The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales Read Free Page A

could, in individual compartments where possible, or at the opposite ends of seating where a compartment was already occupied. They slumped in their places as if they had already travelled for hours and hours. Some were either already drunk or else in a dull confused state between sleep and waking. One could not easily tell which.
    He pulled open the door to the unoccupied compartment at the rear where he’d boarded and sat down on the edge of the seat, gazing at the liquid in the bottle finding its level as the train rattled over points on the track. It had a screw top, for which he was grateful; since his hands still trembled to the extent he was not confident about working a cork free with his jack-knife (say rather, he thought, grimly, murder weapon ). As it was, he still fumbled with the plastic cup whilst pouring out a large measure, and almost split its contents. He knocked back the first dose swiftly, coughing as the liquid passed down into his insides. Christ, he thought, what is this stuff? It felt as if someone had kicked him in the head. He leant forward, feeling a wave of nausea, and was momentarily afraid he would vomit. But after the second shot, taken as quickly as the first, all the unpleasant sensations passed and he was overcome with a deadening numbness. He could not feel the ends of his fingers and toes, his anxiety ebbed away, the tide of fear was at last drawing out, and he exhaled what seemed to be an eternal breath. He slumped back into the long seat and nestled the bottle on his lap, watching the green liquid inside tumble like a captured ocean wave.
    The darkness outside made it seem, from within, as if the train were stationary. Knox flopped along the length of the seat towards the carriage window and peered out through the glass into the gloom. He saw vague shapes and branches of trees that had not been sufficiently cut back—their sharp ends scraped along the sides and roof of the train.
    His eyes refocused and instead of looking through the glass, he now saw his own reflection on the surface of the window. His gaze was filled with hatred. There was a sneer on his lips. Knox was terrified the reflection would reach across the divide and strangle him. He backed away from the sight, afraid of its taking on the appearance of the torn and bloodied revenant he’d seen earlier. He heard a voice in his head, the same voice as before, but this time the words it spoke were different; “you come closer,” it said, “you draw close to me ”.
    Knox pulled down the blinds on all the windows and poured himself another dose of the potent bad medicine. His head was swimming, and he heard the sound of his teeth chattering in his mouth. The compartment around him blurred, the overhead luggage racks, the electric lamps and the advertisements on the walls faded from view and he passed out.
    •
    When he awoke it must have been hours later. His watch had stopped, so he had no precise way of telling just how long it had been. But he knew he still travelled by night for it was dark outside; he had lifted the blind a little to see if it were daylight yet. His mouth was dry and his lips were encrusted with the scum of dried saliva.
    The half-drunk bottle of booze had wedged itself between the cushions of the long seat. Alongside it was the remains of the plastic cup, crushed by the weight of Knox’s body where he had lain slumped after having passed out. The light from the compartment’s electric lamps hurt his eyes and so he took out his mirror shades from the glasses case he kept in the breast pocket of his tweed jacket, and put them on. The hangover was so bad he felt he would never recover from it. He took a swig from the bottle, but the taste made the bile rise in his throat. He decided to go in search of the train conductor in order to find out how much further it was to Losenef.
    As he passed the compartment adjacent to his own he heard a groaning from within and stopped to look inside. A solitary