Trembling With Fear 11-5-23

Passing Through, by Hilary Ayshford

Click: 06.33

“Did you ever…?”

“Yes. In 2004.” David cuts the question off before it can be asked.

“Is it as bad as they…?”

“Worse.”

“Do we know who’s driving this year?”

“No, but I’ll look after him. Poor bloke.” 

Tom shrugs on his heavy wool coat and waits by the door, clinging to the last moments of warmth and light before he has to step out into the early morning murk.

“It’s nearly time, Tom. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” 

Click: 06.34 – the waiting room clock breaks the silence, marking off another minute. David glances up from his place by the window. Three minutes to go. In the cramped staff room behind the ticket office, the kettle starts to steam. He shivers, and not just from the cold draft as Tom makes his way out to wait for the train to pull in.

The small station on the single-track branch line is unlit, the platform deserted. This is an unscheduled stop that happens only once a year, and David is confident nobody on the train will notice the brief halt while Tom takes over as relief driver. There won’t be that many passengers anyway; the end of the line, a sleepy village on the edge of the wide estuary where the train began its journey, is only five miles down the track.

Click: 06.35 – two minutes to go. The train will be emerging from the tunnel now, the driver numb with shock and struggling to pull himself together. 

Time has not blurred the memory of that December morning eighteen years ago when David was in the cab of the first train of the day up to London. That was the last time he ever set foot in the driver’s cab. Now the stationmaster, every year he waits here for the train to arrive.

It wasn’t a bright morning, no crunch of ice underfoot and frost glinting on the rails. No, it was cold and dank, with a light mist softening the greyish outlines of the trees and houses that border the track. The train entered the steep-sided cutting, the gloom deepening as the early daylight receded, swallowed by the maw of the tunnel carving a passage through the South Downs.

He never liked driving through the tunnel. Just under a mile long, it was built on a slight bend, so it wasn’t possible to see the other end until the train was more than halfway through. That morning, as he rounded the curve, he saw an orb of bright light approaching quickly and obscuring the pale grey opening of the tunnel mouth. By the time his brain registered that another train was headed straight for him and instructed his frozen limbs to apply the brake, it was too late, and a collision was inevitable. He saw the driver in the oncoming train slumped over the controls. Unable to look away, he braced himself.

But the impact never came. Instead, time seemed to slow down and then stop. A cold, eerie silence enveloped the cab. Immobile with horror, David stared as a procession of figures – men, women and children – filled his cab. Insubstantial as fog, they brushed past him; icy fingers touched his face and hands, parted his hair, stroked his neck. Their gaping mouths, shrieking silently, latched onto him, sucking the warmth from his flesh. Several passed straight through him, a rushing wind of despair and dread that left him empty and hollow.

Just as suddenly as it began, it was over. The train emerged from the tunnel into the misty November morning; the temperature in the cab returned to normal; David could move his frozen limbs again, but he couldn’t stop shaking from the cold that penetrated his bones. Although the train wasn’t scheduled to stop at the next station, he pulled up, jumped out of the cab and was violently sick over the edge of the platform.

Click: 06.37. The train pulls into the station and judders to a halt. The ashen-faced driver stumbles from the cab, and Tom half-leads, half-carries him to a bench. Within thirty seconds the train is on its way again.

The tiny staff room is filled with steam from the kettle, and in the swirling mist David sees a cluster of faces, blurry, indistinct, eyes and mouths wide with terror. He waits for the vapour to dissipate, and once his hands are steady enough, he makes two mugs of tea, adds plenty of sugar and a nip of brandy, and goes to find the driver.