Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Work As A Conductor On A GHOST TRAIN | Scary Stories

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Their eyes are red.        Story from Darkly_Gathers Make sure to check out more of their work at u/Darkly_Gathers                  Original Post: I'm a conductor on a train that runs an unusual route; a ghost voyage, with no passengers… : r/nosleep   Original YouTube link: I Work As A Conductor On A GHOST TRAIN          For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

The route between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand is, and always has been, empty. If anyone is left on the train by the time we reach Greycastle Station, they depart. No exceptions. No one gets on. It's as simple as that. Sometimes, on occasion, a couple of passengers bored once we reach St. Joseph's stand, but it's only a tiny little station, out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded. completely enclosed by gray-green fields and hills of wild grass. A ruined church watches silently over the trains that come and go. They're far and few between.

The route lasts for about an hour. It takes us wildly off course and it's always empty. Always. No one boards at Grey Castle. No one departs at St. Joseph's stand. I don't even know why we make the journey at all, to be perfectly frank. But we make it nonetheless. Twice a week, every week, we depart from the line that runs between the cities, and we head

out deep into the countryside, and we let the stragglers off at Greycastle. Then sometimes, if it's a particularly busy night, we'll let maybe a couple of new passengers on once we reach St. Joseph's stand. But we never take any between the two. It's a ghost voyage. I've been a train conductor for three years now. It's an okay job, I suppose. I used to be an editor for TV.

That was my real passion. I worked so hard to get into it. But I couldn't take the stress if I'm being honest. For months on end, it was live show after live show. The editing has to be done the same day, ready to be broadcast the next. I let it overwhelm me, sadly. Train conducting. Ticket collecting.

It's not exciting, but it's relatively stress-free, so it makes for a nice change of pace, I guess. As always on this leg of the journey, it's quiet, peaceful. Late at night, with nothing to do, no passengers to collect tickets from, I usually sit down in one of the seats and stare at my phone. Every time we make this trip, every time we take the route between Greycastle and St. Joseph's I try and summon the courage to call my daughter. Haven't really had a proper conversation with her since the divorce.

I just want to tell her I love her. Ask her if she'd want to meet up. But I can't think of a way of doing it that doesn't sound weird. Just me calling her up out of the blue. And so I stare at my phone. Today is no exception. I bitterly continue my sad, little tradition. The time drags on and I always, without fail, eventually decide that

it's gotten too late. I can always try again. Next time. Next time. Sometimes I read a book at this stage or listen to a podcast. I've still got about 40 minutes to kill before we reach Grey Castle. I stretch. I'm particularly tired tonight. Can't be falling asleep on the job. So I choose to stand instead, cracking my back and lifting my knees, encouraging the blood flow. I turn and amble my way through the empty carriage, stopping for a moment, resting on the head rest of a nearby seat to look out the window. Dark and sleeping hills, clusters of trees, low green mountains, they all roll steadily by. My eyes defocus, and I find myself looking at my own reflection.

We regard each other for a long moment, then sigh as one, and I rub a hand over my tired eyes. I move on, pressing the button to open the sliding doors and stepping on into the next carriage. I come to an immediate stop. What the hell? There's a passenger in this carriage. I stare at the man. I can't believe it.

There's a passenger, an actual passenger, sat alone in a safe. section of seats made for four, two facing forwards, two facing backwards, with a table in between. He's looking out the window. I can scarcely believe what I'm seeing. This is massive. Wait till the lads hear about this. Even my own predecessor. He'd done this route for what? Five years? He told me he hadn't seen a single passenger. Not one. Not ever on this particular route. And yet here's a man, plain as day. On the very route, the route between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand. I chuckle and shake my head, amused at how I could find such a mundane and, in the grand scheme of things,

really rather uneventful development on this train, to be so exciting. I walk over to the man, reaching for my ticket stammer. He glances anxiously at me. twitches. And suddenly, just like that, my mood drops. Something about this man has put me on edge. I stop, and I look around the otherwise empty carriage. It's gloomy.

A flickering light at the far end of the car made the hair-raising transition from irritating to downright unnerving. There is no sound. But for the soft, steady chuntering of the wheels against the, steel tracks below. I look back down the aisle towards the man. He's fidgeting, sweating, a junkie perhaps. A part of me wants to just turn back. Maybe I should. It's one route. One route that no one ever takes. Maybe he can't afford a ticket. Maybe I should just let him ride. But I have to know why he's on board. I just have to know. He must have a reason.

No one is ever on board, ever. So why him? Why now? And so, cautiously. I walk over to him. I clear my throat, surprised by my own sudden anxiety. I've never been a hugely confident man. But this was my job, for God's sake.

Where has this ridiculous fear come from? Except it doesn't feel ridiculous. It feels urgent and immediate and pressing. And I wonder if I've made a terrible mistake here in this dark carriage. But it's too late. I've begun speaking. Excuse me, sir, I say. The words coming out before I can stop them and attempt at a good-natured tone.

We don't get many passengers on this route. I was wondering if... I was going to ask him if he wouldn't mind sharing a little about his journey, but my voice catches in my throat. My mouth dries. The man, after a moment or two, responds to my words. And violently, he throws himself back up against the window with terror, sheer terror in his eyes, a hand clutching at the front of his jacket. I take a step back in alarm, and my eyes are drawn to something on the back of his hand. It's carved, a symbol, carved into his skin. I realized then that I have truly made a terrible mistake in the decision

to engage with this man, but it's too late. The symbol looks like a capital R made of four straight lines, the curve of the R's top half, replaced by a rough triangle. I look up into the man's eyes. They are stricken, pleading. He shakes his head, sweating. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to de-escalate. I don't know how to disengage or to calm him down. I'll think of a hundred things I could or should have done in this moment in about an hour's time, but right now my mind is blank.

So I do what I'm supposed to do. I follow a procedure. I have a job here after all. Keep this unfortunate encounter brief, professional, and I'll be on my way. the opposite bloody side of the train. May I, uh, may I see your ticket, sir? I ask, trying to sound neutral. The man freezes.

Tense, I can see the veins in his head. In the back of his hand contorted grotesquely around the carved R. We stare at each other in cold silence. And then it shatters like ice. No! He screams. And I clenched my jaw, retreating in panic as his hands flat in my head, rocking forwards and backwards. No, it's too soon, it's too soon.

I haven't even been given a fair chance. I've barely begun. He shouts. His voice strained, banging his head against the window. Shake it. I reach down from my radio. The man looks wildly around at the ceiling, out the windows, his arms outstretched. Does this count? Has my journey begun?

I began to draw the radio up to my mouth, but the man looks directly at me, and I freeze. He glances down at the radio and confusion, looks me over properly for the first time, uncertainty contorting his fearful expression. He stands suddenly, with a quick smack knocking the radio from my hand to the floor. Are you even a real conductor at all? He hisses into my face. Are you part of the train? Are you human?

Conductor. I just stare back at him. I don't know what to say. The man sees my ticket stamper, takes real stock of my own expression, and he puts his head in his hands and starts to laugh. Great heaving bounce of laughter that shake his shoulders. You haven't a clue, have you?

He screeches. You have no idea. What I'm talking about? This is all too much. The lunatic is clearly on some serious shit. I glanced down to the radio. Screw it. I'm just going to make a break for it to the engine at the front.

I prepare, just for a second, shifting my weight ready to run, but the man moves his hands from his face at just the wrong time, and he anticipates what I'm about to do. He jumps on me, and we staggered to the floor with a crowd. Gosh, panic overtakes me. No, I cry out. Get off me, let me go. Punching, pushing my fingers into his eyes, anything to get him off, but a furious grin is etched into his face. He pulls a knife from his pocket, and I tense up.

Flinch, withdraw my hand from his face with pure instinct and use it to cover my neck. But he grabs my wrist and with an elbow. to keep me down, ignoring my cries for help. He begins to carve the same symbol on the back of his own hand into mine. You're insane! I shouted to his face. I try to pry away his arm, try to push him back, but the aisle is narrow. He has his foot on a nearby chair. He's using all his weight to keep me down. The junkies grin quivers. I'll be damned if you end my journey before it's even begun. He says into my face, dragging the knife through the skin on the back of my hand, holding it as steady as he can in a painful, vice-like grip, his knuckles

turning white as I flail and heave to little avail. He completes the symbol. And he laughs, bitterly, exhausted, relenting. And it's enough. It's enough for me to force him away. I staggered to my feet, still in deep shock, clutching at my bleeding hand as it leaks down my forearm and drips onto the floor. The man just laughs. He laughs and laughs in the aisle. And I realized to my horror that the seats around me, the seats, they're full of people now, silent, staring, expressionless, and their eyes, their eyes are all red. I swivel in horror looking this way and that, but all of them, all of their eyes are red, red, red, red, not bloodshot, not red colored, just deep, dark red, no iris, no pupil, just dark, wet, red stains.

I stagger in horror, unable to even scream. The junkie only laughs. He slams his fist against a nearby chair as he rolls around on the floor. I turn. And I run. I push through the carriage door, looking this way and that in terror, some of the chairs are still empty. Some are not.

The ones that are not are all occupied by these terrible new passengers. of wet, blood-red, their skin in fact. Even their skin looks reddish and hue, and their veins. Their veins seem almost, alive, writhing and throbbing slowly across the visible skin. Hello? I say to one with a shaky voice. Can you hear me? The passenger does not respond. He does not move or react in any way. I swivel again. Horrible again. Terrifying, turning to look at another. Can you hear me, madam? I put my good hand on her shoulder and recoil in once with disgust.

Her shirt is damp. It leaves my skin stained. And I realize that I cannot see where the shirt ends and her skin begins. It's all roughly the same color. I can see veins on her clothes. I'm not sure if they're even clothes at all. Good Christ! I cry.

