by JL Bryan
Calvin had installed some heavy-duty locks and lined the glass with security film that made break-ins much more difficult. Still, the vehicle would be unsupervised for an uncomfortable amount of time. I double-checked all the doors to make sure they were locked tight.
“Okay,” I said. “If anybody wants to rob the van, they’re going to have to work for it.”
“Maybe they’ll give up and move right on to my car,” Stacey muttered.
“That’s the spirit! Let’s get this over with.”
We walked down the street from the grocery store to the modern railroad crossing. The striped arms stood upright and the lights and warning bell were dark and silent.
I led the way northward along the tracks, stepping from tie to tie. There were two tracks running parallel, flanked by solid gravel on either side to smother any plant life that thought about invading. Soaring strips of pine forest buffered the railway against a parallel highway on one side and commercial developments and neighborhoods on the other.
We walked single-file, which seemed to be the natural approach to walking on train tracks. I was in the lead, followed by Michael, then Stacey, then Jacob, who’d gone quiet, maybe clearing his mind for psychic impressions.
The night felt full of life—cars whishing by beyond the screen of trees, owls calling in the woods, the buzzing swarms of night insects. A wide path of night sky was visible above us, thanks to the railroad keeping the trees clear for several feet on either side of the tracks. The stars grew more and more visible as we walked.
“Just think,” I said. “If we walked this mile-long track a hundred times, we might burn off one percent of the calories we ate at breakfast.”
“Hey, you picked the restaurant,” Stacey said. “To embarrass me, I should add. So now it’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“Telling us something embarrassing about you, Ellie,” Stacey said.
“Yeah, come on,” Michael said.
“You do it or I will,” Stacey added.
“That’s blackmail,” I said.
“I like how we’re always on the exact same wavelength, Ellie,” she said.
“Okay. Embarrassing.” I thought it over. “I was really into Britney Spears at one point. For a minute. As a preteen.”
“Sorry,” Stacey said. “Not good enough.”
“Seriously?”
“Dig deeper.”
“Uh...you know my cat, Bandit?”
“Fat guy, black eyepatches?” Stacey asked.
“Well, okay.” I sighed. “When nobody’s around, I’ve been known to call him ‘Mr. Ban-Ban.’”
Crickets sounded in the night. Then all three of them laughed at me, and I felt myself blush. Why had I done that?
“That’s great, Ellie,” Stacey said. “Say it again.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“My turn’s over,” I said.
“Michael?” Stacey asked.
“Where are these other tracks we’re looking for?” he asked.
“Up ahead,” she said. She clicked on her flashlight and pointed it at him. “Come on. Embarrassing fact about you, Mikey. Spill it.”
“Okay. I was in Peter Pan when I was twelve,” he said. “School play.”
“That’s only embarrassing if there’s video evidence we can all watch,” she said.
“The video evidence exists.”
“You really played Peter Pan?” I asked, turning around and walking backwards on the tracks, like I’d seen kids do in a movie one time. “How bad was it? Leafy skirt? Green pantyhose?”
“Oh, I didn’t play Peter Pan. I was Captain Hook.”
“That’s like the best part!” I said. “That’s not embarrassing.”
“The way I did it, it definitely was. The hook was too big. It kept getting caught on everything. My hat. My moustache. My pants. Which is why I ended up mooning the whole audience on opening night.”
“I challenge the believability of that story,” I said. “I need to see evidence.”
“Jacob?” Stacey asked.
“Huh?” He asked, with the voice of a man who’d just arrived on the scene and had no idea what was going on.
“Your embarrassing story? Preferably from your awkward formative years?”
“Oh.” His voice was detached, as if his mind were ten thousand miles away. “Um. One time I forgot to close the gate to the back yard. My dog escaped and a car ran him over.”
“That...is really sad,” Stacey said. “Not embarrassing.”
