HELL TRAIN

CURSED MANUSCRIPTS

IAIN ROB WRIGHT

ULCERATED PRESS

CONTENTS

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Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Epilogue 2

TEASER FOR ‘WITCH’

Plea From the Author

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Also by Iain Rob Wright

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Dedicated to those crazy, freedom loving warriors of Ukraine. The heroes we never knew we needed.

Also, my thanks to you, for reading this book!

“I will be stronger than my sadness.”

- Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes

“You’ll always be late for the previous train and on time for the next.”

- Piet Hein

“There’s something strange in that man’s head.”

- Dinah Bellman, The Langoliers

FOREWORD

One of my favourite horror stories is The Langoliers. I love Stephen King’s novella, but I really, really love the TV mini-series. It’s hokey and low-budget and old, with a really odd little child actor, but there’s just something so… cosy about it. A bunch of strangers stuck on a plane trying to figure out where everyone else went. I love stories like that! Trap a bunch of strangers in a bar, an airplane, a boat… and it’s a recipe for a fun time.

The Langoliers is a common horror set-up nowadays, but like many things, Stephen King helped make it popular. My very first novel, Final Winter, followed this simple formula of sticking a bunch of strangers in a single cramped location and then messing with them for 300 pages. That time it was a crappy old pub during a snowstorm.

This time it’s something different.

The book you are about to read sticks thirteen strangers on a train and then subjects them to a not-very-good-time. It’s very much my love letter to The Langoliers, and I hope that shines through (there are even a few Easter eggs hidden for those with a nose for such things), but I also hope you find it unique and interesting. I have taken Stephen King’s seeds and grown them into a tree of my own. I hope you enjoy its stinky fruit.

Anyway, without further ado, please have your tickets ready as you step aboard… the Hell Train.

With love,

Iain

PROLOGUE

The sun stuck to the sky like an amber sequin. A crisp breeze carried the scent of spring. It was the perfect day for a train ride.

Dan Purvis rattled the keys in his pocket as he stepped aboard the refurbished Rail Class 350e, fresh from the depot and nigh unrecognisable from the last time he’d seen it. Modern grey contour chairs had replaced the scruffy ‘ironing board’ seats, and electronic destination tickers punctuated the end of every carriage. There were even brand-new LCD billboards displaying adverts and local information. Only an experienced train operator like Dan recognised the 350e for what it was – a twenty-year-old relic missing its fourth carriage – but the thing was, he loved the relics.

Maybe because I’m a relic too. My knees have certainly seen better days.

Trains were like people. Each had a history and a personality; each rattled and rolled in its own distinct way; and each possessed its own set of groans and grumbles. After eighteen years on the rails, Dan knew every train in the fleet from its bolts to its windscreen wipers. This one, because of the ongoing issues with its fourth carriage, he always thought of as ‘Shorty’.

Today, Dan was operating the route between the town of Whitegale and Birmingham’s bustling New Street Station. It was his preferred route, because he lived in Whitegale with his wife, Sharon, and the forty-five-minute journey was second nature to him. It was typically uneventful.

Yet, that afternoon, he felt oddly excited. Maybe it was the welcome scent of spring in the air after a particularly dreary winter, or perhaps he’d merely slept well. Whatever the reason, he was light on his feet and smiling as he passed through the rear carriage – something he liked to do before every shift to check that everything was in order. You never knew where a pile of vomit or a smouldering cigarette might be hiding.

Dan nodded dutifully to the passengers as he strolled down the aisle between the two rows of paired seats, greeting them out of professional habit more than a desire to say hello. Politeness was ingrained into him after so many years working with the public.

Despite how little of it they show back.

He stopped to check out one of the bright new ad displays. A thirty-second clip tried desperately to convince him to buy a Le Grande Mar ‘Good Guy’ robotic vacuum cleaner. By the time it had finished, he was actually in two minds about getting one for Sharon. Housework wasn’t as easy for her lately. The two of them were getting old. If only he had the money to retire and be with her… They had always spoken about Spain.

Sipping sangria on the beach. Spending our days reading Grisham and eating alfresco.

Where did our lives go so suddenly? I can’t even remember what we were like in our twenties.

In love. We were in love. We still are. I just had more hair back then. And more time…

Dan’s cheery mood turned sour when he entered the middle carriage and spotted a pair of ‘roadmen’. The ne’er-do-wells were everywhere lately, spilling out of Birmingham’s urban centres and causing havoc in the surrounding towns and villages. Along with dealing drugs, the hooded youths seemed hellbent on committing whatever crimes they could, for little or no reason. Two stabbings in Whitegale had occurred in the last year alone. People were frightened stepping foot outside their homes.

This country is getting worse. In every way. People only think about themselves.

As expected, the two roadmen glared at Dan as he walked by them. One was a white lad with bright, staring eyes. The other was an older black lad with dark, beady eyes. Both had their hoods up over their heads and bandanas over their mouths – a key part of their identity. A braver – or larger – man might have told them to show their faces, but Dan chose to ignore them in the hope they would alight at the next station. The stories he could tell about courageous train drivers taking on troublemakers were endless, and few ended well for the driver. Dan had once made the mistake of shushing a pair of drunk ladies on a Saturday night. One had spat in his face. The other had poured vodka over his head.

It shouldn’t be my job to deal with thugs. The police should arrest them.

To keep from losing his temper, Dan marched into the last carriage. It was the same as the other two, except it lacked a toilet cubicle and instead housed a cramped operator’s cabin at the front. Four passengers currently occupied this section of the train – an old couple holding hands sat in one of the face-to-face table sections, while a heavyset young black man in a shirt and tie sat a few seats away. Last, there was a long-legged, middle-aged gentleman in loose jeans and an olive-green jumper sitting in an aisle seat. The afternoon shift was quiet, but Dan was working until ten, so there was plenty of time for that to change.

And then back home. Hopefully before Sharon falls asleep. Maybe we can doze off to an episode of River Monsters together.

“Excuse me, driver?” the old lady called out from beside her husband.

Dan smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Do you know which train we need to take from New Street to Gloucestershire?”

“Um… you know, I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s platform eleven, but you’re best off asking at the ticket office. Sorry.”

“That’s quite all right,” said the old man next to her. “I’m sure there are far too many routes for one man to remember.”

“And they change constantly,” said Dan, tucking his hands into the pockets of his navy-blue blazer. “About as often as the weather. Are you both off on a day trip?”

“Funeral,” said the old man.

“Oh, my condolences.”

The man waved a wrinkled hand dismissively at Dan. “Bah, it’s only a second cousin. I barely knew the man, but when you reach our age, funerals are the only thing on the calendar.”

His wife gave him an elbow. “Oh, Eric! Don’t be so morose. You’ll have the man scared to grow old.”

Dan chuckled. “I think the train’s already left the station on that one. Anyway, you folks enjoy your trip. Safe journey.”

The old man grunted. “That has more to do with you than us.”

“You have a point. I’ll be sure to watch my speed.”

Dan continued on to the front of the carriage, his mood growing ever brighter.

Bradley Martin, the dawn shift operator that Dan was relieving, stood outside the operator’s cabin door, yawning and stretching, his eyes bloodshot. The poor sod had likely been at the King’s Heath depot for five thirty that morning, and it was now 1 pm. Dan hadn’t taken a dawn shift in years. He felt tired at the mere thought of it. He and Sharon were both night owls. They loved to read together in the silence of a sleeping world.

Bradley waved wearily when he saw Dan. He had tied his navy-blue blazer around his waist and unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt, rolling them up to his elbows to reveal a tattoo of a boxing kangaroo. It wasn’t a professional look for a train operator, but then Bradley wasn’t much fussed about such things. Few of the younger drivers were. There wasn’t the same pride about operating a train as there had been in Dan’s younger years. Back then, it had been a calling.

“You okay to drop me off at Ronchurch, mate?” Bradley asked Dan.

“Yeah, of course. How was the morning shift?”

“Busy, as usual. We can’t all get the cushy afternoon runs like you.”

Dan smirked. “You’ll get to pick your own hours when you’ve been doing this as long as I have.”

“Hey, this is just a temporary gig, mate. That’s what I said four years ago and I’m sticking to it.”

“That’s what they all say, but this life has a way of keeping you.” Dan chuckled to himself. “Perhaps it’s the calming thrum of the motors, or the quiet dignity of getting people to where they need to go.”

“Or maybe it’s the steady pay cheque, mate. Anyway…” Bradley stood aside to allow Dan inside the cabin. “Your chariot awaits, sir.”

“Thanks, Bradley.”

There wasn’t enough room inside Shorty’s cabin for two, so Bradley sat outside on a nearby passenger seat, pulling out his mobile phone and tapping away with a stylus on a ridiculously large screen. At some point in his late forties, technology had passed Dan by. Televisions had got thinner, mobile phones larger, and suddenly it had all ceased to interest him. Progress had stopped for him shortly after the arrival of self-checkouts at the supermarkets. He just hoped to retire before trains started operating themselves.

I’m too old to learn to do something else.

Come on, Dan, you’re barely past fifty.

But this is a young man’s world. Too many flashing screens and tiny buttons. It took me nigh on a year to learn the Internet.

Dan grinned as he watched Bradley tapping away at his screen. Honey, I’m on my way home. Bradley had recently got married and his wife was six months pregnant. Dan was envious. He held few regrets, but having never had children was one of them. Not that it had been his fault. Sharon had never been able to.

It’s not her fault either. Just a twist of fate.

But fate can be a sonofabitch. It’s not fair.

Dan closed the operator’s cabin door and stuck his master key into the console. After performing a quick system check, he started up the electric motors and signed his name into the operator’s log. Each carriage was self-propelled, but the main thrust came from the motor carriage up front. Like the rest of the train, the operator’s cabin had been upgraded and now had the latest radio equipment and CCTV. The cabin even had a new car smell.

A knock on the door. Bradley’s voice.

Dan opened the door and asked what his colleague wanted.

“I forgot to warn you,” said Bradley. “There’s a right mess on the tracks about two miles up. Might turn your stomach if you’re not prepared for it.”

Dan frowned. “What is it?”

“A proper bloodbath, mate. The foxes must have had a good night. I called it in, but you know what they’re like. It’ll probably get left there to rot until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Okay, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Bradley nodded downwards. “Talking of bloodbaths. What on earth did you do to your hand?”

Dan brought up his left hand and saw blood. He rotated his wrist, but there was no wound on his palm or on the backs of his knuckles. His shirt cuff was tinged red. “I have no idea. I’m not even sure it’s my blood.”

Bradley grimaced. “Best get yourself cleaned up, mate. Can’t drive a train one-handed.”

“I’m pretty sure you can, Bradley.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” He chuckled. “Anyway, prepare yourself for the mess on the tracks. It’s a shocker.”

Dan nodded and slipped back inside the cabin. Dead animals on the track weren’t uncommon. Sometimes they got hit by trains. Other times, small prey got hunted out on the open tracks, where they found themselves penned in by wire fences and steep embankments. It wasn’t uncommon, so for Bradley to mention it…

There were a few minutes left before departure, so Dan used the time to open up the first aid box on the wall. He unbuttoned his sleeve and exposed the cause of the bleeding – a short, deep gash marking his wrist four inches up from his palm. Now he was aware of the injury, it throbbed and stung, so he covered the cut with a medium-sized plaster and used antiseptic gauze to clean the blood off his hand. He could do nothing about his stained shirt cuff except tuck it up underneath his blazer.

It was time to leave.

Dan honked the departure horn and waited another two minutes before closing the carriage doors. With a throaty whine, the train moved, battling inertia and picking up speed. By the time Shorty’s rear carriage left Whitegale’s single, seventy-foot concrete platform, Dan had got the motor up to fifteen miles an hour. By the time he reached Ronchurch, he might get her up to sixty.

A few minutes later, as Bradley had warned, the train approached a massacre. Dark blood stained the track for a dozen metres, and glistening entrails coated the rails like chunky salsa. The carcasses appeared to be from rabbits, five or six of them slaughtered in a neat, evenly spaced line. Dan put a fist to his mouth to keep from retching. It really was stomach-turning. At least with the massacre being in the centre of the tracks, none of the passengers would see it.

The blood on the tracks caused a temporary loss of friction, but nothing to worry about – just a slight wobble – and within seconds, the train had hurtled past the grizzly mess.

Dan eyed the CCTV monitor, studying the two roadmen to see if they were behaving. The hooded youths appeared to be chatting with two other passengers – a lad and a girl – on the other side of the aisle. If those passengers knew what was good for them, they’d avoid an argument. It was never worth it.

Ten minutes passed, and the train approached Ronchurch station. Dan applied the brakes evenly and pulled down on the thrust lever, bringing Shorty to a smooth, controlled stop. Once the last of the momentum bled away, and the wheels settled on the rails, Dan hit the door release. No passengers waited on the platform, but he still needed to linger for a minute, else he would run ahead of schedule.

Bradley knocked on the door. Dan opened it with a smile. “You off, mate?”

“Yeah, another day done. I’m not working tomorrow, so I’ll probably see you on Wednesday. Give my love to Sharon.”

Dan cleared his throat. “Sure thing. I hope everything’s okay with the baby. Go safe, Bradley.”

Bradley went to leave, but stopped and turned back. “Hey, did you see what I was talking about on the tracks? I think it’s burned into my brain.”

“It was a bloodbath, just like you said. Try not to think about it.”

“I’ll try, but it was so strange. The way the bodies were all arranged in a line along the tracks… Oh, and that’s not the only weird thing I saw today. Pay attention to the tunnel up ahead. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a work of art. Some people have too much time on their hands, I swear.”

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the day, Bradley. Try to enjoy your afternoon.”

“You too, mate. See ya!” Bradley exited the train through the nearest passenger door and headed towards some concrete steps leading out of the station and onto the main road.

Dan waited out the rest of the minute before closing the doors, then got Shorty moving again. He checked the dot matrix for upcoming line information and to make sure nothing was coming the other way.

The tunnel Bradley had spoken of was roughly half a mile ahead, where Ronchurch’s main road passed above the single train track. A passing place lay on the other side of the tunnel to allow more trains to run the route simultaneously. There, he would likely meet old David Moss or Imran Riaz running passengers in the opposite direction. They were longtime railwaymen like Dan, and old friends. In fact, David and his wife had even spent a week in Spain with Dan and Sharon last year, although David had got a tad too drunk a tad too often for Dan’s liking.

There’s enjoying a drink, and then there’s enjoying a drink.

When the train approached the tunnel, Dan didn’t immediately spot the thing that had captured Bradley’s attention, but gradually it came into view. A crude, circular effigy made from bones and scraps of cloth. In the centre was a cow’s skull. The whole thing hung from a short length of rope attached to the steel railing running alongside the main road above.

Dan raised an eyebrow and tittered. “The world is a much stranger place than people realise.”

The train entered the tunnel.

CHAPTER 1

Ten Minutes earlier…

Although always controversial, Freud struck a responsive chord with his basic image of human beings as creatures in conflict, beset by irreconcilable and often unconscious demands from within as well as without.

“God, that looks boring,” said Clip’s boyfriend, Xavi, pouting in the window seat beside her, his black hair flopping in front of his handsome face. For a nineteen-year-old, he had an uncanny way of mimicking a sulky thirteen-year-old.

Caroline ‘Clip’ Piper placed her bookmark inside her text – The Science of the Mind – and closed the book in her lap. Finding time to study was important, but Xavi wouldn’t sit still for the forty-five-minute journey, so she was best just accepting it.

The 1:05 pm train from Whitegale was yet to depart, but the fresh air drifting in through the middle carriage’s two open doors was refreshing. The season still required a jacket, but T-shirt weather was getting close.

Not that I’ll have any time to enjoy the sun with all the coursework I have to finish. I feel like studying madness makes you mad.

At least it keeps me focused.

Xavi was still pouting despite Clip having put down her book, so she turned to him and smiled. They hadn’t seen each other in a couple of days, so perhaps he had a right to be needy. The stress of her upcoming exams had pushed him to the sidelines, which wasn’t entirely fair, seeing as he always made time for her whenever she wanted it.

“Sorry,” she said, tapping her lime-green fingernails against the cover of her book. “I’m worried I’m going to screw up and get a C.”

“When have you ever got a C, Clip? You always nail your exams.”

“Because I study hard. Lately, though…”

Xavi nodded. He knew about her problems at home. “How many times do I need to say it?” he said. “Come stay at my place.”

“You want me to move into your flat? A one-bedroom postage stamp? No thanks, babe.”

“It’ll be cosy. You, me, a shower… a bed.”

She chuckled. “I would get even less studying done.” She took her textbook and slid it into her oversized faux leather handbag, which she had got from a charity shop last week. “Anyway,” she said. “I’m all yours. What time’s your lecture, again?”

“Not ’til three. Fundamentals of Clinical Science. Woo-hoo!”

“If you don’t like studying medicine, do a different degree.”

Aghast, Xavi raised both his thick black eyebrows at her. “And have my papa strangle me to death for shaming him? Think I’ll pass on that, mi amor. Although he might actually send me back home to Spain, then, so maybe it’s a good idea.”

“You still missing Mummy?”

“No, I’m missing the sun. I can’t take any more of being cold.”

Clip feigned outrage. “It’s not cold. It’s warm.”

“You call this warm?”

“Yes!” She rolled her eyes. Xavi looked a little ridiculous in his bright orange puffer jacket, but he made up for it with his handsome Mediterranean features and slender figure. “I would call this pleasantly mild at the very least.”

“I would not call it that.”

“Nobody’s wearing a coat except for you.”

He shrugged. “I choose comfort over fashion.”

“Then you must be really comfortable.” Clip snorted and nudged his knee with hers. They’d been seeing each other for four months now, but had only been hot and heavy for half that time. Lately, however, Clip had been backing away. It wasn’t anything Xavi had done. It was just the way she was. Soon as she started to need another person, she shrivelled up into a protective ball and rolled away.

Better that than stick around and get kicked.

The train’s horn blared, signalling it was about to leave the station. Two minutes later, the doors slid closed and the brakes released with a hiss.

Settling back into her comfy seat, Clip listened to the low whine of the motors as the train rolled forward. She’d always liked train rides. Probably because they were among the few activities that made her younger brother sit still for any length of time. One of her happiest memories of Richard was taking the steam train to Dartmouth. A glass cabin at one end provided an unobstructed view of the passing countryside. Richard had sat on her lap the entire journey in complete silence, soothed by the clickety-clack of the wheels and the choo-choo of the locomotive’s whistle.

Richard rarely relaxed.

Clip felt a warm hand on her thigh travelling upwards. She turned her head to find Xavi smiling and quickly repositioned his hand closer to her knee. “Pack it in, you!”

Xavi slid his hand back up again, his pinkie finger rubbing against her crotch and making her tingle. “I can’t help myself,” he said. “I haven’t seen you naked in days.” He leant in and pecked at her neck. “The way you smell… The way you taste… Ay! It does something to me.”

She planted a palm against his chest and shoved him. “It’s called bathing. You should try it.”

He slid away from her, a confused expression on his face. “Ouch!”

They weren’t alone in the carriage. A pair of youths sat ahead on the other side of the aisle, and there was a woman directly in front of Clip – she could see the top of her head. Getting busy on a train wasn’t exactly classy, but she hadn’t needed to be so harsh. There were worse things than being wanted.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Just… not here, okay? I’ll come back to yours after my lecture. Can you control yourself until then, or do I need to call a vet?”

He nodded, but still looked hurt. Had she wounded his pride with such a flippant remark? It wasn’t as if he actually smelled.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I was joking, but it came out nastier than I meant for it to. You smell lovely, babe. In fact, you smell like… what is that, sandalwood?”

“No, it’s cedar.” He shook his head and sighed. “I swear you’re going off me. Just tell me and put me out of my misery.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Xavi. I’m not going off of you. I just don’t want to be felt up on the train. Is that all right?”

He shrugged and looked away. “I can’t help what you do to me.”

She reached out and squeezed his hardened crotch. “Later, okay? It’ll be worth the wait, I promise.”

He turned back to her. “Can I at least have a kiss? Is that acceptable?”

“Of course.” She leant in and put her mouth against his, slipping her tongue alongside his. His hands ran up and down her sides but otherwise behaved themselves.

“Get a fucking room, innit?”

Xavi and Clip broke apart, and when Clip turned her head, she saw the two youths ahead staring back at her. The one in the aisle seat was black, with a hood over his head and a blue cloth covering his face. She’d been seeing more and more of these troublemakers lately. They had even been popping up in quiet little Whitegale. The youth’s narrow-eyed glare caused Clip to blush and apologise. “Didn’t mean to gross you out. Sorry.”

But the youth continued to glare, and he now looked Clip up and down, his gaze moving from her bare ankles, up her skinny jeans, and to her face. “You want a proper man, peng ting should come down his yard, innit?”

“I… don’t even know what that means.” She tried to smile.

The youth patted his knee. “Man is saying you should come plant them sweet cheeks on his lap, woman.”

Xavi rose in his seat and leant across Clip. “The hell did you say, amigo?”

The youth’s eyes creased at the sides as he grinned behind his mask. “Man best stay in his seat, or he’s gonna get mashed up in front of his spice. Then the mandem will show her a proper good time.” The slightly younger lad beside him laughed and said, “Real talk.”

Xavi growled. “Idiota. Do you think you sound like a hard man?”

“Man will show you how hard he is, pussy hole.” The youth reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small metal handle. There was an audible click, and a blade appeared. “Man will slice you up good and proper, bruv.”

“Okay, okay,” said Clip, looking around for help, but besides the woman sitting in front of her – who was pointedly looking out of the window as if she heard nothing – there was no one. Clip had to stop this from getting out of hand by herself. “Look, let’s take it easy. There’s no need for trouble, is there?”

The youth nodded at Xavi. “Woman better tell her man to calm down, or he’s gonna get shanked.”

Is this guy for real?

Try not to judge, Clip. He could have grown up in an abusive home. His self-esteem is probably tied up in whatever gang he’s a part of. If Xavi pushes him, there’s a good chance he’ll use that knife. De-escalate. I can handle this.

“Please,” said Clip. “We don’t want any trouble.”

The youth nodded. “Real talk. Woman don’t even know how dangerous man is.”

“I’ll bet,” she agreed. “Look, we’re sorry, okay?” Xavi fidgeted in the seat beside her, like he wanted to leap up and attack, but she pushed downwards on his thigh while keeping her focus on the youth. She kept her expression civil, almost flirtatious. Bullies thrived on fear and respect. Give them that, and they had less reason to escalate. “I’m Clip, by the way. This is Xavi. We don’t want to fight you, okay?”

The youth waved the knife in front of his face, glaring at Xavi. “Your man looks like he wants to fight.”

Xavi went to speak, but stopped when Clip pinched his thigh. He took a moment and started again. “I don’t want to fight you, amigo, all right? Me and my lady are just trying to chill.”

The youth thrust his knife out in a pointing gesture. “Then chill, boy. Don’t even look in man’s direction, you get me?”

“Come on,” said Clip. “There’s no need for that. I said we’re sorry. Can we just put the knife away, please? If someone sees you, they’re going to call the police and ruin both our days.”

The youth narrowed his eyes at her. “Real talk. Aight, woman, man agrees to a truce.” He put the knife back inside his hoodie and turned back to face the front. “Stop with the kissing noises, though, or man will get well vexed.”

“No problem.” Clip almost melted into her seat; her heart was hammering against her ribs.

Xavi was fuming beside her, muttering angrily under his breath. “Idiotas.”

Clip turned to Xavi and grabbed his face, brought it close to hers. “It’s not worth it,” she whispered. “They’ll be in prison one day when you’re a doctor. Don’t stoop to their level.”

Xavi grunted, but then he nodded. His fiery temper was a hard thing for him to quell – although he always called it passion. Usually, she liked how seriously he took life, but right now, she wished he would relax and let things go. Especially with a knife involved.

What mad world am I living in when a random stranger pulling a knife on a train is almost ordinary? I didn’t even panic.

It’s not that ordinary. My hands are shaking. Should I call the police? Alert the driver?

No, it will only make things worse. These gang members don’t care about consequences.

Still seething, Xavi glared out of the window at the passing fields full of cows and sheep. While the last leg of the journey into Birmingham was always ugly, farms and villages dotted the earlier portion. “I hate this country,” he mumbled to himself. “Estoy hasta los cojones.”

The electronic ticker at the front of the cabin displayed the word ‘Ronchurch’. The train slowed and, for a split-second, seemed to skid on the tracks. If not for having taken the route so often, Clip might not have noticed the slight moment of weightlessness, but as it was, it turned her stomach.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Clip spun around in her seat, ready to confront whichever weirdo had just whispered right in her ear, but there was no one there. The seats behind her were all empty. Had she imagined the voice?

How much sleep did I get last night? Am I studying too hard?

“You okay?” Xavi asked her.

She nodded. “I… I’m good.”

I’m just hearing voices, that’s all. What would my text books say about that?

I’m either highly stressed or schizophrenic.

The woman in front of Clip turned and stared at her through the gap between the seats. Her voice was low as she asked if Clip was doing all right.

Clip frowned. “Yeah, I’m fine. How about you?”

The woman was perhaps sixty, with short brown hair, but her eyes were a lively green that could have belonged to a teenager. “You handled that really well,” she whispered. “No telling what people are capable of these days. Best not to get into an argument.”

Xavi grunted and continued staring out of the window. Clip ignored his mood and smiled at the woman. “That’s exactly my thinking. You also can’t rely on strangers to help you.”

The woman blinked twice, like there was a fly buzzing in her face. “You’re right. I… didn’t want to get involved. It was cowardly of me. Perhaps if I didn’t have this young man with me, I would have spoken up.”

Confused, Clip rose to see over the front seats. There, sitting next to the woman, was a young boy of eight or nine. He looked up at Clip with one good eye, the other milky and unfocused. While the woman had greying auburn hair, he had bright blonde hair closer to Clip’s colour. “Oh, I didn’t see you there, buddy. How you doing?”

The boy nodded but didn’t speak. He was holding a Rubik’s Cube in his hands and fidgeting with it on his lap. His jeans and red jumper both appeared new – bright and vibrant – but his black trainers were old and scuffed.

“He’s a little shy,” explained the woman, giving the boy a rub on the shoulders. “I’m looking after him while his mummy has a little rest.”

Clip nodded. This woman was a foster carer. “I understand. My name’s Clip. My boyfriend’s name is Xavi.”

Xavi nodded to her. “Hola.”

“Hello there. I’m Gina, and my handsome friend here is Harley.”

Harley blushed. He kept looking at Clip and glancing away.

“Pleased to meet you, Gina,” said Clip, lowering back into her seat. “You heading into Birmingham?”

“No, no. Not that far. We’re travelling into Stirchley to have a little lunch and do some bowling.”

Clip beamed. “Oh, I love bowling. I haven’t been in ages.” She tilted her head to see the boy through the gap. “Do you know how to bowl, Harley?”

He shook his head. His milky eye was off-putting, and she tried to avoid thinking about the circumstances that might have led to him losing the use of it. Most foster kids probably went through hell before they ended up in care. Clip had suffered enough in a so-called ‘normal’ family.

Human beings are like buildings, and childhood is the foundation. Screw that up, and everything built on top will be wonky.

“We’re heading into university for lectures,” said Clip. She side-eyed the two youths, checking that they were still minding their own business. They were, so she relaxed a little. “It’s a bit of a pain, living so far away.”

“Why don’t you live on campus, dear?”

“Money. I don’t have any.”

Gina nodded and pursed her lips. “There’s always that. Well, the good news is you’ll probably never be as poor as you are right now. That’s the benefit of being a student. It teaches you to be frugal.”

“I guess. Were you a student?”

“Oh yes, long ago. I trained to be an accountant and started a big firm with my ex-husband. Lots of money. Lots of holidays. Nice cars. All the things people dream about. I gave it all up, though. Not the life for me.” She glanced at Harley. “I wanted something more.”

Clip smiled. Now and then, she met a person too nice to be true, and it always unsettled her. There had to be something hiding beneath the surface, didn’t there? No one was truly decent. Everyone was screwed up. But maybe some people were less screwed up than others. Gina appeared nice. She seemed to care. Perhaps she did.

Or maybe she wore a mask like everybody else.

“That must have taken a lot of courage,” said Clip. “To give it all up.”

The woman shrugged. “At first, but once I ripped the plaster off, I realised how easy it was. Life should be about love and compassion, not money and status. What are you both studying?”

“Xavi is studying medicine and I’m studying psychology.”

Gina smiled. “You see? Both of you get it. You’re dedicating your lives to helping others. You’ll never regret it, I promise you.”

“I hope not,” said Clip. She glanced at Xavi, knowing he had little interest in becoming a doctor, and that his father had pushed him into it. He was more interested in music and art. “It’s hard to know what life will throw at you,” she said, “but I’m hoping my degree will at least help me understand it a little better. Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Gina. I hope you enjoy your bowling.”

“And I hope you enjoy your lecture.” Gina smiled and turned back around.

Conversation over, Clip leant back in her chair and pressed her skull against the headrest. The space behind her eyes throbbed, and she felt increasingly nauseated. Perhaps it was motion sickness, although it wasn’t usually something she suffered with. She just had a bad feeling. A sense that something wasn’t quite right.