Out, movement catching my eye, and I turned to look through the door windows and down into the previous carriage. The junkie has risen, and he strides through the aisle coming straight towards me. I look around, panicked, for a weapon, for somewhere to hide. Anything. I stumble down the aisle, and my eyes meet those of a woman, a real woman, with real eyes, least in real clothes. Like the junkie, she sat in one of a group of four chairs, two facing forward, two facing back, a table in between. We stare at each other. With a slight incline

of her head, she nods to the empty chair across from her. She flicks her eyes, from me to the chair. I noticed the back of her hand, the same symbol. The four-lined R. I turn my head. I can still see through the dark window. The junkie is about to push his way through. I swivel back to the woman. She tilts her head, slightly, ever so slightly, to the left. Her jaw is clenched tight, but she speaks, quietly, barely moving her lips or her teeth as she stares at me. Sit down, conductor. She hisses, If you value your life you will do as I say, sit down conductor and be silent. I turn and see the junkie angrily push through the sliding doors of the carriage and sending up a silent prayer to whoever may be above.

I slide into the seat and sit motionless. My heart pounding in my chest, adrenaline coursing through my body. My hand throbbing. I've put my trust in you, woman. I think to her as hard as I can. My life is in your hands. The junkie strides down the length of the carriage. I can hear his footsteps approach, and he grabs my shoulder.

I flinch and make to cry out, but the woman's stare bores into me, willing me not to react, and so I fight my instincts, and I do not respond. I'm sweating, but I return my head to its original position, and I ignore him. I need to know. Are you a real conductor? He shouts into my face. Did that count? Did you ask for proof of my journey?

The woman opposite glars at him. She hisses. Sit down, you imbecile. Before it's too late, sit down. But he does not listen. He pulls out the blade, presses it up against my neck, shouts louder. Are you a conductor?

Yes or no? A flicker of pity flashes across the woman's face. The engineers will have you, son. She whispers, sadly. And the junkie stops at this. He turns to her. We all stay there, frozen, for another long moment or two. When we hear the doors at the opposite side of the carriage clank open, the junkie recoils and terror.

He lets go of my collar and he staggers backwards in horror at whatever it is that approaches. No, he screams. No, please, stay back. He brandishes the blade out in front of him in two shaking hands, but his resolve breaks, and he turns and runs back down the aisle. I'm not looking. I'm looking at the woman. But I see out of the corner of my eyes, I see them. Three white figures glowing ever so slightly. They're thin, but they are large and as they pass, I feel goosebumps ripple across my skin. My teeth begin to hurt. And I shake, remaining rigidly in place as I hear the figures

follow the junkie through the doors at the back of the carriage. I hear them clank open. I hear the man screams, and I hear them clank closed, muffling slightly his cries of terror. It goes on for a long and agonizing minute, until I can simply take no more. I make to stand, but the woman thrust out her hand grabs my wrist, and for a moment I relent. But I have to see. I have to know what they're doing to him. I pull my wrist from her grasp and sprint to the doors at the back of the carriage, carefully peering through the door window. The junkie is writhing on the floor.

One of the pale figures is hunched over his back, the blade embedded precariously in the side of its head. The other two have their weight on his arms. They are long, these people. They're too long. Their bone structure does not seem to make complete sense. I slam a hand to my mouth in horror, stifling a cry of disgust as the face of the white figure on the junkie's back suddenly unfolds.

White pincers, long and bug-like burst from its face and bite into the back of the junkies' neck with a sickening crunch when I can hear from all the way back here. The man screams, and with another crunch and a series of pops, the creature to his left has torn into his shoulder blade. It strikes again, and it has removed the arm. I have to force down a sudden rise of thick, hot bile in my throat, but I can't take my eyes away. I can't look away from this scene on the train.

Free rider! The man screams, gargling on his blood. There's a free rider on this train. He's here too! The next carriage!" His words become slurred. The figure with his severed arm stands to the side, holding onto it carefully as it leaks blood over the floor, and the others.

One still with its pincers in the back of the man's neck, force him through the carriage into the room beyond, the luggage area, where people can board and depart the train. the automatic door on the far side has time to close, I see him struggle desperately, but with some effort the figures push him out of sight and off the train. I see his torn body fly past the window as the train hurdles into the night. I become aware for the first time that we are no longer surrounded by hills and fields. The moors that make up the country between Grey Castle and St. Joseph's stand are nowhere to be seen.

Beyond the windows are no fields, no hills, but instead of black and featureless desert, rough, low, dark dunes as far as the eye can see. Weak gray lightning flickers in the distance. What the hell is this place? What happened to my train? This isn't right. None of this is right. Oh, God.

Oh, shit. I glance back through the windows, and the three creatures are coming towards me. I lurch backwards, stumbling, and with no other plan in place, hastily crashed back into my seat, shaking, surging. But the woman across urges silence with her expression. I try to stay quiet, though my breathing is shallow and loud, loud in my ears. Don't panic, she says. I heard him too. The engineers can't identify free riders themselves.

You'll be fine. Just don't move. What? She jerks her head towards a sign above the opposite seats. I look up, trembling. The sign is repeated, printed across the top of the whole row. But it wasn't there before. I've never seen it before on any of our trains.

But there it is. And it looks old. It's simple white text on a plain black background. No other logos. And it reads, Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor. Foreign bodies will be removed. You will alert the engineers to any foreign bodies present in the train.

You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. But I'm a conductor. Am I a conductor or a free rider? Shut up. She hisses again, louder, as we hear the doors to the carriage slide open. I am shaking, but silent. I'm not even breathing. I'm holding my breath. We stare at each other and nowhere else. The figures approach. I hear their heavy steps, and they come to a stop at our table. I can see them in my peripheral vision, glowing softly, glowing white, hunched, thin,

their arms too long, their legs too damn long. They hover in our space, and I can't take it. I have to look. I have to look. Just a quick glance. My eyes shoot to the side, and they meet with those of one of the figures. His face is terrible. It is long like an insect, folded in on itself with those pincers, those terrible pincers hidden away, but ready to spring out in any moment. In the eyes, the creature's eyes, they're white, wide, incredibly wide. No eyelids, no damn eyelids. The skin around the eyeballs is cracked and dark,

as if they'd been shoved straight into its head with the tiniest of black pupils in the center. Staring, staring back into my own. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. The words, the commands, they run through my mind one after the other as the creatures gaze, boars, and mine. We stare at each other. I'm paralyzed. I can see the other two of them, hovering by the table in my peripheral vision. I feel like screaming. I'm ready to recoil the strike out. to do something, anything. At the instant this abomination makes a movement, but it does not. The other two turn with soft, sickening cracks and disappear down the carriage. After a moment, the creature in front of me slowly draws back, stands up straight,

and does the same. Turning, leaving, walking away on long legs. I hear the sound of the far door slide open. I hear the door slide closed. I wait. I wait as long as I can. And then I take in a deep, shuddering breath, my head falling into my hands. I try to calm myself down.

To focus. Focus. I look out of the windows at the black scorched desert beyond the track. It offers me no comfort. I turn back to the woman. She's still staring at me, silent, angry almost. What the hell is this place? What's going on? I whisper. Shut up, she replies. I grimace and glance back up to the sign repeated over and over above the rows of seats.

must show ticket when asked by a conductor. Foreign bodies will be removed. You will alert the engineers to any foreign bodies present in the train. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. What's a free rider? Are we free riders? She does not respond. I look at the sign again. What were those things? What were they doing on the train? Are they the engineers? How the Hell are you so clueless? She hisses angrily, leaning forward towards me. You boarded the train, didn't you? Don't you know what you're doing? I stare back at her, starting to become angry myself. I didn't ask for any of this. Her eyes dart down to the symbol on my hand, and I wave it in her face, fresh blood dripping out of the table as I do. You referring to this?

Are you? That lunatic did this to me. He carved this into my hand. Five bloody minutes ago! What does it mean? Why do you have it too? The woman leans back in her chair, eyebrows raised, but some of the anger dissipates from her expression. She chews her tongue. Yes, she whispers to me eventually. Those things. They're the engineers. But they aren't smart. They won't bother you unless they have cause to believe you're a foreign body. I lift my cap and run a hand through my hair, the adrenaline wearing off and the pain in the back of my hand coming finally to the forefront. Am I a foreign body then? Or a free rider? The woman shrugs. As I said, they can't identify free riders themselves. And think about it. Do you have a ticket?

I put out my hands. I shrug back at her. I guess not. Although, do you have a... Stop! She shouts suddenly, jumping to her feet and throwing herself back against the seat. Her sudden movement and the shriek in her voice makes me start, and my question catches on my tongue.

She's breathing heavily, terror in her expression. She looks over my head and down to the other end of the carriage. She glances behind her up the aisle, and she shakily returns to her seat. Don't, she says, hushed but strain. Please, please don't ask me if I have a ticket. Why not? Why the hell not? What is going on?

I ask bitterly, trying to keep my voice low, though my frustration is clear. She just points back to the sign above. Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor. You're clearly not supposed to be here, she says. But you are a conductor of sorts. I don't know if the rule applies to you, and I'm not going to be your guinea pig to find out. Ask this guy.

She jerks her thumb to one of the silent passengers sat on the opposite side of the aisle. headish, hewed, straight-backed, blood-eye, unmoving. I'm not sure about this. Do you really think that's a good idea? I ask. You want answers, don't you? Ask the asshole. Nervously, I lean across the aisle, clearing my throat. I, um, excuse me, sir, may I see your...

ticket, please. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the red man starts to move. It's an alien, almost mechanical gesture, but he raises one of his arms, displays one of his hands to me. Embedededed, a part of the figure's flesh would seem, is a ticket, stamped, connected to with skin, made of skin, in fact. But it's a ticket all right. No doubt about it. I peer at it as close as I dare. There are no words on it. No letters. None that I recognize, anyway.

