“How am I?” He laughed heartily. “How d’you think? Isn’t it a marvel? The old station back? No, no,
“Very flash. Nice to see you happy, Wilf.”
“Nice to be happy again, let me tell you. Back in harness, eh?” He laughed as happily as a child. “Marvellous!”
“Yes,” said Barrow evenly. He glanced at Carlton, but he was looking at the stationmaster with an odd expression, like a man who’s cracked an egg and found inside a favourite toy soldier that he’d lost when he was five. “Yes, it broke your heart when they closed down this line and tore up the rails.”
Wilf’s brow clouded. “Yes. Yes, it was a terrible day.”
“It’s terrible to see a friend go into decline like that. We all rallied round. You know we did.”
“Aye, everybody was very kind.”
“Yes. We were all very upset when you hanged yourself from the bridge.”
“Aye,” said Wilf ruminatively. Then he brightened up. “Anyway, I’ve got work to do. We’ve got a train coming in this evening. Mustn’t show up the station for our visitors. Morning, Frank, Joe. Drop around when things aren’t so busy. Have a cuppa.” He turned and walked back down the platform, pausing to wave to them as he went back into his office.
“Oh, God,” said Carlton quietly. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
“No call for blasphemy. Besides, I doubt very much God’s got anything to do with this.”
“But, but” — Carlton pointed at the closed office door — “he’s
“I know. Looking remarkably healthy on it, I must say.”
“We cut him down,” said Carlton. Barrow took him by the elbow and started to steer him away. “We buried him. You were there, too.” He looked for something to put over the finality of death as he’d been led to understand it to date. “There
“I was there, aye. We all were. Everybody liked Wilf. I don’t suppose he knows a tramp accidentally burned the station down ten years ago.” He stopped by the timetable board. It was empty but for a colourful flyer:
“I already am,” said Barrow darkly, and led the muttering Carlton back to his house and a cup of strong tea.
The hooting started at dusk. A dismal, unhappy sound that echoed from the hills and sent shivers down the spine. It was a faintly pleasant sensation. With no telephone calls or knocks at doors, the town gravitated en masse to the station that hadn’t been there as anything more than charred beams and blackened piles of bricks even twenty-four hours before. In huddled groups, the citizens waited. The hooting came closer, joined by a gargantuan, rhythmic snorting and a mechanical clanging of metal on metal. Somebody saw the smoke first and pointed, speechless. The huffing plume grew closer and closer, and the people there didn’t know whether to run or to wait. They waited because it was less effort.
And then it appeared: a great, monstrous beast of steel and fire. Sparks flew from its smokestack as they once did from the pyres of martyrs and witches, swirling into the darkening sky like fiery gems on deep-blue brocade. The train’s whistle blew, the triumphant shriek of a great predator that has found the prey. And the hooting grew louder and clarified into a horrid, disjointed tune played upon the steam calliope in the fifth car, a death dance for skeletons to spin and stagger to.
The train drew into the station and spat steam across the platform, making everybody skitter away. The engine made a noise that, to Bar row’s ear, sounded like a contemptuous “Hah!”
And then nothing. The calliope played its tune, the engine panted slowly to itself, and that was it. A few of the braver souls took a couple of steps closer to the cab. Abruptly, a scarecrow lurched out of the shadows and waved at them, grinning crazily. The brave souls traded in their proximity to it for a little more distance and a mental note to change their underwear at the first opportunity. The scarecrow was clearly designed to scare more than birds; it was wearing a singed and filthy pair of overalls and a Casey Jones hat that had seen better days. The hat had a large stain on it that might have been long-dried blood. Its face was a parody of a man, clownish white make-up fixed in place with what seemed to be several coats of varnish. The crowd was just getting the hang of looking at it without fearing for their stomach contents when another one popped up and waved, too. This one was obviously meant to be fatter, but the weight distribution was all wrong. It looked like somebody had stuffed its coveralls with balled-up newspaper to pad it out. It had the same insincere and crazed grin on its face, the same sheen of shellac. Worse yet, the hand it was waving with — the left hand — was gloved, but ivory bone was clearly visible between the glove and cuff.
Nearby Barrow, a young boy asked his mother, “Mum, can I go to the fair?” in the same way he might have asked if he had to go to the dentist.
His mother’s eyes never faltered from the occupants of the engine’s cab, nor did the hard, thin line of her lips soften for a second. “Certainly not.”
“Oh, Mum,” said the boy in a hitherto unknown tone of relieved complaint.
Suddenly everybody’s attention was drawn to one of the rear cars. Two smartly dressed men descended to the platform and walked towards them, deep in conversation. As they got closer, scraps of the conversation could be made out.
“… morally corrupt …”
“… don’t lecture me …”
“… treatment worse than the disease …”
“… two more days …”
Johannes Cabal stopped and glared at his brother. “All I’m asking is for you to keep your moral outrage under control for two more days. Is that really too much to ask?”
“I have no idea why I agreed to this anymore. I thought nothing could be as bad as eight years with the Druins, but this last year …? If our parents were still alive — ”
“Well, they’re not, and I didn’t see anything in the will that gifted you with the privilege of gainsaying my every decision.”
He waited for a witty comeback but was disappointed, as Horst had just noticed their audience. “Johannes. We are not alone.”
Cabal twitched with surprise and looked at the townsfolk. He smiled wanly. Somewhere, a churn of milk went sour.
“Not to worry. Dennis and Denzil have been keeping them amused,” said Horst, and laughed.
Cabal scowled. His attempts at preserving Dennis and Denzil had become more desperate over recent months. Usage of the mortician’s arts had been slowly replaced by those of the taxidermist and finally the carpenter. It was a fraught night when first he had called for varnish and fuse wire. His attempts at cosmetic repairs had been risible, and his next scheme, of making them “look like clowns, people like that sort of thing, don’t they?” had been a grotesque disaster at every level, from the technical to the aesthetic. Although he wouldn’t admit it to himself, they even scared him a little.
“You two,” he barked when they reached the car, “stop gurning like a pair of fools and get back in there.” It was unfair to accuse them of pulling faces when these were now the only expressions of which they were capable, but Cabal was long past the point of being fair. Dennis and Denzil withdrew into the shadows of the footplate, grins fixed. Cabal took a deep breath and prepared to patch up the damage to public relations they had doubtless caused. Things had been getting hard recently. If he’d known a year ago that he would need only two souls to reach his target and had two working nights in which to gather them, he would have considered it grounds for optimism. Now, however, he wasn’t so sure. Horst had been becoming quite withdrawn and argumentative over the past few weeks. Cabal doubted his brother would actually sabotage his efforts, but there was always the possibility that he might cause problems by withdrawing his assistance at an awkward moment. Worse, though, he had a feeling that Satan wasn’t about to let him win his bet just like that. He would have to be on his guard for some dirty tricks being played this late in the game.
He turned to the crowd. They were looking anything from neutral to hostile. This wasn’t going to be easy. He
