Clip grimaced. “God… I suppose… I suppose things like that happen in war, right?”

  “That they do, but I still made a conscious decision to kill a child. Right or wrong, she’s visited me in my dreams ever since. I left the army a year after it happened. Been working odd jobs as a bouncer and private security ever since, hoping that one day someone might stick a knife in my guts and end my misery.”

  “You’re a good man, Paul. You shouldn’t let one moment define you.”

  “I’m not. You asked for my worst sin, and I gave it to you. Doesn’t mean there aren’t two dozen more just like it I haven’t told you about. I lied to you earlier. I have been hearing voices. The voices of the people I’ve killed. They want their revenge. Perhaps they’ll get it.”

  Clip tucked her hair behind her ears and closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t want to imagine the other things Paul might have done, but she couldn’t condemn him. He wasn’t a wicked man. “Being human is complicated,” she said. “I don’t think any of us get it right, but as long as there’s a tomorrow, we have a chance to learn and do better.”

  Paul nodded. “We best make sure there’s a tomorrow then, huh?”

  “I would really like that. I haven’t spent the last year studying my ass off just to die three weeks before exams.”

  “Hey! Hey, get back! Fuck!”

  “Yo, back the fuck up, blud.”

  Clip spun around to face the front of the carriage. Even after all she had seen, she was stunned by what greeted her.

  “Christ almighty,” said Paul, dropping into a defensive stance.

  Kyle and Mudz were frantically kicking out from where they sat on the floor, desperately trying to fend off a group of what looked like… druggies. The four unknown youths – two boys and two girls – were emaciated and unwashed, their skin clammy and covered in blisters. Their fingernails were black with dirt. Each of them snatched at Mudz and Kyle, moaning like zombies.

  Clip shouted at the strangers, trying to get their attention, but they ignored her. Paul crept up the aisle, seeming unsure whether or not to intervene.

  “Get back,” said Kyle, kicking out at a dirty blonde girl with an open sore beneath her nose.

  “Man will mash you up, bruv,” said Mudz, kicking out at a skinny boy with half an ear missing.

  “We have to help them,” said Harley, grabbing Clip’s arm with both hands. “We have to fight the ghosts.”

  Clip nodded, and so did Paul. He told her to stay with Harley and then took off towards Mudz and Kyle. He sprinted right at the first stranger, a young woman, and leapt into the air with his fist raised.

  The young woman threw out a hand and roared. An invisible blast of air hit Paul and launched him back down the aisle. He skidded along on his side before coming to a stop, wheezing. Clip hurried to help him up, but he was too winded and confused.

  Kyle screamed as an unwashed girl grabbed him with a filthy hand. She held an oversized syringe full of a foul brown substance in her other hand and pointed it at him. “Get away from me,” he cried. “Don’t you stick me with that.”

  “Back up, you scag-heads,” Mudz warned. He was trying to get to his feet, but his wrists being tied around the railing behind him was making it difficult. “Get the fuck off me.”

  Kyle’s protests turned to childlike whimpers as he failed to escape the girl’s clutches and the syringe’s needle inched towards his face. “Please…” he begged. “No.”

  Paul struggled to get to his feet, still gasping for breath. Clip considered trying to help Mudz and Kyle herself, but she couldn’t leave Harley. She finally understood Gina. The boy was the priority.

  Kyle blubbered and wailed as the needle hovered in front of one of his eyes. “No. No. God, please, no! I’m sorry. I need—”

  The sound the needle made as it pierced Kyle’s eyeball was sickening, and Clip had to look away. The lad’s screams were like something one would expect to hear in a slaughterhouse, wild and animalistic. Mudz’s screams soon followed.

  Clip couldn’t help herself. She turned back to see what was happening.

