This was really stretching the limits of what Jon should have been able to do at this point in his recovery, but he took a deep breath and pulled himself up. It hurt more than it would have a few weeks before, but he managed to complete the maneuver with only a little more difficulty than he had three years ago. He hung suspended in midair for a second, then dropped lightly to the ground. By some miracle, he managed to stay on his feet.
Melanie whirled around and did not noticeably relax when she—evidently—recognized him. “Jesus! What are you doing? I thought you were going to stay outside!”
“And get caught loitering?” Jon hissed back. “You’re not doing this alone. Besides, I’m curious, too.” He pointed slightly to the left. “There’s a blind spot between those two.”
Thankfully, Melanie didn’t waste precious time arguing, just nodded and set off, Jon hot on her heels.
It hadn’t taken much convincing for Jon to be on board with this excursion. The relative with the alleged cat rescue turned out to be a great-aunt with something of a hoarding problem who was nonetheless more than happy to let Melanie and Jon have their pick to take back with them, but when Melanie confessed her real purpose in coming up to Jon on the train ride from London he’d agreed to it at once. As Martin had said the night of Prentiss’ attack on the Institute, once he’d accepted that any of this was true it was safest to just accept all of it, and if Melanie was right—and he had no real reason to doubt her—he wanted to know. Besides, she would need backup.
They’d spent the last three days casing out the C.F. Booth scrap metal and recycling yard, which was only a few miles away from where they were staying. It was well-guarded to discourage people from doing exactly what they were doing, but two heads were better than one, especially two heads with a desire for knowledge and years of experience in getting into places they weren’t wanted, and they’d figured out the best spot and time to scramble over the high walls.
Jon wasn’t sure if Melanie had assumed he wouldn’t be able to get over the wall or genuinely thought he’d be better off guarding her place of egress, or just hadn’t given it much thought at all, but to hell with that. If she’d wanted him to leave her to do this on her own, she shouldn’t have mentioned “friends of friends” in the ghost-hunting community who poked around places solo and never came back.
Actually, if she hadn’t wanted him along, she probably shouldn’t have told him what she was up to in the first place.
It was extremely difficult to see what they were doing. The moon was only half-full, and partially obscured by clouds, and it wasn’t like the place was well-lit. The only lights around the yard seemed to be motion-sensitive security lights, which they were both trying not to trip. And despite the claims made by a character in a book he’d read as a child that had stuck with him (and that he’d been extremely disappointed, years later, to learn weren’t true), brown-eyed people did not actually have better low-light vision than blue-eyed people.
“You’d think the guards would set off the lights occasionally,” Melanie muttered, peering around a corner and gripping her torch, which she hadn’t turned on for obvious reasons.
“They probably know where all the sensors are. That way they know if a light goes on it’s an intruder.” Jon looked over Melanie’s shoulder. “Our eyes should adjust sooner or later, but meanwhile…”
“We can’t really stand about and wait for that. Come on, let’s try this way.”
It was a cool evening, not too terribly chilly, but there was a breeze blowing that made Jon thankful he’d borrowed one of Martin’s jumpers before they’d left London. Well, borrowed was admittedly a bit of a misnomer; stolen might be more accurate, since he hadn’t asked first, but it was the one Martin had wrapped around his shoulders after they’d been released from quarantine when he couldn’t stop shivering and wasn’t sure if it was from cold or fear. The jumper helped with both, not that Jon would admit that out loud. He found himself balling the cuffs into his hands whenever something made him jump, which was a lot. He was sure it was annoying Melanie, but she wasn’t saying anything.
Suddenly, he stopped dead. “Wait,” he whispered.
Melanie whirled around to face him, then grabbed his arm and dragged him into a deeper shadow. “Are you nuts?” she hissed. “You can’t just stop in the middle of an open space, we’ll get caught for sure! What is it?”
“Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Just…just smell.” Jon sniffed at the air. There it was again—the faint but unmistakable coppery scent of old blood.
Melanie sniffed, too, and her eyes widened. “That’s it. That’s what we’re looking for.”
Jon nodded. “So we follow our noses, is that it?”
“I suppose so. After you, Scooby Doo.”
“Why do I have to be the dog?”
“Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?”
Jon rolled his eyes, sniffed the air again, and set off in a new direction.
