The Stuff of Nightmares (12 page)

During breakfast on the third day Carter was obviously annoyed. ‘I thought you said the rain would only last two days,’ he accused.

I sniffed audibly. ‘Another two days of rain,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m sorry I got it wrong before but this time I’m right.’

‘Hmm!’ he replied sullenly. ‘You’d better be.’

‘How did you get that scar on your face?’ I’d been dying to know since the first time I saw it.

His expression zigzagged faster than a lightning flash. ‘You’re too damned nosy.’

‘Not nosy. Interested,’ I corrected. ‘I’m surprised anyone got close enough to do that to you. You obviously think I’m more deadly than I look because you carry at least two knives that I know about. That’s why I’m interested.’

Carter dropped his fork, which clattered on his
plate
. He stared out of the window, his expression sombre and brooding.

‘A woman did it,’ he said at last. ‘A damned woman.’

‘What did you do to make her scar you?’ The question was out before I could stop myself.

Carter glared at me. ‘I was stupid enough to marry her,’ he spat. ‘No more questions.’

‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

‘Dead.’

A chill dripped down my spine. ‘Did you kill her?’

‘Hell! No, I did not. Some Marauders got her. Now, I mean it, no more questions.’

‘Is that why you hide yourself away … because of the Marauders? Don’t you miss people, having someone to talk to?’

‘No, I don’t. In fact, just listening to you makes me grateful for the peace and quiet I get when I’m alone. I haven’t talked this much in months.’

‘Don’t you like people?’ I said, ignoring the acid hint.

‘No, I don’t. I’ve never met anyone I liked enough to trust, especially when it comes to women. I remember a few months ago when a man and woman asked for shelter from the rain. No sooner had they set foot in my house than the woman started making a play for me. She didn’t even try to hide what she was up to from her partner. I woke up that night to find the man in my room, a knife in his hand, ready to separate my head from my neck. Take my advice, Robby, don’t
trust
anyone. Everyone lies and everyone wants something.’

‘I don’t’ – I shrugged – ‘unless you count shelter from the rain. I like people, and a lot of people are decent, even nowadays. The only ones I would always avoid are the Marauders – but then everyone avoids them.’

‘You’re a fool,’ Carter said with disgust. ‘You won’t make it to your eighteenth birthday.’

I shrugged again. Maybe he was right.

We played cards for the rest of the day. Carter had to be cajoled into playing – he said he didn’t like cards, but I threatened not to make dinner. After calling me a right little kid, he gave in. It was more fun than either of us expected. We played all the silly children’s games my mum had taught me.

Over dinner Carter said speculatively, ‘You’re the strangest boy I’ve ever met. I can’t make you out at all.’

‘I’m not a boy, I’m a man,’ I replied.

‘Have you ever had sex with a woman?’ he asked.

I said scornfully, ‘You don’t have to sleep with a woman to be a man.’

‘But it helps,’ Carter said. ‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I answered.

‘Maybe that’s what you need for your voice to break.’

‘Believe me, Carter’ – I smiled – ‘I don’t think that would do much good!’

‘I sometimes miss sex.’ Carter stared out into the rain.

‘Only sometimes?’

‘Only sometimes,’ he affirmed.

‘Don’t you miss your wife?’ I asked carefully.

‘My wife put me off women for life,’ Carter said with venom. ‘She was incapable of telling the truth, she loved to humiliate me. She damn near emasculated me. She got exactly what she deserved.’

I hesitated before speaking, unusual for me. Carter was so angry, so bitter. His wife was a bitch, he said, therefore all women must be bitches.

‘Nobody deserves to be killed by Marauders,’ I said quietly. ‘Marauders are the sadistic scum of the earth. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.’

Carter sat broodingly silent. He got up abruptly, his chair falling over behind him, and left the room. I didn’t see him until dinner time, and even then he didn’t say a word to me. I just shrugged it off.

By the fourth day the strappings around my chest had become as uncomfortable as hell. I’d attempted to take them off the previous night but Carter clumped downstairs, accusing me of ‘moving about’. We argued briefly until I decided that I was wasting my breath and turned my back on him in an effort to get some sleep. In the dark silence that followed I thought he’d go away and leave me in peace. We both knew I hadn’t been moving about. Hell! I’d been trying to keep extra quiet so that I could take off my strappings and padding. Then Carter asked me if I’d like a game of
chess
. He obviously wanted some company so I reluctantly said yes. He was right. I was far too soft.