  The four druggies fell upon Mudz and Kyle like a pack of hyenas. From somewhere, they had produced dozens of needles and were stabbing them into the two young men. Kyle blubbered and convulsed, a needle buried deep in his eyeball and two more sticking out of his neck. Mudz had one shoved deep into his ear canal. Their screams grew quieter and turned into blubbering and whimpering, as if their minds were drifting away someplace.

  Both youths retched and gagged. A foaming broth of bloody saliva bubbled from their mouths. Brown liquid leaked from their eyes.

  Paul clambered to his feet and started down the aisle, but Clip pulled him back. “It’s too late.”

  The lights went out.

  Clip grabbed Harley with one hand and Paul with the other. They had to stay together.

  Xavi, Jay, and Gina called out from the other carriage, concerned by the lights going off, and probably worried by all the screaming. Clip hoped they stayed where they were. They didn’t need to see the horror inside this carriage.

  The lights came back on.

  The druggies were gone. In their place stood the woman in the cage. She glared at Mudz and Kyle, both now dead. A wicked grin slowly crossed her face.

  The lights flickered, and in the split-second darkness, both the woman and her victims disappeared.

  “Two more down,” said Paul, sagging back against the seats.

  “Are we next?” asked Harley, trembling against Clip.

  Clip rubbed his back. “It’s not over yet. We’re not giving up.”

  “We just need to solve the puzzle,” he said.

  “Yeah. We need to find answers.”

  Paul pulled at them both, and they headed back to the front carriage, where they found a terrified Gina and an anxious Jay. Both were visibly relieved to see Clip, Harley, and Paul. Grant, however, sat looking bored in a window seat, staring out at the darkness.

  Clip took Harley over to his foster mum, passing by Grant, and Dan’s dead body, which he had placed respectfully on a seat in front of him. If not for Dan’s bloody neck, it might have looked like he was merely sleeping.

  “What happened?” asked Gina, hugging Harley tightly and kissing his head.

  “Mudz and Kyle are gone,” said Clip. “Their guilt caught up with them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Clip sat down on the opposite side of the aisle. “We met the woman again. She spoke about guilt and regret. Mudz and Kyle were killed by… an overdose. Drugs. Maybe they both had guilt, deep, deep, deep down, about selling gear. Maybe a small part of them actually gave a shit about all the lives they were destroying. It’s what killed them.”

  Jay nodded. “And Pat’s guilt about running over a dog was what killed her.”

  “The man who died of a heart attack saw something before he died,” said Paul. “What are the chances it had something to do with his biggest regret?”

  Clip cleared her throat, which was getting dry. None of them had drunk or eaten anything. How long had they been on the train? Did it even matter? “So, I think we can safely say that the woman in the cage is using our own guilt against us. That’s… invasive.”

  Grant huffed from near the back of the carriage. “Try having a colonic with Gemma Collins. Now that was a long day.”

  Paul shook his head and ignored the man. He kept his focus on Clip. “You still haven’t told us what your thing is. What’s likely to come back and haunt you?”

  What is my biggest sin? What am I most guilty about?

  Richard.

  “I would rather avoid it being an issue and just figure this out.”

  “I should be a better father,” said Jay. He appeared to be saying it more to himself than anyone else. When he realised everyone was looking at him, he tapped the thick scar on top of his head. “I got this as a kid from the agberos when I was four years old. That’s how young you are when they try to recruit you into their gang. Kids are great for shoplifting and burglary. Small spaces and innocent faces. I got caught stealing from a local shop and the owner didn’t take pity on me.” He chuckled. “Don’t remember a thing about it, but I know my mum got me out of the country to give me a better life. Then, when my daughter came along three years ago, I promised I would do the same for her. Whatever it took to give her a great life.”

  Clip nodded and smiled. “That’s good.”

  “Ain’t seen her in nearly six months,” he said. “Always too busy. Always trying to earn.”

  “What’s her name?” Clip asked.

  “Toni.” It seemed a struggle for him to get her name out. His eyes glistened. “Is she going to be the thing? The thing that comes to get me?”