Just strange, small, broken shapes and half circles. The figure returns his arm to its original position, and I pull back, rubbing a hand across my jaw in anxious thought. The one of the woman is on edge again, her expression now a mixture of pity and fear. I don't know what you are conductor or how you fit into this, but I'd like you to leave now. I'm sorry, but please just leave. I run my tongue over my top teeth. What do you mean, leave?

Leave where? Where am I supposed to go? Are the engineers going to take me if I move? I lean forwards as I ask my last question, and the woman recoils, pressing herself up against the back of her seat, eyes wide. I'm sorry, she whispers. So I stand. I try to think of something to say to her, a thank you, or an accusation?

Should I be angry she's effectively casting me away? She's given more questions than answers, really. But, no, she did essentially save my life after all. Thank you, I whisper. Good luck. She gives me an awkward half-smile, one that doesn't reach her eyes. Nervously, I set out down the carriage alone, back through the car in which I'd tangled with the junkie,

stepping over thick, viscous puddles of blood as I do so. It reeks like metal almost. I hold my breath as I reach down from my radio. I test it out, but receive only dead static in response. I slotted into my belt regardless and push on through the door to my original carriage. Only this isn't my original carriage, not anymore. It looks different. The seats are all in the same places.

But the emergency signs are all gone. The travel information. The screen's all gone. When I'd first stood up. When I'd put away my phone. My phone. A light bulb goes off in my head and I reach into my pocket eagerly ready to call for help. But the screen is of course smashed to pieces.

It's broken. I try the power button. I hold it down, but still. nothing. Damn it. I pocket the shattered device and take in the surroundings of the carriage. Some of the seats are empty. Some are occupied by the strange red-hued passengers.

Unmoving, unblinking, perhaps even unbreathing. The only clue to their even being alive at all, the slow churning, throbbing veins that cover their skin. If it is skin. I shiver, looking once again out the train window. There's only desert. Strange, black desert. Waves of low dunes far off into the distance.

And silent gray lightning crackling against the horizon. I glance at the signs overhead. Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor. Foreign bodies will be removed. You will alert the engineers to any foreign body. present in the train. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. Recycle. What the hell is that supposed to mean recycled? Right. Screw this. It's time for answers. I'm going to get some answers and I'm going to get home. If I see the engineers, I'll duck down into a seat.

I can do this. I can do this. I march on while my courage is strong. down through the carriage and into the next towards the engine at the front. Only, it isn't there. There are just more carriages. Car after car. On it goes, as I walk down aisle after aisle. On and on. Endless carriages.

Many of the seats I pass are empty. Many contain the red strangers. I even come across another person. A human, I'm sure of it, a teenage lad. Same symbol carved into the back of his hand. I try to talk to him, but he won't engage. He doesn't even look at me. He turns when I try to meet his eye.

I promise him I'm not going to hurt him, that I'm not going to ask for his ticket. But my mere mention of the words sent him whimpering, so reluctantly I leave him be and continue on along my way. dark and gloomy carriage after dark and gloomy carriage. There are dim beam lights across the ceilings on the cars. In some, they're actually quite bright. In most, they're not. In a few, they only flicker, on and on, on and off.

And occasionally, they do not work at all. I have to rely on the light that comes through the door windows at either end of the carriage. No farther signs of the engineers, but I am on edge. I'm expecting them constantly. After a long while, could have been 30 cars, could have been more. I see something new. A man sat by the window, not a red stranger, nor a human, at least I don't think he is.

He's shimmering, more of a solid silhouette than anything else. discernible features, just the dark shape of a person, swirling between shades of deep purple and pure black, the low light reflecting off of him in strange and unnatural ways, like water, but thicker perhaps. I stare at him. Hello? I say. Drawing a little closer.

The man, if it is a man, does not really look. respond. He doesn't move. I have no idea what to say. I have no idea if he can hear me. Do you know anything about this train? I ask him quietly. A long, thin shadow sweeps across the floor of the carriage, and I jump back in alarm, my fist raised, shaking. But there's nothing there. A second shadow sweeps across the floor, then a third and a fourth. slower this time. They're kind of like, like legs, insect legs, like the kind of shadows a spider makes as it crawls across a light bulb. The beam light above me flickers. I look up, and the creature on the ceiling lunges down towards my face. I don't get a chance

to see much of the creature as it falls. Looks to be made of a similar material to the warped, shimmering man, like a crab almost, or a spider. The size of a large cat were bigger. I screamed loud and shut my eyes tight, pushing the nightmarish thing away from my head, with as much sudden force as I can muster, flinging it down the aisle as I stumble and fall backwards, horror down to the carriage floor, watching in horror and disgust as the The creature flies through the air and lands on its back with a soft, wet, crunch. It quickly writes itself and scuttles without pause back towards where I'm currently

splayed on the floor. I shriek again and staggered to my feet, using the chairs to pull myself up. I stumble back, one step, two steps, as the crab spider approaches, and I turn and run back into the previous carriage. I can hear its many feet against the floor, scratching. It makes me feel sick. I look back and realize in dismay that the thing is right at my feet, hissing around my ankles, and I shout out at it, swear at it loudly, skidding to a halt and kicking it as hard and

as far as I can. It flies through the air for a second time, but I don't wait to see where it lands. I take off down the carriage, running. The train takes a gentle curve. I feel it as I run and I look out the window. No longer going in a perfectly straight line, I can see some of the other carriages, and I get, for the first time, a humble introductory understanding of the sheer length of the train. Carriages. Carriage after carriage after carriage. As the train curves round, as the train curves round, Its end, if there is one, does not show itself.

It just goes on and on and on, stretching back into the desert. I catch a flash of white through one of the carriage windows, four or five ahead of mine. Shit, it's the engineers, it has to be. I've been an idiot. I was too damn loud. I stopped. Trying to catch my breath in the middle of the aisle, looking around. I turn back.

Is the creature still following me? It could well be. Can I get through the doors if they're closed? I don't know. But the engineers can, and they're heading this way. Gritting my teeth, I make a choice. I hastily sit myself down in a free seat next to a silent red passenger facing back the way I ran from.

I try to control my breathing, to level it, to become as quiet as possible, trying to sink into the chair. I hear the door to my carriage burst open and my heart thunders in my chest. I hold my breath, dead still. They're approaching fast. I hear them and there are the engineers, to this time, tall, terrible. glowing, and they run right on by. They don't pay me the slightest notice. Out they go through the opposite door, and I wait, counting to ten, and I breathe. I wait to see if any more are set to follow, and then climb out of my seed, creeping up to the door and peering through

the little window. I can see the engineers at the far side of the carriage, scrabbling after something. The spider. The shimmering crab spider. It scuttles below the seats and up onto the walls. An engineer reaches its long arms out to grab it, but it isn't quick enough. His elbow strikes the back of a red passenger's head, but the passenger does not react. The insectoid creature scratches madly into the bag hold above the seats, disappears, reappear, crawls desperately down over the seats. And one of the engineers lowers itself onto all fours, like, like a wolf, I guess. I don't know. More like a mantis, I suppose. And it juts forward, pinceres exploding from its face, crunching into the spider's back. I can hear it screech from

way back here. Its legs writhe madly as the engineer drags it to an emergency door in the side of the carriage and the other engineer yanks it open. It tears off one of the spider's legs and the screeching creature is thrown from the train and out into the desert beyond. I see it hurtle past the window, still writhing. I make a quick return to my seat and wait silently for the engineers to pass by, but they don't. After a while, I return cautiously to the aisle, looking again through the door window, but the engineers are nowhere to be seen. They must have headed off in the opposite direction, towards the front of the train. I return into the carriage, the carriage with a shimmering man.

So there are spiders above this train then. Crab spiders. Great, another thing to look out for in this accursed place. I glance out the window into the realm beyond. The black dunes of the desert are giving way to low hills now, small cliffs of black stone. Something thick, trunk-like, and enormous shoots past the window. Then another. A little farther in the distance, a third appears.

It is a trunk, the trunk of a colossal tree, like a redwood only larger, and the wood It is dark, dark gray. Branchless, it extends up, far up into the night sky. If I press my face against the glass and look up, I can see the bottoms of the tree's leaves, or needles rather, like pine needles, white in color. The ground below the great tree is covered in these needles, graying against the black sand. More trunks start to shoot past, then more and more dozens of them, and the black sand outside begins to disappear under the carpet of gray-white needles.

The trees, like the dunes, stretch far off into the distance. I turn back to the scene in the carriage and ponder with desperation, the shimmering man. He's different, unique. He may have some answers for me. If he can even speak, that is. And I am desperate. Hello. I try again cautiously.

Can you hear me, sir? No response. The strange light seemed to dance of their own accord across his featureless form. I gently put my hand on his shoulder, and it feels strange, like I'm getting pins and needles almost. I withdraw. How would you feel? If I asked you for your ticket, I ask, cringing a little, waiting for the worst.

But he doesn't respond. It does not respond. Maybe he's just like the others. Like the red passengers. He's no help to me. But I ask anyway, could I see your ticket, please? At first, nothing happens. I wait for his arm to raise or for him to recoil, or something.

But he does nothing. I sigh, and I'm about to leave when the man begins to shake, twitching unnaturally. His chest bulges out, then his shoulder. I take a step back, jaw clenched, wondering if I've made another poor decision here in my quest for answers. My wonder is short-lived. The man rise angrily. Then he splits, and he bursts. From scalp to waist, he burst open, and he unfolds into four, five, six of those terrible

crab-like creatures. Oh shit! I grunt and panic, though I have a good sense to keep my voice down this time. Staggering backwards, I kick one away and trying to stifle my desire to swear and scream, run through the next door into the little compartment between carriages. There's a fire extinguisher tucked into a small compartment in the corner. It's heavy as hell, far heavier than a fire extinguisher has any right to be, but I heave it up into my arms, waiting, sweating, and as the door to the little cabin slides

shut, one of the scuttling abominations crawls through the gap. With an angry grunt of exertion, I bring the extinguisher down with the crash and a crunch. It splatters the spider with a screech, mashing it into the floor. One of the creature's legs twitches madly. I bring the extinguisher up again and back down, with all my might smashing the creature into pulp by my feet. I feel the bile rise up again in my throat, but force it down, still staring at the twitching mush I've splattered across the floor. Breathing heavily. I drop. I got the extinguisher against the wall with a clunk and wiped my forehead.

