Druidic
Grimscribe
(For NJ)
Every seven years…
...in the blackest hour of the blackest night…
‘I can hear it,” said Sam Ellis. “I can hear it! Goddamn, that train is rolling tonight…”
…in the coldest month…of the seventh year…
“Always in winter,” said Sam. “God help us now, Tom.”
He was peering out of one of his store’s two front windows, waiting for the moment when moonlight slipped through the clouds. I couldn’t imagine what the old man thought he’d see in this storm. But then...hell, I didn't want to...
God help us now?
“Unlikely,” I said but my mouth was too dry for bravado. I reached out for the bottle of Jim Beam dangling from his left hand. A pump action 870 was cradled In his other arm.
We could hear the whistle bellow through the valley. The whole valley would be listening now to that beast sound. Bellow is the closest I can come to describing a sound more akin to an ogre’s roar than any honest whistle. Some whistles whine, some make your damn ears bleed, some just trail a plaintive cry, but this whistle roared like a beast, riding the howling wind and driven snow, bellowing forth like Death itself over the rusted twisted rails that ran the fifteen miles from Sutter’s Mill to Mason Creek. Those tracks, torn up in places, were the rails of a dead line and we figured that suited the train and its engineer just fine.
Every racing heart, every sweating soul, every living thing, even the animals in the valley, all heard and trembled to that sound...
Like Sam was trembling now. I waved the bottle toward him but he didn’t even notice.
He had been working himself up to a slow growing frenzy since the handful of old friends, customers and nervous stragglers had left. I thought about the faces of some of them, the expressions on those faces, stoic but deeply afraid. It was in the air, in the storm that howled outside, and we all knew what was coming. The last man left as the afternoon bled into early dusk; the storm was picking up by then and the wind moaned like a frightened thing. I thought of animals instinctively seeking their dens when danger drew near. The pull was a strong one even though no house could offer protection.
Sam finally reached out for the bottle. He took a deep slug and then wiped his mouth with the back of the hand that held the bottle. He began to talk again.
“Once—you were still in diapers, Tom—we had a Parson here. Name was Jeffries. The people here thought he was mad. Well, once Parson Jeffries ordered the bells in that pretty white church to ring when that screaming Thing came near. Yeah, once, Tom, we had a church…that night the fire took it all, including the Good Parson. Of course we never felt the need to build another. Maybe we believed God had abandoned the valley long ago and that a church was just a poor thing against that…damn down bound train…"
I said nothing but I remembered the story. The valley, like every other place, always had its fair share of fools and, clearly, Jeffries had been one of them.
“Now, how many you reckon it's going to take this time?” he asked, moving away from the window and turning down the lamps.
Perhaps I shrugged; it was too dark for Sam to see me and it didn’t much matter either way. “I dunno,” I said after a time, “but sure as hell it sounds mean tonight... mean and, yeah, probably …hungry…”
Sam cursed. “Wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” he said. “They say it can hear—“
“Well, maybe it can,” I said. “And maybe we shouldn’t worry about that anymore.”
“I swear, sometimes I don’t understand you, Tom. A sane man has to worry…”
The whistle was near now, growing louder, it was damn near deafening, shrieking like a mad thing. I guessed it was climbing the long grade near Mauder's farm. Suddenly, the store felt colder, as if the temperature had dropped several degrees.
There was no sense in chancing a glance out into the street. We knew what we would see: blackness and the moon reflecting off crazily drifting snow. All the houses in the valley would be dark; I almost imagined I could hear the desperate and crazy praying going on in a few of them. No, sir, outside just snow and an ice wind and that damn train rushing at us through a near arctic night.
“Maybe it will pass this time,” said Sam.
“Maybe,” I said but didn’t believe it.
He knew as well as me that by now it would be approaching the old station, a rotting shell that hadn’t seen a real train in fifty years or more.
“I can hear ir now,” said Sam. “Almost here...Dear God, those wheels…”
“Sam,” I said. “It’s here. Slowing down...I think it’s slowing—“
“Mother of God,” whispered Sam.
The only sound worse than that screaming whistle was the sound of those big wheels slowing down. But you could hear it. The brakes were on and that damn train was screeching. It was coming to a stop.
Sam senselessly raised the shotgun in his arms but he was shaking so badly I wasn’t sure what I was more afraid of, Sam or that hell train.
“Sam, that gun won’t be worth a damn. Put it away, man.”
