THE LAST TRAIN

Genre: Horror

 

 

 

THE LAST TRAIN

By Randy Romero

 

 

The rumble of the train jolted Alice from her slumber. She woke disoriented and bemused. She blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusting to her surrounds. She stood up and saw that the train car was empty. Row after row of padded red seats with nobody occupying a single one of them.

She had a lot of questions, but no answers. The first was, how did I end up here? The second was, where am I?

A train, obviously. She knew that much. But where was it going? And why couldn’t she remember getting on? Why couldn’t she remember anything?

She wondered if she had been drinking that night. Is that why I can’t remember anything? Did I black out?

She cupped one hand over her mouth and smelled her own breath. She couldn’t smell any alcohol.

Her first guess was that she had been out partying with Tina and Michelle. If she wasn’t drunk, she probably got really high. Tina’s boyfriend always had primo weed and one joint was all it took to send Alice into another world.

They had also discussed trying psychedelic mushrooms. Tina’s boyfriend had a connection who could get them. Did she trip out and fall asleep on her way home?

No, Alice had done shrooms in high school and she was familiar with the experience. She didn’t feel high. Her mind was clear. She wasn’t seeing or hearing anything. She didn’t feel any different. She was just confused as to how she ended up on that train.

If she was with Tina and Michelle, where were they? Another question that Alice didn’t have an answer to. Surely her best friends wouldn’t have left her alone and asleep on a train.

But Tina and Michelle weren’t always the greatest of friends. Alice wouldn’t admit that, but it wasn’t hard to notice. Alice was the odd girl out, the one who didn’t fit in. If Tina and Michelle had plans with some of the more popular girls in their school, Alice was usually left out of those arrangements. Or if they had an invite to an exclusive party, Alice rarely received that same invitation. But Alice refused to believe they would just abandon her on the subway.

She took another look around the empty train car. Nobody around to ask where they are or where they’re going. She assumed there had to be somebody on this train she could talk to.

She got up and walked to the next car, also empty. As she worked her way through, she wondered if she was all alone. It was an unsettling feeling to think she was trapped on this train by herself, with not a clue how she ended up there in the first place.

How long had she been asleep? She wondered. She patted herself down, feeling for her cell phone but couldn’t find it. She didn’t have her purse either. And she never wore a watch. She considered watches obsolete with the advancement of cellular phones. Now everyone had a watch right in their pockets. But that did her no good when her phone was missing. Maybe a watch wasn’t a bad idea after all.

The last train car was occupied. The passengers were sparse and all sitting two rows apart. She approached an elderly woman with a silk scarf tied around her neck. “Ma’am, sorry to bother you, but do you know where we are?”

The woman didn’t reply, just stared straight ahead.

“Do you know where this train is going?”

The old woman didn’t move, didn’t sigh, didn’t blink, she didn’t even seem to breathe. She stared blankly at the seat she was facing, never looking up to acknowledge Alice.

She approached the next passenger, a middle-aged man dressed in a worn out, wrinkled suit, carrying a briefcase.

“Sir, do you know where this train is heading?”

The man offered no reply.

She looked at the other passengers. A bald man in his mid-thirties, heavyset with a mustache. A woman with jet-black hair, her arm covered in scars and track marks. And a teenager wearing a sports jacket. They all shared that blank, expressionless stare. She took a seat in the back, and drew a deep breath.

Why isn’t this train stopping? It should have stopped by now. Unless…maybe I’m on an express train. But how the hell did I end up on an express train? Why won’t anyone talk to me?

“She doesn’t know why she’s here,” the old woman snickered and the other passengers laughed quietly.

I’ve got to get off this fucking train.

She walked back to one of the empty cars, sat down, caught her breath. She felt trapped, which was her biggest phobia. She didn’t like to feel stuck or boxed in.

This train didn’t seem to stop. And she couldn’t see anything outside its windows. Nothing but darkness. How long was this tunnel?

The woman with the scarf joined her. “I didn’t know what to think either when I woke up here. It’s hard to accept the truth. But we’re all here for a reason.”

“What reason might that be?”

“There’s a reason,” she assured her. “You just don’t remember it. Not yet.”

There was no shortage of psychos in New York City. Alice assumed this old woman was just another head case and decided to play along.

“And why are you here?” she asked.

The old lady unraveled her scarf, exposing the deep scar from where her throat had been slashed, a self-inflicted wound.

“Enjoy the ride while it lasts. It doesn’t get any better than this. Join us in the last car when you’re ready.”

The door to the car opened and the conductor stepped on just as the old lady stepped off, retying her scarf.

The conductor, towering over Alice, asked for her ticket.

A forked tail poked out from under his long coat. She gasped, turned away.

“I don’t have a ticket,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m very confused. I woke up here and I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know where we’re going. I promise I’ll get off at the next stop.”

“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house. I know it’s confusing at first. The people in the last car, they were all confused at first too. It takes time to come to terms with it.”

“Where are we?”

“This is the last train,” he said.

“The last train to where?”

“I think deep down you know the answer to that. Try and remember how you ended up here.”

She remembered it all now. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see it. A warm bathtub. A cold razorblade. The blood draining from his wrists. The life leaving her body just as her mom made the gruesome discovery.

“I’m…I’m…”

“You passed on.”

“But why am I here?”

“You hurt a lot of people in your life, Alice. Think about the pain your mother felt when she found your body. Or when she found the drugs in your dresser. All the pain and suffering you put your family through. Was it worth it, Alice?”

“Where are we going?” she asked vehemently.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Go to hell!” she screamed.

The brakes squealed and hissed as the train came to a startling stop all on its own.

“Take a look around,” the conductor said. “We’re already here.”