Paul shrugged. “So, what then? Have we been abducted by aliens? Sent to Hell? What we need is concrete answers, because all we have right now is a bunch of questions.”

  Xavi nodded. “Questions are scary. Answers are reassuring.”

  “Exactly, my friend.”

  Clip liked Paul already. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy, focused on action instead of emotion. Unlike Xavi, who was squeezing her hand, breathing heavily, and clearly struggling to contain himself. She squeezed his hand back and looked him in the eye. Whatever shit was going on, they had to stick together. Everyone else on the train was a stranger.

  “Yo, bruv.” Mudz stood up at the front of the carriage. His mask was back in place, and his hood was pulled down to his eyebrows. “Don’t you need to be at the wheel or something? Man’s got business to attend to, you get me?”

  Dan waved a hand. “Everything is under control, sir. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Man ain’t worried, bruv. Man is getting bare fazed because he wants to get off this train. When we gonna stop?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. Please be seated for now.”

  Mudz sucked at his teeth, but he sat down as asked, which was a relief. The last thing Clip wanted right now was another round with him and his buddy.

  “You should try the radio again,” said Paul. “Let’s be proactive here.”

  Dan agreed it was a good idea, so he headed back down the aisle and disappeared back inside the operator’s cabin. Clip and Xavi remained standing in silence. What exactly should they do? Take a seat and relax? It was only the utter bizarreness of the situation that allowed Clip to stay calm. Once her brain started to comprehend any of this, she feared she might go to pieces.

  Please, just get us out of this tunnel. I want to see the sun again. I want to breathe fresh air.

  The lights went out again.

  “Oh, no!” said Clip. “Please.”

  “It’s okay,” said Xavi, but his voice was flat.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” said Paul.

  Mudz shouted from the front, “Yo, driver-man, sort this shit out, yeah? It’s a proper joke now, bruv.”

  The lights came back on.

  “That’s better,” said Mudz. “Stop playing around, you get me?”

  Clip collapsed onto a seat and put her face in her hands. She felt cold, but only a little. The temperature inside the carriage was neutral, neither hot nor chilly. Even the air seemed bland – odourless and still.

  Xavi stood in front of her. He wrapped both arms around her, kissed the top of her head, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say.

  Stay calm, Clip. This will all work itself out. This is reality, not an episode of Black Mirror.

  I’m on a train to Birmingham, not a spaceship passing through a wormhole. Everything is weird as hell, but I’ll be on the other side of it soon. Everything will make sense. I just have to stay calm until then.

  “What the hell?”

  Clip looked past Xavi and saw Paul turning back and forth while staring at the floor. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think? The geezer we tried to help. His body was right here in the aisle. Where the hell did it go?”

  Clip eased Xavi out of her way and stared at the floor in the middle of the aisle. The space where the dead man had been lying was now bare. No trace of his body whatsoever.

  “The lights were only out for a second,” she said. “There’s no way he could have…” She shook her head, too confused to even finish her sentence.

  “Maybe he wasn’t dead,” said Paul.

  “He was,” said Xavi, staring at the floor with wide eyes. “He was dead. There’s no way someone could have moved his body. If nothing else, we would have heard something.” He clutched at his messy brown hair and scooped it back behind his ears. Staring off into space, he muttered to himself. “We would have heard.”

  “All right. Okay. Let’s keep our heads,” said Paul. “We’ll figure this crazy shit out together.”

  Clip nodded. “I agree. We need to work together.”

  All is well. All is calm.

  All is fucking insane.

  Stop it. Don’t panic.

  Paul sighed and walked off down the aisle, approaching the operator’s cabin and banging on the door. “Hey, Chief?”

  Dan opened the door and held it open with his foot. “Everything okay?”

  “Have you tried the radio again?” Paul peered past Dan, as if he didn’t trust what was going on inside the cabin. Clip moved over and took a glance as well. The carriage’s front window was the same as its side windows – pitch-black. No light at the end of the tunnel lay ahead of them. Only darkness.

