TOPIC: Horror on the Orient Express - All Rotations

III THE LONG VERSION

Thursday 21st February 1923

Svilengrad Station
Arrival 03.20 a.m. Due to depart 04.35 a.m. A relatively long stop at Svilengrad. Having watched Father Mika enter the station’s telegrapher’s office, Pierre and Percy alight from the train to follow him. Mika though cannot be found. If he was despatching a telegram he must have been quick. A report to his masters in the Vatican no doubt. But where has the old fool gone? Unbeknownst to them, Mika, his job done, had already slipped back on board the Express with his next job in mind—to get some sleep.

Fourgon Carriages
Wondering where the Simulacrum might be stored, Letty is intent on accessing the secure baggage cars—the fourgon carriages. The current configuration of the Orient Express includes no less than three fourgon carriages. One is currently open to the platform, the other two are sealed. Station porters are in the act of ferrying light cargo on platform trolleys to and from the open carriage under the direction of two guards. The other two cars remain closed, their cargo doors firmly secured with padlocks.

Fourgon Conclusion
Letty’s partner-in-crime, Nicholas Cartwright, hatches a plan to get into the open fourgon. He purloins a porter’s uniform from a staff-only side-room, pulls the hat firmly down over his face to conceal his eyepatch and takes charge of a trolley and package which he pushes confidently over the little ramp that bridges the gap between platform and carriage door. The two attendant guards wave him aboard. The carriage was filled with neatly-stacked packages but nothing the size and shape that would give suspicion to being our prize. Cartwright’s request of the guards for the key to the next fourgon was it seems as step too far. The guards' stances changed to look suddenly important and menacing. They don’t take requests or orders from piss-ant station porters. Cartwright, now noticing the telltale bulges of revolvers in concealed holsters beneath the guards’ jackets, decided not to push his luck any further and exits the carriage.

All Aboard!
Cartwright confides in Letty. Fourgon carriage number 3 is a bum steer. They still need to access the other two cars. Between them they manage a surreptitious mission to pick the padlock to car number 2 without being seen, but there’s no time to enter the car. The locomotive begins to whoosh steam and whistle, guards call out for all passengers to be aboard the Express. Cartwright has no time to change out of his disguise. He and Letty hurry to board the Calais Coach. As the train pulls out, Cartwright realises he’s wearing his porter’s hat and is left to rue the loss of his top hat. It’s where he left it, concealed in a locker in the station staff changing room.

The Progeny of Fenalik?
Next stop is just twenty-five minutes away at Dmitrovgrad. Due in at 5.0 a.m. for a quick halt, will there be enough time for Letty and Cartwright to capitalise on that opened padlock and get inside foregone number 2? Cartwright looks out of his window and stares in wonder at a pack of large grey wolves, loping along besides the train. The wolves are unnatural. Huge beasts with a glint of red in their eyes. Cartwright blinks. The wolves are still there. Keeping pace. He’s seen those eyes before. His mind races back to the glinting red eyes in the darkness of the Sredna Gora caves beyond Chukurova village. If the wolves keep up the chase then perhaps attempting to exit the train at Dmitrovgrad is not the best plan. Better wait until Sofia. Cartwright consulted the train’s timetable; due in at Sofia at 11.15 this morning. Plenty of time to get some much-needed sleep.

Breakfast Pierre?
Ludwig nudges Pierre. ‘Wake up mein freund. Have you been sleeping here all night?’
Pierre adjusted to his surroundings then realised he’d fallen asleep on the little couch in the salon car. ‘Better than sleeping in that blood-stained murder hole of a compartment.’
‘Ha.’ Ludwig gave Pierre a friendly slap on the back, which caused the Parisian to wince due to the sudden pressure on his ever-worsening bodily lesions. ‘Understandable. Let’s get to breakfast.’
‘You look different somehow, Ludwig.’
Ludwig ignored the comment. He was bust wiping sticky mucus from his fingers. The offending ooze seemed to have coated his hand when he gave Pierre a playful slap.

