Hell Train (13 page)

‘You’ll wake me before we reach the next station?’ She looked at him with pleading eyes.

‘Of course. We’ll leave at Schlopelo if you like and make our way across country. There must be a way that we can avoid the troops.’

The train whispered on through the deadening fog as if passing through limbo on its way to purgatory.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE BITER

I
N THE WAVERING
light of the oil lamp, Thomas saw.

The corpse was covered in a stained white silk shroud, its folds held together by a gold chain, at the centre of which was a spiked oval seal marked with a red enamel letter H. Set within the seal, pearls and opals alternated with sapphires. The Crown Prince’s chain of royal office. The precious stones shone darkly.

‘I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Thomas,’ said Miranda. ‘If he has been scratching at the lid, then of course we must open the shroud at once.’ Unsqueamish about such matters, she reached in and carefully removed the seal from around the shrouded corpse’s neck. She had to push behind its rancid head to do so, and was forced to bring her face close to the Prince’s cracked yellow lips while opening the clasp.

The two halves of the seal came apart. She raised the chain and swung it in the light of the lamp, the gems illuminating her face. When she examined the back she found herself looking at the largest emeralds and rubies of all. Her heart beating faster, she carefully lowered it into the pocket of her tunic.

‘Miranda, what on earth do you think you’re doing?’

‘It’s worth a fortune,’ she snapped back. ‘I know a collector in London who will pay us handsomely.’

‘You know a man? What man? How can you know such people?’

‘I had a life before you, you know.’

‘So I am coming to understand. Open the shroud and let me see.’

‘That, I think, is man’s work.’ Miranda stepped back to allow him access. Thomas swallowed hard and came to the coffin side. Gingerly he reached in and unfolded the shroud’s opening. He stared at the jaundiced creature lying exposed before him.

Although he could not see its lower half, the corpse seemed to be immensely tall, longer by far than the coffin into which it had been folded. Patches of green mold and rank outcrops of mildew covered the exposed areas of its head and throat. This was not the body of a young man killed in his prime. Atop its yellowed oval skull, clumps of dry brown hair thrust up like pond-reeds. Its pustular eyes were sunk deep back in their sockets, its jaw clamped shut as if to keep a secret. Something was moving within its right ear. A maggot stuck its head out and twisted blindly in the air.

Indeed, it was hard to imagine that this had ever been a normal man. Beneath the shroud it wore the royal military tunic of its house, emblazoned with crests and golden chains, but the jacket was only slightly better worn than its occupant. Parts of the fabric around the sleeves had rotted away. Upon the bare sections of its arms, lengths of yellow bone could be seen through broken, pustulent skin. The creature was barely of this world or the next.

Miranda was not watching. She peered into her pocket and ogled the seal, captivated by its glittering gems. ‘This is the source of his power,’ she whispered, ‘I can feel it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The royals have different blood. They draw their strength in other ways.’

‘Whoever told you such nonsense?’

‘You heard Mr Scheffen yourself. Besides, it is a well-known fact that the purity of their bloodline sustains them.’

When she looked back, the Prince appeared to have shifted somehow. He was leaning more to the left side of the casket. The carriage had emerged from the fog and was picking up speed, passing over points to round a curve.

‘Miranda, I really think you should put the seal back in place. I feel something harmful may come of this.’

‘Who is there to see? Who will know?’ She dangled the chain before him. ‘We can remove those of Mr Scheffen’s papers that bear a mention of the seal. We can refix the lid and seal the wax with a taper. Stain the damaged woodwork with some of your boot polish.’

‘Miranda, it is a sin.’

‘Oh,
sins
.’ She continued to flaunt the twisting gold rope at him. ‘It is a sin to be poor as church mice. Is it so very wrong to wish for a comfortable life?’

‘Actually, yes—the Bible says the humble shall be rewarded.’

‘The Bible, always the Bible.’

‘Miranda, you married a vicar.’

‘You were in line for a better diocese then.’

‘Miranda!’

‘For Heaven’s sake, Thomas!’ And at that moment she realized he was not castigating her, but pointing behind. And she slowly turned, with a sense of mounting dread.