I didn't shout. I kept my voice down where I tried to, but it was still quite the commotion. Was it quiet enough to keep away the engineers? The sound of clattering and thumping, and a quick glance through the carriage door window answers my question. There are four of them now. Four engineers, all staggering about the cabin, pincers darting out, tearing off pieces, of seating as they scrabble after the spiders, all now starting to screech loudly.

One of the engineers looks up. It looks right through the window and directly into my eyes. My heart jumps into my throat, and I release a low and voluntary moan. I'd forgotten how terrible their gaze was. They're wide, unblinking stairs. It takes a step down the aisle towards me, and I push myself away from the door with force, turning and tearing open the door to one of the train's toilet cubicles, slamming it shut behind me, blood pumping. I lock it with a shaking hand and press my ear against the door, waiting, desperately, waiting. For a while, there's nothing but the distant screeching of the crab spiders. Those sounds eventually come to a stop. Then there is more silence, more maddening silence, and I hear the door to the carriage

slide open with a soft clank. I hear footsteps, many heavy footsteps, I hear them gather around the bathroom door, I hear the crack of their joints, and I hear a knock. I hold my breath, but my heart is loud, far too loud. They can hear it. I'm sure of it. I don't move. But the knock comes again, a little louder this time, a little slower.

Knock, knock, knock. Please, please, just leave, just leave me alone. I just want to get home. That's all. I never wanted this. There is another terrible aching. Pause. It's like I can sense the engineer's hand drawing back from the door, raising.

Like I can hear the air currents move around his fist as he brings it down, ready to knock for a third time. Louder, perhaps. More urgent. But a scream comes instead. A woman scream. A young woman, by the sound of it, muffled through the doors but still quite clear. Clear enough.

There is no third knock. Instead, I hear the terrible soft cracking of the engineer's bodies, their heavy sudden footsteps. I hear them tear away and push through the door into the adjacent carriage. It's distant, but I hear a commotion, more screaming, desperate cries for help. It lasts for a minute or so, perhaps, then the screams become louder again. They draw closer, and I hear the door to the little compartment between the carriages. open. The screams become much clearer, closer. A young woman begging for help, begging for her life, and the cracks and crunches of the engineers. It sounds like she's being hauled. Drag. I can hear kicking.

A fist or a foot, perhaps, slams against my bathroom door and I jerk back an alarm, listening as she is dragged away down the carriages. I listen. to those terrible screams disappear gradually off into the distance. And I sit myself down onto the toilet with my head in my hands. I'm a coward. I should have done something. Tried to help her. And done what?

Exactly. Fight off a horde of engineers by yourself? You could have tried. They would have thrown you off the train or worse. Would they? Would they, though? I have no idea what the rules are here. Not really.

Besides for that damn repeated sign in every bloody carriage, I wipe my eyes. I am a coward. I glance at my watch. Since departing Greycastle, I've been on the train for over two and a half hours. That didn't make any sense. The route between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand was only about 60 minutes. But, of course, we aren't on a normal route. Not anymore.

I have no idea where we are or where we're going. But I've sat hiding in here for long enough. I open the door as quietly as I can and peer out into the zone. No engineers. Just a crushed creature? My fire extinguisher propped up against the wall and a trail of blood, leading through the doors on both sides. I swallow.

I consider taking the extinguisher with me. I try to lift it again, and I can do so, but it's heavy. So, so heavy. Far heavier than any extinguisher I've ever held before. I look at the label, try to determine the extinguisher's contents, but there are no letters here, just those strange lines, clumsily printed shapes and small broken circles. I return it to its spot with a deep grunt. And unsure what else to do, I continue on along my path.

The carriage that held the shimmering man is a bit of a wreck now. Purple black stains are splattered across the windows, the baggage hold, over the floors, and several chairs now sport missing chunks and torn fabric. The silent red passengers seem unperturbed. I heard through it. Into the next carriage. Then the next. The next.

Carriage after carriage. The great thick trees in the realm beyond became sparser. Through the windows I can see the ground starting to crack and break apart. Small pools of water of deep and dark blue shoot past. Then larger pools, lakes. They are connected with streams, with rivers. Fewer trees, more rock-lined bodies of water. And then the land comes to an end, and around the train is only water now.

Deep blue-black water, an ocean of it, stretching off into the horizon in both directions. The sky is still dark, but the lightning no longer crackles against the horizon. I watch in equal parts awe and terror, as the silent lightning forms instead in the clouds above, crackling quickly round, round it goes in a circle, back to where it began, and then flashing away and a nothingness. Every few seconds across the sky, there are glimmers of this strange circular lightning. It lights up the surface of the softly, almost imperceptively churning dark water of the ocean below. I watch for a while, then I carry on along my way. A noise grows as I continue my journey.

I'm cautious, but it sounds like wind. Louder, it grows, louder and louder, until I push through the door to its source, and it becomes a roar in my ears. There's nothing I can do at first, but gasp, gaping around in shock. The entire top half of the carriage is missing. The carriage ahead is whole and shields me from

some of the rushing wind, but I can still feel it, strong in my face, against my ears. I pull down my cap a little tighter, taking a step forward. The carriage was not designed this way, clearly. Where the walls of the carriage ends, there is jagged metal, uneven, torn, broken. The floor is littered with shattered glass, broken pieces of metal, and bits of seat. There are seats here, but not as many as there should be. Some have been torn from their positions. There are no passengers in this carriage. The lack of roof or wall gives me a somewhat clearer picture of my surroundings. Looking over the edge, I can see we're on a narrow bridge of some kind, maybe only a meter or so above the ocean's surface, a couple of feet, perhaps, above the water. Still, all around me. There's only a little

water. I look up into the sky. Thick, heavy clouds of black and dark gray churn and roll steadily against each other, into each other, grindingly, pushing against the night sky in conflicting directions. Every few seconds, there's that same strange circular lightning, crackling around, and disappearing in peculiar gray flashes, illuminating the edges of the slowly swirling clouds in the darkness above. A terrible sense of vertigo threatens to overcome me, and I force my gaze back down and ahead. And with jaw clenched, I stride on into the next, thankfully, whole, carriage. Then the next, and the next, and the next. Eventually, a movement catches my eye through one of the door windows ahead. I stop, crouching, watching, cautiously.

It appears to be an old man, a human, shuffling out of the toilet cubicle and back through the door to his carriage. Down the aisle he goes, then he stops and carefully grips hold of the edge of a chair, lowering himself into it and facing away from me. I chew my tongue. Then I follow, pushing gently through the sliding doors. I clear my throat as I approach the old man. Hello, uh, excuse me.

He starts with a grunt of dismay, turning to look at me, taking in my uniform, my face, my eyes. We regard each other in silence for a moment. Hello? I say again. Good evening. The old man replies. Then, are you a conductor then, son?

I'm not sure how to reply. Of swords? Are you going to ask me for my ticket? No, I say, not if you don't want me to. The old man snorts, then seems to relax a little. He gestures to the seat opposite from him across the little table. Care to join me? He says. And I do. I take the seat.

The old man closes his eyes briefly, muttering softly as he crosses himself with his fingers. I don't fail to notice the R symbol carved into the back of his hand. Are you sure you don't mind talking like this? I asked anxiously, checking down the aisle ahead and behind with furtive glances. We're not being too loud. The man shrugs. As long as we keep our tones level and don't cause a scene, in my experience at least, I think we should be just fine.

I bite on one of my thumbnails. In your experience, you say, sir. How long have you been riding this train then? Exactly. The old man scratches his chin and looks through the window with the water beyond. Well, must be going on. Has it been seven, eight? Yes, eight. Six years and eight months by my count. It's been quite the journey. I stare at him. Six years. Six years and eight months. I chuckled awkwardly. But the man does not laugh with me. You're joking, right? You're telling me you've been riding for over six years. The old man nods. That's right, son. Six years, eight months. He says quietly.

Yourself? I, but, well, that depends on what you mean. My shift started at nine this morning, but I've only been, been here since, well, for a few hours. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where we're going. I didn't ask for this, for any of this. Some maniac carved this symbol into my hand, I say, trying to hold back my sudden rush of emotion. Is this how I board it? Is it this symbol?

The man listens patiently to my little rant, then he speaks softly. That's right, lad. The symbol. You must ride with the symbol, carved clear, and plain as day. And of course, one can only board between the twin stations, between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand. But that doesn't make any sense, I say to him.

The route between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand lasts for an hour. Max, not six bloody years. It loops back towards Manchester, goes on through Newcastle. It's supposed to end in Edinburgh in a couple of hours' time. The man shakes his head sadly. Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh. I do not know these places, conductor. I tap a hand against my forehead, slowing my breathing.

This man is kind and helpful. It'll do no use to get frustrated. But your accent. You're British, right? You must know these places. England? Scotland? But the old man just smiles sadly, and he slowly shakes his head once more.

I'm afraid that I do not recognize these names, my friend. I drum my fingers softly against the table, looking out through the window as the train shunters softly and steadily along the tracks, and the dark churning waters beyond stretch far off towards the horizon. The old man speaks again, his voice breaking through the clouds in my mind. The train can take you between, lad. It can take you beyond. Far, far beyond. Beyond where, sir? Where are you going? I ask. I don't understand. What journey could possibly warrant a distance that lasts for, for six years? The smile drops from his face, and he looks

sadly out the window for a long and heavy moment. Then he sighs, and he reaches into his jacket. Fumbling around, he produces a picture of a young woman in her mid to late twenties, and he shows it to me. She's a good-looking lady, with a nice smile. I won't bore you with the details. I'm not sure how much sense they would make to you anyway, conductor. But this is my daughter, a wonderful young lady. A bit of a nutcase, though. He chuckles. Then grimaces. Obsessed with the occult.

