A Curse in Time: Modern Magic, #4

Prologue

Late January 1905

Southern Pennsylvania coal fields

It was a wickedly icy wind that swirled mercilessly around Ryan as he pulled the collar of his wool coat up higher to protect his neck from the frigid chill, his lantern still somehow managing to burn brightly at his feet.  Damn but he wished to God he had more light to work by on this hellish night.  However, with an influenza outbreak running rampant in the area, many of his men were still out ill.  Some of the other still-sick men had managed to trudge into work, for all of the good that it did.  They were worse than useless in Ryan’s opinion, swaying on their feet, coughing continually, and generally spending a great deal more time being miserable than doing their jobs.

Still, the coal from this area needed to be hauled out of the mines as quickly and efficiently as possible before being shipped out by train.  That was where Ryan and his men came in because they were the ones responsible for moving the trains out of the rugged mountains before the precious coal could head west.

The steel mills and coke ovens out toward Pittsburgh were consuming far more coal these days than Ryan had imagined was possible.  Which, of course, meant that the mines were working overtime, the thick, black coal dust clinging to everything around them.  Including Ryan’s once white dress shirt.

His late mother, bless her soul, would be furious if she could see him now.  She’d raised him to be a gentleman, even though he was nothing more than a poor Irish immigrant.  Still, Ryan wanted to believe she would be proud of the man he’d become.  True, he was thirty and still unmarried, but he’d devoted a great deal of time to his career over the years so he would eventually be in a better position to take a wife.

A wife like Sarah.

Beautiful, demure, perfect Sarah was the woman Ryan desired more than any other woman for his bride, but she was so far beyond his touch that it was laughable.  Yet the times they been able to sneak away together, it hadn’t seemed that way.  She’d even indicated that she would be content to live on a lowly railroad conductor’s salary, even though her father – the current owner of the railroad that employed Ryan – had seen to it that Sarah had grown up in the lap of luxury.

Luxury that Ryan couldn’t offer her.  Yet.

Maybe someday, though.  If he had enough faith and fate was on his side.  Maybe someday the lovely, perfect Sarah would be his wife.

He could dream, anyway.

Just then, another gust of wind slammed against the mountainside and shook not only Ryan’s body but caused the fully loaded coal train next to him to sway just a fraction of an inch.  The movement was imperceptible to many, but Ryan saw the movement and noted it with a bit of concern.  After all, that was his job.  Part of his job, anyway.

Moments later, a second, stronger blast of icy wind hit the still-swaying new steel hopper cars broadside and they creaked in the wind again, making Ryan fear for the stability of the overloaded train.  The snow had also started to pick up in intensity once more, blocking out the meager light from the small town of Coal Hill, which sat snugly and quietly on the valley floor below.

All around Ryan, the darkness seemed to creep in and he did his best to shake off the sense of fear that seemed to be lurking around every corner.  Another hour and they would all be safely back in town.  Caution was necessary, but there really wasn’t any cause for outright fear.  At least he hoped not.

The shiny black hopper cars were studier than the previous versions but that still didn’t mean they were unable to topple over as some people thought.  These cars might not smash into bits like the wooden boxcars or the wooden cabooses did, but they were still dangerous.

As was this particular curve in the track.

In fact, South Mountain Curve was so notorious for trains breaking down here that some people in the area, including many of those who worked under Ryan, felt the place was cursed.

Ryan, however, was a modern man of the newly-born twentieth century.  He didn’t believe in curses.  His mother had.  But he didn’t.

I think we’re repaired and good to roll!  That call came from a brakeman several yards away who had been working to recouple two of the coal-laden hopper cars that had somehow become uncoupled – and refused to stay coupled even after repeated attempts had been made to rejoin them.

Such things shouldn’t happen.  Such things also generally never happened anywhere else but here on this particular curve.

Maybe Ryan did believe in curses after all.

Let’s be off, then! Ryan called back, picking up his lantern and making certain to keep as much of the Irish lit from his voice as possible.  He’d been a child when he and his parents left County Cork, but even after all these years, a remnant of his old accent remained, much to his annoyance.

