Numb: A Dark Thriller

NUMB

LEE STEVENS

Copyright © 2012 Lee Stevens

For my parents for their love and support

For my wife for her love and patience

And for my children, for everything

“Pain: An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”

International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)

25 YEARS AGO

James Tullman stepped away from the wreckage and found a place to rest until he was needed again.

His face and hands were stained black from smoke and oil. His throat and lungs burned as if he’d gargled with acid. Every inch of his body was beginning to ache. But the worst pain was in his head, the images of what he’d witnessed today already tattooed on his brain for life, and he knew more would join them before the day was through.

He sat down on the damp grass, stuck his helmet under one arm and sucked in a deep lungful of clean air to try and regain some strength, both mentally and physically. He’d seen a lot in his ten years with the Thirnbridge Fire and Rescue Service but nothing had prepared him for today. He’d tackled many blazes in his time and seen hundreds of burn victims, poor souls who were almost unrecognisable as human beings after flames had blackened their skin and savagely ate away at limbs and facial features. He’d been appalled yet professional when coming across a survivor of a head on collision who’d suffered horrendous and bloody injuries which would sicken even the most hardened horror film fan. And, sadly but inevitably, he’d seen enough deaths of both adults and children to think he’d seen all there was to see in the life of a fire fighter. So he’d been unfazed when the call had come through earlier about the rail accident. It was just another job. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, and certainly nothing he couldn’t cope with.

It had happened just after midday, three miles outside of the city where the tower blocks and council estates gave way to a picturesque English countryside of sprawling fields and woodland, of the river valley with its abundance of nature, of the misty hills in the distance, and the Thirn Valley Viaduct, the only man-made structure for miles around that dominated the landscape with its architectural beauty and rural charm.

Despite the hundred-foot high sandstone bridge being almost eighty years old, it was still an integral part of the rail system in this part of the country, relied upon to take freight and passenger trains across the dipping and uneven river valley. Today, however, about a quarter of the way along its eight hundred foot span, one of the arches had collapsed causing a four-carriage passenger train to plummet to its final resting place on the banks of the Thirn River in what must have been a moment of unimaginable terror for all on board.

Tullman shivered as he remembered the sight that met his eyes as the fire engine left the motorway and travelled the five-hundred metres across the uneven terrain towards the carnage, the gigantic mound of twisted metal spewing smoke up into the clear blue sky.

The four carriages lay battered and broken, the front one on its side, half buried in the soft earth and half crushed by the weight of one of the others that had come to rest on top of it. The other two lay nearby like fallen comrades in a warzone. The cries of the wounded had pounded Tullman’s ears as he climbed out the fire engine. Bodies littered the site as he and his colleagues got to work tackling the several small fires that had erupted and began the search and rescue mission that had gone on for the next several hours but had yielded little in the way of survivors. And now, almost six hours after the 11:45 from Thirnbridge to Edinburgh had made its last journey, as he watched the crane begin to lift the second carriage from its crushed twin beneath, he prepared himself for more mental scars.

Frank Gibson, head fire-fighter with Tullman’s watch, had earlier decided that it was too dangerous to attempt to access the bottom carriage in the state it was in. The one resting precariously on top could cause a collapse at any moment. Using hydraulic rescue tools to try to cut a hole and squeeze men inside was also out of the question as that would weaken the structure even more. No, the only thing they could do was wait until the crane arrived - and now that it had cleared the danger the final leg of the search could begin, even though the chance of finding anyone alive was pure wishful thinking. The initial collision of the four carriages with the ground would have ended the lives of most inside. A fall from that height would have caused major head traumas, severe lacerations resulting in massive blood loss and the obligatory broken necks and shattered spines. Those who survived the initial impact would have burned to death in the fires, choked on the toxic smoke or succumbed to shock or their injuries by now. There had been no sign of life within the twisted mess since the emergency services had arrived and anyone trapped inside would surely have perished by now. But still, they had to look. They couldn’t just give up. It simply wasn’t the way.

Tullman took one more deep breath, placed his helmet back on his head, and headed back towards the wreckage where Stuart Robertson, fellow fire fighter, was standing. The two of them had been hand-picked for the task of going inside the final carriage, not because they were the bravest or the more experienced men for this kind of task, but simply because of their build. It would be cramped inside. Manoeuvrability would be difficult. Tullman and Robertson were the smallest and slimmest of the crew and sometimes simple facts like those came into account when delegating duties.

“You okay, Stu?” Tullman asked as he slid up beside his colleague.

Robertson didn’t answer. He simply held out a half empty water bottle in a grimy, trembling hand.

“Here, want some of this?”

Tullman nodded and took it. The water did little to cool his throat but he gulped it down anyway. Then he looked up at the viaduct barely fifty yards from them. At the missing bricks that had left a gaping hole between the two halves of the once intact bridge. Both halves appeared to sway in the wind and looked as if they might collapse fully at any minute.

“I wonder who they’ll pin the blame on for this,” he said. “Things like that don’t collapse for no reason.”

“It’s old,” Robertson replied, staring off into the distance. Tullman knew he was thinking about what he’d already seen today. He could see it in his face. He had the look of a man who’d seen far too much for a twenty-six year old. “It’s probably been weakened by the bad weather we’ve had the last few weeks. A freak accident. Nothing more.”

Tullman nodded. Yes, the storms and the gales were probably responsible. The calendar might be saying that it was officially the first day of spring but Mother Nature was still dishing out winter weather with relish. He looked around at the other fire-fighters who all carried that same haunted look on their faces; at the dozen police officers keeping the press at bay on the other side of the cordon; at the frustrated paramedics awaiting news of more survivors; at the men from the Rail Accident Investigation Department who were looking up at the semi-collapsed viaduct, pointing here and there and nodding at one another.