“A man has a right to defend himself,” said Sam. “They going to come for me and I’m not going to make a stand?”
“Seven years,” I said. “We just make it through tonight and we’ve got seven years before we hear that damn beast whistle again…”
That shut Sam down for the moment. We listened to the harsh grating of the train’s wheels; the howling sound of rusty metal gradually dropping in volume as the ancient locomotive's wheels slowed in their revolutions.
“Why’d you come back anyway, Tom? Damn it, you broke free, got out, even went to school …why the hell did you come back?”
I shrugged again. “Maybe for the same reason you didn’t leave, Sam. Free will. Anyone in the valley can leave anytime they want...they just lose all the benefits. You have to pay to play, Sam. It’s not that bad a deal when you think about it...”
“”We’re fools,” said Sam. “We sold our souls for this…”
“Only some will be taken,” I said. “The odds are in our favor.”
The cold was terrible. It seemed to seep through everything despite the big fiercely burning wood stove in the back of Sam's store.
“He must have disembarked by now,” said Sam, his voice trembling like a woman’s.
“Reckon so.”
“Damn! Hear that wind! Like a…”
Lost soul crying, I thought but had the sense not to say. He was half crazy with fear now and still had that shotgun in a death grip.
“Can’t hear anything,” he said. “That damn wind.”
But soon enough we heard what we had been straining to hear.
At first the voices sounded like ghosts riding the wind. Cries, wails, pleas...screams seemingly interminable and terrible, and all accompanied by other sounds equally so...sounds of wood violently shattering or ripping, great glass windows breaking,,,puny gunshots and futile shotgun blasts...the scraping of heavy unyielding weight over hard winter ground,,,God, the iron cages were being dragged...the Crew had disembarked and They were following His instructions now.
“He’s choosin’,” said Sam. “He’s moving through the street and the Crew is following Him. God help us.”
“Again, not possible, Sam,” I said in a whisper low enough he wouldn’t hear.
“He’s collecting. Oh, hurry, man, and be done with it.”
“He’s got all the time in the world,” I said. “He ain’t hurrying for no one or no thing.”
Without wanting to, I had begun to imagine the shapes, violently moving, black and stunted, deformed and monstrous, half-obscured by the snow, forcing the chosen ones into the large waiting cages. With long and heavy chains they would drag the cages back to the black lightless train that waited across the frozen field at the old station. I was ten when Daisy Wheeler told me of the things she had seen in a quick terrified glimpse from the window in the attic room where she hid on another night when the train ran through the valley. She was fourteen when the Crew came that time... one furtive glimpse and she didn't dare another...
I was eight when the train took my folks. The Crew didn't want me and Sam Ellis who owned the local feed store and was a friend of my Dad's raised me as if I were his own. I grew up in the valley but, after awhile, left for a time. It didn't take long, however, to find the outside world to be a hard and unrewarding place. Living in the valley may be an evil lottery but seven years like the ones He promised...Mister, you can't even imagine...
Well, the bastards were nothing if not efficient. About two hours later the screaming, the sounds, all of it had ceased.
“Last time they took fifty,” said Sam. “This time—“
“This time who knows?”
Finally we heard the whistle blow through the valley again. It sounded triumphant, demonic and mean -- but satisfied for now. The big wheels began to grind and spark over the rusty metal. Slowly we heard it gather speed and we knew that the hellish whistle would soon be lost in the blackness and the distance… and the terrible cold would follow it. Now something in our hearts rose to meet that sound, not fear, not now, just a sick kind of relief, maybe even a kind of triumph not so different from the train’s wild exhileration.
Sam Ellis and I passed the bottle back and forth for the few hours until daybreak.
“Seven more years,” whispered Sam. “Dear God. Seven more..”
“—good years, Sam.” I said. “Golden years.”
He looked at me uncertainly for a moment...and then slowly broke into the widest and wickedest grin I’d ever seen.
“Damn right.” And he laughed like a crazy man. “Seven damn golden years.”
Note: Mark Samuels can take the blame for this one. He introduced me to Night Vale and that very pleasant experience got me thinking about writing a story that could also work as a radio play. I found myself using a Christian theme, the corruptibility of human souls; and somewhere in the back of my mind I was surely thinking of Bloch's That Hell Bound Train. I also wrote the story listening to Springsteen's Downbound Train (Just coincidence but I can already hear the Hah! in the background). OK. I'm ready for my meds now, Doctor--Druidic.
