The Train Station Chapter Five

It was hard to say exactly what happened next. It felt as though the contraption hesitated on the brink of a slope, creaked forward, and went rushing down into the darkness of the tunnel with a clanging and clattering of metal that echoed round the walls. The air smelled thickly of dust and age. Speed pushed the contraption forward as it went tipping down and down, further and further—

Jingle became aware that Gary was grabbing her arm and shouting over the clamor, “You have to stop it Jingle were going away—”

“I don't know how!” said Jingle, staring at him.

“But you started it—”

“I didn't . . . Did I?” 

Gary brushed past her and shoved the iron protrusion back into its original placement. However, their rapid downward movement didn't change. 

Jingle held tight to the wall for balance as a shocking thought struck her. “We left Beach!”

The carriage gave a bang and jolted to one side, nearly unbalancing them both. She planted her feet firmly on the swaying floor as Gary processed that important factor: Beach was left behind. Suddenly—

“No you didn't.” said a voice.

Jingle looked quickly at Gary. “Did you say that?”

Then, she saw a dark silhouette in the back window roughly the size of Beach's face. “How are you—” Jingle began.

“I will soon fall off and likely die. Tell Ma I would've helped with the watering. . .”

She sounded calm and indifferent. Jingle supposed that Beach was in shock. She figured that she herself was too—dying seemed like a less dreadful prospect than spending the rest of her life in a claustrophobic tunnel.

Gary stared in a kind of wonder at the dark silhouette that was Beach's face. “Who’d’ve known you'd've hopped on so quick. . “

“That's beside the point,” said Beach crossly. The noise had settled into a loud, monotonous click-clack click-clack that corresponded to the vehicle's bumping and swaying motion; a very distracting noise.

“What do you want us to do?” said Jingle, waving her hands in the air for emphasis. Gary continued to stare in newfound awe of his sister, who gave them both exasperated looks and began to climb through the window. “I hope you know where we're going, ‘cause I don't."

“I don't. . . Know either.” Gary glanced out at the walls rushing darkly by.

Just then the carriage gave a pop and jangled frightfully before settling back into its rhythm. Beach tumbled the rest of the way through headfirst, and she scrambled up, dust-covered and angry. “I'd jolly well like to know who's idea this all was, anyway—”

“Not mine!” Jingle injected quickly.

“---we're traveling away from home, to unknown places, in a wreck of a carriage, and at a rate no decent human being would ever think of going!” Beach finished, hands on hips and eyes agleam. Jingle fumbled with the Brim of her hat in confusion, not knowing what to say. It was very pitch-dark now, and hot; the disconcerting smell of dust and miles of rock above then pressed down thickly. It was beginning to feel horribly stuffy.

“Well—” Gary's voice sounded higher and squeakier than usual, “we can't stop it; and we can't Go Back; I suppose we shall have to Keep Going. That is bothersome. . .”

“Bothersome is it?” Beach nearly exploded. “This could be downright Disastrous. . .”

“I didn't say it wasn't. . .”

“Besides, it wasn't our fault—’twas that horrid spider—and we can't blame him.” Jingle said.

The three fell silent for a time after this; the silence was rapidly becoming too small and oppressive for talk. Below them the Iron wheels click-clacked endlessly, and the rhythmic bumping and jolting had an almost lulling effect. Had they had any idea where they were going and what was going to happen to them, I daresay they would've gotten used to the ride quickly, perhaps even liked it—but as it was, everyone was far from comfortable. Jingle's stomach felt queer and scared, as she sat in a dusty corner and thought of the great mountains of rock sitting just above them, between them and air, light and trees, and how far down they were going, and all that distance they would have to come back once they stopped.

“Do you think—” said Beach's voice finally, not angry and Indignant as before, but rather small and frightened; “do you think we will stop?”

“Course we shall. Isn't that right, Jingle?”

Jingle, under whose property the carriage was discovered, seemed naturally to be thought the most knowledgeable on the matter. She frowned in the dark and fiddled with her braid thoughtfully. “Yes, of course. Certainly. Any moment now.”

The minutes slipped by, however, and they didn't stop; the click-clacking echoed round them loud as ever. Jingle lost track of time. 

How dreadful it would be to climb all this way back, in the dark? She felt sick. How many hours would it take? At this rate maybe three or four! And they just kept going! How deep were they by now?  

She quickly decided she didn't want to think about that just now. If only the tunnel didn't feel so small and dark and deep. “Just like a worm-hole might feel,” thought Jingle miserably, as time went on, and nothing changed at all. She leaned her head on one rust-eaten wall and stared at the blackness, feeling beads of sweat on her forehead. It was hot; and the air was thick, as though it had lain undisturbed for centuries (Which it likely had). This brought to mind that same old unsettling question of who built this? made all the more strange–almost sad–by the fact that she, Jingle, would never know.

The clattering and clanging and bouncing kept on and on. Jingle wished for it to stop and something to change, for the faster they could get out of here the better. What if they went through to the end of the world? Would they fall down into nothing, ultimately to die of starvation? There were many stories of what happened at the bottom of the world. Their neighbor Mrs. Everly said that the world ended in an endless lake of water. Several people thought the world didn't end at all. A very unsettling story depicted that whoever went beyond a certain level underground was met with the cave of a monstrous dragon who was all dark and slimy with two great pale eyes.

That one seemed the most likely to be true; at least to the unfortunate Jingle, who found that imagining the dragon came all too easily. Then again, another story she remembered mentioned the bottom of the world being a fiery ball of lava, which, according to the present temperature, was also disconcerting. Would it be worse to be eaten by a dragon or burned in fire? Jingle did not particularly fancy the idea of either, but—at least the fire option would be less scary. These thoughts occupied her for a long time. A very long time passed, and the sounds and movement went on, until Jingle felt herself drifting off to sleep, even though there was nothing restful about the situation. There was simply nothing else to do. 

“Jingle, look!” It was Beach's voice.  

Jingle looked up from dreaming that the two huge pale-white bulbous eyes were staring out at her from the darkness and glanced at where Beach's voice came from. “What?”

Suddenly she sensed rather than saw that the close walls of the tunnel weren't there anymore. Everything felt wider and there was a hollow feeling of a very large space. The echoes of the clattering wheels sounded different, like they were in a much, much bigger space than they had been. Jingle hardly had the time to register this when a great crash of metal resounded and echoed in a sudden and complete silence. They had finally stopped.

For several seconds none of them dared to breathe or speak; they had all been thinking about the dragon-cave, but nothing happened to suggest that anything else lived here or had been disturbed by their loud entrance, and if the stories were true, the dragon usually made its appearance within seconds of the unfortunate traveler's intrusion. But, after a minute, when no lampish eyes started from the shadows, Jingle felt fractionally better. 

Cautiously they peered out the nearest window, and the air that met them was less stuffy than it had been, though it was strange and ghostly in its stillness.

Somehow it was anything but reassuring . . .