Surviving the Fall: How England Died (20 page)

Train to Hell

Chapter 1

Two hundred and fifty feet of wet clay above, and ten miles of darkness ahead and behind. The 1503 Eurostar train from Paris to London sat still in the black of the tunnel.

Thirty minutes of no movement. 

No announcements.

Sarah was going to miss her meeting in London, which meant she would have to arrange another meeting, which meant she would have to work late, which meant she wouldn’t be able to pick up Clarissa from nursery.

She tried to call her husband again. A busy signal. No internet connection either. She closed her laptop.

There was a hum of electricity and the sound of engines starting.

“Finally,” said Sarah to no-one in particular.

The train shunted forward slowly for a minute or so, and then stopped.

The electrical hum died, and then the lights died.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said under her breath.

A few lonely gasps echoed around the pitch black carriage. Someone let out a small murmur.

Under lighting from below the luggage rack flickered into life with a momentary buzz, bathing the carriage in a soft yellow glow. Like the night time incandescence on an overnight flight.

“This is ridiculous.” Sarah stood up and marched down the carriage towards the front of the train. She was going to find someone who knew what was going on.

The train was a lot less busy than she was used to, with many seats unoccupied. She guessed it was the virus that was keeping people from travelling. It had been all over the news for the past few days, the usual sensationalist fear mongering.

She reached the dining car and found her first Eurostar employee in the canteen.

“What the hell is happening?” said Sarah. “We’ve been sat here now for over thirty minutes.”

The young man behind the desk opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Sarah showed no sign of letting him speak.

“We should be in London by now. Instead I’m stuck here in the half darkness like some mole, with no phone signal, no wifi. I can’t even let the office know what is happening, I’m the Chief Finance Officer and I’m going to miss the finance meeting and who the hell is going to pick up my daughter from nursery?”

The young man tried his best to smile, “I’m afraid I don’t know, I have only been told-”

“What have you been told?”

“- I have been told that we are held up, for reasons unknown.”

“Reasons unknown? Bullshit. Someone always knows, just not you. Who the hell can I speak to that will tell me what is going on?”

The man pointed further up the carriage. “The conductor may be able to tell you madam,” he said.

“Right.”

Sarah turned on her heel and stomped through the next two carriages, looking for the conductor.

“Anyone seen the conductor? Is there a conductor around here?” said Sarah as she walked through the carriage. Most people ignored her, but one old man sheepishly pointed towards the front of the train. She half waved a thanks as she walked past.

The conductor was at the very front of the train. He was stood in a compartment separating the front carriage and the driver’s cab. The driver’s cab was open, and the conductor was talking to the driver. They spoke in low voices, but animated. The driver’s face was red and he looked angry. The conductor, a fat man with a small hat, held up his hand to silence the driver when he noticed Sarah enter the compartment.

“Yes madam, can I help you?”

“I hope you can,” she peered at his name badge, “Abdul. Are you able to tell me why we have been standing still for the last thirty minutes, and why we are now in near darkness?”

The conductor didn’t look happy with the questions.

“I’m sorry madam, but we are experiencing a few engineering difficulties at the moment. Once we have them resolved an announcement will be made.”

Sarah shook her head, tired of the wrote excuses.

Abdul continued, “If you could return to your seat please, madam.”

Sarah pointed her finger at him. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to accept that. I want more detail as to why this train had been sitting here for the past thirty minutes, why the power is gone, why no announcements have been made, and what you are going to do about it?”

Abdul didn’t look concerned with Sarah’s demands. “I’m sorry madam, but I am going to have to ask that you return to your seat and-”

“Now listen to me,” interrupted Sarah. Abdul raised one eyebrow, but made no effort to interrupt her back. “I am on the board of a very large and powerful multinational chemical company. We conduct much of our business on the European mainland and as such a large portion of our extensive travel budget is taken up with our employees using the Eurostar. I have met with the Eurostar board many times and am on first name terms with many of your top bosses.” Her voice was raised, and people in the compartment behind where craning their necks to listen in.

The conductor straightened his collar. His calm demeanour seemed to be slipping.