Degradations
Around the breakfast table everyone looked terrible. The degradations of the Simulacrum were taking greater hold on its former possessors. They were drawing looks of disgust from their fellow passengers.
•Ludwig’s skin, still marked by a red rash, seemed to droop, he had distinct jowls and loose skin on his arms.
•Letty’s veins seemed more prominent, dark and twisted—like the varicose veins of someone more than twice her years.
•Banks, having suffered the loss of his hair, was now sweating profusely. Like a fat kid during a missing cream cake investigation.
•Cartwright stank like a cess-pit, in direct competition with Pierre for most rancid man of the year.
•Percy’s sub-dermal affliction had come to the surface, not just at his stomach but all over. Worm-like creatures poked at the very surface of his skin—like an infestation of botfly larvae.
•Father Mika’s prolific perspirations had now turned to something more sinister. He was literally seating blood.
•Pierre, who was still stinking the place up, was now oozing bile from every orifice of his body.

Musings
Time to think out loud.
(i) Did an enemy board the train at Svilengrad?
(ii) If Makryat was able to impersonate Emile by wearing his skin, then the Emile we knew from the moment we boarded the train was probably Makryat in disguise all along. So whose body did Helmut witness being dumped from the train? Not Emile, he’s been dead since before we left Cirkeci Station. Surely the body is that of a new victim, skinned by the Mims Sahis, whose identity has been usurped by Makryat? But who?
(iii) Worryingly, as Emile/Makryat has been the custodian of the passports of all the passengers of the Calais Coach, he has had ample opportunity to learn a lot of our personal details.
(iv) Why does Makryat not suffer the degradations of the Simulacrum? Didn’t he say something about the Ritual of Cleansing? How and where do we get hold of that to save ourselves from further deterioration?

Observations
Is Makryat wearing the skin of one of our fellow passengers? We look around the breakfast car and try to discern any differences in people’s demeanours. Lord Margrave is sharing his breakfast table with La Dona del Garda, whom we don’t recall sitting together before. They’re having an argument but trying to keep it low, so no-one will notice. Rama Ho-Tet is breakfasting alone, and speaking with no-one. No change there. Kurt Kroenig is heartily tucking away a breakfast of pastries without a care in the world. The Count and Countess sit together without exchanging conversation, eating with quiet reserve. Nobody suddenly looks any different than they did yesterday. Elena hasn’t risen yet, probably picked in alcohol from drinking with Letty. We haven’t seen either of Danton Szorbic or Sir Robert outside of their compartments yet this morning, nor that annoying American, Jack Gatling. No-one has questioned the whereabouts of Emile or Martinelli. Martinelli’s absence can be explained away: he got off at Svilengrad (that’s our story) and we’re not accountable to the Chef de Train for the behaviour or disappearing act of his conductor. That’s his problem. We need to remain vigilant. We need a plan to smoke our adversary out.

Sofia
At 11.15 am. Exactly on time. The Express comes to a stop at Sofia Central Station. The pursuing wolves had been left behind several miles back. Letty and Cartwright planned to have another crack at the second fourgon car. Cartwright asked Ludwig to hand over two small stopped bottles of chloroform. Then, wearing his porter’s disguise once more, he took the bottles and got off the train. Having only just pulled in, the platform bustled with life. Cartwright would have to pick his moment. With a stop scheduled for thirty five minutes he could afford to wait. There was plenty of time first to head for the station restroom for a shit. Letty and Banks alighted from the Express. Pierre watched them from the train window as they entered the station’s little café and shop. His attention soon shifted to a couple of suspicious looking men, striding purposefully along the platform; bumping people out of their way. They were headed straight towards the toilets. Pierre was worried that Cartwright had attracted trouble.

For reference the baggage carriages are Fourgons, not Foregone

Sarge wrote:
That's what I had written at first. Perhaps its the French. Because when I googled it I only found reference to them being foregones. It refers to baggage trains, initially the horse and cart kind, where your luggage was sent ahead of you. So your baggage was quite litterally afore gone. In trains they were the carriages in front of the passenger carriages, so the luggage was still fore gone ahead of them.

I learn something new every day.

Edit: I've changed the spelling.