I think heebie-jeebies is the medical term.

The hooded thug sitting up ahead was staring back at her again. When she made eye contact with him, he grabbed his crotch and stuck out his bright pink tongue at her in an obscene gesture.

Clip turned away, praying Xavi hadn’t seen it.

But he had.

CHAPTER 2

Xavi attempted to leap up, but Clip grabbed him by the wrist. “Please, don’t.”

“Jijo de puta! He needs teaching a lesson. Who does he think he is?”

Clip shushed him. “He’s a thug with a knife. You want him to stab you?”

“He can try.”

“He will! He will try, Xavi. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I don’t know what it’s like in Barcelona, but people don’t mess about here. We have a real problem with knife crime, and I don’t want you adding to the statistics.”

Xavi chewed at his lip for a moment, shaking his head. “He’s perving at you, Clip. Am I supposed to just sit here and let him?”

“Yes! Be the better man. Seriously, I can’t be dealing with this… with this macho bullshit.” She pressed at her temples and closed her eyes, a headache forming fast. She felt torn in two. Part of her wanted to let Xavi go – to let him teach the scumbag a lesson – but he could end up in serious trouble. He could get sent back to Spain or end up in jail. Winning a fight wasn’t better than avoiding a fight. Violence never ended well. No matter the reason for it.

Xavi clenched his fists as the two youths smirked at him from across the aisle. The air between them seemed to vibrate with the tension. Clip couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand it because she knew where aggression led. Where it always led.

To people getting hurt.

To me getting hurt.

Clip leapt up from her seat, causing both Xavi and the youths to glance up at her. She took a deep breath and then announced she was going to the toilet. “Sit here and wait, Xavi, okay?” She gave him a pleading look and waited until it got through to him. “Please.”

With a sigh, Xavi nodded. “Fine. Don’t be long.”

“I’ll be as long as it takes, you weirdo.” She slid out from her seat, ignoring the youth’s eyes on her, and hastened up the aisle on wobbly legs. She actually needed to pee, but mostly she just wanted to get away. To run.

The toilet cubicle was a semicircle, taking up half the width of the carriage at the front. A few more rows of seats lay beyond it, as well as a glass and metal door into the next carriage. Directly opposite the toilet was a pass-thru space. Clip pressed a big square button, and the toilet door slid open like something out of a spaceship. The train was new – it even smelled new – but it was only a matter of time before it ended up vandalised.

We can’t have nice things. Because of thugs like those I’m trying to escape. I’m running and hiding, like I always do.

Although, I really do need to pee.

Suddenly sweating, Clip stepped inside the toilet and locked the door behind her. The acrid stench of bleach overcame her, irritating her unsettled stomach further, but a few deep breaths settled it. Male aggression – it set her teeth on edge. She’d been able to tolerate it for a while, but eventually it had caused her to freak out. What made things worse was that Xavi was as much to blame as the two thugs.

Why do guys think girls like it when they act tough?

Maybe most girls do. I’m not normal. I never had a chance to be. Thanks, Richard!

It’s not his fault.

Well, it ain’t my fault either!

Clip undid her skinny jeans and lowered her lacy green underwear. She sat on the toilet and peed, shuddering as the stream hit the waterless pan like machine gun fire. She tried not to think how much stale urine coated the cold aluminium seat as it touched her buttocks, because it was too late to hover. So she stared down at her clean white pumps, examining them intently to occupy her mind.

Once her bladder was empty, and she had flushed the toilet, Clip stood in front of the small round mirror above a tiny sink. Pink streaks ran through her flaxen hair, which was tied back in a loose ponytail and in need of a wash. Her watery blue eyes appeared sad, and her purple-painted lips drooped at the corners. A bulbous vein throbbed on her forehead, a physical symptom of her anxiety. “Well, that’s unsightly.”

Needing to calm herself, she turned on the tap and splashed tepid water over her face. Train toilets weren’t the most pleasant of spaces, but this one was suitable for what she needed it to be. Sanctuary. She was enclosed. Safe. Alone.

All is well. All is calm. All is well. All is calm.

She had learned the mantra in an online group for anxiety sufferers when she had been trying to find a way to feel more positive. Whenever she became stressed, she either fell to pieces, or she mentally retreated. At her worst, she could become totally numb. It was a defence mechanism – she didn’t need her psychology textbooks to tell her that – but it was the only one she had. That and biting sarcasm.

Not my fault most people are irritating.

So much so that I have to lock myself in a toilet.

Clip had fled a tense situation to be alone where she felt safe. It was a rational decision, but also a selfish one because she had left Xavi alone with a pair of thugs hellbent on fighting him. But if she had stayed, she would have had one of her panic attacks, and that would have made things much worse. Hopefully, Xavi had the good sense to avoid trouble.

What am I thinking? I know Xavi. I shouldn’t have left him. He has a temper almost as bad as…

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Clip gasped as her reflection in the mirror suddenly changed. Staring back at her now was her younger brother, Richard, his bloody face warped in pain. Strange, mewing whimpers escaped his cracked lips. “Help me, Clip-Clip.”

“You’re not real. You’re not!” Clip rubbed at her eyes, closing them tight. When she opened them again, Richard was still there. His short blonde hair matted his forehead. His chubby nose was split open across the bridge and bleeding.

“Help me, Clip-Clip.”

Clip’s mouth fell open. Her left hand rose towards the mirror.

This isn’t real. It can’t be.

She was losing her mind.

Her index finger pressed against the cold, hard glass. Richard’s watery blue eyes, identical to her own, stared back at her. She blinked and blinked again, but he did not disappear.

The lights went out in the windowless cubicle.

Engulfed by darkness, Clip stifled a scream. Knees buckling, she collapsed against the toilet door and startled herself as it rattled in its frame.

“All is well. All is calm. All is well. All is calm. Get a hold of yourself, Clip.”

It hurts, Clip. It hurts lots. Want Mummy.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

“You’re not real,” Clip said quietly, her voice barely audible. “You’re just my memories. My trauma. This is a goddamn YouTube clip saved in my head – and I’m tired of watching it.”

Want Mummy.

“Fuck you!” Clip fumbled for the unlock button, which was thankfully still illuminated. When the door slid open, and light flooded in from the carriage, she let out a relieved sigh. The beautiful British countryside rushed by outside the window.

Clip turned back to face the mirror. Richard was gone.

Had he ever even been there?

Fuck you, brain.

Clip took a moment to slow her breathing and stop her trembling. What the hell had just happened?

First voices, now hallucinations? Am I sick? Do I need to go home?

But I feel… normal. Normal for me, at least.

The train braked, causing her to reach out and steady herself against the cubicle wall. It took her several more seconds to calm herself enough to step back out into the carriage.

The lights flickered overhead in the aisle, but the sunlight spilling through the windows made it barely noticeable. Clip’s senses were on high alert, though, so she noticed.

Xavi was still seated, which was a relief, and he smiled at Clip as she moved gingerly down the aisle towards him. The sight of her handsome Spanish boyfriend dispelled the frightful images in her mind of her bloody younger brother calling out her name.

It wasn’t real. I’m just under a lot of strain. Maybe I’m depressed. Or having a nervous breakdown.

The train continued slowing, readying to stop at the next station. The brakes squealed in mild protest, but the deceleration was smooth and deliberate. Even so, Clip had to grab the backs of the chairs for balance.

Gina glanced up from a puzzle book she was doing with Harley and smiled warmly at Clip. The two youths, however, looked her up and down and sneered. The older lad in the aisle seat winked at her again, but she tried to act as if she hadn’t noticed, and turned her back towards him as she passed. Hopefully, he would—

A groping hand caressed Clip’s buttocks. It was so unexpected that she didn’t even react. She simply turned and sat back down in her seat beside Xavi. Stunned. Her heart fluttered in her chest. Her jaws locked together. Both her hands trembled in her lap.

Xavi put a hand on Clip’s thigh and squeezed. Had he seen what had just happened? No. No way. If he had, he would already be on his feet.

“You okay?” he asked her. His dark right eyebrow arced upwards in concern. He had an expressive face as well as being handsome.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Clip forced herself to smile. “I’m fine.”

All is well. All is calm.

Xavi turned in his seat and took her hand in his. “You don’t look good, baby. What’s wrong?”

She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry.

That fucker put his hands on my body. That… that… piece of shit.

Tell Xavi. Tell him and let him break that bastard’s arm.

But what if he’s the one who gets hurt? It’s not worth it.

“I just feel a little sick,” she said. “I’m not getting enough sleep. All the studying…”

Xavi glanced past her at the two youths who were now sharing a laugh about something.

They’re laughing at me. They’re laughing about grabbing my ass.

Xavi’s expression turned suspicious. “Is it them? Are you worried? Because if you are—”

“No, it’s not them. I’m just not feeling great.”

The train reached Ronchurch station, coming to a gentle stop beside the platform. A few seconds passed before a ping heralded the doors opening. Fresh air rushed inside the carriage along with distant bird song. Clip shivered and shuffled in her seat, staring out at the sunshine. It beckoned to her, promised safety. Run!

No one waited outside on the platform, and no one in the middle carriage got off the train. Time seemed to pause for a moment.

“You want to get off?” asked Xavi, nodding to show it was okay. “Do you need some fresh air?”

Do I? Do I need to get off the train?

If I do, I’ll be late for my lecture.

I’ll probably never see those two bastards again. That piece of shit grabbing my ass will become just a bad memory. One that haunts me only occasionally because it will have to compete with all the other bad memories.

But why should I have to miss my lecture? Why should my life suffer because of two idiots? What right do they have to intimidate and upset me? If I get off the train now, I’ll accept being a victim, and I can’t do that. I won’t!

“I’m fine, babe,” she said to Xavi. “Just open the window for me and I’ll be fine. If I puke, I’ll try not to get any on you.”

Xavi stared at her for a moment, then nodded and stood up. He cracked the horizontal pane at the top of the window and kissed the top of her head. “I’m here, Clip. I’ll take care of you.”

The only person who has ever taken care of me is me. Clip nearly said it out loud. Everyone else has let me down.

A beep sounded, and the doors slid closed again. A train driver strolled along on the platform outside, heading towards some concrete steps. He obviously wasn’t the one in charge, because the train started moving again.

Another thirty minutes until I reach my station. What can possibly go wrong in half an hour?

I hope I don’t find out.

The youth who had assaulted Clip leered back at her and slowly licked his lips. Her opportunity to leave had just expired. She hoped she didn’t regret it.

But part of her already did.

All is well. All is calm.

CHAPTER 3

The lights continued flickering. The toilet door near the end of the carriage was open, the dark space inside like a passageway into her nightmares.

Why did I see Richard in the mirror?

Why did I hear his voice?

To occupy her fidgeting hands, Clip slid her phone out of her handbag and checked the time on the cracked screen. A quarter past one. Her lecture was at two, which she would just about make thanks to the university having its own train station. Xavi’s lecture was later, but he had wanted to travel in with her. He would probably grab a coffee while he waited for his own lesson to begin. Perhaps afterwards Clip would stay the night at his flat. It was dingy and cramped, but it beat going home. Especially when she was stressed, like she was right now.

There was a text on her phone from her mum, but it was merely to ask if Richard had taken his tablets that morning. He had, of course – when had she ever forgotten? Never – but Clip didn’t bother replying to let her know.

Her head was a mess of negativity. She could still feel the uninvited hand clasping her buttocks, and she had to fight back tears, not wanting to tip off Xavi that everything was not okay. Her emotions were a hurricane of anger, shock, and disgust. Not to mention a big dose of fear. She tried to keep it all inside.

She decided the best way to avoid the youths – or specifically the mouthy one who had grabbed her ass – was simply to not look at them, so she turned towards Xavi in the window seat and occupied herself by talking. “What would the weather be like now at home?”

Xavi turned to her. He had unbuttoned his puffer jacket and exposed the thin red T-shirt underneath that covered his chiselled chest. “In early April? It will just be getting warm. Ten, fifteen degrees. Warm enough that you can relax in the garden, but not so hot that it saps your strength. The larger beaches will open soon, and towards the end of the month the sea will turn warm and gentle.” He pinched the point of her chin between his thumb and forefinger, something he often did as an affectionate gesture. “Travel back there with me, Clip,” he urged. “You will love it.”

She nodded. “I visited Spain once when I was, like, eight, but I don’t really remember it. I don’t think it’s far enough away from my family. How about we move to Mexico? That’s Spanish-ish, isn’t it?”

He looked deep into her eyes. “Come home with me at Christmas and meet my madre. I’ve told her all about you.”

Clip pushed a loose strand of pink hair behind her ear and blushed. “Really?”

“Of course. She is terrified that I will fall in love with an English girl and never come home again. If you travel back with me, she can work on you moving to Spain.”

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

“What’s not to like?”

Clip raised a tawny eyebrow. “Besides me being cold, untrusting, and stubborn?”

Xavi gently squeezed her hand. His tanned skin was always so soft and warm. “You’re not what you think you are, Clip. Acting cold isn’t the same as being cold.”

“Might as well be. Doesn’t make your life any easier, does it?”

“At least it gives me hope I can one day reach your heart, baby. You might even let me meet your familia one day.”

She groaned and went to turn away. No, don’t clam up. He cares about you. That’s not a crime. “You know what they’re like, Xavi. Why would you want to meet them?”

“To give them a piece of my mind and demand that they treat you better, like the delicate gazania you are.”

“Not everything has to be a fight, Xavi. Anyway, my family isn’t so bad. Things are just difficult with my brother.” My brother who has just been haunting me in the toilet despite being very much alive. “Richard kind of monopolises their existence. Mine, too.”

Xavi nodded thoughtfully. “What does he have again?”

“Prader-Willi syndrome. Basically, he’s a greedy git with a bad temper.”

Xavi creased up and laughed, his dark brown eyes squinting as he shook his head. “Ay, Clip, that is terrible!”

Clip chuckled, a modicum of her tension draining away. She could always count on her dark sense of humour to help with that. “I know I shouldn’t be so harsh. His condition makes him hungry – like always hungry – so he puts on a lot of weight. He has learning difficulties, too, and if he doesn’t get his own way, he lashes out – usually at me. It’s not his fault. It’s tough for him.”

Xavi looked her in the eyes, and for a moment she felt completely safe. His voice dripped with sincerity as he spoke. “Why don’t your folks put him in a hospital or something?”

“Because Richard’s their son, and most of the time he’s pretty sweet. He has these little sayings that always make us laugh, and if you stick an iPad in front of him, he’s not much trouble at all. The problem is, we all have to organise our lives around him so that he’s happy. It doesn’t matter what the rest of us want.”

“You mean what you want?” said Xavi.

She shrugged. “Things didn’t used to be so bad. When Richard was younger, he was less aggressive – or maybe he was just smaller, I don’t know – but now he’s almost six foot and twenty stone. When he lashes out, it… it hurts. And not just physically.”

“What do you mean?”

Clip sighed. She could sense herself taking a step backwards in her brain, her words becoming harder and harder to get out of her mouth. Talking could be so exhausting, especially when it concerned herself. “My parents do the best they can, but they just can’t control him sometimes. If I dare complain, they blame me for being selfish and not caring about Richard’s condition. I do care, but I also hate my life because of him. At least, I hate it when I’m not with you.”

Xavi leant in and kissed her on the mouth. When he pulled away, he said, “No hay mal que por bien no venga.”

“That sounded sexy as hell. What does it mean?”

Xavi grinned. “It means: there is no bad from which something good does not come. You are strong and you are beautiful, Clip. One day, your life will be exactly what you mean for it to be. In Spain.”

She punched him on the triceps through the padded sleeves of his puffer jacket. “I’ll think about it. Have to say, though, a lifetime in the sun sounds pretty good.”

“And the cooking. You have no idea of my madre’s cooking.” He kissed his fingers and smacked his lips. “Maravilloso!”

“I’m not keen on paella.”

“You English…” He shook his head. “You think all we eat is paella? I am talking about patatas bravas, jamon, albondigas. The spices are like magic in your mouth.”

“What about Cornettos? Do you have those?”

“Ay!”

Movement ahead caught their attention. Clip immediately looked towards the two youths, but they were both busy tapping at their phone. It was Gina. She had turned back around to face them through the gap in the seats. “Excuse me for sticking my nose in, but I’m an old lady and that’s what we do. I have to say that I’ve helped a lot of families with issues like the ones you’ve mentioned, and it’s always hardest on the siblings. Your brother can’t help his condition, of course, but you deserved a normal upbringing like anybody else. It’s difficult having a childhood robbed from you, but what your boyfriend said is right. It’ll make you a stronger person in the end, and one day you’ll make a life of your own.”

“You see?” said Xavi. “I’m right as well as handsome.”

It mortified Clip that this woman was butting in on their private conversation, and her first instinct was to get mad, but something in Gina’s eyes diffused her anger. The woman was presumptuous, but she clearly meant well.

“Thanks, Gina. I just feel guilty thinking about myself when my brother is the one who’ll never have a life of his own. My parents either. Their whole life revolves around taking care of him.”

“Their suffering doesn’t nullify yours, dear. We have to take care of ourselves first in this life, because it’s the only way we can ever be strong enough to look after others.” She nodded at Harley sitting beside her. The boy was playing with his Rubik’s Cube, one side almost completely red. “Everyone deserves a safe, loving home, and I’m sorry if you didn’t get one.”

Wow, this woman goes from nought to familiar in three seconds flat. What makes her think I need her sympathy? That I need anybody’s?

Clip didn’t want to keep talking about herself, so she changed the topic. “Hey, Harley. You like puzzles?”

The boy finally spoke. “Yeah. My mum got me this for Christmas.”

“Ooh, I love Christmas. My favourite time of the year.”

“Mine too.” He smiled and thrust his Rubik’s Cube up towards the gap in the seats. “Do you want to have a go on my— Oops!” The Rubik’s Cube hit the seat and tumbled out of the boy’s hand, bouncing off Gina’s knee and rolling across the aisle. It disappeared under the seats opposite and hit the foot of the youth sitting by the window.

The young lad flinched, looked down, and picked up the Rubik’s Cube. He held it for a moment, turning it back and forth in his hand as if he’d never seen such a thing. Then he looked across the aisle at Gina and Harley. “This yours, young blud?”

“Y-Yes,” said Harley.

Gina smiled nervously. “Can he have it back, please?”

“Course he can.” The youth leant across his ass-groping friend and held the cube out in the aisle. “Here you go, little man. Take it.”

Harley was silent, but he dutifully reached across Gina to retrieve the cube. It was too much of a stretch, though, so he had to stand up and move away from his seat.

Clip eyed the two youths warily. The one who had grabbed her ass was still tapping away on his phone, but he became annoyed when his buddy continued reaching across him. “Allow it,” he muttered and sucked at his teeth.

Harley put his hand on the cube, but the youth didn’t let go. “Man must be smart to do one of these, innit?”

Harley nodded. “I like school.”

The youth winced. “Boy likes school? Is you mad? Man hates that peak shit.”

Harley looked mortified, but the youth lowered his mask and smiled. “Allow it, blud. Man should try hard in school. Be a doc and make some of that mad money, yeah? Don’t end up a G like me.” The youth’s words had a harsh tone, but he appeared genuine as he smiled at the young boy. It was more like he was speaking aggressively out of habit than intent.

“What’s a G?” asked Harley.

The youth chuckled. “Someone that don’t like school, fam.”

Harley nodded as if he understood. “W-What’s your name?”

“My name? What boy want to know a man’s name for?”

Harley shrugged. “To be friendly.”

“Friendly? Yeah, okay, fam. Man’s name is Kyle, but don’t go telling no pigs that.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Here, take your thing, innit?”

“Thanks.” Harley took the Rubik’s Cube and went back to his seat.

Gina gave the youth a smile, but when Kyle eased back in his seat, his friend gave him a swift backhand across the chest. Clip assumed it was against gang code to act human.

“Least they ain’t both shitheads,” said Xavi, making Clip chuckle. His Spanish accent made his use of English swear words delightfully skewed.

“Judge not lest thee be judged.”

Xavi frowned. “Thought you were doing psychology, not religion.”

“Okay, then how about: thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge?”

“Who said that?”

She shrugged. “I forget. Jung, maybe? It’s funny, I’ve spent most of my degree so far studying people who have been widely discredited by modern psychology. I suppose the mistakes of the past pave the road to enlightenment, huh?”

“Ay! Your brain is sexy, la chica.” Xavi thickened his accent, making his compliment sound even better.

“You’re sexy,” she said. “Now I’m really looking forward to tonight.” She winked at him, prompting him to slide a hand up her thigh. She swatted him away and raised an eyebrow. “Still not up for train sex, though.”

Xavi tutted, but also smiled. “Can’t blame man for trying, bruv, innit?”

She put a finger to her lips and shushed him as a spike of fear made her look over at the thugs several feet away. “Quiet,” she said. “They’ll hear you and start up all over again.”

And maybe end up doing worse than just grabbing my butt.

Xavi nodded, his smile fading. “Don’t let them worry you. We’ll be at the university soon.”

“Maybe we should have got off the train earlier. I feel… trapped.”

“You are not trapped, baby. Everything is okay. I am here.”

The train entered a tunnel.

The flickering lights became more distracting as sunlight deserted the carriage.

Gina put a hand in front of her eyes and groaned. “Dear me, I think they need to change those bulb strips.”

“They wouldn’t all go out at once like that,” said Xavi. “It must be a wider electrical issue. I expect no less from British trains.”

Clip pinched his arm. “Shut up, you! Stop being mean to my country.”

He put his hands together in prayer. “Forgive me, señorita! I am in love with your country’s rain and endless traffic, and I agree we should serve all meals with chips and ketchup. Oh, and your royal family are a credit to your modern democracy.”

A grunt from across the aisle alerted them. The black youth turned in his chair, placing his gleaming white trainers in the aisle. “Man should go back down his own ends. No one asked him to leave his fucking donkey to come here. Fucking Pedro.”

Clip groaned. Her earlier patience was harder to come by since this bastard had grabbed her ass, but she attempted once again to appease the thug, terrified by the threat of violence. “He’s just joking around,” she said. “His dad is English.”

The youth kissed his teeth. “Then his mom must be a Spanish whore, innit? Man should piss off back to her.”

Clip knew how close Xavi was to his mum, and one thing sure to push his buttons was hearing her be insulted. That was why she immediately turned to keep him from exploding, to keep him from escalating the situation.

But it was too late.

Xavi leapt out of his seat and dived into the aisle. “The fuck you say, hombre?”

CHAPTER 4

Xavi launched himself into the aisle and collided with the youth who rose up to meet him. To Clip’s horror, the thug pulled out his knife and lunged.

Is this actually happening?

Xavi moved fast, thrusting out his forearm and deflecting the incoming knife by hitting the inside of the youth’s elbow. Then he grabbed the thug by the collar of his hoodie and shoved him against his friend, Kyle, preventing him from joining the fray. “You think you’re a tough guy, huh, idiota? Are you supposed to be scary? Am I supposed to piss my pants?”

The youth gritted his teeth and fought to direct the knife towards Xavi, but Xavi grabbed his wrist and twisted, causing him to hiss in pain. “You’re a dead man, bruv.”

Xavi turned red in the face, spittle on his lips. “You mention my madre again, and you’ll be the dead one, boy!”

“Please, stop this!” Gina begged, pulling Harley closer. “I’ll call the police. I will!”

“Call the police and man will end you,” the struggling youth warned, trying to headbutt Xavi as he sought to free the knife from him.

The other youth, Kyle, slipped out from the ruckus and clambered into the aisle. He, too, had a knife.

Clip clutched the edge of her seat so hard that her nails bent. “Please…”

I have to help him. I have to stop this.

How? I can’t fight them.

Her thoughts came like laser zaps, each one hitting quicker than the last. What were the youths afraid of? The police? Prison? Being recognised?

Xavi rotated himself, putting himself in front of both enemies so they couldn’t blindside him, while still fighting with the older youth over control of the knife.

Clip reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. She wanted to call the police, but her stomach plummeted to the floor when she realised she had no signal. Outside the window, there was still only darkness. She wouldn’t be able to make a call until they left the tunnel, which should have already happened by now.

She had to do something.

The lights inside the carriage flickered rapidly, a full-on disco.

Kyle held his knife at the ready, but seemed to hesitate about using it.

“Please, don’t do it,” Gina begged the lad, and he seemed genuinely conflicted about what to do. Meanwhile, his mate bounced back and forth between the seats with Xavi, both of them struggling to get the knife. “I’m sure you’re a good boy.”

“You’re talking shit, woman. Good boy? What you smokin’?”

Clip had an idea. She switched on her phone’s camera and hit record, panning back and forth. “I’m recording,” she shouted. “I’m recording both of you.”

Kyle pointed his knife at Clip, his hesitation ending. “Allow it. Man don’t like being filmed, you get me?”

“Tough shit. Give me a smile. How about a wave?”

“Woman! Man will take that phone and shove it up your snatch if you don’t stop filming.”

The sheer anger of his tone made Clip woozy, but she didn’t give in. She wouldn’t be a victim. “You can do that,” she said, as calmly as she could manage, “but it won’t help. I’m live-streaming. This is going straight to social media, Kyle. That’s your name, right? Kyle. Oh, your mask has slipped a little, Kyle. I can see your face, Kyle. Is that a knife you have there, Kyle?”

He put an arm up in front of his face. “Stop filming me, woman.”

Clip kept the phone pointed right at him. “That’s it. Keep talking to the camera, Kyle. Every second of this is going out to all my friends and family, Kyle. If anything happens to me or Xavi, the police will have everything they need, Kyle. Enjoy prison, Kyle.”

The knife in Kyle’s hand lowered, and he slipped it back inside his hoodie. “Mudz! We is on camera, fam. Let’s roll.”

‘Mudz’ was gaining the upper hand against Xavi, forcing him back against the chairs with his knee. Soon, the knife would be back in play.

“Are you listening?” Clip yelled, trying to keep her hands from shaking. “Hey, Mudz – stupid name, by the way – I got your ass on camera. Say cheese.”

Mudz gave Xavi a shove that sent him clambering back across a row of seats. Finally free of the struggle, Mudz lifted the knife and turned to face Clip. His mask had slipped down and his straight white teeth flashed at her. “Woman don’t know who she’s messing with.”

“Yes, I do, and so do a thousand of my contacts. Give us a smile, Mudz.”

Mudz stepped towards her, knife held out to his side. “Gonna chef you up.”

Gina gasped in horror, but Kyle leapt in front of his friend and held him back. “She ain’t worth it, fam.”

Mudz looked past his friend and glared at Clip, who still held the camera on him. “Real talk,” he muttered. “Bird is clapped, innit? Wouldn’t let her suck a man’s dick, fam.”

Kyle nodded and eased Mudz backwards down the aisle. The lights continued to flicker, sending the two youths in and out of darkness. For a moment, Clip thought she saw someone else standing with them, but when she blinked they were gone. A trick of her eyes, caused by the flickering LED bulbs.

“She’ll get hers,” said Kyle.

“True that,” said Mudz, walking backwards until he reached the end of the carriage. There he proceeded to turn, punch the button to open the door, and slide into the next carriage.

And just like that, it was over.

Xavi clambered up off the seats, seething and spitting. “Bastard assholes. I’m going to kill them. Ay! Idiotas.”

Clip slid her phone into her pocket and grabbed her boyfriend by the arm. “Sit the hell down. You could have ended up in the morgue. You moron!”

“You’re blaming me?” His eyes went wide. “They were the ones threatening people with cuchillos.”

“And you’re the fool taking their bait. You want to act like a neanderthal, Xavi, then find another girl.”

“I thought you were brave,” said Harley meekly.

Gina stood up and stepped into the aisle. She went to put a hand on Clip’s shoulder, but Clip shrugged away from her. “Get off me! Don’t touch me. I… I…” She doubled over. “Jeez, I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

Gina took a step back and nodded, her lively green eyes full of angst. “Sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to overstep. Can I do anything?”

“It’s fine.” Clip took some deep breaths and grabbed her knees to keep them from trembling. “I just… do not like violence.”

“Neither do I. That was smart of you, by the way, what you did. You can record video right to the Internet nowadays?”

“You can,” said Clip, straightening up as she began to calm, “except that I didn’t. My phone has no signal because we’re inside a tunnel. I was only recording to my phone’s memory card. Those psychopaths didn’t know that, though.”

Gina grinned. “You’re a smart cookie, dear. I think your boyfriend should thank his lucky stars that he has you.”

Clip glared at Xavi. “The way he’s going he won’t have me much longer. This could have been really bad. You could have been hurt.”

Xavi was panting and red in the face. Fists clenched, he kept glaring at the door at the end of the carriage, but despite his anger, he nodded in agreement. “I screwed up, Clip. My temper got the best of me.” He turned around, his anger gone in an instant as he looked at her. “Forgive me, mi corazon. Don’t break my heart.”

Clip sighed. Perhaps she was being too hard on him. It wasn’t his fault there were thugs on board the train causing trouble. She was actually a little glad that he had attacked the one called Mudz. It was justice for him grabbing her butt. Their fight may have ended in a stalemate, but Clip had won the war. The two bullies had fled with their tails between their legs.

