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

“What’s this?” he asked Arnold, appalled.

“The Club Car, sir. Reserved for friends of the Director, Lord Kilpartinger. It’s not usually part of the rolling stock.”

In one chair slumped a whiskered skeleton wearing a bullet-bandoleer, Sam Browne belt and puttees. It gripped a rifle-barrel with both hands, a loose toe-bone stuck in the trigger-guard, gun-mouth jammed between blasted-wide skull-jaws, the cranium exploded away.

“Any idea who that was?” Richard.

“He’s in Catriona’s pamphlet,” put in Harry. “ ‘Basher’ Moran, 1935. Some aged, leftover Victorian Colonel. Big-game hunter and gambling fiend. Stalked anything and everything, put holes in it and dragged hide, head or horns home to stick on the wall. Mixed up in extensive crookery, according to Catriona, wriggled out of a hanging more than once. He’s here because he won his final bet. One of his jolly old pals wagered he couldn’t find anything in the world he hadn’t shot before. He proved his friend wrong, there and then.”

An upturned pith helmet several feet away contained bone and dum-dum fragments.

“Case closed.”

“Too true. They made a film about Moran and the train, Terror by Night .”

Richard advanced carefully, between trophies, tapping too-persistent horns out of the way with the gun-barrel.

“Could do with a machete,” he commented. “Careful of barbs.”

The train took a series of snake-curve turns, swinging alarmingly from side to side. A narwhal horn dimpled Richard’s velvet shoulder.

Richard heard Harry ouch as he speared himself on an antler-point.

“Just a scratch,” he reported. “Doesn’t hurt as much as my bloody hand.”

“Shouldn’t ought to be allowed,” said Mrs Nickles. “Shootin’ poor animals as never did no-one no harm.”

“I rather agree with you,” said Richard. “Hunting should be saved for man-killers.”

Gingerly, they got through the club car without further casualties.

The next carriage was the dining car, again. Harry wanted to give up, but Richard pressed on.

“Table-settings here are the other way round,” he said. “It’s not the same.”

“There ain’t no bleedin’ great ’ole in the roof neither,” observed Mrs Nickles.

“That too.”

“We shall be pleased to serve a light breakfast after Inverdeith,” announced Arnold. “For those who wish to arrive at Portnacreirann refreshed and invigorated.”

“Kippers later,” said Richard. “After the world-saving.”

Beyond this dining car was First Class. Richard led them past the sleeping compartments. Annette’s door hung open: her night-gown was laid out on the counterpane, like a cast-off silk snakeskin. That was a thump to the heart.

The decoy couriers snored away. No need to bother them.

Another expedition was coming down the corridor towards them. Were they so turned around in time they were running into themselves? Or had evil duplicate ghost-finders emerged from the wrong-way-round dimension where knives and forks were right-to-left? No, there was a mirror at the end of the corridor. Score one for eliminating the impossible.

“Where’s the connecting door?” Richard asked the Conductor.

“There’s no need for one, sir,” said Arnold. “Beyond is only the coal tender, and the locomotive. Passengers may not pass beyond this point.”

The Gecko had managed, though.

One of the doors flapped, swinging open, banging back. Cold air streamed in, like water through a salmon’s gills.

Richard pushed the door and leaned out of the carriage, keeping a firm grip on the frame.

Below, a gravel verge sped by. To the East, the scarlet rim of dawn outlined a black horizon. Up ahead, 3473-S rolled over the rails, pistons pumping, everything oiled and watered and fired.

An iron girder came up, horribly fast. Richard ducked back in.

“We’re on the bridge,” he said.

Before anyone could object, if they were going to, he threw himself out of the door.

VII

Clinging to the side of the carriage, it occurred to Richard that someone else might have volunteered to crawl – essentially one-handed, since shotguns don’t have useful shoulder-slinging straps like field-rifles – along the side of a speeding steam train.

Harry had seniority and responsibility, but his injured hand disqualified him. Mrs Nickles was too hefty, overage and a woman besides. And the conductor was not entirely of their party. The Gecko had fit into him much too snugly. There was more mystery to

Arnold – a streak of sneakiness, of evasion, of tragedy. Richard had noticed a spark in his mild eyes as Mrs Nickles was talking about the good old days of the LSIR, about the Shagging Scot and the Headless Fireman and the In-for-Death Run of ’31.

So, the train-crawling was down to him.

Once he’d swung out on the door, he eased himself around so he was hanging outside the train, blasted by the air-rush, deafened by the roar. About eight feet of carriage was left before the coupling. That was a mystery – a compartment not accessible to the passengers. No, it wasn’t a mystery – it was a toilet and washroom for the driver and the fireman, reachable by a wide, safe running-board along the side of the coal tender, with guard-rails and hand-holds he would just now have greatly appreciated on this carriage.

Above him, however, were loops of red chain – the communication cord. Richard grabbed a loop and held tight. The whistle shrilled over the din of the train. Cold chain bit into his palm. He should have put gloves on.

He dangled one-handed, trusting the chain to take his weight, back against the carriage, and saw glints on the dark waters of Loch Gaer several hundred feet below. Down there were the angry spirits of Jock McGaer’s “graysome” dinners, the drowned Inverdeith Witches and the cut-loose passengers of ’31 – they must all be wrapped up in the Gecko too. Not to mention the “stoon o’ fire spat out frae hell” of 1601. This had all started with that.

The flimsy-seeming bridge, he reminded himself, was the sturdy structure put up to replace the one that fell down. Girders flashed past, faster and faster. He used the stock of the gun to push himself along, and the barrel caught on a girder. The gun was wrenched out of his hand, twisted into a U-shape, and dropped into the loch. Mrs Sweet had made a special point of telling Arnold to look after her artillery. A stiff complaint would be made to British Rail in the next day or two, providing there was a next day or two.

With both hands free, it was easier to travel from loop to loop. He’d think about how to deal with the Gecko without a weapon when he got to it. A sound rap on the nose didn’t seem likely to do the trick.

The door clanged shut behind him. Harry and Mrs Nickles hung out of the open window, fixed expressions of encouragement plastered on anxious faces.

He fought the harsh wind, cruel gravity, hot spits of steam and cinder, and his own clumsiness. Something shaped like a little girl had done this earlier, he knew. The Gecko could probably stick to the side of the train, like a real lizard.

Eight feet. A hard eight feet. The skirts of his frock coat lashed his thighs. He had no feeling in his hands, but blood dripped from weals across his palms. He reached out for the next loop, the last, and his fist closed on nothing, then locked. He had to force his hand open and look up, hooking nerveless, perhaps boneless fingers over the loop. He saw his grip, but couldn’t feel it. He didn’t want to let go of the hold he was sure of. But if he didn’t, he was stuck. He reached out his leg, which didn’t quite stretch enough to hook over the guard-rail. His boot-sole scraped tarnished brass. His cuff was sodden with his own blood. With a prayer to higher powers, he let go the sure hold, put all his weight on the unsure one, and swung towards the platform.