The Trainman

The train hit the water at speed, but it didn’t stop. It ploughed on into the deep, the murky blue-grey washing over the windows, and then it started to climb, rumbling along the corroded tracks and churning up the water in its wake. When it reached the surface, it lurched forward and emerged as if nothing had happened.

Something had happened, though: Holly had woken up, and she wasn’t the least bit pleased. She was never pleased when she woke up, and even less so when she was woken up, whether by an alarm or a stirring partner or an inconsiderate train.

“Where am I?” she said. She had always had a horrible habit of talking to herself. Because she was, very much, alone.

The train carriage was empty, but it was decked out in a delightful, if rather antiquated, Art Deco style with room enough for a dozen passengers. Which isn’t many, as far as trains go, but each passenger would have been treated to a lavish level of comfort. Plush seats built into mahogany frames, red velvet curtains held back with golden ties, and an intricately-carved table that must have been worth more than Holly herself. Figuratively speaking, that is, for Holly had accumulated an astounding amount of debt, so in a literal sense she was worth negative one hundred and eighty-six thousand pounds. Not the time to dwell on that, though; Holly was too busy marveling at the train’s decadent innards and trying to decide whether this felt more Hogwarts or Orient Express.

“Hope I don’t get murdered,” she muttered, and then slid herself out from her booth. There really was nobody around. Perhaps she had missed the last stop and the train was heading back to the station? In truth, though, she didn’t remember boarding the train. And she lived in London, so unless this train was hurtling down the center of the Thames, she was probably quite a long way from home.

She glanced out of the window and caught a glimpse of her bedraggled reflection, looking like a mid-thirties girl – she still thought of herself as a girl, but insisted on being called a woman by her parents – who had just woken up. That seemed about right.

Beyond her reflection, she couldn’t see the train tracks. She couldn’t see the shore, either. She could only see water, dark and choppy under the starless night sky, lapping right up to the train and splashing occasionally against the glass to remind her of its presence.

“Well, this is just ridiculous,” Holly said, ever the pragmatist, and with that she strode down the red carpet between the booths, heading for the front of the train.

The next carriage was empty, and the one after that, too. The one after that, though, was locked, and the door was not the fancy varnished wood of the other carriages, but a metal door without pomp or pageantry.

Holly gave it a knock, the sort of knock that said, “I’m outside but I’m coming in, so you might as well open up and save us both the awkwardness.” She hadn’t decided whether she would actually follow through with the threat of her knock, and to her great relief she was saved the bother of deciding by the door being pulled open.

“Hello,” said the man. He was an odd sort, by the look of him. Wearing a cloak, for a start, which was either very fashion-forward or very lazy, and Holly didn’t feel qualified to decide which it was. He was slightly unkempt, as much as a clean-shaven bald man can look unkempt, but he was smiley enough. Holly thought he looked precisely like the sort of person who would have been into trainspotting in his youth and had either embraced that hobby or let the hobby entirely consume him. The man grinned wider. Perhaps a bit of both.

“Hello,” Holly said. “Who are you?”

“I’m the Trainman.”

“The . . . You mean the train driver?”

“Well, I used to be the Ferryman, but it’s a train now, so I just swapped out the word ‘ferry’ and replaced it with ‘train’. I don’t really do much driving, you see, so I probably can’t justify the job title.”

“Oh,” Holly said, as if that made perfect sense. “Do you mean this train used to be a boat?”

“Yes, back in the day,” the Trainman said, his voice full of the sort of wistful nostalgia that warned of an impending story. “But now most of the river has dried up – climate change, you know? – so we had to lay down train tracks to get us over the dry bits.”

He motioned out of one of the big windows. Outside, the water was gone. Now, the train was barreling through a desolate wasteland, deep cracks in the earth visible only by the glow of the train as it swept past. The occasional parched plant or wilted weed broke up the monotony, but not by much.

“Sorry if one of the watery bits gave you a fright,” the Trainman continued. “I haven’t mastered braking yet.”

Holly pulled her eyes away from the window. “I . . . think I’d like to get off.”

“Oh,” the Trainman said, crestfallen. “You can’t.”

“You’re going to keep me on here against my will?” Holly said, in her best indignant voice.

“Sort of,” he replied, wincing. “See, I can’t just stop the train and let you off here.”

Holly glanced out of the window again. That seemed fair.

“Can’t really stop it at all, to be honest,” he continued.

“You can’t stop it?”

“No, no,” he said. “I’m really just a figurehead.”

Holly sighed. “Can I speak to your manager, then, please?”

“Manager’s not here, I’m afraid. Rarely leaves the office.”

“Brilliant,” Holly said. “So you’re the only one here, and yet you have no power here at all?”

“Oh, I do have some power here, actually,” he said, and held out his hand. “Tickets, please.”

Holly patted her empty pockets. “I don’t have a ticket.”

“You don’t have a coin?”

“What do you want, a ticket or a coin?”

“Either. Which do you have?”

“Neither.”

The Trainman shifted, the squirm of a man who was uncomfortable with this level of confrontation. “That’s going to be a problem. How did you get on?” He paused. “Wait, did you jump the barriers at the train station?”

“No!” Holly said. “I just woke up here.”

“Huh,” the Trainman said. “That’s unusual. Are you particularly valiant, noble or courageous?”

“What?” Holly said. “Look, I’m going back to my seat.”

“Well, you can’t sit in First Class,” the Trainman said. “You don’t have a ticket.”

“But there’s nobody else here.”

“But it sets a precedent.”

“I’ll sit in the regular carriage, then,” Holly said, exasperated.