“Sit down,” she ordered him, “before I chuck you out the window.” She had an odd sensation in her tummy, like she was falling. It seemed like a long time since the windows had shown anything but darkness outside. “Maybe I’ll forgive you by the time we get to the university.”

“Give me a minute,” said Xavi, once again glaring down the aisle. “I’m still wound up. I need to walk it off.”

“Here.” Harley reached across the aisle towards Xavi, offering his Rubik’s Cube to him. “Play with this. It always makes my bad thoughts go away.”

Xavi frowned, but then he smiled and reached out to take the toy. “Thanks, kid. I’ll give it right back.”

The lights went out. Darkness engulfed the carriage.

Clip whimpered, picturing Richard’s bloody face. Harley yelped, which prompted Gina to shush and reassure him.

“What on earth is going on?” said Clip.

“I thought these trains had been refurbished,” said Gina. “They’re more on the blink than ever.”

There was a sudden thud followed by the sound of Xavi hissing. “Ouch! I smashed my elbow.”

“I-I can’t see my seat,” said Clip, reaching out blindly. “I can’t see.”

Xavi found her in the dark and pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Here, sit down here.”

Clip groped in the darkness until she found the back of her seat, and then shuffled in front of it, moving over to the window. The horizontal pane was still open, but she couldn’t detect a breeze coming from it. Likewise, she saw no shadows outside – no shades of grey or subtle shapes in the dark. It was like staring into a void. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

“The darkness is making you anxious,” said Gina from nearby. “Just calm down, dear. Everything is okay.”

“No. No, it’s not right. I’ve been through this tunnel a dozen times, and it doesn’t take this long. We should’ve come out the other side by now. I… I need to get off the train. I need to…”

Xavi moved in front of the seats and held her again. She tried to fight him, but he wouldn’t let go. “Clip, it’s okay. It’s okay. Stop fighting me.”

All is calm. All is well.

No, it’s not. Something’s wrong. I can feel it.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Clip screamed. “Turn the lights back on. Turn the lights back on right now!”

The lights came on, flickering for a moment before settling.

Everything was fine. She was panicking for no reason.

Xavi held her by the shoulders and looked at her. “Clip, you’re fine. You’re okay.”

Clip was panting. She wrung her hands together; they were covered in sweat. She felt like she was standing upon the precipice of panic, and she had to take a step back before she fell, because when she panicked, things only ever got worse.

Everything is okay. It’s only my brain telling me it isn’t. Fuck you, brain.

“I… I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not having a very good day.”

Gina sighed. “I don’t think any of us are, thanks to those hooligans.”

“But they’re gone now,” said Xavi, kissing the side of her face. “Relax.”

But she couldn’t relax. Something still felt off to her. Something still felt wrong.

She turned and faced the window. It was still pitch-black outside, the train still inside the tunnel. They should have exited by now.

It makes no sense. Are we stuck?

No, it feels like we’re moving. The train hasn’t even slowed down.

Clip moved over to the window and tried to make out the tunnel walls outside. Somewhat foolishly, she stretched upwards and thrust her arm out of the gap.

“Whoa,” said Xavi. “Pull your arm back in. What if—”

“There’s no air,” she said. “There’s no air rushing by. I can feel the train moving, but… but it’s not moving. Not really. There’s nothing outside, and it’s too quiet. I can’t hear the tracks.”

“Come on now, dear,” said Gina. “You’re going to frighten Harley.”

“I’m okay,” said Harley, but his voice was on the wrong side of anxious.

Xavi was shaking his head and looking at Clip as though she were mad. “We’ve been through a stressful situation, baby – and I’m sorry for handling it all wrong – but everything is okay. You’re just panicking.”

Clip pulled her arm back inside and glared at her boyfriend. “Try it! Stick your hand out of the window and tell me everything is normal.”

He pulled a face. “I’m not sticking my hand out the window. I’m likely to lose it.”

“I need you to do it, Xavi. I need you to see.”

“Clip, come on, let’s—”

“Please! If you want to tell me I’m overreacting, then put your hand out the window first. Do that, and I’ll listen to whatever you tell me.”

Xavi let out a long, irritated sigh. He turned to Harley and handed him back his Rubik’s Cube. “You hold on to this for now, chico.”

Knees on the seat, Clip clambered out of Xavi’s way as he moved to the window. The look he gave her was condescending as hell, but she forgave him. She knew she sounded crazy, but she had travelled this route enough times to know the tunnel should have ended. How did Xavi not realise it too?

“If I lose my hand,” he told her, “you have to marry me and look after me forever.”

She folded her arms and nodded. “I promise.”

With an unhappy grunt, Xavi took off his orange puffer jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. He then tiptoed in front of the window and stuck his hairy arm out through the gap. For several seconds he said nothing, gave no reaction. He just stood there on his tippy-toes with his arm halfway out the window. Then he pulled his hand back and gave Clip a look that told her she was right.

“You felt it, didn’t you? You felt that it’s wrong.”

He shook his head. “Nada. I felt nothing.” Clip grunted, and she was about to sound off, but then he put his palm up to quieten her. “No, I mean I felt nothing. It was like sticking my arm into outer space. I couldn’t feel the air rushing by. I didn’t feel cold or hot. Just… nothing.”

Gina cleared her throat. “What are you two saying? You’re both mad.”

Clip shook her head. “We’re not mad, Gina. Do it yourself if you don’t believe us. Something isn’t right.”

The woman put an arm around Harley. “I will not stick my arm out of a moving train. I think we should all just calm down before we get carried away with ourselves.”

“Something’s wrong,” said Clip. “Something isn’t right. It’s too quiet. There’s no breeze. We should have left the tunnel by now.”

“Something isn’t right with you,” said Gina in a tone that was probably as mean as the woman could manage. “My advice is to—”

The lights went off again.

A bloodcurdling scream sounded in the next carriage.

Clip groaned in the darkness. “Still think everything is fine, Gina? Because that doesn’t sound like fine.”

All is not calm. All is not well.

CHAPTER 5

The lights came back on but seemed unsure of themselves. LED strips running above the aisle fizzed and flickered, exacerbating Clip’s headache. The advertising displays had gone black, and the destination tickers were garbled with red characters that made no sense.

I need to get off this train.

I want to go home.

The screaming in the next carriage had stopped, cut off abruptly by a choked gurgle.

Xavi looked at Clip, shaking his head slightly. “You think those idiotas have done something?”

“I can’t see it being anything else, can you? We should go help.”

Gina cleared her throat and pulled Harley against her. “I’m staying here. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Probably a good idea,” said Xavi.

Clip nodded in agreement, but she couldn’t decide if the woman was selfish, cowardly, or merely responsible. Harley was clearly her priority, so perhaps she was right to avoid getting involved.

Getting involved in what, though?

Have those thugs finally stabbed someone?

Xavi looped his arm around Clip’s and started moving with her. “I have a feeling we won’t make our lessons today,” he said.

“I just want to go home to bed so I can sleep the rest of this horrible day away.”

“I’d be happy to join you, baby.”

“I bet you would. I still haven’t decided if I forgive you yet.”

“Yes, you have.”

They reached the end of the aisle, passing by the toilet cubicle, and they opened the passageway door. It led to a short walk-thru space between the carriages, a bit like an airlock. Xavi stopped and asked if she was sure she wanted to get involved. Earlier, she had wanted to avoid trouble. In fact, she had run away and locked herself in the toilet.

“I can’t sit around worrying,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on. Then we can decide whether to get involved. Evil wins when good people do nothing, and all that.”

Xavi. “I agree. Someone might need help.”

Inside the next carriage, everything was still.

A tall man in a thick green jumper stood in the middle of the aisle with a concerned expression on his angular face. Xavi started to ask the man what was wrong, but his words trailed off as his eyes fell upon a heavyset man lying face down on the floor.

The man in the green jumper dropped to his knees beside the unconscious man and tried rolling him over. When the task grew too difficult, he grunted and asked for help. “We need to get him on his back. He’s had a heart attack.”

Clip nudged Xavi, and Xavi sprang into action, kneeling on the other side of the prone man and helping to roll him onto his back. It took several attempts, but the two of them eventually managed it. The man in the green jumper got to work, unbuttoning the unconscious man’s collar and checking for a pulse.

“Are you a doctor?” asked Xavi.

“No,” the man said as he opened the unconscious stranger’s shirt and placed his hands on his bare, flabby chest. He began to administer CPR, making a grizzly noise – like that of meat being pounded.

“Tell me when,” said Xavi, and he positioned his face over the unconscious man’s mouth.

Green jumper administered several more chest compressions before stopping and barking, “Now!”

Xavi pinched the patient’s nose and breathed into his mouth. For several minutes, he alternated with green jumper, trying to revive the patient. Nothing much seemed to be happening.

Clip looked out of the windows but still saw only darkness. The motors hummed beneath her feet, but there was no sound other than Xavi’s exhalations and green jumper’s chest pumping.

“He’s not responding,” said Xavi after a while.

Green jumper said nothing; he just kept pumping away at the patient’s flabby white chest.

Xavi looked up at Clip. “We need help. Go get the driver.”

Clip nodded. She’d been frozen to the spot, watching helplessly while others tried to handle the crisis, but now was the time for her to contribute. A man’s life hung in the balance.

She edged around the three men in the aisle and hurried towards the driver’s compartment at the end of the carriage. Did the driver know what was happening? Could he see them on camera? Had he not heard the screaming?

Mudz and Kyle sat in the middle of the carriage, and they glared at Clip as she approached, but then they looked away. Clearly, they weren’t interested in helping. The opposite of Good Samaritans.

Other people occupied the carriage, too. A young black guy in a white shirt and purple tie sat near the back. His shaved head exposed a thick scar on top of his skull that must have been the result of a serious wound. In front of him, an elderly couple sat at one of the table sections, holding hands across the plastic surface. A sudoku book lay on the table with a biro clipped to the top of the cover. The old woman gave Clip a sheepish smile when she neared. “A terrible thing,” she said. “Poor man was just going about his day and then this happens.”

Her husband looked at Clip and nodded down the aisle. “Do you know if he’s okay, young lady?”

“I really don’t know. I’m going to fetch the driver.”

“You best hurry, then.”

Clip reached the end of the aisle and stopped in front of a narrow metal door. Raising her fist to knock, she hopped backwards in fright when it opened before she got the chance. The driver seemed surprised to see her, and for a moment he didn’t speak. His expression was distant, his eyes seeming to gaze in on themselves, but then he suddenly snapped out of it and gave Clip a thin-lipped smile. “Are you okay, miss?”

“A passenger has had a heart attack. You need to stop the train.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re inside a tunnel. I can’t stop the train. Show me to the passenger.”

Clip wanted to grab him and demand that he stop the train – and she wanted to know why this short tunnel was seemingly never-ending – but a man’s life was at stake, so she put that first. “He’s over here.”

Clip led the driver to the opposite end of the aisle, where Xavi and green jumper continued working on their patient. Nothing appeared to have changed.

“I’m Daniel Purvis,” said the driver. “I’m the train operator. How long ago did this man collapse?”

“When the lights last went out,” said green jumper. “He’s not responding.”

The driver nodded. “And you are, sir?”

“Paul Hopewell.”

“And I’m Xavi,” said Xavi. “I’m a medical student.”

“You can help this man?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s too late.”

Green jumper – Paul – nodded in agreement. “We’re not getting anything from him. He was gone before he hit the floor. Painless at least.”

Dan put his hand on the seat back, as if he suddenly felt woozy. His collar was open, his shirt untucked. Dried blood stained the left shirt cuff, which was peeking out from beneath the sleeve of a navy-blue blazer. Wearily, he scratched at the back of his head. “What a tragedy. Did anybody know who he was?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Paul removed his hands from the dead man’s chest and sat back on his heels. “I was watching when it happened. It was like the poor geezer was seeing things. He leapt up into the aisle and started muttering something about a baby girl – or he was calling somebody baby girl, I don’t know. Either way, he was terrified, and then he just dropped dead.”

Xavi sighed. “Heart attacks are sometimes pre-empted by feelings of doom. It could also have been a brain aneurysm. The pressure on his brain may have caused hallucinations and confusion.”

Clip swallowed. Is that what’s wrong with me? Is that why I saw Richard in the mirror? Or why I keep hearing his voice?

Paul patted Xavi on the arm. “We did what we could, mate. We tried.”

Xavi nodded and smiled, but Clip recognised his sadness. This had been his first chance at being a doctor, and he had failed. Not that there’d been any other likely outcome.

Silence filled the carriage for several minutes as it probably sunk in that they were all looking at a corpse. Clip thought about the man’s wife, or family. Right now, they had no idea he was gone and might be expecting him home any minute – they were going to have a nasty shock. She felt a wave of remorse for them, whoever they were.

Now that the man was dead, Clip’s concerns turned to herself. “Why haven’t we left the tunnel?” she asked Dan. “What’s going on?”

“I… don’t think I should alarm anybody.”

Paul got to his feet, his thick desert boots clomping on the carriage floor. “Alarm us about what? What are you two talking about?” The more he spoke, the more it became obvious he was a working-class Londoner. He pronounced ‘about’ as ‘a-bat’. Clip studied the man for a moment and decided to trust him with something that would likely sound utterly mad. “We entered a tunnel several minutes ago,” she explained, “and we haven’t come out yet.”

He shrugged. “So?”

“So, I’ve travelled this route two dozen times, and the tunnel usually lasts a few seconds. It’s like we’re stuck inside.”

To her surprise, Paul didn’t laugh. Instead, he turned and looked out of the blackened windows, furrowing his brow. The elbows of his green jumper were padded with scuffed leather.

“Please,” Clip begged the driver. “Tell us what’s happening.”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” said Dan. “That’s the truth.”

Xavi put his arm around Clip and pulled her back a step. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re the driver. Tell us what’s going on. Why are we stuck inside this tunnel?”

“I don’t know.”

Clip moaned. “Stop saying that. There’s a dead man on the floor. You need to get us to the next station and let us off. Please, just… just get us out of this tunnel. Whatever is happening, make it stop.”

“I can’t.” Dan put his hands up before anybody else spoke. “You’re right. The train should have exited the tunnel by now, but… it hasn’t. All of my systems have gone dark. I can’t see anything up ahead – no other trains on the lines – and I can’t communicate with the signal boxes. The radio doesn’t work. It’s like we’re in the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Are you for real?” Xavi shook his head. “I mean, what are you saying right now?”

Dan folded his arms and sighed wearily. “The train is moving, according to my instruments, but we don’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s like we’re stuck in place.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” said Clip. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her phone. Her hand was shaking so much that she almost dropped it.

“There’s no signal,” said Paul. “I already checked.”

Clip looked at her screen anyway, and let out a growl when she saw there was no network. She put her phone back in her pocket. “Mine’s dead, too.”

“And mine,” said the man in a shirt and tie, sitting towards the front. He had a laptop on his knees, but he slapped it shut dramatically. “I tried to call an ambulance when you guys were trying to revive him, but I couldn’t get a call through. Guess we’re in a dead zone.”

Xavi nodded at the man. “An ambulance never would have made it in time.”

“Yeah, I see that, bro. He went pretty fast, huh?”

“This is terrible,” said the old lady sitting with her husband.

“Poor sod,” said the old man.

Paul turned away from the windows. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and cropped brown hair. A scar crossed his bottom lip that ran right through the stubble on his chin. “How long have you been a train driver for, Dan?”

“Train operator – I’m a train operator – but to answer your question, almost twenty years.”

“You ever experienced anything like this before? Ghost tunnels? Passengers having hallucinations? Dropping dead?”

“No, of course not.”

Paul sucked in a deep breath and pinched at the bridge of his nose, like he was running out of patience. “You say that like it’s a silly question, but what exactly is your explanation for what’s happening right now? Did we crash? Are we dead?”

“I don’t feel dead,” said Clip, and Xavi frowned at her. Probably because she had taken an absurd question so seriously.

Paul shrugged. “So, what then? Have we been abducted by aliens? Sent to Hell? What we need is concrete answers, because all we have right now is a bunch of questions.”

Xavi nodded. “Questions are scary. Answers are reassuring.”

“Exactly, my friend.”

Clip liked Paul already. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy, focused on action instead of emotion. Unlike Xavi, who was squeezing her hand, breathing heavily, and clearly struggling to contain himself. She squeezed his hand back and looked him in the eye. Whatever shit was going on, they had to stick together. Everyone else on the train was a stranger.

“Yo, bruv.” Mudz stood up at the front of the carriage. His mask was back in place, and his hood was pulled down to his eyebrows. “Don’t you need to be at the wheel or something? Man’s got business to attend to, you get me?”

Dan waved a hand. “Everything is under control, sir. You don’t need to worry.”

“Man ain’t worried, bruv. Man is getting bare fazed because he wants to get off this train. When we gonna stop?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Please be seated for now.”

Mudz sucked at his teeth, but he sat down as asked, which was a relief. The last thing Clip wanted right now was another round with him and his buddy.

“You should try the radio again,” said Paul. “Let’s be proactive here.”

Dan agreed it was a good idea, so he headed back down the aisle and disappeared back inside the operator’s cabin. Clip and Xavi remained standing in silence. What exactly should they do? Take a seat and relax? It was only the utter bizarreness of the situation that allowed Clip to stay calm. Once her brain started to comprehend any of this, she feared she might go to pieces.

Please, just get us out of this tunnel. I want to see the sun again. I want to breathe fresh air.

The lights went out again.

“Oh, no!” said Clip. “Please.”

“It’s okay,” said Xavi, but his voice was flat.

“This is getting ridiculous,” said Paul.

Mudz shouted from the front, “Yo, driver-man, sort this shit out, yeah? It’s a proper joke now, bruv.”

The lights came back on.

“That’s better,” said Mudz. “Stop playing around, you get me?”

Clip collapsed onto a seat and put her face in her hands. She felt cold, but only a little. The temperature inside the carriage was neutral, neither hot nor chilly. Even the air seemed bland – odourless and still.

Xavi stood in front of her. He wrapped both arms around her, kissed the top of her head, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

Stay calm, Clip. This will all work itself out. This is reality, not an episode of Black Mirror.

I’m on a train to Birmingham, not a spaceship passing through a wormhole. Everything is weird as hell, but I’ll be on the other side of it soon. Everything will make sense. I just have to stay calm until then.

“What the hell?”

Clip looked past Xavi and saw Paul turning back and forth while staring at the floor. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“He’s gone.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? The geezer we tried to help. His body was right here in the aisle. Where the hell did it go?”

Clip eased Xavi out of her way and stared at the floor in the middle of the aisle. The space where the dead man had been lying was now bare. No trace of his body whatsoever.

“The lights were only out for a second,” she said. “There’s no way he could have…” She shook her head, too confused to even finish her sentence.

“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” said Paul.

“He was,” said Xavi, staring at the floor with wide eyes. “He was dead. There’s no way someone could have moved his body. If nothing else, we would have heard something.” He clutched at his messy brown hair and scooped it back behind his ears. Staring off into space, he muttered to himself. “We would have heard.”

“All right. Okay. Let’s keep our heads,” said Paul. “We’ll figure this crazy shit out together.”

Clip nodded. “I agree. We need to work together.”

All is well. All is calm.

All is fucking insane.

Stop it. Don’t panic.

Paul sighed and walked off down the aisle, approaching the operator’s cabin and banging on the door. “Hey, Chief?”

Dan opened the door and held it open with his foot. “Everything okay?”

“Have you tried the radio again?” Paul peered past Dan, as if he didn’t trust what was going on inside the cabin. Clip moved over and took a glance as well. The carriage’s front window was the same as its side windows – pitch-black. No light at the end of the tunnel lay ahead of them. Only darkness.

Dan pulled a telephone handset off the wall and passed it to Paul. “It’s dead,” he said. “Listen.”

Paul tried the handset for a moment before handing it back. “Is that normal inside a tunnel?”

Dan put the handset back on its hook and shrugged. “It can affect things, but most tunnels are less than twenty feet long. At the speed we’re doing, we should have been in and out in seconds.”

Mudz appeared behind them in the aisle. Kyle stood beside him, only his bright green eyes showing between his mask and hood. Mudz sucked his teeth at them. “What’s the goddamn problem, bruv?”

Clip hated being near the two thugs, but right now she was stuck with them. Best to get along, even with sociopathic criminals. “Something strange is going on,” she told the two lads. “We’re trying to figure it out.”

“The tunnel,” said Kyle. “We is stuck inside, yeah?”

“You noticed too?”

He nodded. “I’ve been on this train a hundred times.”

Mudz sucked his teeth. “Driver-man is parring us off, bruv.”

“I’m not responsible for this,” said Dan testily. “I’m as clueless as everybody else.”

“Man is responsible, bruv, so he best get us out of this tunnel ASAP or shit’s gonna turn bad.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. The train isn’t responding to any of my controls.”

“Allow it. Pull the emergency brake or something, innit?”

“I’ve tried.”

“Are we in trouble?” Kyle pulled down his mask so that it was around his throat. He had thin red lips and patchy ginger stubble. “Do we need to worry?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know, but my instincts say yes.”

“Screw this,” said Mudz, and he turned and stomped back down the aisle, coming to a stop in front of the nearest exit doors. There, he yanked on the emergency stop cord running along the ceiling.

Nothing happened.

Mudz yanked on the cord again and again.

“Stop,” said Dan. “That doesn’t even do anything. It only sends an alert to the driver, which is me, and I’ve already applied the emergency brake.”

“Shut your mouth, bruv. I’m done with you.”

Clip shook her head. “Stop kicking off. It’s not helping.”

“Does anybody hear that?” asked the old lady. She was frowning and tilting her head. “I hear dogs barking. No, wait… perhaps I don’t.”

Her husband kissed her on the cheek and cuddled her. “We’re all a little stressed, dear. The mind plays tricks.”

Mudz stopped pulling on the cord and unleashed a litany of barely understandable threats. It really was an impressive accent to maintain under stress. Clip wondered if he would ever drop it and speak normally. Kyle had seemed to have dropped his.

The young man in a shirt and tie with the shaved head and scar placed his laptop down on the seat beside him and stood up. “My name’s Jay. I’m an IT specialist in the city. Perhaps I could take a look at the train’s computer and see what’s wrong. Does it run on Windows or something like that?”

Dan chuckled. “Nothing so advanced, I’m afraid. There’s no operating system, only GPS, signalling and a bunch of simple instruments. Take a look, by all means, but there’s nothing for you to hack into.”

Jay sighed. “Well, I just wanted to make myself available. Looks like we’re all stuck in this together.”

“We’re available, too,” said the old man sitting with his wife. “My name is Eric Tomy, and this is my wife, Pat. We’re retirees, but we used to own a furniture factory in Tamworth.”

Mudz kicked at the seats. “How the fuck is that useful, old boy? Man don’t need no coffee table, does he? I swear down, if someone don’t stop this train in the next five minutes, mandem is gonna come down and break some legs. You is all lucky man ain’t got no signal on his phone.”

“Calm down,” said Paul. “There’s no point getting shirty, is there?”

“Man has shit to do, bruv.”

“So do the rest of us. I was on my way to the first job interview I’ve had all month. It’s probably a lost cause now, but you don’t see me complaining.”

“You do you, bruv, but man is well vexed. Meanwhile, old boy here is chatting about furniture like we’re at Ikea.”

“I was simply introducing myself,” said Eric testily. “It’s called manners, young man. You obviously never learned any.”

“Dun no nothing bout that, old boy, but you better watch yourself. You ain’t too old for an ass whooping.”

Jay put a hand up to Mudz in a friendly gesture. “Easy, bruv. People are just trying to settle themselves with a bit of chitchat. None of us wants to be stuck on this train.”

Mudz sneered, but it didn’t seem directed at Jay. “Allow it. This is all some bare white boy prank.”

Jay chuckled. “Yeah, maybe.”

“It’s not a prank,” said Clip, shaking her head. “How could this be a prank?”

Mudz glared at her. “You tell me, blondie. You is the one what likes to film shit on her phone. Is this gonna end up on your YouTube channel? Then woman should get her tits out for them views, yeah? Give us all a free show, innit?”

“Suck my dick,” said Clip. “You sad little boy.”

“What you say to me, woman? Man will fill that mouth of yours.”

Xavi eased Clip aside and stepped into the aisle. “Sit down and be quiet. You’re keeping the rest of us from figuring this out.”

Mudz smirked and puffed out his chest. “You ready for round two, Pedro?”

“I’m not fighting you again, so just sit down and leave the rest of us to sort this out.”

“Make me, bruv!”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Allow it, bitch.”

Xavi rolled his eyes. “Your madre’s a bitch.”

Kyle winced and hissed through his teeth. “Bad words, bruv.”

Mudz threw a punch that cracked against Xavi’s cheek and sent him stumbling into the seat backs with a groan. Mudz immediately followed up with a second punch, but this one Xavi avoided by stumbling to his right. He clutched his cheek. “Y-You sucker punched me!”

Mudz had lost his balance, so Xavi launched himself into a tackle, grabbing him around the waist and forcing him backwards. The two of them would have fallen in a heap on the floor if not for the close confines between the two columns of seats. Instead, they bounced back and forth in the aisle, each trying to gain leverage over the other.

Then Mudz turned the fight dirty by headbutting Xavi in the face. Xavi slumped against the seats, giving Mudz enough time to pull out his knife again. “Man should have learned his lesson the first time, innit?”

Clip cried out a warning to Xavi, but thankfully he realised the threat on his own. He struck out at Mudz’s throat with the ridge of his hand just in time to stop him using the blade, and the unexpected blow sent Mudz stumbling down the aisle, clutching his throat and gagging. Before he could recover his senses, Xavi grabbed the youth by the wrist and elbow and twisted his arm at an unhealthy angle.

The knife clattered to the floor.

“Stop this!” Dan shouted. “At once.”

Seeing his friend getting beaten, Kyle entered the fray. He grabbed Xavi from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. “Mash that pussy hole up, fam.”

Mudz was still clutching his throat and trying to catch his breath, but seeing his advantage, he rushed forward and launched another attack.

Suddenly, Paul dashed away from the operator’s cabin and into the aisle. He unleashed a punch and Mudz ran straight into it, taking a fist square in the middle of the face. It dropped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and blood immediately started flowing from his nose. Paul stood over him and glowered. “If man makes any more trouble, man will get thrown off the train by his fucking ears, innit? You get me, fam?”

“Fuck you,” said Mudz, but it was a pitiful reply and his voice was thick with phlegm and blood. “Pussy hole. Talk about my moms again and I’ll end you.”

Paul turned to face Kyle. The man suddenly seemed a foot taller and an inch wider. “Kid, you’ve got three seconds to let go of my friend, or you’re going to end up on the floor next to this halfwit.”

Kyle scowled but didn’t argue. He released Xavi and sidled over to Mudz, who was still lying on the floor and nursing his face. Xavi turned angrily to grab at Kyle as he passed, but Clip blocked him and told him to chill out. Violence still wasn’t the answer. They needed to work together.

Although I can’t say I’m not loving Paul right now. Guy’s a badass.

“This is madness,” said the old woman, Pat. “The youth today… I don’t understand them. Literally.”

“Beggars belief,” said Eric. “The way they talk. The way they behave. What’s the sodding world coming to?”

Mudz shuffled backwards on his butt, then used the seats to climb to his feet. His nose was streaming blood, but he did nothing to stem the tide. He just glared at everyone as though they had done him some great injustice. “Fam, with me. Man ain’t sticking around with these pussy holes.”

Kyle joined Mudz as he retreated down the aisle. To Clip’s surprise, Jay went with them. He grabbed his laptop off the seat and stuffed it into a satchel, shaking his head the entire time as if he were pissed off. Was he seriously on Mudz’s side? After he had pulled a knife?

“Don’t leave the carriage,” said Dan. “It might not be safe. We can keep away from each other, but stay in this carriage.”

Mudz muttered something under his breath, but then Jay chatted with him and the three young men sat down at the rear of the carriage.

Xavi turned to Paul, giving him an appreciative nod. “That was one hell of a punch, dude. You used to be a boxer or something?”

“No. I used to be 3 Para. Punching people in the face is one of the first things they teach you. Anyway, we’re in no better state than we were five minutes ago. We have no idea what’s going on, and no idea what to do. I suggest, for now, we seek to secure the train and make sure everybody is in one place. We might even find out what happened to our dead friend. His body must be somewhere.”

Clip didn’t think that was true. The man’s body had disappeared in the blink of the lights. A couple of seconds at the most. Vanished.

Or maybe it was Clip and the others on the train who had vanished. Perhaps they had exited reality, and as far as the rest of the world knew, the train had simply gone into the tunnel and disappeared. The thought made her shiver.

What if we’re trapped in a timeless void, unable to grow old or die?

Don’t get carried away, Clip. We’re not in a void. That’s ridiculous.

So maybe Mudz is right, and this is all a big prank or… She shuddered. A social experiment. If it is, somebody’s getting sued. And if Derren Brown appears, I’m going to have Paul punch him right in the mouth.

“I’m going to check the other cabins,” said Paul, rubbing at his fist tenderly. “I could use a little backup, in case of… difficulties.”

Xavi stepped forward. “Clip and I will come with you. I can’t be in the same carriage as those two right now.” He rubbed at his eye socket, which was puffy after being punched in the cheek. It would probably turn black soon.

