Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02] Read Online Free PDF

through the packed bodies as the train slowed at Kandalay. Abdul took her hand again, and Pham felt pleased and safe as he tugged her off the train, along the platform and out into a noisy street.
     
    It was dark now, and the street was alight with a thousand signs advertising shops and restaurants. The sidewalk was crowded with food-stalls. Pham saw one selling idli. She bought two big sticky lattices and passed one to Abdul, earning a big grin of thanks.
     
    The only trouble now was that Abdul didn’t have a free hand to hold on to Pham, so she had to be extra careful as she followed him across the busy street and down a dark alleyway.
     
    They came to a high tattered polycarbon wall, covered with peeling posters of holo-movie stars and skyball players.
     
    Abdul ducked through a loose flap in the wall, and Pham bent down and pushed her way through after him, then stood up and stared about her in wonder.
     
    She had never seen anything like it in her life, not even in the holo-movies.
     
    She was surrounded by a hundred rides and stalls and things that she couldn’t even describe—massive wheels with seats all around them, slides with rocket ships ready for take-off, oval shapes like little fliers hanging by wires from tall frames. Okay, so some of the attractions were old and faded, and some had been ripped apart—and none were working—but, even so, Pham could imagine how wonderful it must have been, and walking through the amusement park even now was a magical experience.
     
    “My favourite is the ghost train,” Abdul said. “Have you ever seen one?”
     
    She shook her head. “A train that’s really a ghost?” she asked, confused.
     
    Abdul laughed. “No! Come on, I’ll show you. The cars don’t work anymore, but we can still walk through it.”
     
    He’d finished his idli now, and he grabbed her hand with sticky fingers and dragged her through the faded glory of the park.
     
    Five minutes later they came to an open area surrounded by tumbledown food kiosks, with the ghost train at one end and a starship ride at the other.
     
    They hurried across the concourse and stared up at the fa ç ade of the ghost train. It was the shape of a castle, covered with paintings of ghosts and ghouls, vampire bats and zombies. There were two openings, where the little cars went in and came out, and these openings were the mouths of screaming banshees.
     
    Abdul ran up a short flight of steps, pulling Pham after him. She dragged him back as he made to enter the first screaming mouth. It was dark in there, and she could see something green and luminous and scary lurking just inside.
     
    “I’m not sure...”
     
    He turned and stared at her. “Are you scared?”
     
    “No. It’s just that... I thought you were taking me to see the starship?”
     
    “You are scared! Look, there’s nothing to be frightened about. They’re just mechanical monsters. And you’ll be with me. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
     
    That persuaded her. She felt comfortable with Abdul. Nothing would go wrong while she was with him. All this was his world, the upper deck, and if she stuck close to him she would be fine.
     
    But even so, as she timorously stepped into the dark maw of the ghoul’s slavering mouth, she felt her tummy flutter with fear. She grabbed Abdul’s hand with both of hers and squeezed.
     
    Something green was dangling from the ceiling: it was a hanged man, who’d been there too long. His flesh was rotten and his eyeballs had fallen out.
     
    “Yech!” Pham said, shivering and pressing close to Abdul.
     
    They hurried past the hanged man. They were walking between two rails where the car would have run, years ago. It took them further into the make-believe castle, leaving behind the little light that spilled through the mouth-shaped entrance. Pham could feel the hairs on the back of her neck bristling in fear, and she wanted to scream out loud and run back the way she had come.
     
    She did scream