Fantastic Trains Read online

  “So?” asked Charon, who was really more of a boat man. “Anyone could push a Scot over a…”

  “No, no,” interrupted Henry. “The Flying Scotsman was a train. Probably the greatest one ever built! It could travel from Edinburgh to London in just over four hours, which was unheard of at the time! Just wait ‘til I tell our Marnie!”

  “Is that true Gresley?” asked Charon with polite interest.

  The decaying face wrinkled into something, which, in some German impressionist’s painting, could be deemed a smile. “Well, in my day, I was known for being a bit of a deft hand around a steam engine. The Flying Scotsman was my crowning achievement, before this of course.” He waved a hand to indicate the train.

  “You designed this?” asked Henry. “No wonder it’s so … incredible!”

  “You think so?” asked Gresley, giving Charon a slow “Is he for real?” look, to which the skeleton gave a weary nod.

  “Of course I do! It’s beautiful!” enthused Henry, his plump, earnest little face beaming.

  “Thank you, that’s very kind,” said Gresley, and Charon groaned. “The guidelines for décor were a little strict, obviously, but it has become a bit of a passion project for me.”

  “You should be proud!” said Henry encouragingly. “So much power up front, carrying so much elegance behind — it’s never been done before, I’m sure of it. If people up top saw this, they wouldn’t believe their eyes!”

  “That’s certainly true,” muttered Charon, and Gresley glared at him.

  “Well, thank you…” began the engineer.

  “Henry,” said Henry.

  “Thank you Henry. It’s not often you get that type of appreciation down here.” He shot an accusing glance toward Charon. “Tell you what,” he continued, with an attempt at a conspiratorial smile that simply served to shift the remaining skin from one side of the mouth to the other. “How would you like to have a go on the controls?”

  Charon, who had been pleasantly drifting off into a personal fantasy that didn’t involve trains or little, fat, cheerful men in coats, was startled back to reality. “Now wait a moment Gresley, we can’t just…”

  Gresley waved him away before he could finish. “Oh don’t be such a bag of old bones Charon.” He ushered Henry over to a small control panel beside the firebox. “I mean there’s not really much to do since we modernized the control panel. You just need to work this lever forward and back, and as long as you don’t— Hey wait!”

  But it was too late.

  Henry had already leaped forward in uncontrollable excitement, grabbing hold of the large lever and pushing it forward until it hammered into the control board. The train lurched backward momentarily, and then shot forward angrily, speeding up with every second, and throwing Charon and Gresley to the floor of the cab.

  “AMAZING!” shouted Henry, over the din of the blazing firebox and the yells of his two passengers. Steam erupted furiously out of the chimney, as the train continued to speed up; some even billowed in through the windows, creating a sulfurous sauna of heat and fog. Henry was almost entirely horizontal, and only a desperate grip on the lever prevented him from flying, as it were, entirely off the handle. Over the whines of the protesting engine and the screech of the wheels grinding against the track, Charon could swear he heard the words “wait”, “tell” and “Marnie!” He had to stop this before they derailed. He was fairly certain he couldn’t die, but it would take all the king’s hell hounds and all the king’s demons to piece him back together again.

  Across the compartment, Gresley was frantically scrabbling on the floor, attempting to toss flaming pieces of coal back in through the flung-open firebox door, while trying not to follow them. Charon threw an errant lump at the engineer, and Gresley risked a glance up from his desperate task. Charon called out, but realizing it was pointless in the clamor, tried to convey the best “How the Hell do we stop this thing?” look that his smooth, featureless skull could muster. Gresley, with the telepathy of the nearly skeletal, nodded toward a small chain in the corner of the panel closest to Charon.