The scene felt dreamy and surreal.

“Thirty-eight dead so far,” Tullman said, solemnly. “Thirty-two seriously injured. Fifty-six walking wounded. And one carriage still to search.” He shook his head and handed Robertson the water bottle. “With figures like that they’ll still find someone to blame – even if the weather had a hand in it. It’ll either be the people who are meant to maintain those things or the engineer who was in charge of the last renovation. The families of the victims will want someone to be brought to account for this and someone will. Believe me.” He then saw Frank Gibson wave them over.

It was time.

Both men walked back to the wreckage as the crane pulled the upper carriage free and slowly swung it towards the others that had been moved up the field. Ladders were quickly erected against the one left to search. It had landed on its side and the doors were now on top. Prizing them open would be the easiest way inside and two of Tullman’s colleagues were already climbing up to begin the task.

“Right, time for you two to get in there,” Gibson told Tullman and Robertson. “The structure seems to be holding up well but it’s going to be a little cramped. That’s why I only want two men in there. Check for survivors and access the situation. If you find no one alive get the hell out and we’ll cut the bodies out later. I don’t want you two in there any longer than necessary. Know what I mean?”

Tullman ran his eyes over the crushed carriage again. Yes, he knew what Gibson meant. It
seemed
to be holding up well, but heated and weakened metal could be funny and unpredictable. Deadly.

“It looks like the interior escaped most of the flames,” Gibson said. He was a small, stocky man of fifty whose face was usually flushed red due to his high blood pressure. But right now his face seemed to have lost some of its colour. “But you know what that means, right?”

Tullman didn’t answer, because again he knew
exactly
what the gaffer was getting at. No fire meant no burnt up bodies. Everyone in there would be fresh - dead, but fresh, and sometimes that was worse. Seeing someone lying there with no apparent injuries on the outside, looking fast asleep but devoid of a pulse was, ironically, one of the most disturbing sights he’d come across on the job. Your mind finds it hard to comprehend how they could have perished looking so peaceful. You wonder what it was that made their heart and lungs and brain give up and stop working.

You wonder what was going through their mind as they lay dying...

On top of the carriage, one of the fire fighters had succeeded in prying the doors open with a Halligan bar and he soon raised a gloved hand and gave a thumbs up.

“Go on boys,” Gibson said. “Last one and then it’s home time.”

Tullman and Robertson grabbed their tools, covered their faces with their breathing apparatus and climbed the ladders.

“Take care in there!” Gibson shouted as the two men paused on the top of the carriage.

“Always do,” Tullman said quietly to himself.

He pulled out his flashlight and shone it down into the opened carriage door. Then, despite what he saw, he lowered himself down inside, landing in a half foot of standing water, the result of what had leaked down through gaps in the structure as the fires in the carriage on top had been extinguished.

The smell of smoke and destruction and death quickly attacked his nostrils, but the unearthly silence was by far the worst thing. No screaming. No moaning. No one shouting for help. Just silence.

Tullman tried to get a bearing on his position as his torchlight cut a yellow swathe through the gloom. Things didn’t look right down here. It was confusing, and he couldn’t help but feel as though he was inside some bizarre fairground attraction, like a fun house.

Or ghost train,
he soon corrected himself.
This is a fucking Ghost train. There’s no one alive in here. Just me and the dead...

The ‘floor’ he’d climbed down onto was in fact one of the sides of the carriage. The windows had shattered on impact and mud and grass protruded up through their rectangular frames. The chairs that had survived the fall and were still in place were in vertical rows to the right of him. What should have been the roof was to the left. It was all so disorientating and added to his sense of unease.

Tullman rotated his wrist and shone his light about the place, illuminating the contents of this locomotive graveyard; chunks of metal and broken glass; chairs and broken tables; opened luggage vomiting clothing never to be worn again; bottles and glasses and overpriced sandwiches from the buffet cart floating on the water; and bodies, so many of them, littering the place for what seemed the entire length of the carriage, some, impossibly, still in their seats but as limp and ungainly as crash test dummies.

Tullman jumped when Robertson dropped to the ground behind him with a splash.

“Sorry,” Robertson said, his voice muffled through his face mask. Then he shone his own torch around. Cleared his throat. “Jesus!”

“You go that way,” Tullman said, pointing towards the front of the carriage and the driver’s cabin, “and I’ll go this way. Let’s do this as quickly as possible.”“

No shit,” Robertson said and stumbled away. Tullman headed towards the rear of the carriage, having to tread carefully between the fallen seats and the dead that blocked the way.

He had to stoop as the ceiling suddenly dipped in front of him, the result of where the other carriage had impacted the heaviest. Loose wiring hung down from several holes in the metal like venomous snakes protecting their nests.

“Hello!” he shouted, knowing he wouldn’t receive an answer. “Is anyone injured? Anyone trapped?”

Apart from Robertson scrambling through the debris behind him, there was just that awful heavy silence, punctuated by the odd groan of metal as the structure continued to settle in its unnatural position.

Tullman tried not to pay too much attention to the bodies. He only stopped briefly to check for any signs of life but could see most were dead even without close inspection. Like the woman he’d just stepped over. Even if the top of her head wasn’t dented and her hair slick and sticky with drying blood then her staring, glass-like eyes told him all he need know.

The ceiling suddenly dipped again and Tullman changed to a crouching position and moved more slowly along the carriage, sloshing through the water, briefly inspecting each new corpse he came to. Some were really bad, sights which you couldn’t prepare yourself for. Some – as he’d feared - looked relatively undamaged and peacefully asleep, but still had no twitch of a pulse.

“No survivors so far,” he said into his handheld radio.

“Just do the one sweep and get out of there safely,” Gibson replied though the crackle of static.