the last carriage

> The Last Carriage                             
by David Ahern

My name is Tom. If I tried to describe myself I would tell you I’m your average scruffy looking student, armed with a small backpack and a large rucksack that, when I bought it three years ago, I fully intended to go travelling with. Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The advert for the holiday sprung out at me from the catalogue. The idea, unfortunately, never left the travel agent. I’m a man of word not a man of action and consequentially neither of these two bulky items I’m travelling with today have left the shores of this green and pleasant land.  My hair is dark. Although I’ve let the beard grow a few days too many I’d say I’m still fairly well kept. The girls don’t seem to mind. It all adds character and I certainly have plenty of that.
Two hours ago I awoke on the first carriage of a busy commuter train travelling between Manchester and Nottingham. It was the shriek of the brakes that woke me. There were alarm bells ringing, men shouting, babies crying. My eyes refused to open. A faint smell drifted under my nose. My first fears – have we crashed, am I still alive, why do my legs not work? I remember wriggling my toe and feeling the cramp shooting up my leg. I remember the crowded station hallway, the endless cue for the ticket. I remember searching desperately through my backpack for the ticket while the train sat with its engine running on platform 13 below me. I remember the small girl with the large bear that looked at me curiously and smiled. I remember her mother standing next to her, her arm in front protectively, that looked at me curiously and didn’t. I remember helping the old gentlemen with the cap onto the train whilst a youth dressed all in gothic black pushed at me from the rear. I remember the desperate search for a seat - a whole train playing musical chairs. I was never very good at that game. I didn’t get one. I put my bag on the floor and sat on it. When I woke up that was all I remembered. I’m getting ahead of myself. I will start at the beginning. I will start at the first carriage.




My eyes finally open. I am still on the train but there is something that disturbs me. It is not the fact that smoke is drifting down the aisle. It is not the fact that the train is not moving. This train, when I entered was heaving with people. Couples lifting their shopping above their heads, desperately trying to cram it into the small shelf space provided. There were some doing juggling acts attempting to move up and down an aisle that was impossibly blocked.  Now I am sitting at the back of a carriage and the carriage is empty. They have all gone. There is no baggage. There is nobody in the carriage.




The scene hits me as soon as I enter carriage 2. The body of a middle-aged woman is sprawled over one of the central tables. Across the way from her on the opposite table another lies its right hand trailing as if pointing me forward. Blood stains on both windows. It seems like something has scrawled with this blood on both side of the carriage. The scrawls are written in English but make no sense. Welcome to the Magic Land. Welcome to the Magic Land. That’s what they say. I ignore the message for the moment and check the dead.  On closer inspection of the bodies I see they have been slashed across the face and neck. There was one other thing I noticed in this carriage before I had to leave. There are bags. Most are still crammed onto the shelves. One or two scattered along the carriage floor as if someone has dropped them whilst they made a hasty retreat. I hear a scream echoing down the train. It’s time to move on.



Bodies again, lots of them. There is a clatter on the roof. I stop for a second and listen. Something is scraping its way along the roof. I attempt to look out of the window then a strange thing happens. One by one the windows darken as if a black mist has descended. It blows along the train from the direction I have come from. I run down the aisle trying to keep in pace with it but the mist is faster. By the time I have reached the end of carriage 3 all the windows are covered. If I can’t see either side of me I will have to look forward.  I step over one of the bodies and exit the carriage. 




At last I find someone breathing. Barely.
It’s the old man with the flat cap. He has pulled himself close to the window and applied a tourniquet around his left arm from which he is bleeding quite rapidly. Beside him is a baby in a Moses basket. I check and the baby seems unharmed. I presume the old man is no relation. He is guarding it, protecting it. The look he throws me when I picked the baby up tells me that. The babies’ mother could be anyone in this carnage. There are bodies strewn everywhere. When I place the baby back in the basket the old man’s glare eases. I shout down the train.
‘We have a survivor. I need help. Is anybody there?’
The sound echoes but I hear no reply.
Then I hear the screech. It is a strange sound, high pitched, grating with a big helping of evil. The scream I heard in Carriage 1 rings out again. There is no hesitation this time. I make a decision. I have to leave the old man and the baby. Whatever is in the next carriage requires my immediate attention.