His eyes gradually adjusted to the low light, and he could make out the looming shapes of the old rail cars and engines above them. Far from making him feel more confident, however, it only made him feel more nervous. Sounds seemed amplified, and he and Melanie stopped again and again at what might have been footsteps on the other side of the car they stood by and what might have been someone on the other side of the yard. At one point, Melanie grabbed Jon’s arm roughly and about made him jump out of his skin.
“What?” he hissed.
“I thought I saw—” Melanie broke off, staring up at one of the rail cars overhead. “Never mind.”
“No, what?” Jon insisted.
Melanie tore her gaze away from the windows, but she didn’t really let go of Jon’s arm. “I thought I saw someone watching us from the windows, but there’s nothing there.”
A year ago—even six months ago—Jon would probably have suggested it was their reflections, or a long-forgotten poster tacked in the window, despite the fact that there wasn’t enough light for them to really show up in the windows, certainly not from this angle. Now, however, he tossed a nervous glance at one of the other carriages—and did a double-take. For just a second, he could have sworn he’d seen someone lean their head against the glass, but the figure was gone when he looked again.
“It’s not just you,” he admitted softly. Without conscious thought, he shifted his hand to take Melanie’s.
After a second, his brain caught up to what he was doing. Aside from the worm scars, which had to be an unpleasant texture, Jon had always been prone to dry, rough skin on his hands and he was terrible about remembering to buy lotion, let alone use it before it expired. One of the things Jon and Melanie had discovered they had in common over the last two months was an aversion to certain textures, and then there was the fact that Jon had been chided his entire childhood for grabbing at people. He’d just wanted to be held, to have some sort of human contact and connection, but his grandmother had always insisted he obtain consent before touching anyone, and Georgie had always treated him like a weirdo for asking every time he wanted to give her a hug or hold her hand, so he’d gradually just stopped asking, or doing for that matter. He was better about that than he’d been, and God knew Martin was always ready with a hug or a friendly nudge or just a gentle touch—to say nothing of Melanie shoving him around the same way she did her brothers—but in that moment, he knew he’d screwed up.
He was about to let go, to apologize, but Melanie laced her fingers through his and tugged. “Come on. Smell’s getting stronger. Won’t be long now.”
They kept tight hold of one another’s hands, still moving slowly and, Jon felt, with even less confidence than before. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they would find what they were looking for—it was that he did, and that he was sure they weren’t ready for it. Well, perhaps Melanie was; after all, she’d been doing this sort of thing for most of her life.
As if in response to his thoughts, Melanie said softly, “I’ve never done this sort of thing without Martin before. Well, and Gerry, but…I thought I could handle it on my own because I knew how. Didn’t realize how much of feeling like I’d be okay came from having him there.”
Jon managed a laugh. “Reading minds, Ms. King?”
“Haven’t figured that one out yet. I just felt like being honest with you in case it’s my last chance.”
“In that case, I should probably be honest as well and admit I’d feel better if Martin was here, too.”
Melanie actually gave him a quick, crooked smile. “Not exactly news, mate.”
Jon wouldn’t have admitted it in a million years, but the mate warmed him to his toes.
He had long since lost track of time and he’d left his phone back at Great-Aunt Beatrice’s house, but the moon had dipped halfway to the horizon before both Jon and Melanie stopped and turned to each other, mouths open, before closing them and nodding as they realized they’d both noticed the same thing. The scent of blood was stronger than ever, and seemed to be coming from just ahead of them.
And then they stepped around the next corner, and Melanie nodded grimly. “That’s it. I recognize the description.”
Jon swallowed hard as he looked at the train car in front of them. As Melanie had described on their way up, it was old, its outline visible even in the darkness. In fact, it seemed to Jon to be almost too visible. The smell of blood was definitely all around them, choking out all the other scents and seeming to muffle sounds as well, and while Jon knew that was nonsense, it felt right. It had a presence, almost as though it was alive somehow, like it might suddenly come awake and start chasing after them.
“If you turn on your light and that thing has a face, we are leaving,” he muttered.
“I’d rather be on the Island of Sodor. At least we could count on someone to help us there,” Melanie muttered back, but she switched on her torch—they were far enough from the security stations that it was probably safe.