“And then I cried at school the next day, and Kelly Brannon and his friends beat me up for it.” Jacob blinked. “Wait, what are we talking about?”
“Your miserable childhood, apparently,” Stacey said, slowing down to take his hand.
“Sorry. I was listening for the dead. The gate is right up here.” Jacob stepped off the tracks and veered across the gravel to the woods.
I pointed ahead of him with my flashlight. He was right. An old wooden gate stood at the edge of the woods, barely visible under its mat of vines and weeds. It looked like a wooden fence might have flanked it at some point, decades ago, but trees, shrubs, and termites had eaten through it. The remaining slats and chunks of fence had all but faded away into the green growth.
Plastic signs had been stapled to the gate. NO TRESPASSING. HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS.
“That could be our stop,” I said.
I approached the crumbling old gate and looked over it, into the darkness beyond.
Chapter Fourteen
Past the overgrown gate lay rotting railroad ties and rusty iron track. Railroad workers had clearly disconnected the archaic nineteenth-century line from the modern steel one many years ago, pulling up rails and ties until the old line was truncated back into the woods.
In 1902, the band of robbers had waited here, ready to stop the train as it rolled north along the exact path we’d just walked.
The pines gradually gave way to centuries-old live oaks, their enormous limbs grown together over the tracks during the past hundred and fifty years to knit a solid ceiling overhead, thatched with leaves and Spanish moss. The old railroad tracks appeared to lead away into a dark tunnel, which we knew extended all the way to the woods near our clients’ house, and possibly all the way to the plantation ruins by the river.
“Okay,” I said. My tone was hushed now, as if in deference to the spirits whose territory we were preparing to invade. “Stacey, all set?”
“Yep.” Stacey had extracted the small night vision camera from her bag and held it in her hands. She clicked on the high-sensitivity microphone at her belt.
“Let’s get moving.” I stepped through the undergrowth, thorns scratching at my jeans. It’s always the nasty plants that move into untamed spaces, the sharp brambles and poison ivy. I’d brought some sharp little shears in case we hit badly overgrown patches, but the tunnel effect of the trees seemed to discourage thick undergrowth. Tall, coarse weeds grew between the rails, but it looked walkable as far as my flashlight could reveal.
We entered the tunnel in close pairs, Michael and me first, Stacey and Jacob right behind us. Out on the live tracks, we’d spread out as individuals, joking and laughing, but we pulled together into a tight, quiet group as we entered the confined space, a tiny tribe sneaking into the lair of the monsters.
The air was colder inside, as confirmed by my Mel Meter, which also picked up some electromagnetic activity that increased as we followed the track. The canopy overhead blocked out any hint of stars or the moon, so we could only see the areas illuminated by our flashlights. Everything else lay in darkness.
“Wait,” Jacob said. I stopped and turned to see him, eyes closed, one hand extended out above one of the rusty rails, his palm open toward it. “Something here.”
I nodded. I’d been wondering if Jacob would pick up on the train robbery at all. We’d been walking away from the place where it had happened.
“Take your time,” I said.
>
He winced, his eyes still closed. “I’m seeing guns and fire. People died here.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The people on the train. I don’t know how many. I can see an older man...” Jacob backtracked a few paces and pointed in the direction from which we’d come. “He’s kneeling on the ground. His hands are tied...he’s afraid. His heart’s pounding away. He’s confused...then he’s gone. Blasted right through the back of the head.” Jacob paused for what felt like hours but was probably thirty seconds. “I think he worked on the train. Not driving it, but something. Conductor, maybe.”
“Who else do you see?”
“There’s a lot of them.”
“What’s a lot?”
“Eight, ten, twelve? They’re not all here. Some of them are hiding.” Jacob opened his eyes and looked into the woods. “Some of them want to stay in the shadows, they don’t want me to see them. But the ones who are talking to me...they’re trapped in this tense situation. They want the train to start moving again, to get them away from here. But...these others, these shadows, they’re here to take something from them.”