Something behind her was moving.

It was rising from the casket. Freed from the binding seal, it sat up. It was not at all happy about being re-awoken. Now it rose and rose.

Its eyes had now shifted to the front of their sockets and were burning red. It gave a terrible skull-grin—the widest mouth Thomas had ever seen. Its teeth were brown needles, its gums rotted away. It towered immensely above Thomas in its reeking shroud and mouldering tunic, its eyes fixed upon its releasers.

It was impossibly tall.

Thomas searched for an escape route. The door to the guard’s van was on the far side of the coffin, and closed. Miranda, turning, could only stare in mute shock. The ghoul had a mouth like a mirthless laugh, a gaping grin that split its bony skull. Its head seemed to almost touch the ceiling.

Thomas was transfixed, and found himself stepping toward it in awe. A bad move, as it happened, for the Crown Prince of Carpathia bent sharply from the middle of its spine with a gunshot crack and seized him in its needle teeth, biting hard. Shaking Thomas like a dog, it nipped a chunk of cloth and flesh from his shoulder.

Thomas screamed and fought back, trying to avoid the creature’s clutching talons. But the flailing, ridiculous fight did not go his way—the ghoul was far too powerful. That great mouth might grin and snap at anything that took its fancy.

They crashed across the compartment. The creature’s strength was now borne of little more than leverage, but it was driven by powerful urges that sent energy to its flailing limbs.

Miranda had stared in shock at the fight unfolding before her eyes, but with Thomas’s pained shriek, she awoke as if from an enchantment. She tried to pull the skeletal monster away from him, but it thrust a bony elbow at the side of her head, sending her reeling to the floor.

Turning back to Thomas, it grabbed at him again like a dog worrying a rat, until it spotted the slender onyx crucifix at his throat. Snarling, it bodily raised him in the air and slammed him to the wood floor of the van, hoping to dislodge the cross. Miranda slipped the great seal inside her jacket and backed away. Then she called to the creature and taunted it. This, it must be said, was a wifely show of support rather than an indication of any real feeling she had for Thomas.

The Carpathian ghoul stared back at her for a second or two, then returned its attention to the little vicar, picking him up almost playfully once more, digging its talons into his flesh, jabbing at his chest, wrapping long fingers around his shoulders. Finally, it stuffed him into the gaping coffin and slammed both sections of the lid down hard. Bored now, it looked for something new to play with.

The guard’s van fell suddenly silent. There was just the closed coffin, with the creature on one side of it and the vicar’s wife on the other. It watched her, assessing, cocking its head as if receiving messages from the beyond. It looked about itself, understanding its surroundings. Its brain had not functioned fully in life, and was operating far less effectively now. It seemed to have trouble keeping its balance.

Miranda backed up to the guard’s van door and opened it a crack. She slipped through as the creature reached the side of the carriage in a single stride, seizing hold of the door. It looked into the dark gap between the carriages, and down at the racing tracks below. Then it cracked its neck and looked down at its shroud, failing to find its dimly remembered seal in place. It frowned in disappointment, then in fury.

And it strode after Miranda.

In the third class carriage beyond the guard’s van, peasants lay their heads upon one another’s shoulders, in the depths of sleep. A pig roamed the floor, looking for tidbits. A snoring old woman sat nursing a fireplace grate that had been badly wrapped in newspaper. Disturbed by the noise, the oldest and filthiest of the peasants rose to his feet and wearily drew out a butcher’s knife, expecting trouble.

The ghoul stuck its long-necked head into the corridor. Its height was extraordinary. It bent to pass through the door and stepped into the swaying passageway, its mouth widening even further, as if yawning. The old peasant looked up. To Miranda’s mind he seemed rather unsurprised by the appearance of an Englishwoman being chased by a dead member of the Carpathian royal family. The ghoul reached past Miranda and bit off the top half of peasant’s head, spitting out his skull as you would the top of an egg.

When it bit, it took out crescent chunks, leaving teeth marks in its victims’ flesh like pie crusts. Blood sprayed in an arterial fountain. It bit again and again until the peasant was finally able to fall. He landed on the floor in chewed pieces, unrecognisable as a human.