Briefly, he wondered if his accent bothered Sarah as much as it bothered him.

Then the train’s long, slow whistle sounded and suddenly, Ryan was all business.  The engineer might run this train, but it was Ryan’s to command and control.  He was the one in charge of this massive, lumbering beast and that wasn’t a responsibility he took lightly.  One wrong move could cost the lives of dozens of his men – trainmen and miners alike.  Not to mention what a runaway train could do to the residents of Coal Hill at the base of the mountain far below.

As the massive steel wheels began to turn, Ryan made certain all of the others on the train, from the brakeman to the engineer, were prepared for the final run down the mountain and into town.  Truthfully, every member of his crew had been ready hours ago, all of them eager for the warmth of their beds until those damnable uncoupled cars had ended the dream of an early night at home.

To Ryan, it didn’t make much difference where he was – on this mountain or back in his chilly room at the boarding house.  He had no one waiting for him anywhere and in truth, were he being honest, Sarah was likely little more than an illusion for him.  Unless he changed his way of thinking?  It would likely be cold, empty, lonely rooms forever.

No wife.  No children.  No family.  He could never have a real future with Sarah.  Her father would never allow such a thing.  He was setting his sights too high.

Other men, like Jake Killorn, the engineer?  Well, Killorn had a family waiting for him back in Coal Hill.  The sooner Ryan’s crew brought this train into the station so they could switch crews and the train could continue on toward Pittsburgh?  The sooner Jake could get home to his wife and child and his snug little house on the outskirts of town.

All of which were things that Ryan would probably never have.

But Jake had those things and those people in his life.  So did most other men on this train.  It was up to Ryan to get them home, even if he would go home alone.

Sighing, Ryan signaled to Jake, his lantern flashing in the darkness, letting the other man know the tender should be fired up for the final run down the mountain.  It was time to go home and end this long, miserable night.

No sooner had the train slowly begun to chug down the mountainside than Ryan heard a sound that made his very soul shiver – another low, long mournful whistle.  Not his train, but another train far off in the distance, the sound of the whistle coming from the town below.  Then he heard the whistle again.  Louder this time.  That was followed by a third whistle, this one louder still.  Not louder by much, but enough to be noticeable.

That could only mean one thing.

Another train was coming up the mountain.

Except there shouldn’t be another train coming up the mountain.  Not now anyway.

With that realization, Ryan’s blood turned to ice.

There was another train on the tracks, heading right for them.  Unless he did something immediately, a collision was inevitable.

The whistle came again.  Three short blasts followed by a longer one.  Then three more short.  Louder.  Closer.  And not a coal train.  He could tell by the sound of the engine’s grind and whine.  This train was lighter than the coal-hauling trains.

A passenger train.

But why?  How?  There was nothing at the end of this particular rail line other than a bunch of mines – and a little-used, often dangerous shortcut to the town of Hilliard, which was the county seat.  A town of hotels and fancy stores.  The town where the railroad’s president lived with his family.  When they weren’t visiting the mining operations.  As they had done today.

Sarah had been with her father today.  Ryan had managed to sneak a few minutes alone with her before he’d taken the train comprised of empty hopper cars up to the mine.  She’d said they only had a few moments because her father was supposed to have dinner with Hilliard’s mayor that night and they needed to leave.

If that had been true, then she and her father should have departed for Hilliard long ago.  In fact, Ryan had received word from the dispatcher back in Coal Hill that the president’s train was departing the station hours ago.

Had something gone wrong?  Why hadn’t he been updated?  Morris, the telegraph operator, always alerted him if there were delays or something had happened to change the schedule.  Communication on the rails was often a matter of life and death.  Why hadn’t he been informed of the change?

No time now to figure it out, Ryan knew instinctively.  Now, he had to avert a disaster.  Before someone was killed.  Like his beloved Sarah.

Quickly, Ryan leaped off the train, snow crunching beneath his heavy boots and his lantern swingling as he signaled to the rest of the crew.  Thankfully, they were as skilled as he was and all of them were already aware of the approaching danger.

