Twelve

Chadderton grasped for the rim of the seat behind him, steadied himself and began to rise. The Catalyst stood motionless beside the ragged gap which had been the sliding door. It held the girl with one arm. Sobbing, with one sleeve of her blouse hanging like a rag from the thing’s other clenched fist, she seemed to have given in to whatever fate lay in store for her. Beside him, Chadderton became aware of movement as the soldier began to recover consciousness. Chadderton stood up and saw that the thing’s jaw was hanging slack and loose. Blood and saliva dripped to the floor. For the first time, he noticed the blue-­white glint of an exposed intestine in the thing’s stomach. Now he realised that, somehow, the motivating force behind the Catalyst had been temporarily withdrawn. Standing like a zombie, the thing that had been Phil the Tiger was awaiting its next instruction.

Still intensely wary of the Catalyst, Chadderton moved to the soldier and helped him to his feet, never for one moment taking his gaze from the thing’s face.

‘Anne . . .’ croaked the soldier, wincing at the pain of two broken ribs. Instantly, the thing tightened its grip, a deep frown settling on its features.

‘Noooo . . .’ When it spoke, it sounded like something that had never been human. The girl ceased struggling and the Catalyst stood waiting for its Master to return. And then, slowly and with a hideous unhealthiness, a smile began to spread across the thing’s features.

‘Get the girl!’ shouted Chadderton, lunging forward shoulder first and taking the thing full on. The soldier dragged the girl away as Chadderton and the Catalyst hurtled out into the corridor in a frenzied scrabbling of arms and legs, colliding with the corridor wall. Chadderton felt the thing’s grip around his throat; knew that the hideous power which had enabled it to smash the door and which they could never have beaten in the compartment, was somehow dissipated. But it was still more than strong enough to rip his head from his shoulders.

The thing slammed him hard against the corridor window. Chadderton felt himself being lifted clear from the floor as he lashed out at its head. It slammed him backwards again, holding him aloft by the throat. He could feel his windpipe being squeezed shut; could hear the window glass cracking behind him under the pressure. He tried to brace himself against the window and push forwards, taking the thing off balance. But the Catalyst quickly compensated, dashing him backwards again. The window shattered. Chadderton felt a terrific suction sweep the glass away. A biting cold wind dragged at his body.

This is how I’m going to die! he thought. There was a kind of poetic justice about it. And then, he was being pulled into the corridor again. The soldier had grabbed the thing from behind and had succeeded in swinging it round. Diverted for an instant, it turned on the soldier, flinging Chadderton aside into the compartment like a rag doll. A howling, buffeting wind whipped at them as the Catalyst slammed the soldier to the ground.

In the compartment, Chadderton struggled to his feet. The girl had fainted. He clambered towards the corridor and saw the axe lying amid the splintered ruins of the sliding door. The Catalyst and the soldier were beyond Chadderton’s line of vision as he stooped and grabbed it from the floor. A heavy, thumping sound was coming from the corridor as he emerged.

Suppressing an involuntary cry of rage and nausea, he saw that the soldier was dead. The thing had knocked him to the floor and was stamping viciously and methodically on what was left of his head. The thing was chuckling now as it turned to face Chadderton, the soldier’s body still jerking on the corridor floor, fingers clenching and unclenching. Rage swelled within Chadderton. Raising the axe high above his head, feeling it clunk against the carriage roof as the Catalyst advanced towards him, he brought it down with all his force. Quickly, the thing’s arm flashed up to meet the blade and took the full force of the blow, diverting the weapon from its head. But the impetus of the blow swung the thing’s arm downwards, trapping its hand between the blade and the ragged sill of the broken window. The axe bit deeply through the thing’s wrist and embedded itself into the sill. The Catalyst’s severed hand twitched to the floor.

