The Darkest Day of my life

I always hated going to grandma's. Not because she did anything wrong. In fact, once I got there it was great. The problem was she lived a days train ride away and every summer, since I was 9, I had to ride the train with ‘Bartholomew’. Gross! I almost shiver every time I remember his bald head, snow white teeth, a stupid fake smile he perfected to make adults feel better but that man hated childeren I could sense it the day I met him. Anyway, forget Bartholomew. I'm trying to tell a story here and I'm just yapping away about some man from years ago.

Okay back to the story. I had just turned fifteen a few weeks before I got sent to Andorra to see Mama Julia.

My father was too busy with work to give me a proper farewell. I understood my mother always cried when I would leave but something in the back of my mind told me it was tears of joy to finally have her life back even if it were only for a few months.

I never understood why though. I was a good kid; I listened to them when they asked me to do chores. I wasn't like all the other whiny brats at school who couldn't go a day without the right pills, their phone or some kind of stimulant.

I still remember Alexandre Gent selling his cookies and brownies, he had them marked so he knew who to sell the right ones to. Sneaky devil.

It wasn't until we actually left the station I started to feel something was off and it wasn't just Bartholomew’s twisted toothy grin either.

The air seemed heavier and my body was lighter but I shrugged it off. I stayed up late the night before hoping I could just sleep the whole ride. Boy was I wrong.

I woke up to the worst storm I had ever seen. The rain was so heavy you could barely see ten feet outside the windows. I was alone in the cab too; the light had gone out and it was so dark I could barely see anything in the corner. I tried to just go back to sleep but with the rain, thunder and lightning there was no chance.

That's when I first saw it; the “shadow” had somehow moved from one corner to the other in front of me. It looked like a black void and wasn't in the shape of a person or a figure. It was just the absence of anything, and I was drawn to it like it was calling me. I wanted, so badly, to jump out of my seat and enter whatever this “shadow” was so I stood up and jumped, only to hit nose first into the headrest of the chair in front of me. Boy did I feel stupid. I was sleep deprived and I told myself I should get some water. I left the cab and made my way down the cramped hallway to the bar. I guess my parents couldn't afford the higher luxury train I normally rode.

But nobody was stationed at the bar. I waited for like 10 minutes but after not hearing even the smallest sound outside the storm, I decided to just help myself and thought it would be best to steer clear of the alcohol; maybe some sparkling water instead. I also helped myself to a few biscuits. I was sure my dad could handle any charges that would come with it.

I sat in the dining area for what felt like an hour before the silence on board started to freak me out.

The hallway was pitch black, but this time I did not want to jump into it. I wanted to run, I wanted my legs to take me as far away from whatever it was as fast as they could but I just sat there with the cold bottle pressed against my lips.

“Come on, run, run away, move, do something, anything.” I thought to myself, and tears started to stream down my face.

The sliding of a door and then a slam startled my body awake.

My legs finally took off and I turned towards the noise without thinking; anything was better than being alone with whatever that darkness was.

A man ran past as I turned. I took, maybe, six steps away before I heard an awful noise. It sounded like someone had made a feedback loop of two banshees trying to scream louder than the other.

I fell to the ground and covered my ears but I could still hear it. Seconds felt like a lifetime, and then, as quickly as it came, the sound stopped.

I shot my eyes open and searched for the shadow but it was gone, and the lights in the hallway had come back on.

After helping me to my feet a man in a tan trench coat, mid size, graying goatee and brown hair. Introduced himself as Garson. His eyes were kind and old.

After my initial shock I asked him what that was, and he showed me a strange looking megaphone covered in tape.

I just remember being confused mostly–confused about how I knew there was something there, and how I knew to get away. But, why did the first one feel so magnetic?

Magnets, that's another thing since I've been here. I have felt lighter. My skin is standing like a magnet is pulling on me.

My thoughts wandered back to Garson.