Michael glanced from Jacob to me with a quizzical look on his face, as if wondering whether this made any sense to me.
“What does he want to take?” I asked.
“I get the sense of an organized attack, a raid,” Jacob said. “Blood was shed. These two groups have been in conflict ever since. The shadowy ones are really slipping away now, hiding from me. They can travel fast down the tracks. They can all do that.”
“Do they have any contact with the living?”
Jacob closed his eyes. “Some of them. Some of them, but they’re scared of the shadowy ones. They sneak out among the living to feed, but they’re always scurrying, whispering. Lately there have been a lot more living within range, so things are keying up around here. Because they can only travel so far from the tracks.”
“Do the other ones ever bother the living?” I asked. “The shadowy ones?”
“They probably feed on the living. They must. They have power. The others do it, too, but not as often, I think.” He looked down the tracks, deeper into the woods ahead. “They’re afraid to leave the tracks.”
“Why are they afraid?”
“They’re afraid of that shadowy gang. And...they’re afraid they’ll miss the train.” He shook his head. “They’re stuck in their memories. The gang of dark ones...” Jacob’s eyes widened. “I see them setting these people on fire. Now they’re all burned. That’s how they died. There are definitely two groups haunting this track. I think one group killed the other. But...everybody died.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really make sense.”
“Stacey, are you recording?” I asked.
“Never stopped,” Stacey replied, gazing at Jacob with the awestruck fangirl look she got whenever he started channeling information from the spirit world. The portable night vision camera was in her hands, her face glowing an eerie green in the light of its display screen.
“I need you to tell me about individuals, Jacob,” I said. “Every individual you see.”
He sighed. “You’ve got the conductor guy. He’s tied up with a bullet hole through his head. The dark guys, I can’t say much about them yet. The ones who are here and not hiding from us...I’ll call them ‘the passengers.’ Okay. There’s a sort of elderly couple, well-to-do, he’s got the top hat and coat thing going, she has a hat that looks like somebody used a whole flock of birds to decorate it. Big puffy sleeves. That whole era...she’s normally stern, but right now she’s afraid. He’s always timid, and right now he’s really afraid.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“The moment they’re caught in. They flicker. Sometimes they’re on fire, screaming. Other times they’re just waiting for the train.”
“Who else?”
“Young guy, early twenties. Silk tie, tall black hat, smug. Cigarette holder. He’s like the yuppie of a hundred years ago. Banker or business guy. Also prone to catching on fire or looking like a horrible charred corpse.” Jacob winced, turning away from something I couldn’t see. “They can all be pretty scary if they want. They just have to show their death faces.
“Two sisters, traveling together. Not as wealthy as the others. I’d say they’re in their thirties. Southern gals, originally from the country. One of them’s unmarried, by choice. They’re going home...they’re trying to go home, but they’ll never get there. Burned to death.
“Finally...” He took a quick, sharp breath. “She’s cold. And stronger than the others. She’s been feeding on something, or somebody.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Little girl, lost,” he said. “Seven or eight years old. She’s all alone and...her sadness is so strong it’s like a weapon. It can almost freeze the air around you. This one’s dangerous.”
“More about her,” I said.
“She’s full of loss, like an emotional black hole. I think her parents are dead. She’s alone and doesn’t really know where she’s going. She has to go live with strangers now.”
“What does she want?”
“She wants what they all want,” he said. “To escape. But something’s not letting them.”
“The other guys in the woods?”
“Not exactly. Something to do with the train.” He shook his head. “It’s like they keep expecting the train to show up anytime.”
“Maybe it will,” I said.
“They’re slipping away now,” he said. “They’re curious but they don’t trust us.”
“It’s mutual so far. Let’s keep walking.”
We continued on. The leafy tunnel lay silent around us—no hooting owls or chorus of insects here, as if we’d entered some kind of dead zone.