  Dan pulled a telephone handset off the wall and passed it to Paul. “It’s dead,” he said. “Listen.”

  Paul tried the handset for a moment before handing it back. “Is that normal inside a tunnel?”

  Dan put the handset back on its hook and shrugged. “It can affect things, but most tunnels are less than twenty feet long. At the speed we’re doing, we should have been in and out in seconds.”

  Mudz appeared behind them in the aisle. Kyle stood beside him, only his bright green eyes showing between his mask and hood. Mudz sucked his teeth at them. “What’s the goddamn problem, bruv?”

  Clip hated being near the two thugs, but right now she was stuck with them. Best to get along, even with sociopathic criminals. “Something strange is going on,” she told the two lads. “We’re trying to figure it out.”

  “The tunnel,” said Kyle. “We is stuck inside, yeah?”

  “You noticed too?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been on this train a hundred times.”

  Mudz sucked his teeth. “Driver-man is parring us off, bruv.”

  “I’m not responsible for this,” said Dan testily. “I’m as clueless as everybody else.”

  “Man is responsible, bruv, so he best get us out of this tunnel ASAP or shit’s gonna turn bad.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. The train isn’t responding to any of my controls.”

  “Allow it. Pull the emergency brake or something, innit?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “Are we in trouble?” Kyle pulled down his mask so that it was around his throat. He had thin red lips and patchy ginger stubble. “Do we need to worry?”

  Dan shrugged. “I don’t know, but my instincts say yes.”

  “Screw this,” said Mudz, and he turned and stomped back down the aisle, coming to a stop in front of the nearest exit doors. There, he yanked on the emergency stop cord running along the ceiling.

  Nothing happened.

  Mudz yanked on the cord again and again.

  “Stop,” said Dan. “That doesn’t even do anything. It only sends an alert to the driver, which is me, and I’ve already applied the emergency brake.”

  “Shut your mouth, bruv. I’m done with you.”

  Clip shook her head. “Stop kicking off. It’s not helping.”

  “Does anybody hear that?” asked the old lady. She was frowning and tilting her head. “I hear dogs barking. No, wait… perhaps I don’t.”

  Her husband kissed her on the cheek and cuddled her. “We’re all a little stressed, dear. The mind plays tricks.”

  Mudz stopped pulling on the cord and unleashed a litany of barely understandable threats. It really was an impressive accent to maintain under stress. Clip wondered if he would ever drop it and speak normally. Kyle had seemed to have dropped his.

  The young man in a shirt and tie with the shaved head and scar placed his laptop down on the seat beside him and stood up. “My name’s Jay. I’m an IT specialist in the city. Perhaps I could take a look at the train’s computer and see what’s wrong. Does it run on Windows or something like that?”

  Dan chuckled. “Nothing so advanced, I’m afraid. There’s no operating system, only GPS, signalling and a bunch of simple instruments. Take a look, by all means, but there’s nothing for you to hack into.”

  Jay sighed. “Well, I just wanted to make myself available. Looks like we’re all stuck in this together.”

  “We’re available, too,” said the old man sitting with his wife. “My name is Eric Tomy, and this is my wife, Pat. We’re retirees, but we used to own a furniture factory in Tamworth.”

  Mudz kicked at the seats. “How the fuck is that useful, old boy? Man don’t need no coffee table, does he? I swear down, if someone don’t stop this train in the next five minutes, mandem is gonna come down and break some legs. You is all lucky man ain’t got no signal on his phone.”

  “Calm down,” said Paul. “There’s no point getting shirty, is there?”

  “Man has shit to do, bruv.”

  “So do the rest of us. I was on my way to the first job interview I’ve had all month. It’s probably a lost cause now, but you don’t see me complaining.”

  “You do you, bruv, but man is well vexed. Meanwhile, old boy here is chatting about furniture like we’re at Ikea.”

  “I was simply introducing myself,” said Eric testily. “It’s called manners, young man. You obviously never learned any.”

  “Dun no nothing bout that, old boy, but you better watch yourself. You ain’t too old for an ass whooping.”