A dangerous business. Dangerous business, indeed. Got involved with some sketchy folk and she, she disappeared, vanished off the face of the planet. Twenty years it's been. Twenty-six, if you include these long years on the train. Though between you and me, I'm not convinced they trekked. travel by at quite the same speed.

The old man's expression darkens. I promise myself I do everything I could to find her. What sort of a father would I be if I didn't? Began my own research into the occult, the backward shadows, the other sides, twisted lines that run between the gaps. The old man clenches a trembling fist and lowers his voice. I will find her, conduct her. I will see her again, and I've been searching for such a long time.

The man rubs the knuckle of the finger across a watery eye, looking down at the table between us as he does so. This stage of my journey is soon coming to an end. I'm glad I had someone to talk to before moving on. Moving on, I ask. What do you mean? My stop, lad. My stop be coming up any time now.

I lean forwards. My heart beating fast with anxiety and anticipation. Your stop. You mean the train. The train actually stops. Well, of course. He chuckles now. Wouldn't be much of a train if it didn't stop now, would it?

No. I say. Sitting back and fought. No, I suppose not. Stay a while. The man says, nonchalantly enough, but it's obvious how grateful he is for the companionship. I'm really rather grateful for it myself.

So I smile and I stay. As the train crosses over the ocean beyond, we quietly chat a little about our lives, what we do, about our families. He talks about his daughter, and I tell him about mine, about my fear to call her, about my divorce, about my general dissatisfaction for life. It all sounds rather pathetic when I express it out loud, but he is sympathetic. He does not talk much about his home. I try to ask him about where he's from exactly, about his, his place,

his city, his town, but he will not give me a straight answer, nor does he ask me. about my home, and I get the sense that perhaps we're not supposed to, so I drop it. One thing I glean, though, is that whilst he did indeed board between Greycastle and St. Joseph's stand, he seems to be under the impression that the two stations were stops within a single sprawling city, scarcely ten minutes apart in a straight line. His words unsettle me. And perhaps he can tell, because the same thing. subject changes to our own surroundings. I ask him about the engineers, for an insight perhaps,

into their terrible forms, their staring eyes, their purpose. I ask about the passengers, the shimmering man, about the crab spiders. The old man has seen plenty of engineers, though he knows very little about them. He's watched them throw dozens off the train. They always take a piece before they do, an arm or a leg, or worse. The shimmering man, too, and other larger, more terrible shimmering shapes. He's seen the engineers force them out and into the unknown that rushes by beyond the train doors. Never the red passengers, though. The silent thick-veined passengers with the blood-red eyes.

They're always left well alone, never given even a second glance. He's seen the crab spiders. He's watched them scuttle across the ceiling, over seats in the darkness. He says they get more common the closer you get to the front of the train, but he's never been to the actual front of the train himself, and he has no real answers for me regarding the train's purpose or true nature. The sign above the chairs becomes the subject of our quiet conversation. Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor. Foreign bodies will be removed. You will alert the engineers to any foreign bodies present in the train. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. What does it mean, sir? I ask him. When it says

recycled, what does that mean exactly? I do not know, conductor. But it scares me. Being caught out as a free rider. And every time I look up at that sign, I'm reminded of my own burden of guilt. I ask him what he means and he continues. I had a friend on this train, several years ago now, met him in one of the carriages and we got to know each other. He was a good fellow, searching for something to fix his head. The old man tapped his temple, sound and critical thinking you understand, but plagued with terrible nightmares.

We were sitting together one uneventful day, chatting as we often did, and a con-conflictive. A conductor shimmered up the aisle, fresh out of nowhere. First time I'd seen one. Not a conductor like yourself, young man, but a true conductor, one of the train's own. A terrible looking thing. And it asked my friend for his ticket. And of course. He could not provide.

The old man looks suddenly much older than old beyond his years. A deep and reflected sadness washes over me. The conductor hovered beside us for, well, couldn't have been longer than a minute. Then it went on down the aisle and disappeared. Never before then had my friend seen a conductor so close, and as I said, I'd never seen one at all. I've never been asked to show my ticket. So we just stued in panic for a while, unsure what to do and how to proceed. Then the engineers came. Last thing he said to me as they burst into the carriage. Last thing

he said as he gripped my hand, he urged me to stay silent, to not give them any cause to throw me off. And they took him, grabbed him by the back of the neck, dragged him on down the carriage and out of sight. And I never saw him again. And I have to live with my my indecision every day. There's little to do here, but think, think on whether I made the right choice, whether I could have saved him somehow. But my daughter is the priority. She's the one I set out to find, conduct her, and I will find her.

I swear it, by all the gods man holds. I swear it. The old man crosses himself for his second time. quietly muttering some words under his breath. I process his story in silence for a while. A light flickers at the far end of the carriage. The wheels of the train grind and chunter along the steel of the tracks below. A shiver of deep alien fear passes through me,

and I ask the old man if he knows how he's going to get home. One journey at a time, my lad. He whispers. As a gentle voice crackles through the carriage, out from an unseen intercom. Now approaching Kairc. Kair C.D. Then it fades into a low hum and crackles into silence. Ah, well, here we go then. This is me. The old man says, and he shakily rises to his feet. He's of small stature and his voice is tired, weary.

Old. There's no doubt about it. But he does not seem an old or wary man now, as he stands before me, chin raised, jaw set, and fists clenched. A circle of the lightning in the sky beyond ripples powerful silver light across his features, and I see in his eyes a determination that sends a surge of sudden affinity, of powerful admiration rushing through my blood. I rise to my feet too, unbidden, and stand there awkwardly in his shade. What am I going to do now? Hug him? Hug this stranger who I've known for all of 20 minutes? Ask to exchange contact details. But the man grins at me, and he holds out his hand to shake. I take it.

I walk with him into the zone between the carriages, the compartment with doors to the outside, as the train begins to decelerate, slowing, steadily. A great and rocky island appears behind the door windows, an island of strange, dark and glassy stone, a scene that sends through me an icy river of dread. The crooked mountains extend high up into the sky, and the island is surrounded by small outcrops of broken, tumbled rock. The train chunters to a halt, and the intercom crackles.

Kair C.D. And the man pats me on the shoulder, and he presses the button for the door. It opens with a soft hiss, and he steps out onto the gray-black ground below the train, walking over the wet stones to the dark and sinister island of rock and glass beyond. The doors quietly close of their own accord. I watch through the windows as the man gets smaller and smaller into the distance, and after a while the train begins once again to hiss, and it starts to move, continuing its journey. I watch the man vanish from my line of sight.

I watch the sharp and towered edges of the mountainous island roll by. I watch its cliffs disappear down into the dark water. The outcrops become sparser and sparser. And then there is once again only water. I process a strange but very profound sense of loss as I look out at the lightning circling above the ocean. I glance up at the signs, the signs that run along the edge of the carriage, just below the ceiling. Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor, foreign bodies will be removed.

You will alert the engineers to any foreign bodies present in the train. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. And I continue on along my way. My journey through the train continues. I think this is my plan now. Find humans, engage with them if I'm able. Learn as much as I can and hope I can find enough clues to figure out a way home.

Maybe if I'm lucky. I'll even find someone heading in my direction. For the next three hours, however, I see no one. No humans, that is. I pass plenty of the silent red passengers. I see more of the shimmering men. I even see another crab spider, crawling, scrabbling blindly across the ceiling. Cold panic rushes through me, but I stay stock still.

I control my breathing, and it disappears into the overhead baggage hold. I don't stick around. I subsist off water from battered half-finished plastic bottles I find lying around, beneath chairs and bins. I'm not sure where they came from and the taste is not great, but it's fine. I try the water from the bathroom taps too. Sometimes it's okay, though more often than not it's soapy and makes me gag. Curiously, I do not find myself growing hungry, but I do get tired.

I stop for rest in the seat of one of the more empty carriages, and look out the window. A flickering beam light overhead allows me a few uninterrupted seconds of vision beyond the glass, before my view is momentarily blocked by a flash of my own tired, anxious, reflected face. The ocean is now peppered with rock, great slabs of it, rising out from the depths. In the distance is a beach of pale gray sand that steadily. approaches, stretching around in a wide arc. There are pillars of some kind on the land beyond, but it's too far away. I can't tell from here if their structures or if their natural formations.

And then the light above me goes dark. The hairs on my forearms rise. A low buzzing noise drones down the aisle of the carriage, and I turn my head just a little, Teeth set, as an alien form, larger than that of a man, and hovering above the ground, shimmer slowly past. It's a conductor, a true conductor. I know it. I'd ask the old man to describe one to me, and this thing fits the bill.

It is terrible to look upon. Every fiber of my being wants to scream and run a writhing mass of white-grey, several long, thin arms that end in what appear to be curved blades of flesh, no, discernible, even remotely human characteristics at all. It comes to a stop right next to me, and the gears for my fighter flight grind faster. What do I do if this thing asks me for my ticket? Do I try to overpower it? To run?

Yank open one of the emergency doors and take my chances with the world beyond? I glance hastily out the window. The train is hurtling across the surface of the water. Would I be killed if I were to jump into it at the speed? Certainly if I hit one of the rocks. Though if I survive, could I swim to the beach? Could I make it that far? But what if there's something lurking in the water?

All these thoughts and more race through my mind, but a voice from the entity in the aisle interrupts and rumbles around the carriage. A request. The conductor asks for proof of your journey's validity. And whilst the words send me through a jolt of panic, I force it down, because the conductor is not talking to me. I can see no mouth. I cannot even tell which way it's facing.