I heard a crunch of dry leaves and needles, like a footstep, off to one side of the tracks. I swung my flashlight toward it, but found only shadows and brambles.
The heavy, cold air and the complete silence soon grew oppressive. I could hear every step of my boots on the old ties, my breath flowing in and out of my body, my heart thumping. The footsteps of my companions sounded softly as we walked along the weed-choked rails. My meter indicated a steady growth in electromagnetic activity as we went.
My skin had that unpleasant crawling, prickling feeling like I was being watched from the darkness. I continued to hear footsteps and snapping twigs. One time, I caught a shadow in my flashlight, shaped like a human torso, that took a little too long to fade. Shadows ought to vanish the instant you blast them with light.
Then the temperature dropped suddenly, and we were all breathing out plumes of frost. We looked at each other—everybody was aware something had changed.
“Up ahead,” Jacob whispered.
A bank of heavy fog obscured the tunnel of limbs and moss, too thick for my light to penetrate.
“Do you sense something?” I whispered back to him.
“I sense a lot,” he said. “There’s that feeling of anticipation, like just before a storm. The spirits are silent now, waiting. I’m not sure what’s happening beyond that.”
“Great.” I took a breath. “Let’s keep going, then.”
I moved into the fog. The living walls and ceiling of the tunnel became shadows, barely visible through the thick, frigid air.
The woods broke at a wide creek with a cloudlike fog above its surface, obscuring any view of the other side. A crumbling wooden trestle bridge spanned the water. The rails looked like pure rust, and the ties I could see looked rotten. The bridge faded away into the fog. For all I could tell, some of the ties ahead might be missing, or an unseen portion of the bridge might have collapsed into the creek below.
“A creek like this shouldn’t create so much fog,” I said. “It must be rolling in from the river.”
“Or the Other Side,” Stacey said, dragging the last two words out to try and make them extra spooky.
“So,” Michael said. “Who wants to go first?”
“Can we go down and cros
s the stream?” Jacob asked.
“Never cross the streams,” Michael intoned.
“Haven’t you ever played Oregon Trail?” Stacey asked. “Fording a stream is a good way to lose your ox and develop dysentery.”
I pointed my flashlight at the rickety old bridge, then at the water below. Walking to one side along the steep, weedy bank, I could see the deteriorated, termite-eaten condition of the remaining wooden supports.
“It’s a miracle the bridge has stood this long,” I said. “We’re not walking on that. We’re fording the stream.”
“Fine,” Stacey said. “But if I die of cholera, you’re going to pay.”
I walked up and down the bank on either side of the bridge, looking for a good crossing, doing my best to slice the fog with my flashlight. What I wanted: a nice clear path down to the water, maybe with tree roots conveniently spaced like stairs, followed by handy stepping-stone rocks across the creek. What I got: poison ivy, brambles, and glimpses of muddy water through the fog.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “This isn’t going to be great.”
I proceeded cautiously, sitting down before I slid myself along the weed-choked slope. My boots landed in the water with a double splash.
“Ankle deep here,” I told them. “I’m going to start across. If I suddenly drop out of sight, then I found a deeper spot.”
I started across. The creek sank towards the middle, leaving me calf-deep in water. It was cool but not cold. Here, over the running water, the air was warm again instead of freezing.
“Glad I wore my good sneakers,” Michael said, dropping into the creek behind me. I couldn’t even see him.
“It’s the price we pay for this glamorous work,” I replied. The portion of the trestle I could see towered over me like a heap of old bones, casting dark shadows in the scarce starlight. It creaked and groaned in the wind, as if preparing to collapse on top of me. I reminded myself that the bridge had remained standing—more or less—for well over a century of neglect. It probably wouldn’t topple over and crush me now. Probably.
Walking blindly through the fog, I made it to the far bank and began to climb almost straight up, through slick mud and thick weeds. My imagination helped me by placing snakes and spiders all through the undergrowth, just waiting to bite my fingers as I ascended.