That afternoon I was preparing soup in the kitchen when I heard a noise outside the house. I went over to the window, rubbing off the grime which had turned the pane brown, and then I saw them – two of them – moving towards the front door.

Marauders …

10

THE TRAIN … I
have to get back to the train … NOW
.

I dredged up the thought from the middle of nowhere, only to find myself snapping back to the present so fast, my head was ringing.

‘You brought us out of Roberta’s nightmare,’ Rachel accused. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘W-what?’ I looked around, almost expecting Marauders to be striding down the carriage.

‘We’re not safe here,’ said Rachel.

I didn’t listen to her. I couldn’t take in what she was saying.

‘The things that happen to Robby – are they real?’ I asked.

Rachel frowned. ‘Why ask me?’

‘ ’Cause you know a lot more than you’re letting on,’ I said impatiently. ‘You knew I was sharing these … dreams in the first place. So was Robby’s nightmare true?’

At first I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but I was determined not to say another word until she did.
‘Nightmares are sometimes suppressed memories. Some nightmares tell what happened in the past, some tell what will happen in the future, most are nothing more than bad dreams or fears being filed away.’

‘But will that happen? The war and the rain?’ I asked, appalled.

Rachel shrugged. ‘Who knows? Possibly. Probably.’

Unable to take much more, I closed my eyes. I needed to get away, even if it was just in my head. Get out of this carriage, get off this train, go somewhere else … Go home.

Dad was in the kitchen, singing tunelessly. But at least he was singing. Deeply surprised, I tiptoed along the hall and stood in the doorway, watching him. Two steaks lay on a plate beside the cooker. Dad bent down and retrieved a frying pan from one of the kitchen drawers. He placed the empty pan over a too-high flame on the hob, still unaware that he was being watched. Turning away to season the steaks, he didn’t realize that the frying pan wasn’t settled on the hob properly. After a few seconds the pan began to tilt, then fall. I called out and moved forward, my hand outstretched, but I was too slow. Alerted by my cry, Dad spun and tried to catch it, but the handle was away from him. He grabbed at the pan but quickly pulled back his hand as the hot metal beneath his fingers seared his flesh. The pan clattered to the floor as Dad cupped his fingers, cursing up a blue streak
.

A lot of noise, less than a little mess and nothing
that
a couple of minutes under cold, running water wouldn’t cure – that’s all it was
.

But Dad lost it
.

He swore as he snatched up the pan by the handle, then he raised it above his head and banged it down on the work surface. And again. And again
.

‘
Bitch –
BITCH
– BITCH!’ He punctuated each slam with that single word, each one louder than the one before
.

I froze mid-way across the kitchen. I wasn’t going to stay and watch Dad beat the crap out of the work surface. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to try to take the pan away from him either
.

Dad spun round to face me, breathing hard
.

‘
You see this, Kyle? You see what your mum has done? What she’s reduced me to?
’

Somehow the tremulous crack in his voice was worse than his hammering of the work surface. Unable to face him, I headed out of the kitchen, leaving him alone
.

Somewhere else … Home. Not just a place. It was supposed to be a safe feeling. Except mine was anything but. All I did was open my eyes and I was back on the train. The feeling I’d had as I left Dad alone in the kitchen was still with me. Maybe that was the problem. All the feelings I’d assigned to my mum and dad or our house weren’t in those places at all. They were all inside me. That’s why I could never escape them.

‘Kyle, we’re wasting time.’ Rachel frowned. ‘We need to …’

But I didn’t hear anything after that. Over Rachel’s shoulder I saw that further down the carriage a middle-aged woman was on her feet. She had light-brown, messy hair and her pink lipstick was smudged down towards her chin. She wore black trousers and a dark blue jacket over a light blue jumper. Someone else was on their feet, someone who wasn’t hurt. I started towards her, only for Rachel to grab my arm.

‘Let her be. You can’t help her.’

