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Night Shift.
Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.
Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2009 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.
Just to reassure you that I still exist, can still write and still have internet access (albiet the somewhat limited access at home). The new job started on Monday, so I am now working on an extremely secure site. I'll still try to drop by from time to time.
Night Shift.
Never the most exciting of watches, particularly in an out-of-the-way signal box on the main line between London and the North.
There were trains to see to, of course. As the passenger services became sparse the freight services started to come into their own. Here and there the odd sleeper service.
The digital clock on the wall counts the hours. And the minutes. And the seconds.
The signalman stood at the window, surveying his domain - or at least, that part of his domain that was visible. The hours crawled past midnight into the surreal territory of the early morning. The silence and loneliness emphasised by the hum of the modern electronic signalling equipment and the mindless pocking as the digits on the clock changed.
Every so often the box would be shaken as a train tore past. The whining electric motors of the sleepers; the brash roar of the diesel freight, and the thunderous hissing of the steam engines that pulled the ghost trains.
But between these moments the signalman endured the eternal silence, watching the fields as they were illuminated by the moon.
* * *
This particular night there were people toiling in the fields. This was not as unusual as it sounds, for after the late-working farmer packs away his tractor out comes the crop-circle maker to ply his trade amongst the corn. This particular night the cereologists were blessed - or otherwise, depending on the views of the farmer - by a fine gibbous moon, beneath a clear, starry sky. The conditions were just right.
The signalman watched the pattern take form. Most crop circles followed some mathematical or artistic pattern. This one, although within a circle, seemed to have no particular pattern to it. It just looked...wrong.
* * *
The circle was completed as the pre-dawn light began to obliterate the stars, throwing the landscape into a weird mix of light and shadow. In that strange light the field seemed to convulse as the harvest formed itself into a shambling mass of corn and clay. The cereologists tried to run from their creation, but the great mass caught them by the ears.
The mound huddled for a moment, as if considering its next move, then rolled forward towards the signal box.
The signalman did not run. They are not faint hearted, those who face the watches of the night; who clear the lines for the ghost trains. The creature shambled on to the lines...
There was a flash as several thousand volts from the overhead cables suddenly went to ground. There was the wail of a steam whistle and a screech of metal brakes as a ghost train sped down the line, and into the thing.
The signalman calmly reached for the telephone.
“Euston? We have a problem...â€Â
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