Sigma

Sigma awoke on her back with itchy fingers, burning toes and an incredibly tight back. Down her left arm, dark red rivers of dried blood seemed to glow in her newborn-like blurry vision. There was a throbbing pain running, jumping down the back of her head and then landing on itself like an echo of warning. She took her right fingers and traced up her shoulder to behind her left ear and more sighed than winced when she came across the stinging source of fluid expulsion.

“What in the fuh-“ she was interrupted by a bounce of the train, and then by the bounce of her head off the cheap flooring, shaking around what was likely a concussion. Steam seemed to hiss from her dried and broken lips but she managed to roll over onto her side, her stomach and then achingly onto her hands and knees for a short rest, a few breaths, then slowly to her feet while grasping the edge of the window frame.

Out the window at a distance was a dark blue lake, edged by long grass, small mountains and large hills. Trees with pines like bone-fingers longingly drooped with despair towards the ground and small dots of birds could be seen shuffling between canopies. It was serene enough to not notice the dried blood warming to a new stream that has slowly began to trickle, but it was cold enough inside the cabin to cause a shiver at the thought of how unfamiliar Sigma felt, and how alone she thought she was.

The train strained to muffle the rumbling of the wheels over the tracks and seemed on the verge of quitting the effort. From the window Sigma could see a large stone bridge which allows foot traffic across a shorter span of the lake below, though currently unoccupied, and if she allowed the blur to somewhat unmaterialize, she could see the bare metal frames of her overpass if she stood tall and looked as straight down as her vantage point would permit. Rust-red beams of glaring eyes, no, just I-beams, they’re just beams… they moved by at an unnatural pace, but that must be due to the heavy pulse smashing into the back of her head. Her small room had a thin, barely long enough khaki-sheeted bed with a single half-empty bottle of Finland Springs water half-crunched on the floor. The train seemed to smooth out as the lake became the past and hills became the present, she grabbed the bottle.

Sigma sat with fabric’s creak and opened, sipped then finished the bottle of water. Her fingers had stopped itching by this point, but the cap provided an uncomfortable texture and she left the empty bottle and cap to remain strangers, rubbing her own fingers together as she tried to remember why she was on the train.

Outside her room, light footsteps became slightly louder, shuffled, stalled, then stepped some more.

“Obviously we’re going somewhere” she thought to herself, “But where, and why?” The sun was overhead, but the shadows of the trees leaned towards the train.

Sigma grabbed the empty bottle and tried to finish the last bit that no longer existed, hoping for some sort of relief. A few taps and spins, a few drops later she tossed it back on the floor.

She looked again at the shadows, strained to see above the train through her porthole and then back at the shadows. Unconsciously touching the burning sting granted to her by the floor she considered waiting until her focus came back before wandering the p-way. Realizing her own impatience, the door swung open and her shamble turned into pained steps which turned into a return of balance by the third room.

Sigma caught up to the shuffling feet. They were attached to covered ankles, draped in navy blue pants and above the navy blue pants sat a light blue collared shirt hugging the shuffler tightly. He was peering into a room down the hall when he heard her pained steps approaching.

The shuffler turned towards her and with an inhale mumbled something to himself.

Then to Sigma, “Ah, well. I see someone who is here, mhm yes. Mademoiselle, could you uh present to me your tee-kit?” His posture stooped towards her in a concerned manner and held his hands out, palms up. “Are you-uh okay? What hasz happen’d to your head?”

Sigma stopped and leaned her right side against the wall. “It must be back in my room, sorry.” Her headache gave her pause. “Where are we? It feels like we’re going a little too fast.”

“Uh huh yes, a little quicks. I woke for my shift and it is you who is the only one I have seen, so far. Somet’ing is very odd.”

“Sig, where are you?” she asked, this time to herself.

The shuffling blue man offered again. “May I help you, please? Let me go up and get some clean cloths, some soaps, and some waters, yes? Please, rest yourself in the café and I will be find’ng you.”