The rail car didn’t have a face. What it did have was a few flakes of drab green paint stuck to its metal sides, a sliding door across the center, and an incredibly solid build. Jon was no expert in trains and rail cars, but he knew enough to tell that the car dated back to World War II or even earlier, and that it should have been a rusted, crumbling bit of scrap. Instead, there wasn’t a speck of rust on it, and its body seemed completely intact. Melanie’s torch played over it, and something caught Jon’s eye.
“Wait,” he whispered. “What’s that?”
“Where?” Melanie swung the torch back and stopped when Jon squeezed her hand. Painted in one corner of the car, in black blocky stenciled characters, was a serial number.
It looked…not new. Certainly not. But it definitely looked as though it hadn’t faded or flaked in the time since it was put on the train. The green paint surrounding it was untouched. It was as though the whole thing, or at least this corner of it, was suspended in time somehow, a perfect capsule of an era long since past. As though they had stepped through a portal and any moment would be hearing gunfire, or an air-raid siren.
“Hold this.” Melanie thrust the torch at Jon and fished about in her pockets for a moment. He immediately missed the contact, but he kept the torch light steady on the serial number. Melanie came up with a square, spiral-bound notebook and what looked like a crayon and scribbled down the number, then slid it back into her pocket.
“To look up later?” Jon asked. Melanie nodded. “This feels…I think this is an Army car.”
“I think you’re right.”
“So this is the Slaughter.”
“Not necessarily. Look.” Melanie took the torch from him and directed it to the other end of the car. The paint on that end was nearly gone, but there was just a hint of what might have once been a white circle of some kind.
Jon stared at it, then at Melanie. “It’s…what does that mean?”
Melanie shrugged. “Could have been a hospital car. Which means this might be the Corruption.” She paused for a moment and looked over at Jon. Even in the darkness, he could see the sudden worry in her eyes. “In which case maybe you shouldn’t go near it.”
“And if it’s the Slaughter, you shouldn’t go near it,” Jon retorted. “Wasn’t that the whole point in getting Martin to tell us what we’ve been Marked by?”
Melanie hesitated for a moment. “Fair enough. Let’s…let’s take a look and see what’s here. And, look, the only Mark we both share is the Eye, right? This isn’t that. So if something comes after us—”
“It’ll probably only go for one of us,” Jon completed, “and the other can protect that one.”
“Exactly.” Melanie took a deep breath and hesitated, then stepped forward.
Jon desperately wanted to reach for her hand again, but settled for balling the cuffs of his stolen jumper into his hands again and following.
He expected it would take both of them to pull open the sliding door, but to his surprise—and mild alarm—when he wrapped his hands around the handle and pulled, there was almost no resistance. It rolled open smoothly, with a bit of a rattle and a creak but nothing like he’d have anticipated from something that had stood at the mercy of the elements for at least seventy years. He was torn between the instinct to go slowly to minimize the noise and the instinct to go quickly to avoid detection, but it didn’t take long in the end and then the car was laid bare and open for them.
It was dark. Far darker than it had any right to be, really, almost like it was swallowing any light from around it. Melanie’s torch hit the wall opposite them, and it was blank, featureless steel. Jon would have been prepared to swear there was nothing in there, except that the smell of blood was almost overpowering, so thick and cloying he could practically taste it. He heard a faint dripping noise, and his eyes instinctively drew downwards. Suddenly, he grabbed Melanie’s arm and pointed.
Melanie brought the torch light down. It glinted on the thick, red, viscous stream of liquid trickling over the edge of the car. Blood. Still flowing, oozing from some unknown source, it rolled over the lip of the door track—the floor must be awash with it if it was enough to get over the edge—and splattered on the ground below. Jon was half-convinced they’d found something with no supernatural explanation, just walked into some sort of killer’s stronghold.
The beam of light traced the stream back. Jon was surprised to see, through craning his head, that the streams weren’t that bad really—there were streaks across the floor, but nothing like the puddle he’d imagined—and he supposed it was building up at the lip and spilling over somehow. Maybe the car was at a slight angle. At the other end of the stream was an old-fashioned hospital gurney draped in olive-green fabric, atop which sat a white body bag…a mostly-white body bag. There were black stains near the bottom.
And it was moving. It jerked about as if trying to free itself—or as if it were in pain. Whoever was in that bag was alive.
Jon definitely didn’t want to be there anymore. He was getting ready to try and pull Melanie away when something suddenly flashed out of the corner of his eye. He stood, frozen in horror or terror or both, as a shape burst from the left side of the car and charged over to the gurney.
