by Emily Ford
CHAPTER THREE
After walking through the dining car and detecting the same stomach-turning odor of sulfur, Rachel quickly loses her appetite yet again. She does ask for a cup of hot tea, seemingly the only thing on the train she can stand to consume. She takes the tea with her and sits in the first class travel car.
She takes out her cell phone and types a text to her sister. “One more day to go,” it says.
Her sister responds right away. “Yay! How is the trip?”
Rachel considers telling her the strange things happening, but decides not to. “It’s fine. I’m really tired, not sleeping well.”
The response text: “I’m sorry. You’ll have plenty of time to rest when you die.”
Rachel bulks and blinks at the text. “What?” She mumbles. She re-reads the text. “I’m sorry. You’ll have plenty of time to rest when you get here.”
“Oh,” she says quietly. “I must be losing my mind.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Rachel looks across the aisle at the woman speaking to her. “Excuse me?” she says.
The short overweight woman with short curly brown hair and a light pink jogging suit gives her a warm smile. “Did you say something?”
“No, I um… I was just talking to myself,” Rachel answers sheepishly.
“That’s okay, I do that all the time,” the woman says reassuringly. “I’m Margaret. Are you here by yourself?”
“I’m Rachel. Yes, I’m on my way to my sister’s.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m alone too, I’m headed back home in San Francisco. I was just in Chicago to visit some friends.”
Rachel wants to ask Margaret if anything strange has been happening on the train. She turns in her seat to face the woman. “Are you staying in the first class sleeping cabins?”
“Yes I am. Are you?”
“Yes, I am too.”
“Oh, aren’t they just lovely! So tidy and comfortable.”
“Yes, they are. Um… last night, did you hear any kind of… noises in the hallway?”
Margaret thinks back. “No, I don’t believe I did. I’m a pretty light sleeper too, and I didn’t hear anything.”
Rachel nods and smiles. “So how do you like the food on the train?”
“Oh, it is gourmet quality,” Margaret gushes. “I am so impressed with the food, and the service, and cleanliness of this train. We really are fortunate to be able to experience a trip of a lifetime, aren’t we?”
Envious of the woman’s more positive experience with the trip, Rachel chastises herself.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying your trip,” she says.
The train has just rolled to a stop at the Denver, Colorado station. With Denver comes the beginning of beautiful mountain ranges, deep ravines, winding rivers, and evergreen foliage.
Rachel and Margaret both watch as some passengers depart the train while dozens of Denver passengers come aboard. The stewards help the new passengers find their seating and sleeping areas.
A tall burly man with a scraggly beard and mustache, dressed like a biker in black leather, boards the train. He carries no luggage with him and smells of alcohol as he walks passed Rachel and Margaret, headed towards the back of the train. A long, thick silver chain connecting the wallet in his pants pocket to his belt slaps his thigh as he walks.
Margaret throws Rachel a concerned look and whispers, “I hope we don’t run into him again!”
Rachel raises her eyebrows and smiles. Just then, Don, the young steward, leads a stressed-out looking businessman in a shiny silver-gray suit into their train car. Don walks by, lugging the man’s baggage with him, while the businessman is engaging in an intense conversation on his cell phone.
“I don’t care what it takes, Larry, get me those figures in an hour. If you don’t, then pack your shit, because you’ll have no job to go to tomorrow, understand me?” He curses and ends the call, shoving the phone into his suit pocket. “Hey, just take that to my room, I’m going to sit out here for now,” the businessman curtly orders Don.
“Yes Sir,” Don says politely, continuing to lug the bags towards the man’s room.
The businessman sits down in the row behind Rachel, groaning and cursing as he tries to get situated. He wipes his sweaty brow and sighs loudly. “Why is it hot in here? It better not be hot like this the whole time, or I’ll shut these idiots down.”
Margaret leans out of her seat towards the man. “It will cool down once we get going, sweetheart. For some reason it gets warm at all the stops.”
“I hope you’re right,” the man says irritated.
“I’m Margaret, and that’s Rachel. And you are?”
“I’m Brett, and when is this train going to take off? I can’t be late in ‘Cisco.”
“It won’t be long, Sir,” Don reassures him, walking past after placing the impatient traveler’s luggage in his room. He hands Brett the key to his room. “Remember to lock your door when you leave your room. If I can be of service, please let me know.”
Don nods at Margaret and Rachel as he passes by, heading towards the front of the train to assist more passengers.
“Who wouldn’t lock their door when they’re not in the room?” Brett says, holding his hands out. “Do I look like an idiot?”