  Struggling to find his feet, he hauled himself upright on the side door. Outside he could see the blur of red, orange and black as lakes of fire, bottomless pits, and caves of unspeakable horror whirled past, so nauseatingly quick that he was suddenly glad he didn’t have a stomach. For one sickening moment, as they sped around a hairpin bend, the whole train lurched to one side, and he realized they were traveling on one set of wheels. To his left, he could hear the sheer, unbridled, joyous laughter of Henry at the controls. Mad cackles he could handle, and bellowing, villainous chuckles practically qualified as white noise in Hell, but there was something unsettling about the pleasant man in the jacket’s exuberant little giggle as the train plowed headlong toward the abyss.

  At last, Charon reached the chain and pulled down hard. There was a hideous screech as the brakes made desperate contact with the tracks; sparks flew up outside the side door, inches from the skeleton’s face. Almost as suddenly as it had accelerated, the train shuddered to a halt, sending Charon to the floor once more. Slowly, carefully, he picked himself up. He could hear the growls and groans of the passengers in the cars behind as they no doubt did the same. There wasn’t an overabundance of teeth as it was, but after that, there was probably a pretty competitive game of “pin the molar on the gum” going on back there.

  The cab was silent except for the occasional whimper from the cooling engine, and the hiss of the steam as it escaped the pipes and snaked out of the windows.

  Gresley spoke. “Of course,” he said, “she goes a little bit faster than the Scotsman.”

  “You think?” said Charon, barely controlling his anger.

  “I think it was incredible!” chirped Henry, infuriatingly happy.

  There was an almost audible “twang” as Charon snapped.

  “Incredible? Incredible?!” he yelled. “We nearly went off the bloody track! Do you know the punishment I’d get for crashing this thing? Do you know the trouble I’d get into? Do you know,” he said, with extra venom, “the damn paperwork they’d make me fill out?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

  “Of course you didn’t, you stupid little man! You don’t have a mean bone in your body, do you?” He threw his hands in the air. “You show up here, in Hell, with your stupid jacket and your stupid thermos, and your stupid smile and start saying how amazing everything is. It’s not supposed to be amazing! It’s supposed to be, well … hellish! I bet if they threw you into the lake of fire you’d say, ‘Thanks very much, it’s been awhile since I’ve had a hot bath!’”

  Henry gave a little chuckle. “Well, Marnie did always used to say that I could find the pound in a jar of pennies.”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” screamed Charon, striding over and picking Henry up by the lapel of his coat. “Listen, everything is not roses. It’s fertilizer. This is the train to Hell, but I bet if the boss himself showed up, you’d shake him by the hoof, tell him how much you enjoyed the ride and say ‘Wait ‘til I tell our Martha!’”

  “Marnie,” corrected Henry.

  “What?” barked Charon, momentarily snapped out of his possibly soul-icidal rage.

  “The name is Marnie, not Martha,” said Henry stoically. “I’d appreciate it if you got it right.”

  “Marnie then, whatever,” said the skeleton, releasing Henry. “Who is that anyway — part of your little train group? Sad little fat men in rain jackets with hobbies so boring that they make Sisyphus’s afternoon look like a day at the races.” Behind him, Gresley cleared his throat unusually loudly for someone who didn’t have much of one left, but tact was never really first nature to Charon. “No, I’ve got it! A cat! Marnie’s a cat, right? Probably the only thing on the planet that could stand you!”

  “She was my wife.”

  “Probably another little twerp in a—
What? Oh. Well.” The conductor stuttered, derailed. “You know in Ancient Greek ‘twerp’ really translates as…”

  “We met at Charring Cross station,” said Henry. “I’d forgotten my thermos, and she offered me a sip of hers. It was blueberry tea.” He continued with a sad little smile, “Then we just sat and watched all the trains come in, until it was just us left in the station. She passed last year.”

  Charon stared. The little man was staring straight ahead. It was the first time the ferryman had seen him without a smile on his face.

  “Why are you here?” asked Charon softly.

  “Well there was a train coming into the station and I just sort of … tripped, you know?”

