The Train
by L.N. Hunter
In 1977, a cache of several hundred dismembered bodies, dated to about 750CE, was discovered in Southern Italy. No indication has been found explaining who they were or why they were so comprehensively destroyed. This is not an isolated instance: similar mass burial sites have been found across the globe, their origins dating from prehistory to the current century, and none with any explanation. The closest we have to any historical documentation are fragments such as the following, from a c5,000BCE Sumerian tablet:
There shall be a Warrior from each House, and he shall [indecipherable] the Domains of the Houses through blood and terror. The [indecipherable] shall quail in terror of the Warriors of the Houses.
There are also some hints in the Norse mythology of “wardens from the north and from the east carrying eyes on their hands” who “destroyed all that did not please the gods,” and in the so-called Black Gospel, allegedly deleted from the Old Testament by Alexander the Great:
No man shall stand before God that has displeased the custodians, for they bring the wrath of God and, without mercy, they shall destroy peoples.
This work seeks to catalogue all such instances that are known, assembling what information we have from myth and legend to suggest some potential explanations.
— Introduction to “The Secret Massacres,” A.J. Robinson [unpublished PhD thesis]
It had been just another job. Nothing special, no surprises. Well, apart from the business with her left thumb, and that wasn’t anything to get worked up about.
As usual, Frank Tate had picked up the details via his dark web drop box. It looked straightforward, so he accepted, stating his fee and bitcoin address. The money was transferred instantly, as if his client had been hungrily waiting, confident of Tate’s response. He had no idea who the client was, and the system meant that his clients knew nothing more about Tate than his name. And his reputation, otherwise they wouldn’t come looking for his services nor pay so much money upfront.
Often clients had special requirements, such as particular methods of killing or post- (in some cases, pre-) mortem mutilations. This time, he was instructed to deliver the woman’s thumb to an address in York.
Tate had been sent the entry passcode to her building and a model file of the key to her front door for him to 3d-print. That already made it an easier assignment than many before. He didn’t care who Ms. Dimitrious was, nor why his client wanted her dead, but he’d accepted the contract. He certainly had no qualms about killing a woman—his third assignment ever had been a woman and her six-year-old son. He felt no emotion then beyond satisfaction at a job well done.
He’d entered Dimitrious’s fourth floor apartment shortly after 8:20pm and left by 8:30. Those ten minutes included some time admiring the view of the London skyline from her floor-to-ceiling window after he had fulfilled the requirements of his contract and thinking that he could live in a place like this. He’d get rid of the large painting of red flowers that covered most of the wall opposite the window, though. He wasn’t sure what they were: roses or tulips, or something. He’d have to get rid of the body in the window’s reflection, of course.
His target had shown no surprise when Tate had appeared, and she’d made no noise as he’d strangled her. It had been as if the slightly built woman had decided there was no point in resisting.
Now Tate’s hands were gripping the sides of the basin in the cramped lavatory cubicle of the 9:15pm train to York. He stared at his face in the mirror. His skin looked pale, his face drawn, and his gaze kept falling to the breast of his jacket. Underneath the fabric, a pocket contained the woman’s thumb in a plastic bag wrapped in a handkerchief. The small thumb with its turquoise nail varnish and its weird, blue-inked eye tattoo on the knuckle.
It had been an effortless kill. So why was he letting it get to him?
Maybe he was becoming too old for this life; perhaps it was time to hang up his spurs. Over the years, he’d been paid more than enough for a comfortable retirement. Except that he enjoyed the thrill.
Tate splashed water on his perspiring face. When he lifted his eyes to the mirror again, he found himself peering as if through a portal into Dimitrious’s Islington apartment. The scene was just as he had left it: target lying on the floor beside the book she’d been clutching, even as he ended her life. Large, heavy, with a light-swallowing black cover imprinted with the words Midnight Labyrinth in silver, it seemed to take up more of the room than the woman. There was a hint of blood on the carpet near her hand, a darkening so faint you wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t know it was there.
As he stared, the woman’s leg twitched. Her eyes flicked open.