  Jay put a hand up to Mudz in a friendly gesture. “Easy, bruv. People are just trying to settle themselves with a bit of chitchat. None of us wants to be stuck on this train.”

  Mudz sneered, but it didn’t seem directed at Jay. “Allow it. This is all some bare white boy prank.”

  Jay chuckled. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “It’s not a prank,” said Clip, shaking her head. “How could this be a prank?”

  Mudz glared at her. “You tell me, blondie. You is the one what likes to film shit on her phone. Is this gonna end up on your YouTube channel? Then woman should get her tits out for them views, yeah? Give us all a free show, innit?”

  “Suck my dick,” said Clip. “You sad little boy.”

  “What you say to me, woman? Man will fill that mouth of yours.”

  Xavi eased Clip aside and stepped into the aisle. “Sit down and be quiet. You’re keeping the rest of us from figuring this out.”

  Mudz smirked and puffed out his chest. “You ready for round two, Pedro?”

  “I’m not fighting you again, so just sit down and leave the rest of us to sort this out.”

  “Make me, bruv!”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Allow it, bitch.”

  Xavi rolled his eyes. “Your madre’s a bitch.”

  Kyle winced and hissed through his teeth. “Bad words, bruv.”

  Mudz threw a punch that cracked against Xavi’s cheek and sent him stumbling into the seat backs with a groan. Mudz immediately followed up with a second punch, but this one Xavi avoided by stumbling to his right. He clutched his cheek. “Y-You sucker punched me!”

  Mudz had lost his balance, so Xavi launched himself into a tackle, grabbing him around the waist and forcing him backwards. The two of them would have fallen in a heap on the floor if not for the close confines between the two columns of seats. Instead, they bounced back and forth in the aisle, each trying to gain leverage over the other.

  Then Mudz turned the fight dirty by headbutting Xavi in the face. Xavi slumped against the seats, giving Mudz enough time to pull out his knife again. “Man should have learned his lesson the first time, innit?”

  Clip cried out a warning to Xavi, but thankfully he realised the threat on his own. He struck out at Mudz’s throat with the ridge of his hand just in time to stop him using the blade, and the unexpected blow sent Mudz stumbling down the aisle, clutching his throat and gagging. Before he could recover his senses, Xavi grabbed the youth by the wrist and elbow and twisted his arm at an unhealthy angle.

  The knife clattered to the floor.

  “Stop this!” Dan shouted. “At once.”

  Seeing his friend getting beaten, Kyle entered the fray. He grabbed Xavi from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. “Mash that pussy hole up, fam.”

  Mudz was still clutching his throat and trying to catch his breath, but seeing his advantage, he rushed forward and launched another attack.

  Suddenly, Paul dashed away from the operator’s cabin and into the aisle. He unleashed a punch and Mudz ran straight into it, taking a fist square in the middle of the face. It dropped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and blood immediately started flowing from his nose. Paul stood over him and glowered. “If man makes any more trouble, man will get thrown off the train by his fucking ears, innit? You get me, fam?”

  “Fuck you,” said Mudz, but it was a pitiful reply and his voice was thick with phlegm and blood. “Pussy hole. Talk about my moms again and I’ll end you.”

  Paul turned to face Kyle. The man suddenly seemed a foot taller and an inch wider. “Kid, you’ve got three seconds to let go of my friend, or you’re going to end up on the floor next to this halfwit.”

  Kyle scowled but didn’t argue. He released Xavi and sidled over to Mudz, who was still lying on the floor and nursing his face. Xavi turned angrily to grab at Kyle as he passed, but Clip blocked him and told him to chill out. Violence still wasn’t the answer. They needed to work together.

  Although I can’t say I’m not loving Paul right now. Guy’s a badass.

  “This is madness,” said the old woman, Pat. “The youth today… I don’t understand them. Literally.”

  “Beggars belief,” said Eric. “The way they talk. The way they behave. What’s the sodding world coming to?”

