It was an inviting thought, but it was also upsetting. He hated to be asleep. He hated to miss the world as it passed by. Although he was infinite, he still didn’t like feeling at a disadvantage. Last time he slept, he missed the advent of penicillin, and that caused problems for a being who thought he understood the human body’s failings.
He drifted out to the mouth of the cave. The sun was coming up. A train was headed to the camp, no doubt the tenth or so to arrive at Treblinka since he’d decided to bring this one back to his lair. He would wait, and grow weaker, but he would wait. And one day, he’d see death wash across the Earth in a way the man in Berlin never thought possible.
Poniatowo
January 10th, 2019
The evening of the day they’d investigated a mere half-mile from the Entity’s lair, the trio of Americans decided they didn’t want to have dinner at Krakus House. The food wouldn’t be to their liking anywhere this far east in Europe, but the company of the common room had grown somewhat stale. Edmund’s insistence on knowing about the Ghost Train, or at least the location of where Addey was found, presented an odd barrier between Lena and the rest of the group, as if she were afraid that her grandmother would kick her out onto the snowy streets. The old woman on the other hand, was creepy without even trying to be—and oddly mobile for someone who sat in a wheelchair and watched black and white reruns of some old Polish sitcom. So the group decided that they would venture to the closest town to find food, which turned out to be Poniatowo, a half mile east.
Poniatowo was a small town, like all the rest, but this one had the distinction of being thrown up along the 627, a major highway throughout eastern Poland. On the other side to the south, the beginnings of the dense forest that hid Treblinka. Most of Poniatowo was burned to the ground when the Germans were fleeing and covering their tracks as the Soviets pressed from the east, so the town lacked the ‘old as the hills’ facades featured in most of the architecture in Poland. All of the properties were fenced in with neat wrought iron or treated wood, and almost every business was right along the poorly maintained, but paved road.
There were no parking places on the main road, so they pulled off in the mud about two-hundred feet from the small huddle of businesses and walked to the only restaurant they could find via their internet searches. It was a two-story eatery simply called the Palace, although its Polish name was written above that on the swinging oak placard over the door.
A van was straddling the sidewalk just beside the front doors of the Palace, the words Polsat-Vega in faded letters on the side. Inside the restaurant they were treated to an establishment much larger than they would have guessed from the outside, but then again, most of the properties here seemed to favor narrow storefronts but deep buildings, much like the single houses back home in Charleston.
As soon as they entered, the smell of seafood made Edmund’s stomach grumble. He wasn’t much of a fish eater, but he could eat endless shrimp from Red Lobster all day, and often did on his birthday when his mom and dad took him out. But the wonderful aroma of shrimp, coupled with some eastern spicy flair went unnoticed as they pushed past the trio of men in jackets that matched the logo on the van outside.
One was a reporter, obviously by the microphone he shoved in a seated man’s face. The interviewee worked for the Palace, as was evident by the apron and the little castle embroidered on the breast. His hair was greasy and he wore thick glasses—what Edmund’s mom would have called ‘pop bottle’ glasses on account of the lenses being so thick that they magnified the eyes. He was telling a very animated story with his arms over his head, to which the reporter simply nodded while the cameraman and sound tech captured it all.
A hostess escorted them toward the back of a surprisingly busy restaurant, but Edmund lingered behind, listening to the man tell his story. It was all in Polish of course, but the way he told it meant that something big had happened. Then again, this was a one-horse town. Someone could have gotten their wallet stolen at the grocers and the story would dominate the local newspaper for a week.
But as he was about to turn his attention away, to follow his group deeper into the restaurant, he caught a snippet of the seated man’s testimony, and out of his mouth came the word Sonderzüge—Special Train. Edmund slowed his gait, turned around and watched. The guy being interviewed locked eyes with him for just a moment, sensing that the story had gained interest from a passerby, but he quickly resumed talking to the microphone. Edmund didn’t understand what they were saying so he simply followed his group and seated himself across from Bill.
