Train Whistles

A loud whistle in the darkness. I could hear the train coming before I saw it. Slow creaking sounds. It was big. This wasn't my train.

I had been standing there at the station for a long time. I don't remember when I got here. Sometime after breakfast I guess, rushing out the door for work. It was still dark out, but winter mornings are always dark. I looked at my watch, but then saw I had forgotten it at home. My cellphone too. Wow, I was forgetting a lot of things today. Guess I was lucky to have dressed before going out the door.

I hoped I would not be late as the train started pulling into the station. I would have no way of calling work to say I was on my way. But the train was not mine. This was something different. Reminded me of something I saw in a 19th century movie, a great steam engine and cars that looked too presidential. Was that what they called it? Those cars Teddy Roosevelt used to wave and shout from? I don't know what I'm talking about at this point. Where is my train?

The engine came to a very ponderous stop, steam escaping in loud hisses. So there was going to be a delay then. Great. I wished I could find one of those pay phones, the thought of which was a reminder of just how old I was. No one used those anymore. Still it was a moment's thought, then the door of one of the coach cars slid open. I heard my name being called by the voice of someone who had not bothered to come out.

"Um, what was that?" I asked, thinking how stupid I sounded.

I was called again by name. I still didn't see anyone at the open door, or at any of the windows of the coach. It was dumb, but I cautiously moved forward. I thought I saw someone standing in the back, beckoning me to climb up the steps of the car. I had an irresistible urge to do so. You have to imagine I was afraid now, but I did it anyway. Like any of those ridiculous horror movies, I did what you would not do. I climbed up the steps into the train car.

The handrail I used to climb up the steps was cold, bitterly so. It caught me by surprise, and I wondered at that sticky feeling when something is freezing, and you feel your skin stick to it. It alarmed me, but when I turned to look at my hand, I saw out of the corner of my eye that I was not alone on the train platform anymore. There were several people waiting behind me. Where they had come from I did not know, but they were close and almost oppressively pressuring me to continue climbing up the steps by their nearness.

I felt myself sweating now. A cold clammy feeling had come over me, as I entered the coach and found myself in a fairly large car with wide aisles between seats. I did not see anyone at first, not the person I thought had called me, nor anyone sitting down. It was empty except for myself and the people climbing in behind me. Not daring to look back I moved forward quickly and took a chair to my right, trying to get out of the way of the people behind me. I sat down and waited to see them all rush by impatiently, but no one appeared.

Thinking maybe they had gone into the adjacent car instead, I suddenly had the feeling that maybe I had made a mistake and should follow them. I had just about decided to get up from my seat and look into the next car so as not to be antisocial, when I felt a lurch as the cabin I was in was pulled into line with the others. We were taking off, and I still didn't know where I was going or why I was called onto this train. There was a brief moment of panic in my heart, and somehow the sound of it beating, was loud in my ears compared to the silence around me.

"Is this your first time on a train? I like it."

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard this little child's voice next to me, and raised my arms to try and block a blow that was not coming. Instead, I looked to see a young girl, maybe six years old, looking at me with complete innocence in her eyes. They were bright blue. It was her skin that was so white, so pale. She was in a dress with a floral pattern, but I was not at all curious about that. It was the intensity of her stare at me that kept me riveted to my seat. And the red scar across her neck.

"I'm Molly," she said, neither lifting her hand to shake, or removing her intense stare. "I died a little while ago, and they put me on this train. How did you die?"

I'm sorry to say a few expletive remarks in front of a child escaped my lips, and frightened to my core, I tried to remain calm and not scream. The more I looked at here, the more obvious it became that she was indeed a corpse but speaking to me. There was a lifeless, and yet life like glitter to here eyes. She was standing so close to me in the aisle, that if she was the kind of murderous creature one sees in the horror film, she could have killed me.

"Oh wait," she said, a sudden lighting of curiosity in her eyes. "I smell blood. Are you alive? How did you get on this train?"

"Molly," I said, grasping her name at the only handle I had in this sudden nightmare, "where am I?"

"This is the train that takes us to the other side," she replied, though she took a small step towards me. "I smell blood. Are you still alive?"

I was terrified at this point, and pulled back from the child, even though she appeared so frail that I could have struck her and flung her away. She was so intensely staring at me, and I felt like an animal, a small mouse caught by a cat. I wanted to call for help. There is nothing else to say, except I was in full panic.

