Diana Glass
The Help
‘Mr Crane!’ I call.
Bruno Crane is hunched over the controls in the driver’s cabin. The train is going fast now, too fast: tree and rock and snow rushing past at a dizzying speed.
‘You need to stop the train!’ I shout, clinging to the doorframe, dazed with fear.
He throws a savage look back over his shoulder. ‘What are you doing here, you stupid b—’
‘Please,’ I call again, my voice hoarse. ‘You need to stop the train. You’re going far too quickly; you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re … you’re going to get us both killed.’
‘You chose to get on here, you stupid little fool. That’s your lookout!’
He’s not wrong. I seem to have left the prudent, cautious Diana back at the hotel in Mrs Bantry’s cosy room, as if shedding a thick coat. I close my eyes and open them again, silver fish swimming in my vision, half-hoping I’ll find out this was all a nightmare.
No: I’m really here, trapped on a speeding train with a man who doesn’t seem to care whether either of us lives or dies.
As we round a bend with a sheer drop on one side, I catch terrifying glimpses all the way to the valley far below.
My stomach lurches and for a moment I think I might actually vomit. We are going far, far too quickly.
‘Mr Crane,’ I say, trying to swallow my terror, to sound calm and rational, ‘please. Be reasonable. There is no hope of you getting this train to the bottom of the mountain in one piece.’
He shrugs, as though this doesn’t mean very much to him either way.
I look up and see that we are twenty yards or so from entering the mountain tunnel. Safer, perhaps, than the precipice, but that black hole suddenly seems like oblivion.
‘Please,’ I say, stepping forwards. Crane hunches protectively over the controls.
‘Stay back!’ he snarls. ‘Don’t you dare come any closer.’
Some peculiarity of the track causes the train to rock from side to side. I cling on to the door of the cabin and see Crane lose his balance. With a cry he sprawls forward onto the controls … and a moment later the train lurches forward with an awful acceleration.
We are hurtling now towards the black of the tunnel.
Then there is a rending, grinding sensation, an ear-splitting screech and, just as the tunnel swallows us whole, a strange brief feeling of weightlessness, as when one is in a lift, moving between floors.
I open my eyes to find the world at a strange angle. Darkness and silence. For a second I cannot remember where I am. Gradually, I realise that I am lying on my side on the floor of the train, looking up at the leather underside of the driver’s seat.
I’m very aware of the feel of my heart beating, my breath moving in and out of my nostrils – it seems such a miracle I’m still alive.
I can taste blood in my mouth. My temple aches and when I raise a shaking hand I can feel a lump already forming beneath the skin.
The train itself is at a slant, reared up on one side.
Every so often the lights flicker feebly back on, illuminating shattered glass and a crimson spatter of blood – my own, I think – and everything at the wrong angle.
Then they flicker off and all is plunged into darkness again.
A groan comes from somewhere nearby. I sit up groggily and in the next flicker of light see Crane’s crumpled form in the void beneath the controls. Very still. The lights flicker off and when they come on a minute or so later he lies motionless and inert as any of the other inanimate objects.
The only sound in the chill air is that of my own breathing.
I squint, trying to see. Is he … ?
And then … a faint sound. A weak groan that I gradually realise is not coming from my own lungs.
In a brief stutter of light I see Crane stir.
‘Oh God,’ he moans. When he finally sits up his palm is clamped to his head and I wonder if he’s badly injured. As his hand drops, though, the cut seems unremarkable. ‘What happened?’ he slurs.
I think of that moment of weightlessness, note the strange angle of the train. Through the shattered glass of the cabin’s window I make out a dark wall of rock. It appears that the train wrenched itself from the tracks just as we entered the tunnel and hit the wall.
‘The train crashed,’ I manage. ‘You must have fallen onto the accelerator. We were going far too fast … I think it sheared off the cog mechanism.’
‘But that means …’
He trails off at an inhuman groaning sound …
some part of the train moving imperceptibly.
I feel the metal floor beneath me shift a fraction.
There’s a percussive, smattering sound, as of small fragments of rock hitting tin.
It shocks me to myself. With a supreme effort of will I pull myself together.
‘It means we’re lucky to be alive. And I think we should get out of here before the whole tunnel collapses on us. ’