At least he didn’t get stabbed. That’s twice now he’s had a lucky escape.

Clip picked up the knife from the middle of the aisle and examined it. A crude metal handle with a black-painted blade. “I don’t want this,” she said. “Will somebody take it from me?”

Paul took the knife and closed the blade into the handle before depositing it into his jeans pocket. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a mooch and see how much weirder this day can get.”

“I really hope not much,” said Clip. “This is about the maximum amount of weirdness I can take.”

The three of them headed out of the front carriage, pointedly ignoring Mudz and Kyle as they exited. The middle carriage had only two occupants: Gina and Harley. Both were white in the face and flinched when the others entered.

Clip put a hand on the seat behind Gina and smiled weakly. “I wish I could say everything is all right, but it’s not. The train driver, Dan, says he’s lost control of the train and we’re stuck inside the tunnel. Also, a passenger in the next carriage had a heart attack and died, but his body has gone missing, which makes zero sense.”

Gina gulped audibly. “Okay, so what are we doing now? Have we called for help?”

“Unless you have a signal,” said Paul, “we’re on our own. The train’s radio isn’t working and we’ve already checked our phones. There’s no network.” He folded his arms and seemed to think for a moment. “Anyway, we’re going to check the other carriage and see if there’s anyone back there. We should all stick together while we figure this out. Both of you should go up front. Stick with Dan, the driver.”

Gina stood up and offered a hand to Harley. “Come on, sweetheart. We’ll figure this all out. Let’s go be with everybody else.”

The boy looked up at Clip. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute,” said Clip. “I’m going to check out the other carriage with Xavi and Paul first. Are you okay?”

He shook his head and seemed close to tears. His milky left eye was more grey than white. “I hear voices.”

“What?”

“Listen. There are voices.”

Paul frowned, while Xavi stared at Clip in confusion.

Everyone stayed quiet and listened.

Two shall live. All will die.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Xavi’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened like he was repeating something he was hearing.

“You hear something, too, don’t you?” Clip asked him. “Do you hear my brother?”

“What? No… It’s my dad.”

“Your dad? What’s he saying?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s too quiet to make out.”

Clip turned to Paul. “Do you hear anything?”

“Nope. Nothing. You sure it’s not the power of suggestion because the boy mentioned it?”

“I don’t hear anything,” said Gina, although she seemed unsettled.

“I hear my mum,” said Harley. “She’s shouting at me. She’s saying bad things.”

Clip put a hand to her forehead. We’re all hearing members of our family. Me, my brother; Harley, his mum; Xavi, his dad. What does it mean? My brother is alive. So is Xavi’s dad and Harley’s mum.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

No. Get lost, Richard.

She looked up at the ceiling, wondering if the voices were coming from the intercom speakers. But the more she thought about it, the more she thought the voice was coming from inside her own head. “I keep hearing my brother. It started earlier, when the lights first went out.”

“What do the voices mean?” asked Harley. “Why can we hear them?”

“I don’t know, kid, but you stick close to Gina while we get some answers, okay? Oh, and don’t forget this.” She reached down and picked up his Rubik’s Cube from the seat.

Gina gave Clip a smile and took the boy off into the front carriage. It made things worse, seeing Harley’s worried face. A kid shouldn’t have to be afraid.

Clip’s handbag caught her attention, abandoned on the floor where she and Xavi had been sitting. It reminded her of how quickly her day had turned to utter shit. It prompted her to pull out her mobile phone and check it for a signal. She wasn’t shocked to find that it had none, but was surprised to see another text from her mum. It must have been received just before the train had entered the tunnel.

Have a good day, Clip xxx

“You okay?” Xavi asked her.

She slid her phone back into her pocket. “Yeah, just wondering what any of us did to deserve this.”

“Nothing. We didn’t do anything.”

She nodded and got moving again, marching down the aisle and heading straight through the exit door at the back of the carriage.

The rear cabin was empty. Not a single soul inside.

CHAPTER 6

“Guess it’s just us then,” said Clip, strolling past the toilet and into the aisle. The windows on either side of the carriage showed nothing but a featureless void. One window was cracked open, but no breeze came from it. The more time that passed, the more Clip feared she was dead and in some kind of purgatory, and that perhaps she was the one haunting Richard. Her mind was stepping further and further away from rationality.

“We should go back to the front carriage,” said Xavi, scanning from side to side. His left eye socket had turned dark and puffy from the punch Mudz had given him. For once, he wasn’t flawlessly handsome. “There’s no one here.”

Clip nodded, but she wanted to explore every inch of the train before she left. She wanted to make sure nothing was going to leap out at her – like a horde of ravenous demons, come to pick the flesh from her bones.

If I’m dead, shouldn’t I be in Heaven?

No. You don’t deserve Heaven, and you know it.

Not after what you did.

Xavi moved close, his arm looping around Clip’s waist. He wanted to protect her, which she couldn’t deny felt good, but at the same time she wanted to push him out of her space and take care of herself. Like she always did.

The rear of the carriage felt lonely. Perhaps because there was nothing beyond its rear door except darkness, or perhaps because it was as far away as Clip could be from the others in the front carriage. Safety in numbers was a real thing, emotionally and practically.

“There’s nothing here,” said Xavi. “We should go back.”

“Hold on,” she said. “Let’s just double check.” Clip moved down the aisle and hit the open button for the connecting door, but nothing happened, which made sense, seeing as there was no carriage attached to the other side. She didn’t even know what compelled her to try.

Xavi knelt on the seat cushions and shuffled over to the window. “There’s really nothing out there, is there? Ay! It’s like staring into a pool of ink.”

“No,” said Paul. He was standing a few feet behind them in the aisle, his desert boots set wide apart. “Ink catches the light. It shimmers, moves, flows. Whatever’s outside these windows is something else – like a complete absence of… anything.”

Clip hugged herself to keep from shaking as a wave of panic rose from the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t take much more of this. If things didn’t start making sense soon… “Okay,” she said, trying to focus her mind on action instead of fear. “Let’s get back to the others and put our heads together again. There are clearly no answers here.” She turned and offered a hand to Xavi, to help him out from between the seats, but she recoiled when he raised his hand towards hers.

“What?” he asked, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“Your hand. It’s covered in blood.”

Xavi lifted his left hand in front of his face and gasped. His palm was red, and so were two of his fingers. “What the…?”

“Did you cut yourself?” asked Paul.

“No. No, I don’t think this is my blood.”

Clip frowned and moved to examine the seats. The headrest of one appeared wet, and when she touched it, her fingers came back bloody. “Jesus!”

“The seat’s covered in blood,” said Xavi, disgust on his face.

“Yeah,” said Clip, wiping her fingers off on a dry patch of cushion. She then stooped to look behind the headrest. What she found was unexpected, to say the least.

Although, should anything surprise me right now?

A strange symbol adorned the back of the seat, drawn crudely in blood. A circle with a triangle in the centre, with odd shapes marking each of its three points. It instantly made her think of witchcraft and the occult. “There’s something weird here, guys,” she told the others, and then waited while both men examined the strange symbol.

“We might have our explanation,” said Paul after a moment. “Someone has put a curse on the train.”

“Do you really think that?” asked Clip. She felt like she should laugh, but she didn’t. Couldn’t.

He shrugged. “I don’t know anything for sure, but I hope it’s true.”

Xavi baulked. “How can someone putting a curse on the train be a good thing?”

“Because alien abduction, alternate Hell-like dimensions, purgatory… any of that would mean we’re done for, but curses? Curses can be broken, right? Curses are put in place by people, and people I can handle.”

“Hold on,” said Xavi. “You’re saying all this with a straight face. Do you truly believe this train is cursed?”

“I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, kid – the worst of them occurring in Afghanistan. It’s taught me that evil almost always comes down to simple people with complex agendas.”

Clip nodded. “So you believe in witchcraft?”

He shrugged again. “Not especially, but who knows? Everything I’ve seen in the last hour tells me we’re flies in a web. Eventually, a spider is going to show up and try to eat us. When that happens, we’ll have our chance to stomp on it. We need to be ready.”

Clip closed her eyes and took a couple of deep, slow breaths. “How many flies do you know that have ever killed a spider?”

Paul smirked. “I was a member of 3 Para. I’m the fly that purposefully lands on the web in order to catch the spider by fucking surprise. We’ll get out of this, kids. You have my word.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” said Xavi, “because I’m scared shitless.”

Paul patted him on the arm. He was a tough man, but clearly compassionate. “Fear is fine. It makes you light on your feet and ready to act – but it has no use beyond that, okay? Don’t let it override your thoughts and force you to make poor decisions. Fear should be something you control, not the other way around. It’s a biological response, nothing more.”

“Simple as that, huh?”

“Simple at that.”

“Come on,” said Clip. “Let’s go tell the others what we found.”

“Yeah,” said Paul. “I’d also like to see if anyone is bleeding.”

Xavi frowned. “Wasn’t there too much blood on the seat for it to have come from a minor wound?”

“Blood can be deceiving. A little can go a long way. I lost a tooth once… the amount of blood made it seem like someone had been butchered.”

Xavi nodded. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Paul patted him on the back. “Come on. Let’s stay active.”

The three of them headed back down the aisle. As they walked, Clip heard the whispering voices again. Not just Richard, but someone else as well. A woman.

Two shall live. All will die.

They passed by the toilet, but Xavi stopped. “Hey,” he said, “will you two stay here while I take a leak? I’m worried I might get eaten if I go off alone.”

Clip chuckled. “Sure thing.”

“Not like we’re going anywhere,” said Paul. “Enjoy yourself.”

“Gracias.” Xavi prodded the ‘door open’ button.

But nothing happened.

“It’s engaged,” said Paul, scratching at his short brown hair.

“Does that mean someone’s inside?” asked Clip.

Xavi banged on the door. “Hey, open up.”

“Go away.”

Xavi, Paul, and Clip glanced at each other, then Xavi turned back to the door. “Hey, who’s in there?”

“Go away, please.”

Paul banged on the door with his fist. “You need to come out of there and identify yourself. Pronto.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” The stranger sounded worried. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“We’ve caught you,” said Xavi. “Are you the one behind all this?”

There was a brief silence and then: “Behind all what?”

“Behind what’s happening?”

“Um, what’s happening?”

Paul banged on the door again. “Get out of there before I kick the door in.”

“All right, all right. Calm your pancakes, darling.” There was a metallic click and the door slid open. Standing there in the gloom was an oddly familiar face. A man in his forties, who had obviously had work done if the taut skin around his eyes and the slight bulge to his lips were anything to go by. His muddy brown hair was slicked back on top, but shaved at the sides. His demeanour was perturbed, as if they had interrupted him in the middle of something.

“Who are you?” Paul demanded, fists clenched at his sides.

The stranger offered a limp hand, almost like he expected Paul to kiss one of his several gaudy rings. “Grant Toledo. Your pleasure.”

“Wait,” said Xavi. “Are you the guy…” He shook his head, unable to make the connection.

But it came to Clip, and she pointed excitedly. “You’re that dancer from Love in a Hut.”

The man raised a plucked eyebrow. Both his pupils were the size of dinner plates. “I am the professional dancer who once worked with Britney Spears and featured in a national advertising campaign for Primark. Love in a Hut is something we don’t talk about, darling.”

Clip chuckled. Love in a Hut was the only reason she recognised him at all. The show had paired him up inside a small hut with a man named Mark for a week, but Mark had walked out after only three days, unable to deal with Grant’s drama. Most people wondered what had happened to Mark, not to Grant.

Turns out that Grant ended up on a cursed train to Birmingham. That’s showbiz.

“What are you doing back here by yourself?” Paul demanded.

Grant shrugged. “Having a little me time, darling. The lights going on and off was giving me a headache, so I came in here to take the edge off. You’re not going to narc on me, are you?” He eyed Paul. “You smell very much like a policeman.”

“Well, I’m not. Do you have any idea what’s going on? How long have you been in the shitter?”

He shrugged. “Five minutes. Longer maybe. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“You’re the only one here,” said Clip. “Why did you need to come inside the toilet for privacy?” She pointed to his lip. “You, um, have a little… powder.”

“Oh, thank you, darling.” He wiped his lip and licked the residue off his hand with a long pink tongue. “I came in the toilet to avoid the eye in the sky.” He nodded up at the corner of the carriage. There, Clip saw a small black dome that was surely a CCTV camera.

“Understood,” she said. “Well, while you’ve been hiding, you missed all the fun. There’s a lot that’s been going on.”

Clip, Xavi, and Paul explained the events of the last half hour to Grant, who laughed and tittered the whole time. It was hard to know if he was high or simply irritating.

Once they finished bringing the man up to date, Clip posed a question. “Do you know anything about a strange symbol on the back of one of the seats? It was drawn in blood.”

Grant pretended to retch. “Oh, how ghastly. You wouldn’t catch me playing around with blood, darling. Who knows what one might catch?”

Paul took a step forward so that he was almost nose to nose with the man. “If you’re lying…”

“If you want a kiss, darling, just ask. I’m very open-minded.”

Paul stepped back, and he actually appeared rattled for the first time since Clip had met him.

Clip looked Grant in the eye, looking for tells that he might be lying. “You really know nothing about what’s been going on?”

“Other than the lights flickering, no. You all sound quite ridiculous, to be honest, but I’m in a good mood, so I’ll play along. It’s a little like improv, isn’t it? Got to keep being agreeable, no matter how unbelievable things get.”

Paul shook his head and sighed. “Let’s get back to the others.”

“I still need the toilet,” said Xavi. Grant was still standing inside the cubicle, so Xavi cleared his throat and nodded to him. “Um, do you mind?”

“Not at all, darling. Not at all.”

Grant stepped out of the way, and everyone waited while Xavi relieved himself. Once he came out of the cubicle, Paul grunted at him. “Ready?”

“Si.”

Paul opened the door and let everyone through. Before Clip exited, she glanced back into the carriage one last time. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, and she had a strange feeling, like she was being watched. The carriage was still empty, though.

It’s just my mind playing tricks. Fuck you, brain.

All is well. All is calm.

“You okay?” Xavi asked her.

She nodded and moved past him. No point voicing a nebulous feeling that was probably just her imagination.

They reached the front carriage thirty seconds later, and Clip was pleased to see everyone together. No one was fighting or freaking out. They were all just sitting or standing patiently.

Dan gave Paul a nod. “Find anything?”

“You could say that.” He side-eyed Grant, who was offering his hand out to Jay and pouting seductively.

“We found a symbol on a seat in the rear carriage,” said Clip. “It was drawn in blood.”

Gina covered Harley’s ears. “Oh dear.”

Dan frowned. “Blood?”

“Yeah, blood. Paul has a theory someone put a curse on the train.”

“Allow it,” said Mudz. Beside him, Kyle was shaking his head and staring at the back of the seat in front of him, clearly disturbed. “Bare bullshit.”

Jay stood up and stepped into the aisle, possibly to move away from Grant and the man’s obvious overtures. “What are you talking about? Some kind of juju?”

Clip frowned at him. “Juju? Do you mean witchcraft?”

“More or less. My family is from Nigeria. My bibi talks about that stuff sometimes. She said that even now people in the smaller villages still believe in all kinds of strange things. There are even laws against it.”

“So you believe in witchcraft, then?”

“Hell no. I believe in credit card debt and ransomware. Those are my boogeymen.”

Xavi chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t buy it either.”

“Then what do you buy?” asked Clip, a little frustrated. “What’s happening is weird, right? So if you have an explanation, I’m all ears.”

“I don’t have an explanation, baby. I only know this isn’t much fun.”

“That’s an understatement. Anyway, witchcraft is our best answer until something better comes along.”

“Okay, so how does that help us?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Mudz stood up and slid into the aisle. His nose had stopped bleeding, but dried blood covered his chin. Both eyes were puffy. “All right, all right,” he said. “Man is actually thinking you pussy holes might be on the level, but witchcraft is some proper bullshit.”

“Real talk,” said Kyle, but he sounded uncertain.

Jay walked over to Mudz and leant against the seat. They exchanged a few words and then chuckled, which annoyed Clip. “What are you standing with him for?” she demanded. “He’s a thug.”

Jay looked over at her and rolled his eyes. “Is he?”

“Yes!”

“Way I see it, only one person on this train has a broken nose, and it’s the black kid. You lot rallied against him real fast, and nobody has the slightest problem with Action Man over there breaking his face.”

“He pulled a knife,” said Clip incredulously.

Jay shrugged. “Fine, he shouldn’t have done that, but you people made him the way he is. You think people choose violence and drugs and crime because they want to? The world loves to make black people scapegoats, while doing everything it can to judge us and keep us down. Mudz pulls a knife and you all go wild. Paul breaks his nose and you all smile and nod. Now I’m not even supposed to speak to him because some little white chick says so?”

“It’s not like that,” said Clip.

“Maybe not,” said Jay. “But I see two sides to this train, and all the white faces are standing over there.”

“Man is talking sense,” said Mudz. “You is all a bunch of racists.”

Xavi put a hand to his forehead. “Ay!”

“We’re not racist,” said Clip. “You acting an asshole has nothing to do with you being black.”

Mudz sneered. “You think you’re better than me, Blondie, huh? With your easy little life and your designer jeans? Did your old lady have to work three jobs just to put food in your mouth and shoes on your feet as a kid? Did you grow up in a tower block full of druggies and skanks? Fuck you all. Judging me. Calling my moms a bitch and thinking you know shit about me. My old lady is stronger than any of you. Kept me and my sisters alive.”

Xavi sighed. “I’m sorry, but you insulted my madre first. No one wanted trouble except you.”

“Yeah, well you’ve got trouble coming, Pedro.”

Paul put a hand up. “Look. Whatever anybody thinks about each other, we have to figure this out. Can we at least agree on that?”

Jay loosened his tie and pulled it off, stuffing it into his trouser pocket. “I’m ready and willing to help, bro.”

“Me too,” said Kyle, who had now completely quit with the accent. “Whatever gets me off this train.”

Mudz said nothing. He just glared.

“My body is yours,” said Grant, winking at Jay.

Jay winced. “Do I know you or something, bro?”

“Quite possibly, darling.”

“He’s a reality TV star,” said Clip, shaking her head.

“I’m a performer,” Grant corrected. “A world-class one, at that.” He did a little tap dance and ended it in a wide-armed pose. “Grant Toledo. Your pleasure.”

Jay chuckled. “Oh shit, you’re that dude from that shed thing.”

“Love in a Hut,” said Clip, chuckling.

Mudz punched the back of the seat. “Man told you this was bare jokes. This pussy hole is filming us for some shitty TV show.”

Grant gasped as Mudz leapt up and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “You’re being a little too rough there, darling, even for me.”

“Allow it. Man better get us off this train, right now.”

The lights went out.

“Oh shit,” said Kyle. “Not again.”

Harley whimpered. Gina soothed him in the dark.

The old man, Eric, spoke up. “Dan, can’t you do something about the lights? Someone is going to break their leg.”

“The emergency lights are supposed to switch on during an electrical outage,” Dan explained. “I don’t know why they haven’t.”

“It’s okay,” said Paul. “We’re all adults. The dark can’t hurt us. Everyone just stay where they are.”

“You can let me go now, darling,” Grant told Mudz. “Or things might get very intimate.”

Mudz sucked at his teeth. “Allow it.”

“We’re in no danger,” said Dan. “But perhaps we should all take a seat.”

Kyle tutted. “Yeah, man, it feels totally safe. I might even put my feet up and chill.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, young man,” said Eric.

There was a strange scratching sound. Quiet, yet it got everyone’s attention. Clip examined the darkness until she spotted a spark. That spark suddenly became a tiny flame, lighting a cone around Kyle’s face. There was something in his mouth, which Clip didn’t recognise until a small orange circle floated in midair. “Are you lighting up a cigarette?” she asked.

“That’s no cigarette,” said Xavi from close by. “La marijuana.”

“No smoking on the train,” Dan chided.

Kyle grunted. “I’m doing what you told me to do, innit? I’m relaxing, bruv.”

“We don’t want to breathe in your smoke,” said Gina, “so do you mind?”

“I do mind.”

Clip groped her way forward in the darkness, her nose following the oily stench of weed. Kyle obviously sensed her movement because he grunted. “Who’s that?”

“It’s me,” she said. “Hand it over.”

“Fuck that.”

“No, I mean I want a drag.”

“Oh.”

Xavi gasped. “Clip, what are you doing?”

“I’ve been on the edge of panic for almost an hour. A little mellow is exactly what I need to keep me from losing my mind.”

“Girl’s right,” said Kyle. “This shit is too heavy. Here, take a hit.”

Clip fumbled in the darkness until she found Kyle’s hand and then carefully took the spliff from him. She took a deep drag and resisted the urge to cough and splutter. She wasn’t a particularly big drug taker, but if ever there was a time to get buzzed, it was now. Almost immediately, she felt better. Her nerve endings tingled and her muscles liquified. The rising terror in her stomach quelled.

“Getting high won’t help anything, will it?” said Xavi. “I can’t believe you, Clip.”

“Oh, chill out. I’m only taking a couple of drags. I need my heart to stop beating out of my chest for a minute so I can think.”

“I still have a little nose candy left if anybody is interested,” said Grant.

“For real?” said Mudz. “Hand it over, fam. My nose is bare painful. Need some relief, you get me?”

Grant edged his way over to where Kyle and Mudz were sitting. He offered Clip a bump, too, but she declined. That was a line she wasn’t about to cross – or snort up her nose.

“This is ridiculous,” said Gina. “This isn’t a rave. We’re in real trouble here.”

“I agree,” said Pat. “This is outrageous.”

“Ignore them,” said Paul. “Let them zone out and stay out the way. The rest of us will figure this thing out.”

“I’m still going to help,” said Clip testily. “Let’s not be so judgey.”

“I don’t like the dark,” said Harley. “And I don’t like that smell.”

“That’s what drugs smell like,” said Gina. “That’s the kind of pollution some people put into their bodies.”

“Like my mum.”

Gina sighed, but said nothing back.

Clip felt a pang of sympathy for the kid, and suddenly felt guilty about how she viewed her own life. It could have been worse. She should appreciate it more.

Although right now, my life sucks pretty hard.

Don’t overreact. Other than the man who had the heart attack, nobody has been seriously hurt. This could all end up being okay.

“Pat? Pat, where are you, sweetheart?” Eric suddenly sounded frantic. “Pat?”

Clip was taking a second drag on the spliff, but she gave it back to Kyle and squinted in the darkness. “Eric? Is everything all right?”

“It’s Pat. She was sitting right next to me, but now she’s gone. Pat? Patricia, where are you, my love?”

“Hold on,” said Paul. “She must be here. She was sitting right next to you before the lights went out. I saw her.”

“Patricia?”

“Be careful,” Dan warned. “Last thing we need is a twisted ankle.”

But Eric was already up on his feet. Clip could hear him shuffling behind the seats and frantically patting at the cushions. “Patricia?”

“She can’t just be gone,” said Jay, standing somewhere near the back with Kyle, Mudz, and Clip. His aftershave was even stronger than the weed smell. “Maybe she’s fallen asleep.”

“No. She was right next to me,” said Eric. “Where has she gone?”

“Is she a magician?” asked Grant. “I know a fantastic agent I can put her in touch with.”

Kyle shushed everyone. “Hey, can anyone hear that?”

“I hear it,” said Harley. He sounded afraid. “It sounds like nails.”

“Yeah,” said Kyle. “Nails.”

Clip tilted her head and heard it too. A pattering sound against the floor, like tapping fingernails. It was close, coming from the very rear of the carriage. “W-What is that?”

The lights came on.

Everyone gasped at once.

“Fuck me!” shouted Kyle, and he, Grant, and Jay clambered desperately down the aisle towards the operator’s cabin, leaving Clip alone with Mudz, who was sitting in a nearby window seat, halfway through snorting coke off the back of his hand. With the lights back on, he blinked and glanced around. “The hell?”

Clip backed away slowly, utterly confused by what she was seeing. Pat was half-conscious, slumped up against the carriage’s rear door, moaning and muttering while a large dog wagged its tail – a golden retriever or Labrador, its yellow coat shining. Its jaws were clamped around Pat’s wrist as if it were a pork chop. Brittle bones snapped and splintered.

Eric saw what was happening and bellowed in horror. “Patricia!” He tried to rush down the aisle, but Paul grabbed him and pulled him back.

“Hold on a second, mate.”

“She needs me!”

Clip glanced to her side, sensing movement, and she cried out in shock when a second golden retriever leapt out at her from the seats. She ducked out of the way just in time, falling onto her hands and knees in the aisle. Xavi raced to help her, while the retriever landed in the aisle ahead of her and immediately turned to Pat. It snarled viciously, then lunged at her, biting into her throat. Pat gargled and spasmed as the dog tore at her windpipe.

Eric screamed louder.

“Fuck me,” said Mudz. “Where did they come from?” He actually sounded normal as he leapt out of his seat and landed in the aisle. It looked like he was about to rush to join the others, but then he turned towards Pat and instead unleashed a brutal kick that struck one of the dogs in its flank. The animal yelped, and then turned, snarling, with Pat’s windpipe dangling from its jaws. Mudz backed up, hands out defensively. “Back up, Marley and Me. Man will put you down.”

Clip was on her feet again and backing away, closer to the front of the carriage than the back. Paul was restraining Eric nearby, but he shoved the sobbing old man over into Dan’s care. “Keep him back,” he said. “Okay?”

Dan nodded.

Paul took off down the aisle, knocking Clip against the seats as he rushed by. Mudz was running the other way, with the snarling golden retriever right on his heels. Its bloody jaws were far too ferocious for such a friendly breed of dog. Likewise, its eyes were a deep, unholy red as it leapt into the air to attack.

Pat’s windpipe splatted on the floor.

Paul shoved Mudz sideways across the seats and blocked the canine’s attack with an upraised left arm. The animal’s ferocious jaws clamped around his wrist, and the weight and impact forced him down to the floor, where he cursed in pain and struggled to fight the dog off.

Everyone stood frozen in horror.

Mudz skidded to a halt, then turned and raced back down the aisle, yelling at the dog as it mauled Paul on the floor. “Allow it, Fido. Man ain’t got time for this hero bullshit.”

The lights blinked out.

All sound ceased except for Eric’s inconsolable sobbing.

Clip panicked, feeling hunted in the dark. The demonic hounds would be able to see her and smell her, while she was completely blind. They could be right in front of her, about to lunge for her throat.

The lights came back on.

Both dogs were gone.

And so was Pat.

Eric crumpled to the floor, slipping through Dan’s grasp. “Pat…” he wailed. “Patricia…”

“Impossible,” said Dan, his mouth falling open. “What… What did we see?”

Clip found herself standing next to Xavi, which was good because she collapsed backwards into his arms, glad for once to be held by him.

Paul rolled on the floor, clutching his bloody wrist and hissing, while Mudz lay half on top of him, looking confused. “Where the dogs at?” he yelled. “Yo, where they go?”

“They disappeared,” said Harley. “Like magic.”

“Quite a trick,” said Grant. His taut face was expressionless. “Not quite Britain’s Got Talent level, but close.”

“Maybe I do believe in juju,” said Jay, shaking his head over by the operator’s cabin door. “Because this is some messed-up shit.”

CHAPTER 7

“I think we should all sit down and take a moment,” said Dan. He had taken off his blazer and dumped it over the back of a seat. His left shirt cuff was bloody and unbuttoned, and both his hands were trembling. “There’s obviously more than enough reason to panic and run riot, but let’s try to avoid that. Let’s try to stay calm long enough that we can talk this through and try to make sense of it. We have to make sense of it.”

“Make sense of what?” Eric bellowed at him. “My wife is gone! They ate her alive, like something out of one of her nightmares. They… They ate her!”

Dan tried to shush the man, but Clip seized upon something he had said. “One of her nightmares? What do you mean?”

Eric’s face was a mess of snot and tears, and he answered her only by blubbering at first. Once he caught his breath, he tried to answer. “Sh-She had a phobia of dogs. Ever since… Ever since she ran over the neighbour’s pet in her early twenties. She never forgave herself for it, and she’s always had a recurring nightmare of a pack of dogs coming to get revenge.”

“Why would they want revenge?” asked Kyle. “Wasn’t it an accident?”

Eric looked away, apparently unwilling to answer.

Paul was clutching his bleeding wrist and grimacing, but he stopped a moment to look Eric’s way. “She’d been on the pop, huh?”

Eric straightened up and faced him. “She was just a kid. She made a mistake, and it’s haunted her ever since.”

Clip nodded. The past was the past. Especially when it was ancient history. “No one is judging her, Eric. Answer me one more thing, though. What breed of dog did she run over?”

Eric swallowed. “It-It was a golden retriever.”

Mudz whistled. “Dog came back for bare vengeance, bruv. Took your woman down with extreme prejudice. For real.”

Eric glared at the youth, but he didn’t say anything. While insensitive, Mudz had at least tried to help Pat during the attack. That had surprised Clip, but it still didn’t make her particularly fond of the youth. He probably just enjoyed kicking animals.

“Her biggest fear killed her,” said Jay, shaking his head. “That’s harsh.”