It’s the president’s train!  I know the whistle!  That came from a miner who had been hitching a ride back into town on one of the coal hoppers.  They was told to hold, I’m sure, but knowing ol’ man Rainsford, he didn’t want to wait!  ‘E always knows better, he does.

Meaning the railroad’s president had overridden the dispatcher.  Damn it!  The man was a fool!  More importantly, why hadn’t Ryan been notified of the change?  Again, no time to ponder that now.

Now he had to figure out how to avoid a collision, knowing there was only one chance.

Suddenly, Ryan remembered that there was a side spur rail not too far from here.  He could have backed his train onto the spur if he’d known in advance the other train was coming.  Then again, if the hopper cars hadn’t been uncoupled, they would have been in Coal Hill hours ago and none of this would be happening.

Around him there was complete chaos, but Ryan did his best to keep calm, signaling and directing the train, knowing his best chance was to back the train up as quickly as he could and hope they could reach that side spur.

In the darkness, lantern lights flashed and signaled as the heavily-laden train began to inch backward, bit by agonizing bit.  The snow fell harder now, swirling around Ryan and his crew until they could barely see one another, save for the dim lantern lights that occasionally shone in the darkness.  Jake, his engineer, began signaling with his own train’s whistle, hoping to alert the oncoming passenger train which, unless Ryan missed his guess, was picking up speed for the run up South Mountain Curve.  

The blackness of night seemed to close in even tighter around him and just then, Ryan wished with all his might for his small cot in his rented room in the town below.  That cot wasn’t much but it was preferable to this.

Someone, likely a brakeman, managed to flip the switch to divert the train onto the spur track.  The coal train continued to push backward, gaining more and more speed as it went.  For a brief, tantalizing moment, Ryan thought they might make it.

Then, the lamp from the oncoming passenger train lit up the night.  The engineer, for some reason surprised that the coal train was still on the tracks ahead, though moving slowly backward, began blowing his own whistle and the passenger train’s brakes began to screech and scream.

For Ryan, it was like something out of a nightmare.  Brilliant lamplight reflected against the blinding white snow and then disappeared into the inky darkness.  Brakes and whistles and the grinding of metal echoed off the mountainside before being flung back at them from another mountain half a mile away.  The air was a cacophony of sound and the world in front of him a whirling mass of movement.

The end was coming.  He could feel it in his bones.  He just didn’t know exactly when.

He was going to die.

Until…he didn’t.  At least not yet.

Ryan was thrown backward when the trains finally collided, the force of steel against steel making a blast so strong that it knocked him off his feet.  He heard people screaming.  One of them might have been him.  Yet amongst the screams was one decidedly feminine scream and his heart sank.

Sarah.  She’d been on the train with her father.  Damn the man.  He had to have known the coal train hadn’t come into the station yet.  He would have been told by the station master if no one else.  Yet he would have somehow magically expected Ryan’s train to get out of the way so that his could pass.

James Rainsford might have been good at figuring out how to mine coal but he was abysmal at anything concerning the railroad.

Then, just as suddenly as Ryan’s world had been upended, it stopped, even though the ground still shook from the force of the twisted steel that had rained down on it only moments ago.

Staggering to his feet, Ryan looked around at the carnage.  He heard moans and cries and saw shattered bits of brightly colored wood protruding from the snow, realizing only then that the passenger train had been full.  The fool Rainsford had sent a train full of people to their death.

Slowly, Ryan limped forward, his leg and ankle throbbing.  There might have been blood.  He didn’t know.  He didn’t stop to look.  Instead, he concentrated on the scene before him.  Though what he saw horrified him.

There were bodies everywhere, most of them clad in eveningwear.  Some were clearly miners and others were in clothes he didn’t recognize from any place or time.  They seemed to shimmer before his eyes as if they were mirages or illusions of some kind.  The bodies didn’t move and he wasn’t certain they ever had.  It was as if he was seeing the past and the present and maybe even the future all at once.