Artemis Dimitrious lurched to her feet, as if falling in reverse, removing Tate’s garrote as she rose. She picked up the book and sat on her sofa. As Tate watched, his erstwhile victim sat down and carefully licked her thumb stump clean of blood, then patted her hair back into place. Task completed, she opened the book and winked at Tate. The large picture on the wall behind her looked less like flowers than it did angry red faces, the stamens and pistils taking on the semblance of disapproving eyes and scowling mouths.
Tate lurched back, slamming against the flimsy cubicle door. He blinked, and the mirror showed his drained reflection again. He stumbled out into the corridor.
He shook his head. What the Hell was wrong with him?
After a couple of deep breaths, Tate checked the mirror in the cubicle again—nothing more than his gaunt reflection. Why was this kill affecting him so much? It was just a typical contract, with that one additional and trivial requirement that he catch this specific train to York, bringing Dimitrious’s thumb along with him.
On his way back to his seat, a sudden realisation that the carriage was empty pulled him from his ruminations. Leaving London this late in the day, the train certainly hadn’t been full, though he was sure there had been a cluster of rowdy students at one end, and a quiet man reading a paperback in the middle. But now there was no one. Had he missed a stop when he was staring in the mirror, and everyone else had disembarked? He paced the length of the carriage, looking for some sign of other passengers.
Nothing—no discarded newspapers, no empty coffee cups or crisp packets. Tate peered through the windows but could detect nothing in the blackness outside. Surely there should be something out there, a glow from some town or village or headlights flashing as cars journeyed along nearby roads. He looked through the window at the end of the carriage, into to the next one, but that too was dark apart from the emergency exit lighting.
Tate pulled the door between the carriages open. The background train sounds became louder, and he had the eerie feeling that the clackety-clack, clackety-clack of the wheels was synchronising itself with his heartbeat. As soon as he stepped into the next carriage, its lights came on, fluorescent tubes flickering greenly before settling down.
He glanced back at the carriage he had just left—it was dark. The carriage in which he now stood was devoid of life, too, as was the next. He continued through carriage after deserted carriage. He began to run, wrenching the inter-carriage doors open as he hurtled along the train.
The train was still moving, so there had to be a driver. Tate wasn’t sure if you could get from the passenger compartments to the driver’s cab, but he’d damned well try. Grabbing the handle to the next carriage along and twisting as he stepped forward, he smacked into the door—it wouldn’t open. Swearing loudly, he strode to the opposite end of the carriage, to the door through which he’d entered, but it wouldn’t open either. He tried the external doors, but the door mechanism was disabled while the train was moving. He attempted to pry them apart but was rewarded only with a broken fingernail and the throbbing of a stress headache. He swore at himself for disposing of his knife, the one with which he’d removed Dimitrious’s thumb. He could have used it on the doors if he hadn’t dropped it into a storm drain on his way to the train station.
Now what? Tate became conscious that he was staring at a sign warning passengers not to use the emergency braking mechanism. A fine would be among the least of his worries, so he pulled the lever. Rather than shrieking to the sudden, lurching stop that films and television had conditioned him to expect, the train glided to a gentle stop, apparently at a station. Something was out there, but it was difficult to tell with the only illumination being that of the carriage’s internal lighting.
The external doors clattered open, startling him. After that, only the sound of gentle splashing broke the silence. He stepped out, noticing that water had flooded the track right up to platform level. In front of him, the sign that should have told him the name of the station read “Terribilis est locus iste.” Tate’s Latin was almost non-existent, but he guessed “locus” meant place, and, well, the first word was obvious. Beyond the platform, Tate could discern only a dimly lit station building.
After he’d taken a few steps along the platform, Tate jolted as the station lights clicked on. There was little to see in the harsh brightness—merely an archway leading to stairs, with another sign at the top of the arch. “Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes,” which was of as much service to Tate as the other Latin. As he stared at it, the words “All hope abandon, ye who enter” were whispered into his mind, followed by “Enter, Frank” and a hollow laugh.
Hearing the train doors hiss shut, Tate looked behind him. The platform was on the edge of a lake disappearing off into the darkness, with the train sitting like a ship at its berth. Small waves splashed at the bottom of the carriage.