The shuffling blue man with the covered ankles stepped away quickly and disappeared into the next car. Sigma used her right hand to push off the wall, groaned and began somewhat staggering down the hallway, glancing peripherally into the closed room windows. The fourth window showed a blur of luggage haphazardly strewn about the floor: a black standard carrier wide open laying down in grief beside a smaller, more colorful case plastered with a popular cartoon puppy. The room looked otherwise untouched, the bed tucked and window remained unprinted by sticky-curious fingertips.

She heard loud cracking and snapping as she stepped through the last of the business car into the modestly dated café. On the left and right were tables with recently emptied maroon bench-seating, white tablecloths and freshly rolled blue silverware napkins. A stack of spilled menus littered the floor in English entrees and French appetizers, with images of dessert crèmes warning of the conductor’s cab. The lights seemed to dim as Sig walked with the help of tables. As she walked, she craned her head towards the rear of the café, the better lit café. It was as if the light appeared to weaken as she carefully traipsed forward. By now her headache began to shift into a dull ambience, though still loud enough to distract her attention from how silent the passenger car was.

The young woman’s fear screamed at her subconsciously, pleading at her to turn and run a second time. A second time? She hesitated, felt the chill of goosebumps spreading across her arms, down her legs and continued stepping forward, inching forward. “No,” she told herself, “Judging by my injuries, it didn’t work out that well the first time, did it?” Sig admitted silently that she wasn’t sure about anything other than it seemed darker. Looking out the window, the dark green firs sprinted by.

Her steps full of trepidation and with cold sweat beading down her neck, Sigma felt her breath closing in on her. Her lungs felt heavy, felt empty, felt full and damp but she trudged on and the lights dimmed darker. Nearing the conductor’s car, the shadows on the floors and the walls began creeping with soft edges, reaching with dark fingertips towards her. She hesitated and brought her hands in close to her body as though she was worried the shadows would grab her. They would steal her skin and pull her away, swallowing her as they drug her across the floor toward blackness, she knew. And she somehow knew how little time she had left. Frozen in thought, in dreadful anticipation, she stopped walking and squinted through her held-breath.

In front of her, the lights blackened. Slow black fog spewed across the ground and shadows crawled like millions of hungry new-born spiders down the walls, making barely audible itchy tapping sounds as their eight-million unfortunate legs hinged forward.

A flash of light and her mind screamed. She was panting silently in the well-lit café car, her hands grabbing the side of her head for an attempt at clarity. There was a foggy waitress stacking laminated menus near the conductor’s car and a younger, slim teenager placing napkins on the last few tables. He smiled at the little boy sliding back and forth on the maroon bench. Across from the little boy sat his stern-looking father with Dostoevsky’s The Idiot resting on the dark-wood table, the turned page corner was tucked halfway through the pages.

“A little light reading, eh?” The teenager said through a genuine smile.

The father touched the book with his fingertips and smiled through the left of his lips.

“Yeah, definitely. And when I want a pick-me-up, I’ll re-read Crime and Punishment.” The teenager laughed and turned to the next table where a hazy Sigma sat.

“And coffee for you, too?”

“Sure, sounds perfect. Can I get- “

“The sugar and cream are right there,” the waiter said, pointing to the edge of the table adjacent the heavy looking window. Inside a short, silver metal cauldron sat organically colored packets of Splenda, Candarel and wrapped sticks of granulated sugar. Stacked peacefully to the side stood a no-refrigeration-necessary cream tower, three tiny cups tall.

“Right, thanks,” Sig replied as the waiter hand-gestured something that signified “No worries” before walking away.

The entire scene seemed to glow and Sig stared at herself for a few seconds then stood to watch the waiter break the threshold of the next car. A few seconds later, an abrupt cold erupted and darkness flashed, covering everyone in sticky fear. There was a deep crunching sound coming from where the waiter was last seen and then slow dark fog filled the floor, seeping towards the passengers. The overhead lights dimmed and the waitress took two steps away before something grabbed her legs. She managed to scream and dig her fingernails into the soft-wood flooring before being pulled into the shadows which welcomed her with more crunching, more breaking.

Sigma watched herself leave the blood-maroon bench and stumble, trip past the table with the screaming, crying little boy before sprinting down the hall.

