by JA Ellis
Dark Railroad
I was sure I was hallucinating when I first heard the train whistle. It was about time I started hearing things.
I had been following the railroad tracks for days. Maybe it was just hours. No, it must have been days, because that pale smoky disc that passed for a sun here had come up and gone down more than once. It's really hard to tell that it's there, unless you're looking at it. It doesn't actually do anything to illuminate this place.
I was on the tracks, stepping from cracked and rotted tie to cracked and rotted tie. It was awkward going, but if I walked beside the tracks it would be too easy to get lost. It almost happened once, when I first arrived here. I was walking beside the metal rails that gleamed darkly in the murky light. I looked away from them for only a second, and when I looked back they were gone. There was nothing but blackness and dust everywhere I turned. After several long minutes of panic I found the tracks again, and I haven't left them since. I even slept for a few hours stretched out across the tracks, like one of those damsels in distress in the old black and white movies, tied up by the dastardly villain waiting for the hero to rescue me.
There aren't any heroes here. There isn't anyone here except me.
At least that's what I thought until I heard the whistle.
Like I said, I thought I was hallucinating. I hadn't heard anything other than my own breathing and the sound of my footsteps for a long time, so that low wail in the distance couldn't have been anything but my imagination. But then it came again, drifting across the endless plain. I stopped and stared into the distance, cocking my head to try to catch the sound, and before long I saw a faint light - light that was actually light, and not like the flat light-less sun – far, far away down the tracks. I couldn't take my eyes off of it as it came nearer and nearer, impossibly fast. At first it was miles away, then only a mile away, and then it was right on me. I leapt off of the tracks at the last minute as the whistle blew, blasting into the silence, and the brakes squealed. Then it was just there, in front of me.
It was on old fashioned steam locomotive. I could hear the chuffing sound of the steam rising from the engine. The cars were wooden and engraved with strange glyphs and images. The door to the car in front of me slid open, and, silently, stairs flipped out and landed on the ground beside the tracks in a puff of dust. In the doorway stood a tall, thin man with pale skin and even paler hair. We stood staring at each other for a long time, before he lifted one hand and motioned me forward with a flick of his long fingers.
I didn't say anything. Perhaps I should have asked what was going on, or where I was. Maybe I should have just said Hi. But I didn't say anything, and neither did he. I climbed the stairs into the train car. The tall, pale man pulled the stairs in behind me and slid the door closed as I found a seat amongst the rows of empty benches on either side of the aisle.
When the whistle blew again, it sounded distant, even though I was now inside the train. The sound of the steam engine was also quieter as it revved up and the train lurched forward. I looked out of the window beside me. The railroad tracks were out of sight below the train, and all I could see was darkness.
After a time, the gentle rocking and clunk-clunk of the wheels lulled me. My head dipped, my eyelids drooped. I dreamed that I was walking next to railroad tracks that glowed in harsh light that in no way emitted from the black ball of a sun overhead. It was like a negative of the world I had just left, and with the brightness of the air I couldn't see more than a foot away from the tracks.
I jolted awake at the sound of a door sliding open. A tall, tanned man was coming from the far end of the car towards me. I rubbed my eyes and blinked. That seemed to clear the disconcerting way his face wavered. He stopped beside my bench and looked down his long, thin nose at me.
“Hello.”
“Uh,” I said. “Hi.”
The man motioned towards the bench facing me, the motion graceful like a magician's. “May I?” His voice was soft and rather pleasant. It didn't seem to fit with his overall look.
“Go ahead.”
The man sat and arranged himself, gently tugging at his jacket and trouser legs so it all lay neatly, perfectly.
“Do you know where we're going?” I asked.
The man smiled, a small turning of his lips as if he was amused by the question, but the rest of his face didn't move. “Where do you think you are?”
I looked out the window next to me. The scenery hadn't changed at all. “A dream. A horrible, terrible dream that I can't wake up from.”
“Yes. A dream.” He said it as if he was just going with the flow, humoring me. I was starting to think that maybe it wasn't a dream.
“Eric. May I call you Eric?”
I nodded. I didn't bother asking how he knew my name.
“I'm here to give you a choice.”
“What sort of choice?”
“This train only goes one way. You can stay on the train until it reaches its destination, or you can get off at the next stop and return to the tracks. Another train will not be by to pick you up.”
“Where does the train go?”
Again that small smile that didn't move his cheeks or crinkle the corners of his eyes.
The train whistle blew. I jumped at the sound. There was a squealing as breaks pressed against wheels, and the train began to slow. I looked out my window as the train came to a halt. I could barely make out a figure standing beside the tracks, next the car in front of mine.
