The Stuff of Nightmares Read Online Free Page B

enormous pealing bell.
    Someone began to sob. Low, irregular sobs of total terror.
    ‘Are you all right?’ I tried to call out, although I didn’t know who I was talking to and it was such a ridiculous question. I just wanted to hear something besides that sobbing. But my voice sounded cracked and weak and barely above a whisper.
    Someone was groaning now from just behind (above?) me. My eyes were beginning to focus again.
    I tried to stand up, but Steve and Perry were sprawled on top of me and Joe was dangling over the side of one of the chairs. I couldn’t move. I was on my side, with Perry lying over my feet and Steve over my arm and hip, his head dangling down in front of my chest. I couldn’t see Perry’s face but Steve’s … Steve’s eyes were closed and his skin looked almost grey. Drying blood decorated his cheek like a Rorschach ink blot. That’s when what’d happened to us hit me. Hit me hard. I shoved at Steve, close to panic as I tried to shift him. But he didn’t budge.
    I had to get out of here.
    I took a deep breath to brace myself and then pushed at Steve again while kicking my legs up with all my might. This time it worked. Both he and Perry fell off me in a heap. I scrambled to my feet, feeling wrung out and queasy, like being seasick. My eyes were sending duff messages to my brain because everything around me was wrongly orientated and I still hadn’t wrapped my head around it. The opposite train window was now directly above me and the rain was relentlessly washing in. I stood on what used to be the side of the train, between two smashed windows. The chairs that were still bolted down were now on their sides. I bent to try and pull Joe free but it was no use. One of his feet was wedged in the underside of the chair at an impossible angle. Steve’s eyelids were fluttering now, but he didn’t open them. I looked around for help. There was no one. I was the only one standing. My head was swimming.
    ‘Focus,’ I muttered. ‘Just look at something real and focus.’
    So I looked up. Above me, I could see nothing but dark grey sky and rain falling like a shredded curtain through the shattered windows. I let the rain wash over my face. I took one deep breath followed by another before I could trust myself to look around again. Squatting down, I forced myself to take Joe’s wrist so that I could feel for a pulse. I couldn’t detect one but told myself not to panic over that. I was probably checking the wrong part of his wrist. Perry’s eyes were closed but he was groaning softly. Occasionally his eyes would flutter open, only to close immediately , as if the light or the sight was too much for him. I stumbled around, trying to find our teacher. Elena grabbed my leg as I passed her.
    ‘Kyle, help …’ she mumbled.
    I squatted down and brushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘Ellie, are you OK? Can you stand up?’
    She shook her head. ‘I can’t feel my left leg.’
    I glanced down. Her left leg was bent beneath her right one, but it didn’t look too bad. Not like Joe’s.
    ‘Is it broken?’ Elena whispered.
    ‘I don’t think so …’ I said. That had to be better than admitting that I didn’t have a clue.
    It was back – that feeling of total helplessness. The guilty, useless feeling that lay just a scratch beneath the surface of my skin. What could I do? I could just about apply a plaster on a cut. That was the limit of my medical expertise. ‘Help must be on the way by now. We’ll all be out of this soon, you’ll see.’
    But then the carriage gave a terrific lurch and dropped at least a metre, slanting down by about twenty or thirty degrees. Doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it felt like fathoms. Out of control, I skidded away from Elena, trying to stop myself from kicking some poor unconscious woman in the face. I grabbed hold of the luggage rack at my side and swung my legs round just in time. The strange orientation of the carriage was really doing my head in. I stood