“Like the type of thing a curse might do, huh?” said Paul. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment and then took a few steps back and forth. Finally, he faced the group. “Is that why we’re all here, to be punished?”

Gina tutted. She folded her arms but didn’t seem comfy in her seat. “I have nothing to be punished for – and Harley certainly doesn’t. He’s just a boy.”

“P-Patricia was a good woman,” said Eric. “One mistake, decades ago, doesn’t mean she deserved to die. She’s been a good wife. A good mother. Oh, God, what am I going to tell our Lucy?”

Clip groaned. “You have a daughter?”

Eric nodded, tears streaming down both cheeks. “And grandchildren. Why did this happen? How?”

Kyle moaned. “It’s like Jay said. Her biggest fear attacked her.”

“I just want to apologise in advance,” said Grant, face still expressionless. “I’m afraid of wasps, so if anyone gets stung, that’s on me. Buzz-buzz.”

Paul rolled up the sleeves of his green jumper and glared at Grant. “You think this is a joke, mate?”

“Not at all, darling. I really am deathly afraid of wasps. Although Schofield once told me that bee sting treatments can do wonders for one’s forehead wrinkles, so perhaps it’s something I should try to get over.”

“You’re a psychopath,” said Paul. “People are dying.”

Grant shrugged. “Nobody I know.”

“Psychopath!”

“Labels hurt, darling.”

“What’s everyone else afraid of?” asked Clip, trying to keep the conversation moving in a helpful direction. She was inclined to agree with Paul’s assessment of Grant, but it did nothing to help the situation. “It might help us know what to expect.”

Gina shrugged. “Being alone, I guess. Although, I was in a bad marriage once, and that was worse. Much worse.”

“I’m scared of lots of things,” said Dan unashamedly. “Flying. Public speaking. Snakes. Can…” He cleared his throat. “Lots of things.”

Clip frowned. “What were you going to say? Cancer?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Hell,” said Mudz. “Everyone’s afraid of that shit. Cancer don’t mess around.”

“Well, I’m really afraid of it,” said Dan, “because my wife has it.”

Xavi groaned. “Ay! I’m sorry, my friend. My tia Mariana had breast cancer two years ago. It was rough on her. Has your wife started chemo?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“She hasn’t told me about it yet. The only reason I found out is because I accidentally opened her post a few weeks ago. It was an appointment from the oncology department. She has cancer of the oesophagus. It’s… bad.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell you?” asked Clip, then chided herself for being intrusive. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

Dan sat down and rested his head against the seat, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know, but I assume she doesn’t want it to affect us both. We have a big holiday to France coming up, so maybe she plans on telling me after we get back. Anyway, cancer is currently the thing of which I am most afraid, for the reasons I just explained.”

Clip nodded. “I think we’re all afraid of something.”

“Man ain’t scared of nothing,” said Mudz.

“Good for you,” said Xavi.

Clip nodded to Dan’s bloody shirt cuff. “What happened?”

Dan frowned and then realised what she meant. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a plaster. “I have no idea. My colleague, Bradley, pointed it out to me before he got off the train. Whatever happened, I never even felt it.”

“Looks like it bled a lot.”

“Not really. It was just a little gash. I must have caught my wrist somehow.”

Clip nodded. As she looked around the carriage, she realised half of everyone was stained with blood, including Xavi. There was a dark handprint on his red T-shirt where he had wiped his hand.

“I have nothing to do with this,” said Dan. “If that’s what you’re implying.”

She sighed and nodded. “I know.”

“Think we’ve all got our share of injuries,” said Dan, rubbing at his wrist again. “We should rest up a minute.”

Everyone took a seat. Eric up front with Dan and Paul watching over him; Mudz, Kyle, and Jay at the back. Grant remained standing, singing to himself and staring out of the black windows as if he could see something out there. The coke in his system was doing its job, because he seemed perfectly content. Clip envied him, because the weed in her system was already tapering off.

At least I had five minutes of not being terrified.

Clip sat down on the other side of the aisle from Gina and Harley. Harley had his Rubik’s Cube again and was studying it intently. She could only imagine how terrified the kid was. Part of her wanted to gather him up in a great big cuddle, like she used to do when Richard was little. It had felt good back then, being a big sis.

Xavi sat down beside Clip and put a hand on her knee. “This is not how I saw our day going.”

“I know, right? You plan on spending an afternoon in lessons, but end up stuck in a void with a bunch of strangers. I hate it when that happens.”

“It’s loco. I keep expecting to wake up.”

“Me too, but we’re not going to, are we? Are we ever going to get out of… whatever this is?”

“Of course we will. I won’t let anything happen to you, Clip. I… I love you.”

She flinched. “You do?”

“Is that so hard to believe? Somebody loving you?”

Clip thought about it. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard to believe if somebody had actually said it to her in the last few years. The word sounded odd to her, like it was supposed to change things somehow. But everything felt the same. “I guess I don’t always feel particularly loveable. I work really hard on it, actually.”

Xavi smiled, staring into her soul with those deep brown eyes of his. “Clearly not hard enough, because I love you.”

He wants me to say it back. Can I?

She leant in and kissed him. It clearly took him by surprise because his mouth was half-open. He soon settled, however, and the two of them made out. It felt good to lose herself in a kiss, and for a moment the world made sense. The train and its horrors disappeared, and all that existed was Xavi – a decent guy who loved her.

“Gross.”

Clip broke away, reminded of how this train journey had begun. This time, however, it was Harley, and not Mudz, staring at her with an expression of mild disgust. “Are you gonna get naked and bone?” he asked sarcastically.

“Oi, amigo,” said Xavi. “Bro code. You can’t interrupt a man and his señorita.”

Clip chuckled. “It’s okay, Harley. We were being rude. No more kissing, I promise.”

“It’s okay,” said Harley. “I don’t really mind.”

She smiled at him. “How are you doing?”

He shrugged and stared at his Rubik’s Cube. “I’m worried.”

“Me too, kid. Gina will look after you, though.”

“I know.”

Gina leant forward and smiled at Clip. “Talking of looking after Harley, do you mind staying with him while I go to the toilet? I’m bursting.”

Clip nodded. “Sure thing.”

Gina hesitated. “Um… do you mind lending me your boyfriend? There’s no way I’m heading into the next carriage by myself.”

“Good point,” said Clip. “Is that okay, Xavi?”

He looked unsure for a moment, but then nodded. “If I’m not back in five minutes, come get me, yeah?”

“Just scream and I’ll come running.”

“I don’t scream.”

“There’s always a first time.”

Xavi shuffled into the aisle and took Gina to the toilet. Clip smiled at Harley and patted the seat beside her. The boy came over and joined her. “So…” she said, “how long have you known Gina?”

“Two months. She’s looking after me for a while.”

“You like her?”

He nodded. “She’s kind, and her house smells nice. I miss my mum, though. I worry about her.”

“You worry about your mum? That’s not your job, kid. You just worry about you.”

“I can’t help it. She’s not very well.”

“Right.” Clip tried to keep her expression upbeat, but she could guess exactly what his mother’s illness was – either drugs or alcohol. Addiction studies formed part of her degree. “When will you go back to your mum?”

“When she’s strong enough to look after me again. She’s in a special hospital at the moment where she’s getting better.”

“Sounds like things have been tough on you, Harley.”

He looked away and his blonde hair fell in front of his eyes. “I just want to go back to my real home. I need to do the chores and make breakfast. My mum does better at night, so after school we watch movies together, and she makes chicken coleslaw sandwiches.”

Clip smiled. “Sounds nice. I hope she gets better soon. In the meantime, enjoy being with Gina. It’s okay for you to think about yourself.”

“I know. It just feels like…”

“Like what?”

“Like my life is paused, and I’m waiting for someone to press play again.”

Clip nodded. “Pressing pause can be good sometimes. Gives us a chance to rest.”

“I feel stuck.”

Clip laced her fingers together in her lap and twiddled her thumbs while she thought about it. The one thing she hated to do was talk about herself, but for some reason it felt okay to do it with this kid. A kid wouldn’t judge her, right? “I feel like I’m stuck, too, Harley. My mum and dad spend all their time looking after my brother, Richard, because he’s ill, and it makes me feel invisible. I know there’s this entire future ahead of me to look forward to, but it feels like I can’t quite grab it. I suppose I’m waiting for my life to get started, just like you.”

“Do you want to leave home?”

She nodded.

“Is it not safe where you live?”

Her gaze fell downwards as she spoke, a wave of shame washing over her. “My brother doesn’t mean to, but he lashes out sometimes. I’ve lost count of the number of black eyes and bloody noses he’s given me. Once, he even broke my little finger by grabbing me. He can be the sweetest thing, but when he gets angry, he just can’t control himself. It’s pretty frightening. The doctors say that eventually they will find the right medication to help, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“He can’t help being ill, though, right?” said Harley, nodding as if he understood. “That’s like my mum. She put bad things in her body when I was inside her tummy. That’s why my eye doesn’t work properly. It poisoned me, my nanny said.”

“You have a nanny that looks after you?”

“No, she died of old age when I was six.”

Clip sighed. This kid’s life was one long list of tragedy. “How old are you now, Harley?”

“I turned nine last week. Gina took me to the zoo.” He smiled, but it was short-lived. “I don’t know anybody at my new school yet, so it was just me and her, but that’s okay. It was a great day. I saw a hippo. Do you know they kill more people every year in Africa than lions do?”

“Wow. That’s scary.” Clip put an arm around Harley and gave him a quick hug. “If you ever want to teach lessons on positivity, kid, sign me up.”

He blushed, clearly proud of the compliment. “My nanny used to say that being grumpy can make you ill, but a smile can make you strong.”

“I think your nanny was a clever lady. I would’ve liked to have met her.”

“You should smile more often,” said Harley. “Then maybe you’ll be strong enough to push your brother on the floor.”

Clip cackled. “Yeah. That would feel pretty good. Okay, Harley, I’m going to smile more often. Thanks for the advice.”

“You’re welcome. Hey, why do you call yourself Clip?”

She smiled. “It was my first word, apparently. My mum said I used to love horses as a baby and I would play with these little toy ponies going clip-clip-clip. It became a nickname, and then it just stuck.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

Xavi and Gina returned from the toilet, which Clip realised was an unexpected relief. The way things were going, a simple trip into the next carriage could be lethal.

Harley got up and went back to Gina, while Xavi sat down beside Clip again. “Everything okay?” he asked her.

She smiled. “No, we’re still completely screwed, but I’ve decided I’m going to make the best of it.”

“Make the best of it? Tell me how?”

“By smiling, apparently.”

There was a kerfuffle at the front of the carriage. Eric was forcing his way past Dan into the operator’s cabin. Paul was trying to get him to sit back down but wasn’t having much luck. The old man had lost it, wailing and shouting and blaming everyone for what had happened to his wife. He shoved Dan, surprisingly hard, against the wall and then started grabbing at the train’s controls, yanking and twisting at anything he could find.

Xavi turned to Clip, his eyebrows lowered. “Should we help?”

“Help how? We’ll only get in the way. This train is getting narrower and narrower.”

The kerfuffle continued, and Dan found himself, once again, pushed up against the wall of the cabin. Paul got a hand around Eric’s wrist and yanked him into the aisle, but he couldn’t calm the man down.

“This won’t help anything,” said Dan, huffing and puffing and clutching at his ribs.

“None of this is real,” said Eric. “It can’t be. It can’t be.”

Paul tried to grab Eric by the shoulders, but the old man was spryer than he looked and ducked beneath his grasp. With nowhere to go, he bounded down the aisle like a startled deer.

Gina yelped and pulled Harley into her arms to protect him.

Dan pleaded for calm.

Grant clapped, delighted by the drama.

Eric rushed past the carriage’s first exit, but stopped at the second one near the back. There, he started tugging at the seam between the doors, trying to yank them open.

“Yo, sit down, old man.” Mudz stood up and stumbled into the aisle. Kyle remained sitting while Jay stood next to his seat. “Enough with the noise, bruv. Man is tryna chill.”

“I want to get off!” Eric yelled. “I want to go home!”

Mudz moved up behind the old man and grabbed him around the arms, yanking him away from the door. “Calm down, bruv. The doors is locked, so just—”

Eric threw his head back and smashed Mudz right in the middle of the face, squashing his broken nose.

“Whoa!” said Kyle. “Calm down, old man.”

“Motherfucker!” Mudz stumbled backwards, only managing to keep himself upright by grabbing one of the support rails near the door. He grunted in pain, trying to keep his obvious fury under control, but it escaped him through his fist, and he clumped Eric around the side of the head.

The old man crashed against the carriage doors, his knees buckling. A strange sound escaped him, almost like a laugh.

Xavi leapt to his feet. “Hey! What the hell are you doing? He’s an old man.”

Mudz wiped a bloody hand on his hoodie. “Old boy nutted me, bruv. Got to give a response, you get me?”

Xavi marched down the aisle, dodging Clip’s hand as she tried to grab at him. “You punched an old man in the face, you bully.”

“Damn right I did. Man does retaliate. You want some, too, Pedro?”

“Don’t do this, Xavi,” Clip shouted. “Sit down.”

“This won’t end well,” said Paul angrily. “Stop it.”

Xavi moved over to Eric and helped the dazed old man to find his balance. Then he turned and glared at Mudz. “You’re a thug. You belong in prison.”

“Real talk.” Mudz took a step and went toe to toe with Xavi. He was two inches taller and a lot heavier, but Xavi showed no fear. “Man is acting tough in front of his spice, but we both know man is just a pussy hole.”

Xavi shoved Mudz, causing everyone in the carriage to complain. He wasn’t listening, though. He was bright red in the face and seething. “You’re not so tough without your knife, gangster.”

Mudz grinned. “That the best you got, Pedro?”

“Not even close.” Xavi threw a punch.

Mudz ducked the punch and shoved Xavi back against the door, where he collided with Eric. “You know what makes man a real gangster, bruv? He always carries two knives.” There was a familiar flash of metal and Mudz lunged at Xavi.

“Look out!” Clip yelled.

“Protect yourself,” cried Paul.

Xavi turned and grappled Mudz side-on, causing the knife to sail past him.

And thud right into Eric’s chest.

The old man gasped, like he was flabbergasted at something, but really it was the air escaping from his lungs as the blade parted his ribs. His watery grey eyes almost fell out of his head. His mouth opened wide, a grey tongue waggling in the air.

Xavi took a step back, clearly horrified. “What have you done? What the hell have you done?”

Mudz moved away from Eric, pulling the knife out of the old man’s chest with a sickening pop! He shook his head, staring at the blood-soaked blade. “I… I didn’t… It was…” He turned to Xavi, and his shocked expression turned to anger. “You did this, Pedro. The shank was meant for you.”

Xavi glared right back at him. “You’re a monster.”

Eric slid down the carriage doors. Strangely, no blood escaped his chest, only a strange whistling sound. He landed on his rump and seemed to mutter a few silent words as his head tipped onto his shoulder. A few seconds went by and his eyes glazed over. A smile found its way to his face. “You’re so beautiful, my dear. I’m such a lucky man.”

That was all he said.

Dead.

Clip covered her mouth. Harley started to cry while Gina held him. Kyle and Jay both stared at Mudz, shocked.

“This is madness,” said Dan, shaking his head. “Madness.”

Everyone fell quiet, stunned and horrified. Eric was the third person to die aboard this train, but the first to be murdered. Mudz was as dangerous as Clip had feared. And now he had passed the point of no return.

She closed her eyes and tried to keep from shaking.

Who’s next? Will any of us get off this train alive?

Mudz took a step towards Xavi with the bloody knife still in his hand. “Old boy is dead because of you, Pedro. You should have faced me like a man.”

“No,” said Xavi. “You’re a killer, and you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Mudz paused for a moment, staring at the floor and seeming to nod to himself. When he eventually spoke, his words were barely audible. “Man has nothing to lose, then.”

He lunged at Xavi with the knife.

The lights went out.

CHAPTER 8

“This shit is getting old,” said Kyle in the darkness. “Yo, Mudz, you okay, fam?”

“No, fam. Man is well fazed.”

Xavi grunted. “You killed Eric. We’re not going to let you get away with it.”

“Maybe man should shank the lot of you pussy holes, then. Walk away without witnesses.”

“Try it,” said Paul’s voice, a few feet in front of Clip. “Xavi,” he called out, “come back over this way with the rest of us. Last time the lights went out, we were attacked.”

“By dogs,” said Jay. “I don’t hear no dogs, bro.”

“Mudz is the one we should be afraid of,” said Clip.

“Real talk.”

“I hear something,” said Harley.

Clip listened but heard nothing. “What is it, Harley? What do you hear?”

“I hear my mum again.”

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Clip yelped and covered her mouth. The whispering was right in her ear. Her brother’s voice, and the woman’s.

Two live. All die.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

“What is it?” Xavi asked her, still further down the carriage.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Footsteps in the aisle.

“Everyone, stay still,” warned Paul. “Anyone who comes near me is getting dropped on their arse.”

Clip reached out in the darkness, afraid that Mudz would suddenly stab her without warning. Now that he had murdered someone, he really had nothing to lose. She called out to Xavi, making sure he was okay.

“I’m okay,” he replied. “Just stay where you are.”

“I’m coming for you, bruv,” said Mudz in a spooky voice, followed by an over-the-top chuckle that sounded like the Chucky doll from the movies.

“Hell of a night,” said Grant. “Haven’t had this much fun since I toured with Amy Winehouse.”

“You really are a psychopath,” said Clip.

“I just like to look on the bright side.”

“Jesus Christ. There is no bright side.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Jay suddenly shouted, “Hey, back up. Whoever that is, back the hell up away from me.”

“Sorry,” said Grant. “My hands have a mind of their own sometimes.”

Clip sensed movement nearby. Everyone’s breathing was fitful and fevered, their panic rising. Her panic rising.

The lights came back on.

There were no dogs. No monsters. Just the same old train.

All is well. All is calm.

Clip doubled over, letting out a sigh of relief. Gina reached out and put a hand on her back.

Mudz was standing with Jay near the back of the carriage, while Kyle sat a few feet away from them. Paul and Dan were outside the operator’s cabin with Clip, Gina, and Harley. Xavi was further down the aisle, staring at the exit doors and muttering. “He’s gone. Just like his wife.”

Clip had to move down the aisle and join Xavi to get a better look at what he was staring at. Just as he had said, Eric’s body was gone.

Clip placed a hand on Xavi’s lower back. He was shivering. “Hopefully he’s gone to wherever Pat went to,” she said.

He looked at her. “You believe they’re in Heaven? You?”

“I wouldn’t have believed such a place existed when I woke up this morning, but now… Maybe the train crashed and we’re all bleeding out, one by one. This could be the place between life and death.”

“This isn’t a Stephen King novel, Clip. You sound insane.”

“Right now, I would take insane. Wouldn’t you?”

Paul came to join them both. “Every time the lights go off, something happens. First the man who died of a heart attack, then Pat… I think the darkness is when our spider visits. We need to take note of that.”

Clip nodded. She couldn’t think straight right now, but she trusted Paul – and his calm mind. If anyone could keep a mental journal of the pertinent facts, it was him. Their very own special forces soldier.

Clip sniffed and looked once again at Xavi. “I’m not insane. In fact, it’s the opposite. I am perfectly sane, while the world has gone mad.”

Xavi nodded. “Or maybe this is some kind of group psychosis.”

“That happens in cults, or dysfunctional relationships. There’s no way it could happen to a bunch of strangers, not unless they were influenced somehow.”

Paul frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I suppose I’m just saying the only way a group of strangers could theoretically share a delusion is if they were drugged or hypnotised, and then a matching version of events was fed to them via psychological manipulation.”

“You mean like an experiment?”

“Maybe. Look, I’m not an expert. I have less than one year’s study at university. Most of the experiments I’ve read about were done with rats and monkeys.”

Paul scratched at the scar on his chin. “Well, let’s keep your theory in mind, in case it holds weight.”

“What? That we’re all intoxicated and being manipulated?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Three people are dead,” said Dan, rubbing at his face with both hands. “When will it end?”

“As soon as we deal with him,” said Xavi, pointing at Mudz. “Eric is dead because of him. Nothing supernatural, just cold-blooded murder.”

“Allow it.” said Mudz. “Man didn’t mean to shank the old boy. Was an accident, innit?”

Paul folded his arms and turned towards the back of the carriage. “Accident or not, you’re responsible. You killed Eric because your answer to everything is pulling out a knife.”

Mudz sucked his teeth. “Man is serious. Serious man needs a knife.”

“Then we have a problem,” said Paul, “because I’m not risking you stabbing anyone else. You either give me that knife or I’ll take it from you.”

Mudz moved into the aisle, fists clenched at his sides. “Try it, bruv. For real.”

Kyle cleared his throat. “You can have my knife. I don’t want it.”

Mudz glared at him. “Shut your mouth, blud.”

“Nah, man. This shit has got way too serious. We need to work together.”

“Too late for that, fam. Like man said, shit is bare serious now. Ride or die, you get me?”

Clip looked at Kyle. “Will you let me have your knife?”

Kyle fumbled inside his hoodie and produced his blade. He chucked it over the top of the seat in front of him and it landed on the cushion. “Take it.”

Clip marched over and took the knife. It was heavier than expected. “Good move. I’m getting rid of it. Nobody else is getting stabbed aboard this train.”

Mudz leant over the seats and mumbled something in Kyle’s ear that caused his face to drop.

Clip took the knife, holding it out in front of her, and went over to one of the windows in the middle of the aisle. She cracked a horizontal pane open and tossed the knife out into the endless void. It zipped away, as if the train were going a hundred miles an hour. All Clip saw was darkness.

And a face.

Her first instinct was to scream, but something held her in place and kept her quiet. The woman’s green eyes were magnetic. Blood and grime streaked her muddy face, and her tangled hair was crusted with mud and dirt, but her eyes were clear and vibrant. Her head was encased inside a rusty metal cage with twisted iron bars.

Clip felt like a wax figure standing beside a raging fire, her soul dripping away.

The lights went out.

This time, Clip screamed until her throat hurt.

The lights came back only a few seconds later.

A frantic whispering filled the carriage.

Then all hell broke loose.

A ghastly figure stood at the end of the carriage, ankles clamped using two rotten planks of wood. The woman was pregnant, her belly swollen beneath a filthy, old-fashioned nightgown.

“What the fuck!” cried Kyle, and he clambered over the seats to get away from her. “What the fuck!”

Jay tripped and stumbled down the aisle in his haste to flee. Mudz and Grant leapt over him. Xavi froze in place by the doors where Eric had died and disappeared. Everyone screamed in terror. The carriage sounded like an aviary full of squawking hens.

The caged woman swayed back and forth in the aisle, gazing at them each in turn. Her mouth moved silently, blood staining her lips and teeth. Her green eyes turned as black as the void outside the windows.

“What does she want?” Harley cried out, covering his eyes and stamping his feet. “What does she want?”

“Bitch wants us,” said Mudz, holding his knife out in front of him as if it were a sword.

Clip took a step towards the woman, desperate for answers – so desperate that she was willing to ignore the upside-down feeling telling her to collapse and scream in terror. “Who are you? W-What do you want?”

The woman bolted forward down the aisle, her clamped ankles waggling back and forth in a horrifying manner. At the same time, she let out a screech so loud that everyone covered their ears in agony.

Clip closed her eyes and pressed at her temples, her skull suddenly pounding. There was a flash of light and colour in her mind, a memory being played back vividly against her will.

But it wasn’t her memory.

Clip was in another place – inside someone else’s head. She was staring out at a wet, gloomy road made of dirt and pebbles. The air smelled of sweat and damp soil. The sky above was dark grey, almost night. She felt exhaustion and despair. Pain. Her skin felt sore, rubbed raw and festering. Despite it being a foreign memory in her mind, she was able to look down. Her ankles were clamped inside two rotten wooden boards. Her bare feet bled in the wet mud.

Behind her, she heard the voices of men and strange words she could not understand. When she turned her head, she saw the monstrous faces of beasts. Bearded men covered in dirt and blood, armour and furs. They sneered at Clip – spat and jeered. One of them punched her in the spine to keep her moving forward. She was a slave.

Clip opened her eyes and gasped. For a second, she didn’t know where she was, but then she saw the woman racing towards her, dirty, overgrown fingernails reaching for her face.

The lights flickered, and so did the woman – fading in and out of existence.

And then she was gone in the blink of an eye.

Clip wanted to scream, but her lungs were empty. She felt moisture in her underwear where her bladder had almost released itself. Her soul trembled. “What… What did I…?”

Kyle immediately started freaking out. He yanked down his hoodie and pulled at strawberry blonde hair hanging down past his ears. He was surprisingly handsome. “We’re all gonna die,” he yelled. “All the shit I done, man… the drugs, the stealing, the beatdowns. She’s gonna drag me to Hell. I’m gonna burn.”

“Calm down, fam.” Mudz clutched his broken nose, shaking his head. “That coke must have been spiked, yo. You’re having a bad trip.”

“I buy only the best,” said Grant quickly, almost like it was a rote response. His expression was vacant.

“I’m hallucinating,” said Gina. “This can’t be real.”

“We all saw that thing,” said Paul. He was rubbing at his mangled wrist and wincing. “I don’t think it was a hallucination. This is… I don’t know what this is, but I think that woman is the reason we’re all trapped here.”

Clip collapsed onto the seats, unable to wipe the vision of the woman’s wretched face from her mind. She was struggling to catch her breath, her lungs feeling like they were full of ice. “Wh-Who was she? I… saw something.”

“Fantasma,” said Xavi, hand across his mouth. “A ghost.”

“Ghosts aren’t real,” said Harley. “They’re made up to scare us.”

“Then what the hell was that, kid?” Kyle was still freaking out, still pulling at his hair. Now he was pacing back and forth in the aisle. “She’s the devil.”

Paul put a hand on Kyle’s back. “Easy, kid. We’re all here. We’re all together.”

Kyle shrugged him off. “We’re all fucking fucked. That woman is gonna eat us all. Her head was in a cage, man. A goddamn cage!”

Harley covered his ears and rocked back and forth. Gina wrapped her arms around him and glared at Kyle. Paul kept trying to restrain the youth, but he kept pushing him away.

“This is messed up, yo,” said Mudz. “This is some bare supernatural bullshit.”

“Please, everybody,” said Dan. “Just stay calm.”

Mudz stormed down the aisle. He still held the knife in his hand, Eric’s blood staining the metal, but he seemed to have forgotten about it. “Stay calm? Bruv, is you mad? Man is being fucked with by the goddamn Blair Witch. Woman will murder us all, one by one.”

“The only person who has murdered anyone is you,” said Xavi, moving up the aisle. “You think we’re all going to forget you stabbed an old man to death?”

Clip groaned. “Leave it, Xavi. For God’s sake.”

“Man was aiming for you,” said Mudz. “Been over this.”

“Well, man missed me.”

“Man can always try again.”

“Stop your bickering,” Paul shouted. “Do you think this is a game? Unless we work together, we’re never getting out of this.”

“We don’t even know what this is, darling,” said Grant. “I just wish I had some more drugs because this is getting rather boring.”

“True that,” said Mudz. “Yo, Kyle, man got any more skunk?”

“That’s not going to help,” said Paul. “Let’s keep our wits about us.”

“Shut your mouth,” said Mudz. “Man thinks he’s boss, but man ain’t shit.”

“For real,” said Kyle.

Jay grunted irritably. “Chill out, bro. Both of you.”

Kyle sneered. “Being calm ain’t gonna get us out of this, bruv, is it? That’s all I’ve been hearing. Stay calm. Chill out. It ain’t working.”

“Look,” said Jay, “I remember my bibi once telling me that all ghosts are trapped in the moment of their deaths. Whatever drives them, whatever it is they want… it all has to do with what killed them and how.”

“Okay,” said Paul, leaning against a seat and rubbing the back of his neck. “How does that help us?”

Jay shrugged. “I’m just throwing some stuff out there, bro, to see if anything sticks. But, if we can find out what the mad sister wants, maybe we can figure out a way to give it to her.”

“And you think that will save us?” asked Clip. “That she’ll let us go?”

Jay shrugged.

“I saw something,” said Clip. “When she came towards me. I saw her suffering. It was a long time ago. I think she was a slave or something.”

Xavi looked at her. “You saw something?”

“Yeah. It was like a memory. One of her memories. I think she wanted me to see what happened to her.”

“Like a psychic projection?” said Xavi.

Clip nodded.

Paul chuckled. “I would say you were talking nonsense, but I suppose there’s no reason not to believe you.”

“Maybe she’s trapped,” said Harley. “Maybe she’s stuck on this train, same as us.”

Kyle grunted. “Thought you didn’t believe in ghosts, kid?”

“I’m just helping.”

Gina rubbed his arm. “You are, sweetie.”

“Yeah,” said Clip, smiling. “It’s a good thought. Maybe the woman is stuck, and we need to free her.”

Dan cleared his throat. “Hate to burst your bubble, folks, but this train has been running back and forth for over two decades. There’s never been any reports of it being haunted. Nor any train that I know of.”

“So what’s different about today, then?” asked Paul. His wrist was a mess of bloody holes where the dog had bitten him, and he cradled it against his ribs as he spoke. “We entered a tunnel, right? So is it the tunnel that’s haunted?”

