Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

“So, where’s the spy?” whispered Annette.

“ We’re the spies,” said Richard. “Remember? Mata Hari.”

Three sailors in whites looked like refugees from a road company of On the Town; one very drunk, his mates alert for the Shore Patrol. They’d be through for Portnacreirann too, though it would be a surprise if they really were travelling First Class. An allied uniform counted with Arnold. Mrs Sweet, an elderly lady in a checked ulster, was particular about her gun-cases. She issued Arnold with lengthy instructions for their storage. A clergyman swept in and Richard’s first thought was that he was a disguised Chicago gangster. His ravaged cheeks and slicked-down widow’s peak irresistibly suggested a rod in his armpit and brass knucks up his sleeve. However, he radiated saintly benevolence. Richard ought to know not to judge by appearances.

A fuss erupted at the door. Arnold and a guard were overwhelmed by a large, middle-aged woman. She wore a floral print dress and a hat rimmed with wax grapes and dry, dead roses.

“I’ve got me ticket somewhere, ducks,” she said. “Give us a mo. Here we are. Me ticket, and me card.”

The woman had a Bow Bells accent and one of those voices that could crack crystal. Something about her alerted Richard. Annette and Myles had the same reaction. Psychic alarm bells.

“What is it?” asked Harry, noticing his group’s ears all pricked up at once.

“Calm,” said Annette.

Richard realised his heart was racing. He breathed deliberately and it slowed. Myles let out a whistle.

“Me card,” repeated the woman. “Elsa Nickles, Missus, Psychic Medium. I’m here to ’elp the spirits. The ones tevvered to this plane. The ones who cannot find the rest they need. The ones trapped on your Ghost Train.”

Arnold was less interested in the woman’s card than her ticket, which turned out to be Third Class. Not a sleeping compartment, but a seat in the carriage next to the baggage car. A trained contortionist with no feeling at all in her back or lower limbs might stretch out and snooze.

The conductor told her this waiting room was First Class only. She wasn’t offended.

“I don’t want to go in, ducks. Just wants a butcher’s. The vibrations are strong in the room. No wonder your train’s got so many presences.”

The “Psychic Medium” craned over Arnold’s head and scanned the room, more obviously than Richard had done. She frankly stared at everyone in turn.

“Evenin’, vicar,” she said to the saturnine clergyman, who smiled, showing rotten teeth. “Should have those fixed,” she advised. “Pull ’em all on the National Health and get porcelain choppers, like me.”

She grinned widely, showing a black hollow rim around her plates.

The vicar wasn’t offended, though he looked even more terrifying when assembling a smile.

Mrs Nickles didn’t give Harry, Richard or the US Navy a second glance, but fluttered around Annette – “Cor, wish I had the figure for that frock, girl” – and was taken with Magic Fingers.

“You’ve got the Gift, laddie. I can always tell. You see beyond the Visible Sphere.”

Myles didn’t contradict her.

“I sense a troubled soul ’em, or soon to be ’em,” she announced. “Never mind, I can make it well. It’s all we can do, ducks, make things well.”

Mrs Sweet hid behind her Times and rigidly ignored everything.

Harry muttered, unnoticed by Mrs Nickles.

The woman was a complication, not accounted for in Harry’s “boring procedures”. Richard sensed the Most Valued Member wonder idly if Mrs Nickles might step under rather than onto the train.

The first time he’d “eavesdropped” on a musing like that, he’d picked up a clear vision from the Latin master; the Third Form mowed down by a machine gun barrage. He’d been horrified and torn: keep quiet and share in the guilt, speak out and be reckoned a maniac. Even if he prevented slaughter, no one would ever know . For two days, he’d wrestled the problem, close to losing bowel control whenever he saw the master round the quad with an apparently distracted smile and mass murder in mind. Then, Richard picked up a similar stray thought, as the Captain of the Second Eleven contemplated the violent bludgeoning of a persistent catch-dropper. With nervy relief, he realised everyone contemplated atrocities on a daily basis. So far, he hadn’t come across anyone who really meant it. Indeed, imagined violence seemed to take an edge off the homicidal urge – folks who didn’t think about murder were more likely to commit one.

“Ahh, bless,” said Mrs Nickles, standing aside so someone with a proper ticket could be let into the room.

A solemn child, very sleepy, had been entrusted by a guardian into the care of the Scotch Streak. She wore a blue, hooded coat and must be eight or nine. Richard, who had little experience with infants, hoped the girl wouldn’t be too near on the long trip. Children were like time bombs, set to go off.

“What’s your name?” asked Annette, bending over.

The girl said something inaudible and hid deeper in her hood.

“Don’t know? That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mrs Nickles and Annette were both smitten. Richard intuited neither woman had living children. If Mrs Nickles really was a medium, that was no surprise. Kids were attention sponges and sucked it all up – a lot of Talents faded when there was a pram in the house.

Annette found a large label, stiff brown paper, fastened around the girl’s neck.

“Property of Lieut-Cdr Alexander Coates, RN,” she read. “Is this your Daddy?”

The little girl shook her head. Only her freckled nose could be seen. In the hooded coat, she looked more like a dwarf than a child.

“Are you a parcel then?”

The hooded head nodded. Annette smiled.

“But you aren’t for the baggage car?”

Another shake.

Arnold announced that the train was ready for boarding.

The Americans jammed around the door as the British passengers formed an orderly queue. Annette took the little girl’s hand.

The Coates Parcel looked up and Richard saw the child’s face. She had striking eyes – huge, emerald-green, ageless. The rest of her face hadn’t fully grown around her eyes yet. A bar of freckles crossed her nose like Apache war paint. Two red braids snaked out of her hood and hung on her chest like bell-pulls.

“My name is Vanessa,” she said, directly to him. “What’s yours?”

The child was strange. He couldn’t read her at all.

“This is Richard,” said Annette. “Don’t mind the way he looks. I’m sure you’ll be chums.”

Vanessa stuck out her little paw, which Richard found himself shaking.

“Good evening, Richard,” she said. “I can say that in French. Bon soir, Rishar . And German. Guten Abend, Richard .”

“Good evening to you, Vanessa.”

She curtseyed, then hugged his waist, pressing her head against his middle. It was disconcerting – he was hugged like a pony, a pillow or a tree rather than a person.

“You’ve got a fan, man,” said Magic Fingers. “Congrats.”

Vanessa held onto him, for comfort. He still didn’t know what to make of her.

Annette rescued him, detaching the girl.

“Try not to pick up waifs and strays, lad,” said Harry.

Richard watched Annette lead Vanessa out of the waiting room. As the little girl held up her ticket to be clipped by Arnold, she looked back.

Those eyes!

V

Richard was last to get his ticket clipped. Everyone found their proper carriages. Mrs Nickles strode down the platform to Third Class, trailed by sailors.

He took in 3473-S. At a first impression, the engine was a powerful, massive presence. A huge contraption of working iron. Then, he saw it was weathered, once-proud purple marred and blotched, brass trim blackened and pitted. The great funnel belched mushroom clouds. He smelled coal, fire, grease, oil. Pressure built up in the boiler and heat radiated. A gush of steam was expelled, wet-blasting the platform.