The ghoul was free and growing in strength, a supernatural force rejoicing in its power, yet also seeking its own return to dust. It needed the seal, but Miranda had taken advantage of its bloodlust to run ahead. It darted angrily forward, jumping and snapping and biting chunks out of the wood, the iron, the train itself. It lived to bite and feed.

Then it swept along the corridor, heading for the fat little commoner who could only run and scream, the one who had pocketed its most important possession.

Miranda slammed the door between the two third class carriages and fled into the one beyond. Glancing back through the window in terror, she was suddenly unsure what to do. Pressing her hands against her eyes, she tried to think, but the obvious answer—to give up the seal—simply did not occur to her. She thought briefly of hiding it, magpie-like, to return to her treasure later, but even this parting felt painful. The seal was casting its spell on her, as it had on so many others.

The great wide-mouthed ghoul watched her go for a moment. It knew there was nowhere for her to hide, so it strode back into the guard’s van—perhaps to check its coffin, but who knew what it was thinking?—and stood listening intently to the hammering within.

Thomas’s worst nightmare had come about. He was sealed inside the reeking casket, gasping for breath. He reached around at the padded walls and felt the coffin slide about as he fought to free himself.

Then he felt it sharply tilt, his feet rising up before him, the top of his pate slamming against the coffin head.

The creature had slid open the guard’s van door. It swayed for a moment, framed in the rushing darkness, then kicked the coffin out.

Inside, Thomas deafened himself with his own screams.

The coffin lurched and dropped but got stuck halfway—it now hung from the side of the racing train, entangled in the loading chains that swung between the wheels. The ghoul looked over the side, but his rheumy eyes could not focus clearly on the hanging coffin. Even in life, the Crown Prince had not been renowned for his courtly wit and military decisiveness. He was glad to be rid of his imprisoning home, but now he tried to recall the most important thing, and remembered that his royal seal of office had been snatched by a commoner. It was always the same. In life they had tried to touch the hem of his ceremonial robes with their filthy fingers, begged him to bless their disgustingly meagre belongings.

With a weary sigh, he set off along the carriages once more.

A
LL THOUGHTS OF
her husband gone, Miranda sought only to save her own life.
We cannot be far from the next station
, she thought.
I could leave there. Opportunity is everything, and I must make the most of it. But I must keep that thing away from me until we reach a stop. It needs to take another victim in my place.

In her flight through the train, she stumbled from compartment to compartment, slapping the windows to attract the attentions of uncomprehending farmers and their dough-faced wives. It seemed that no-one else on board the
Arkangel
was prepared to come to her aid. What was wrong with them all? She was a gentlewoman—surely they would feel privileged to help her? She would beg and fall upon their mercy, and then feed them to the beast. Perhaps it would go to sleep once it had eaten its fill.

She could hear the thing coming down the corridor.

As she looked into another compartment full of dead-eyed peasants, Miranda started to have a bad feeling. There was something very wrong with them, that they would ignore the distress of an English lady. They showed no reaction to her predicament.

‘Somebody help me! Please!’ she called hopefully, trying to summon some tears, but they stared in mute incomprehension, clutching their ugly children and even their livestock tightly as if to protect them from an enemy.

Kicking a brood of squawking chickens from her path, she jumped between the carriages, making her way along the length of the train. Finally she reached the compartment where she had left Isabella and Nicholas.

Isabella saw her scrabbling at the lock, and went to help. She tried the door, but it refused to open from either side. ‘Nicholas,’ she called, ‘I can’t get it undone. Help me.’

Nicholas shoved down the window to pull Miranda into the compartment. It was an undignified sight, the vicar’s wife half-wedged through the window, and as they were struggling, the ghoul burst into the corridor and seized her legs, dragging her back out.

Nicholas and Isabella pulled hard, but the battle was already lost. The creature dug in its claws and hauled the screaming Miranda away through the carriage. It turned and looked back at them, baring its teeth like an angry, emaciated wolf, daring them to advance.