“You don’t have a ticket for that either, though,” the Trainman said with an embarrassed grimace. A lightbulb flickered behind him. “Say, here’s an idea. Could you dangle off the side?”

“I . . . What?”

“You know–” he motioned clinging to the side of the train, tongue out like a dog in the wind. “–dangling?”

Holly shook her head and rubbed her eyes. She should’ve stayed in First Class. Should’ve stayed asleep. Why did she always feel the need to explore? It was ever her downfall. “Can’t I just get off at the next stop?”

“I’m afraid the next stop is the first and only stop. You’ve really played the system, here, miss.”

“And where is this first and only stop?” Holly said.

“The Underworld.”

Holly gasped. “The grimy Camden nightclub?” She shook her head again. “I can’t go there. Too many Goths.”

The Trainman shrugged. “Technically, without a ticket or a coin, you’re meant to wander around on the shore for a hundred years before I can even let you on board.”

“Well, then take me back.”

“Tricky to do that on a train.”

“What’s the steering wheel for, then?” Holly pointed at the big wooden wheel behind the Trainman, with its ornately carved spokes and varnished handles protruding from the circle.

“Oh, that’s just for show,” the Trainman said. “Gives it more of a nautical theme, you know? To make me feel more at home.” He spun the wheel, and the train ploughed ever onwards.

Holly frowned. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Boat-train: ridiculous. Fake steering wheel: ridiculous. Your cloak, just for the record: ridiculous. And a policy of leaving people on the shore for a hundred years is, quite obviously, ridiculous. You know most people don’t even live that long, right?”

The Trainman now looked rather embarrassed to be wearing a cloak so conspicuously, but he couldn’t remove it without Holly noticing. So he doubled down on it, and pulled up the hood. It gave him a slightly macabre look, his sunken eyes seeming to retreat further into the shadows of his skull, and when he wasn’t smiling his face was morose.

“You know you’re dead, right?” he said.

“Am I?” Holly replied, feeling tired and impatient but– well, not alive, she hadn’t felt alive for years, but certainly not dead.

“Yes,” the Trainman said. “And if I knew you were going to be rude, and if my steering wheel was operational, I would turn this train around and leave you on the shores of the Styx for a hundred years, ticket or no ticket. Because that’s quite reasonable, actually: a hundred years out of eternity is a small price to pay, and it’s not like you can die twice.”

Now Holly shifted uncomfortably. She stared at the floor, partly because she was ashamed of herself – the Trainman had been perfectly pleasant – and partly because the Trainman’s eyes were starting to creep her out. And partly because the rocking of the train was making her feel queasy. Could dead people feel queasy? It seemed like a wholly unnecessary sensation for a dead person.

“Sorry,” Holly muttered.

“That’s OK,” the Trainman said, and his smile returned.

“Is there, like, a way to check?” Holly said. “If I’m actually dead or not, I mean? It’s just . . . I think there might have been a mix up.”

“Of course,” the Trainman said, and he pulled a flintlock pistol out of his cloak and shot her in the chest. The bang reverberated around the carriage and left a ringing silence in its wake.

“Ow,” said Holly, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Really ow?” the Trainman said, eyebrow raised under the shroud of his hood.

“. . . No,” Holly admitted, and her shoulders sagged. “How annoying.”

“That you’re dead?”

“No, that dead people can’t feel pain but can still get travel sick, apparently.”

The Trainman nodded. “Can still feel nervous, too. Which is nice, in a way, because it means you can still get excited for stuff. Depression is out, though, so that’s good, and any skin complaints tend to clear up. Any questionable moles that you should’ve got checked? Poof. Gone.”

“Well, that’s handy,” Holly said, examining her newly-smooth arms. “Can I ask what happened?”

“What happened? You mean with climate change?”

“No, I mean how did I . . .” Holly drew her thumb across her neck. “You know. Die. Unless that was climate change?”

“Oh!” the Trainman said. “Let’s see.” He rummaged in his cloak and pulled out a battered old book, then rifled through it to the very back. “Ah yes, here we go. Says here debt collectors came knocking. You threatened to kill them, threatened to call their manager, threatened to kill yourself – all very counter-productive – and then it looks like there was a tussle and you fell out of the window.”

“Oh.”

“But there must be some sort of loophole, because apparently that constitutes a hero’s death. Hence . . . here you are.”

The train lurched again and the wheels squealed.

“Looks like we’re nearly here,” the Trainman said as the train slowed.

“I still don’t have a ticket, though,” Holly said sheepishly.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I don’t get paid enough to care. I don’t get paid at all, actually. Just love trains. Always have done.”

Holly smiled. “Thank you, Trainman.”

The Trainman held out his hand. “The name’s Charon.”

“Thank you, Charon.” Holly shook his hand and it was cold to the touch. Nice that she could still feel that. “Say, Charon?”

“Yes?”

“Will I like it?”

“Like what?”

“The Underworld.”

“That depends,” Charon said. “Remind me, what were your thoughts on the Camden nightclub?”

“Err . . . Too many Goths.”

Charon nodded. “I think you’ll like it. None of them here. Not after they plundered Thermopylae.”

With a flourish of his cloak, he disappeared back into his superfluous driver’s carriage and closed the metal door behind him with a quiet slam.

Holly was left alone once more, and she gazed out of the window as the train juddered to a stop. The scenery was much the same as before. Vacant. Sparse.

A new voice crackled over the speakers, a friendly female voice: “Please alight here for the Underworld,” it said. “Have a nice stay.”

The doors slid open.

Holly rubbed her eyes. Still so tired. She squinted into the desolation. So empty. So much opportunity. And no debt. She smiled, and stepped off the train.