I saw the eyes immediately I entered. They shone out at my like stars framed by the darkness of a cloudless night. They were hiding behind the bags in the central luggage compartment. They were hiding behind three bags and an over-sized teddy bear. It was the girl that I had seen earlier. Even though we had only made that brief previous connection I was glad to see her. In this tin can from hell I think she gave me a new hope.
She didn’t seem happy to see me. She screamed.
‘It was him. It was him I wasn’t even looking.’
‘Who?’ I asked, confused.
‘The man who saw it happen…it wasn’t me. I was asleep.’ she repeated. Tears slipped from her left eye sliding down her cheek and collecting at the corner of her mouth.
‘What man?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Where is he?’
She didn’t answer
I changed tack with my questioning
‘What did he see?’
This time she did answer and pointed up the corridor.
‘He’s up there…in the toilet. He’s a cop. He’s a cop. Talk to him.
Then she went silent again and pulled the teddy in front of her. Seeing that was the last information I was getting I followed her advice and headed up the corridor to the toilet in carriage 6.




And there he was, shrivelled and cowering in the corner nothing like I had imagined. His name badge said Mr W. Sills and, as the girl had suggested, he was a cop. I held my hand down to him pulled him from the floor and helped clean him down. After him lying in that position for last twenty minutes in his own faeces it was a hell of a job. Still when it was done he looked reasonably respectable. I afforded him a smile and showed him the door. I wasn’t sure I had something to smile about. There was something on this train, some devil. I had heard it two carriages back. It sounded big and it sounded nasty but I meant to catch it and what Tom wants Tom gets. Everybody says so that was it. We moved out of the toilet into the corridor and headed towards whatever waited for us in the next carriage.




Mr Sills was on my side and he was very helpful. I bundled into carriage 7 like a schoolboy. Mr Sills slipped in behind me and pulled me down. Believe me I wasn’t particularly happy the moment it happened but afterwards when he explained to me the state of the creature further up the train I understood. Well I understood then, now is a different matter but we’ll come to that. At that moment, when we were both flailed out on the train floor like a couple of caught fish on a dockside he described to me what he had seen. Long claw like arms, big teeth, and spikes protruding from the top of its head. He told me he was a cop. Shows me a gun. When I ask to use it Mr Sills tells me it is his pride and joy. He says in thirty years in the force he has never been parted from it. He says he has special training in shooting so it only makes sense he keeps it. I look at him and laugh. Mr Sills is indeed an intriguing man with a great imagination.




As we enter carriage 8 I hear voices. Whispers at first, whispers that digress into shouting. Something is up ahead. Something lays in wait for us.




There is nothing to report in this carriage. Mr Sills has started to hang behind which I feel is a tad unfair as he holds the only weapon. I ask him for it but he refuses. Does he expect me to fight this thing with my bare hands?




Carriage 10 is full of dead. The monster, if that is what it is, has devoured these people. They are everywhere. There is a noise to my left, a crash of glass and then the sound of splinters hitting the train floor. A cold breeze rushes towards me. Smoke comes through the open window. Strange smelling smoke. I drag my companion behind me. Lead from the front I hear my old schoolmaster demanding. Lead from the front. And that’s what I’m doing Mr Sills. Nothing is going to stop us now.



They came from the smoke tails lashing and fangs bared but I was quick. While Mr Sills dallied as they approached I snatched the gun from his grasp. He tries to hold on to it but fails and as the first creature rises from the smoke I back away and fire. The creature falls instantly to the ground writhing in agony. A second appears to my left. The gun resounds once more and for a second time I see a creature fall. I shoot into the mist wildly and hear another drop in the corridor beyond. Then silence. The mist is filling the room. I kick the creature on the floor to see if it is still down. A clawed hand reaches up at me through the mist. I fire once more instinctively. It falls back. I’m aware there were others but they seem to have retreated. Adrenalin pumping I toast my success but Mr Sills doesn’t seem to concur.
The battle has scared the life out of him.  He stands there white as a sheet. Cop or no cop I’m in charge now. The mist is beginning to burn my eyes. We have to leave and we have to do it now.  I turn towards the next carriage realising we must be close to the end of the train. Whatever is hiding on the train we know we are going to meet it soon.