  “No one can answer that,” said Paul, “but if we get out of this mess, then I suggest you make up for lost time, mate. Your daughter’s young enough to forget, just like you were able to forget what happened to you. There’s plenty of time for you to be a good dad. Be grateful for that. Not everyone realises their mistakes with enough time to fix them.”

  Jay nodded. He turned around and went to sit on his own.

  Xavi grunted and got their attention. He was clambering up the seats in a bid to get to his feet. “We need to get off this loco train. We have to stop it, or break the windows, or… something. We’re being picked off, one by one. I’m ashamed of always disappointing my dad. Am I supposed to wait around until he comes and strangles me for looking more like my madre than him, or for not being as smart as he is? Well, fuck him.”

  Clip went over and helped steady him. He was trembling and sweaty, and he seemed a little out of it. “At least with Mudz gone, we have one less problem to deal with.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just a vengeful ghost left to bother us now.”

  Clip shrugged. “Best we don’t wait around and do nothing then.”

  “Okay,” said Paul. “Let’s have another go at stopping the train. Maybe this whole thing is dependent upon us being in motion.”

  “You think stopping the train will break the spell?” Clip asked.

  “It’s as good a theory as any.”

  “And as bad,” said Grant unhelpfully. He was still sitting near the back and staring out the window.

  “I’ll check the controls,” said Jay, getting up and heading for the operator’s cabin. “I know Dan tried everything, but who knows…?”

  Clip kissed Xavi’s cheek and ordered him to sit down. He looked ready to keel over, and his pupils were massive when he looked at her. Fortunately, he didn’t argue and took a seat by the window, where he gazed out at nothingness. A nothingness that was eating up the train.

  Clip joined Jay and Paul at the operator’s cabin. Paul propped the door open with his foot while Jay had a look at the controls.

  “He wasn’t lying when he said this set-up was basic,” said Jay, grabbing a square handle and yanking it up and down. Next, he pulled a cord running overhead. He tried numerous things, but nothing did anything. Growing ever more frustrated, he started opening up the many small compartments dotting the cabin. He found more cable ties, a handbook full of codes and other technical info, and a pack of Skittles, which Clip dutifully handed to Harley. The boy’s smile was almost enough to light up the darkness outside.

  “Nothing is working,” said Jay, “and the only way to access any of the deeper systems would be with a specialised diagnostic computer. Like mechanics use in car garages.” He kicked at the console, which produced a metallic whang. A small cupboard door rattled and swung open. No one had noticed it until now, so Clip ducked down to see what was inside.

  The small rectangular space was full of fuses housed behind a translucent plastic cover. The cover was smeared with a sticky red substance.

  Blood.

  A crudely drawn symbol, matching the one they’d found in the rear carriage, adorned the plastic fuse cover. Clip pointed it out to the others.

  “Hmm,” said Paul, rubbing a finger over the scar on his chin. “Two strange symbols, front and back of the train.”

  “Plus the one hanging from the tunnel that Dan mentioned,” said Clip. “It must all be part of whatever ritual has us trapped here.”

  “Maybe the symbols are like markers,” said Clip. “The beginning and end points of the curse. I mean, it’s only the train that’s trapped in a void, right? It’s not like we brought a section of the track with us.”

  “Yeah,” said Jay. “Kind of like basic HTML. Open angle bracket. Insert curse. Close angle bracket. Makes sense.”

  “Not to me,” said Paul. “I have no idea what you just said.”

  Clip folded her arms. “Say that we’re right, and that the symbols are the boundaries of the curse – any thoughts about what we do about it? Should we mess with this symbol? Try to rub it out? The one at the back is out of reach now that the train is…” She trailed off and looked at Paul.

  Jay frowned at her. “What? The train is what?”

  “It’s being erased from existence. The rear carriage is disappearing into the void.”

  “Of course it is. I mean, why not? So, moving on quickly, should we mess with this symbol and try to break the curse, spell, ritual… whatever?”