Savagely Chadderton tugged the axe free and drew back. The Catalyst held up the ragged stump before its face. To Chadderton, it seemed that the thing was wondering at this new development. But it showed no pain and there was no blood. It was, after all, dead. It smiled. And continued to advance on Chadderton.

Chadderton backed away down the corridor as it came, keeping the axe thrust threateningly outwards. He stepped on a body lying on the corridor floor behind him. He wavered and almost fell. Quickly regaining his balance, he continued to retreat as the undead thing lurched after him. And, as it came, a single thought screamed in Chadderton’s head:

How can you kill something that’s already dead?!

‘Director of Operations? This is Brigadier Anderson. I’m giving orders that everyone is to pull out of King’s Cross at once. The same goes for your own control staff. I want you all cleared out of there immediately.’

‘What about the derailment at Doncaster?’

‘Four separate charges were laid and detonated. The lines were untouched.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I know it’s impossible. But the railway lines were unmarked. We damaged the embankment but the lines are intact. We’re moving down towards you to try again. I don’t know what we’re faced with here, but the train is on its way and I want everyone out of King’s Cross . . .’

‘Brigadier! Hold the line! I’m getting a report that . . . there’s some kind of disturbance in the station down here . . . What? . . . Brigadier, something’s happening down here on Platform 10 . . .’

‘Put the Commander in Charge back on the line. I want everyone out of that place . . .’

‘The platform is glowing, Brigadier. Oh my God, I don’t believe what I’m seeing . . .’

Silence.

‘Put my man on!’

‘I don’t believe it . . . it’s glowing brighter . . . the platform is starting to break up . . . My God, it’s splitting open . . . It’s . . . Oh my God . . .’

The Ghost Train was on its way.

Azimuth had tasted and was gone.

Mark emerged from hiding, knowing that his mind had been tasted and defiled. Travelling back up the ruined corridors of his memory, he could see the complete extent of Azimuth’s pillage. His mind had been raped.

Now Mark was once again in the driving cab, once again aware of the power that surged there. It had claimed and tasted everything that it had found in Mark’s mind. But he had hidden himself from it. Now, Azimuth had returned to the train, believing that it had completely absorbed Mark’s individuality. It presumed that his mind had been totally eaten and that only the physically living but empty shell of his body remained. It would return later and fill that shell with its own unholy force, reanimating it as its Chief Disciple.

Now Azimuth flowed and surged within the walls, transferring its full essence into the thing which thundered on white-­hot rails towards King’s Cross Station. It had withdrawn from the Catalyst and Mark knew that he had bought Chadderton some time.

The Time of Arrival was imminent; Mark was aware that Azimuth must concentrate on that above all things. Four times denied, Mark knew that it would never sense that he had escaped it. His consciousness, his will, were apart from Azimuth now. Here in the driving cabin, he knew that as Azimuth powered the train on towards Arrival it would pay no heed to the crumpled form which lay on the floor. Mark knew that he had only one chance for humanity. If he missed that chance, no hope would be left. Power surged and flowed above and around him. Opening his ravaged mind once more, he tentatively and hesitantly probed for the key.

Chadderton raised the axe for another blow as the Catalyst continued to advance on him. Back down the corridor, a series of panic-­stricken, high-­pitched screams reached his ears. The Catalyst turned to look back and Chadderton swung the axe hard. But the undead thing had anticipated the attack. The ragged stump of its forearm lashed out and diverted the blow, the other hand seized his face and dashed him hard against the corridor wall. The axe clattered to the floor. Chadderton clutched at the grip on his face, somehow managed to tear himself free and lurched away. The screams ricocheted down the corridor as he struggled to regain his balance, expecting to feel the thing upon him at any second, expecting to feel that final blow of the axe. When he looked again, the Catalyst was lurching back along the corridor towards their compartment. Standing in the ragged gap of the doorway, Chadderton could see the soldier’s girlfriend looking down at his mutilated body. Her hands were pressed tightly to her chest as she screamed, unaware that the undead thing was making its way back to her, dragging the axe behind it. It could have killed him, but it had not. Obviously, thought Chadderton, it intended to finish what it had started with the girl.