Edmund thought, for lack of a better term, that he was chasing a ghost. And not in the sense that excited him. This ghost was simply a shadow—something that wasn’t there. Sure, there may be a Ghost Train out there, but what business did he have with it now? Addey was alive and accounted for, albeit in a sad state. What could Edmund possibly do but go on and enjoy the rest of the trip? Wouldn’t Addey have wanted him to do that?
“You alright, dude?” asked Sophie, looking at him quizzically.
“Yeah,” he said. “Say, how about we head out in the morning?”
Bill looked up from his menu as if he didn’t hear him correctly. “You sure? We can stay another night or two.”
“Nah, there’s no sense. Whether we find this train or not, it’s not going to make Addey miraculously wake up.”
“We can visit him again,” said Bill. “We’re shooting down to Romania and we’ll need to backtrack to Warsaw anyway. Would you like that?”
Edmund nodded.
“Seriously?” asked Sophie.
“What?” Edmund asked.
“You came all this way to hunt the Ghost Train and you’re going to just bail like that? Addey would be so disappointed.”
“Addey didn’t want me to go anywhere near it, remember?”
“True,” Sophie conceded, just as their server arrived. “But remember what he said? Something’s going on here and no one will talk about it. Maybe you need to be asking questions.”
He thought of that for a moment as he mindlessly ordered a plate that he wasn’t even sure he’d like. They made small talk again as they waited on the food, with Bill reiterating his desire to propose to Sophie when she trundled off to the bathroom after their drinks arrived. The interview at the front wrapped up only a few minutes after they were seated and the man, a commis waiter by the looks of him, started bussing tables. He and Edmund made eye-contact more than once during his jaunts through the restaurant but the man kept to himself and worked dutifully with his head down. Perhaps the interview did not go well.
They ate the best meal they’d had since arriving in Poland just two days ago. Edmund had Forszmak, a very salty fish garnished with melted cheese and onions. Sophie had a large cut of Baltic salmon, boiled in some sort of lemon and dill sauce, and Bill, not in the mood for seafood tonight, had a dish of Pierogi and venison.
“How is everything?” asked the commis waiter in surprisingly good English. He must have heard their conversation because there would be no reason to assume the three kids were American. Until now he had not been serving them, so perhaps he was only interested in the way Edmund was interested in him.
“Fine, thank you,” said Sophie.
“Just great,” chimed Bill.
“Pull up a seat,” said Edmund, garnering strange looks from his companions as well as the waiter. “I’m curious about the interview, is all.”
Sophie and Bill continued to fix him with odd stares because this was uncharacteristic and still seemed a strange subject to randomly bring up.
“They’ll post it on their website and Polstat will air it but none of them believe me. I’m a joke to them. I’m a joke to everyone I tell.”
“You won’t be a joke to us,” said Edmund. “Please, sit.” He used his foot to kick out the one empty seat at their table.
The waiter looked around, as if worried he might get in trouble for skirting his duties, but he wiped his hands on his slacks and
took the seat, nonetheless.
“I’m Edmund. Edmund Riley. These are my friends, Sophie and Bill.” Both of them politely nodded, but said nothing else.
“Emril,” he said. “Emril Jablonski.”
“Emril, did your interview have to do with the Ghost Train?”
He nodded. “I saw it, sure as I’m seeing the three of you now.”
“When?” asked Bill.
“Four nights ago. When the zoologist went missing.”
The three of them exchanged glances, Edmund feeling there was a large part of this story that he didn’t know, that Emril was dropping them in medias res.
“What zoologist?” asked Sophie.
“It’s just now hitting the papers. A guy named Piotr Galin went missing. Big, important professor from the University of Warsaw. No one gave a damn about any of the missing people until someone like him got took, no they didn’t.”
“Got took?” Edmund asked.
