“That Hell-Bound Train”Robert Bloch(1986)
By the 1980s it seemed unlikely that anyone could
find a new twist to the deal-with-the-devil story,
let alone write one that would win a major award,
but Robert BLOCH, the author of Psychoand liter-
ally hundreds of short stories in a variety of genres,
proved equal to the task. His story, which won the
Hugo Award, the only story of the supernatural
ever to do so, describes the life of Martin, whose
father was a railroad man who died while Martin
was young and whose mother ran off, abandoning
him to grow up in an orphanage. Martin emerged
as a young man without prospects but with an
affinity for the railroads, so he becomes a bindles-
tiff, living much of his life hiding on railroad cars
and occasionally working for poor wages or stealing
when that seems easier.
Martin remembers a song his father used to sing
about a phantom train that carries the souls of the
damned to hell, and one night as he is considering
letting himself be converted by the Salvation Army a
mysterious dark train roars up and stops nearby. The
conductor steps down, limping on one misshapen
foot, his hat askew because of a pair of horns. The
world has changed, and there is no shortage of
damned souls, so the devil usually does not engage in
deals as he did in the past. However, he is particu-
larly interested in not losing Martin to the Salvation
Army, so he offers him one wish in exchange for
damnation. After due consideration Martin asks for
the ability to arrest time once, planning to do so
when he achieves a certain level of happiness. The
devil agrees and then sulks away in evident disap-
pointment when Martin indicates that by using his
wish, he can hold off his damnation forever.
The reader is not likely to be fooled; the devil
has an ace up his sleeve. Martin decides to im-
prove his life so that he can enjoy it when he stops
time. He cleans up, gets a good job and becomes
educated, married, and eventually wealthy. He
keeps waiting for things to get just a little bit better
and adds children and a mistress. Alas, things
begin to go badly after that. His wife divorces him
and takes the kids, and he loses his job and is
bankrupted. Chastened, he decides to rebuild just
enough to be tolerable and then use his wish, but
somehow he has grown old, and his health is not
what he would like it to be. Destitute and friend-
less, he suffers a stroke, and just as he is about to
invoke his wish anyway, he hesitates and dies.
The devil shows up promptly and admits that
he knew what would happen because it had hap-
pened many times before. Martin grudgingly con-
cedes defeat and boards the train, but at the last
minute he decides to use his wish at last, trapping
the devil on a train ride that will never end and
ensuring himself an endless future in an environ-
ment that he always loved. Thus, both parties to
the deal are victorious, and both are cheated in
part of what they hoped to acquire.“They Bite”Anthony Boucher(1943)
Most of Anthony Boucher’s published fiction is in
the mystery genre, even though he was the editor
of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fictionfor
many years. The majority of his remaining stories
are science fiction, but he also wrote this chilling
little story of murder and horror set somewhere in
the southwestern corner of the United States. The
protagonist is Hugh Tallant, who is apparently spy-
ing on a military training camp in the desert at
some point during World War II. Tallant’s efforts
are complicated by the chance arrival of Morgan,
an old acquaintance who suspects his real motives
but who is more interested in blackmail than in ad-
vising the authorities.
Tallant is camped out near a deserted adobe
structure, which he discovers is the focus of long-
standing unpleasant rumors about a family of peo-
ple, if they are people, named the Carkers, who
lived there at one time and who apparently way-
laid travelers and ate them. The Carkers were sup-
posedly wiped out on two separate occasions, but
the locals still avoid the area. Tallant dismisses the
legend as a tall tale or practical joke, even though
he himself has on at least one occasion spotted
something in the desert that seemed almost but
not quite human.
The legend gives him an idea, however. He in-
vites Morgan over to discuss their arrangements,
then murders him and drags the body into the
adobe building, confident that no one will find it
there for at least several years. Inside he notices
what appears to be the mummified body of a child,
but the creature wakens and attacks him. Even“They Bite” 349