All Hallow’s Journey

by Hugh Todd

I slipped aboard the midnight train that last night of October with only a second to spare. Doors slammed, a whistle shrilled, brakes hissed, and the warm yellow glow of the station fell away into darkness.

Gathering my wits and breath in the carriage vestibule, I was startled to see, standing opposite, a pale-skinned young man, where I had thought there to be nothing but shadows. He was staring at me. Not threateningly. No such — how shall I put it? — extrovert emotion could be ascribed to him. His gaze was rather, as I stared back at him, somehow subtractive. I felt, looking into the fathomless wells that were his eyes, that all the light, faint as it was in that small space, was falling into them. Indeed, such was the sensation that I myself might topple forward into their emptiness that I put a hand over my own eyes and steadied myself against the wall.

By the time I had regained my composure the young man was gone. His disappearance would, perhaps, have cheered me if it were not that I had heard no sound of movement, and had been standing in such a position in relation to the inner door of the carriage that he could not have passed without brushing against me. I tried the door to the guard’s compartment in the other direction. It was locked. No light came from within.

At the thought of illumination and the company of fellow travellers, I opened the door to the carriage’s passenger compartment. No welcome light, however, spilled out, but rather a grey phosphorescence, the source of which, as I entered, I found myself unable to detect. It seemed to emanate from the air itself. To add to the disagreeable effect it produced upon me, this glow wavered unevenly. I would attempt to make out the features of a seat, or a fitting, only to find that they became indistinct; more so the harder I looked, until I could resolve nothing at all of its shape.

Ahead in the carriage, I caught sight of an upright form and moved towards it. I was forced, as I did so, to look askance, keeping the figure at the edge of my vision, so as not to lose sight of it in the strange light. Yet though I picked up my pace, the man (if that was what it was) appeared to stay at the same relative distance from me, until I found myself at the other end of the carriage and quite alone.

I sank into the seat beside me. The carriage rocked. The train’s roar, the clack of wheels and percussive gusts spoke of the world through which we passed. I leant towards the window and my dread grew more urgent still. I placed my hand against the glass, cold and smooth, held my face close to it. I could see nothing. No light from outside, no reflection from within. Again I was staring into an abyss, an endless void, and again I recoiled and shielded my eyes from it, lest I fall (as I felt) into its emptiness.

“This is not your train.”

I turned. My heart jolted. Next to me sat the young man.

“You are not one of us,” he said.

I could not speak. Horror now assailed me in full force. In the young man’s eyes was only darkness; the end of hope, the end of life itself. I went to stand, to force limbs from which all strength had drained to do my bidding, and failed. Despairing, I squeezed shut my eyes and tipped myself towards the young man, hoping thereby to disturb his composure, to break even for a second the spell under which he held me. My head fell onto an empty seat.

How long did I lie there? Seconds? Hours? When I did rise, slowly, as if oppressed by a great weight, I espied again that upright figure, standing back along the carriage. Now, though, in every seat sat a man or woman or child, silent and still, pale and ghastly in that light, staring forward. How had they come there? I had been certain, in my earlier pursuit, that not a soul was in the carriage, apart from the young man. I shouted something, but no sound came, and no head turned from its fixed forward aspect.

What journey was I upon? Who were these people? I could remember no nightmare as malevolent as this. A scream caught like fist in my throat.

“You are not one of us.” The young man’s words resonated in my mind, and from those words formed a tiny spark of hope.

“I am not one of you,” I croaked, and this time the effect was as a crack of thunder. The faces of all of those ghostly passengers turned towards me, suffused with overwhelming rage. They rose in unison, surged forwards, seized and propelled me into the forward vestibule of the carriage. Violent and frightful as they were, however, I was exultant.

“I am not one of you,” I shouted.

Cool air poured in, with the scent of eucalyptus.

“I am not one of you,” I cried, flying from the carriage door into the living night.

The sound of the train fell away. Blood trickled warm over my forehead.

“I am not one of you,” I whispered.

“Not yet.”