“It only takes one phone call to find out what is going on and to report obstructive personnel. I can’t make that call at this precise moment, of course, because the network is down, but networks won’t be down forever.” She paused for a moment, using her well practiced boardroom power speak to let her last comment and its implications sink in. “Now, I would like to know what is going on.”

There was a small chuckle from the compartment behind. Someone was enjoying the show.

The driver, who had been watching Sarah’s outburst with interest, said, “She may be able to help. If she has these connections, like.”

Abdul nodded. “What is your name, madam?

“Sarah. Sarah Beauchamp.”

“Good to meet you, Sarah. This is Alan, our driver. Please, this way.”

She followed Abdul and Alan into the cramped driver’s compartment. A futuristic dashboard with many flashing lights, most of them red, took up most of the small room. A large slanted window offered a view to the tunnel outside. The powerful lights of the train illuminated the tunnel for a good hundred metres or so ahead. Track, gravel, dirt, brick walls. The track sat on a camber which dipped either side to meet the tunnel walls. Imposing solid dark brick repeated forward into the black.

Sarah felt a twinge of vulnerability, their isolation so starkly illustrated by the silent tunnel, waiting to engulf the train..

“Right,” said Sarah, crossing her arms, but softening her tone. “So what’s happening Abdul?”

It was Alan who answered. “They’ve shut the bloody power off!” His eyes were wide open, and scared, thought Sarah.

“What do you mean?” she said.

Abdul motioned for Alan to be quiet. “About thirty minutes ago we were told to hold our position. Which we did, as you know. They gave us no reason as to why. We tried to contact control, but were told simply to hold.”

“Those bastards,” mumbled Alan. Sarah began to feel a bite of the same fear that had obviously taken hold of the driver.

“We tried to find out why,” said Abdul. “How long we would be here, but got nothing. Until about five minutes ago.”

Alan interrupted, “They told us they won’t let us in the station! Borders have been shut.”

“What?” said Sarah.

Abdul continued, “It’s like Alan said. While we’ve been under the channel, the government have shut the country’s borders. No one in, on account of the virus.”

“They can’t do that!” said Sarah.

“That’s what I bloody thought,” said Alan, “They can’t keep us out of our own country. So I got us moving again.”

“And that’s when they cut the power,” said Abdul. “We are running on battery power now - we can keep the air con on and some lights, but it won’t last long and it’s not enough to get us moving.”

“They can’t do this,” said Sarah, anger rising in her. She pulled out her phone, still no signal. “Fuck!” she threw the phone to the floor. It clattered into the corner of the room. Her cheeks flushed red. She picked up the phone.

Regaining her composure, she said “They can’t trap us like this.”

“They have,” said Abdul. “It seems things have… evolved… since we left Paris. We can’t go to the UK, and we can’t get to France. No one wants us, we are trapped.”

Alan sat in his now useless driver’s chair and flicked a few switches. “They shut the power off as soon as we started moving. Can’t believe it. I know some of the fellas in control, they wouldn’t do this. Must be bloody government.”

“I believe the directive has come from the top, Sarah,” said Abdul.

“Ok,” said Sarah, “Can you get me an outside line? There must be a way to contact someone in London? I was not bluffing about my contacts.”

“That’s what I was hoping.” He picked up a phone off the dashboard and passed it to Sarah. “This is the only line we have out of here, listen for yourself.”

She put the phone to her ear. It was ringing. She held it for a few more minutes, the three people standing in silence. It kept ringing.

Sarah turned to Abdul. “What if no-one answers? What are the protocols for evacuating the train?”

Abdul shrugged. “We can leave the train and walk up the service tunnel. There are entries every few hundred yards.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here. I think we should evacuate,” said Sarah.

Abdul looked thoughtful for a moment, then slowly nodded his head.

“You may be right,” said Abdul, “but we will have to be careful how we go about it. If we incite panic in the passengers, then, well, it could be very dangerous.”

“How many people are on the train?” said Sarah.

“Not many,” replied Abdul, “I think the manifest was around a hundred.”

Sarah winced, she had hoped for less.

