Ghost Train
by obohobo
Chapter 1. Ghost train
Eric trudged wearily along the disused railway line, not understanding why he
should felt so tired. It was only twelve miles from his starting point and less
than two miles to his home. As a regular walker, this was not much more than
half he would normally do in a day and being a old railway, there were no steep
gradients. Neither was it a case that he'd had a late night. Granted he'd spent
a couple of hours watching his new DVD "Slave to her Boss" and wanking but once
he had shot his load for a second time, he switched the machine off and went to
bed well before midnight.
In the 1860's when railway building was at its height, the line had been put in
to give fast access from the fishing ports of Lowestoft and Yarmouth to the
markets in London. Locals called it affectionately the Cod and Plaice Line. By
1960 its use had declined and came under the axe with cuts implemented by Dr.
Beeching. For many years the line lay undisturbed, gradually becoming overgrown
with brambles and birch scrub. As a millennium project it was decided to open
twenty miles of the route to walkers. Funds were raised and volunteers cleared
the scrub, opened the one tunnel and checked bridges were still safe. Now it was
a popular pathway for hikers, dog walkers and off-road cyclists.
Eric, living close to the line and nearer one end, had been a scrub clearance
volunteer and had walked the whole route a number of times. Today he took the
bus to the start and was walking home in the bright September sunshine. It
seemed a long drag up the incline to the short tunnel and by the time he emerged
his rucsac felt like lead.
"What is wrong with me today?" he thought. A few yards further on he stopped and
sat on the bank of the cutting. "I feel as if I am carrying a great load and yet
there is only a few things in my pack. It's almost as if I am being pulled back.
I'm only 45 and still fit. Perhaps I am coming down with a cold or a virus." The
sheltered cutting acted as a sun trap. Eric, hot from his exertions and combined
with the warm air, felt tired and momentarily closed his eyes and dozed.
Startled awake, he tried to attune to the sound. "Sounds like a train." "Can't
be." "No rails." The ground began to vibrate with gradually increasing frequency
and volume. "Sounds like an old train snorting up the bank to the tunnel." Eric
could not believe what his senses were telling him. Shaking his head still
didn't remove the sounds. "What is it? Can't be a train." A whistle sound. An
old steam type whistle. Sensing something unusual, Eric stood and peered back
into the tunnel just in time to see the light at the other end partly obscured
by a train outline. Smoke blotted his vision but the sounds came on. Having
reached the top of the incline, the locomotive was picking up speed. It emerged
with a roar and Eric glimpsed the form of an engine he had only seen in museums.
Smoke hung thickly in the air as the carriages passed. Obviously some were
freight but towards the rear were passenger coaches.
A woman was at an open window and directly she passed where Eric stood, she
threw herself from the train. He watched with horror as she flew towards him
before instinct took over and he tried to grab and break her fall. As he caught
her, so he fell backwards. "That's strange, she has no weight." What was even
more strange, the body on top of him seem to deflate into almost a jelly-like
mass that smothered him and pinned him to the ground. Eric was panic stricken.
Trying to get up, he found his body too seemed like jelly and did not allow him
any purchase on the ground. He could only lay there.
Slowly the form began to inflate or solidify itself again and as it did so, the
surroundings changed too. "Lie still for a few minutes." The woman spoke with a
cultured voice but with a somewhat old fashioned intonation. "It will all seem
strange to you for a while."
Looking closely at the woman for the first time, he assessed her to be around
forty years old, with a badly scarred face and dressed a clothes of a past era.
He looked past her and saw metal rails, their surfaces shining with use. The
brickwork at the tunnel looked fresh and new and the banks were freshly cut
grass. "What? Who? What's happening? It's a dream. But it can't be. It's too
vivid and there are smells. I can smell the grass. What's happening?" Turning to
the woman he asked, "Who are you?"
"Lady Violet Theyer, but you can call me Violet or in the strange ways of the
21st century you may even shorten it to Vi. As to what is happening, 'tis a long
story and we have just one hour and ten minutes to get well away from here."
"Wh...?"
"No time for explanations now, we must get to our house." Taking his hand she
clambered up the bank, climbed a wooden fence and set off across the fields in
the direction of his house. Eric couldn't believe his eyes. He recognised some
buildings, the church of St. Mary to his left and Red House Farm but there were
only tracks where there should have been roads and more houses. In the distance
he saw a group of workers with scythes cutting wheat. Again he tried to question
the woman but she just dragged him on, keeping most of the time to the shadows.
Half an hours walk and they arrived at his house but it wasn't the house as he
knew it. It looked like the painting he kept in the dining room, painted in
1874. Outside stood a pump where the conservatory should have been, cobbles
instead of a neat patio. Violet went straight to the back door and led Eric
inside.
"Please sit down Eric. May I call you Eric? Mr. Thacker seems too formal for
what I am going to ask of you although for the era we are now in, that is the
accepted form of address. Eric nodded dumbly. Violet went on. "What I am about
to tell you may seem like science fiction but it is actually happening. Just
look around you. All the pots in the kitchen are real, the kitchen range has a
fire that is burning. Water is simmering on the top. It is real. What will be
difficult for you to understand is the date. This house is not a museum
reconstruction. It is your house or rather, at the moment, my house, and the
year is 1866. September 28th 1866."
"But, but how...?"
"Wait Eric, as I said it is a long story. One that I will take you through
gradually. For now be assured I can and will take you back to 2001, but first I
must put a request to you." Eric looked at the strange woman. Despite her
distorted face, she had a serene beauty that he hadn't noticed earlier. "Eric, I
know you are a writer, a writer of erotic fiction with what is known in your
time as a BDSM theme. What I am asking you to do is write a true BDSM story. My
story. I want to set the record straight. I want my husband, and at this point
in time he is still alive, to be revealed for the cruel, murderer he really is.
I did not jump from that train as all the newspaper reports will say. I was
thrown!"
"Look Violet, I am still so confused. How did I get back to this time, if it is
really is 1866? Why should I believe you? What's in it for me? How do I get back
to reality? Why.....?" Eric shook his head. "What is happening to me?"
"Hush Eric please, you'll believe me because you will see things with your own
eyes. You then get to write the story and have it published. You will get paid
for that and secondly, from watching you for some time now, I know you have a
desire to be a master and have a little slave girl. Well I am not so little, not
as young or as beautiful as your mind may desire but I will let you be my master
provided you agree to write the story and expose my husband. I know that by then
he will be long dead and forgotten but some historian may read it and correct
the record. How do you get back to your own time? Easily. You hold my hand and I
take you. I am a wandering spirit. For now though, we are safe enough here and
it will add atmosphere if I begin with the events of a few hours ago in this
time, September 28th 1866, and how I became a wandering spirit."