But I know. I can't say how I know, but the conductor, thank the gods, is not talking to me. A red passenger across the aisle stirs. She slowly, awkwardly, raises one arm and attached to her hand through the skin of her fingers is her ticket. One of the conductor's writhing limb stretches down to the ticket, and it stamps it with the same symbol as the one on the back of my own hand, the shape of the R, and it steams softly for a while from the mark.

The passenger lowers her arm, and the conductor hovers on down the aisle through the door to the next carriage. I control my breathing, summon my courage, and I follow. Keeping my distance, I watch it drift into the next carriage and ask another two red passengers for their tickets. It stamps them, then hover slowly on into the following car. I keep watch, creeping behind it. Looking carefully through the window, I see the conductor come to a stop beside three humans. Three. And they're all sat together with terrifying, stricken expressions on their faces as the voice of the conductor rumbles around the walls. A request.

The conductor asks for proof of your journey's validity. And there is silence. And one of the three people, a woman, starts to shake and to softly weep. The others remain stock still, horrifying, and the conductor, after a minute, moves on. It does not go through the door to the next carriage. It just shimmers and disappears from sight. The weeping woman's body is racked with sobs, and she collapses forward onto the table with her head and her hand.

hands. The woman beside her has gone pale. She's staring down at her, and the man across has started slamming his fist against the window in frustration. I step into the carriage, and the man's voice becomes clear. We're so close. We're so damn close. Let's just make a break for it. Our stops the next one. It can't be more than an hour away. Come on, let's just jump. We'll be killed, says the woman across from him. adjusting her glasses, her voice trembling as she squeezes the arm of the weeping woman to her left. I look behind me. I can see a group of engineers through the door windows, a few carriages back and heading this way. You guys need to decide and fast, I say to the group, and they look up,

noticing me for the first time. The man lets out a shout of rage, jumping to his feet between me and the women. He's not one of them. The woman with glasses shouts at him. Look at his hand. I glanced behind me again. The engineers look to be about two carriages away. They're coming for you. I say urgently, stepping past the man and gripping the sobbing woman by the shoulder.

For you, definitely. Maybe for all of you. You need to leave, please. Just take your chances with the world outside and go. Are you mad? The woman with glasses hisses at me. Do you have any idea where we are? The man beside me lowers his fist.

He's right, he says, looking over my shoulder. We've come so far. It's time to leave. It's now or never. They're going to throw us out regardless. He turns to the women. Get up. He says.

Get up. He grabs the crying woman by the shoulders and starts to drag her to the door. Oh, Christ, no, the other mutters, shaking as she rises to her feet to follow. I slot myself down into a nearby seat as calmly as I can, and a few seconds later the door to the carriage bursts open. I hear the heavy footsteps of the engineer's approach. Get back! The man shouts at them as he yanks open an emergency door. The sound of the rushing wind, a sudden roar now, billowing round the carriage. Then he turns to the woman with the glasses, holds her face in his hands.

Go. Please just go. You idiot, she says through tears, pushing him back. Go first. Jump and I'll follow. But the man does not. The engineer sprint past me, and the man grabs the woman by the shoulders. Brace, he yells into her face, and with all his force, he pushes her out.

He pushes her out of the train and towards the water below. We are moving at such a speed that there is not even time to see her hit the surface. He moves to grab the other woman, but he's too late. The engineers are upon him. I watch, fists clenching and unclenching with guilt and desperate sympathy, as the man and woman struggle against the engineers. The man is doing his best against two of them as they drag him around the cabin, cracking their limbs on poles and rails as he bellows and anguish. The woman is set upon by only a single engineer at first, and to my surprise, she manages, through the strength of some hidden away force, to shove it back towards the open door.

The man staggers backwards against the engineer clutching his neck, and the weight of the party crashes into the engineer by the door, and the monster is pushed clumsily into the world beyond, pincers darting out as it falls but catching on nothing but air, falling from the train and disappearing out of sight. The woman tries to wrestle one of the remaining engineers off of the man, screaming, but she staggers back in horror as its pincers unfold from its face and crunched into the man's shoulder. He thrashes, shouting to the woman to jump, but she's unable.

The second engineer darts behind her, clamoring up the rail and the wall to take hold of her, locking her in place as she struggles. Blood gushes out onto the floor, across the engineer's legs and over the man's torso. The engineer holding the woman turns his head and darts out his own pincers, latching onto the man's side, tearing off a chunk of flesh with a sickening wet rip of a sound. The man shouts something unintelligible, and the engineer by the man's side. behind him, with its pincers still in his shoulder, braces itself against the rail and forces the man through the door, and throws him off the train.

It draws the door closed with a loud bang, and the rush of the wind in my ears is silenced. I watch in horror my heart hammering as the engineer set off down the train. One of them holds the screaming woman tight in its grip. She flails. slamming her fist against the engineer's body again and again. She catches my eye. Help me! She screams.

Please help me. I sink into my chair, panic. But the engineers pay no mind. They drag her on towards the front of the carriage and threw the doors into the next as she kicks and screams. And I think. I think hard and I think fast. I try to draw strength from my palaver

with the old man. I try to take hold of a second-hand burst of courage, and I stand, shakily, I stand. And as if on someone else's legs, I march down the aisle. I'm going after her. I'm going to act. Passengers must show ticket when asked by a conductor. Foreign bodies will be removed. You will alert the engineers to any foreign bodies present in the train. You must ride with a ticket. Free riders will be recycled. I can only presume that the woman I now follow is going to be recycled, whatever horrors that may entail.

She is a free rider, like the others, and she has been identified as such. I dart down the aisle, trying to remain as inconspicuous as I can. The woman has seen me follow, but the engineers have not. She screams and babbles, kicking and fighting. And I can only pray that she does not give away what I am trying to do in her panic. The engineers drag her down the aisle and through the carriage and then the next. But then, before a compartment between carriages, they come to a sudden stop. I stumble over my feet, scrambling into a chair as quietly as possible,

watching intently to see what they're going to do. I squint. One of the engineers is rubbing his thumb around the rim of the open door button instead of pressing it. He does this only once in a rough circle and the button starts to glow a soft red. He presses it and the door opens. Except the view beyond the door. It doesn't match the view that was visible through the window. I stare in shock as the engineers step through. I get only a few precious seconds to take in as much as I can. The walls are reddish pink, the floor looks wet, there's movement. And the woman screams, trying to grab hold of the door as she is taken through, but it closes behind her with a hiss, and she's gone. The view through the door window shows only the next carriage. I stare,

an alarm and disbelief, but I rise to my feet and hasten over. I look through the door window, No sign of the woman or the engineers. I press the button and the door opens. It's just the next carriage. A few of the seats are occupied by the red passengers. I wait for the door to close by itself. Then I look down at the button. All right.

Screw it. Fortune favors the brave, right? Come on. You got this. I try to replicate what the engineer did. I trace my thumb around the edge in a rough circle, and sure enough, the button starts to glow of faint red. I take a deep breath, and I press it, and the door opens.

I step through. The view beyond the carriage windows is broadly the same, though the beach is much closer now. It's the walls, the actual body of the train itself, that draws my attention now. They are indeed a deep reddish pink, and the floor is soaked, dark, damp, sticky. The light in here is red too. It's like being in one of those dark rooms they use for developing photographs. It's humid.

The air feels thick, heavy. I can hear my own breathing. I take a cautious step into the carriage. All of the seats in here are occupied, most with a red passenger, some with a void-like shimmering men. A faint glowing white beyond the carriage door window at the far end of the aisle tells me that the engineers are still close by. I stride down the length of the car, holding tight to as much confidence as I can, trying

to come up with some kind of a plan on the fly. Should I try to take the engineers by surprise? Use my semiconductor status to try and trick them. I'm all over the options desperately as I walk the aisle. I try not to pay attention to how the wall seem to be quivering, gently contracting, in and out, throbbing almost. I follow on into the next carriage. The deep reddish pink walls of the carriage give way in some places, to long, pale, thin

arcs, squished up and between the wall's strange material, structural support beams of some kind, perhaps. They look white in color, though it's hard to be sure given the strange lighting. I pass through the next carriage, and the next, more and more of the red passengers are replaced with the shimmering men. One of these men, to my horror, appears like less of a man and more like a...a lobster, perhaps. Enormous, alien, yet silent. I pass on by, teeth clenched. It becomes clear as they become easier and easier to see that the structural support beams, they aren't beams at all, not like any I've ever seen. They look like bones, arched up toward the ceiling, like great ribs pressed, squeezed tight between the throbbing,

leaking walls of the train. It's horrific. It makes me feel sick. And the air, The air grows thicker. The soft white glow through the train doors ahead, the one that I've been following at a steady distance, suddenly becomes brighter. Then brighter still, and the forms of engineers start to become visible. Shit, there's a group of them heading toward me. I look around helplessly. There are no free seats in this part of the train. There's nowhere at all for me to sit down.

to remain calm, I take a few cautious steps back, back through the door I just come through, and into the compartments between carriages. I look around for a bathroom to hide in, but there's none, nor is there even a fire extinguisher or anything I can arm myself with. So, with my options limited, I decide to just head to the corner and stand still, totally still, heart pounding by the wall, looking at the floor as the door bursts open. Four or five engineers run past, elbows out hunched forward, most paying me no mind. But one of them slows down. It pauses and looks me over. I can see its wide, terrible, and unnatural eyes scanning me in my peripheral vision,

but I do not stir. And thankfully, after a terrible moment of uncertainty, the engineer turns and carries on along its way. And after a deep breath, I carry on along mine. I can no longer see the engineers up ahead, but I follow down the aisles and through the dark and damp carriages regardless. The windows grow smaller with each new car. Eventually, the windows are lost altogether.

