Chapter 101: Cursed Tickets

Chapter 102: Cursed Tickets

The headless body fell on the ground, but instead of blood, the body poured out gasoline, which soon caught the flames, igniting the place even further. Murphy pulled back his revolver and stared at the flames; killing them would worsen the situation.

He moved toward a waiting place where many people sat around. All of them waited for the train, their hands holding different things. Some of them held a cup of tea, and some of them held a piece of bread. His gaze landed on an old man holding a newspaper where the date was ’29 March 1891.’

So, the station was a place stuck in time. He moved forward and asked a man. "May I know why you are here?

The man spoke with the clipped, precise vowels of southern England as though what Murphy had interpreted. "We tarry for the railway train."

"Look there." Murphy pointed toward the train. "It is already there."

The man tilted his head from his teacup to look at the investigator standing ahead. "That is not what we look for, since our hopes are set elsewhere."

Murphy looked back toward the ignited dead, and his gaze lay upon the platform name, which said, ’Ciryadal.’ In the next few seconds, it changed again into ’Ciraydl.’

He swiftly walked out of the place and looked toward the cabinet of the ticket agent and saw the entity holding the long scissors of human-made teeth. "What is the truth of this place?"

His gaze focused on the ticket agent who was cutting the tickets with different names on them, which seemed almost identical to the changing names on the platform board.

Murphy finally moved forward toward the ticket agent, the headless being rushing toward him, but he slowly stopped near the ticket checker and waited until one of them came. The headless body lunged at him, but he sidestepped and crushed a kick on its back, avoiding the flames.

The thing crashed into the ticket agent’s body; just then, he quickly shot it as the gasoline poured out, igniting the whole place into flames. He stood nearby and watched the tickets burn, then he turned toward the passengers sitting on the bench. The tickets in their hands fell on the ground; the agent inside the room screamed as the flames burnt him down into ashes.

He whispered into his mind and called out to the Serpent while walking toward the platform. ’Divine Serpent, give me something to write.’

His hands closed around the empty air, and chalk appeared in his grip.

He leaned forward and wrote over the name ’Ciraydl’ and turned it into ’Ciradyl.’ He stepped back to examine the board, but the words shifted again; the chalk powder dropped and was washed away by the air. "Tickets are the issue, huh?"

He reached out his hands into his pocket and pulled out the ticket where the destination was entirely wrong. "I see now."

His gaze lay on the passengers sitting on the bench. They did want to go to Ciradyl, but their destination was changed by the ticket; their minds were trapped by it. He looked toward the train, which groaned as the steam erupted. He rushed forward and jumped inside. "I told him to stop, then why?"

Murphy walked toward the cab and found nothing. It was empty; he looked above, but the secret door was also wide open. His gaze finally lay outside, where the driver’s body hung on a spike which had pierced through his body.

Behind him, something shifted, but before he could fully turn, a heavy claw rushed forward, stabbing his stomach and slammed him backward as the door opened with a clank noise. His hand found the iron pole before he was thrown outside; he pressed his hat with his other hand and dug his boots into the stairs of the train. Blood soaked his white shirt beneath his long coat, his piercing grey gaze locking onto the thing in front.

It was a face with jaws opened so wide that it looked broken. It had no eyes, only that ominous mouth that stretched open widely. The long claws lunged again to push him out of the train.

​The long claw lashed out once more, but he quickly jumped sideways. The wind outside roared in his ears as the train began to gain momentum, the wheels grinding against the cursed tracks with a loud screech that echoed in his mind.

​As the entity moved its head outside to look, Murphy ignored the burning pain spreading across his abdomen and twisted his body while his grip held firm on the pole and used the momentum to swing his body upward. His boots slammed heavily against the entity’s wide, dislocated jaw, forcing the creature to stagger backward into the narrow aisle of the cab.

​"That typewriter wasn’t the driver, huh?" Murphy thought, his mind piecing the puzzle together in a fraction of a second. "You were the fake driver all along."

​

​In the mid-air, the double-edged Glaive replaced the revolver in his right hand instantly.

​Murphy planted his boots on the floorboards, spun on his heel, and thrust the haft straight into the creature’s open, tooth-lined maw. The haft locked the entity’s jaws wide open, preventing it from snapping shut.

​The creature thrashed violently, its razor claws tearing into the wooden walls of the cabin, but Murphy held the haft firm. He reached into his coat with his free hand, pulling out the remaining incorrect tickets he had gathered, along with the erroneous pass he held in his vest.

His grey eyes flashed beneath the shadow of his fedora as he thrust the tickets into its mouth, then pulled it and slammed it down onto the surface with a loud crash. "I get it now, you don’t like the taste of your train’s ticket, do you?"

The entity stumbled backward while gagging. Murphy stepped forward, the Glaive shifting back to the revolver as he shot the entity with each step he took. The entity was pushed back by the gunshots as it reached the edge, and Murphy shot it one last time before pulling a heavy, long-handled steel shovel that was used to feed the firebox and threw it at the entity. The driver entity went crashing down outside, crushed by the wheels of the train.

Murphy walked forward and looked outside as his coat fluttered in the strong wind. He glanced at the controls and slightly lifted his fedora up to run a hand through his combed hair.

"Controlling a train... can’t be that hard." Mo Fei wiped his forehead.

He looked forward, but there was no immediate danger yet, but the furnace was one itself.

The pressure gauge needle vibrated violently near the red line. Without a driver or a fireman, the water level glass was dangerously low, the water inside boiling away into mist. The iron boiler groaned under the strain while hissing plumes of steam. The train was gaining momentum, but it was balancing on a knife-edge between surging forward and exploding into a ball of fire.

As the iron deck plates vibrated violently beneath his boots. "Divine Serpent, do you know the steps...?" Before it could answer the question, Mo Fei muttered again. "Never mind, I understood."

He yanked the valve open. A high-pitched, deafening shriek tore through the cab as cold water flooded over the boiler. The pressure needle finally returned to normal, but the sudden drop in temperature slackened the train’s speed.

Mo Fei quickly grabbed the long-handled steel shovel and scooped a heavy load of pitch-black coal from the tender behind him and flung it into the firebox. The heat scorched his eyebrows as he slowly pulled back enough to stay out of danger.

He threw three more loads before slamming the iron furnace doors shut with the toe of his boot. His cold, Murphy persona returned again as he turned toward the carriages.

He looked at the tickets on the surface and noticed a mark. "Hmm, could it be that... These tickets are the reason. Since the destination itself was wrong and the conductor tried to pinch them, most likely to complete the steps... those people had their tickets pinched."

He turned toward the carriage and called out. "Divine Serpent, hold the train."

"Great Master, but I..."

"Be useful, just for a few moments." With that, Murphy entered the carriage and ran through it; his mind still remembered the ten-second loop. Inside were the same entities. That time, Murphy ignored them and walked through and entered the carriage.

The passengers were waiting, their expressions terrified from the situation that they had fallen into.

Murphy’s boots clicked against the surface as he stopped in front of them. "Take out all of your tickets and get all of them together here."

Lin and Zhuo sat in the same carriage and pulled out their tickets confused. "Why? Did you discover something?"

Murphy lingered his eyes on them, then spoke finally. "Tell this to everyone in each carriage. We need to burn these tickets."

Upon hearing that, all of them pulled out their tickets without a second thought, trusting the detective as all of them collected the tickets and Lin moved toward the carriage behind. That should work; if it didn’t, then there should be another way.