Voodoo Holmes Stories

Will you answer me?"
    "Of course."
    "Why is this train empty?"
    "It isn't. You're on."
    "So are you."
    "No, I'm not. Technically speaking, this is a regular train ..."
    "Meaning..."
"A train shared by all. Knowing however, that you would be boarding it at Hoarding's Eller, I asked to be left alone with you for a talk."
    "And the persons you asked ..."
    She smiled, but didn't say anything.
    "Were they alive?"
    "Mr. Holmes, nobody on this train is alive. Except you. But you know, being alive or living is a relative concept. I suppose it is all right if you would be claiming to be alive like the next person, but of course you are not. And you know all of that already. You never entirely were alive, not even when you came into this world bawling. And you shall never be. Unless you should meet the perfect woman, I suppose. Love conquers all, doesn't it. It is a saying among the living ones, Mr. Holmes.""I've heard it."
    "It's got to be a good thing straddling both worlds. I would love to try if I could."
    She had spoken in a dreamy voice. Now she pulled herself upright and said: "But that's neither here nor there. The reason I wanted to talk to you was your profession."
    "Go on."
    "There is something wrong."
    "Yes?"
"You must know that this train has been my responsibility ever since these tracks have been built into the landscape. It is not the cars themselves I am talking about, or schedules. What I am trying to impart on you is the situation of living beings going on the train in the darkness.""Continue."
    There was eagerness in her face now which I found quite attractive. "Upon its inception“, she explained, „the concept of early morning trains was intended as a link to our world, and I an ambassador. Since, it has developed into a gateway. Now, there is talk of a breach. And who knows, some day this crack between death and life will expand to a degree that it will no longer be a link or a gateway but a world of its own."
    "True. There is this possibility", I conceeded, even though I had no idea what she was talking about. She had noticed, interrupting herself by saying: "You don't understand, do you?"
    I shook my head, surprised at what I was feeling at the moment. Was it remorse? Sadness? A kind of emotional pain, shifting when I tried to locate it, hiding, and still draining me inside.
    "Just think about what would happen when we could no longer distinguish between our worlds", Baker said: "Where I come from, there is an increasing number of us all for mixing. But we are not a democracy, you know, so that doesn't matter. But there is a logic in numbers and you know that there are more and more of the has-beens, so you can expect the day when we'll be returning in droves, bleeding the life out of the living, destroying the world as it is. It has happened before, on Venus, you know."
    "The planet? No, I didn't know that."
    „ What you call Venus, the planet next to you when you go sunwards, was beautiful like Earth in a time you would not know. I experienced it, Mr. Holmes. It wasn't called Venus for nothing. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. I loved the people. They were of a kind that will never return as long as infinity turns.“
    „ What happened?“
    "Stars may fall when the dead return. A famous line by one of our greatest poets. "
    A mischievous smile: "We're not uncivilized, Mr. Holmes, even though we are not as talented as you are. Nothing can beat a living heart when it comes to poetry."
    "Or a bleeding heart."
    "Yeah, right ..."
    „ So the planet died?“
    „ Yes, it did. It died when the people of Venus forgot who they were. They called it civilization, but it was worse than that. Maybe they should have called it the kiss of death what they were doing.“
    „ Which was?“
    „ Well, among other things, they discovered killing. But what they didn't know was that when you kill somebody, he also kills you. And the more often that happens, the easier it is for the dead to return. Then, somebody comes around causing the breach. It is a crack in what used to be uncivilization. For lack of a better word. Maybe we should call it the dignity of nature.“
    She turned and glanced through the window. Dawn was breaking outside. Suddenly, I felt the train slowing, a weakening like air escaping from a balloon.
    Indeed, we were stopping, but not at a station, but unscheduled in the middle of nowhere. The tracks ran elevated over marshland, so getting off was virtually impossibly. One would have to jump from a