“Yeah, got took. By the damned train. I saw it. Saw it as sure as I’m seeing you right now.” He was getting agitated, probably because no one believed him thus far. “You all think I’m joking, don’t you? That I’m trying to get my spotlight or somethin’?”
“No, we don’t.” Edmund pulled out Addey’s cellphone and showed Emril the video. The man’s eyes lit up and he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and struck up a match, seemingly out of thin air. By the time the video was over—the first seven, action-filled minutes anyway—he had tears streaming down his face.
“I saw it, dammit. I saw it.” He shook his head, almost defeated.
“We know,” said Edmund. “We believe you. Please, tell us about it. Tell us what you saw.”
He settled back into his chair, flicked ashes onto the table and then scooped them into the floor with his hand.
“So the professor was having a late dinner a few nights ago. News said that he’d been visiting a colleague in Belarus so he stopped here on his way back into Warsaw. We weren’t busy at all, not with the snow we had that morning.
“I brought the bloke his drink and he says to me that he has a train to catch. But his face is all weird.”
“Weird? Weird how?’ asked Bill.
“I dunno. Like he isn’t aware of anything around him. Like his body is making the noise but his brain isn’t there.
“Anyway, I laugh it off because we don’t got any trains down this way. They all stop before the Malkinia line. But this fella is insistent—keeps saying he has a train to catch, even though no one else is talking to him.
“Then it gets strange. I bring him out his food and he pays right there. But he doesn’t eat it. He just gets up and says ‘I hear her! I hear her playing her piano!’ and walks right out the door.”
“So he just disappeared into the night?’ said Edmund, thinking back to the newspaper from the gas station.
“That he did,” said Emril, putting out his cigarette on the table’s surface. He scooped the ash into the floor and immediately lit up another. “But it doesn’t end there. My shift was ending, so I followed the bloke.
“He walks out and turns south, heading right into the woods. Now people always park down by the car lot or up the street by the old soccer pitch, so when someone heads south, there ain’t nothing that way but trees and more trees.”
“Did you try to stop him?” Sophie asked, just as engrossed in the story as the rest.
Emril nodded. “I didn’t touch him, if that’s what ye mean, but I called out for him. He barely acknowledged me. He said his sister was playing the piano on the train and that he was going to listen closer.
“So the bloke takes off running with me running after him. I got the asthma, so I start falling behind. He’s screaming from the top of his lungs ‘Hanna! Hanna! I’m coming, keep playing!’ I keep following him because by now I figure the old fella has either had a stroke or some kind of fit and I’d need to be there for when he eventually collapsed. There’s no phone service out here, anyway.
“And then, that’s when it happened.”
The Americans exchanged glances and that’s when Edmund realized that this was the part of the story that Emril had no doubt repeated many times over the last four days, the part that no one seemed to believe.
“What happened?” Edmund asked.
“As sure as I’m seeing you right now, I saw the train. I was chasing Piotr, probably twenty or so paces behind, and then it slides right in front of us, the ghostly glow of it lit up the forest! Piotr stopped dead in his tracks. If he was afraid, I couldn’t tell. He was still blabbering on about Hanna and her piano.
“The faces . . . oh, God, there were faces everywhere!” he said, voice growing frantic. “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t watch. When that train appeared out of thin air, sitting on tracks that weren’t there, I fell, got up, then got the hell out of there. I went straight to my car, drove home, and didn’t come out of the house the next day.” He put his second cigarette out on the table and left the wadded butt there. “I’ll never go into those woods again. Not for nothing.”
“What do the people around here say about your story?” asked Sophie.
He blew air out of the corner of his mouth and rolled his eyes. “Some believe it. But most don’t. His family, all of em’s back in Warsaw. They got money, too. I worry I’m going to be linked to this thing. The smarter ones don’t seem to believe in ghosts and all that.”
Sophie said, “Could be bad, especially since you were the last one to see him alive.”
Bill nodded. “And if he turns up dead.”
