slamming her body over the sleepers. The vicar’s little wife was quickly torn to bloody scraps of flesh and bone, until there was nothing recognizably human about her.

And the Biter—

—the biter—

—the bite—

—bite—

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE STUDIO

‘B
ITE.
’

‘What?’

‘A bite. Look, just here. You brute.’

Emma twisted about before the mirror and examined the small blue bruise on the back of her neck. The hotel bedroom was unbearably hot, but they had not been able to turn off the radiator.

‘Show me,’ said Shane. ‘Good God, did I do that? And on your arm. I didn’t mean to. I get carried away sometimes.’

‘Sometimes?’ Emma arched an eyebrow at him. She was wearing the most extraordinary brassiere, like ribbed white armour plating. He had given up trying to get it off. Perhaps all Englishwomen wore them. Emma was a different species to the kind of women he met in California: paler and calmer, with a confusing sense of privacy that stopped him from knowing which subjects were off-limits. Surprisingly free-minded in bed, though.

She rose and went to the window, sliding it open a little while he lit a cigarette. The wood was damp and stuck in the frame. She could smell the trees, the river, the night. She picked up a dogeared paperback from the table and examined it. ‘Getting ideas from this?’

‘What, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the history of the First World War? Sort of. It all goes into my head and comes out into the typewriter. No idea appears by itself.’

‘Interesting. I’ll never really understand how writers work. I suppose this is a holiday fling for you. Five days to write a script. End of day one. What an awful lot you’ve achieved.’ He had let her read the pages, and couldn’t tell if she was making fun of him.

‘If the screenplay flies, I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘I have no reason to go rushing back to Hollywood.’

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I think you’d find it all a bit small here. And you’d probably end up hating me. I just don’t want you to feel trapped.’ She turned to him, radiant and resigned. ‘What I mean is, it’s fine as it is. I’ll be fine.’

‘I’m sure you would be.’

She tried to frame her words a little more exactly. ‘I mean, your reputation precedes you. I knew what I was getting into.’

Shane had been romantically linked with one of Corman’s leading ladies. He was surprised she had heard about it. ‘I guess word travels fast. Well, don’t believe everything you hear. And don’t forget we’ll be working together.’

‘I’m not sure the place is quite your style. If you only knew how the company worked.’