They all stared at the door as if waiting for someone on the other side to test the lock. Seconds passed, and nothing happened. Violet deflated in relief and turned to Malcolm, but her gaze shifted as she saw what remained of Elias looming in the shadows of the baggage car.
Violet screamed and jerked backward. She slammed into the locked door, and something slammed back. Alfie jumped, then pulled her away from the door.
“What the fuck is doing that?” Malcolm snapped, pointing at the door.
Alfie nodded toward Elias. “I think we’ve got a more immediate problem.”
“Is that…” Violet pulled away from Alfie and started toward the center of the baggage car. “Is that Elias?”
Malcolm had turned his back on his brother.
Elias grabbed him by the shoulder, fingers digging in hard, painful even through his shirt and coat. Malcolm jerked away, backed into Alfie, who kept him from falling. The stink of Elias was nearly as bad as the revulsion Malcolm felt at having been touched by whatever he’d become, even through his clothing.
“Kill me, Malcolm,” Elias rasped. “Do it fast. This… whatever is happening to me… it’s not just my body. It’s in my mind. Kill me quick.”
Malcolm froze. The floorboards of the baggage car seemed to undulate as they passed over rough track.
“Elias,” Violet said, “what are you, now?”
The pale gray flesh glistened. Black veins pulsed. “I don’t know.”
Alfie dashed to his duffel, shoved a hand in. “To hell with it.” He pulled out a gun, black-barreled and heavy-looking.
“No!” Malcolm shouted, and Alfie hesitated.
Elias fell to his knees. He looked up at Malcolm. “There are others. I feel them. Inside the train, but up ahead, too. Closing in.”
Up ahead?Malcolm strode to the window, dragged it open, and thrust his head out. Cold rain whipped at him, and he squinted against the wind. He looked east along the tracks, up toward the top of the train, studied the engine—only the coal car separated them from it. He caught no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
Only here, in the baggage car.
Then, just north of the tracks, something pale flashed from the woods, darting through the rain, toward the train. It leaped to intercept the engine and was gone so fast Malcolm might have thought he’d imagined it, if it had not now been followed by a scream, rocketed back to them on the wind. A scream from the engineer.
“Elias,” he began, but any further questions would go unanswered. When he turned to look, his brother lay sprawled on his face in a smear of dry and rotten skin and gore.
Violet had a trembling hand over her mouth. Alfie had turned ghostly pale.
None of them wanted to get close enough to see if he was dead.
Something slammed against the door hard enough to crack the wood. The lock strained with the next blow. Alfie raised his pistol, aiming at the door as he backed slowly away.
“It killed them,” Violet said, rushing to Malcolm. “Everyone in the first two sleeper cars. They’re all…”
She shook her head with the memory. Malcolm glanced around for a weapon. There were several chains on the floor with metal collars, there to secure animals like the goat. He bent, picked up a chain in both hands, and yanked hard.
He didn’t doubt Violet’s words. After the raven, such a murder scene seemed all too possible.
“Did you see it?” he asked her. “What is it?”
“I think it’s… that.” She pointed at Elias.
Malcolm felt sick. He’d expected the answer, but now it was real. True.
He yanked on the chain again, wedged one shoe against the wall and put his weight into it, but the thing would not come loose. He missed the confidence he’d had in his Browning. Glancing over at the crate of Maggie’s remains, he wondered how much of this she had anticipated. How much had she known would happen? She should have warned him. He’d have been better prepared.
If he had believed her.
The lock tore out of the frame. The door crashed inward. Malcolm saw the thing on the other side as it stepped across the threshold. Mushroom pale, it opened its eager mouth with a crack of shifting jawbone. Yellow saliva drooled from the corners of its mouth, sliding over black-stained canine teeth.