The little boy screamed as sharp and as high as he could, slid under the table and wrapped himself around the pole bolted to the train flooring. His father, ten seconds removed from his stoicism, crouched at the end of the table and pulled on his son. He mingled pleading with screaming and began wrenching the boys fingers open, prying him off the pole when he felt his lungs collapse in dampness and noticed ice driving under his skin. The boy felt his father’s grip loosen and he watched his daddy being pulled towards the center car. Sigma looked down the hall, forcing herself to look away from the boy. She saw herself cut left into a room and strained to remember the back of her head smashing against the ground following the crinkly, crunching of a stepped on Finland’s Springs half-empty water bottle. She unsuccessfully spent some effort pretending she couldn’t hear the boy crying for his dad, followed by silence, followed by what seemed like the breaking of small bones.

The haziness began to fade and Sigma was back in real-time, watching the black fog creep. She backed away and looked as deep as she could into the light-forbidden train car. A tall figure was outlined by the lack of swirling mist and there stood a shape of full darkness with gray-red eyes. Sigma felt empty, lost. Thoughts of being dismembered, of being eaten, of being chewed on by a mix of mangled, crunching shadows filled her conscious. The shadow tilted its head, and she heard in her mind “No.” The voice was heavy and raspy, filled with static and missing numbers.

“No what?” she thought.

“Eat, chew, eat,” came the impaling voice.

The gray-red eyes leveled as the head stood up straight. Sigma could hear it, her skin shivered with each exhaust. There was no breathing in, only patterned, satiated and long exhales.

“Just.” It said and paused, seemingly in thought.

“Just down. Die, down. Eat, no.” Each word hesitated in a terrifyingly calm tempo.

She ran. Sig’s legs burned immediately from the force and her breath became sharp. She sprinted past the empty room with the cartoon suitcase, the room with windows that won’t be plastered with candied fingerprint grime or smudged with bored shapes drawn onto quickly fading condensation.

Sigma felt the silence slowly following her as she passed into the next passenger car. She told her eyes to look for green and red signs, windows with stickers or doors with red handles. She glanced out the nearest transparent viewing conduit to gage how fast the train was going. The hills rolled by as quickly as she could make them out then suddenly the train shook, the wheels banged unevenly then settled at a louder squeal. Outside, there was a cliff and more importantly a large body of water sat underneath the 1930s bridge. Sig’s heart stopped and restarted when she saw the water. At the end of the corridor a levered window separated life from death. She slid the glass that pictorially told her it needed sliding and pulled the handle down, hard. The window fell inwards, still in one piece and the broken seal let in all the exterior wailing of the train. Sigma held her breath, looked to her right to see a creeping floor covering dead mist stealing towards her. She grabbed the window, pulled herself up as quickly as she could and slipped, falling backwards in panic.

Her shoulder cracked against the floor, whipping the right side of her head into the wood. The outside screamed at her, the train bellowed and churning wheels ran small circles around her fading thoughts. With lights groaning at her, dark spots speckled her vision and began to fill her perspective, moving from outside to in. The black fog mixed and faded as her consciousness bubbled and popped, slowing her breathing and ending her fear.

Sigma rested beneath the roaring window, dreams of nothing calming her heart at first. Without her mind’s approval, her fingertips began to itch and a taste of softly tongued copper warmth soothed the inside of her lips.

Around her, the black shadows stalled, pulled back and emptied themselves of the train car. Lights failed to remain dimmed and the train, empty of consciousness, screamed ahead. The café faded from its darkness and the blue wrapped silverware waited patiently, gently rocking back and forth in little shakes as the train kept its pace on imperfect rails.

Sigma too, waited. She dreamt of a little boy, crunching on hard candy, loud, bone-snapping candy, chewing with broken teeth. She dreamt of a little boy stuck in pain, eyes agape in fear. She shivered in her unconscious, cold and remembering. Sigma, with brown-blonde hair matted in dried blood and long green eyes that sat behind fluttering eyelids, whose shallow breathing went masked by the humming of screaming air, waited safe in broken unconsciousness. In her unknowing of where she could be found, of her surroundings, of what it would feel like to be gripped by a deep darkness of fear- she could not be found. And as her mind waited, she waited not alone.