Scylla House

Chapter 3

"...And this is the dining car," Patrick said happily, holding open the door for Adrian as he stepped into the carriage. On either side of the center aisle, lacquered dark wood tables sat between tall, ornate benches that could have been passed off as thrones. Pale light from the lamps suspended above the tables swayed with the motion of the train. "Up a'ead is the engine 'erself. But that's off-limits."

"Off-limits to me or off-limits to anyone?" Adrian asked.

The conductor's mouth thinned. "I'll be 'onest wif you, I've never been further forward than this car. Gives me the same bad feeling I get about stayin' at the station." The train lurched forward suddenly, and Adrian stumbled, catching himself on one of the metal ravens atop the backs of the benches. "Ah. She's speedin' up. Means we're close."

Adrian steadied himself. "Close to what?"

"Weren't you listening? There's only two stops on this train, and we jus' came from the other one," Patrick scoffed.

"Scylla House," Adrian said, feeling an inexplicable sinking in the pit of his stomach.

"Right, then," the conductor replied. "Come, we've go' 'a get back to your luggage, get you ready to disembark." He shoved the train door open, stepping lightly across the narrow bridge to the previous car.

Adrian followed cautiously. The metal clanged softly beneath his sneakers, small wrought iron spikes marking the edge of the platform, a grate that looked down into rushing darkness. Even though there was nothing down there to gauge speed against, his stomach lurched as though he was about to fall. Quickly, Adrian swallowed the fear away. He'd done this before, on the way forward, and nothing bad happened then, he assured himself.

"You comin'?" Patrick called.

"Yeah, I'm coming," Adrian replied, grabbing the door as it slid closed behind the conductor, and followed him through.

His luggage sprawled across the floor, fallen from the rack above the rows of black velvet seats. The conductor handed him his backpack as he entered the carriage, the pale floral print odd and eccentric in the morbid blacks and scarlets of the train. "Don't worry if you can't carry all this," Patrick assured him. "The others will 'elp you wif what you can't manage." He paused. "'Opefully," he added, in a worried undertone that Adrian thought he wasn't intended to hear.

"Hopefully?" he asked anyway.

Patrick made a face. "Weren't s'posed to hear that," he muttered. "They'll be there," he said, louder, as though he were trying to convince himself too. "They're always there."

Adrian frowned. "Why wouldn't they be there?"

The wail of the train whistle saved Patrick from an answer. "Listen to tha'!" he grinned, changing the subject clumsily. "Tha' whistle means we've hit the final stretch -- if you look out the window, you might be able to see the house!"

Adrian rushed to the side of the car, pressing his hands to the cold glass like a kid against the window of a candy store, except without the joy and excitement. All Adrian felt as he looked up at what lay ahead was dread, his stomach sinking down to his feet and escaping out his toes.

Scylla House. The mansion loomed in the distance, an impending monster of spindly spires and grinning windows. It sprawled upwards and sideways, looming shadows filling the crags and corners of the bricks. Stacks upon stacks of overlapping stone bricks supported towering buildings, a darker, grittier color than any stone Adrian had ever seen. But more gripping was the fact that it dripped downwards, towers and balconies disappearing ever-downwards into the reaching darkness, endless.

And the train hurtled towards it, breakneck and inescapable.

As it came ever closer, Adrian could make out more and more details -- and he wished he couldn't. Parapets with arrow slits and old rusted catapults ran up against a dome of frosted glass, empty holes where it was broken and streaked with grime and dirt where it wasn't. Dead flowers and corpse-like trees filled balconies, desiccated vines dangling over the railings like skeletal fingers. Gargoyles leered from the corners of towers, tongues spilling out from smirking maws and jutting teeth, their stony wings casting shadows over chimneys and tiles. Even with no clear light source, the mansion -- the castle -- rose clear as the sky on a cloudless day from the neverending shadows. Though, that was a lie, Adrian realized. There was light -- stained-glass windows glowed from within, staining the stone around them in a shade of blood and gore -- but it shouldn't have been enough to reveal the gruesome building in all of its terrible glory. It reminded Adrian of the pictures of the blackness of space; it was not dark because there was no light -- it was dark because there was nothing there.