It looked like a man, wearing a uniform like Jon had seen in countless old photographs with a white armband emblazoned with a red cross on one arm—Melanie was right, this had to have been a hospital car—and what looked like a surgical scalpel held in his hand. He ran over to the body bag and began stabbing it, over and over.
The eyes—Jon knew those eyes were going to haunt his dreams for a good long while. They were devoid of everything human, everything that made a person a person. They were instead filled with nothing but the carnage in front of them, the feel of the knife plunging into the living flesh, the blood itself. Cold, paralyzing fear churned through Jon’s veins like ice water. Melanie beside him had gone rigid, her face transfixed into something between fascination and horror as she stared at those eyes.
They’d been right the first time. This was a supernatural encounter. This was the Slaughter.
The small niggling common sense part of his brain shouted over the fascination in a voice that sounded a lot like Martin’s that if the ghost was stabbing a body with its side facing them, they shouldn’t have been able to see its eyes so clearly. Belatedly, Jon caught the flash of light on metal and realized the ghost was charging straight towards them—straight towards Melanie.
Jon was not a brave man, but he was coming to realize that he was, under certain circumstances, a very stubborn one.
Not bothering to waste breath on shouting her name, he threw his whole body towards her, trying to push her out of the ghost’s path. Pulling her might have been safer for both of them, but it would have given her too much of a chance to resist, whereas by body-slamming her out of the way he at least had gravity and surprise on his side. It worked, and the torch beam flailed wildly around, but only insofar as it got Melanie out of the way. Something cold and sharp sliced its way into his shoulder as he fell, and he yelped involuntarily before slamming his hand into his mouth to stifle his cry of pain.
“Come on!” Melanie pulled herself out from under Jon and dragged him to his feet, not letting go of his hand, and they ran.
Every step sent a renewed throb of agony through Jon’s shoulder, but he didn’t dare stop or slow down. He didn’t know if they were trying to outrun the ghost or the guards or both, but by some miracle they made it back to their entry point unobserved. Jon managed to leap up and grab the top of the wall, but his shoulder screamed in pain and he knew he would never be able to pull himself over it again.
He was about to let go, to tell Melanie to run for it and he’d take the consequences, but Melanie grabbed his feet and shoved him upwards. It still hurt, but he did manage to—eventually—get a leg up over the top of the wall. Just as he was dragging himself up, Melanie hoisted herself up beside him and swung over the wall to the ground. Jon managed to get his second leg to the top of the wall, then simply rolled off the other side and let himself fall. He barely had the wherewithal to twist himself in midair so he landed on his uninjured shoulder, but the impact still knocked the air from his lungs and stunned him momentarily.
Noises were coming from the other side of the wall—footsteps, distant shouting—and Jon knew the guards were coming. Any minute they would discover Melanie’s torch, and then someone would be around the wall looking for them, and it would be a matter of convincing the guards that, no, they hadn’t broken into the scrap yard, but he couldn’t move yet. Melanie, fortunately, could, and she grabbed Jon’s hands and yanked him to his feet, causing a renewed surge of agony to course through his shoulder. Somehow, he managed to keep his feet under him as they bolted.
At last Jon stumbled, and they both fell to the ground, breathing heavily. Jon’s face was wet and sticky, and he tasted salt. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying, but between the pain and the fear, it made sense. Still trying to catch his breath, he pressed his hand to his aching shoulder. Unsurprisingly, it came away bloody.
“Fuck,” he managed. He covered the wound with his hand again, trying to apply as much pressure as he could, but he’d never been that physically strong. He looked up at Melanie. “Please tell me—you have your phone.”
Melanie shook her head, still gasping for air. “Thought it’d be—safer if I—couldn’t be tracked.”
“Me, too. We’ll have to—flag down a passing motorist.” Unlike the previous two nights, they’d walked the six miles from the house to the scrap yard so there would be nothing to trace back to them if the guards got suspicious. They had put a great deal of thought, Jon realized, into all the wrong things.
He turned to look down the road at the sound of an approaching motor, then turned back to Melanie. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Melanie nodded, face grim as she pressed both hands over Jon’s to try and staunch the flow of blood while also glancing towards the first glint of headlights from what looked to be a lorry. “Martin is going to kill us.”