Above His Station by Darren Craske Read Free Book Online Page B

‘In case the driver kicks the bucket whilst he’s driving. It cuts out the electrical current and stops the train.’
    ‘Yeah, but we want to go backwards, don’t we?’ asked the rat.
    We did indeed – if only I could get the blessed train to obey my mental commands. I took hold of the black handle once more and twisted it in the other direction. To my great relief (make that ‘surprise’) the train began to reverse. I held the handle steady, careful not to move too quickly. As we began to leave Regal Street I felt another great sense of relief, yet it was one tainted by regret. That station was supposed to signal the beginning of a new chapter in my life, yet so far it had only given me more bad memories to deal with. That thought was emphasised by seeing the mess of the tiger as we pulled away.
    Consulting my memory of the Underground network, as well as information that I could recall from the Welcome Pack, the line from Regal Street led all the way to Charing Cross, and from there Her Majesty could hop on her Royal locomotive and be out of London in a flash. How I wished that I could do the same – but then a thought struck me. The Queen couldn’t do that, could she? Not now that I’d just commandeered her bloody train for myself! I felt rather guilty about that, and once again I hoped that I wasn’t going to get into hot water for this. But the big difference between Her Majesty and me (besides the blatantly obvious) was that I didn’t need to get as far as Charing Cross; any old station would do me. And so I decided to stop at whichever one came first, and in this case that happened to be High Wharton Street.
    ‘This is more like it!’ I said, striding along the platform towards the exit.
    We moved through the tunnels, a stark contrast indeed to the ones at Regal Street; discarded Metro newspapers, empty drinks cans and polystyrene coffee cups blanketed the floor. It was partly our fault, and by ‘our’ I mean the transport company. We’d done away with rubbish bins throughout all the stations a couple of years back to mitigate the risk of bombs, so really the passengers had nowhere to deposit their rubbish. Consequently, it was all over the place. I stepped over a pair of trainers, barely affording them a second glance, and it was only when I came across a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, as well as many more piles of clothes scattered about, that it registered.
    I spoke my thoughts aloud.
    ‘It’s just like with the driver of the train…as if people just stripped off all their kit and went running about in the bloody nude!’
    ‘I don’t see anyone running about,’ said the rat. ‘In fact…I don’t see anyone at all.’
    And the rodent was quite correct. The absence of human beings at Regal Street I could understand considering its secrecy, but here at High Wharton Street the place should have been teeming with people right about now. It was almost lunchtime, what on earth was going on? I couldn’t see anyone official ushering passengers to safety so it wasn’t an evacuation, and there was no recorded message on the public address system to suggest some sort of emergency. No alarms sounded of any kind, and I doubted that they would run a drill so close to lunch. According to the computerised timetables suspended from the ceiling, all the trains were running to schedule – which I prayed was not correct, for any train arriving now would collide with my own on the Eastbound platform.
    Silently, we moved deeper into the station. My mouth went drier the further that we progressed. The rat sensed my unease, and furthermore, appeared to share it.
    ‘This is bigger than I thought,’ it said. ‘It’s affected so many people.’
    ‘What has?’ I asked. ‘And affected them how?’
    ‘Clothes everywhere…left where they fell,’ muttered the rat, and I had a job to hear it, if I’m honest. Such sadness from a rodent, a creature recognised as a pest at any other time. I shook my head, freeing