  Mudz shuffled backwards on his butt, then used the seats to climb to his feet. His nose was streaming blood, but he did nothing to stem the tide. He just glared at everyone as though they had done him some great injustice. “Fam, with me. Man ain’t sticking around with these pussy holes.”

  Kyle joined Mudz as he retreated down the aisle. To Clip’s surprise, Jay went with them. He grabbed his laptop off the seat and stuffed it into a satchel, shaking his head the entire time as if he were pissed off. Was he seriously on Mudz’s side? After he had pulled a knife?

  “Don’t leave the carriage,” said Dan. “It might not be safe. We can keep away from each other, but stay in this carriage.”

  Mudz muttered something under his breath, but then Jay chatted with him and the three young men sat down at the rear of the carriage.

  Xavi turned to Paul, giving him an appreciative nod. “That was one hell of a punch, dude. You used to be a boxer or something?”

  “No. I used to be 3 Para. Punching people in the face is one of the first things they teach you. Anyway, we’re in no better state than we were five minutes ago. We have no idea what’s going on, and no idea what to do. I suggest, for now, we seek to secure the train and make sure everybody is in one place. We might even find out what happened to our dead friend. His body must be somewhere.”

  Clip didn’t think that was true. The man’s body had disappeared in the blink of the lights. A couple of seconds at the most. Vanished.

  Or maybe it was Clip and the others on the train who had vanished. Perhaps they had exited reality, and as far as the rest of the world knew, the train had simply gone into the tunnel and disappeared. The thought made her shiver.

  What if we’re trapped in a timeless void, unable to grow old or die?

  Don’t get carried away, Clip. We’re not in a void. That’s ridiculous.

  So maybe Mudz is right, and this is all a big prank or… She shuddered. A social experiment. If it is, somebody’s getting sued. And if Derren Brown appears, I’m going to have Paul punch him right in the mouth.

  “I’m going to check the other cabins,” said Paul, rubbing at his fist tenderly. “I could use a little backup, in case of… difficulties.”

  Xavi stepped forward. “Clip and I will come with you. I can’t be in the same carriage as those two right now.” He rubbed at his eye socket, which was puffy after being punched in the cheek. It would probably turn black soon.

  At least he didn’t get stabbed. That’s twice now he’s had a lucky escape.

  Clip picked up the knife from the middle of the aisle and examined it. A crude metal handle with a black-painted blade. “I don’t want this,” she said. “Will somebody take it from me?”

  Paul took the knife and closed the blade into the handle before depositing it into his jeans pocket. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a mooch and see how much weirder this day can get.”

  “I really hope not much,” said Clip. “This is about the maximum amount of weirdness I can take.”

  The three of them headed out of the front carriage, pointedly ignoring Mudz and Kyle as they exited. The middle carriage had only two occupants: Gina and Harley. Both were white in the face and flinched when the others entered.

  Clip put a hand on the seat behind Gina and smiled weakly. “I wish I could say everything is all right, but it’s not. The train driver, Dan, says he’s lost control of the train and we’re stuck inside the tunnel. Also, a passenger in the next carriage had a heart attack and died, but his body has gone missing, which makes zero sense.”

  Gina gulped audibly. “Okay, so what are we doing now? Have we called for help?”

  “Unless you have a signal,” said Paul, “we’re on our own. The train’s radio isn’t working and we’ve already checked our phones. There’s no network.” He folded his arms and seemed to think for a moment. “Anyway, we’re going to check the other carriage and see if there’s anyone back there. We should all stick together while we figure this out. Both of you should go up front. Stick with Dan, the driver.”

  Gina stood up and offered a hand to Harley. “Come on, sweetheart. We’ll figure this all out. Let’s go be with everybody else.”

  The boy looked up at Clip. “Are you coming?”

  “In a minute,” said Clip. “I’m going to check out the other carriage with Xavi and Paul first. Are you okay?”

  He shook his head and seemed close to tears. His milky left eye was more grey than white. “I hear voices.”

  “What?”

  “Listen. There are voices.”

  Paul frowned, while Xavi stared at Clip in confusion.

  Everyone stayed quiet and listened.

 

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