This was wrong.  It all looked…wrong.  Out of place.  Out of time.

Where had all of these people come from, some of them even dressed in short pants?  There hadn’t been a ball or party tonight in Coal Hill.  A masquerade of some sort?  Or had there?  He was just a conductor.  He likely wouldn’t know unless it interfered with his job.

A job he still had to do.  Starting with rescuing as many people as he could.  Assuming they had survived the crash.  Also assuming these shimmering human forms were real.

Looking around, Ryan finally spied a familiar head of red hair.  Sarah.  He limped toward the figure sprawled in the snow but another, larger figure beat him to her side.  Mr. Rainsford.  Her father.

No!  Not my Sarah!

Ryan swore he could read the man’s lips, his face silhouetted against the still burning engine lamp, before he heard the words.  Everything inside of him went cold.  Sarah.  His Sarah.  Gone.

He knew she was gone from the way her father clutched her limp body to his chest.  He could see the blood at her temple and where it trickled from her ear.  Her hands, the same ones that had held his earlier, hung at her side, limp and lifeless.

Ryan took no more than two steps before pain shot up his leg and he went down in a heap with a moan.  That was enough for Rainsford to see him and turn his cold eyes, eyes now also burning with hatred, toward him.

Irish bastard! the older man cursed.  This is all your fault!  If you’d have done your job, this wouldn’t have happened!  Your damn train would have been clear!  You killed my daughter!  This is all your fault!

Ryan wanted to protest.  If this was anyone’s fault, it was Rainsford’s.  Except the words wouldn’t come.  He couldn’t make his mouth or his tongue move.  His limbs felt thick and heavy and he felt as if he was being dragged underwater.  There was an enormous weight pressing down on him.  Down and into the earth itself.  Crushing him.

You! Rainsford continued to hiss, the words almost echoing through Ryan’s mind.  You did this!  If not for you, she’d have been engaged tonight to a proper sort of man!  Damn you and your worthless hide for all eternity!  I curse you this night so that your soul might rot forever in time!

Again, Ryan wanted to protest, his hand reaching out toward Rainsford.  Toward Sarah.  Except that as he reached, Ryan saw his fingers begin to turn black and then turn to dust right in front of his eyes, the wind carrying the dust and ash of his body away to mix with the still swirling snow.

Ryan’s eyes were the last part of him to vanish, his gaze fastened on the engine’s lamp, the entire thing still resting on its side, before slowly, ever so slowly, the engine began to slide down the mountain slope through the snow.  The last thing he saw before he vanished from existence was the massive, black locomotive contrasted against the stark white snow as it swept right past where Ryan had been not a moment before, a cloud of snow seemingly sweeping Rainsford and the already departed Sarah down the side of the mountain to rest on the valley floor below.

Chapter One

Coal Hill, Pennsylvania

Early July

Present Day

The mid-summer moon shone down brightly on the station of the old Twisted Creek Railroad as Lucy McLaughlin pulled into the parking lot and shut off her car with a weary sigh.  She wasn’t even certain why she was here right now.  She should be home.  In bed.  She had a long day ahead of her tomorrow as she prepared to take on the board that oversaw this old tourist railroad.

Her tourist railroad.  The one she’d inherited from her father, along with a cranky board of directors made up largely of old men who wanted to sell the place off in pieces.  She also had no idea how she was going to prevent that from happening.  She might be the president and CEO of McLaughlin Enterprises, but unless she had the votes to keep going, the board could vote to sell the Twisted Creek and she might not be able to stop them.

Just as she hadn’t been able to stop her father’s death a year ago, leaving her with a legacy and a fortune that no one around here seemed to think she deserved or knew how to handle.  Maybe, in the end, she wouldn’t be able to handle the responsibilities that had been entrusted to her.  Her father certainly hadn’t thought so, even though he’d left her the company anyway.

Then again, she was his only child and he’d hated everyone else in his family, so it wasn’t as if he had much choice.

Or maybe she would surprise everyone and save not just the Twisted Creek but this town as well.  The way Lucy saw it, she at least deserved the chance to try.