One of the carriages, I find to my dismay, is occupied with no seats or passengers of any kind at all, but rather with two great throbbing, loudly thumping, steadily shifting mounds of flesh, organ-like. I have to push between them to get through the aisle, and they feel damp and hot against my skin. It's revolting, but I keep pushing forwards. I don't know what else to do. I can see more engineers up ahead, though they aren't coming this way. Flashes of glowing white through the door windows, three carriages away, then two, and then one.

This carriage is, like all of the previous carriages I'd walk through, fully occupied. But there's only a handful of red passengers in here now. The majority of the seats are occupied by the dark, shimmering men, and they are large in this carriage. Oversized, bloated, only vaguely human-like, with their strange colors and half-lights wavering across their unnatural featureless forms. I crouch behind the train door and peek through the window. The seamed beyond is a nightmare, the worst I've ever laid eyes upon.

board. Or otherwise, I slam a hand to my mouth, staring, shaking, scarcely able to comprehend the grisly picture behind the window. This could well be the front of the train, the engine. I cannot see a door on the other side at least. The carriage beyond it is twice the height of any of the previous. It throbs, blood red, dark stains in strange liquids ooze down its bulging walls and over the floor. A few meters ahead, I can see two humans immobilized somehow, pressed awkwardly up against the wall, struggling. One of them is the woman I've been following.

There are half a dozen engineers in here. One of them is holding something. I gag as I realize it's a human arm messily severed. I watch as it throws the arm towards the central feature of the kill. carriage, or perhaps engine. The terrible centerpiece in question is an enormous gaping, wet mouth, built into the body of the train, colossal, vibrating nerves and tendons and grotesque, stretched red skin connecting it to the walls, ceiling, and floor, lined all the way around its edge, with grinding,

crunching, scarlet-stained teeth. moans, a strangled noise like the sound of an old engine, and mashes the arm to pulp in seconds, leaking dark liquid over the floor. I watch an abject horror as two of the engineers grabbed the human to the right of the woman, a young man, and hurl him without a second thought into the mouth. I flinch, squeeze my eyes tightly shut, but I'm too late, really. I see enough. The hungrily, desperately biting, chewing, monstrous mouth of the train, mashing the screaming

man into red waist, I forced down another rise of vile, shaking, my stomach lurching bitterly. Good God, what chance do I have? An incompetent, pathetic wretch of a man like me? How can I possibly hope to save this woman? For God's sake, I muttered to myself, running a hand through my hair, desperately trying to think. I glanced behind me and directly into the wide and staring eyes of an engineer. I stare into the engineer's eyes, and he presses suddenly forwards. The pincers tap tightly into his face, begin to tremble.

I scream, staggering backwards into the engine room. Conductor! A breathless cry from my right. From the woman. Held tight and drawn away from the wall, her arms locked behind her back by an engineer. I look all around me wildly, slipping on the dark stained floor. Engineers scrambled away from the walls, clicking furiously, cracking. One of them locks itself around my right arm from behind.

The great mouth wails hungrily. Act. It's time to act. Now. Act now. I relent, ever so slightly, giving in to the engineer, moving backwards with it. Then I push hard, throwing it off, though not completely. I still feel its sharp grip scrape down the side of my arm, tearing my jacket, and I

lurch forward, slamming into the engineer in front of me and sending him staggering backwards, half falling into the previous carriage. I take in a deep breath, raising my head up high, and I shout as loud and as clear as I can down into the carriage with the full force of my lungs. Attention! All passengers! I, a legitimate conductor aboard this train, demand proof for the validity of your journeys. Every one of you, show me your tickets.

Show them now! I feel a heavy pair of pincers tear into my shoulder blade from behind, and I gasp out in shock. No breath left for a scream, and it drags me back into the engine room. For a terrible moment, nothing in the carriage beyond seems to stir. And then there is chaos. The red passengers, few as they are, dutifully lift their arms to reveal their tickets, the shimmering men, bloated and human, shifting and trembling. They burst, almost as one,

into dozens upon dozens of disgusting, crawling, shimmering spider crabs. Some large, some small, some more lobster-like than crab-like, but screeching and clamoring around the carriage all the same. Some burst through the door into the engine room, and I feel the pincers detached from my shoulder. I staggered to my knees with a cry of pain, as the engineers all scramble around in disarray, as the hordes of shimmering creatures surge across the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Some of the engineers pushed through into the carriage beyond. Some remain to throw themselves around in the engine room after the spiders that have gotten in. The mouth of the train roars and cries.

and I staggered to my feet, grabbing a tight hold of the woman beside me and dragging her through the carriage as fast as I can. Slamming aside engineers, gritting my teeth against the strange and sickly feeling of the legs of the shimmering spider crabs, crawling all over me, brushing against me. I break into a run and she runs with me, and we tear through the carriages, carriage after carriage through the chaos. On, we run, leaving the swarming bloody thrall behind us. But they will follow. I know it. The train begins to slow, and I skid to a breathless halt, slamming into a wall as the woman does the same. We're coming up on your stop, aren't we? I say to her through pants,

pain surging across my back, the muscles in my legs aflame. We are? She chokes back. She chokes back. through breaths. Yes. Then go. I force opened an emergency door, grunning as I do so. The whistle of the wind loud. I look out. We're on land now.

White gray sand below. Broken columns and pillars and strange cone-like towers in the distance rush by. Maybe. Maybe I should wait until we come to a complete stop. She begins. Now approaching, the intercom crackles and spells out the name of a place I could not repeat many-syllabled, like a hiss. It's gone from my mind almost the second I hear it.

You'll be fine, I say desperately. They'll be after you. They could be coming right now. Do you want to take that chance? Please just go. Your friends keep an eye out for them. They might have survived being thrown from the train. She nods anxiously and steps to the edge.

The train decelerates, but we're still traveling at significant speed. She looks back at me and smiles. Thank you, conductor. I smile back, exhausted, and she turns and jumps. We're still going too fast for me to see her hit the ground, but it's sand, it's soft sand. She'll be okay. I pull the door shut with a grunt and look behind me. No sign of the engineers yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't after me. I press on through the carriages, legs aching, until

I begin to wonder if my trek is completely necessary. Am I still able to travel between them by the way of pressing the button? I try it. At the next intersection between carriages, I run my thumb around the door button in a circle, repeating the motion I made. to enter this section of the train, and it glows, a soft white this time, and I head through the door. On the other side I find I'm no longer bathed in a strange red dark room light. The walls do not appear to be made with any kind of flesh or bone, and the windows are as they were, clear and large. I breathe a sigh of relief, though I'm not sure why entirely. The engineers could just as easily follow me through, but I do feel slightly safer somehow.

There are plenty of empty seats here, and I slump into one, exhausted, looking out the window as the train chunters to a stop. My shoulder and arm throb and monotonous, painful burst. The intercom crackles, and the name of the station is announced, but once again I cannot keep a hold of it in my mind. I sit for a while. In silence. With a hiss and a groan, the train continues along its journey. I stay seated for another hour, perhaps. I sobbed to myself for a while during this time.

I try my phone again. To no avail. I try the radio. It gives me only static. I get up. I walk down the train. I have no idea where I am now in relation to the front. That was indeed the front, or to my original position.

So I just walk. I walk and I walk. And as luck would have it, I see ahead after a while another conductor, a true conductor, hovering down the aisle and the carriage ahead. I've had plenty of time to think since departing from the chaos of the front carriages, and I believe I've formulated a week, but not altogether hopeless sort of plan. I'm a conductor myself, after all. And what would I do if I was approached by a passenger without a ticket?

It isn't much to go on, but I have little else. I approach the conductor, heart hammering. If this goes wrong, then I'm going to make a break for it. I won't screw around. I'll take my chances with a jump into the realm beyond. I won't allow myself to be taken to the front. I won't. I struggle to think of a fate worse than being choosed.

up by that leaking, moaning, grinding mouth and the train. Recycled. I pressed through the door into the carriage, and before I have a chance to psych myself out, I say calmly but clearly. Excuse me, conductor. I would like to alter my journey, if possible. I would just like to get home, please. The conductor hovers before me, writhing slowly. The low droning buzz of the thing sets my teeth on edge, but I hold my ground.

It is silent for a moment. Then your journey cannot be altered, passenger. Your journey has been marked. My heart hammers. I want to leave. I want to remove myself from the situation before it asks me those dreaded words, before it asks for my ticket. But I need more.

I need some hope. So I ask again, could I purchase a second ticket? I would like to amend my journey conductor. But I'm given the same response. Your journey cannot be altered, passenger. Your journey has been marked. Marked. My journey has been marked.

The conductor starts to drift towards me and I step back and I step back and I'm out of its way. It hovers on through the aisle and into the next carriage. I watch it ask a red passenger for her ticket. She raises an arm and the conductor stamps it. It marks it marks the ticket. The R, that same symbol, marked into the passenger's ticket, the passenger's skin. I look down at the symbol on the back of my own hand. The hastily closed, the symbol of the carved R, the one that the junkie gave me. And an idea forms. It's not the best idea.

It makes me feel sick, in fact, but it's my only idea. I watch as the conductor shimmers and disappears from view, and I set out down along the carriages with a renewed but bitter sense of grim purpose. I walk for hours. upon hours, upon hours. I sit a few times to avoid groups of engineers. I pass a human couple who refuse to talk with me. I pass the red passengers, silent and staring.

I pass shimmering men and shimmering monsters. Hour after hour, I marched through the train. My eyes weary. I'm desperate for some rest, for some sleep. But not yet. Not just yet. Keep on walking. My steps become jarring.