“Again, not to my knowledge. Although…”

Clip frowned at Dan. “What?”

He put a palm to his forehead and groaned. “I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it until now. There were dead animals all over the track right before we entered Ronchurch. It couldn’t have been a fox, because the bodies were arranged in a perfect line. I think a person put them there. Then, after we left the station, I saw something hanging from the mouth of the tunnel. Some kind of effigy. A circle with a cow’s head in the middle. Actually, no, it might have been a bull. It had these small horns.”

Clip groaned. “Not sure I’ve ever seen a cow’s skull, but would you say it’s roughly a triangular shape?”

“I suppose it was a bit like a triangle.”

“You’re thinking about the symbol we saw on the back of the seat?” said Xavi to Clip. “A circle with a triangle inside.”

She nodded. “Doesn’t seem like a coincidence, does it?”

“So the witch trapped us in the tunnel,” said Harley. His fear had ebbed away, and he now seemed eager, like he was solving a puzzle. “It’s like a ritual or something?”

“What do you know about rituals?” Gina asked him disapprovingly.

He shrugged. “Videogames and stuff.”

“I don’t think she’s a witch,” said Jay. “Witches don’t blink in and out of existence. No, I think we were right when we called her a ghost. Maybe she was a real woman once.”

“This is bare bullshit,” said Mudz. “Chatting about ghosts and shit…”

“We’re trying to figure it out,” said Xavi. “So shut your stupid mouth.”

“Don’t even talk to me, bruv. Man is going to react.”

“Then react, idiota. Give me an excuse.”

Clip shouted. “Hey. Stop it. Both of you.”

“Yes,” said Paul. “You two are getting on my last nerve.”

“He needs dealing with,” Xavi complained. “Before he hurts somebody else.”

“Man is going to hurt you, Pedro. Got no reason not to now, innit?”

“Give it your best shot, bitch. I’ll make—”

Mudz launched down the aisle and collided with Xavi. There was an almighty thud and Xavi let out a gasp. There was a flash of metal between the two of them, followed by another thud as Mudz buried his blade into Xavi’s ribs a second time.

Clip screamed and rushed to her boyfriend’s aid, but by the time she reached him, Mudz had already stabbed Xavi a third time. “Get off him,” she yelled, and she beat Mudz away with her fists. “Leave him alone!”

Xavi collapsed into her arms, but he was too heavy for her to hold up, so the two of them sank to the floor. Gina screamed hysterically in the background. Paul yelled threats.

Mudz held his bloody knife out in front of him, ready to stab anyone who got too close. “Kyle, with me,” he ordered, but Kyle seemed hesitant to back him up.

“This is fucked up, mate. Why did you do that?”

“Because man was a thorn in my side. I already shanked the old boy, so shit don’t even matter now.”

Clip looked up at Kyle, tears blurring her eyes. “Don’t do what he says. He’s a monster.”

Kyle looked like he was about to puke. In fact, he looked on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “I… I…”

Mudz barked at him. “Fam, what is you doing? You know what happens to traitors.”

“This is so fucked up, mate.”

“Is man with the Quinton Crew or not? Or is he a traitor?”

Kyle looked at Clip, wavering. “Don’t,” she told him. “Don’t do it.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Pathetic.”

Kyle pulled out a knife, revealing he had been hiding a second just like Mudz. Giving up his weapon earlier had been a ruse.

“You’re making a big mistake,” said Paul. “It’s moments like these when a man decides who he is.”

“Man is Quinton Crew for life.” Kyle moved down the aisle and joined Mudz. “Man don’t even know you people.”

“You’re throwing your life away,” said Clip, still cradling Xavi in her arms, “and for what? To get a street rep? Nobody cares. You’re just a messed-up kid who thinks he’s a gangster. Both of you are pathetic.”

“Man will show you how gangster he is, woman,” said Mudz, grabbing his crotch.

“You’re just a…” Clip noticed Dan sneaking up behind Kyle. She tried not to give him away by staring. “You’re not even worth it.”

Dan was clearly planning to grab the knife, but his approach was clumsy, and his shuffling feet made too much noise. Kyle turned and spotted him before he managed to make a move. He turned and thrust the knife out at him. “Step back, bruv, or man will shank you.”

Dan put a hand out. “Just give me the knife, Kyle. You’re not responsible for anything yet. You can still do the right thing.”

“Yo, back up, bruv!”

Dan grabbed for the knife.

Kyle dodged sideways.

And planted the knife right in Dan’s neck.

Blood jetted into the air. Dan’s eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed sideways, clutching his neck, and he hit the floor in a tangle of his own limbs. A crimson pool spread out around him.

Gina screamed and threw herself on top of Harley. “Please, stop this. You have to stop this.”

Paul leapt into the fray, but Kyle slashed at him with the knife, drawing blood from the back of his arm that was already ragged from the dog bite. “Get the fuck back.”

Paul looked like a firework about to go off, his angular face turning bright red. “You just took the wrong fucking path, kid. Now there’s no way back.”

Kyle’s fear was gone, replaced by aggression and adrenaline. It was unclear whether he had meant to stab Dan, but it was done now, and like Paul had said, there was no way back. “Yo, shut your mouth, bruv. I’m done hearing you. This is about survival. This is about not dying on this train.”

Mudz grabbed Kyle and pulled him backwards down the aisle. “Man is going into other carriage,” he said. “Any pussy holes who follow is gonna get cheffed up.”

“You won’t get away with this,” said Clip, her hands covered in Xavi’s warm blood. “I won’t let you.”

Mudz blew a kiss to her. “Come get it, blondie. Man will be waiting with his di—”

Jay wrapped an arm around Mudz’s throat from behind and squeezed. Struggling for air and his face bulging, Mudz slashed at the air with his knife, but he couldn’t hit the target. Jay shook him like a rag doll, keeping him off balance. Kyle turned to help his friend, but Jay, a much larger man, kicked out and sent him stumbling back down the aisle.

Paul rushed forward and grabbed Kyle by the arm, spinning the lad around so they were facing. “Consequences, kid. Time to learn a few.”

Kyle tried to bring his knife up, but Paul walloped him with a massive right hook that spun him right around on the spot and sent him flopping face-first onto the seats. At the exact same moment, Jay let go of an unconscious Mudz and let him crumple to the floor with a heavy thud.

Everyone stood still, unsure that the chaos had ended. Then Jay shook his head and huffed. “You lot were right. Man is just a thug.”

Paul nodded at him. “Thanks for the assist.”

Jay stepped over Mudz’s unconscious body and moved further up the carriage. “Don’t mention it.”

“I need help,” Clip cried out to everyone. “Please.”

Xavi was still conscious in her arms, moaning in pain and clutching at his ribs. His T-shirt was sodden with blood, but she didn’t know exactly where it was coming from.

Paul dropped to his knees and moved Xavi’s hands out of the way. “Let me take a look. Okay, okay…”

Clip stared at him. “What? Is he going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure, but… maybe. He took it all on his right side against his ribs. If the knife missed his vital organs, then all we need to do is get the wounds closed up. Dan, can you get me…” His words trailed off as he spotted Dan lying in a pool of his own blood.

“He’s dead,” said Grant, who actually appeared sober at last. His taut skin had taken on an ashen hue, and a layer of sweat glistened on his smooth forehead. “My God, what hell am I in? I thought spending an evening with Louie Spence was my darkest moment. I was wrong.” He put his head in his hands and fell silent.

Gina was sobbing and holding Harley. Even from several feet away, Clip could see the young boy trembling in her arms. Blood covered the floor – Xavi’s, Dan’s, and even Paul’s. Mudz was bleeding, too, from his nose and from his hand where he must have slipped and cut himself on his own knife while stabbing Xavi.

The animal. The goddamn fucking animal.

Paul looked up at Jay. “I saw a first aid kit in the driver’s cabin. I need bandages, plasters, whatever’s in there.”

“Don’t let me die,” said Xavi. “My madre will kill me.”

Clip kissed his forehead. “I’ll kill you. Don’t you leave me alone on this hell train, do you hear me? We got on together, and we’re going to leave together.”

“What… What about the pregnant señorita?”

Clip shrugged. “You’re my man, she can’t have you.”

He smiled and closed his eyes.

“Xavi? Xavi, don’t you fall asleep on me. Xavi?”

He opened his eyes again. “I’m here. The lights are bright.”

Jay arrived with the first aid supplies, mostly bandages and gauze. He gave them to Paul, who started tearing open packets. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Let’s get you closed up before you lose any more of that fiery Spanish blood.”

“I bleed salsa, amigo.”

Paul got to work, cleaning away as much blood as he could. It didn’t jet out like Dan’s had – it was more of an ooze – and once Paul covered the first puckered wounds with cotton dressings and tape, they hardly bled at all.

“Help me roll him so I can get the bandages underneath him.”

Clip helped Paul roll Xavi over, and the ex-soldier pulled the bandages around his torso, tugging them tightly. He used more tape to keep them from slipping. This obviously wasn’t his first attempt at battlefield medicine.

“Is he going to be okay?” asked Clip.

“No. He’s a mess, and if he doesn’t make it to a hospital by the end of the day, he’ll pass out from blood loss or burn up with a fever. We’ve bought him some time, though.”

“I feel fine,” said Xavi. “Help me sit up.”

Clip protested. “Maybe you should just— Oh, okay…”

Xavi pulled himself up against the seats, gritting his teeth in obvious agony. “Ay, my whole body feels sliced up.”

“It is,” said Paul, “so move as if your insides could fall out at any moment. Because they might.”

“I have something to help with the pain,” said Grant, standing up. He offered a limp hand out to Xavi.

Xavi grimaced. “You want me to kiss your ring? You might have been on TV, amigo, but you’re not that famous.”

With a sigh, Grant fidgeted with a thick sovereign ring on his left hand and revealed a secret compartment inside containing a small amount of white powder. “My emergency bump,” he said. “I hate to give it away, but I think it’s time I made myself useful.”

Xavi shied away. “I don’t do that stuff.”

Paul put a meaty hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Kid, we’re all out of morphine, so my advice is that you take this man up on his kind offer. Once the adrenaline leaves your system and your pain receptors kick in, you’ll be begging him.”

“You won’t get addicted from this amount,” said Grant, “so just take a little ride and enjoy it.”

Xavi looked at Clip. She had never done anything as hard as coke before, but right now, it seemed like the mildest of crimes. “I don’t think you have anything to lose right now, babe. Whatever helps with the pain.”

With a reluctant sigh, Xavi eased himself slowly forward and sniffed up the powder. Half a second was all it took for him to shudder and vibrate. “Ay! What the hell!”

Grant grinned. “Give it a sec, darling. Everything is about to be wonderful.”

Xavi lay back against the seats, his legs spread out in the aisle, and closed his eyes. Nearby, Kyle murmured, coming around from being knocked out cold.

“We need to do something about our prisoners,” said Paul. “Before they wake up for round two.”

Jay nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but they made their own bed.”

Clip studied Mudz with disdain. “You still think we made him what he is?”

“I think there’s a lot we could unpack,” said Jay, “but there’s a line where a person is fully responsible for their actions. These two assholes crossed that line. They’re on their own.”

Clip gave Jay a friendly nod. He may have chosen the wrong side to begin with, but she could see his genuine regret about it.

Paul sorted through the remaining bandages from the first aid kit. “We need to get these hoodlums tied up. Help me get them over to the entrance. I’ll rope their wrists to the support rails.”

“If we keep them in this carriage,” said Gina, “we’ll have to listen to their foul language and threats.”

“You think we should put them somewhere else?” asked Clip. “We should really put them where we can keep an eye on them.”

Gina shrugged. “What are they going to do? They’re outnumbered and you have their knives. Put them in the other carriage so we don’t have to listen to any more of their vileness.”

Paul picked up Mudz’s knife from the floor next to his unconscious body and tucked it into his belt alongside the one he’d taken earlier. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Let’s move them before they wake up.”

Clip, Paul, and Jay worked together, first dragging Mudz, the most dangerous of their prisoners, and depositing him near the first exit inside the middle carriage. Paul used the bandages to bind his wrists behind his back and around the vertical support rail by the doors. The knot he used was complex, and Clip saw little chance of Mudz escaping it.

“Okay, let’s go get Kyle,” said Paul, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm.

They went back inside the front carriage to find Gina calling for help. Kyle was back on his feet, the side of his jaw hideously swollen. He seemed confused. “W-What is happening?”

“I knocked your ass out,” said Paul. “Don’t make me do it again.”

“You… you knocked me… oh God.” He rushed down the aisle towards the operator’s cabin, leaping over Dan’s dead body. He dashed inside and tried to close the door, but Paul got there in time to shove his foot in the way.

Kyle searched desperately for a weapon, opening compartments and tiny drawers. He couldn’t find anything, so he turned and begged. “Please. Please, I didn’t mean to—”

“Hands above your head,” Paul barked at him. “One wrong move and I’ll crack your skull.”

Kyle put his hands above his head. “Please.”

“We have no more bandages,” said Jay, backing Paul up. “How are we going to secure him?”

Paul tilted his head and looked past Kyle, a smile creeping onto his face. “The kid just solved that problem for us.” He glared at Kyle and told him to turn against the wall and put his hands behind his back. Then he reached into a small drawer and pulled out a bunch of cable ties. “Maybe these are here to restrain unruly passengers. I think you qualify.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Save the begging for Dan’s wife. Poor cow has to go through cancer all on her own now, thanks to you.”

“I didn’t mean it. I…”

“You chose the thug life, kid. Man up and take responsibility for it.” Paul cable-tied the lad’s wrists behind his back and frogmarched him down the aisle. As he did so, Harley stood up and followed them.

Gina called after him. “What are you doing, Harley?”

“I want to walk about. My legs are aching.”

“I can take him,” said Clip. “If it’s okay that he stretches his legs.”

Gina did not look happy at the prospect, but despite that, she nodded. “Just for a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll stay here and watch out for Xavi.”

Clip glanced at her boyfriend, glad to see him still conscious and alert. The coke was clearly in his system from the peaceful look on his pasty face. “Thanks, Gina. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t let anything happen to Harley.”

“I promise.”

They bundled Kyle into the other carriage. Mudz had woken up, but he was quiet. Soon, he would probably start making a racket, but for now, he seemed in a daze. They secured Kyle against the railing opposite him on the other side of the exit doors. Kyle begged them not to, fearful of the woman that might try to get him, but the truth was nobody gave a shit. Dan and Eric were both dead, so Kyle and Mudz deserved whatever they got.

“Please, man,” said Kyle, still begging. “I promise I’ll sit and behave. I didn’t mean to stab the guy. I’ve been smoking weed. I just lashed out.”

“Tell it to someone who’ll listen,” said Paul, and he gave the kid a slap across the cheek. “If this was the army, we’d drown you in a barrel.”

Jay sighed and shook his head. “I’m gonna head back up front.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Clip.

“I want to stretch my legs,” said Harley. “Can we just walk up and down a couple of times? I feel a bit sick because of all the blood in the other carriage.”

“Um… yeah, I understand. Come on, then, just a couple of minutes.” She reached out and took his hand, and the two of them strolled down the aisle. It did indeed feel good to just walk casually for a few minutes, and it helped fight the claustrophobic feeling that had been gradually rising in her since this whole thing had started.

Whatever this thing is.

When they reached the end of the aisle, Clip peered through the window in the connecting door. She wanted to check for the woman, worried she might be hiding. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

“Do you see anything?” Paul asked her from further down the carriage.

“Not sure.” She turned to Harley and nudged him back a step. “Stay here. I’ll just open the door a little and make sure everything is okay. You good with that, Paul?”

“It’s probably a bad idea, but sure, go ahead.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. I just feel like that woman is here somewhere, watching us.”

“Yeah, I feel that too. It’s like the air is… polluted.”

Clip’s hand was trembling as she pressed the door release, but she stood her ground as it slid open. She asked Harley to put his foot in the way to keep it from closing again and shutting her in the airlock, and once he was in place, she pressed the button for the door into the next carriage. It opened with a hiss.

If Clip had known what she was looking at right away, she might have screamed, but for several seconds, all she could do was stare in confusion.

“What do you see?” Paul shouted from the middle of the other carriage.

“I… I… see nothing.” Clip swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “Nothing.”

The rear of the third carriage had disappeared, dissolving into the endless void behind it. While the middle and front parts of the carriage were still intact, the final third had melted away into nothingness – like a pencil sketch being scrubbed away by an invisible rubber. The void was swallowing them up.

And standing right on the precipice between nothingness and existence was the pregnant woman. She glared at Clip through the rusty bars of her cage and hissed. All will die.

CHAPTER 9

“What do you want?” Clip demanded. “What have we done to you?”

The woman hissed through her bloodstained, jagged teeth. “Two shall live. All will die.”

“What does that mean? Why are you doing this?”

The woman took a step forward, the void swirling behind her and eating up the train. Her clamped ankles shifted left and right, bloody footprints staining the aisle behind her. “Regret haunts you. Guilt tears you asunder.”

Clip wanted to run away screaming, but she held onto the edge of the open door and planted her feet, imagining they were two heavy lumps of cement. “What guilt? I’ve done nothing.”

“I see your guilt,” the woman hissed. “It blooms inside you. Give it to me and you shall be free.”

“I… I’m not guilty of anything.”

“Lies!” The woman rushed forward, screeching like a hungry vulture. “All are to blame,” she wailed. “All are to die. All are to die. All are to die.”

“Get back.” Paul grabbed Clip by her belt and yanked her into the other carriage. The connecting door slid shut just as the rushing woman reached the end of the aisle and snatched at her.

Harley cowered nearby, and he threw himself against Clip, squealing in terror. “I want to go home. I want my mum.”

She wrapped an arm around him. “I-I know, honey. I know.”

“Guess you shouldn’t have opened that door,” said Paul. He had both of Mudz’s knives out, one in each hand, and he watched the connecting door like a hawk.

But the woman didn’t appear.

Was she still in the other carriage? Or had she disappeared?

“We’re all going to die,” Kyle moaned from further down the carriage. “She’s going to kill us all.”

“Quiet,” said Paul. “I might kill you first.”

Clip put her hands over Harley’s ears and nodded to get Paul’s attention. When he looked at her, she told him, “The train is disappearing. It looked like it was dissolving out of existence.”

Paul chewed his lip for a moment, stretching out the scar that ran down his chin. “Time is running out, then. We need to find a way to fight back, or we won’t make it out of this alive.”

Hearing him talk pessimistically was difficult, as Clip had started relying on Paul to keep her calm, but now he was losing hope. Who could blame him? He looked at Clip and sighed. “The woman was shouting something at you. What was it?”

Clip shook her head, unsure that she had actually absorbed any of it. Fortunately, it came back to her. “She was talking about regret and guilt. It sounded like she blamed us for something.”

“Like what? Her death? We don’t even know who she is.”

“Jay said the manner of her death might be important. Is she angry at whoever killed her and put her in a cage?”

Paul nodded. “And she’s projecting her anger onto us?”

“She said she saw my guilt. That it bloomed.”

“And does it? Anything you want to get off your chest, kid?”

Clip shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

Paul smirked at her. “You’re not a very good liar.”

“Well, okay, how about you, then? What are you guilty of?”

“How long you got.”

Clip leant back against the seats, hugging Harley. It reminded her of when Richard was little. “We’ve got as long as it takes for the void to swallow up this train, so perhaps you should just tell me the worst thing.”

Paul glanced at Harley, probably checking the boy’s ears were still covered, and then he frowned at Clip. His regrets were clearly none of her business – she barely knew the man – yet he seemed to mull over whether or not to tell her. “I killed a little girl,” he eventually said. “Younger than this one.” He nodded at Harley. “She was in a room with half a dozen insurgents when I threw a grenade in. I knew she was in there, but I did it anyway. The risk of those insurgents picking up their weapons and firing on my men was too great, so I made a soldier’s decision. After the dust settled, and I found the girl’s body, there was barely anything left of her face. A child doesn’t recognise a grenade, you see? When it bounces on the ground, they stare right at it.”

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.”

Clip skidded to a halt. Burning tears filled her eyes as she was forced to watch Xavi bleed out on the floor. He had avoided death several times today, but it had finally caught up with him. Already she could see the light fading from his eyes.

I love you. I love you, Xavi.

Paul marched down the aisle, knives in both hands. “You’re a dead man, Dan.”

Dan pressed the bloody dagger, some kind of ceremonial blade, against Harley’s windpipe and made the boy squeal. Harley was holding onto his Rubik’s Cube with both hands for dear life, as if he thought it might keep him safe. “Stay where you are,” Dan warned, “or I’ll kill him. By now, it should be quite clear that I’m capable.”

“Why?” asked Paul, staying in place but quaking visibly with rage. “Why do this to innocent people?”

“You’ve already figured it out. Your lives in exchange for what I need. As for innocent, is that a joke? Do you know how many years I’ve been running people back and forth in this country? I’ve seen better behaviour at a zoo. People are filthy and inconsiderate, and the worst have no conscience at all. I knew I could pick any group of people at random and be confident that none would be innocent. Mudz…” he spat the word like it tasted bad, “proves my point most of all.”

Clip shook her head. “But why? What do you want?”

“What do you think? I want my wife to live.” He shook his head and sighed. “I researched her cancer, and I’ll be lucky to have six more months with her. It’s not enough. We have too many plans. I won’t lose her.”

Clip was shocked to see tears in the man’s eyes. He couldn’t claim to be a remorseless monster or a psychopath. If he could feel love for his wife, then he could feel guilt for his actions. He was willing to murder a dozen people anyway. “So what happens now?” she demanded. “What do you get for this? Another fifteen, twenty years of growing old and decrepit? Is it worth the lives of everyone on this train?”

“Fifty more years,” he corrected her. “Fifty joyous years for Sharon and me, with every desire taken care of. The retirement to end all retirements. That is the trade I am making with the Sacrificed Spouse. Your lives, your potential. She’ll take the former, and me the latter.”

Jay slumped sideways against the seats. So far, he had remained silent. “Sacrificed Spouse? The woman in the cage? Who is she?”

Dan adjusted his grip on Harley, who was frozen stiff and barely blinking. His milky left eye twitched. “Do you really need to know? Seems like you might be stalling for time, but you won’t change anything.”

“I want to know,” said Clip. “I want to know who she is, why she’s doing this. Earlier, she made me see her memories. She wants me to know. Dan, please, who is she? Who was she?”

Dan cleared his throat. “A pregnant woman named Elmflaed, who lived during Saxon times. When the Vikings first arrived in East Anglia many centuries ago, Elmflaed’s husband offered her up as tribute, to spare the lives of everyone in her village.”

Paul tutted. “What is this? A history lesson?”

“I want to know,” said Clip firmly. She was stalling for time, but she also wanted to understand. She needed to understand. “What did the Vikings do to her?”

Dan took a step back with Harley. The only person behind him was Grant, but the man showed no signs of being a hero. “None of this will help you, girl.”

“Tell me.”

“Fine. They accepted the deal and took the poor woman in exchange for leaving the villagers be.”

Clip nodded. “I saw it. She showed it to me. They clamped her ankles with wooden boards and paraded her around as some kind of perverted mascot. They kept her alive like that for several months. Then…”

Dan sighed, as if the tale sickened him. “Then she gave birth to her child. Stillborn. The Vikings took it as a bad omen and cut off Elmflaed’s head, hanging it in a rusty iron cage from a tree. Her husband and his family back at the village – eleven members in total – went on to become influential lords in what would eventually become the Kingdom of England.”

“Lovely story,” said Grant at the rear of the carriage. “Roald Dahl eat your heart out.”

Clip grimaced. “Two shall live. All shall die. It’s like a reversal of what happened to her.”

Jay grunted. “The nature of her death. She’s trying to fix her fate by sacrificing eleven in favour of the two.”

Clip looked to Dan. “So two get to live? Not just you?”

“No,” he said. “Not just me.”

“Then let Harley live,” she begged. “He’s just a child.”

Harley looked at her, his expression suddenly hopeful.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Dan. “As a child, Harley has the most untapped potential. He’s the real treasure aboard this train.”

Harley whimpered. Gina sobbed and begged Dan for mercy, but Dan was unmoved. While he didn’t seem to relish what he was doing, he was in no way reluctant. “Now,” he said. “While I’ve really enjoyed our little story time, I’m afraid I need to get on with this. You all need to die.”

Clip felt her palms sweating, her heart beating fast. For the first time in her life, she craved violence. She found the anger inside of herself and let it breathe, begged it to come out. “Does Sharon know she married a monster? Would she even choose to live another fifty years if she knew the cost?”

“She didn’t burden me with her cancer. I won’t burden her with this.”

Clip sneered. “What, you’re not going to clue her in when she miraculously survives cancer and lives to be a hundred and ten?”

“I’ll tell her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as she’s alive, that’s all that matters.”

Clip stared down at Xavi’s body and clenched her fists. “This is going to end with you bleeding out on the floor. Sorry to break it to you.”

“It will end, yes, but only once I get what I want.”

“That ain’t happening,” said Paul, and he lunged forward, both knives out in front of him.

Dan pulled the dagger away from Harley’s throat and pointed it at Paul. “Stop!”

With the blade no longer at his throat, Harley reacted, biting down on Dan’s wrist. Dan cried out in pain, but before he could strike the child, Harley swung his Rubik’s Cube and smashed him right in the mouth.

“Harley,” Gina cried out. “Get back.”

Dan stumbled, spitting blood. “You little brat!”

“Fuck you!” Harley shouted, which caused Gina to gasp, but she didn’t remain shocked for long, because she leapt out of her seat and grabbed him, enveloping him in her arms and pulling him away from danger.

Paul and Jay rushed forward, while Clip dropped down beside Xavi, wishing she had the power to make him not dead. His beautiful brown eyes were open, but stared at nothing. Blood pumped from his throat, each gush weaker than the last. A metallic tang filled the air. His life force slipping away.

Will the Sacrificed Spouse take his soul? Does such a thing exist?

“Kill the bastard,” Clip roared. “Tear him apart.”

Paul chased after Dan, who was retreating up the aisle, but someone leapt out at him from the seats and blindsided him, smashing a hammer against the back of his head.

Clip gasped. What the…?

Paul collapsed in a heap. Not dead, but knocked senseless. Both knives fell from his hands and skittered under the seats. One of them ended up near Clip. She quickly gathered it up and shoved it under her belt.

Grant stood over Paul’s unconscious body, slicking back his hair and letting out an excited whoop! “Well, finger my asshole, darling. That was better than sex.”

Dan halted his retreat and turned the dagger on Jay, who backed off immediately with his hands in the air. “Make sure he’s not going to be a problem,” he told Grant, nodding towards Paul.

Grant grabbed Paul by the back of the jumper and dragged him over to the space by the exit doors, then kept guard on him with his hammer. “He’s out for the count, boss. I could do anything to him right now.”

Clip shook her head, once again confused. “Grant? You’re in on this?”

Grant did a twirl, ending it with jazz hands, which looked ever more inappropriate with a hammer in one hand. “Showbiz, darling. You do whatever it takes to get ahead.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Grant is Sharon’s brother, not that they’re anything alike. It was he who told me about the dark web, and a site where certain celebrities go to learn rituals. Love spells, success spells, curses. It’s all there for people to find if they have the stomach for it.”

Grant grinned, his skin growing even tauter. “There can be ninety-nine websites full of bullshit, but it only takes one to make a difference. I’m going to be a star, darling.”

Jay’s eyes bugged out of his head. “You did this for your career? You’re killing a bunch of folks just to get ahead?”

Grant’s expression darkened, and his mock levity went away. “Do you know what it’s like to be a reality TV star? Do you have any idea? It’s the pits. You get used up and spat out, presented for a bit of cheap entertainment. After that, no one will give you a serious role. Your name becomes mud, a punchline. But after this all ends, I’ll be starring alongside Tom Cruise and Paddy Considine.”

Jay frowned. “Paddy Considine?”

“Have you not seen Dead Man’s Shoes, darling? Oh, you simply must. It’s a triumph.”

“You’re a monster,” said Clip.

Dan rolled his eyes and nodded. “Grant is just… extravagant, but he loves his sister and wants her to live as much as I do, despite his more selfish ambitions. That’s why I told him about her cancer. I knew he would want to help. I assumed he would pay for private treatment, but he went the extra mile.”

“Life’s all about family, right?” said Grant.

Clip was inclined to agree. She spent so much time resenting Richard and her parents, but right now, she longed to be with them. Love or hate them, they were hers, and she was theirs. Richard had never once brought up the fact that she had once tried to kill him.

I tried to kill my brother.

I deserve this. I deserve to go to Hell.

But not for Dan’s benefit.

“Did you like what I did with the rabbits?” Grant asked.

Dan grimaced. “Did you have to make such a mess? All you had to do was smother them or break their necks. It looked like a scene from a horror movie.”

“I have a flair for the macabre, darling. What can I say?”

Clip growled. “You’re both insane.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “Oh, what even is insanity? Working ten hours a day in an office is my idea of madness.” He nodded at Dan. “Or driving a train.”

“Operating a train,” said Dan testily. “Anyway,” he tapped the flat of his dagger against the side of his head, “can we please get this over with? I’d like to get home at a decent hour tonight.”

