Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

“And there’s no way of knowing which one we are on?”

“Not without some sort of landmark, no.”

Cabal pursed his lips. Kids tripping the points? He doubted it. Far more likely it was the handiwork of one of Satan’s avatars. Anything to make things difficult. Without a word, he went back to the train and hoisted himself up onto an external ladder.

“Where you goin’, boss?” asked Bones, shielding his eyes against the cold sun.

“Looking for a landmark. Pass me the chart, would you?”

From the top of the car, Cabal still couldn’t see very far. The sides of the cutting were simply too high. Discarding the options of jumping up and down or standing on tiptoes as both pointless and damaging to his dignity, he looked up and down the length of the track instead. Ahead he could see nothing beyond the long, gentle curve. Looking back, however, he could just make out the roof of a building that must lie beside the track. Checking against the chart proved fruitless; both potential lines had assorted unidentified buildings along their lengths. Still, perhaps he could get a clue there. He dropped the chart back to Bones and climbed quickly down.

“There’s a house or something back there,” he said, pointing. “I’ll go and make enquiries.”

Bones looked along the track without enthusiasm. “You want me to come with you?”

Cabal was already walking along the sleepers. “Unnecessary. I’ll be back shortly.”

As the impatient huffing of escaping steam grew quieter behind him, Cabal began to feel oddly alone. He had spent the vast majority of his life alone, of course; both his temperament and profession had made that a given. This, however, was different. Every step he took away from the train made him feel more isolated from all humanity, and the sensation, combined with its very unfamiliarity, was becoming more than disconcerting. He stopped and was alarmed, as well as slightly disgusted, to feel a shiver travel through him. Then, worse still, the hairs on the nape of his neck rose.

Unusual , he thought. I think I’m frightened . Fear wasn’t entirely a stranger, true, but on those previous occasions he had always had something to be frightened of. Things of his creation that had got out of the laboratory or the oubliettes or, once, out of the furnace, and had hung around the house in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to jump on him and kill him. That had worried him. That night at the Druin crypt. Yes, he might have felt a little discomfited then. On those occasions, however, there had been a very real threat to his life and work. Here there was … nothing. He looked back at the train and seriously considered returning, reporting that there had been nothing of interest at the building, and carrying on until they either reached the main line again or were forced to back up.

“Pull yourself together,” he said quietly to himself. “There’s no time for this childishness.” He mentally shook himself by the shoulders, drew himself up, and marched down the line.

The fear grew still worse. Now, however, an uncompromising mixture of determination and pride outmatched it. The feeling deepened into an impression of impending doom mixed, oddly, with loss. The burden of a sudden nameless longing made Cabal gasp with unfamiliar emotion. No. No, it wasn’t unfamiliar at all, just suppressed, and the sudden whirl of remembrance made his eyes prickle. He gulped, then sucked in a breath and kept walking. With agonising slowness, the building revealed itself around the bend as he walked purposefully on, and he belatedly realised that it was a station. This was good news; although it had clearly been abandoned years ago, there must still be a sign or something to say which station it was, information enough to deduce which line it stood on. He willed the clue to be somewhere obvious: the pain in him was so intense now, he just wanted to sag to his knees. The feeling of loss was like a spear through his heart. Keep walking, he kept telling himself. If you succumb, you’re lost. Just get the information and then walk back to the train, mission accomplished. Don’t run. Don’t falter. Control it.

The station had clearly once been very well run indeed. By the platform were flower beds in which nasturtiums and poppies fought gamely for soil against weeds. The stones that surrounded the beds still showed signs of having been assiduously whitewashed a long time ago. The paint was peeling, posters hung from their frames, and the windows were grimy. Yet there was a sense of order gently giving way to entropy. The fact that the windows were all intact was interesting; Cabal had learned a lot about human nature over the past few weeks and knew full well that where there were boys and unattended glass, there was also likely to be some property damage in the near future. Cabal had already had several run-ins with wilful young lads who seemed to believe that their age and sex gave them some sort of dispensation to commit petty acts of vandalism. One such had particularly infuriated him and was now a permanent fixture in the House of Medical Monstrosity. They’d moved smartly out the next day before the local constabulary got involved.

That the station windows were still in place argued that the station was rarely if ever visited, which, in turn, raised the question “Why build a station in the middle of nowhere, where nobody is ever likely to use it?” It was a question that turned the balance in Cabal’s mind. Up to now, he would have been content to learn the station’s name and go back to the train. Now, however, there was a mystery, and Cabal hated mysteries. The strange emotional turmoil he was in still frightened him, and because it frightened him, it also angered him. It felt so … imposed.

And, of course, it was. He felt foolish for imagining that its root had been within him at all. It was from outside. It was from … He looked up at the station. It was coming from here. The vague feelings that had so disturbed him were replaced with cold logic as he put them in their place. It was some form of empathy, he knew now, almost certainly supernatural. He still felt the fear and the loneliness and the dreadful sense of loss, but now it no more touched him than being warm or tired could emotionally touch him. It was simply a sensation, something that his body had detected and that he’d stupidly assumed to be part of him. He climbed up off the line, walked to the waiting-room door, in passing checked the station’s name — Welstone Halt — and entered.

If he was expecting an immediate solution to the mystery, he was disappointed. The waiting room obviously hadn’t been used for many years. There were a few tables, and a bar with a large tea urn on it, and glass displays that must have once been temporary home to sandwiches and cakes. The strange feeling was very strong here, Cabal noted. Sometimes a spasm of tension travelled down his back, making his head twitch involuntarily. He noted that, too. There were yellowed newspapers lying on one of the tables. He picked one up and studied its front page. There were a couple of advertisements for cigarettes that consisted of the name of the brand reprinted several times in a column — cutting-edge marketing for the time — and the headlines “BIG PUSH EXPECTED” and “ALL OVER BY CHRISTMAS.” Cabal shook his head. It had been no such thing. Why did people always expect wars to be over by Christmas, as if a kindly fate wanted all the families to be back together and all that unpleasantness over and done with? As a man who dealt with life out of death, he was perhaps more appalled by war than most. He had been chased out of towns by any number of solid citizens, all of whom obviously considered themselves morally superior to him, although they would cheerfully send their sons to die in conflicts that could and should have been resolved diplomatically. Cabal, on the other hand, rarely killed unless absolutely necessary. In the cases of Dennis and Denzil, it had admittedly been a question of eugenics as well as self-defence. It was the gene pool or them. But war? Cabal threw the newspaper back on the table with contempt.