"No, leave me alone!" I screamed, shamefully pulling my arms up as if to defend against her attack.

"I won't hurt you," she replied, taking a step back, and expressing for the first time emotion on her face. "If you don't want to share, that's alright. My daddy always told me to share, but it's fine if you don't."

"I'm sorry," I replied, scared still, but feeling like a monster to be so afraid. "I don't even know where I am.

"Oh you are on the death train," replied Molly, "I thought I just told you."

"But I'm not dead!" I screamed, too loudly in my own ears.

''Oh, well then you are on the wrong train. I died, and ended up here. I was killed by a bad man with a knife. My daddy put him on the train too, but he's locked up in the prison car."

"Wait, you were murdered?" I asked, the neck cut making perfect sense now in a horrific way.

"Yes, but I don't like to talk about it."

"No I guess not."

"Um, you probably better to get off this train," said my dead friend, her face growing suddenly concerned. "You know he just got out of his carriage."

"Who?" I asked, seeing her eyes grow distant as if she was seeing something beyond me.

"That bad man," she replied, her lips quivering. "You better run away."

Before I could ask or say another word, Molly simply disappeared before me. I had such a sudden sense of dread, that if I was afraid before, I was more so now. I got up from my seat, and started for the door I had entered. It was then that I heard a sudden load crash against the opposite door. As if someone was trying to burst their way in from the other end. I looked back, and saw that the window of the other door was obscured by darkness. And there were two red eyes looking through, like fires that wanted to burn the barrier between us.

"Run away!" I heard Molly scream, and I was out the door in a flash.

The train was flying down the track. I felt the cold bite of rushing air dig into my flesh, as I stood for just a moment, considering the next car before me and the dark shadows that rushed by while I hesitated. Tree like silhouettes were passing us by at a rapid pace, and I felt we must truly be passing through a forest. If I had doubted Molly before, about being on a death train, I was convinced now. My commute had always been through the city, and there were no dark forests on that route. Somehow I pushed myself forward through fear to cross to the next car and open the door, never looking back to see if I were followed.

The shift from rushing train through the woods, to a long lounge car full of people talking in low voices, was shocking. I felt like I had burst in on an extremely private scene, and might have left hurriedly if not for the fear of what was coming behind me. I was sweating and breathing heavily, and it sounded like a loud blasphemy in my ears. Every eye was turned towards me, and all were the same bright yet coldly expressionless ones I had seen in Molly.

I started walking, just straight ahead as if there was nothing worth noting, while every eye continued to follow me across the coach. It was a lounge as I have said, and there were tables and obviously there, should have been food on a normal train. Yet here, there was nothing but tall glasses of some clear liquid. I assumed it was water, but it could have been anything at all. Clear blood for all I knew, though it seemed in every horror flick, blood had to be red to give it the necessary scare value. Somehow this though stiffened me to walk faster, but when someone finally spoke to me, the stress made me shudder violently.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you heard me," said a woman's voice, and I flinched away from a beautiful woman sitting at a table with a much older woman. I had noted that the occupants of the lounge where of all sorts of ages, sexes and varying degrees of beauty, but this woman had somehow escaped my notice in my fear and desperate need to get through as soon as possible. She gestured to an empty spot opposite her, and I sat down, more out of habit than inclination. It was not what I had intended to do.

The table was clean, set with a white linen table cloth and only two large champagne flute glasses of whatever the clear liquid was. I still didn't really think it was water. The two woman sitting across from me were very intent in their stares, but at least I could see that the other people around us had resumed the conversations that had been occupying them and stopped looking at me. That was something and I'll admit I felt just a little bit safer. Still, it felt really odd to not have a glass of the clear stuff in front of me.

"We got here on an airplane," said the woman who had stopped me. She was dark complexioned, as was the older woman beside here. "On our way to Hawaii. I guess it was not meant to be. This is my mother. She's excited to see dad again. How did you get here?"

I felt my voice catch in my throat. The woman across from me was more beautiful than any other I had ever seen, as I allowed my gaze to fall on her only, and not think of the danger in the other car. I hoped it was still locked. But I couldn't think of anything to say. It is hard enough to try and give condolences to someone who had lost a loved one, but quite another to the person in the flesh, or in the spirit.

"I don't know," I finally stammered. "I was just waiting for my usual train to work."