‘What’re you on about?’ I frowned. ‘She’s standing up. Maybe she can help us to help some of the others.’

‘You don’t need her,’ Rachel told me. ‘You don’t need the real world. You need to get out of this carriage and back into the head of one of your friends.’

I scowled at Rachel. What on earth was she talking about? Ignoring her, I turned back to the woman. But what I saw scooped out my insides in less than a second. She was standing on a heap of upturned seats and trying to pull herself up through the broken window above her. The wild look on her face was instantly recognizable. It matched my own expression not too long ago.

‘
No! Don’t!
’ I called out, and pushed past Rachel to race towards her. With a strength amplified by fright and panic, the woman’s arms now bore her weight as she kicked her legs clear of the upturned seats below. The scraping, grating sound of the train against the
tracks
told me what was going to happen next. It was beginning to slide …

I grabbed the woman’s legs and pulled. She kicked me in the face, splitting my lip and knocking me backwards. I could taste blood in my mouth. The grating noise was getting worse. The woman was more than halfway out of the window. I leaped forward again and seized her legs, determined not to let go this time. I pulled two, then three times, before she let go and we collapsed onto the ground, both panting for breath.

‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ the woman gasped. Already she was on her feet. I jumped up. She started to clamber up the seats again, her gaze never leaving the promise of the broken window above. The rain had diminished to mere drizzle now, but even the downpour we had before wouldn’t have stopped this woman.

‘You can’t,’ I insisted, pulling her back. ‘You’ll have the whole train over if you do that again.’

The woman turned suddenly, lashing out with her fists. ‘Let me go. Julian and Judith need me. My grandchildren need me.’

‘Then stay here until we’re rescued!’ I shouted at her, losing it. ‘Listen to me! If you try to climb out, they’ll be scooping all of us off the pavement with teaspoons.’

The woman’s hands fell to her side.

‘D’you understand?’ I was so close to angry tears, I wanted to shake her because she was only doing what I’d wanted to do earlier, what I still wanted to do. I
could
feel her desperation as if it were my own. The wild look in the her eyes slowly faded.

‘D’you understand?’ I repeated, struggling to say it more calmly this time.

She nodded. ‘I … I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said, gulping down the lump of fear lodged somewhere in my throat. ‘It’s OK. But you mustn’t try that again.’

The woman nodded. I wasn’t sure if she was even listening; she just kept nodding her head.

‘I’m Kyle,’ I told her. ‘What’s your name?’

She carried on nodding. I moved to look her straight in the eye and repeated what I’d just said.

‘Lily. My name is Lily.’ And as she spoke, the light of reason returned to her eyes. Her voice, her whole demeanour was calmer – thank goodness.

‘Right then, Lily. Come and sit with us. We’ll wait together for help to come.’

The woman shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘It’s all right, I’ll stay here. I need to phone my grandchildren. I want them to know that I’m OK. I won’t try to … leave again. I promise.’

I looked into Lily’s eyes, unsure of what I should do next. I really didn’t want to leave her alone.

‘And in case you make it and I don’t, my name is Lily Channing,’ the woman told me.

I nodded but was reluctant to tell her my surname. Strangely enough – especially after my thoughts over the last couple of weeks – I didn’t want to think about
the
possibility that she might need to give my name because I was no longer around to do it for myself.

Lily took out her mobile and started pressing buttons. Was that really the best use of her time? I decided to leave her alone. After all, where was the harm in her phoning her family? I thought about the mobile phone in my trouser pocket. There should still be enough charge on it to make at least one phone call, but who would I call? Most of my friends were on the train with me. I could phone the emergency services, to find out just what was going on and why they were taking so long to rescue us. Or there was always my mum …

Lily started cursing at the lack of a signal. I turned and left her to it, still wavering between who I should call. Rachel hadn’t moved from her original spot. She stood, her arms folded, looking distinctly unimpressed. She reminded me of all the bizarre things I’d seen since the train crashed. How had she known about the dreams I’d experienced? And how was she able to share them with me? And why was I able to experience them in the first place? I still didn’t know the answer to that one. I couldn’t forget the rain in Roberta’s dream, how destructive it was. It brought to mind another day when the rain fell with a vengeance. My last birthday, spent with my dad.