If the board had their way?  She wouldn’t even have that chance.  Instead, she would be forever labeled as the failure everyone already thought she was.  Still, she deserved the chance to succeed and she hoped the board would, in the end, agree.

At the very least, Lucy was hoping to buy herself time to change their minds.  Interest in the railroad was increasing by the day, as more and more people decided to relive their youth and seek out the things they’d done with their parents and grandparents as kids.  Restoration work, done via grants, for improvements to the station and the re-opening of the old picnic grove had attracted day-trippers from all over the area.  Hikers were enjoying the trails she had recently opened along old railbeds.  All of which meant that revenue was up significantly.

It still wasn’t enough.  At least not in the eyes of the board.  If she had a gimmick or something or someone that could become a social media sensation and bring increased levels of attention?  The board might change their minds.  Except that the only thing the Twisted Creek was truly famous for was an unsolved death and disappearance from over a hundred years ago.  A mystery that no one had ever been able to answer – what happened to former Twisted Creek Railroad conductor, Ryan Callahan?

Callahan was believed to have died in the infamous South Mountain Curve accident back in 1905.  Over twenty people had died that night, including Sarah Rainsford, the railroad owner’s daughter.  Callahan’s body was the only one that hadn’t been recovered.  Even the bodies of those that had been swept down the mountain and onto the banks of Twisted Creek had been recovered.

Some of the dead had been buried swiftly, like Sarah Rainsford, their injuries and disfigurements too much for their surviving family and friends to bear.  Others had been given proper viewings and funerals.  However, quick burials or not, their bodies had all been found.

All except for Ryan Callahan’s.

Making people wonder whether or not he had really died at all.

Rumors had sprung up immediately following the accident that, somehow, Callahan had survived.  He was reportedly seen in various places around Coal Hill and in other nearby towns in the days immediately following the accident.  There were also rumors of mystery lights on South Mountain Curve that resembled a conductor’s lantern swaying back and forth in the wind.  Even if there was no wind.  Some people even claimed Callahan had been cursed and had vanished into another world, only reappearing on certain nights when the conditions were right.

Others simply said that people were just seeing Callahan’s ghost, a result of him having died so tragically and at such a young age.  Especially after it came to light that he had been trying to prevent the accident right before the crash.

Oh, and that he had also been in love with a mystery woman.  Because, of course, unrequited love, always made a ghost story better.  Especially for the people of Coal Hill.

Superstition and a strong belief in magic had been a large part of life in the Twisted Creek Valley back then.  In some ways, they still were part of the fabric of life here, and because of that, the legend of Ryan Callahan’s supposed death and disappearance of his body had become the stuff of legend.  Not just here but around the country and, in this age of the internet, around the world.

A reality TV crew had even visited Coal Hill a few years ago trying to connect with Callahan’s ghost until Lucy and her father had chased them off of the Twisted Creek’s property, saying it was disrespectful.  That had been one of the few things she and her father had agreed on, deciding that whether or not Callahan had died in the accident, he had long since passed away by now and should be allowed to rest in peace – wherever he was.

For Lucy, protecting Callahan’s legacy was now just a part of her job, much like running the Twisted Creek was.  She hadn’t planned it that way.  It was something that had just happened over the years.

Her father simply hadn’t wanted the liability if one of the crew members had fallen and killed themselves.  Which, was, she had conceded, a valid point, especially given the railroad’s finances – which weren’t great.

Still, for Lucy, defending and protecting the memory of the late Ryan Callahan was something more.

Growing up in Coal Hill, Lucy had been fascinated with the legend and the mystery ever since she was a child.  She had read everything she could get her hands on and even some things that were only vaguely connected to him and his death.  She’d talked to as many people as possible who might remember something she hadn’t known or have a story she hadn’t heard before.

She’d spent hours trying to figure out where his body had gone as well as how two trains could have been set on a collision course in the first place.  Lucy knew the details of Ryan’s life and death – what little were known – probably better than anyone.