"Oh, well then maybe you were hit by the train," she replied, with a slight quizzical look in her eye. "Wait, there is something wrong. You smell like blood."

"Please don't hurt me." I replied, drawing back even though she hadn't moved. "Why do you all say that?"

"I, well I'm sorry," she answered, while here mother looked absently out the window. "It's just that no one else does. Blood means you are still living. If you share with anyone, they can go back to the living. At least that is what we all think."

At this point I realized that many people were now looking at me again. Particularly those close to the table. A rare feeling crept over me. I thought at once, this must be how the celebrity feels. Everyone around them to some extent desires some aspect of their life, or perhaps all of it, but cannot have it. Yet here, I was reminded twice that my gift, my life, could easily be given away or taken if I was not careful. Was that really a thing to be so afraid of? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I sort of wondered if it would not be more peaceful to just ride this train to the end.

"What did you say?" asked the woman across from me, seeming to have leaned across the table towards me. I noticed then that she had a very thick line across her skull, jagged in some place where it broke the surface. The airplane crash. The injury.

"I said I was tired," I replied, finding that indeed, I had said that. There was no lie on my tongue. I was tired and scared, and this adventure if you want to call it, was breaking me down. "Can I have something to drink?"

"Oh, you cannot drink this," said the young woman, gesturing to the glass in front of her with the clear liquid. "These are the dreams, and you can only drink your own."

There was a sudden crash on the door behind me, before I could ask what she had meant. I looked back in horror to see the same red eyes glaring, almost boring into me from beyond the barrier, looking though the door window. I must have locked the door and forgotten, but I was grateful now.

"You need to get away," cried the young woman, as everyone else in the car started talking in loud voices, some rising, and some looking at me as if I had committed some horrible crime. "Run to the engineer!"

I did not reply or wait. Something in her voice reminded me of Molly, and regretfully, I wish I had asked what her name was. Running down the carriage, all I saw were people looking at me with their chilling eyes, most still sitting at their tables and following my progress. The door at the end of the car was unlocked as well, and it was not difficult to keep moving from one train car to the next. I no longer stopped to chat or really look at the passengers I passed. The engine was my goal now, and no matter what people tried to get my attention, I rushed by as if the red eyes were on my very heels.

Each coach was virtually the same. People sitting in their seats looking outside idly, occasionally talking to each other. They looked up at me as I rushed through their car, but no one got up or made an attempt to stop me. At each door I opened, rushed through and then locked it solidly behind. By now I had assumed that the red eyes were going to get me eventually, but I kept repeating the action at each door in hope of something unexpected to stop and save me. It was ridiculous, but that was my method. It felt like some terrible nightmare, and yet I felt the floor of the cars beneath me, and felt the cold iron on each door latch.

"And what is your rush, son?"

I had reached the engine, and darted inside hoping the lock on this door was better than all the others. It seems strange that it never occurred to me that someone might be driving the death train, but there he was, a man in dark overalls and cap watching the road ahead. His voice was tired but clear. Steam drifted in the open windows on either side of him, giving a mystic cast to his silhouette, the head ghost driving the last journey for all those inside.

"I'm being chased," I stammered, suddenly feeling a bit more apprehensive. I saw his hand on a lever. It was not like the others I had seen. This was only a collection of bones.

"Who is chasing you?"

"Um, something with terrible red eyes. I think the killer of Molly."

"He wants your blood."

"Yeah I kind of guessed that at this point. Can you help me?"

"Well now, son, I need to finish delivering these folks to the end of the line," replied the engineer, turning to look back at me. "And it is up to you to decided if you want to just sit here and arrive there too."

I was staring into the face of a skull, with pale haunted eyes like two dim stars in the darkness behind their cavernous openings. I knew that face as everyone who eventually sees it. My voice was caught, the words dry in my mouth.

"I have been driving this train a long time now, and your ticket is coming up faster than you think. If you want a little more time, you have one chance. Climb up to the roof and reverse your journey. Jump from the end of the train and you can find your way back through the woods. It is either that, or finish the trip with me."

"Thank you," I whispered, backing out of the engine, and shutting the door behind me.

"I will be seeing you soon," I heard, just before the door closed.

Sweat dripping from my forehead, I climbed the cold rungs of the coach ladder behind me. Somewhere ahead, which was the way I had come, I heard a door crashing, and in panic I moved faster. I had to be on top of the car before red eyes knew I had left the engine. Maybe the driver would distract him for a few minutes. Who knew? This nightmare journey was never ending. I had to run for the end of the train.