  “No, no.” Charon waved a hand dismissively. “That doesn’t matter. I mean, what did you do? Why are you on this train?” He clicked his fingers again. Gresley and the wreck of the engine room disappeared and they were once more inside the main compartment, surrounded by the other passengers. None of them were paying the pair any attention. The train shuddering to a halt had had the same effect as, say, the saloon doors swinging, the jukebox cutting out and a pool cue being swung at the bartender.

  “Do you see him?” Charon put a bony hand on Henry’s shoulder and pointed at a man with a murderous smile of sharp, metal teeth, who was making an industrious effort to bite his way through another man’s leg. “High-level assassin with some country or other. Very troubled man. Hundreds of successful missions, until he was scheduled to kill a man during an MRI. Always mean to cats; I don’t think he’s even a dog person.” He spun Henry around to a woman wearing a charred gray jumpsuit, who was whispering to some unseen figure beside her. “And her? Set more fires than the whole of the Grecian army. Burned hospitals, schools, but should have avoided the petrol stations.”

  “And him?” asked Henry, pointing to a nondescript man in a charcoal suit and tie, complete with round, gold glasses and a briefcase.

  Charon gave the man a look of deep distaste and said, “Investment banker.”

  Henry nodded in understanding. “I think I see what you mean,” he said, “but why are you telling me?”

  “These are all bad people, not little men with thermoses who ‘tripped’ in front of an incoming from Dartmouth.”

  “Weymouth,” corrected Henry.

  “Whatever,” snapped Charon. “The point is that all of them did something to get here, something terrible. Don’t spread it around, but it’s actually pretty hard to get a ticket these days. Now, why are you here?”

  “Well I, erm, I was in another place, a lot brighter than this, no offence of course, and I asked if there were any trains nearby and the man, or at least I think he was a man, he had a sort of dress on, said that people didn’t need to take trains because everybody flew and I said, ‘well air travel’s all very well and good but you can’t beat some steam and a track to really see the country,’ but he didn’t really seem to come around at all, and actually got a bit testy, although I suppose he’s under a lot of stress with all those people in line and everything, but eventually he said he knew a place with a great big train and I could go see it if I, erm, darned well pleased — only he didn’t say ‘darned’ you know, which I thought was a little unprofessional. So, I said, ‘yes please,’ and the next moment I was here.”

  There was silence as Charon tried to pluck the salvageable pieces of information from the slew of words, like the last edible parts of a Thanksgiving turkey. “Did you say bright?” he managed finally.

  “Yes. Very,” replied Henry.

  “And robes, something about robes?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And … flying?”

  “Oh yes. They were very keen on it.”

  “Bastards!”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “So am I.” Charon grabbed Henry by the scruff of the neck and dragged him by his side.

  “Stand still, got it?”

  “Erm, yes, but listen I don’t mean to be any bother,” said Henry, but Charon wasn’t listening.

  His eyes glowed red as he muttered to himself. “Bloody harp and dresses brigade. I’m sick of them throwing their trash down here! Well I’m not going to stand for it anymore!”

  “Exactly what are we doing?” asked Henry nervously.

  Charon looked down. “Listen,” he said, “you obviously don’t belong here, but I doubt they’ll let you back upstairs. Take it from me; they can hold a grudge for a hell of a long time. But I think I know just the place.”

  “Oh. I don’t suppose… Are there any trains?”

  Charon’s natural grin got even wider. “You’ll see.”

  He clicked his fingers.

  —— «» ——

  “Passengers please step away from the platform. Apologies for the delay, but the next train is not in service and won’t be taking passengers at this time. We appreciate your patience and will notify you on the updated schedule as soon as possible.”

  A loudspeaker shrilled overhead with the kind of nasal, monotonous voice that derives a sadistic satisfaction from phrases such as “please stay on the line” and “your call is important to us.”

  “Thank you again for choosing Purgatory, and have a nice eternity.”

  “Welcome to Purgatory,” announced Charon with a theatrical sweep of his skeletal hand.