Wondering if he was in a dream, Tate slowly walked through the arch. The stairway narrowed and darkened as he descended. Finally, as his legs began to ache, he reached a corridor of doors with light fittings above them, though only one was illuminated. The corridor had the same style as the one he had followed in Dimitrious’s building earlier that evening. Tate marched up to the door with the light and yanked it open.
By this time, he was not surprised to see his victim again, sitting on her sofa. The book rested on the cushion beside her.
Dimitrious smiled at him and stood up. “Hello, Frank, so glad you could make it.” Her voice was hoarse.
The effects of strangulation, Tate thought, glancing at the red line circling her neck.
She walked towards him. “Over the many years we’ve been watching you, Francis Eduard Tate, son of Alastair Marcus Tate and Eleanor Maribelle Roberts, you have performed most satisfactorily. And you passed our final test, today, admirably. Congratulations, Frank. We have no doubt that you’re the right man to join us.”
Tate heard applause and faint cheering behind him and glanced around. The faces in the flower painting covering the wall at his back seemed to be smiling now, and their leaves gave the impression of movement, clapping. He felt himself being sucked into the picture, until Dimitrious’s voice pulled him back.
“You have the skills and the experience to perform the tasks we need you to and—above all—the desire to kill.” Her voice deepened as she spoke, matching that of the whispers Tate had heard on the platform. “Before you start your work with us, however, I wonder if we might address the issue of my hand?” She wiggled the stump of her thumb and held out a knife in the other hand. It was the same one Tate had used before, still stained with Dimitrious’s blood. “You know what to do…”
His hand reached for the knife as if she were controlling it. He fought his muscles but was unable to stop himself from hacking at his own left thumb. The pain was excruciating, and Tate wanted to scream—but his jaws were locked. All he could do was whimper and stare in horror as his trembling hands completed their bloody dance. His thumb dropped to the floor and his arms flopped to his sides, one holding the knife, and the other dripping thick, red blood on the carpet.
The cheering from the flowers—it sounded like jeering now—became louder, but Tate couldn’t look even if his body would have responded to his command. It was all he was capable of to stand upright and pant.
The woman knelt to retrieve Tate’s thumb, spat on the ragged base and squeezed it onto the stump on her hand. After a few seconds, she raised the hand and gave all five fingers a wiggle to show that the incongruous-looking thumb functioned. She then reached into Tate’s jacket, extracting the package containing her previously cut off digit. She examined the thumb, spat on the base, then mashed it on to Tate’s abused hand. The burning agony was much worse than his self-inflicted amputation.
After a few moments, whatever had frozen Tate’s body released him, and he brought his abused hand up to his face. Beneath the blood, he could barely see the join, no more than a contrast between his weathered and her smooth skin. The pain had died down to a gentle throbbing. Tate stared at the slim, turquoise nail-varnished thumb beside his chunky, calloused fingers. The eye tattoo on the knuckle pulsated. Glowing and fading, glowing and fading.
“You’re one of us now. One of the caretakers.” Dimitrious smiled. Her mouth seemed to become unnaturally wide, with exaggerated and pointed teeth. Shadows made her eyes disappear into black holes, and then her face returned to normal.
“The world is a busy place and, so the gods tell us, needs to be… decluttered every now and then. A massacre, an epidemic, perhaps an explosion. Something to reduce the number of”—the edges of her lips turned down—“humans despoiling the planet. Our job is to take care of the… overcrowding.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “And you, Frank, will be very good at decluttering. It’s a subtle function we perform, a precise but significant strike, often not even noticed—just like you’re used to.”
She instructed Tate to place the knife in his pocket and turned to a spear hanging on the wall. As she lifted it down, it transformed into a large battle-axe in her hands. By the time she handed it to him, it had changed again to become an automatic rifle.
“With this, we light the fire and let humanity fan the flames. With just a little… encouragement, they can be relied on to do most of the work themselves.” Standing by the desk, she repeated, “You know what to do.” Although Tate was focused on the weapon, watching it morph into a sword, then a small automatic pistol in his hands, he was surprised that she’d moved across the room so quickly.
He blinked and opened his mouth to ask what he was supposed to do next but realised that, just as she’d said, he already knew. He’d always enjoyed killing.
