One way ticket through Hell, 3

A glance over her shoulder revealed a figure larger than a man in a blue Guards uniform, where skin was exposed it was silver and dimpled as if covered in small scales. The mouth was large. The eyes almonds of pure hate.

“Open the door.”

“What do you think I am doing?” she chastised the creature for it's unhelpful comments and launched herself at the door so her shoulder made contact. She may have been small but the effort was equivalent to a sledge hammer to tap in a panel pin. The door shuddered as it swung open and they fell more than moved into the new carriage. The creature closed both doors. In a cartoon they would have frantically nailed mismatched planks of wood across the door with overly larger headed nails. Where the planks came from and where the hammer to put them into place sprung was an oddity that was never fully explained by the animation. A hasty search of the immediate location held no answers to the question or any physical materials either. The creature took up a stick of chalk and rapidly made slashing marks across the door and jamb looking to all the world like it was trying to slash it to bits. It had the exact opposite effect.

“As the calcite opens it can also bar the way. Not that I fear one of my own kind, abet much lower than I, would stay bound for our egress to prove fortuitous.”

“Does that mean whatever you’ve done won’t last long and we should, instead of standing around like old men in a pub talking, be running away?”

A crash befell the door as whatever it was on the other side slammed into it causing it to shudder. The second crash threw it open ripping it from its small small hinges. If there had been anyone watching they would have seen the handle side be the last to give under the applied force. Anyone in a position to inspect the fragments would have seen the door frame was ripped to bits leaving deep V’s in the remains where the wood of the jamb gave up before the lines of chalk.

“Is it coming?” asked Imogen as she barged through the next set of doors separating this carriage from the next.

“It is.”

“Is it close?” Imogen slammed the door and as the creature pushed past she answered her own question by risking a glance. It was halfway down the corridor but it was slowed by pulling a large sack behind it. Whatever it contained obviously held enough worth for it to continue to drag it and it's weight during its pursuit.

“Can you fight it? I mean if it gets to us can you fight it off? ” there was a pleading there hiding under the surface. “I hate snakes, they make my flesh creep. Even the small ones terrify me, you know those small things that hide under logs near the swings at school that slither out when you run past. Yuck, I mean yuck!”

“I can fight. Will I fight? No. I could. Do not believe mortal that I could not. But I won’t. That is a Asrican, a low level inferior thing created from union of sinearters and cherubim. I could stand against it but they have restricted intelligence do greater than a dog, they show no respect for status or superiority and they don’t realise when they are beat. Ever kick a dog and have it keep jumping to try and bite you even after you’ve ripped each leg off?”

“No. No I don’t but don’t worry Mr Muscle I understand.”

“Do understand, they show no intelligence, no strategy and no end game, they just fight.”

They had gone three more carriages when Imogen in her haste struck her foot against the lip of the bridge between carriages and flew headlong into the box wall of the first compartment. Stars spun as she tried to stand and failed.

“You must stand.” the creature said.

Imogen went to respond but felt sick, her stomach churned and she would have sworn, if she wasn’t 100% sure she had not consumed anything for an excessive period of time, that she had eaten one of Tandoori Dave’s dodgy kebabs after a night out at the 50p a shot girls night at Shagadelic Disco. She dragged herself to her feet and was more surprised that the creature had held a hand out with which to assist her with. The creature itself looked puzzled over this action but continued to help her get to her feet but retracted it's hand once she looked semi stable.

“We go.”

“No, give me a moment, please.” Imogen held the door to the compartment for support, she had a flashback to her first night out as a sweet and innocent young thing when after half a bottle of cheap but strong wine she found herself clinging to the floor in case she fell off. It creaked opened leaving her swinging on the door without any apparent movement from the inhabitants inside.

“We go.”

“That thing killed those men, everyone in that room and everyone in all the carriages all the way to the front of the train for all I know. It’s going to do the same to all of these men too, to all of us if  it can. Can’t we do anything?”

“Yes.” was all the creature replied.