IV THE SHORT VERSION

Thursday 21st February 1923
Sofia Station toilet fracas
Stitched-up Brothers
La Dona del Garda storms off the train
Lord Margrave is a grumpy git
Gatling is a gutter-press journalist
The birds
The little cottage in the field
An old friend comes to dinner
George Banks goes blank

IV THE LONG VERSION

Thursday 21st February 1923

The Great Sofia Station Toilet Bust-Up
Cartwright had barely had time to pull up his trousers and exit the trap before he was confronted by two snarling bad guys issuing threats in Arabic. The baddies had crude stitches on their arms and necks, a telltale that these were Brothers of the Skin, biologically augmented. The bad guys wouldn’t be bad guys without stitched-on body parts and ultra-sharp curved flaying knives. Cartwright was cut-up by the lunge and slash of one of the flashing curved blades. Luckily it was just a nick, but bled out profusely all the same. Just when it looked like Cartwright’s conjuring days were over, Pierre and Percy burst into the toilets.

Gratuitous violence—Extreme Cottaging Edition
Cartwright, Pierre and Percy were all unarmed. Without his sword-cane, Cartwright would prefer to avoid a fight but was forced to defend himself—there was no choice. Percy lived by the Marquis of Queensbury rules of engagement and was honour-bound to come to his friend’s aid. Pierre was there simply because he loved a good punch-up. Pierre waded in without hesitation but it was Cartwright who drew first blood for the good guys. A murderous right-hook dislocated one of the cultist’s jaw. With the cultist stunned and his jaw flapping loose, Pierre was quick to capitalise on the moment. He gouged his thumbs deep into the cultist’s eye sockets. As he jerked his hands back again there was a sickening sound of slurping flesh as the crude stitches on the bad guy’s neck were undone and Pierre inadvertently tore off the cultists’ head—with his thumbs still stuck in its eye sockets. The beheaded cultist dropped his flaying knife. Percy picked it up. The fight with the second Brother was complicated by everyone slipping and sliding on a tiled floor soaked with blood and piss. Eventually, the brother was brought down by Percy with the flaying knife he wielded.

Toilet Cleaner
A member of the public might step inside the toilets at any time. Percy organised a quick clean-up of the scene. A mop and bucket was employed to clean the blood. The two dead bodies were forced into a single toilet cubicle. Percy insisted on placing the headless corpse on the toilet with its head down the pan. “It’ll look like he’s shit out his own head,” he joked. Percy took delight in arranging the scene to his liking—like an artist at work. Due to the fight and the subsequent need to re-board the Express for Ludwig to tend to Cartwright’s knife wound—albeit thankfully a minor scratch—there was not enough time left to attempt to access the fourgon cars.

Gutter-Press Journalism
The Express was due to leave Sofia at 11.50am. With mere minutes to spare before departure Jack Gatling ran from the train, straight to the station telegrapher’s office. A quick spying mission revealed that an excited Gatling had just fired off a telegram to a newspaper editor in the United States. The telegram confirmed the illicit love affair of the Countess de Bussey and Kurt Groenig. With this act, we think we can rule out Gatling as a suspect for being Makryat in disguise. Makryat would surely not dash from the train just moments before it’s due to depart to report sensational gossip. Gatling only just made it back on board as the train shunted out.

Lunchtime Searches
While most of the Calais coach passengers were at lunch. Letty and Banks picked locks and searched the compartments of Lord Margrave, the Count and Countess and La Dona del Garda. There was nothing incriminating to suggest any of them was Makryat in disguise. The only interesting find was legal paperwork in Margarve’s compartment showing that he was engaging in the sale of his estates to none other than La Dona del Garda.

Spanish Goodbyes
At 2.30pm the Express pulled into the town of Nish. This was due to be nothing more than a ten minute halt. No time for passengers to get off. It was quite surprising therefore to witness Margrave and La Dona del Garda to alight from the train. Del Garda was dragging her luggage behind her. Despite keeping their voices hushed, the pair argued strongly. Margrave’s arm waving suggested he was trying to convince del Garda to come back to the train. The Spanish lady however was having none of it. She exited the station through the little picket-fence gate that marked the station boundary and hailed a taxi cab. Clearly, she wasn’t coming back. Margrave re-boarded the train alone. His countenance was one of anger and he was muttering under his breath.