Smiling grimly, Tate pocketed the weapon and stepped through the door onto the empty platform of the train station—he briefly wondered where the corridor and stairs had gone. All part of the test, he supposed, and no longer necessary. He knew, now, that doors would take him where he needed to be.
He looked behind him, seeing only the entrance to the gloomy station foyer, not the apartment he had just exited. He shrugged, walked across the dark platform, and stepped across the water where it met the train. Inside, he discovered that the train was moving, and he was standing in the driver’s cab.
The driver stared at him. “What do you think you’re doing? You shouldn’t be here. How’d you bloody get in here!”
Tate returned the stare blankly for a moment, then smoothly removed the knife from his left pocket, finding it a new home in the driver’s neck. As the driver slumped, hands scrabbling at his throat, Tate jerry-rigged the train’s accelerator and opened the door to the first of the passenger carriages.
For a few seconds, Tate regarded the clusters of travellers where there had previously been none. At first, they paid him no attention but, when he remained unmoving, they glanced his way, eyes widening when they noticed his blank stare and the blood on his shirt. Tate calmly pulled the pistol from his right pocket and, striding along the carriage, efficiently shot each and every one of them before they could even leave their seats.
Breathing heavily, he stepped into the next carriage. There were a few more people this time. As Tate walked along the train, the weapon became a sword, then an axe, gun, spear, and others. Each time, Tate’s attire morphed, too, to match the weapon—into shining armour, rough animal skins, camouflage uniform, even woad-painted nakedness. Only his steely eyes and ever wider smile remained constant. No one had time to react until he reached the centre of the train, where the carriages were more crowded. Not that reacting saved anyone.
A quarter of an hour after starting, Tate stood at the rear of the train, fifteen carriages from the engine—one minute per carriage—panting and barely recognisable as human. He thought he probably wasn’t human anymore, though he was unsure exactly what he was—a caretaker, he guessed.
His clothes settled into a dark, pin-striped suit and the weapon in his hand morphed into a slick and sharp-edged mobile phone. He wiped the blood off its screen and dialed the sole pre-programmed number. When Dimitrious answered, he asked simply, “Who’s next?”
Two days later, Accident Investigator James Wilson stood in front of his supervisor, three senior police officers, a parliamentary committee, and several men and women in dark suits. He was struggling to explain that he still had no idea why Welwyn North tunnel had collapsed, trapping the 21:15 from London to York.
One of the police officers said, “So, you’re telling us this definitely wasn’t terrorism?” He leaned towards Wilson and shouted, “There were three senior Members of Parliament on that train, and you think this was really no more than some sort of accident?”
Wilson blinked and swallowed, but before he could reply, one of the dark suits interrupted. “While this incident does not have any evidence of explosives and, as yet, no organization has claimed responsibility, we cannot rule out that this massacre could have been a terrorist attack on a significant number of Britain’s political elite, not to mention on our transport infrastructure.” As he spoke, he tapped the desk to make his point, and Wilson noticed a blue tattoo on his thumb. “And we must take all necessary precautions.”
Wilson swallowed again. “We do not know the cause of the tunnel collapse, and it is certainly odd that the train itself is relatively undamaged, but the bodies…” His voice faltered.
Everyone on board had been killed, their bodies twisted and mangled far more than the state of the train would suggest. The workers whose job it was to clear up the mess couldn’t tell how many people there were, or even if they had found all of each person. In a faint voice, Wilson admitted that it might not be possible to identify every body pulled from the train.
Everyone in the room was thinking about those “necessary precautions.” Right-wing and left-wing politicians would undoubtedly argue about the need to keep Britain safe and the costs to society, and some sections of the public were sure to take matters into their own hands. There would be more unrest, and more deaths. Possibly many more deaths.
There had been one survivor, the driver. He was weak with blood loss from a neck wound and had regained consciousness for a few moments after being lifted into an ambulance, but his whispered babbling made no sense: something about a blank-eyed, grinning demon with a weapon. He was unable to describe the man or even say what weapon he carried.
No one knew—or admitted to knowing—the man’s whereabouts now, but Wilson noticed the dark suits exchanging glances when he asked to speak to the driver.