We are outside the dragon’s den.
There is breathing coming from within. I can hear it. The once brave Mr Sills is taking a secondary role now. I saw that coming. Too long in my life I have been a mouse but not today. I feel this is my moment, this is my destiny, this is where I repay all old debts and reveal my true self to the world. I walk slowly with the gun pointed first to the front then, swinging it movie style right 45 degrees then left I move towards the door in front of me at the end of the carriage. As I pass the toilet to my left I kick the door open. Nothing there, I move on.
I turn as the bullet whizzes past me and I can see where it is heading. It’s strange something that moves so fast but still so evident. Mr Sills can see it also though he sees it from a different angle.  It hits him just above the nose taking the top of his head clean off. He looks at me surprised for a second then drops. I look forward and there is something in the doorway, something wearing the same uniform. Sills was against me all along. It was a trap. He lured me with the hope of help from his companion. I feel angry, I feel betrayed but still, as I look down at his contorted body I am upset he is dead. Ahead the other man has gone. The door has been shut and behind it I can hear something clicking.
It takes one hard kick and I am through. The man behind the door is not expecting this and it knocks him to the ground. Arms come up, he begs for his life. I am confused. I do not want to kill this man I want to kill the monster. Then, finally, I see the demon I have been chasing. A monitor above the drivers control is playing a security video on loop. I watch as a figure of a man enters the train. I watch as it begins to tussle with someone who seems to be behind it. I watch the man as he removes what seems to be a pair of scissors from his pocket. I see the first lunge. I see the young gothic fall back out of the train. I see the man head down the carriage aisle swinging wildly right and left. The tape follows the man as he pushes his way out of that carriage and into the next. More bloodshed. I have to turn my eyes away from the screen. When I turn my head back to the screen another argument ensues. He is in another carriage. Somebody is playing the hero. The hero is cut down too. The figure stands above him and stabs down once more. Then I see the late Mr Sills heading towards the toilet. Some cop. I look for myself but so far I don’t appear.
The figure moves onwards on the tape. Two carriages later he starts swinging again and more bodies fall. In the next carriage two people try to stop him. I see the swing of the arms and the bodies fall. I can’t watch this anymore. When I look back at the screen this time the figure had daubed the writing on the windows of the carriage. Welcome to the Magic Land. As he adds the finishing touches people are panicking left and right. The man ignores them, pushing past them, fighting against the tide. He arrives in the last carriage. It is empty. He puts the scissors casually back in his pocket and picks a seat. Where am I? I was on the train at this stage I am sure of it. The man walks to his chosen seat. As he sits down he turns to the screen and my fears are realised. The man is me.




I have other memories now. Not only do I remember the queues, the search for the ticket, the girl and her mother. I remember the incident that took place in the station toilet - my little experimentation. I remember putting my hand in the bag of mushrooms and eating one. I remember eating another. And another, swilling the last down with a sip from the can of lager I’d purchased from the off-licence at the corner of Piccadilly Gardens.  I remembered finishing the contents of the bag off, discarding it and heading from the toilet to the information stand taking another swig of the lager as I walked.
I press the doors and they open in front of me revealing ten armed police officers behind shields, their weapons pointed towards me. Looking quickly down the side of the train I see the windows have all been sprayed black. The darkening storm in carriage 3 explained. It all slots into place. The scrabbling on the roof, the shouting, the smashed window and the foul smelling gas it was all the police. They had stormed the train and I, seeing them as demons, had shot them dead.
It is their turn now. The boot is firmly on the other foot. The shots ring out and I feel my body splitting, tearing. As I fall down to the tracks I hear the baby crying and my heart feels glad. The baby survived, the world lives on. There are shadows around me and over me. They prod me with stick like objects but I won’t move for them. I am fading now, the final downer. Hands, arms reach down and grab me. They lift me up roughly and the pain in my side shoots through the haze like a sharp needle. This is the last carriage, this final fight for survival. A fight I am losing. A fight I want to lose. I see the black and white image of myself stalking the aisles of the train hours before and feel sick. If this is the magic land I want to go home. And I’m going. My eyes are shutting because the pain is too intense. The baby crying serenades me as I go. My name is Tom. This is the last carriage.