She had also read every rumor about him ever published, including some of the more fantastical ones.  Rumors that he had been cursed or sent into another dimension.  Or worse, damned to Hell for all eternity.

Lucy wasn’t certain she believed in those rumors but she also wasn’t certain Callahan had died that night either.  Mostly because no trace of him had ever been found.  Not even his conductor’s cap or his ever-present lantern.  It really was a mystery for the ages.

It was also the only thing that had made the Twisted Creek famous in recent years.

If she was a different kind of woman?  One who would take advantage of a dead man’s mysterious supposed death?  Maybe she could use him to leverage more social media attention.  But she didn’t.

Because in many ways, Lucy hadn’t quite lost that belief in magic and superstition from her youth.  She’d seen enough of the world to know that there were more things that people didn’t know about than there were things that they did.  Not everything could be explained logically or rationally.

Ryan Callahan’s death might be one of those things.

Still, for her own curiosity if nothing else, she did wish she knew what had happened to him on that cold January night.

Except that after years of exhaustive research, Lucy still had no idea what had happened to a man that had lived and died long before she’d even been born.  Before her parents had even been born.  Therefore, there was no social media sensation that she could create around the legend of Ryan Callahan.  Mostly because she knew more about him than anyone else, and it still wasn’t enough.  She didn’t know enough and no one else did either.

Even if she did know, she wasn’t sure she could exploit him that way.  It just didn’t feel right.

However, she did know that the security alarm in the old station had been going off for nearly forty-five minutes tonight.  The local police chief, Adam Killorn, had checked on things and nothing appeared to be disturbed.  Nor was the place burning down.  However, Chief Killorn’s key to the building wasn’t working.  He couldn’t get inside to shut off the alarm.  He had called Lucy and asked her to come to the station and shut off the alarm instead.

Actually, Killorn had called Gus, the property’s old caretaker and Lucy’s sometime assistant and long-time confidante, to shut off the alarm, but Gus hadn’t wanted to get out of bed on this hot, sticky night and leave the comfort of his air-conditioned home.  Neither had Lucy, but it was her railroad and her responsibility.  So, she had thrown on a tank top and some shorts, along with a pair of old sneakers and made her way to the station to shut off the alarm, all the while hoping that it really was just a short in the system.

And that the alarm wasn’t going off because there was really an ax murderer hiding somewhere inside where Killorn couldn’t find him.

Thankfully, as she climbed out of her car, Lucy didn’t see any dead bodies.  Or signs of an ax murderer.

She supposed she should be thankful for small favors.

Instead, Lucy saw lights on in nearby houses, even though it was close to midnight.  Meaning that the alarm had awoken everyone who had already been asleep in the immediate area.  People who likely had to go to work in the morning.  That wouldn’t win her any favors with the board.  Or the townspeople.

As quickly as she could, Lucy let herself inside the station and keyed in the code that would silence the alarm.  The moment she did so, she felt something around her change and it wasn’t simply the blessed silence that now swept over the entire building.

Instead, the air, already thick and oppressive on this hot summer night became thicker.  So thick she could feel it pressing into her still-cool skin.  The heat and humidity seemed to spike and sweat began to trickle down her back making her tank top stick to her already overheated skin.

Goosebumps prickled along her skin, even though the temperature couldn’t have sunk below 80 yet.  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.  The deafening silence now seemed to surround her, enveloping her as if it was smothering her.

No.  Not silence.  There was noise.  Faint but she could hear it.  The screeching of train wheels as they ground against metal rails.  She knew that sound.  She’d grown up with that sound.

Rushing outside, the noise was louder but Lucy began to wonder if she was the only one who could hear it.  The lights in the houses across the street had gone out, indicating the residents had gone back to bed.  Yet the screeching remained, growing louder with each passing second.  If she could hear that awful racket, surely those people could hear it too.  Except that something in her gut told her they couldn’t.  She was the only one who could.  She didn’t know why.  That was simply the way it was.

Then she saw a light in the distance.  She recognized that too.  It was the headlamp from a train engine.  An