Brett’s cell phone rings loudly, and he answers it with no less volume. “Yeah, I have that. Well hold on, damn it, it’s in my bag, I have to go to my room to get it.”
Bumping into seats and people as he plows his way back to his sleeping room, Margaret and Rachel are both glad to see him go.
“He seems a little uptight!” Margaret says with a snicker.
“A little,” Rachel agrees. Her body is beginning to feel heavy and fatigued from the lack of sleep. Her eyes threaten to start burning, so she closes them and shifts her body towards the window. She hopes that she will be able to catch some restful sleep out in the public eye. Perhaps the nightmares will leave her alone since there are other people around.
The gentle rocking of the train relaxes her already tired limbs. The rhythmic motion and the quiet atmosphere soon lulls her to sleep. She begins to dream right away, seeing mostly images from her trip and of random people in her life. Now deep in a dream state, a vivid dream explodes into a nightmare.
In the dream, she’s in the shower room on the train just as she was that morning. She is filled with the same dark dread as she hears growling and snarling just outside the shower curtain. She rips the curtain open and immediately notices the mirror on the wall above the small sink. A large white towel wraps around her. She looks down and sees her own blood dripping on the white towel. She looks back up to the foggy mirror, and reaches a hand up to wipe it so she can see her reflection. She gasps when she sees that her hand is necrotic. The flesh is black-blue, the nails blackened and rotting off the nail beds. Feeling an urgency to look into the mirror, she uses her abhorrent hand to wipe the mirror.
Her reflection, at first, is normal. But it quickly transforms into the image of herself. Her entire face is necrotic like her hand, and solid black fills her eye sockets where there should be green and white. Her reflection grins maniacally, revealing bloody black gums and tongue, and a mouth full of sharp canine teeth. The heinous version of her in the mirror releases a blood curdling scream, and brings a jagged rusty knife to its own throat. In a swift motion, it slices its own throat, its screams turning to horrific gurgling as its throat fills with blood. Rachel watches black blood gush from her reflection’s throat, then gazes down in horror at the black blood pouring down the white towel on her own body. The lights in the shower room flicker off and the revolting creature in the mirror continues to gurgle and scream as if being murdered.
Rachel jolts awake, kicking the seat in front of her as she wriggles to sit up straight. Her throat aches and she grabs it, frightfully checking to see if she is bleeding. Her hand is its usual color, and there is no blood anywhere on her. The
terror from the dream still feels real and she fights back the tears that threaten to overtake her.
Composing herself after convincing herself with some difficulty that the dream wasn’t real, and that everything is normal, she looks around to see if anyone witnessed her panic attack. Margaret is gone, and she doesn’t recognize any other passengers sitting around or walking through the train car. No one is staring at her, and it doesn’t appear that she is drawing any attention to herself.
Relieved, she tries to relax in her seat, taking deep breaths in an effort to calm her racing heart. At that moment, she sees Don enter the car, politely stopping by each row of seats and tending to passengers. He stops at her row and looks at her, his face turning concerned.
“Is everything all right, Miss?”
Rachel’s thoughts are scattered, and she feels disoriented. A light wave of nausea hits her as does a pronounced aching in her forehead.
“Are you feeling all right? You are very pale,” Don says with concern.
Focusing her thoughts, she feels the need to retreat to her room.
“Actually I haven’t been feeling very good on the trip,” she admits to the young steward.
“I am sorry to hear that. Is there anything we can do for you?”
“I think I just need to go lay down or something,” she says, standing up. She shuffles out of the row of seats and Don steps back to let her out. It puzzles her when she notices that he seems to be smelling her as she walks by him, but she is still too distracted by the unnerving nightmare to pay attention to it.
“I hope you feel better,” Don says from behind her, watching her retreat to her room.
She manages to toss a weak smile at him as she walks away. She finds her way carefully back to her room and is glad to close the door behind her so that no one can see the meltdown she is about to have. She notices that her bed had been made and is grateful that the housekeeping crew has already been in her room.
On the bed is a postcard sized notecard. She picks it up and reads it out loud. “’You are invited to evening tea! Please join us in the first class dining car this evening at 8:00pm.’ Well, that sounds nice,” she comments to herself. “I can handle tea.”
Tossing the notecard on the nightstand, she sinks onto the bed and succumbs to her fatigue and frustration. She’s exhausted, hasn’t eaten in two days, and can’t stop having nightmares. She cries, more frustrated than anything, and spends the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting on her bed flipping through pictures on her cell phone. She doesn’t dare to attempt to sleep again. She would rather be tired than have more of those nightmares.