At this, Emril just laughed. “Turns up dead? That’s not how the train operates. He was taken. And he’ll never be seen again, lest it’s through the window slats of the train car.”
“This isn’t the first story like this,” said Edmund.
“No, it isn’t,” said Emril. “They all get promised something, don’t they? Just like them Nazis back in the day with their hollow promises. Get on the train, and all you need will be provided. Horseshit.” He pulled out another cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth but didn’t light it. “Say, why you so interested in this anyway? You’re American right? Or Canadian? I can’t imagine this story has jumped the pond with enough force to make a ripple.”
Edmund briefly told him about Addey and the strangeness surrounding what happened. Emril just nodded and gave a curt chuckle.
“Then I say your friend is the lucky one,” he said, mirroring what Lena had said back at Krakus House.
“Could I get your number?” asked Edmund. “In case I can think of anything else to ask about the train. Or Piotr?”
“Sure,” he said, then pulled the pencil from behind his ear and scribbled a number on a clean napkin. “But if you have any questions about Piotr, best look up the tip line his family set up. That would tell you more than I could. I only saw the bloke for ten minutes. Last ten minutes of his life, I’m guessing.” He gazed down, a morose look in his eyes. The cigarette still wasn’t lit, only hanging limply from his lips.
“Thank you. I appreciate you talking to us,” said Edmund.
Emril stood, and finally struck up his third smoke. His eyes dug into the three Americans as if he didn’t really know what else to say. But it was to Edmund that he directed his warning.
“Don’t go looking for this train, fella. Let it be. Whether it calls for you or not, give it a wide berth and you might’n just stay alive.”
Edmund just nodded, this advice starting to stack up.
“Who is Hanna?” asked Sophie. It was a tiny tidbit of information Edmund found unimportant but was now curious.
“When I started talking to the news, word got back to Piotr’s mum so she gave me a ring the other night. I asked her that same question. Know what she told me? Hanna was Piotr’s sister. Girl loved to play the piano. And she played almost every night while Piotr was in the bath and he could hear it through the floorboards and it relaxed him.
“I asked the old lady if there was any reason w
hy he’d think his sister was playing the piano on the train. You’ll never guess what she said.”
Edmund and his friends just shook their heads.
“She said ‘I can’t think of any reason why he’d think that. The poor girl has been dead for ten years.’”
***
Early the next morning, Edmund awoke to more snow, another dusting, which was enough to cover the tracks of the car leading up to Krakus House. There was no breakfast, per se, but either Lena or the old woman had left a large basket of fruit on the downstairs table. Edmund didn’t want any of it, despite this being one of the few times to have normal, world-standard food. His head was hurting, his brain fuzzy, and he was having trouble understanding what had happened last night.
Emril’s story helped to solidify the train, if only a little. There were still so many unknowns, but at least he didn’t feel as though it were a wild hunt, that he was back in the Nun Hunters and taking pictures of willowisps and streaks of lights that were to pass as ghosts. At least now there was an independent party who at least followed Edmund’s train of reasoning.
He wasn’t sure why he even came downstairs so early—it wasn’t to eat, that’s for sure. Maybe he thought that since someone else had substantiated the Ghost Train, he might take another stab at Lena. The girl was holding back, this much was sure, and Edmund wondered just how much he could press her before she or the old woman told them to get out.
Just before heading back up to his room, to shower and get dressed, he heard a sound from the new world—something that took him back home, made him forget for a moment that he was standing in a place that was old as time. It was the incessant pecking on a computer’s keyboard.
He followed this normal, yet strangely placed sound toward the back, beneath the stairs, and found a room secluded far from the front doors and the main eating area. Above the doorway hung a sign with a computer screen and keyboard on it, along with a string of polish beneath it. Edmund followed the pecking into Krakus House’s public internet café, although that was a broad, far-reaching term. It was just a folding banquet table covered in a black sheet, and upon that a pair of aging desktop computers.
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