“Yay,” said Grant, waving his hammer. “More violence.”

CHAPTER 10

“Okay,” said Dan wearily. “How do you people want to do this? I’m willing to make it quick.”

“Please,” begged Gina. “You can kill me, but leave Harley alone. He’s had such a hard life.”

“Probably best I end it, then.”

“You’re evil,” said Harley in a whimper as he clutched Gina’s side.

Dan huffed. “Evil doesn’t exist, young man. It’s just a word for people being people. Have you not already learned that from your useless mother?”

“You don’t know my mum.”

“No, we don’t,” said Grant, “but she sounds delightful.”

Gina wrapped her arms around Harley and squeezed him. “You don’t have to do this, Dan. There’s still a chance for you to be a decent human being.”

“Quit your begging,” he bellowed, suddenly possessed by a fury. He was getting frustrated, and he seemed reluctant to get on with what he was planning to do. Having to kill people himself, up close and personal, was clearly harder than he had bargained for. He was red in the face and visibly trembling. “I won’t say goodbye to my wife.”

“And I’m not saying goodbye to Hollywood,” said Grant. “It would be unfair to millions of people.”

Clip stood up and stepped away from Xavi’s cooling body. An angry demon was hatching inside of her, telling her to tear out Dan’s eyes and to strangle Grant with his own intestines.

But they’ll kill me first. I have a knife, but they’re ready for me. I can see it in their posture, their expressions. They’re expecting us to attack.

I should do something they don’t expect.

“Did you use your own blood to draw the symbols on the train?” she asked. “Your arm… It’s been bleeding a lot.”

“My blood mixed with Sharon’s. Blood of the loved and blood of the lover. There’s a certain romance to black magic.” He held up his bloody wrist. The plaster was soaked and coming loose. “I should have made the deep cut after I warded myself with healing magic. You live and learn.”

“I was the one who actually drew the symbols,” said Grant. “I always had the artistic flair in our family.”

“So the blood symbols are important,” said Clip. “That’s good to know. Thanks.” She turned and looked at Jay, who seemed to understand what she was thinking because he gave her a tiny nod and moved into the aisle.

Clip turned and sprinted for the operator’s cabin.

Dan yelled at her to stop. He suddenly sounded worried.

“I got you,” said Jay, bracing himself in the aisle as she passed and ready to play defence.

Clip threw herself forward, skidding on her tummy towards the fuse cabinet inside the cabin. As soon as she came to a stop, she spat on her fingers and started rubbing at the bloody symbol on the plastic cover.

Nothing happened.

She rubbed harder, pushing away bloody flakes and using her fingernails to scratch.

“Stop!” Dan shouted at her, then grunted as he fought to make it past Jay.

Clip looked back and saw Jay falling backward onto the seats, narrowly avoiding being stabbed by Dan. He had bought her a couple of seconds.

She continued scratching away at the bloody symbol. Come on. Come on!

The lights flickered. Whispers floated through the carriage.

All shall die.

Help me, Clip-Clip.

Clip went into her own mind, time seeming to pause.

Richard was seven, having another one of his fits at the side of the road near where they lived. A twelve-year-old Clip had made the mistake of trying to take him to the shop to get some chocolate. On their way home, he had dropped the chocolate in a muddy puddle at the edge of the road, and when she had refused to let him pick it up and eat it, he had flown into a rage. He had been having them more and more often lately, barely able to control himself. And he was getting big. In fact, he had just struck Clip in the face hard enough to split her lip wide open. Blood filled her mouth.

“Want chocolate. Want chocolate, Clip.”

“No. You can’t have it.”

He swung at her again.

Clip growled. “Fuck off! Why do you have to be such a retard?”

“You can’t call me that.” He launched at her again, grabbing her arm and twisting it. The pain was like a fire beneath her skin, but her anger burned even hotter. “Get off me, you freak. I hate you. I wish I wasn’t your sister.” She shoved him in the chest as hard as she could, letting out all her anger and fear.

Richard stumbled off the curb and into the road.

The Mini Cooper came out of nowhere, going faster than it should have been. By the time its brakes squealed, Richard was already rolling up and over the bonnet.

Clip screamed in horror.

Richard hit the road behind the skidding Mini and rolled ten feet, coming to a stop on his back, panting and wheezing. His body was a horror show of scrapes and cuts. One of his arms was snapped backwards at the elbow. Worst of all, he was still conscious. He turned his head, tears in his eyes and misery upon his quivering mouth. Clip stared back at him and thought something terrible.

I hope you die.

Richard’s lips moved silently for a moment, and he pushed out a series of pained words. “Help me, Clip-Clip. It hurts lots. Want Mummy.”

Clip snapped back to reality inside the train, the lights overhead still flickering. Dan was racing down the aisle towards her, about to reach her, so she rolled onto her back and pulled up her legs. Once he reached her, she kicked out and struck him in the stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs. But it didn’t knock him down, and it only took him a second to recover.

“Stop it,” he spat. “I need you to die, so just… stop it!”

The lights flickered more aggressively, turning the carriage into a disco. It was distracting enough that Dan paused his attack and glanced upwards.

The LED strips exploded all at once, engulfing the carriage in darkness.

Dan squealed as plastic shards rained down on him.

There followed an almighty screech, and Clip saw sparks dancing up outside the windows as the train’s brakes suddenly kicked in. The carriage rocked on its suspension, causing Dan to cry out and fall. The darkness retreated from the windows, sent away by dim orange lamps set into the tunnel’s walls.

Clip hurried to her feet and turned to look out of the operator cabin’s front window as the train skidded to a stop.

Light ahead. A bright arch of sunlight. The glint of metal tracks.

The spell was broken.

“All shall die,” a voice wailed.

Clip turned back to face the carriage. The Sacrificed Spouse stood at the very end, the gloom lighting up around her as if she were made of flame, except there were no signs of heat or fire. Her sharp teeth flashed inside the metal cage. “I demand sacrifice. I demand the lives of the guilty.”

Clip shook her head. The spell was broken. It was broken…

So why is she still here?

Xavi’s body lay in the aisle–and so did Pat, Eric’s, and the unknown heart attack sufferer. Their mangled corpses had rematerialized in the spots they had died in, or maybe they had always remained in the real world and it was Clip who had disappeared.

The entire carriage had filled with the stench of blood.

So many dead. And it’s still not over.

Clip did the maths in her head. The woman wanted five more souls. Five more sacrifices. There was no need to even think about who two of those should be.

“You’re screwed, Dan,” she growled. “Your woman’s angry now. And I think your career’s over, Grant. Good thing, too, because you’re shit.”

“How dare you!” Grant yelled from the middle of the carriage. He was standing sideways, unsure of which way to run. So far, the dead woman had not moved. She just stood at the end of the carriage, hissing and grinding her jagged teeth. Her stomach convulsed beneath her dirty gown as her unborn baby kicked.

Clip spotted Paul standing with Gina and Harley in the middle of the carriage, the man having groggily got to his feet during the chaos. Jay was closer to the front, near Dan and Clip. “The train isn’t trapped anymore,” Clip shouted to her friends. “The train has stopped. I can see the end of the tunnel up ahead. We have to get out of here.”

Paul looked at her and nodded, but he seemed woozy. “The door release,” he said. “You… You need to pull the door release.”

Clip turned and dashed back inside the cabin. She searched the console and spotted a dial marked DOOR RELEASE. She twisted it to the right and there was a wonderful swish of the doors sliding open.

She turned to leave.

“All will die!” The Sacrificed Spouse sped down the aisle, bound feet shuffling inhumanly fast and knocking Eric’s sprawled corpse aside as she passed by the exit.

Gina and Harley were still sitting down, and they let out a scream.

Paul stepped into the centre of the aisle and told them to run. He then turned to face the screeching woman head-on. “Don’t do this,” he said. “We’re not the people who hurt you. Let us go and—” His words were suddenly cut off, and he began to mumble. Clip couldn’t see what was wrong – until he turned around and staggered towards her. Something was in his mouth. A dark, round object.

“Oh, shit,” said Clip. “Everybody, get down!”

Paul tried to yank the grenade out of his mouth, but it was wedged behind his teeth. His eyes grew wider and wider as the seconds rushed by.

Clip dived behind some seats and covered her ears.

The air seemed to rattle as an almighty boom shook the carriage. It was followed by the sound of rain, of spattering liquid.

Clip groaned, her ears ringing and her head pounding. She crawled out from behind the seats and peered into the aisle.

Paul’s headless body fell to its knees, and there it remained, sitting back on its heels as though taking a moment to relax amidst all the horror.

Dan rushed away from the cabin and kicked Paul’s body out of his way, knocking it onto its front. Then he snatched Harley away from Gina, once again grabbing the child and using him as a hostage with his dagger pointed at his windpipe. “Here!” he said, moving in front of the Sacrificed Spouse in the centre of the aisle. His tone was erratic, unhinged. “I have a child. He’s yours. Take him, and take the others. It is I who brought you here to make a deal. Bless me for my service.”

The Sacrificed Spouse stood before Dan, head tilted – as much as her cage would allow – and she squinted both eyes as though curious. Then her expression darkened. “This child is innocent, as all children are. Your sacrifice is not accepted.”

Dan stuttered. “W-What? No, no, that’s not the deal. Eleven lives for the benefit of two. That’s the deal. That’s what I read.”

The woman snarled at him. “You. Read. Wrong.”

Dan stumbled, the ceremonial dagger falling from his hands. He frantically undid his remaining shirt buttons down to the middle as if he thought his clothes were on fire, and he exposed even more bizarre symbols on his body. This time, though, they did not protect him. His skin began to blister and discolour. A mole on his neck distorted and grew large, taking on an irregular shape. Both his hands shook as he clutched at his swelling throat so desperately that he tore his own flesh. His panicked eyes clouded over, and he was suddenly blind. Choking and spluttering, he mouthed a single word: “C-C-Cancer.”

“You get what you deserve,” said Clip, revelling in the sight of his torment.

Dan’s body slumped to the floor, bubbling and boiling as every cell in his body turned on him. There, he convulsed for several seconds before going still. A pool of urine spread out around him.

“Well, that’s one less Christmas card to write,” said Grant, further down the carriage. “It’s okay. Dan was always a real train in the arse. Ha!”

“He was your family,” said Clip, astonished that anyone could joke right now, let alone Dan’s relative.

“Only a brother-in-law. I always found him to be a terrible bore.”

Gina grabbed Harley and pulled him close. The woman was quaking in terror, but she was clearly only concerned about him. The Sacrificed Spouse watched the two of them intently from behind her bars.

Clip stepped forward and faced the abomination, hoping, if nothing else, to distract her from Harley and Gina. Every muscle in her body cried out in fear, her very DNA seeming to sense the unnaturalness of this woman. “Leave us alone. You’ve taken enough souls. You took my boyfriend. Xavi was a good man.”

“All men are evil.”

“That’s not true. The world has moved on. You need to as well.”

The Spouse studied her through the rusty bars. “I see your guilt, child. Give it to me.”

“You can have it,” said Clip, taking another step forward. “I don’t need it any more. I never meant to push my brother into traffic, and I never truly wanted him dead. Sometimes life sucks, and it’s okay to be angry about it. It doesn’t make you a bad person. I’m letting go of my guilt.”

The woman glared at Clip, almost like she was looking right into her soul. Clip glanced at Harley and Gina, hoping they were making a run for it through the open doors, but they were still cowering in the seats. Grant, however, was slipping out onto the tracks, probably hoping to escape while everyone else died aboard the train. He held Dan’s ceremonial dagger in one hand.

Clip turned back to the Sacrificed Spouse, anger bubbling in her veins. She pulled the knife out of her belt and held it at the ready. “I’m not guilty. Do you hear me? I’m. Not. Guilty.”

“Lies!” The woman raised her arms towards the ceiling.

A strange rumbling sensation began, the carriage vibrating. The windows lit up with an orange glow that spilled in from the right. Clip realised at the last second where the light was coming from.

“Give me your guilt,” said the Sacrificed Spouse, grinning. “All shall die.”

“Fuck you, bitch!” Clip grabbed Gina and Harley and hurriedly shoved them inside the operator’s cabin. Then she threw herself down in the aisle and covered her head – right as a speeding car collided with the side of the train.

CHAPTER 11

Clip was in the hospital, listening to the doctor tell her parents he had needed to amputate Richard’s right arm. It had been torn almost completely off at the elbow, and efforts to reattach it had failed due to extensive vascular damage. At the time, Clip hadn’t understood what it had all meant. She had only known that it was her fault. She had pushed Richard. He was even more disabled now, thanks to her. He would need even more looking after.

And there’ll be even less time for me because of what I did.

Clip’s parents hadn’t spoken to her for several hours. Every time her mother looked at her, she shook her head and looked away. Her father was in a daze, barely speaking. All he could do was hold Clip’s mother’s hand. They loved Richard with all their hearts, despite his problems. Clip realised how much she loved her brother, too.

I didn’t mean to push him.

Yes, you did. You knew what you were doing.

But he was hurting me. I was angry.

Clip was unable to cry, but not because she didn’t care. In fact, it was the opposite. Her emotions were just so all-consuming that it left her numb. She retreated inside her own head where no one could hurt her, but she was haunted by the sound of Richard’s body breaking against the road. The squealing of car brakes. The whimpers of agony. It was all so violent. So hideous.

I’ll never lash out again. I’ll never let myself get angry.

Avoid emotion. It’s dangerous.

All is well. All is calm.

Clip opened her eyes, wondering where she was. It felt like she’d been asleep, her body heavy and her mind sluggish, but she quickly realised the truth.

She was lying on her back between a pair of parallel rails, staring up at the roof of a gloomy tunnel. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out each brick in the ceiling. Beneath her flattened palms, she felt stony earth, along with the knife she had been holding when the car had struck the train. Somehow, she had kept a hold of it.

The air smelled damp.

A car hit the train.

The same one that hit Richard. My guilt isn’t gone. It just tried to kill me.

But it failed. My guilt is only as strong as I let it be.

Clip rolled onto her side, glad she could still move.

What she saw could only be described as utter chaos.

The train was twisted and snarled, the front carriage on its side, the middle halfway between upright and flat. Only the rear carriage remained on the tracks. Its wheels were pulsing faint orange, super-heated by friction.

The front carriage was smashed wide open, its windows lacking glass and all its doors hanging off at different angles. There was no sign of the car that had struck it. Nor was there any sign of Harley or Gina or Jay. Clip tried calling out to them, but her throat was dry and swollen.

Where are they? Are they okay?

Please…

She climbed weakly to her feet, her left knee throbbing painfully. When she ran a hand over it, it was twice its usual size. Both of her arms were sliced to pieces and embedded with glass. Blood dripped from her fingertips with a rhythmic drip-drip-drip.

Light spilled in from both ends of the narrow tunnel, which was wide enough for the train tracks and a walkway to either side. One side of the tunnel had a small metal door with a yellow caution notice on it.

“G-Gina? Harley?”

“In here!” said a voice. Gina’s. It was coming from the front of the train.

Clip staggered over to the tipped-over front carriage, and there she saw Harley and Gina staring out the front window at her. The glass was all gone, and they were both peppered with tiny cuts. “A-Are you okay?”

Gina nodded. She had a thick gash on her forehead, but seemed fully alert. “What happened?”

“My guilt caught up with me. Do you think you can climb out of there?”

Gina nodded again. “Yes. Will you help me with Harley?”

“Of course.” Clip tucked her knife back into her belt and limped closer to the carriage so that she was right underneath the broken window, which was more or less an exact square. With the carriage lying on its side – which made the window opening closer to the ground – it took little effort for Harley to hop over the frame and into Clip’s arms, but the sudden weight of him almost floored her. Her body was at the point of collapse.

“I want to go home,” he told her.

“I know you do. It’s over now.”

Gina climbed up onto the window frame and peered down at the ground only three feet below. She hesitated before she jumped, which caused her to land awkwardly in the loose stones. “Ah,” she cried out. “Damn it, my ankle.”

Clip left Harley and limped over to help the woman up. “Are you okay?”

Gina hissed and then hopped on one leg. “It’s just a sprain. I’ll take it at this point.”

Clip chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we’re the lucky ones.”

“Let’s get out of this godforsaken tunnel.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Clip looked left and right, working out which end of the tunnel was nearer. She decided it was behind them, back towards Ronchurch. “This way.”

“Hey, don’t forget about me.” Clip turned to see Jay staggering around from the other side of the train. “I’m one of the good guys, too, right?”

Clip beamed. “You made it. In all the chaos…”

“You forgot about me. Yeah, thanks.” He waved a hand and slumped towards them. His face was bloody from a cut above his left eye. “Don’t worry about it. Can we just get out of this tunnel, please?”

“Already ahead of you,” said Gina.

The three of them put Harley between them and limped slowly alongside the train. Now that it had crashed, would somebody come? Now that the train was back in reality, were all of its systems operational again?

How do we explain all this? Clip asked herself. We can’t say there was a spell on the train and an ancient dead woman came to take our souls.

Xavi… Where are you now?

“We have to say we can’t remember anything,” Clip told the others. “We can’t tell anyone what really happened.”

“So what do we say?” asked Gina.

Harley answered her. “We say we can’t remember, like Clip said.”

Gina seemed to consider it. “Okay. The train crashed. We don’t know what happened.”

“Exactly,” said Clip. “Let the authorities decide their own truth. The less we say, the better.”

Jay grunted. “And Dan and Grant will just get away with what they did?”

“Dan is dead,” said Harley. “That’s punishment enough.”

“You’re right, sweetheart.” Gina hugged him as they walked. “You’re right.”

They limped along for another few steps before Harley yelped and dropped to the ground.

Clip panicked. “What is it?”

“My cube!” Harley straightened up, holding the Rubik’s Cube in his hand. “It’s all I have from my mum. It’s lucky.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Clip. “Hold on to it tight, kid.”

There was the sound of crunching pebbles ahead. The Sacrificed Spouse appeared before them.

Clip shook her head, her heart sinking into her stomach. “No! No, it’s over. The curse is broken. We’re off the train.”

The woman slunk forward, her body shifting awkwardly left and right. Shards of glass twinkled in her nightdress. Her baby kicked. “All. Shall. Die.”

“No. Not all. You’ll let two live.”

The woman nodded. “Two shall live.”

Clip stepped forward. “Then take me and Jay, and let Gina and Harley live.”

Gina protested. “Clip, you can’t.”

“Yeah,” said Jay. “Screw that.”

Clip turned to Gina and smiled. “You’re a good person, Gina, and Harley is going to need you. I did something bad a long time ago. Perhaps it’s time I paid the price.”

“I ain’t giving my life away,” said Jay, shaking his head. “Sorry, kid, but I ain’t that old either. I got plans. I have a daughter who I need to make things up to.”

“Take me and Clip,” said Gina. “Jay, you get Harley out of here.”

Jay nodded. “I promise. Thank you.”

There were tears in her eyes, but she nodded.

Harley squeezed her tight. “No, I won’t let you go. You make me feel safe. You’re my only friend.”

“I’ll be your friend, kid,” said Jay.

“Fuck you!”

Gina chuckled. “Language, Harley.”

Clip took a step closer to the undead woman. “Gina and me in exchange for Jay and Harley.”

“It is not enough,” said the Sacrificed Spouse, gnashing her teeth. “It is less than is required.”

Clip glared at the woman. “What? No, Harley and Jay can live. Gina and I will die.”

“Another is required.”

“What?” Clip shook her head, trying to understand. Then she did. “Oh shit! Grant!”

Clip fell backwards as a hand grabbed a hold of her shirt collar. Before she could get her balance, a wiry arm looped around her windpipe and choked her.

“You forgot about me, darling,” Grant whispered in her ear, “but don’t worry. Once this is over, no one will ever forget my name again.”

Clip went to reply, to either beg or threaten, but a blow hit her stomach and stole her voice. She tried to take a breath, but her insides turned to lead. There was a strange sensation low down in her stomach, as if something was pulling her inside out, and then she saw the bloody dagger in front of her as Grant plunged it into her a second time.

Harley and Gina cried out, their eyes going wide. Jay backed away.

Harley broke away from Gina and leap at Grant, whacking him over and over with his Rubik’s Cube, so many times that it came apart. The top section of rows popped loose and fell into the stones at his feet.

Grant threw Clip to the ground, then turned to snarl at Harley. “You snivelling little shit. I don’t want to kill you, but I can take that other eye.”

“Fuck you!” the boy shouted, now beating at Grant with his bare fists. “Fuck you! I hate you. You’re so selfish. You only think about yourself.”

Grant backhanded Harley, cutting off his tirade and sending him sprawling onto the tracks. Grant looked down at Clip and grinned. “Something tells me that wasn’t about me. Kid needs therapy. Don’t worry, he’ll still be alive to get the help he needs. Just need to kill foster mummy first.”

“Don’t forget about me,” said Jay, and he threw himself at Grant. But his injuries made him slow.

Grant shoved the dagger into Jay’s stomach and twisted it. He pulled the man close so that their mouths were almost touching. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you, darling. Is that a little too deep for you?”

Jay opened his mouth to speak, but only blood came out.

“What’s that?” said Grant, grinning like a lunatic. “You prefer it from behind? No problem.”

Grant yanked the dagger out of Jay’s guts and slipped around behind him. With a theatrical flourish, he slid the blade across Jay’s throat and then kicked him in the back. He toppled onto the tracks, his body twitching.

Grant licked the bloody blade and made an orgasmic sound. “Tastes like oysters.”

Clip was sprawled on the stony ground, watching in horror. She held her bleeding stomach, feeling nauseated and dizzy. And cold.

The Sacrificed Spouse stood on the tracks, studying them all in silence, and clearly satisfied that violence was being enacted. She was a lion waiting for her dinner to be served.

Clip crawled along on her hands and knees, needing to do something. Harley was lying on the ground nearby, sobbing, while Gina was trying to flee, limping along on her sprained ankle. Grant hopped after her, dancing and twirling, singing and hooting. He was having a whale of a time. Clip had read a lot about psychopathy, but she had never witnessed it in the flesh.

No, a psychopath is careful and considered. Grant’s a sociopath, impulsive and reckless.

Both disorders are incurable.

Well, there is one cure.

Clip bit down on her lip as she engaged her torn-up abdominal muscles to power herself back to her feet. The pain made her vision spiral, and she threw up a little in her mouth, blood and bile.

Grant quickly caught up with Gina, kicking her good leg out from under her and sending her to the ground. Giggling like a schoolgirl, he straddled her waist and began pinching at her face with one hand while holding the dagger with the other. “Buzz, buzz. Don’t let the bees sting.”

“G-Get off me! Get off me, you monster.”

“Oh, honey. I’m just playing the villain. Everybody loves a villain. Think of me as…” – he closed his eyes and turned his head upwards – “Sir Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.”

Gina screamed as he flicked his tongue in and out at her.

“Hey,” said Clip, moving up behind him. “With a face like that, you’re more like Freddie Krueger.”

Grant twisted around, but Clip wasted no time. She yanked the knife out of her belt and buried it in the side of his face, piercing his cheek and sending the blade into the space inside his mouth.

Grant screamed in pain, gargling on blood as it quickly filled his throat.

Clip gave him a quizzical frown. “Grant? Have you had a facelift?” She yanked the knife up and around, slicing his flesh from his temple up to his hairline. Then she pulled the bloody knife away and said, “How about some eye surgery to fix that squint?” She planted the knife in Grant’s left eye, causing him to do a floppy dance while still straddling Gina’s lap. Gina had closed her eyes and was screaming hysterically.

Clip grabbed Grant’s oily hair and yanked him off of Gina and onto his back. He flailed in the stones, every muscle convulsing. Clip dropped down and straddled him. “What is it they say in the movies? Oh, yeah, that’s it… Cut!” She drew the knife across his throat and ended his life.

Then she collapsed by the side of the train tracks next to Harley. She looked at the boy and moaned. “Run!”

CHAPTER 12

The Sacrificed Spouse stood over Grant’s dead body. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared. Then the woman turned to face Gina, who was still lying on her back in a terrified stupor. “All shall die.”

Gina closed her eyes and cowered. “N-No!”

“I demand another. Give me your guilt.”

“Please, let us go.”

“I demand another. The child and another may live. One more must die.”

Clip tried to catch her breath so that she could do something, but her lungs failed to obey her.

Something came over Gina, a kind of resignation. Her fear seemed to drain away. “Okay,” she said. “Take me. I’m an old lady. I’ve had a good life.”

“No!” shouted Harley. Clip had told the boy to run, but instead he crawled towards Gina. “Don’t hurt her.”

Clip moaned in agony. She tried to grab Harley, but she couldn’t reach him as he crawled along the tracks. “H-Harley. Stop.”

“Please don’t hurt her,” he begged the woman. “She’s a good person.”

The Sacrificed Spouse turned to Harley and her face softened. Suddenly, she was a frail woman subjected to inhuman tortures. There was no hatred in her heart as she looked at the boy. “It is not a child’s decision,” she uttered softly. “Few things are.”

“Take me,” said Gina, closing her eyes but nodding. “It’s okay. Harley, it’s okay.”

Clip called out, her words at first garbled. “W-What will happen next? What will happen to the two that you let live?”

The Sacrificed Spouse turned and studied Clip. After a moment, she gave an answer. “They shall live long, healthy lives full of opportunity. They will change the world.”

“Ch-Change the world how?”

“In whichever way they desire. The world will change to reflect the truths inside their hearts. Their destinies will influence that of everyone else.”

“W-What would Grant have done if he had lived?”

“The man’s vanity would have been satiated by fame and fortune. The world would have worshipped at his altar. Celebrity would have become all.”

“And Dan?”

“He and his wife would have grown old together, and any who tried to interfere with their happiness would have suffered for the crime.”

Clip nodded. “They were bad people. The world would have been worse.”

The Sacrificed Spouse nodded.

Such power seemed incredible – the ability to alter the world in one’s own image. Clip thought about the great things that she could accomplish with the right opportunities. She could become a world-renowned psychiatrist, curing the sick, helping the needy. Rich, famous, happy…

I only ever think about myself. I say I want to help people, but I ignore everyone’s suffering except my own. Richard almost died because I lashed out. Anger. Selfishness. There’s badness inside of me.

Because I’m human. No one is truly good.

Clip looked over at Gina. The woman was still cowering on her back, prepared to die.

“I’m a good person,” said Clip, and she forced herself up onto her knees. She would have liked to have made it to her feet, but that was beyond her now.

The Sacrificed Spouse looked at her. “Good and bad is of little consequence. I shall heal you and gift you a life full of potential. Do with it what you will. It is no concern of mine.” She turned to Gina, ready to take the woman. “I shall honour your selflessness with a peaceful death. Think upon happiness and I shall give it to you in your final breaths.”

Gina nodded, eyes clenched shut.

“Wait!” Clip cried out. “I wasn’t finished. I said I’m a good person.” She pointed at Gina with the bloody knife she had slaughtered Grant with. “But she’s better.”

Gina and Harley looked on at Clip, confused. She made her point clear when she plunged the knife into her own belly and yanked it across, tearing up her insides as much as she could manage. Embracing the agony, the white-hot fury and misery in her veins, she accepted her punishment. Finally, she was paying for what she had done, and for the first time for a long time, she felt at peace.

Harley scurried over to Gina and buried his face in her chest while she called out to Clip in horror. She begged for her to stop, to put down the knife. But it was too late.

Clip collapsed onto her side, blood pouring out of her stomach and jetting from her mouth. Her vision turned grey, colour abandoning her, yet every other sense increased. She felt more alive than ever before, the pain putting every nerve ending on high alert.

But she was dying. Already, she felt herself slipping away.

Gina sat up and held Harley in her arms as she stared over at Clip, looking her in the eye and shaking her head. “You silly girl. You had your whole life ahead of you.”

Clip chuckled, hot blood spilling from her lips. “Then you best… make yours… count.”

Gina nodded. “I will. I promise.”

“And Harley?”

Harley turned to look at Clip. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “What?”

“Good people are all around you. Let them in. And if you ever meet my brother. Tell him… that I’m sorry. That… I love him. Go… Go.”

Harley nodded, and Gina scurried to her feet, gathering him to her side and pulling him away from the Sacrificed Spouse, who was standing still and watching Clip bleed out.

Clip slumped lower and lower, unable to support herself, but her head rested in such a way that she could see Gina and Harley hurrying through the tunnel, heading towards the light. Safe.

There was something in her jeans pocket hurting her leg, so she fought to get at it and eventually retrieved her phone. Blood spattered the cracked screen, but she was able to unlock it and open up the text messaging app. Her hand trembled as she typed.

“Two shall live,” said the Sacrificed Spouse, moving up beside Clip. She gazed at Clip with the same softness she had shown to Harley. “A woman gives. A woman sacrifices. You are a pure soul.”

The phone grew too heavy in Clip’s hand, so she dropped it. “What… What happens to me now?”

The Sacrificed Spouse gave her a pitying look. “I do not know, for it is somewhere I have never been. But I believe people go where they belong, so I would not fear, child. You chose suffering over self. It is the rarest of feats. Be at peace. I am here to take away your guilt.”

“It’s yours.” Clip lowered her head to the stones. At peace.

