by David Bond
train used to pass by when the line was open. Others claim they heard a steam whistle when standing near the railway bridge that Harold had once stood over. A select few dared to insist they spotted Harold himself down by the railway bridge; albeit in spectral form.
At first the still grief-stricken Mary chose to ignore these rumours. She told herself Harold had quietly killed himself somewhere, or rather freed himself from a miserable existence. She thought of her husband now, and wondered how he would deal with the situation. She imagined Harold would dismiss the locals as engaging in idle gossip, as they lived in a small village, lived out small lives, and had little better to do. The same applied to Mary that had once applied to Harold. For a short while this mode of thought helped her.
As the rumours continued over the next few weeks Mary stayed in the house more and more and began to take on the same pale colour her husband had in his last days. She told herself that she was reluctant to leave the house because she was tired of the vicious rumours and mean-spirited gossip. What she didn't tell herself was the underlying reason for her self-imposed exile - she was scared that the rumours had a semblance of truth within them. She made sure not to walk anywhere near the station, or even cross the railway bridge, for fear that she too would hear the clickety-clack sounds on the tracks. Her worst fear at this point was stumbling upon a ghost of a husband.
The torment however grew wearing. Mary knew that if she didn't head down to the now abandoned branch line herself she would slowly turn insane. She needed to put to bed the vicious rumours once and for all. Only once she had investigated the line for herself could she rest in peace. It took her a while to come to this decision, which drew from her all of her courage. She was going to put to an end the questions in her head.
It was a calm and cold late autumn evening when Mary left the house in search of the unknown. The silent snowfall outside the front window did nothing to entice her to leave the roaring fire inside her house, but it was on this evening her journey began. She changed into thick clothes to protect her from the elements and stepped out of the house for the first time in weeks. As soon as she stepped outside the cold hit her like a slap to the face. It was both uncomfortable and energizing.
She took a few deep breaths before stepping across the lawn to the front gate, the only noise being her shoes crunching the frost covered grass. Through the snowfall she could see her breath and not much else. Along with the weather that warned her to return to the warmth of home, Mary was unnerved by the silence outside other than the sound of crunching grass. Nobody else would be out, she thought. They were all inside, comfortable and safe.
Mary decided to strike into the heart of the mystery, and headed to the railway station. The village was utterly deserted, and Mary trudged through the thick snow slowly but assuredly. She would not be deterred from her mission to dispel the awful rumours about Harold. She reached the long winding footpath down to the station, and had to walk extra carefully to avoid slipping on the blanket of ice that covered it. God was imploring Mary to return home to safety. She was an old, fragile woman and she knew if she fell at this moment it would surely be the end, but Mary trudged on in reckless abandon. She told herself she would rather die in search of a ghost than to crumble into nothing, trapped in an empty house, wondering about the truth until her last breath.
The scene that greeted Mary when she finally reached the railway station was startling. The view hit her with a certain force, akin to when she first stepped out of the house into the cold. All the buildings on the station platform were now boarded up, and tall grass grew around the tracks, poking out of the snow. There was no evidence of people on the platform, the snow was untouched. The wind battered snow covered station had only closed months previously, but had aged terribly.
Worse than the sight itself for Mary was the silence. The railway station used to be a hub for the village, seeming to offer more than just transport to another place. People were always buzzing around the station, each it seemed with a job to do or a task in mind. The hustle and bustle was long gone, and silence now accompanied the station's descent into complete abandonment.
After taking a walk around the station, Mary found no evidence to make the villagers' idle gossip seem anything other than just that. She felt better for having investigated herself, and was satisfied in knowing that the rumours were false. A small part of her felt that she would continue to wander about the details of her husband's disappearance until her last days, but after finding no evidence to bring any truth to the gossip Mary felt relatively at ease with the situation.
With a half satisfied sigh, Mary wheeled around intent on heading back up the icy path towards home. Just as she turned, she saw movement of some sort in her peripheral vision. With it came a loud metal clang. She spun back around, almost losing her balance on the frosty platform, and scanned the scene once again. Nothing it seemed had changed. The station was still and silent, slowly losing itself in the continuing snowfall. Mary was just about ready to dismiss what she saw as her tired mind playing tricks on her, until she noticed something in the near distance, towards the bridge.
The mechanical signal had changed. It had been on ‘STOP’ ever since the line had closed and now it was on ’GO’. The fresh pile of snow beneath the signal confirmed to Mary that it had been changed only moments previously. Mary was utterly bemused but mostly horrified. She had seen nobody enter the signal box. Whatever caused the signal to change Mary did not know, but it was suggesting a train was about to enter the station.
With a great amount of trepidation, Mary checked her watch. The time was four minutes past eight. She recoiled immediately, knowing that five past eight was the time Harold's last train used to arrive in the station. Mary told herself that surely it was not possible that Harold was about to come steaming into the station just like in the old days, and she dearly wanted to turn back home. She could not. She was terrified that she would head up the icy path only to hear the engine's whistle behind her back. If there was a chance now to see her husband again, to see if there was truth to the rumours, she was not going to miss it.
Right on time, the ghost train arrived at it final destination. Mary spotted the engine pass underneath the bridge and saw Harold in spectral form, leaning off the footplate with a red rose in his hand. Mary was terrified by the sight of Harold and his train in this guise, but coupled with this was a sense of intense joy on behalf of her husband. She saw how happy he was back in the cab. Wherever he was, he was in the right place. Seeing her husband dead but happy filled Mary with intense and indescribable euphoria. She lost all fear of death, all care for physical form, and made her decision within seconds.
Mary jumped off the platform with no hesitation, into the path of an oncoming ghost. The following day a villager spotted Mary's body from the bridge. A post-mortem was inconclusive; no injuries were found. A single red rose was found on the platform edge.
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Cheers, David.
About David Bond
Born in Stretford, Manchester, David is currently travelling around Australia doing odd jobs in return for accommodation. ‘Life and Death on the Tracks’ won second prize in the Darker Times fiction competition. The influence for the story is difficult to pinpoint, but having a dusty old model railway in the loft might have something to do with it. David also keeps a travel blog that can be found at '[email protected]', and any praise or criticism can be directed to '[email protected]'. Please also check out the link to my other book, ‘The Sim Diary’, which won an honorary mention in the Five Stop Story competition.
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