Dark Tickets - A sinister story for Halloween

'They knife kids in other towns.'

Solemn's blue eyes pierced through Ben like the knives they used in other towns.

'Nowadays an ASBO ain't enough. You have to have cut someone. But we don't do that in Shatterbury.'

There was no trace of a "t" when he said the name of his town.

They were sitting in the Hole, an old rarely used trackside shed that was nested in the trees alongside the Wellowteme Spur. Tools of railway maintenance surrounded them. A pile of track pins in the corner by the door. Shovels, hammers. Only two trains a day used the route to Wellowteme, so the members of the Shatters were afforded all the privacy they needed.

'You want in?' Solemn continued, turning a bullet over and over with his right hand, 'You have to earn it. But we have other methods of achieving that sort of thing here. Other methods of achieving greatness. Methods that will mess with your head.'

'I'm ready for whatever you've got.'

Solemn grinned through crooked yellowing smoke-stained teeth. A poor mouth for a seventeen year old. 'Are you?' He looked around at the other three boys in the room. Features, Bouncer and Cleft did not move to return his wandering gaze. They all stared at Ben, faces unmoving, reinforcing Solemn's bleak promises.

From the inside pocket of his leather jacket (which wafted the smell of day-old aftershave mixed with teenage body odour) Solemn produced a mobile phone. He flicked open the lid, searched momentarily through the contacts list and pressed the Call button. Though interested, Ben made no attempt to try and see who Solemn was contacting.

Solemn raised the phone to his ear. The call was answered, and the voice on the other end said 'Not yet.' Ben heard that much. Solemn closed the phone. Looking at the three boys behind him, he said, 'Soon.' He pointed the phone at Ben. 'But when I get the call. Be ready to move. Fast. The machine ain't there for long, and no one can buy the ticket for you.'

Outside, the first of the night's snow began to rest and melt on the Hole's only window. The forecast had said there would be deep snow tonight. The orange clouds Ben had seen on the way to the Hole earlier in the evening had underlined that prediction.

The phone rang. Solemn answered it. Listened, and said, 'We're on our way.' Then he closed the phone.

*

Five of them, running towards Shatterbury station, which lay a couple of hundred yards up track beyond where the Spur met the mainline. They saw no trains as they ran, with Solemn in front, Features, Cleft and Bouncer bringing up the rear. Ben was sandwiched between, in case he had second thoughts on the matter. Ben had no second thoughts. Infiltrating this gang was the force's priority in Shatterbury, and he was going to be the one to break it open.

They reached the end of the Shatterbury platform and ran up it and along to the ticket area. At this time of night there was no one else on the platform and the blinds were drawn down over the two teller windows in the cold, echoing ticket hall. The station was deserted, and all Ben could hear was the rhythmic ticking of the digital clock that hung above platform one. Counting down the minutes to the next train.

A young man was waiting for them by the platform entrance. Shivering slightly in torn jeans and a black t-shirt, he was tall and thin, and smoking the tail end of a crumpled cigarette. When he saw Solemn he pitched the fag against a wall, where it bounced to the floor and continued to burn. He tipped his head at the row of ticket machines, 'Over there.'

Solemn eyes followed where the other man had indicated and that grin stretched once more across his face. 'Lovely!' he said in a low, scratchy voice.

Nodding toward the machine, but looking at Ben he said 'Go on. They won't let you on the train without a ticket. You'll want the one on the end.'

Ben looked at the others. They wore faces of indifference. Then he walked towards the last ticket machine, the fourth in the line. It looked just like all the others, patiently waiting for a customer to purchase a ticket. Lights lit, ready to deliver a journey on a small orange piece of card.

Once he reached the machine, Ben turned to the others. 'Where am I go..?'

'Don't be a muppet,' said Solemn. 'There's only one destination.'

Ben looked at the machine and saw the button for the single destination flashing innocently. In fact, this was the one difference between this machine and the other three, the amount of places you could go with it. Except, even that wasn't true, because the flashing button said...

SHATTERBURY

'Come on, you have to hurry up. It's only there for six minutes.'

'But, why would I want to buy a ticket to...'

Solemn interrupted him again, displaying a slimy look of tired impatience, 'I don't have time for your pissing questions! Just buy the bloody ticket or you'll miss the bloody train.'