My muscles are seizing up. But I walk on. The view outside has long since changed. Up the trail climbed, up into the night's sky, high, high above the ground. And colossal, twisting, whirling towers of wind and glass roar and spin in the distance through the air. rush by, dark and furious. I come at last to something I recognize. The broken, roofless carriage, jagged, torn walls, missing chairs, passengerless. The wind is ungodly now, and I stagger

on down the aisle, my eyes watering, gripping at the remaining chairs, using them to pull myself forwards, deafened by the scream of the howling winds, and the towering cyclones beyond. I don't want to get too close to the edge, but I try to peer over to see if I can see the ground. I cannot. I push on. I head through a carriage splattered with dark and shimmering stains, with edges of the chairs torn, a piece of railing slightly bent, evidence of a scuffle. I passed through a compartment with an out-of-place fire extinguisher. The The glint of the light reflecting off it catches my eye. It's exactly where I left it, against the wall by the mashed spider crab carcass.

On I go through the carriages. I pass through the one in which I saw the teenage boy, though he is gone now, until I am certain, certain beyond all doubt that I am back to where I started. The dried blood stains across the floor and up the seeds is proof enough. This is where the junkie carved this infernal symbol into my hand. Except on reflection, he probably wasn't a junkie at all. He was probably just as terrified and almost as uncertain about his surroundings as I was. He was stoned asshole though.

I get down onto my hands and knees and search across the floor of the carriage. When the engineers threw the non-junkey off the train, one of them had had his knife wedge precariously in the side of its head. But when they approached the table where I sat in terrified silence with the woman, the knife had vanished, which means they either took it for themselves or it's somewhere still on the train. I search each chair with real, dedicated focus. I push aside the feet of the red passengers, and in the shadows, I find it. The blade. I squeeze my fist in triumph, reaching below the seat and drawing it out into the light, the junkies knife. And my heart starts to pound as I realize that my plan,

what had up until now just been a theoretical plan, now had to be put into brutal motion. I sit in the aisle, my back against a rail, and I turn the bloodied knife slowly over in my hands. I look at the symbol on the back of my hand. The R, the mark, the mark of my journey. I have no hope of getting a ticket home while this mark is emblazoned across the back of my hand. That's what I understood from the conductor. I admit my original plan was to try and sever the entire hand. But as I walked, I began to doubt the necessity of such a brutal measure. I came up with an alternative.

I tear off a strip of my sleeve and create a makeshift gag for myself, Something to bite down on, to stifle my groans of distress and shakily. Desperately, I begin to slice the blade into the skin on the back of my hand. I release a grunt. The edges of my vision flash. This is going to be really difficult. I move myself into a chair by the window opposite an unsympathetic red passenger. What are you staring at?

I muttered to it as fresh blood-le-blooded. over my arm. I look down and drive the blade in deeper. Then deeper still. It has to be in deep enough to remove all trace of the R, the carved symbol, the mark. So I slice. I push the knife through the back of my hand, hacking away at pieces of flesh. In some parts my trembling arm betrays me, and I cut too deep. Dark blood gushes onto the little table in front of me and over my shirt in jacket and I start to feel light-headed. But there is no alternative. That's what I keep telling myself.

There is no alternative. Get it done. So I do. Sawing away, sweating, whimpering. I slice off the necessary flesh. The back of my hand becomes a wreck, throbbing, leaking, hanging bits of messily cut skin. But eventually, all trace of the symbol. is gone. I tear off a larger piece of my sleeve, wrap it tight around the hand, unable to help

myself releasing a bitter cry as I do so. I wipe sweat from my eyes, taking some deep, shuddering breaths, calming myself as best I can. And I wait. I wait for a long, long time. It's three weeks before I see a conductor again. I went around asking red passenger after red passenger if I could see their tickets, and when I found one without a stamp, I sat by it and waited. I hear that familiar droning buzz. I stand. I see it shimmer down the aisle towards me, and I approach. Conductor, I say, soft, the moment of truth having finally arrived. I would like to purchase. A ticket home, please. For a minute, the conductor says nothing.

Then it speaks, and its mouthless voice vibrates around my head. To which station are you headed? My stomach lurches. To St. Joseph's stand, England. I say clearly. Then the station on the route that begins in London and ends in Edinburgh. I add, just in case. Another moment's pause.

The price for this ticket will be one year and one month. Will you purchase? A year in a month? What does that mean? A year and a month off my life? A year and a month on the train. But these questions are trivial, really. I've been offered a way home and I'm taking it.

By God, I'm taking it. I will purchase, I whisper. The conductor bids me to raise a hand, and I choose my good hand. The conductor touches it with a writhing pale arm, and it starts to itch, it starts to sting like a wasp sting, but slow, not sharp. A ticket, one of those of the red passengers, begins to form between my fingers. webbed, stretched skin forms, with text and typeface visible across it. I grimace as it comes into being.

Please take your seat, passenger. The conductor says, and then he's off, hovering away down the aisle and into the next carriage without another word. I look at the ticket between my fingers, and sure enough, a seat is written there. the cryptic lines and half circles, the same I'd seen on the fire extinguisher. LK.P. 90. So I head in the opposite direction to the conductor. I head towards my seat. It takes me a few hours, and when I find it, I sit. I sit, and I watch the strange realms roll by through the window. I sit for a long time, a long, long time, with nothing but my thoughts, mostly of how bad a father and a husband and a man I've been in my life back home, and the view beyond the glass.

I remain on the train for ten months, coming up towards the 11th month now. A lot happened to me during that time. Stories for another day, perhaps. I met a young girl, though. I shared with her the secret of the ticket in my hand. She asked if it would work for someone who wasn't employed by the rail industry back home, and I told her I didn't know. I did cut her symbol off for her, however, at her request.

We decided to flee the carriage after she started to cry, But luckily the engineers didn't come for us. Once she'd calmed down, she thanked me, and she left off on the hunt for a conductor. I never saw her again. I'll tell you just one more thing I did see, though, something you may find of interest. I saw the red passengers move. All of them. At once, it scared the absolute hell out of me,

when they all shot up, rising to a stand with no prior warning at all. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I remember how I gripped the rail of my seat, my knuckles white, watching in disbelief as they turned as one and marched robotically down the aisle, veins bulging as they stood to wait by the doors, how they waited so patiently for the train to come to a stop. Plexus, the voice over the intercom, cracked simply. Now arriving. And the train rolled out of a long dark tunnel and into a world of swirling scarlet mist and taut, stretched webbing of crimson and wine, pulled tight between the landscape's strange segmented towers of off-white and the dark mountains beyond. Alien lights flickered and sped the

length of this webbing. Thousands upon thousands of them, all shrews. shooting in different directions, and all beneath a deep and unsettling red sky. The passengers all left the train in an orderly fashion in a dead and eerie silence, yet somehow positively pulsating with anticipatory electricity. Some of the shimmering men, I did not fail the notice, departed with them. The train remained at this particular stop for longer than the others. much longer, granting enough time for the passenger's replacements to board in their stead, silent, red-eyed, and blank-faced, settling programmatically into their seats before the doors

drew to a welcome close, and the train continued on along its way. I thought about that day for a long, long time. I was never able to make much sense of it, However, I had grown to believe, over the course of my journey, that my tickets one year and one month payment related to the time it would take to get home. But this theory dissipated when my station was announced one night over the intercom, just under a week before the beginning of the 11th month. I sat up straight at once, adrenaline surging. Did I hear it correctly?

Yes. Yes, I did. I'm sure of it. I definitely, definitely did. Now approaching St. Joseph's Stand, England. That's England. St. Joseph's Stann. The intercom says, before crackling into silence. I rise to my feet, giddy, my legs trembling. I'd been sleeping, but I'm wide, wide awake now, and I stare out the window. I see the hills. God, I see the moors, the fields, the wild grass fields. I recognize this route.

It's mine. It's my route. I could jump for joy. I could explode, but I don't. I hold steady. I remain quiet, and I go to stand by the door shaking with anticipation. The train slows, and I hear the gentle drum of rain upon the carriage roof. The train chunters to a complete stop, and with a trembling finger I press the button for the

door to the outside. The end of the line, and I step out onto the platform, hit at once by cool country night air, and I look up into the rain. I dance then. I dance in a spontaneous circle, grinning, whooping, hollering, laughing, louder than I've ever laughed before. I crouched down and touch the wet ground. Concrete? Concrete? I haven't felt concrete in such a long time. I look at my hand. The ticket hand. I watch as the web ticket dissolves into dead flaky skin, watch it drift off in the damp breeze. I look up and make eye contact

with the station's lone occupant, a man in a hoodie in a leather jacket, smoking. leaning against one of the narrow pillars that support the little station's low roof. You are right that, pal. He asks after a moment. I stand and jump a few steps closer to him. Can I borrow your phone, please, sir? I ask, my voice wavering with delight. I'm home. I'm home, I'm home, I'm home.

This miserable little shithole never looks so beautiful. The man looks me over in silence and breeze out of a pipe. of smoke. He takes in my scarred, wrecked hands, my torn bloodstained jacket, my eyes, wide and wild. Uh, yeah, no. No, I don't think so. Sorry, mate. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a coin, flicking it onto the floor by my feet. Go buy yourself a hot drink. He chuckles and turns for another drag. The train behind me begins to chunter away, slowly, off to its next station.

Still grinning, I march right up to the man, closing the distance between us in a quick second, and grab him by the collar, slamming him hard up against a little pillar as his cigarette tumbles to the wet ground. I lean in close. It wasn't really a request, mate. I mutter through clenched teeth. The man, speechless and patient. Panic, reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me his phone with trembling fingers, and I take it,

releasing him and moving a few steps back. I'm not a thief, I assure him. I'll return it. Just give me a second. He nods. I walk a little farther and punch in my daughter's number, calling it. I press the phone up against my ear. It rings.

Dad? She says. She sounds tired. Why? Why are you calling me so late? Is everything okay? Are you still at work? Yes.

I began. Oh, God. Because I love you. Everything's fine. I beam. And I wonder if she can feel the radiance of my smile through the phone. And know as it happened. I'm not still at work.

I unbuckle the radio from my belt, and I fling it down onto the tracks where it breaks. I actually just quit.