  “Purgatory? But it’s a…”

  “Train station?” interrupted Charon. “Yes, I thought it might be, for you anyway. And luckily the trains are impossible to catch here, because they don’t really go anywhere. It’s all about the waiting I believe. For some people, it’s outside the principal’s office, others a hospital room. For most people, it’s an airport; Heathrow I think, which I always thought was a little mean. That’s more like something our lot would think up.”

  All around them people were pacing on the platforms, staring at watches, tapping their feet, waiting without much optimism by empty baggage carts and flicking through coffee kiosk magazines that didn’t appear to be from this decade. Steam trains rolled into the station, paused for what seemed like only seconds, and then disappeared to be replaced by others.

  “It’s the most marvelous place I’ve ever seen,” whispered Henry. “At least twice the size of St. Pancras.” He stopped his wide-eyed staring for a moment and turned to Charon. “But won’t you get in trouble for doing this?”

  “Me?” said Charon, surprised. “I imagine not. The man downstairs will like that I took the initiative; he’s very big on that sort of thing. We have meetings on it and everything,” he continued with the best indignant eye roll his sockets could manage. “Besides, he’ll probably insist on sending a couple up the other way, just to even things up.”

  “But you can’t stay?” asked Henry.

  “Oh Hades, no! I’ve got a train to repair thanks to you,” said Charon.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Well,” shrugged the conductor, “you know where to find me.”

  “But I don’t think I do…” began Henry.

  “That’s right,” Charon hurriedly cut in. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll need the company.” He nodded behind the little man, clicked his fingers, and vanished once more.

  “I wonder what he meant by that?” said Henry.

  “Hello, love,” said a quiet voice from behind him.

  Henry turned around, slowly.

  In front of him stood a small, rosy cheeked woman smiling apologetically in a yellow anorak, with mousy brown curls escaping out from under a matching hat.

  “I forgot my thermos,” she said.

  Henry smiled back and handed her the flask in his hand.

  “It’s blueberry,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  —— «» ——

  On a bench in Purgatory, the odd little couple sat down wordlessly, sipping blueberry tea and watching th
e trains arrive and depart.

  Eternity began.

  —— « o » ——

  Gavin Bradley

  Gavin Bradley is an Irish writer living in Canada, and has published short stories in Glass Buffalo literary magazine, and the anthologies, Frozen Fairy Tales, Dark Lane’s: Weird Tales 3, Ignis Fatuus, and Tesseracts 21, amongst others. He has also published poetry in magazines and collections on both sides of the Atlantic and was selected for the Irish Times: ‘New Irish Writing’ award.

  A Wish of Childhood

  by Melodie Leclerc

  A train. I’d always wanted to ride on a train. Not one at a park, not a subway or an LRT, but an actual train with passenger cars, dining cars, sleeping cars… The whole package.

  Sad that it had taken so long for me to finally manifest that wish. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my fiancé speaking to a man loading a large crate. I vaguely remembered something about the special cargo she needed to bring home with her, but I couldn’t find the memory that would have told me what it was. Most people would likely have just asked but she was always accusing me of not listening to her and we’d already had a serious fight; adding to it wouldn’t be the smartest move I could make. How hard could it really be to figure out on my own anyway?

  The train caught my attention again and I felt a little giddy, like a kid with a bag of Halloween candy. I could see they were already boarding passengers, and I turned back to where my fiancé had been, to find that her and the crate were no longer there. She had probably boarded without me — likely still angry about the fight we’d had. I couldn’t even remember what it had been about. Which usually meant that it hadn’t really been important. We were going to have to sort it out, but perhaps delaying that discussion wouldn’t be ill advised. We both had long-burning tempers — time or physical exertion was usually necessary in order for a more coolheaded and rational solution to prevail.

  Trying not to lose the good feeling I had, I got on the train. I wasn’t quite sure where my seat was or if I had a place in a sleeping compartment. Well, it would come to me or I’d find my fiancé.