Nish Dash
While the feuding Margrave and del Garda held everyone’s attention on the platform side of the train, Banks dashed down the trackside flank of the train to surreptitiously pick the lock of the still-secured fourgon. Lock successfully picked, he didn’t attempt to slide open the doors but rushed back to the Calais Coach. We remain convinced the Sedefkar Simulacrum is stashed inside one of the fourgons—it has to be. Of the three fourgons, Cartwright had pretty much ruled out fourgon #3 when he managed to get a glance inside. The fourgons #1 and #2 now both had their locks picked but we have not yet formulated a plan to get inside them. Maybe we need to ride the train all the way to Calais to see their contents, when the fourgons will need unloading and cargo transferred to the cross-channel steamer to reach England?

Onward to Belgrade
The train pushed on from Nish. Next stop is four hours ahead at Belgrade. In the salon car, Margrave cut a sullen figure. Gatling practically attached himself to the grumpy man, no doubt in search of more newsworthy gossip he can profit from. Margrave was having none of it though and shook of the American’s attentions.

The Little Cottage
Approaching the outskirts of Belgrade, the train slows down. Banks stares out of the window into the darkening sky of early evening. His awareness is caught by something he is unsure of but he intuitively knows there is something there—something familiar. He squints hard to see and is alarmed to realise what it is that demands his attention. A strange little cottage, which looked entirely out of place, squatted in a field between the ruins of farm buildings. Banks had flashbacks to another little cottage he was in recently. That cottage looked worryingly familiar to the one he now watched receding into the darkness in its field as the Express chuffed by.

Belgrade—The Birds
At 6.43pm the Express came to a stop at the Beograd Main Station. The station was all hustle and bustle. A mass of bodies pulling and pressing in different directions and a hubbub of many voices over which came the occasional shouts and whistles of those desperate to be heard. Letty alights from the Express to stretch her legs and take in the air. Hardly fresh air due to layers of gushing steam and tang of bituminous smoke from the burning of coal. Letty looked up. A murder of crows descended from the sky. They cawed and wheeled above Letty. They dipped en masse to peck at her skin and flutter around her. Letty raised her arms in a vain attempt to shield herself from the harassing birds. Pandemonium broke out around the station. People screamed and ran to find cover. However despite the incredulous threat, only Letty was targeted by the birds. She jumped back on board the train. The birds threw themselves at the Calais Coach. Their bodies thumped against the side of the carriage and its windows in almost suicidal impulse. As abruptly as the attack began, so it ended. The flight of birds dispersed into the darkened sky.

George?
At 7.35pm, to everyone’s relief, the Express puffed out of the station to leave Belgrade behind. At 8.0pm, everyone gathered in the dining car for dinner. Across from our table a newly boarded passenger, an elderly woman with long white hair and dressed in a ragged black dress, was being seated by the Maître Di. Her dress fell way below minimum expected standards for passenger evening wear aboard the Express but the waiting staff didn’t seem to mind. The old woman stared at us with baleful eyes. Her face was suddenly familiar. We’d met before. She locked her gaze with Banks. Banks went stiff. His mouth gaped.
“Are you okay George?”
Banks squinted at everyone around the table “Who are you?” he asked in seriousness.
Banks became defensive. He grabbed his table knife and held it firmly in his grip until his knuckles paled.
The George Banks we know wasn’t there. Not for a minute or so at least. When he returned to his senses we asked again if he was feeling okay now. He had no idea what we meant. He had no recollection of checking out of reality on us for a moment. He put the cutlery knife down and wiped a napkin over his sweating bald pate.

Baba Yaga
The old woman continued to regard us. The waiting staff buzzed around her without bothering her. As if they were at her beck and call and yet seemingly unaware of her presence unless summoned to her side. We tried to eat our meals but the usually exquisite food tasted rancid and the wine tasted corked. We looked terrible and smelled terrible and now the food and drink looked and smelled terrible too. Everything was wrong. And the old witch kept on staring.

.

V THE SHORT VERSION

Thursday 21st February 1923
We abandon Baba Yaga in the dining car
We go to the salon car, to find Baba Yaga is there before us
Ludwig’s peace offering goes very wrong
The hut on goat’s legs is running alongside the train
Baba Yaga is in the Calais Coach too
At midnight, Baba Yaga ups and leaves

Friday 22nd February 1923
Zagreb – the cloaked weirdo – reprise
Creeping Flesh
The thing in the wardrobe
From Ludwig to Cartwright-a new top hat