Blood on the Tracks

The investigators find themselves sharing a compartment on the express train from Boston to Portland, stopping at Arkham amongst other places. Just as the train leaves North Station, a drunk man staggers into the compartment, slams the door shut with an effort and collapses in the corner seat. It soon becomes apparent that the man isn’t drunk but is suffering from a fatal stab wound to the lungs.

As the investigators tend to him, he gasps out his last words:

Looks like they’ve done for me, don’t it? ... They’re after it, see ... They want it more than anything ... only ... I took it from them ... Had to, see ... Someone had to ... Else Christ knows what they’d’ve done ... Can’t tell you what it is, though ... Too dangerous ... Can’t even tell you where it is ... ‘cause then you might tell them ... But I fooled them ... They might’ve stuck me through the lungs with a damn butcher knife ... but I shot the bastard dead who done for me and got away for long enough ... Long enough from them and those damn things of theirs ... Only maybe it’s the things that’re runnin’ the show ... Who knows ... Who kn- ...

Possibilities

1 The man, Adam Tubbs, has stolen a powerful cult artefact. He escaped from the cultists chasing him long enough to hide the artefact somewhere on the train. Unfortunately, one of the cultists caught up with him and stabbed him with a ritual dagger before Tubbs shot him dead and stuffed the body into a toilet. Several bad guys and two semi-human ‘things’ are on the train searching for Tubbs and the artefact.

2 Tubbs is a minor hoodlum who has crossed the gang he runs with by stealing a package of heroin from the latest consignment from Southeast Asia. He was trailed to the station by several gang members, where one of them ambushed and stabbed him before he was able to shoot the attacker and hide the body. Tubbs staggered onto the nearest train, stashed the kilo of heroin onboard and then stumbled into the investigators’ compartment. The ‘things’ he refers to are Vietnamese drug-traffickers that the gang is allied with. Three gangsters spotted Tubbs getting on the train and are now looking for Tubbs and the heroin.

3     Tubbs is a member of one of a pair of feuding cults that have an overwhelming hatred for each other. In a struggle for an artefact belonging to one of them, he has been stabbed and has slain one of his enemies. He has managed to hide the artefact on the train before staggering into the investigators’ compartment. Several cultists from each faction are also on board the train, searching for the artefact, Tubbs, and each other.

© Tony Hickie

The Followers

You are being watched. You cannot see the things that follow you. It could just be your imagination, but movement at the edge of your vision and malicious chattering voices in the wind, haunt your every waking moment. At night they come closer and hide behind reflections in mirrors and darkened windows. And if you turn out the light . . . they become really bold. So you sleep with the light on. Always.

It’s that or the nightmares . . .

Some nights you wake unable to breathe as if something heavy is sitting on your chest. And the room still smells of fetid breath and damp fur.

Possibilities

1 Your block is the subject of secret government experimentation. An experimental drug has been introduced into the water supply, in minute quantities. The drug is heightening everyone’s paranoia and is affecting their sanity.

As well as your own difficulties, other residents are affected. Arguments flare at the slightest provocation. Nobody talks to their neighbours. Security systems are installed. And then nice Mrs Dolittle, who made you cookies the other day, is arrested for making a stew with her husband’s head.

After that, the experiment stops and things slowly return to normal. Nobody is any the wiser.

2 The shock almost killed you. You were having a cup of coffee in a café when suddenly another customer screams and flails at the air as if attacked by something. You stood up to help but, like an after-image of bright lights, you could see things swarming over him. Or at least that is what you think you saw.

Since then you have perceived those things everywhere. And they know that you can see them. Whatever their malign purpose, they wish to do it unobserved and are Now out to get you.

3 For hundreds of years scientists have observed, catalogued and dissected things to see how they work. If a few dogs die of lung cancer or a rabbit has its eyes burnt out, well, it’s all for the common good. We need to know that cigarettes are bad for us and that our cosmetics are kind to our skin.

Now scientist of a different hue are making the same justification. They come in the night and drug you so that you can not remember exactly what has happened and they take you away and conduct experiments. A dissection one night, mazes and electric shocks the next. It’s cruel, yes, but they need to learn a few things before they arrive and it is all for the common good. Well, their common good - and they have never considered that any other kind matters.

© Nathan Gribble