CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "Track 54.5" Creepypasta

Starting point is 00:00:01 Driving a train sounds like pretty exciting work, right? Not really. When you were taking your licensing course, you get a sense of excitement, like you're part of some big long legacy of train conductors. You imagine yourself dodging train robbers while having to solve a murder mystery, meeting guests for drinking in the diner car as they ride the rails to California or Texas.

Starting point is 00:00:24 In reality, most trains haul cargo these days. Like many others, I found myself hauling freight cars through the dark of night. At this point in time, most things on the train come down to pushing buttons and try not to hit people or things on the track. Run the horn every time you come within 100 feet of a crossing, make sure the tracks are in good shape,

Starting point is 00:00:45 note any damage or signal malfunctions, get to your destination and drop your cargo, rinse and repeat. I do the 6pm to 6 a.m. run, and most of my route is done in complete darkness. The train rolls on while I sit to the controls and Roger takes over every few hours so I can stand out on the platform and have a smoke

Starting point is 00:01:04 or eat something out of the fridge we keep in the back. We don't haul passengers, except for cattle sometimes, so there's no dining car or sleeping car or people besides Roger to talk to. After tonight, I guess I won't even have Roger. I'm pretty new at this, Roger, only having worked a few months longer than I had, and I had no idea about Track 54.

Starting point is 00:01:31 All the tracks of mile markers, and between track 53 and 55 is, you guessed it, track 54. It runs through a deep stretch of woods, and the track is the only thing that's not trees and dirt for about 20 miles. It's a lonely stretch, and it gets a little creepy out there sometimes. Roger says it's BS, but I could swear you can see things in the woods, watching the train as it goes by. The good thing about the woods is that there are only 10 miles from the depot we use the drop-off cargo, So once you're there, you're almost halfway done with your shift. Tonight, though, was a little different. I was sitting in the passenger seat, browsing Reddit on my phone

Starting point is 00:02:13 when I heard Roger swear and cut the brakes. I braced and looked out the glass, sucking in breath when I realised why he had stopped. It's not uncommon to get stuff on the tracks, trees or animals sometimes, but this was definitely something we would need to call in. There was a body on the tracks. Roger keyed up the mic and called it in. Engine 13 here on Track 54. He glanced at the metrics on the screen.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Point 5, reporting a body on the tracks. The line went dead for a few seconds before someone came back from dispatch. Engine 13, come back. Did you say a body on the tracks? 10-4, said Roger, a human body on the tracks. More static before someone came back over, a different someone than the young woman who had answered before. is it a living person or a dead person?

Starting point is 00:03:08 Roger squinted at it for a moment. Does it matter? There's a body on the tracks. It's the difference between calling the police and calling an ambulance, so yes, it matters. Roger sighed, glancing left and right to the woods, before handing me the radio. Keep them numb nuts updated while I go out and check what kind of body this is. He climbed out of the train and moved to the front. I could hear him calling to the person in the train.

Starting point is 00:03:35 tracks and getting no response. The body appeared to be sleeping there, arms and legs played out over the ballasts, but I couldn't tell if they were breathing or not from the cab. Roger didn't seem to want to leave the train side and investigate, probably wondering if this were a robbery of some kind. It's not uncommon for people to block a track and rob a train, but our cars are mostly cement powder and cinder blocks,

Starting point is 00:04:00 maybe some quarried stone and various other things like AC units or unrefined oil. not really something a train rob we could get away with easily. The handpiece crackled back to life as the older voice asked if we were still there. I told him we were, and that's when he asked for our location again. But the way he asked made me feel anxious. He sounded relieved that I had answered and hesitant to have my location. Track 54.5, I told him, I still on Roger, as he walked closer to the body on the tracks. Silence for a good ten seconds as I watch Roger near the man. My eyes cut to the woods

Starting point is 00:04:42 for half a second, thinking I'd seen movement in the trees. Was it an optical illusion? The only light was the big headlight, and it did make the things in the peripheral look weird sometimes. Roger was nearing the track now, and the mic cutting back in made me jump. Drive over it and get the hell out of there. No one is supposed to leave the cabin after track 50. Did no one take it? tell you that? I looked back up to Roger, now poking the body with his foot, before turning back toward the train. No, I've only been a driver for a few months. Roger and I... But as I watched Roger coming back, I saw something long and white come galloping out of the woods and snatch him up. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, like a collection of white pipe

Starting point is 00:05:28 cleaners formed in some kind of weird animal and left in a backpack for a few days. It snouted at Roger in its mouth and was over the tracks and into the woods before I could get a good look at it. Roger was there one minute and gone the next. Engine 13, engine 13, respond. Something got Roger, I yelled into the mic. He went out to check the body and get that train in motion now, yelled the man on the other end of the radio. I pushed buttons and through levers and the train started moving again.

Starting point is 00:05:59 I heard the wheels tear through the body in the tracks and wet and meaty sound. and soon it had up to 40 miles an hour again. I found my breath coming in hitch and gasps as the forest creamed around me, but the creature never made another appearance. I could still see that thing as it cantered across the tracks. I could still see Roger's face, crested in terror, as it grabbed him and took him into the woods. I suddenly doubted they would ever find Roger,

Starting point is 00:06:28 ever find the body I had chopped up beneath my wheels, and I knew there would be no sign of the cruxed. preacher at all. When I pulled into that depot an hour later, there were people there waiting for me, people in suits from the Department of Transportation. They told me I had done the right thing. They told me I had been very brave and had saved my company millions of dollars in assets. They made me sign a lot of things and told me to take some time off work before coming back to work if I still wanted to. They advised that I not talked to anyone about what I had seen and made me sign a paper saying I wouldn't.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Well, I guess I screwed that up, didn't I? It's been a week, and I still see that thing when I close my eyes. I researched that stretch of track, and the woods that have surrounded it have seen a good many disappearances and more than a few stories about a strange creature that lives there. There's a hiker that recently went missing there. A man with dark hair and a thick beard who was wearing jeans and a blue shirt the last time anyone saw him. A man, I would swear, I see.

Starting point is 00:07:34 saw laid across the track that night that Roger was taken. The line keeps calling to ask when I'll be back. I just don't know if I can ever drive through those woods again. After someone hears this, I may not have to worry about that anymore.

CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "Track 54.5" Creepypasta

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