Imogen grab newspapers out of the unresisting hands of the passengers and threw them at the creature. “Then bloody well tell me what we can do.

“We can leave.”

We can leave? Is that all? And here was me thinking we could cook that thing dinner and take it out for a show. How can we leave just look at all of them.” here she indicated the gentlemen sat around exposed now their papers had been removed. None of them moved except their eyes which looked at them imploringly almost bulging out of their sockets. “If that thing gets in here it's going to kill them all.”

“They are already dead, their fate does not concern us.”

“It concerns me, whatever they are they are human and don’t deserve what’s happening to them. What could they have done to be fated to sit here waiting for what is going to happen to happen?” Imogen asked whilst fighting her own internal demons. Emotions ran high here, she wanted oh so desperately to be putting as much space between the ticket collector and herself but she wanted to save as many people as possible. Logically she could not pull all these men up and escort them to…..to…..to, well luckily this is something she wouldn’t have to solve as nothing she could do would shift them from their seats.

“They live on as they lived in Nod, they watch as all the evils of the world touch those around them and never to lift a finger to change it. Now they look on as evil comes closer and yet they can now do nothing even when that evil comes to them.”

“That’s horrible. No that’s inhuman.”

“Humanity is what powers this, It is very human. That is why they are here.”

“Here? Here until they die all over again all for what? Because they didn’t do something when they were alive? What happens after that thing gets them, where to they go?” Imogen felt drained as if all her mental and physical strength had escaped leaving her heavy and dull like a week old opened can of soda. “So there’s nothing we can do?”

“You already have. You need to come, it follows you.”

There was a soft click as the handle descended and activated the lock, the click was followed by a swish as the door swung gently open.

“Tickets please.”

The creature reacted first stepping back into the corridor and taking a pace forward, this gave Imogen the space to get behind him into the safe side of the carriage.

“I do not possess a ticket. I do not intend to possess a ticket.” said the creature giving a very impressive impression of human rebellion.

“Come on.” Imogen called as she got the two doors open into the next carriage. “No leave them open, trust me.” she called as the creature put on an impressive turn of speed and moved to close the door behind him.

The ticket collector moved after them dragging it's sack leaving a trail of rust coloured partially clotted blood. It was slower and they had opened up a three carriage lead.

“I assume you have a plan.”

“I do, we keep running and leading it away, it’s all we can do.”

“I bow to your creative genius.”

The plan worked, it had simple parameters and they were fulfilled. The Guard chased them down, it's paw clutched tight to its sack as it pursued it's prey. Lips of fatty meat dripped with saliva as it anticipated it's fresh meal, too long had it sustained itself on ash and dust but the fear was a delicacy to savor; here though was a meal to relish for its spice and salt but it knew in it's tiny brain that it would do no such thing but gulp the timid mammal back and swallow. It was a distance behind and that distance was stretching as they ran in terror from it, this made the meal even more deliciou. Oh how it will scream when it gets to the end where there are no more small cages to flee in. These cages had held it trapped for so long here with the hollow husks without fresh meat, the smell of fear almost made it worthwhile.

Imogen wrenched open the last door and found herself back where this leg or the journey had begun. As the creature joined her she looked up the corridor and saw the Guard stalking down on them seven or eight carriages away but coming closer with every footstep.

“And the next phase?” asked the creature sitting on a trunk.

“Um…..I wasn’t thinking past the running away.”

“I appreciate your honesty but it serves no purpose. If you are here again say to whoever asks that they will not understand the plan, It will give you more time to think or hope something happens.”

Imogen stood and watched the Guard as it approached, she guessed at six carriages now.

“Thanks, I’ll remember that for the next time I’m facing a hell thing out to kill me.” she said this as she turned to look at the creature and wished he didn’t look so casual lounging around as if waiting for the train to stop. She felt the door slip from her fingers and turned back to it.

The door swung closed on a weighted chain that acted like a door closure and she slipped her fingers around it and felt the wood as it gently pressed her fingers against the frame. She pulled it back open and the Guard stood there inches away.