  Paul seemed unconvinced. “Could it be that simple?”

  Clip shrugged. “It might break the spell and save us, or it could make things worse. Only one way to find out. My question is: who drew the symbols in the first place? This is the operator’s cabin, so it’s unlikely to have been a passenger.”

  “You think it was someone who works for the rail company?” asked Jay.

  “Makes sense. This cabin would probably be locked when there are no drivers ab—” She gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh God.”

  Both men looked at her. “What is it?” asked Paul.

  “There was another driver. He got off at Ronchurch, right before everything went to hell. Literally.”

  Paul grunted. “You mean the SOB got off the ship before it sank?”

  “But why?” Something wasn’t quite adding up for Clip. “Why set a curse to hurt innocent people? And why not stick around to see what happens?”

  “Maybe he’s just a psychopath,” said Paul. “Plenty of men enjoy killing for its own sake, believe me.”

  Clip frowned. “No, even psychopaths kill for a reason. They have something to gain, or a compulsion to satisfy.” She rubbed at her forehead, thinking as hard as she could. “The woman in the cage… she spoke about taking my guilt from me – like she wanted to collect it. Did that train driver sacrifice us in exchange for something?”

  “Guy’s probably going to win the lottery,” said Jay. “He made a deal with the devil to get out from his low-paid job and into the high life. All of our lives in exchange for three wishes.”

  Clip frowned. “Is she a devil or a genie?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. She wants our souls on a platter either way.”

  “That’s why the bodies disappeared,” said Paul. “The woman is claiming them as some sort of sacrifice. Once we die, she takes us.”

  Clip thought about it some more and it actually started to make sense. The other driver had set some sort of trap inside the tunnel, which was then activated by the symbols on the train. Like completing some kind of demonic circuit.

  But something is bugging me. Something isn’t quite right.

  She let out a breath. “All the bodies are gone, right?”

  Paul and Jay nodded.

  “But that’s not true, is it? Not quite.”

  Both men frowned.

  Clip closed her eyes, trying to put a finger on what was bugging her. “Dan… I just passed by his body and it was still there. Why hasn’t it disappeared like all the others?”

  Xavi cried out from further down the carriage.

  Everyone turned to find Dan holding a large dagger to Xavi’s throat. Gina and Harley called out for help.

  “Surprise,” said Dan with a twisted sneer on his face. His neck was covered in blood, but the ragged wound seemed to have gone. His left arm was stained with blood, too. It was pouring down his wrist. “I was wondering how long it would take for you all to figure out I wasn’t dead. I mean, come on, I’ve been lying around for ages. My back was starting to ache.”

  Clip exited the cabin, shaking her head in confusion. “How…? How are you still alive?”

  Dan kept the knife to Xavi’s throat, but with his other hand he tore open his shirt to reveal a collection of bizarre symbols painted all over his chest in what looked like blood. “Ancient Sumerian protection wards. Better than a team of trauma surgeons, I tell you. Healed me right up.”

  Grant was watching from the back of the carriage and shaking his head. “People are into everything these days.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Clip demanded. “What did we do to you?”

  “You needn’t worry about my motives, young lady. They won’t make a difference. I am sorry, though, for what it’s worth.”

  Clip put her hands out and begged. “Just let Xavi go, please.”

  “Or else what?”

  “No or else. Just me begging you. He’s a good man.”

  Dan huffed. “He’s almost as deranged as those two dead thugs. Half the trouble on this train has been down to your boyfriend’s temper.”

  “He was trying to protect us from Mudz. Please, don’t do this. I’m begging you, let him go.”

  “Fine, as you wish.” Dan dragged the dagger across Xavi’s throat and shoved him forward.

  Clip raced forward. “Fuck! Xavi!”

  Dan grabbed Harley from a nearby seat and yanked the boy out of Gina’s arms. “Stay right there or the kid is next.”

 

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