All is well…

All is…

EPILOGUE

Three weeks later…

Gina wrapped her arm around Harley. Already he seemed older. The fact his mother was here made him stand even taller. He was a proud young man, but proud in a way that he was glad to be pleasing other people. There was no conceit in him – not before the train, and certainly not after. Gina had seen the effects of trauma on many a child. They were often devastating, but now and then you found a child who wore the pain willingly. It galvanised them. Their experiences didn’t desensitise them to suffering, it only made them endlessly empathetic. Suffering became their crusade, and they spent their lives helping others escape the cruel fates dealt to them. Gina had done it herself a lifetime ago when she had taken one beating too many from her husband and lost their unborn child. That had been the moment she had chosen not to let the pain smother her, and instead had skinned the beast of fear and donned it as a cloak. She had been wearing it ever since.

That cloak had placed Harley in her life.

Now Harley had a whole wonderful lifetime ahead of him.

Despite his pride, Harley was clearly anxious this morning. Going on national morning television was no small feat, and today’s interview was just the first of many. He and Gina were due to talk about their new charity, designed to help families dealing with mental and physical trauma. After their miraculous survival following the Ronchurch Rail Disaster, they had suddenly found every camera and microphone pointed their way. They had used the exposure to call for the need of a better world. A world where communities helped one another again, and people weren’t ashamed to ask for charity when needed. Their message struck a chord, and within days, a dozen ultra-rich donors had got in touch. Together, they had pooled together to form the billion-pound Caroline Piper Family Lifeline Centre, named after the heroic young student who had used her body as a shield to protect Harley during the train crash. The entire world now celebrated that young lady who had given her life for an unknown child.

Clip’s family was involved in the charity, too. In fact, her parents and brother, Richard, were doing an interview later today to shine a light on the difficulties of families suffering with disabilities. Richard’s catchphrase, something he said at the end of every interview, was all over the Internet now. Miss you, Clip-Clip.

Of course, there were others to be remembered, such as Xavi and Paul and Jay, but there was only so much Gina and Harley could say about them without revealing that they had all experienced something indescribable together. The truth would not be believed. It also meant they couldn’t expose Dan and Grant’s crimes, but after meeting Dan’s poor, unwell wife, it seemed kinder to let the woman succumb to her cancer thinking that her husband and brother had been good men. Perhaps, once, they had been. Although with Grant, that seemed a push.

Ironically, in death, Grant was more famous than he’d ever been in life. Tributes to his limited TV appearances were all over YouTube, and people actually looked upon his fame-obsessed antics kindly in the light of his death. His cringey behaviour had become endearing.

Gina shook her head at the memory of it all. She had been so scared, so terrified. It made no sense what Clip had done. Gina had been ready to die. It had seemed inevitable. The chance she had instead been given seemed too good to be true.

But it is true.

The train crash was still under investigation, but the media were creating a narrative of unsafe maintenance regulations. The train operator had already recalled it’s carriage for additional safety checks, and it was highly likely that they would be writing some hefty cheques to the families of the dead. Jay was going to provide for his daughter in death. Pat and Eric’s grandchildren would be looked after. At least some good might come out of all this misery.

It’s time to look forwards now. Put the horror behind us.

Harley was talking to his mother over by the buffet table, but he broke away now and came over to join Gina. “You ready?” he asked her. He was wearing a T-shirt with a pink Rubik’s Cube on it – the logo for their charity – with the slogan: We all fit together.

Gina smiled at him and ruffled his overgrown blonde hair. “It’s getting a little less frightening with each one that we do.”

“I know. I’m starting to enjoy it. We’re really going to help people, aren’t we? Even my mum is doing better.”

Gina looked over at the former drug addict and couldn’t believe how healthy she looked. The slender blonde woman was a part of Harley’s destiny, so it was more than likely that the Sacrificed Spouse had corrected her flaws so that she might better serve him. Her role in life now was to support her son into becoming a great man. A great man with a good heart. It was something the world was sorely lacking. But that would change. Together, they were going to make the world change.

Because of Clip.

She wanted to help the world, and she did. I just wish it hadn’t taken her life.

I won’t take it for granted.

An assistant came over and told them, “Fifteen minutes.”

Gina thanked the woman and decided to go get a drink before going on stage. When she turned, she saw a friendly face.

Clip’s mother, Anne, came over and hugged Gina and Harley. Her husband and son were there with her, too. “Hi, Gina,” she said. “We’re not on until this afternoon, but we wanted to come and see you live.”

“Oh, you sweetheart. You needn’t have come.”

“Don’t be silly. We’re all so thankful for you honouring our daughter.”

Gina smiled. “She was a fine young woman. We chatted a little before… well, you know.”

Anne’s eyes turned glassy, but her husband came and put an arm around her, which helped her to recover. His name was Trevor, and he gave Gina a friendly nod.

“What did you talk about?” asked Anne.

“Not much. She told me about Richard and how she thought she could have been a better big sister sometimes.”

“No,” said Anne. “We put a lot of pressure on her. It wasn’t fair. She was good. She was… my baby.”

Gina nodded. “She knew that. I promise you she knew that.”

Anne wiped a tear from her cheek. “I know. She told us before she died.”

Gina frowned. “Really?”

Anne dug into her pocket and pulled out a phone. She tapped away on it and then turned it so that Gina could see the screen. On it was a brief text message from Clip. It read:

I love you all. Clip-Clip.

Gina smiled. Harley spoke up beside her. “Hey, Richard, Clip gave me a message for you when we met.”

Richard had been staring into space, not really present, but upon hearing his name, he looked Harley in the eye. “What?” he said loudly. “What did Clip-Clip say?”

“She said she loves you and that she’s sorry.”

His eyes narrowed. He only had one arm, but he swung it casually by his side. “Sorry for what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t either. She just wanted you to know that she loved you.”

“Miss Clip-Clip.”

Gina sighed. “The world misses her, Richard, but you can tell everyone all about her. That way, she’ll never really be gone.”

Richard stared off into space. His dad put an arm around him and led him away. Anne leaned in and gave Gina a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck to you both. You’re going to do great things, I know it.”

Gina nodded and thanked her. You have no idea.

Ten minutes later, Harley and Gina walked on stage and gave a heartfelt speech about bravery and sacrifice and love and support to an audience of twenty million people. Their message quickly caught on.

EPILOGUE 2

“Don’t break the circle,” said Ashley. “We have to finish the protection spell or else we’ll all be in danger.”

Emily frowned. “You said she won’t hurt us, and that she’ll just give us what we ask for.”

Ashley sighed. Her coven was new, but sometimes she wished her sisters would learn a little faster. The more time they spent around her, the more of her power they absorbed, but it didn’t make them any smarter.

“Listen, you two,” she said to Emily and Grace as they held each other’s hands. “This isn’t the regular way to summon the Spouse, okay? It usually takes a big old animal sacrifice and a bunch of complicated rituals, but that might not quite be our level at this point. So, we’re just bringing her here to ask a favour. If we do it right, she won’t be able to hurt us, and she’ll accept our sacrifice.”

“Our one sacrifice?” asked Grace, wrinkling her slightly too-long nose. “Will it be enough? I read that she needs, like, twelve or something. Greedy.”

Ashley sighed again and clutched the pendant around her neck. Her frustration boiled, and she saw the purple orchid on her bedroom’s windowsill begin to wilt and die. “We are witches. The Spouse favours witches, so she will hear us without the proper ritual. One sacrifice will suffice so long as it is substantial.”

“Okay,” said Grace. “So we make the circle, say the incantations, and then what?”

“We mix our blood with the blood of the loved.”

“You mean the kid we all boned?” said Emily, giggling. “He thought all his birthdays had come at once.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “It was me he wanted. You two just happened to be there.”

“He loves you,” said Grace, nodding and seeming a little jealous. No boy had ever loved her, Ashley was sure of it. Both girls were losers, which was why she had picked them. The power she offered was too tempting for them to resist. She would give them confidence and talent and beauty… Whatever any of them desired.

Ashley felt a lump in her throat. “Yes, he loves me. That’s why he will work as a sacrifice. He loves me and I… I love him. The lover and the loved. It’s the main part of the ritual we’re doing. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

The three of them chanted the words in unison, working from an old spell book Ashley had bought online. It was the real deal – she had known because the ancient witch inside of her, the woman whose power she now owned, whispered it to her. Every day she became more powerful, and her destiny grew larger. Incredible things lay ahead of her and would soon reveal themselves. Her purpose was almost upon her. The Spouse would help to hasten things.

Incantations over with, Ashley broke the circle. She could feel the protection spell in place around her, like static electricity. Nothing supernatural could hurt her now, not until she next ate of an animal. The Spouse would have no option but to listen and take what was offered.

And what Ashley offered was a lot. She had to fight the pain in her heart as she opened her wardrobe door. Inside, her oldest friend, Jude, cowered, naked and gagged. He looked at her in terror, which hurt her even worse. Of course, he was right to fear her. It had taken weeks to win his trust after what they had gone through in Devil’s Woods. Every moment between them had been like swallowing glass, because she knew she was eventually going to break his heart and take his life. Every moment they had shared together… it had all been a beautiful lie.

They had become lovers over the weeks following the events of Devil’s Ditch. She had needed to pretend the dark influence over her had gone, and that she was just the childhood friend he had always known. Eventually, she had talked him into an orgy with Grace and Emily, new friends of hers from school. He had been reluctant and gone along with it only to please her. What he hadn’t known was that he was actually partaking in a bacchanal, offering a part of his soul to the three witches via their exchanging of bodily fluids. Now, he was about to give his flesh to the Sacrificed Spouse. In exchange, Ashley would become even more powerful.

She was going to change the world.

She bent down and kissed Jude on the cheek. “I’m sorry about this, lover, but we all have a destiny, and this is yours.” She turned back to her fellow witches and gave her demands. “Get the dagger. It’s time to make the sacrifice.”

Jude whimpered.

Ashley’s heart wept.

But it wasn’t enough to stop her.

—

Thank you so much for reading HELL TRAIN. If you want to know more about Jude and Ashley who were featured in the final chapter–and see how they got to that point–then check out ‘Witch’, another of the Cursed Manuscripts. Here’s the link you need: Witch/amazon.com

Oh, and thank you so much for reading!

Iain Rob Wright

SUMMARY OF WITCH

Summer is here and school's out, but boredom quickly sets in for the penniless kids of the Redsow housing estate. If only they had something to do...

In an effort to escape a pack of local bullies, best friends, Ashley and Jude, decide to brave Devil's Ditch, a place deep in the woods that everyone says is haunted by something ancient and evil.

At first, everything seems fine, but then they discover an old farmhouse covered in weeds. Inside is a naked woman in chains. Her name is Rose, and there's something not quite right about her.

TURN THE PAGE TO READ CHAPTER 1

TEASER FOR ‘WITCH’

The crumpled Coke can struck the bottom of the aluminium slide and cartwheeled against the playground’s metal railing. Ashley had kicked it so many times now that her big toe was numb. If things were any more boring, she might kill herself.

Maybe I’m already dead and this is Hell.

Jude was sitting on the park’s yellow-painted bench, flicking a plastic coin into the air and catching it while watching her glumly. His mousy brown hair had grown long over the summer and was hanging in front of his face. “Can you stop doing that?” he asked.

“Stop doing what?”

“Kicking that can around. It’s giving me a headache.”

Ashley wound up for one last kick and blasted the can across the playground. It struck the overflowing bin next to the gate and bounced through a gap in the railing. It felt like scoring a goal. The afternoon sun bounced off the playground’s many shiny metal surfaces and caused her to shield her eyes as she took a seat next to Jude on the bench and looked at him. “What’s up with you today?”

“Nuffin’.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow. “Liar. You’ve been having a mardy all day, barely said a word. What’s wrong?”

He laced his fingers together on the scuffed knees of his blue jeans and twiddled his thumbs. “I’m just bored. We’ve been dossing around for five weeks straight, and it’s doing my head in. Least when my dad was around, we would go on holiday in the summer, or even just to Alton Towers.”

“You miss him? Is that why you’re down in the dumps?”

Jude shrugged. “Not really. Been too long now to give much of a shit. I’m bored, that’s all, but it makes me wonder what life would’ve been like if my dad were still around. Never thought I’d say it, but I miss school.”

Ashley got off the bench and moved in front of Jude with her hands on her hips. “I’ll never be that bored. This year is gunna suck. I’ve got Mrs Grainger for maths and science. I can’t stand that fat bitch.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I used to have chemistry with her. Her breath stinks like shit.”

“I can’t wait to finish school so we can finally do what we want to do. Two more years and I am out of here. Roll on sixteenth birthday.”

Jude spoke in an old person’s voice. “And what do you want to be when you’re all grown up, young lady?”

She threw out an arm, wiggled it, and let the movement flow through her entire body until it ended in a fancy kick. “I wanna dance, bitch.”

Jude nodded in appreciation. “I have to admit it, you’re getting really good. Do you dance in front of the mirror in your underwear? You should film it on your phone and send it to Britain’s Got Talent.”

Ashley did a little twirl and flicked another kick that missed Jude’s face by only two inches. “I’ll take your head off, you cheeky shit.” She collapsed back down on the bench. “Anyway, it’s you who’s gunna go up on Britain’s Got ‘No’ Talent with all that magic crap you like. The ‘Amazing Jude’, that’s what they’ll call you. You know girls aren’t into that shit, right? That plastic coin of yours ain’t getting any bitches wet.”

Jude shrugged. “Girls ain’t into me for a lot of reasons, so magic tricks won’t make things any worse.”

“God, you’re a proper Debbie Downer today, ain’t you? If you want to get laid, I’ll help you find a lady. There’s gotta be a homeless crack addict around here somewhere.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Can we just get out of here, please? My ass is falling asleep.”

Ashley nodded. “Yeah, all right. Wanna go to the overpass?”

“Yeah, okay.” Jude stood up to join her and the two of them exited the playground through the swinging gate. They took the footpath and headed toward Redsow Woods, the small strip of nature reserve that separated the housing estate from the town’s golf course where Ashley’s dad used to take her as a child to hit balls. He was always too busy nowadays, but she still remembered how much she used to enjoy swinging a club. It was a good way to work through some anger.

I feel like whacking the shit out of some balls right now.

They kept to the footpath, heading alongside the woods on one side and passing around the playing fields on the other. Eventually, they made it to the overpass, where the footpath spanned a dual carriageway. A tall railing ran along both sides to keep people from throwing themselves off, but there was enough space beneath to dangle their legs over the edge. It was something they came to do sometimes to kill time and watch the world go by. It was one of their places.

Ashley shuffled onto the pavement and slid her legs under the metal barrier. She clutched the bars and pressed her face against the gap, peering at the rushing traffic below. It was a busy road, with cars driving back and forth along it constantly, even at night, even on a quiet Monday afternoon like this one.

Jude scrambled down next to her and threaded his own legs under the barrier. He looked at her and gave a thin-lipped smile. “Sorry, I’m in a mood today. Just got up on the wrong side. Forgive me?”

“Course, you dickhead. Want to play?”

Jude nodded. “First to ten, yeah?”

“Yep.”

The two of them took turns gobbing at the passing cars. If you timed it just right, you could hit the windscreens. There was nothing the drivers could do. They couldn’t stop on the carriageway, and even if they could, they would have to climb a steep hill to get up onto the footpath. Ashley and Jude would be long gone by then. Sometimes, the drivers blasted their horns in anger but that only made Ashley and Jude cackle. Getting a driver to beep was worth double points.

Ashley spat a mouthful of phlegm at a passing BMW. “Ooh,” she said. “Just missed the bastard.”

Jude chuckled, then gobbed a mouthful of spit at a passing motorcyclist. He got the guy right on his bright red helmet.

“Good shot!” Ashley said, whistling. She let a line of saliva elongate and then break, almost hitting a green and white Mini.

“You’re useless,” said Jude. “I remember when you used to be a challenge. Maybe I need to get a new best friend.”

“Good luck. I’m the only person who can stand you. Oh, and your mum thinks you’re okay. How is Helen today? Drunk by breakfast?”

Jude rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep from smiling. “Shut your face, you nasty cow. She’s not that bad, and you know it. Anyway, it’s not like she’s got any other hobbies.”

Ashley pulled at her grubby, shoulder-length brown hair. “Actually, I need to ask her if she can fit me in for a cut. My hair’s well minging.”

“She’s pretty busy at the moment. Everyone’s been getting ready for school.”

“Good thing I’m best friends with her son then, ain’t it?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Cheers.”

They sat for a while, watching the sun descend as the afternoon began its second half. The spitting contest turned out to be no contest at all. Jude got to ten before Ashley even got to five. Three cars had beeped their horns after direct windscreen hits.

Jude cheered up a little, although he started plucking at his rubber bracelet, which was something he always did when he was anxious. “You okay?” she asked, nodding at the yellow band around his wrist. He was halfway through plucking it for a fourth time.

He loosened the bracelet and placed his hands back around the bars. “Just thinking. You know me.”

Ashley smiled. She’d been friends with Jude since nursery, where they had bonded over a mutual love of Lego and finger painting. Realising their bond, their mums had started arranging play dates, and they had become inseparable from then on. The problem was that they made no other friends. By the time they had started primary school they had been joined at the hip, and no different when they moved on to secondary. Instead of birthday parties, they went to theme parks together, or pigged out at a Chinese buffet. They spent almost every afternoon after school hanging out at one another’s houses. They were like brother and sister, which was strange seeing as Ashley wanted to fuck most lads her age.

“It’s getting chilly.” Jude rubbed at his shoulders. “Think I might head home and get something to eat.”

Ashley nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

The two of them pulled their legs back from beneath the barrier and stood up. Evening was still an hour or two away but it was time to call it a day. Five weeks into the six-week summer holidays, the nights were drawing in, which made it more acceptable to go home and chill in front of the TV. At summer’s start, after so long at school, it had felt like a crime to go home before ten o’clock.

They were about to get going when Jude groaned.

Ashley turned to him. “What is it?”

Jude turned white as a sheet. He gave a small nod towards the other end of the overpass and Ashley saw what concerned him. She groaned too. “Oh, shit, that’s all we need. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

The two of them started powerwalking, staring straight ahead and not speaking – trying to hide in plain sight. Lily, Ricky, and the twins were a good thirty metres behind, but it wouldn’t take them long to catch up. That would be bad news. Ricky Dalca and Lily Barnes were always bad news.

Ricky and his crew were always dossing around somewhere on the estate but usually near the school or the shopping centre. Ashley and Jude kept closer to home and managed to avoid the local troublemakers most days. Not today, it seemed.

Jude glanced sideways at her, and she could see the anxiety churning inside him. At school, on the few days when Ricky Dalca attended, he always had it in for Jude. Sometimes, Jude faked an upset tummy just so he wouldn’t have to go in and face the torture. It pissed Ashley right off.

Right fucking off.

She hated bullies, and Ricky Dalca was the absolute fucking worst. His friends, too.

“Are they following us?” Jude asked, his eyes unblinking.

Ashley dared to peek back, and what she saw made her yelp. Before she had a chance to warn Jude, Ricky rushed forward and shoved him in the back. They hadn’t even made it off of the overpass.

We should’ve run. The bastards were never going to leave us alone. They never do.

Jude staggered and just avoided falling. He spun to face his attacker and summoned a rare display of anger. “What’s your goddamn problem, Ricky?”

Ricky was a good-looking lad, which gave Ashley mixed feelings, seeing as she hated his guts about as much as she wanted to snog his face off. Ricky’s parents were Romanian, who Ashley’s dad said were a bunch of criminals, but he had no accent and didn’t look any different to an English lad. He was, however, a criminal. If you needed weed at school, Ricky was the lad to see. If somebody was walking around with a black eye, Ricky Dalca was usually the cause.

Ricky glared at Jude. “You’re my problem, Judy. What ’ave I told you about being outside? I said I’d kick the shit out of you if you left your house, didn’t I!”

Jude sighed. He was trembling, but Ashley knew he was doing his best to hide it. “Sorry for needing to get some fresh air. Jesus!”

Ricky stepped up to Jude and glared right in his face. “You don’t deserve fresh air, you fucking weirdo. Your mum should make you live in the attic. Fuck, you can’t even look at me straight, you freak.”

Ricky’s friends laughed. The twins hooted in tandem. Lily cackled.

Jude took a step back. “I’m getting laser eye surgery next month, so my lazy eye can finally stop annoying you. Great news, seeing as you bring it up every time we meet. Your concern is heart-warming.”

Ashley chuckled internally. If Jude was getting laser eye surgery, he hadn’t told her about it.

Ricky scowled and lifted his shaved right eyebrow into a jagged arch. “You fucking cheeking me, mate?”

Jude shook his head and exhaled. “No, Ricky. I just don’t know why you have such a problem with me.”

Ricky appeared to think for a moment. Then he punched Jude in the stomach and laughed. “Must be yer face,” he said.

Ashley stepped in front of Jude to protect him. “Leave him the fuck alone, Ricky. Why you gotta be such a bastard?”

Ricky glared. “Why do you even hang around with this loser? Like, I would never fuck you in a million years, but you can still do better than him.”

“You reckon?” Her heart thudded against her ribs. Her fists clenched in anger. “Because Jude has a massive dick and knows how to use it. In fact, his dick’s even bigger than Lily’s.”

Lily stepped forward. The pale, freckle-covered menace was several inches taller than Ashley, and her wild, frizzy ginger hair cascaded down to her waist like a nest of exotic snakes. She snarled at Ashley. “You fucking calling me a man?”

“Think she’s calling you a tranny, Lil,” said one of the twins, chuckling.

Ashley went to say something, realising she should try and defuse the situation, but before she got the chance, Lily spat right in her face. Ashley reeled backwards, wiping her left eye and cursing in repulsion. “You… you mental bitch.”

Jude grabbed her and pulled her back before Lily could do anything else. They tried to walk away, which was probably a smart choice, seeing as they were outnumbered and a mile from home, but Ricky grabbed Jude and shoved him up against the railing. “Where do you think you’re going, Judy?”

He hit Jude in the stomach again.

Jude doubled over and gasped. “P-Please, just leave me… leave me alone.”

Ricky straightened Jude up against the railing and shoved him back so hard that he struck his skull on the bars. “What if I don’t? What if I throw you off this bridge and put an end to your sad little life?”

Ashley wiped the last of the spit off her face and growled in defence of her friend. “I would say the railing is too high. So stop with this bullshit.”

Jude was silent. He shuddered and tried to catch his breath.

Lily and the twins cackled. “Fucking do him,” said Lily. “I reckon we can get him over the railing.”

Ashley saw the pain and fear on Jude’s face and could take no more. She threw a punch at Lily but missed, yet it was enough to send the other girl dodging back a step. When Ricky turned to see what was going on, she shoved him hard. He tripped over his own feet and crashed against the railing. The resounding clonk of his head hitting the bars was satisfying, as was his pained tirade of curse words.

Ashley grabbed Jude and pulled him. “Move!”

The two of them took off along the overpass. The others didn’t pursue right away, waiting for Ricky to get back on his feet first. It bought Jude and Ashley a few seconds head start.

It had been a while since Ashley had sprinted at full pelt, and it made her realise now how much her breasts had grown. More and more lately, they got in her way, especially when she was dancing.

Street dancers don’t have ginormous tits. Why does my body hate me?

Jude was faster than Ashley, probably motivated by the fear of another beating, but he kept looking back and adjusting his pace. Sometimes she wished he would fight back against Ricky – throw a punch – but that just wasn’t who he was. Jude wasn’t a fighter.

Lily, Ricky, and the twins gave chase, yelling threats. Jude and Ashley had a small lead. The problem was there was nowhere to go. The entire area was closed between Redsow Woods and the playing fields. There were no houses for half a mile.

“They’re… gunna catch… us,” said Jude, already out of breath. He clutched his ribs where Ricky had punched him. “We have to… lose them somehow.”

Ashley looked back at their pursuers. Ricky’s face was bright red. He was blowing air out of his cheeks like an angry bull. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it looked like he wanted to kill them.

Jude searched left and right. He pointed towards the woods on their left. “Let’s try to hide in the trees.”

“If they catch us in the woods, we’re fucked.”

Jude didn’t give her any choice. His panic caused him to leap into the ditch that ran alongside the path and head for the trees. The woods started with thorny bushes and spindly trees, but things grew thicker after a few metres. Ashley and Jude often trudged through the lighter areas when they were looking for something to do, but she didn’t fancy getting cornered inside the woods. At least on the path, a passer-by might intervene on their behalf. Sometimes you could even find the odd community policing officer taking a stroll.

It was a bad idea entering the woods, but Ashley had no choice but to follow her friend.

Jude leapt up the other side of the ditch and dashed between the trees. Ashley hurried in behind him. The two of them dodged through some thick bushes and ducked past the remnants of an old fence.

Ricky leapt into the ditch behind them. “You two are dead,” he shouted. “I don’t like having to run.”

“I’m going to cut your fucking throats,” shouted Lily.

Ashley put a hand on Jude’s back as they dodged through the bushes. “Keep going!”

Jude dashed to his left. In the direction of the golf course, the woods would gradually thin out, but in the direction they were heading, things grew denser and more overgrown. Countless bushes, branches, and ancient trees intermingled to form a near-constant obstacle course.

“We can’t go this way,” said Ashley. “We’ll break our necks if we keep going.”

“What choice do we have? How else will we—” Jude tripped and stumbled forward, landing on his side amongst the thorny weeds. Ashley lifted him to his feet and tried to get him running again, but it was too late.

“Got you!” Ricky moved past them and planted his feet. His gang spread out around them.

Jude and Ashley back-pedalled to where the ground disappeared into a massive drop that the local kids all called Devil’s Ditch. Thick bushes covered the ground all around them, but the slope was a steep drop comprising thick mud and hard stone. There was nowhere to go.

Ricky, Lily, and the twins closed in tighter like a pack of hyenas. Ricky glared at Jude, but Lily was grinning. She smirked at Ashley like a hungry serial killer. As much as people around the estate feared Ricky, Lily was the one who truly scared Ashley. The girl’s entire family was notorious for being a bunch of thugs – lunatics, really – and Lily’s dad was in prison more often than he was out. Both of her older brothers were psychos, and sometimes it seemed like Lily was determined to be even worse. While Ricky still attended school from time to time, Lily had been expelled a long time ago.

Ricky shook his head and chuckled, almost like he was admiring their spirit. “You made me run. I really hate having to run.”

Jude put his hands up. “Come on, man. Don’t do this.”

“Do what? Bury you in these fucking woods? Sorry, mate, but my mind’s already made up about that.”

Lily stepped up to Ashley, getting right in her face. “And don’t think Judy is the only one getting fucked up.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small length of black plastic. At first, Ashley didn’t know what it was, but then Lily pressed a button and a sharp blade flicked out the end. With a malicious grin, she brought the blade up against Ashley’s face and pressed the flat side against her cheek. “Maybe I should give you a messed-up eye like your boss-eyed boyfriend here.”

“Y-You’re not going to use that. Why would you do something so crazy?”

A few steps back, the twins were laughing, but one of them – possibly Danny – said, “Come on, you two. Let’s leave these losers to it and go get some beers. We can grab some from our dad’s fridge. This shit ain’t worth the trouble.”

Ricky had moved closer to Jude, but he stepped back now. He looked at the twins. “For real? A’ight, let’s bounce and go get drunk. They’ll be plenty of time to beat on these losers later.”

A wave of relief washed through Ashley’s stomach. Perhaps Ricky and his mates weren’t complete psychopaths. They’d had their fun, but enough was enough.

Lily pressed the knife harder against Ashley’s cheek. “Nah, I ain’t leaving till I see some blood.”

Ashley grunted as something bit into her cheek, and she realised Lily had turned the blade and cut her face. She hopped backwards, almost tumbling down the steep slope behind her, and fingered the wound. Her fingers came back bloody. Ashley saw red, literally and metaphorically. “You total fucking maniac. I’m gunna kill you.”

Ashley bunched her hands into fists and took a step towards Lily, which she knew was a stupid idea, seeing as Lily still held the knife, but she couldn’t stop herself. Rage seized her muscles and mind. She wanted to destroy Lily Barnes. But before Ashley got close enough to engage, Jude tackled her and knocked her backwards.

Then she was tumbling downwards.

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PLEA FROM THE AUTHOR

Hey, Reader. So you got to the end of my book. I hope that means you enjoyed it. Whether or not you did, I would just like to thank you for giving me your valuable time to try and entertain you. I am truly blessed to have such a fulfilling job, but I only have that job because of people like you; people kind enough to give my books a chance and spend their hard-earned money buying them.  For that I am eternally grateful.

If you would like to find out more about my other books then please visit my website for full details. You can find it at:

www.iainrobwright.com. 

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Diary of a flummoxed father

Iain Rob Wright is one of the UK's most successful horror and suspense writers, with novels including the critically acclaimed, THE FINAL WINTER; the disturbing bestseller, ASBO; and the wicked screamfest, THE HOUSEMATES.

His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member of the Horror Writer Association and a massive animal lover.

www.iainrobwright.com

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Copyright © 2022 by Iain Rob Wright

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Artwork by Carl Graves at Extended Imagery

Editing by Richard Sheehan

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