A door opened, and a shaft of light pierced the gloom, illuminating the old man who stood blinking in the glare. He was slightly stooped, and he had a head full of steel gray hair. The tall, pale man stepped down into the dust next to the train and motioned towards the open door. The old man shook his head, but after a few moments he climbed the stairs into the car. The pale man followed and pulled the stairs up behind him. The door closed, the light was cut off, and the train whistle blew again as we began to move again.
I turned back to the sharply dressed man in front of me. “Who was that?”
“Another traveler. He'll have his own choice to make.”
“What am I choosing here?”
The sharp dressed man leaned back and rested against the back of his bench. “You are choosing whether to continue to our destination, or to return to the darkness.”
“What's the destination?”
“Eric, do you remember how you got here. How you 'fell asleep' and ended up in this 'dream'?” I could practically hear the air quotes in his voice.
“I fell asleep. I dreamed. Now I'm dreaming about talking to you.”
“How long have you been dreaming?”
“What?” I tried to scoff at the question, but it hit a nerve. “What do you mean? There's no time in dream.”
“Stop making excuses and think.”
I thought. I thought about the darkness outside the train, and the metal rails glinting faintly in the non-light from the faded sun. I thought further back to the time I got lost in the dark. I pushed my memory, trying to remember what I had done before going to sleep. Brushed my teeth. Turned on my laptop to run some innocuous TV show while I slept. That's what I would have done.
Except that's not what I remembered.
...I'm hung over, probably still a little drunk from last night. I'm riding my bike down a busy street. The wind is whooshing in my ears and blowing my hair around. I forgot my helmet in my mad dash out of the apartment. I'm thinking about what time it is, how close I'm cutting it to get to work on time. I pedal faster.
I sense the car getting too close before I see it from the corner of my eye. By the time my groggy mind can process what that chunk of shiny red is, it's too late for me to react. I try anyway. I twist the handlebars to the right, but it is too much, and at that speed, I lose control. I feel myself tipping to the left, and then a bone jarring impact. Both the bike and I catch some air as we're thrown towards the side of the road. There's a sidewalk, with a yellow painted curb. I have lost my hold on th
e handlebars, and now I'm flying alone towards that strip of yellow.
I don't remember landing.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Ah, fuck.” I felt a tightening in my chest, and my stomach twisted itself into a knot. My hands started to shake, and I clenched them into fists to stop the tremors. “I'm dead? Oh, God. Am I dead?”
“Not quite,” the man said. “You're in a coma. A persistent vegetative state. That's what it says on your medical chart.” I half expected him to produce the charts, but he only watched my reaction. The look on his face. He was enjoying it. “The darkness, you see, it's an in between state. You're not quite alive, but...” He shrugged and spread his hands. I got the message.
“So, where does the train go? The afterlife?”
“The Afterlife.” Again that smile. It was a deeply unsettling expression on his face. His features wavered again. I blinked to straighten them out, but when I looked again he was still a bit whishy-washy, and for a split second, not a bit human looking.
“What if I decide to go back out there?”
“Why would you do that?” His smile grew wider, his face flashed slightly and this time his true face showed through. “You wander in the darkness for a very long time. There won't be any more trains.” His face shifted again, and the true face, the one with the black shark-like eyes, and a mouthful of too many teeth stayed long enough for me to decide that I wasn't crazy.
“Can I go back? To me. My body?”
“Perhaps. Not likely.”
“What sort of afterlife is this?” I asked. The air in the train was suddenly very warm, and breathing it in, I caught the faintest whiff of brimstone. “Is it the good kind, or...?” I couldn't bring myself to finish.
“What kind do you think?” Now the human visage barely clung to him. I couldn't believe that I had been fooled by his fancy suit and elegant manners.
“I would like to get off please.” My voice squeaked and I sounded like a kid asking for a hall pass. I didn't care. I couldn't be on this train with him any longer.
“Are you sure, Eric? There are far worse things than me waiting for you in the darkness.” His human mask still smiled, but his real face looked almost as if he pitied me.
“Yes. I would like to get off.”
“Well,” the creature who was no longer a sharp dressed man stood up and straightened the suit it was still wearing. “You have made your choice. Good Luck to you.” He reached over his head and pulled on a cable hanging there. After a few moments the whistled sounded, and the train began to slow. I was on my feet before it stopped.
The tall, pale man appeared at the front of the car, and as I moved forward he opened the door and lowered the stairs. I paused at the top of those stairs looking out. The darkness scared me, almost enough to send me back to my seat on the train. But then I heard the sound of the creature in a man suit shuffling towards me, and I dashed down the steps, into the dust beside the tracks. The stairs were pulled up behind me, and with the blast of the whistle the train moved away.
I looked up to the car just as it passed me. The sharp dressed man – now fully human again – lifted his hand and waved.