Every seven years…
...in the blackest hour of the blackest night…
‘I can hear it,” said Sam Ellis. “I can hear it! Goddamn, that train is rolling tonight…”
…in the coldest month…of the seventh year…
“Always in winter,” said Sam. “God help us now, Tom.”
He was peering out of one of his store’s two front windows, waiting for the moment when moonlight slipped through the clouds. I couldn’t imagine what the old man thought he’d see in this storm. But then...hell, I didn't want to...
God help us now?
“Unlikely,” I said but my mouth was too dry for bravado. I reached out for the bottle of Jim Beam dangling from his left hand. A pump action 870 was cradled In his other arm.
We could hear the whistle bellow through the valley. The whole valley would be listening now to that beast sound. Bellow is the closest I can come to describing a sound more akin to an ogre’s roar than any honest whistle. Some whistles whine, some make your damn ears bleed, some just trail a plaintive cry, but this whistle roared like a beast, riding the howling wind and driven snow, bellowing forth like Death itself over the rusted twisted rails that ran the fifteen miles from Sutter’s Mill to Mason Creek. Those tracks, torn up in places, were the rails of a dead line and we figured that suited the train and its engineer just fine.
Every racing heart, every sweating soul, every living thing, even the animals in the valley, all heard and trembled to that sound...
Like Sam was trembling now. I waved the bottle toward him but he didn’t even notice.
He had been working himself up to a slow growing frenzy since the handful of old friends, customers and nervous stragglers had left. I thought about the faces of some of them, the expressions on those faces, stoic but deeply afraid. It was in the air, in the storm that howled outside, and we all knew what was coming. The last man left as the afternoon bled into early dusk; the storm was picking up by then and the wind moaned like a frightened thing. I thought of animals instinctively seeking their dens when danger drew near. The pull was a strong one even though no house could offer protection.
Sam finally reached out for the bottle. He took a deep slug and then wiped his mouth with the back of the hand that held the bottle. He began to talk again.
“Once—you were still in diapers, Tom—we had a Parson here. Name was Jeffries. The people here thought he was mad. Well, once Parson Jeffries ordered the bells in that pretty white church to ring when that screaming Thing came near. Yeah, once, Tom, we had a church…that night the fire took it all, including the Good Parson. Of course we never felt the need to build another. Maybe we believed God had abandoned the valley long ago and that a church was just a poor thing against that…damn down bound train…"
I said nothing but I remembered the story. The valley, like every other place, always had its fair share of fools and, clearly, Jeffries had been one of them.
“Now, how many you reckon it's going to take this time?” he asked, moving away from the window and turning down the lamps.
Perhaps I shrugged; it was too dark for Sam to see me and it didn’t much matter either way. “I dunno,” I said after a time, “but sure as hell it sounds mean tonight... mean and, yeah, probably …hungry…”
Sam cursed. “Wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” he said. “They say it can hear—“
“Well, maybe it can,” I said. “And maybe we shouldn’t worry about that anymore.”
“I swear, sometimes I don’t understand you, Tom. A sane man has to worry…”
The whistle was near now, growing louder, it was damn near deafening, shrieking like a mad thing. I guessed it was climbing the long grade near Mauder's farm. Suddenly, the store felt colder, as if the temperature had dropped several degrees.
There was no sense in chancing a glance out into the street. We knew what we would see: blackness and the moon reflecting off crazily drifting snow. All the houses in the valley would be dark; I almost imagined I could hear the desperate and crazy praying going on in a few of them. No, sir, outside just snow and an ice wind and that damn train rushing at us through a near arctic night.
“Maybe it will pass this time,” said Sam.
“Maybe,” I said but didn’t believe it.
He knew as well as me that by now it would be approaching the old station, a rotting shell that hadn’t seen a real train in fifty years or more.
“I can hear ir now,” said Sam. “Almost here...Dear God, those wheels…”
“Sam,” I said. “It’s here. Slowing down...I think it’s slowing—“
“Mother of God,” whispered Sam.
The only sound worse than that screaming whistle was the sound of those big wheels slowing down. But you could hear it. The brakes were on and that damn train was screeching. It was coming to a stop.
Sam senselessly raised the shotgun in his arms but he was shaking so badly I wasn’t sure what I was more afraid of, Sam or that hell train.
“Sam, that gun won’t be worth a damn. Put it away, man.”