He showed me how his megaphone worked. Sadly my memory is hazy on the inner workings but I know it had to do with some kind of displacement theory. I do not know if Garson was a mathematician or a physicist but he did end up saving my life.

I followed Garson to a cab where there was a redheaded woman–American and pregnant.

There were also two brothers. They were tan, bald and had ambiguous accents I couldn't place.

The brothers explained to me that one minute they were in the lounge smoking cigars and generally having a good time, and the next minute the room went dark. The older brother said he saw his dead father walk out from the hallway, while the younger brother only saw a deep darkness.

The younger one explained to me how his brother was frozen in place. That is until the train slammed on its brakes and the screech from the tires seemed to weaken the entity somehow, and that's when they took their chance to run; eventually finding Garson.

I took the chair next to the redheaded woman, but my respite was cut short when I felt something watching me. In the corner of the room, I noticed what looked like a face.

The face twisted itself into a twisted wide grin, Bartholomew stepped from the shadows and I was paralyzed. I could take my surroundings in and knew Garson was trying to make his megaphone work, but it was like they were in a different space–like I was somehow on one plane and they were on another.

My old guardian stepped closer. His suit was slightly off with the left sleeve too short, the tie switching between different knots, and he was 2 inches from my face. That's when I started to cry again.

I heard my mothers voice calling out to me.

I was relieved I was going home, but Bartholomew’s mouth moved with my mothers voice.

“You trapped me, you made me into this; a mother to something I never wanted and a slave to a man who has no time for me. Where do you get the nerve, you selfish devil.”

My fathers voice came next.

“If I knew you would become such a spineless yes man, people pleasing dog, I would have left you and your mother the second I knew she was pregnant. You are no so-”

The screeching started again and Bartholomew's face was a distorting cacophony amalgamation. I couldn't look, but I couldn't close my eyes. I couldn't even lift my hands to close my ears. But, I could turn my eyes and they eventually found comfort in the window, the trees, and the sun. The speed of the train made it hard to make things out but at least it was a distraction.

The banshee scream stopped and I could control myself again.

Now I was crying harder than I had ever cried before, I fell to my knees. The words my parents said made me want to die, and my helplessness made me feel like I deserved to. The pain in my ears was a distraction from the thoughts though.

I looked out the window, but the green prairies, blue skies and trees were gone. Replaced with the storm.

That's when it hit me. “This must all be a dream, right? I'm still dreaming. This is just a terrible nightmare. I will wake up and in a few hours I'll be at Grandma's house.” But once Garson’s hand touched my shoulders I knew this wasn't a dream, this was a nightmare! I just wasn’t sleeping.

After a few minutes I was able to compose myself, but I didn't hear what anyone said in those minutes. I just kept trying to make sense of all this in my head. Why could I see everything normal in the window while I was having the vision but now I am stuck in the storm? Do these shadow things have some kind of control over the train? Or space and time? Are we in an alternate dimension? Why do they not like loud, sharp noises? A visual creature shouldn't be that affected by the noise.

“Hey Adam,” I said to the older of the two brothers and don't even know how I knew his name, “when you saw your father did the lights come back on?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah, they did.”

“Does everyone else hear that screaming noise when Garson uses his Megaphone?”

Everyone shook their heads, Garson turned the megaphone on again and the scream didn't play, instead it was just some strange high pitched tick, like a metronome playing too loud.

So there must be something these things are doing to me. They are actively affecting the way we see and hear the world.

Corroborating our stories everyone agreed that must be what is going on,

The American woman asked me to come sit by her and took my hand.

“You are so brave, I know it's hard to cry in front of people and even harder to talk about traumatic events so soon after they happen, but here you are trying to figure this out with all the adults, I am so proud of you.”

She looks at the group.

“Judging from everyones accounts we are probably in some kind of worm hole, or temporal anomaly. There are stories of people all over the world being teleported to other parts of the world. Some say it is instantaneous, but others say demons took them there. Well, what they could explain as demons.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked through my newly teary eyes.

