Page 42 of Winter Magic on Railway Lane

Del shot a sheepish smile at Eddie, who just shrugged and smiled. He did seem a little quiet that evening, thought Ethan. Perhaps the strain of getting the Halloween train ready on time was showing.

As Del rushed out of the station, Ethan wondered just how quickly they could decorate the train for their paying customers. And, as a heavy drizzle began to rain down on them, whether the evening was a disaster before it had even begun.

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Libby had had no time to sort out a Halloween costume as she had been working flat out on the chocolates around the clock. So she had opted at the last minute to wear her flight attendant’s uniform which the airline had never asked her to return. It had felt a bit strange to be getting back into her old clothes, along with making sure her hair was in a perfect bun. She hadn’t realised just how free she had felt being able to wear her own clothes every day.

Arriving on the platform and catching up with the last-minute panic, Libby thought that it was particularly true to form that Dodgy Del’s van wouldn’t start so he ended up staying to help, although that meant keeping out of Ethan’s way. He seemed very stressed that evening and she just wanted to help him however she could.

Thanks to Ryan’s quick thinking, all the friends rushed to help decorate the train carriages with whatever they could lay their hands on that was child friendly.

To everyone’s relief, it turned out that a couple of the boxes of decorations that Del had given them weren’t quite so extreme as the rest. They were able to use the plastic skeletons and somenetting, although they all decided that the fake tarantulas were far too realistic and would give the adults nightmares, let alone the children.

Inside the train carriages, Libby and the others added various decorations, such as fake velvet pumpkins, witches’ hats and the odd broomstick. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, they thought.

‘We should have handed out hot chocolate,’ said Libby. ‘Or at least some trick or treat bags.’

But at least the train would be running in the darkness outside, despite the meagre decorations. Wouldn’t that be enough ambiance for a spooky night for everyone?

Just before six o’clock, all the families began to arrive. Unfortunately, a slight drizzle had turned into a torrential downpour. But at least everyone was still in a good mood as they oohed and aahed at the train, despite the bad weather.

Tom, the editor from the local newspaper,The Cranbridge Times, was also in attendance to record everything with the promise of a front page spread including photographs.

As Bob, Eddie and Ethan climbed into the driver’s cab to get ready, all the passengers went onboard and Libby joined them.

She heard the train whistle to signify that the engine was ready and called out, ‘Here we go!’ down the corridor.

Everyone looked around excitedly and then, with a lurch, the carriages began to very slowly move.

‘This is great!’ said one man, smiling at Libby from his seat. ‘I haven’t been on a steam train in years.’

It was certainly charming, despite the tacky decorations, thought Libby.

She looked out of the window as they passed the end of the platform and saw her dad waving from the back fence in the semi-darkness, holding an umbrella against the rain which wasnow lashing down. She waved back and smiled, thankful that he seemed to have at least taken an interest in this special outing.

She had, of course, invited him along but he had inevitably declined. There had been no change in her dad’s withdrawn personality since she had been back full-time. She was beginning to think that things would never change at home for either of them.

They had just left Cranfield behind and were in the middle of the dark countryside when suddenly the overhead lights went out. For a second, all she could hear was the heavy rain on the roof of the carriage. But then there were a lot of screams, from both young and old.

Libby called out for everyone to hold on tight, wondering if this was part of the event. What was going on?

She quickly text Katy, who was in the next carriage. Her swift reply confirmed that their carriage was also in darkness and that it was most definitely not planned.

The screams began to magnify and Libby peered around in the darkness to try to work out what was upsetting everyone so much.

The tacky fake skeletons and witches they had retrieved from Dodgy Del’s boxes had looked pretty harmless in the light. However, in the darkness, Libby quickly realised that they were downright frightening. Because what nobody had spotted were the words written in illuminous paint, which was only now showing up in the pitch black. The skeletons had the words ‘Death To All’ scrawled on them and the witches had the word ‘Kill’ written over and over in what appeared to be fake blood.

There was a lot of crying now and Libby desperately tried to cover up the awful words. But as she tugged at the skeletons, it seemed to trigger some kind of ghostly sound effect. The witches, meanwhile, were beginning to cackle and scream.

Then, just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, the whole train braked hard and abruptly stopped. What had happened now?

Then, just to add to everyone’s fear, she could hear thunder rumbling nearby. Only a second after they had stopped, there was a crackle of lightning across the nearby hills. It would have been funny if it had been a fake effect, she thought. But it wasn’t.

Worse news was to come as suddenly she heard Bob’s voice over the tannoy.

‘Sorry about the abrupt stop, everyone. Unfortunately, it looks as if there’s a fallen tree up ahead. We can’t get past it, I’m afraid. So the only thing we can do is reverse back to the station. We will of course refund your tickets.’

And so the train slowly made its way back to the station, only minutes after it had left.