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was almost searing to the touch. It stirred, and sounded again. She could feel the fear and pain coming off it, making thehairs on her arms stand up. Through its windows she could see the people-memories, repeating their actions, but now their faces wore terrified expressions.
    The train groaned and rolled painfully up onto its wheels.
    ‘Good boy,’ she whispered, ‘good boy. Listen, there’s a boy— That freight train’s got him. He … he pushed me, got me safe – we have to help him … can you—?’
    Maybe it didn’t understand her – why should it? Or perhaps it was simply too scared – but no, after a moment it jolted itself into forward motion, all the while lowing in animal panic. Axles churning, it roared off towards the station.
    Beth stood lonely and tiny in its wake, sucking in great gulps of air. ‘ Wait …’ she started, but her voice faltered as she stared after it.
    A thunderous drumming grew loud on the tracks behind her: the freight train was clattering back, howling victoriously. The concrete-skinned boy had been shaken almost loose and now he dangled from its side, his body snapping in the wind like a pennant.
    Beth watched in horror as the beast charged straight at the viaduct wall, but then, a second before impact, the train-beast wrenched itself sideways and a hideous sound filled the air as it scraped itself lengthwise along the bricks, a horrible, teeth-clenching metal sound – a sound pierced through by a human scream.
    As its last few carriages passed she saw him, the concrete-coloured boy, sprawled face-down on the tracks. Every atomof her body was screaming at her to run – she shouldn’t be here; she should never have got on the train. But the memory of the boy’s elbow in her side stopped her.
    He’d saved her life.
    And now she was running, but running towards him, cursing her reluctant legs, her battered arms pumping.
    In the shadow of the station the freight train was already checking its momentum, like a bull, turning for a final charge to finish its enemy. It swept around, and she could see its mad, staring headlights.
    She skidded onto her knees in the gravel. The boy wasn’t moving. His ankle was pinned down by heavy chunks of rubble. His back was cruelly torn open where he’d been dragged over the bricks. The blood that glistened there was dark as oil.
    ‘Wake up!’ Beth slapped his face. ‘Wake up!’ She shook him hard. She knew by the shudder of the rails that the freight train was close.
    Thrum-clatter-clatter—
    ‘Wake up!’ she screamed.
    At last he stirred, but sluggishly. He mumbled something, but she couldn’t make out what it was. ‘Wake up !’ She hooked her arms under his and tried to pull him away, but it was no good: his ankle was trapped fast.
    The onrushing freight train stormed in her ears.
    One of the boy’s eyelids flickered. He mumbled again, and this time she could just about make him out as he breathed, ‘ Spear —’
    Thrum-clatter—
    ‘Spear? What spear? Where—?’ She looked around.
    The iron railing lay across the track, shuddering with the monster’s approach. Beth seized it in clammy hands and wedged it under the rubble. She threw her weight down on it and the smallest rock lifted, just a fraction.
    The boy screamed as he exploded up from the ground. His shoulder caught Beth in the gut, driving her feet from the ground. The railing grazed her hand as he snatched it away.
    Beth’s head snapped backwards. Headlights washed over them and the freight train roared. The boy grunted and threw the railing. It pierced the front fender and skewered itself deep into the ground.
    There was an eruption of blue light, an after-image of vast, blunt, churning teeth. And then darkness swallowed Beth whole.
    The world returned slowly with a hiss of distant traffic. Beth’s nose told her she was alive – as far as she knew, neither Heaven nor Hell smelled like a blocked Southwark drain. She didn’t open her eyes. Footsteps crunched in