“Honey, My father is doctor Bennet, one of the world's leading alzhimers and anomalous event researchers in the world. You learn a thing or two.”

After a brief discussion we decided we should go to the front of the train to attempt to disrupt the anomaly and hope it pulls the rest through, if Ms Bennet's theory is correct.

There were a few scares on the way, hopping train cars was scary enough without thinking a shadow could pop up from any corner at any moment.

I could feel the cold coming off of the doors to the driver’s cabin.

I didn't want to go near it at all

Garson reached for the handle of the sliding door and his fingertips turned snow white.

I was petrified.

He didn't seem to notice.

Bartholomew’s distorted smile was waiting for me. The others acted like they couldn't see him, maybe they really couldn't.

The American was searching for something and the cab wasn't large enough for much more than Garson and her anyway, so maybe that's why they didnt notice me not moving.

Barthomlomew’s face…his disembodied floating face, stared at me with an even worse smile than the real him.

Garson pointed his megaphone at the computer.

Bartholomew didn't react, but I could feel something behind me. I tried to yell out to them to warn them. I could move my mouth, but no noise came out.

A large human, with the head of a bird, walked past me.

Garson turned the megaphone on.

The birdman screeched out and Barthomlomew gathered himself; his body came back. The bird creature lunged at Garson, tackling him into the window so he dropped the megaphone,

I sprinted to pick it up, Barthomolmew’s hand grabbed my throat and lifted me up into the air. I couldn't do anything; it was like he was intangible to me.

The megaphone was still on but it was on the ground, Bartholomew looked to the American.

The brothers ran to Garsons side.

Struggling but, somehow, I was able to kick the megaphone and angle it towards the bird creature. Writhing in pain, it finally let Garson go.

I was running out of oxygen at this point, I knew death was coming for me.

Blacking out, I saw visions of my mother crying over a grave–my grave.

My father looked as though he hadn't showered in days. I could not hear them but my father was trying to talk to my mother. She stood up and put a finger in his face. He took a few steps back and his eyes started to water.

This image hurt me, possibly more than the voices of these creatures imitating them had.

Angry, and reinvigorated, my eyes shot open. Bartholomew reached his arm out to the American. As his hands touched her, Adam picked up the megaphone and pointed at what he could only imagine was another creature.

Bartholomew put his hands over his ears and ran out of the train car. The bird creature was nowhere to be seen, but he was able to do the unspeakable.

Garsons lifeless body laid against the wall, Adam had lifted him up against the wall. He suffered a fatal neck wound.

Ms. Bennet, took the Megaphone.

“Wish me luck,”

She pointed the Megaphone only inches from where Garson had originally pointed.

The train crashed, derailing itself, I was thrown all around the car as the train came to a stop.

After waking up, I was in so much pain I must have broken an arm, multiple ribs, my ankle, and hit my head pretty hard. But, there was light, the sun was outside. I could also hear a Helicopter.

I tried to crawl outside but I couldn't move.

I laid in pain for a few minutes. Some kind of saw cut into the side of the train car and a man, silhouetted by the sun, came in to view from the hole

“Are you hurt, if so where?”

I explained my wounds to him and lifted me out. The dirt and dust from the wind forced me to close my eyes. My mouth was filled with it.

I was taken to a hospital. Somehow I had ended up in America, Utah.

I never saw anyone from that train again.

Although Bartholomews face still haunts my dreams and dark corners make me uneasy, I moved on.

Scientists, doctors, police; all of them asked me so many questions. I was the only person found, dead or alive in the train.

After this event I thought my mother would never let me out of her sight. But, my father and mother had a surprise pregnancy–another little boy. When it came to naming him, I recommended Garson.

“So son, you asked me if I have ever been afraid. I have been afraid many times but that day was the darkest day of my life. And…if I could survive that, you can survive anything.”