The Tales of Gehiwian Circle

Psychological Wharf Air

3rd October 1967

Dead. 

That's what Thorston would be if his parents found out. Not only was he out after their ten o'clock curfew, but he was by the wharf just outside Gehiwian Circle, on the estuary. Darkness had flooded the town as the night tide rolled in, dragging with it a thick layer of sea mist that blighted the struggling street lamps. Glowing a feeble orange, their bulbs had an unlikely ally. The metallic sheen of the rails, inset into the wharf's concrete surface, reflected their light.

Thorston pulled his hood over his messy, golden blonde hair as the cold sea breeze gnawed at his ears. Wisps of fog spiralled around all the standing structures he could see, atmospheric fingers rising from the sea to curl around the monuments of the land. Standing still and silent at the end of the wharf was Gehiwian's cargo crane, towering over twice the height of any building in Gehiwian. Diesel powered before its electric conversion some decades earlier, thinning usage and spiralling maintenance costs hastened the crane's aging until shipping ceased altogether. The rotating cab and arm were stuck facing inland. Rust and decay crept from the darkest corners of the crane's frame, spotting the tall hunchback with the infectious, necrotic salt pox.

It was haunting, alluring, to Thorston. Before him, the core of his town was dying. The end of the railway, the industrial arteries around which the town had organised its organs, was now a week away. British Railways and Dr Beeching had swung their axes - steam engines were being phased out, and the Gehiwian line had been marked for closure. The news had dealt a hammer blow to the residents. With the mines already gone and modern shipping too large and cumbersome for their small wharf, the management of railway traffic was all they had left. Their future was empty, murky, bleak.

Just like the waters out here, Thorston thought.

He sucked in a deep breath of salty air and let it tickle his throat. So much of the town's history was steeped into his family's. His father, the Chief constable, had pulled much of the current affairs together over the years, compiling what was to become Gehiwian Circle's modern history. He'd solved murders, disappearances, found lost items and people, all meticulously recorded in the police reports.

The mist levitated out over the dark waters lapping at the concrete with a sloppy licking noise. The fog hung, not moving with the breeze above the water or the currents below. Thorston gulped, tucking the cuffs of his green coat into his palms. There was still a lot about Gehiwian that went unsolved, despite his father's best, hidden efforts. The Coal Man, the scorched diver, the missing firelighter. His pre-adolescent brain had put together theories, yet come up with nothing. Nor had he seen anything unnatural around Gehiwian himself. If not for the papers, he'd be convinced they were old wives' tales and nothing more.

Thorston checked his watch. Ten thirty-six. 

I've sat in the company of the damned long enough.

As he turned to head back to town, a dark, mechanical shape caught his eye in the fog. The shape of an engine materialised from the darkness. Sitting at the entrance to the wharf siding was one of Gehiwian's old, worn Terrier shunters. Dressed in the sullen, soot-stained black livery of BR, the darkness camouflaged it magnificently. Thorston walked up to it and touched its cold, metal buffers. Almost illegible on the smokebox door was a grimy number plate which once read 32666. It wasn't the largest engine, but it had been a hard worker long before he was born. Now it was going to be cut up, disposed of.

Thorston stepped back. Why was the engine just left out? Were the crew that settled with the inevitable? Had it failed?

Tucking his stinging hands into his coat pockets, Thorston walked back towards the crane. A squeaking, creaking noise pierced his ears from close by. He stopped and looked back at the engine. It had moved forward a few inches after him, he swore it. Blinking, frowning, Thorston walked away. He shook his head.