“A man has a right to defend himself,” said Sam. “They going to come for me and I’m not going to make a stand?”
“Seven years,” I said. “We just make it through tonight and we’ve got seven years before we hear that damn beast whistle again…”
That shut Sam down for the moment. We listened to the harsh grating of the train’s wheels; the howling sound of rusty metal gradually dropping in volume as the ancient locomotive's wheels slowed in their revolutions.
“Why’d you come back anyway, Tom? Damn it, you broke free, got out, even went to school …why the hell did you come back?”
I shrugged again. “Maybe for the same reason you didn’t leave, Sam. Free will. Anyone in the valley can leave anytime they want...they just lose all the benefits. You have to pay to play, Sam. It’s not that bad a deal when you think about it...”
“”We’re fools,” said Sam. “We sold our souls for this…”
“Only some will be taken,” I said. “The odds are in our favor.”
The cold was terrible. It seemed to seep through everything despite the big fiercely burning wood stove in the back of Sam's store.
“He must have disembarked by now,” said Sam, his voice trembling like a woman’s.
“Reckon so.”
“Damn! Hear that wind! Like a…”
Lost soul crying, I thought but had the sense not to say. He was half crazy with fear now and still had that shotgun in a death grip.
“Can’t hear anything,” he said. “That damn wind.”
But soon enough we heard what we had been straining to hear.
At first the voices sounded like ghosts riding the wind. Cries, wails, pleas...screams seemingly interminable and terrible, and all accompanied by other sounds equally so...sounds of wood violently shattering or ripping, great glass windows breaking,,,puny gunshots and futile shotgun blasts...the scraping of heavy unyielding weight over hard winter ground,,,God, the iron cages were being dragged...the Crew had disembarked and They were following His instructions now.
“He’s choosin’,” said Sam. “He’s moving through the street and the Crew is following Him. God help us.”
“Again, not possible, Sam,” I said in a whisper low enough he wouldn’t hear.
“He’s collecting. Oh, hurry, man, and be done with it.”
“He’s got all the time in the world,” I said. “He ain’t hurrying for no one or no thing.”
Without wanting to, I had begun to imagine the shapes, violently moving, black and stunted, deformed and monstrous, half-obscured by the snow, forcing the chosen ones into the large waiting cages. With long and heavy chains they would drag the cages back to the black lightless train that waited across the frozen field at the old station. I was ten when Daisy Wheeler told me of the things she had seen in a quick terrified glimpse from the window in the attic room where she hid on another night when the train ran through the valley. She was fourteen when the Crew came that time... one furtive glimpse and she didn't dare another...
I was eight when the train took my folks. The Crew didn't want me and Sam Ellis who owned the local feed store and was a friend of my Dad's raised me as if I were his own. I grew up in the valley but, after awhile, left for a time. It didn't take long, however, to find the outside world to be a hard and unrewarding place. Living in the valley may be an evil lottery but seven years like the ones He promised...Mister, you can't even imagine...
Well, the bastards were nothing if not efficient. About two hours later the screaming, the sounds, all of it had ceased.
“Last time they took fifty,” said Sam. “This time—“
“This time who knows?”
Finally we heard the whistle blow through the valley again. It sounded triumphant, demonic and mean -- but satisfied for now. The big wheels began to grind and spark over the rusty metal. Slowly we heard it gather speed and we knew that the hellish whistle would soon be lost in the blackness and the distance… and the terrible cold would follow it. Now something in our hearts rose to meet that sound, not fear, not now, just a sick kind of relief, maybe even a kind of triumph not so different from the train’s wild exhileration.
Sam Ellis and I passed the bottle back and forth for the few hours until daybreak.
“Seven more years,” whispered Sam. “Dear God. Seven more..”
“—good years, Sam.” I said. “Golden years.”
He looked at me uncertainly for a moment...and then slowly broke into the widest and wickedest grin I’d ever seen.
“Damn right.” And he laughed like a crazy man. “Seven damn golden years.”
Note: Mark Samuels can take the blame for this one. He introduced me to Night Vale and that very pleasant experience got me thinking about writing a story that could also work as a radio play. I found myself using a Christian theme, the corruptibility of human souls; and somewhere in the back of my mind I was surely thinking of Bloch's That Hell Bound Train. I also wrote the story listening to Springsteen's Downbound Train (Just coincidence but I can already hear the Hah! in the background). OK. I'm ready for my meds now, Doctor--Druidic.
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