‘Get away from there!’

As Chadderton began to run after the Catalyst he saw the girl look up, still screaming and seemingly frozen in the shattered doorway.

How can I stop it?

He was almost upon the Catalyst again when a thought sprang into his mind, apparently from nowhere. It came in a way that made Chadderton think that the idea had been planted in his brain from somewhere else. It seemed like a suggestion from far away and, for an instant, Chadderton thought he recognised a trace of Mark’s presence in his mind.

‘Get Father Daniels’ flask from the compartment! The silver flask on the seat beside him!’ shouted Chadderton.

The girl seemed unable to hear him as the undead Catalyst staggered towards her. She had stopped screaming now, but her gaze was still fixed on the thing as it drew nearer, like a small nervous rabbit entranced by a snake.

‘Damn it! If you want to live, get that flask! Move!’

And then the girl vanished into the compartment. An instant later, she reappeared with the flask. The silver flask which contained Holy Water.

‘Throw the water at it! Throw it!’

The girl was fumbling with the stopper and it seemed to Chadderton that she might drop it. In seconds, the Catalyst would be on her. Chadderton tensed himself for a forward leap at the thing if she should fail to do it in time. The stopper rattled to the floor and, in the next instant, the girl had stepped forward, her face stark and white as she jerked the flask at the shambling marionette. A jet of water ribboned through empty space and splashed across the thing’s head and shoulders. And still it came on. The girl was sobbing; she jerked the flask again and water cascaded over the Catalyst’s chest. The thing began to raise the axe with its one good hand and Chadderton tensed to leap at its arm. But now the axe was clattering to the floor and the Catalyst had stopped. It began to open its arms away from its chest, looking down to where the water had landed. A low, moaning noise was beginning to issue from its throat.

‘Get back into the compartment!’ yelled Chadderton as a sudden premonition swept over him. Thin wisps of smoke were beginning to curl upwards from the thing’s shoulders and head, dancing in the wind which whipped through the shattered corridor window. Now the smoke was thickening and billowing, and the low moan was building and bubbling in the thing’s throat. The Catalyst clutched at its chest as smoke began to envelop its form. The corridor was filled with the stench of burning and the thing began to shriek in fear and pain.

‘Master . . . Master! MASTER!’

With a sound like the sudden flap of a canvas sail, the Catalyst’s upper torso and head burst into thick, oily orange flame. The blast hit Chadderton, singeing his hair and eyebrows as he leaped back, shielding his face with one hand. Shrieking filled the corridor; the blazing marionette whirled and began to blunder in his direction. As the thing clutched at the corridor wall, flames transferred to the gristle and tissue which Chadderton saw for the first time was growing there. It hurtled towards him, arms outstretched and groping. Chadderton flung himself backwards from the fiery embrace, crashed to the floor and felt the undead fireball pass over him. He was burning again, just like that faraway time in that neatly-­trimmed back garden. His jacket was burning and he forced himself to roll over and over. The screaming was receding now and he squirmed round to see the burning figure lurching away from him down the corridor in the direction of the locomotive. Everywhere it touched, hungry flame leaped and licked at the corridor walls. Chadderton felt something flap over him and looked up to see that the girl had reappeared from the compartment and had thrown her overcoat across his burning jacket. She did it mechanically. Chadderton could see that she was in shock; it reminded him of the look on Mark’s little girl’s face not so long ago. He knew that the Catalyst was screaming its way back to its master, spreading fire as it went. Even now, flames were beginning to take hold of the corridor. The green creeper-­like tissue, which hung thickly at the far end of the carriage, was burning and sizzling fiercely. Chadderton took the girl’s arm and pulled himself to his feet.

The Ghost Train was burning. There was only one way to go. Chadderton turned towards the rear of the train, dragging the girl after him.