“That’s not too bad,” said Abdul. “Normally we would have a few hundreds. This virus has really given people the frights.”

The virus. If it was serious, did that mean her family were in danger? She could count on Ian to go and get their daughter, but what if they catch it? How do people even catch it? She hadn’t paid much attention to the news over the past few days. She had been too busy.

Abdul was talking, but she only caught the end of his sentence, “… in one place, and that will be the easiest to manage.”

“What?”

“We need to get everyone in one place. We can put out a message for everyone to come to the front of the train.”

“Even then,” said Sarah, “we can’t be sure things won’t go bad.”

Abdul nodded. “Let’s just do it. The sooner the better.”

Chapter 2

David listened carefully to the message over the loudspeaker. Finally, some official recognition that they had been sitting in a dark tunnel for nearly an hour.

“If all passengers can move to the front of the train, we have an important announcement. I repeat, all passengers please move to the front of the train.”

David got up and put on his suit jacket. He took his overnight bag and walked down the carriage, being joined by other passengers. The queue shuffled forward uncertainly, people looking around for reassurance they were doing the right thing.

After traversing a few carriages, David noticed a small commotion in the middle of the current carriage. An old couple and young man were sat around a table. The old couple were asking the other passengers for help, and mostly being ignored.

David stopped by the table. The young man was in a corner seat by the window. The old couple were on the opposite side of the table.

“Everything ok?” asked David.

“Are you able to help?” said the old man. “This young man doesn’t seem very well. I think he’s French.”

The young man was pale and sweating. His breathing was fast, his chest moving up and down at speed. He looked up to David with pleading red eyes. He tried to hold up his hand to David, but didn’t seem to have the strength as his arm flopped onto the table. He whispered something in French.

“I’m a doctor,” said David.

“Oh thank goodness,” said the old woman.

“Can I examine you?” said David.

The man nodded.

David squeezed in next to the man and began a rudimentary examination. The man’s heart beat was fast and irregular. His temperature was raging. His skin was clammy. He was fighting for breath. He was weak. His eyes were bloodshot.

He needed immediate medical attention.

The old man was saying something, but David didn’t hear. He was looking at his phone in dismay, seeing the network was blocked.

“Can either of you get a line on your phone?” he asked the couple.

They looked at their mobiles, and both shook their head.

“Dammit,” said David. “We need to find the conductor and get this train moving - this man is in urgent need of medical help.”

The queue filed passed, many anonymous pairs of eyes looking with interest at the table.

“Are you able to find a conductor?” said David to the old man.

He nodded, “I’ll go now.” The old man joined the slow crawl of the queue.

“Be quick…” said David. As quick as you can, thought David. For a nagging thought had taken hold of him. The virus.

The young man let out a tight cry, his face spasming in pain. He began to shout in French. His arms swung wildly.

“He’s having a fit,” said David, trying to hold down the man’s flailing arms.

But David was worried it wasn’t a fit. The man’s eye’s were wide open, his eyeballs pushing against his eye lids, as if straining to escape. The man grabbed the side of the table and let out a high yell. He banged his head against the window, repeatedly, the hollow bang echoing around the carriage. Blood stains appeared on the glass.

The queue had stopped and was staring at the man. The old woman sitting opposite edged away. David felt himself edging away. This was like nothing he had ever seen.

The man froze, his body rigid, his face contorted in pain, his mouth in an evil grimace. Spittle dripped out of his mouth onto the table.

His head flung forward and he hit the table with a thump. A few passengers let out a loud gasp. A woman screamed.

David’s lizard brain was telling him to run, but his mind was telling him that he had a duty of care. He had to help. He reached over and felt the man’s pulse.

The young frenchman had no pulse.

The queue stood still, watching in horror, but fascinated as if the events unfolding were a live drama for their entertainment. Eventually some people tried to push pass the stationary members of the queue, having decided the show was over. The man was dead. Nothing more to see.

David looked up and around at the expectant faces. He needed to find someone with authority on the train. He had to report the death.

He stood up.

The old woman, now also standing a safe distance from the table, asked David, “Is he ok?”

David shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

Sympathetic ‘oh dears’ were muttered.

“Please,” said David loudly, “I have to get to the front of the carriage and report this. Please, no-one touch or go near the body, he may be infectious.”

A few gasps sounded throughout the carriage at the word ‘infectious’. People nearby shifted away from the table.

David took advantage of his promotion to a position of authority and squeezed through the queue. People moved aside to let him pass.

He was almost at the door of the carriage when someone shouted, “Doctor, are you sure he’s dead?”

“What?” said David, turning to try and find the source of the voice.

A middle aged man in a suit, standing near the table where the body sat, said, “Doctor, I’m sure I just saw him move.”

Muscles in a dead body could spasm, giving the appearance of life. It was a rare phenomena. The last electric throes of existence. “Yes, I am quite sure that-”

A horrible scream pierced the carriage. The people around the table reeled back as the dead man leapt forward and grabbed the business man.

The dead man opened his mouth wide and threw his head forward, biting deep into the businessman’s neck.

The businessman let out a gurgling cry. Blood spurted from his neck and hit the roof of the carriage with force, making a sick splattering sound.

The dead man shifted his position, taking a deeper bite into the neck and tendons of the flailing businessman. The blood fountain changed direction, spraying laterally, dousing the nearest passengers.

Within seconds, the carriage was in chaos.

People tried to flee from the two men and spurting blood.

The cramped conditions of the carriage added to the panic. A man shoved those in front of them, pushing them into the seats, onto tables. Others pushed back against him. Punches were thrown. David fell back into the nearest bank of seats. Someone tried to climb over him.

Shouts, screams, pushing, shoving, violence.

David was pinned into a bank of two seats. He heard two men shouting at each other, and the muffle crunch of fist against bone. More shouts, people crying.

David curled in the corner of the seats, keeping away from the fighting and the panicked exodus.

Eventually the aisle cleared as the panicked crowd managed to spread itself into the two adjoining carriages. With the immediate sound of screams dissipating, David became aware of a different sound.

Muffled moans. Snuffling, like a pig searching for truffles. Crunching. Wet sloppy sounds.

David peered around the side of the seat. Halfway down the aisle, the businessman’s body lay still. The not-so-dead young man leaned over him, his hands deep in the torso of the businessman, pulling out a string of intestines, biting into the red flesh, squirting blood and part digested foodstuff onto the nearby seats.

The young man looked up.

David ducked back in behind the seat, not sure if he had been seen. He thought quickly and dug up all the snippets of news on the virus he had heard -
infections passed by bites; incubation times vary from minutes to days; reanimation
.

Reanimation. David had been cautious in fully believing the stories he had heard. Like most of the scientific community, the anecdotal stories of the virus and its effects seemed too fantastic to be accepted without proper validation and review.

It all seemed pretty damned real to David now though.
Zombies
was the word he had been fighting, but was now ready to accept.

The eating sounds stopped. A loud moan echoed through the carriage.

David felt a cold hammer of fear hit him.

He peered around the corner of his seat again.

The zombie was standing upright, dripping in dark brownish-red blood. It breathed heavily, the face of the young man it used to be unrecognisable. Its pupils were stone black, its mouth pulled back in a powerful snarl, its teeth snapping open and closed with a chilling click.

It saw David and shuffled forward, almost tripping over the body of the dead businessman, but somehow kept balance. It raised its arms, its hands opening and closing in time with the snapping of its jaws.

David threw himself out of the bank of seats, falling face forward into the opposite seats. He pushed himself up and scrambled to his feet.

The zombie was only a few yards away, its moaning reaching a frenzied crescendo, as if excited.

David ran to the carriage door, an automatic sliding door with no handles. It moved painfully slowly. David cast a panicked glance behind him, the zombie was almost on him.

The door gave way a few feet, David pushed through, feeling the zombie’s hand grasp for his shoulder. He ran into the next carriage, where a group of people were pushing against the far door, trying to escape further up the train.

He glanced behind him.

The automatic door had opened, and the zombie was slithering into the carriage.