The rushing air was behind me now as I ran along the top of the coach. Dark branches swept by like gigantic bats in the darkness. Only the full moon above, darting between fast moving clouds, lit the metallic path before me. There were only seven cars in the darkness. If I took the end of each with a jump, the forward movement of the train should carry me to the next. It had been years since my track and field days, but now was the time to see if I still had it.

I chanced to look back over my shoulder, and screamed. There was a hunched form almost at the top of the ladder. In the limited light I could see the dark wide brimmed hat pulled lower over his brow, two murderous red glowing eyes riveting me with a deep set madness. In one hand, reflecting the light of the moon was a long bright blade.

Only wild, unbridled fear drove me now, where I might have frozen at some other time. I ran. The edge of the car came up before me and I simply leapt for all I was worth, almost crashing to my knees when I came down on the other side, nearly half way across the next car. I caught myself, surprised at how well that first jump had come off with speed of the train, but then there was an unexpected swaying of the car. We were going around a curve.

I didn't look back, knowing I would only see my pursuer. Waiting for my balance to return, I sprinted ahead again taking another leap. The second attempt was better than the first, my feet staying underneath me. It was the crash behind that made me check the progress of red eyes. I hated to do it. For there he was, on the car just behind me. Tall and dark as he rose to his feet. He must have been well over six feet tall in life and in death. That wicked sharp blade in his right hand now. My imagination adding dripping blood to its length. On he was coming, a steady heaviness to each step, but getting ready to spring.

Taking off with renewed second wind, car three and four were gone underneath me in seconds, but the fifth car swayed as we took another curve and I fell with a crash on to my side. I was dazed, but trying to scramble up again. Then a thudding crash was felt so terribly close behind, and there was red eyes staring down at me. I screamed again. I had been so close, and there was the flashing blade, being pulled back for a sweeping cut across me body. Then a sudden halt as red eyes bellowed out a roar of pain and fell over the train edge, his left hand flailing out and catching hold to the side of the coach roof.

"Run!" cried a little girl's voice. I looked and saw Molly, her form half way up through the roof of the coach. She appeared to have bitten red eyes behind his left ankle by the way that leg had given out beneath him, and the last I saw of her was those two worried yet vivid blue eyes, as she drifted back down into the coach below.

Crawling, staggering to my feet and jumping, I took the sixth car with all my strength. My lungs were burning with the exertion of my life, and the last car was just ahead. My every motion was towards the end of the train. The clicking sounds of the train coaches over rails that met, which I had largely ignored until now, were loud in my ears as I flung myself one more time to cross to the last of the death train's dark tail. Just another fling, and I would be off. So close. Then I was tackled from behind.

"No!" I screamed, rolling over with raised hands before me. Red eyes was chuckling deeply and stood leering over me, his right arm raised, this time in a downward thrusting blow to come. His eyes were burning my soul.

"Once!"

A flash of light blinded me as a deep voice, power laden, rang over the train coach. I could see red eyes stagger away, hands to his eyes in pain.

"Once!" announced the voice again, another blinding blaze of light like the sun, revealed in splendor.

"Once to die!"

I lay gasping on the train, watching as red eyes fell back screaming from the third flash of light, the roof of the coach no longer supporting him as he fell through it. His final agonized cry was suddenly cut off, and I was alone again. Tears were streaming down my face. Trembling with relief like a child that sees the monsters are only shadows.

I felt pain and saw I was scarred and cut up from the last adventure, my hands were bleeding. Odd, the blood everyone wanted was flowing from cuts. I crawled to the edge of the last car, trying to find my way through the tears. Would it work, or would I only find myself back inside the train. Was it really my time to die as well? Would I find myself sitting next to Molly again, or had she saved me? I couldn't jump anymore. I fell, slipping over the edge of the last car into darkness.

Then I bolted upright with a cry that would have woken the neighbors in my apartment. Flailing before me, the blankets and sheets had nearly bound me in my last thrashing. I was sweating profusely, a cold breeze blowing through my open window. It had been a dream, a horrible dream and nothing more. Life was still here. I still had a job, a family living nearby, friends to see. It wasn't over. I started to weep again.

Then in the distance, I heard a train whistle in the early morning light.