Ben's finger hovered over the SHATTERBURY button for a moment before he pressed it. Acknowledging the press, the readout said SINGLE or RETURN.

Not wanting to delay any longer, but finding he had no choice, Ben looked back to Solemn, who sighed, 'Single you nonce. It's a one-way-trip isn't it.'

Ben pressed SINGLE.

The cost. One pound. To go to where he already was. It seemed.

A coincidence it may have been, but Ben couldn't be sure. As soon as his ticket appeared at the flashing slot below all the buttons, the rising sound of the next train began to fill the station. Solemn smirked and dug his hands into his jeans. 'Love it!'

It was the announcement that chilled Ben. Turned his spine to ice in fact. That old familiar platform announcer's voice that played on every station on the South West Trains network. But it was all wrong. The voice slurred, or the announcement tape had been slowed right down.

'The train now arriving at platform one is the twenty-three forty-six South West Trains service to...'

What followed over the tannoy was a sound like a low rasping saw being drawn across glass. A loud, long spiky retch. Ben had to try hard not to raise his hands to his ears to block out the terrible noise. It didn't seem to bother the others, so he had to show some nerve and resist. But God what a sound. And where was the train going? That part of the announcement... well, it didn't exist.

Then the train was slowing into the station. Four carriages. Ordinary looking.

The five young men walked out onto the empty platform as the train doors hissed open. Yawning, inviting Ben to step on into it's artificial brightness. No one got off the train. No one seemed to be on it. The digital station clock had stopped, still ticking but hooked on the same second (23:45:08), flashing over and over as though the winter had frozen time as well as Shatterbury. Nothing here would take place now until Ben got on this train and the doors closed behind him. But the question was... what would happen after that? If he was to infiltrate the Shatters, he would have to brave this initiation.

The winter wind buffeted through the icy cold platform, causing a the platform number sign to squeak on its hinges.

'No turning back now,' said Solemn. 'Might as well go forward. The train... wants ya now. It loves ya. It wants to have ya. One thing we've learned here is that it's the buyer who gets... chosen... by the ticket."

Ben took a deep breath and stepped onto the train. Despite the weirdness surrounding the ticket purchase, everything about the train seemed normal. He checked in his pocket for his mobile. At least, wherever he ended up, he could call a cab to come and get him.

The doors closed and Ben moved to take a seat. He could see the others outside, looking at him.

Solemn produced a knife and tapped the point of the blade against the glass. His stale grin returned and Ben heard him say through the window as the train moved off.

'We know you're a copper ya muppet. Think you can cheat us? Good luck on ya journey!'

The train was moving out of the station now and as soon as it cleared the platform it sped up quickly, pinning Ben to the seat.

'Tickets please,' came a voice beside him and Ben turned to see the ticket inspector with his hand out to him. Ben handed over his ticket, surprised that the man could even stand up under the force of the acceleration.

The ticket inspector smiled politely, 'On an initiation are you?'

'I'm a police officer.'

The ticket inspector laughed, 'Oh...'. He laughed harder, tipping back his head. 'Oh dear. Those kids have no limits!'

The train suddenly seemed to tip forward as if going down an incline that became steeper and steeper. For a terrible nausous moment it felt to Ben like the train was plummeting, vertically down. Looking out of the window he thought he could see all the houses and buildings flying upwards. Despite this his body felt normal. But the discrepancy between sight and sensation caused his dinner to rise in his stomach.

The train passed into a tunnel. All the bright fluorescent lights flicked off except one, an emergency strip, further down the carriage. Ben looked at the ticket inspector, il-lit by that one bulb, and in the semi darkness Ben thought he saw the man's face sliding downwards. The corners of the his mouth seemed to edge towards the floor. His face was melting, peeling, revealing a white bloodsoaked skull. And the clatter of wheels over rails rattled and punched his ear-drums.

They exited the tunnel and the lights came back on, parching the carriage with fluorescence. The ticket inspector's face was perfectly normal, but the man was wearing a knowing sideways smile, as though he knew what Ben had seen in the darkness.

'Are you one of them?' said Ben.

The inspector shook his head. Still grinning. 'No. I'm not one of them. But they do pay me for services rendered.' He extended his hand to Ben to shake it. 'My name's Perpetual Jones. This, my friend, is the Mobius Line.'

THE END