The Subway Ghosts

My first contribution to Macabre Monday

Photo by Frenjamin Benklin on Unsplash

Joel Waterson couldn’t decide what felt worse, his throbbing sinus and sore throat, or the numbing self-pity that rendered him useless. Both saw him sitting motionless at his workstation, staring at a screen of data that couldn’t have been less important to him right now. Joel didn’t care, he just wanted to die, or at least that’s what he felt like.  Given a realistic choice, probably curling into a ball and going to sleep would have been top of the list.

It was Joel’s go-to solution for a lot of things — although it usually followed getting very drunk as well. The self-pity wasn’t just about feeling sick. He hated this job yet didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. He didn’t have the guts to do anything about anything. That’s why at thirty-five years old he was divorced, living alone in a cramped, soulless apartment, and at a loss as to how he could break out of this cycle without making an effort.

To appear busy, he surfed to a website that announced the latest version of a popular online game. It was a first-person shooter with lots of post-apocalyptic and horror themes, and with graphics that would make your stomach churn. Death, destruction, violence — and zombies, of course.

‘You’re not impressing anyone, you know,’ came an acerbic voice from behind, causing Joel to slap at his keyboard to shut the window down. He turned to see Julia Grey, a second-level senior assistant to the department manager — however the fuck that was supposed to work — who tormented anyone she could find worthy of her contempt. Joel was often an easy target. She added, ‘The whole soldiering on thing is selfish and stupid. You’ll just infect the rest of us.’ She gave him a droll look over the top of her spectacles. ‘We’ll survive without you.’

‘I’ll take tomorrow off, if I don’t feel better,’ said Joel wetly through a clog of phlegm.

‘Make sure you do.’ She strutted away.

Relieved, Joel muttered, ‘Make sure to take that stick out of your arse before you go to bed. You’ll hurt yourself.’

Taking sick leave wasn’t so simple. Competition was fierce to get a current project over the line with bonuses involved. Joel needed that extra money. He had plans to improve his online gaming with some pretty cool VR headset gear.

Prompted by the thought, he fumbled some cold and flu tablets from his pocket and choked down another two. It wasn’t anywhere near the threshold of four hours between doses — hell, who believed the instructions? He had to feel better, it’s all that mattered.

The hours dragged until it was time to go home. Joel logged off, gathered his things into a tattered backpack and headed out the building towards the subway station. Outside, it was a cold and grey evening, almost dark with the time of year, the wind slightly tainted with a drizzling rain. Commuters bustled around him, intent on getting home. Joel realised he was damned thirsty, no doubt because of the tablets. They said you were supposed to keep your fluids up. Shit, it wasn’t something you actually did, right?

His attention was drawn to a “Bar and Pokies” sign, and a dark doorway leading to a level below the footpath, and Joel was strongly tempted by the thought of a cold pint of ale. He’d been to the place before and at this time of day, his subway train ran every twenty minutes or so. It was a no-brainer for a quick diversion.

‘What the hell, I’m dying here,’ he grumbled aloud, and he scuttled across the road, dodging traffic rather than find a pedestrian crossing, and descended the familiar stairs.

The bar was from a bygone era, low-ceilinged and narrow, the lighting dim, the carpet sticky underfoot, and decor that had long passed a used-by date. The smell of stale beer overpowered cheap disinfectant. None of this mattered to the establishment’s usual clientele.

Joel didn’t recognise the young barman — someone new. He didn’t care.

‘A pint of house lager,’ he croaked, levering himself onto a high barstool and dropping the backpack at his feet.

‘Sure,’ the barman said, scooping up a glass. ‘You sound the picture of health.’

‘I feel like shit—’ Joel panicked a little. ‘It’s just a head cold, not bloody Covid, don’t worry. I took a test,’ he lied.

‘Who tests themselves anymore anyway?’ the barman said wryly. He placed the drink in front of Joel then produced an EFTPOS machine. Joel flapped a card at it. ‘The best thing, they say, is a hot rum and lemon. My mother swears by it.’

‘Good ol’ mum,’ Joel murmured, then perked up. A tot of liquor appealed to him. ‘Can you make me one?’

The barman looked uncertain, as if he'd gone too far in what he considered customer service. ‘I’ve got rum, and some lemon slices ... I suppose I could zap it in the microwave...’

‘Great, make it a double.’

‘Ah, that’s not ...’ The barman reluctantly nodded at the pint. ‘It’s not really responsible service. I could lose my job.’

‘Bit late for that,’ Joel said. ‘I’ll make the tip worth your while.’

‘Alright, just the once. And for Christ’s sake keep it out of sight.’

When Joel left the bar, the warm rum was almost burning his stomach while the pint of ale sloshed around too. A slight spinning sensation made the stairs a small challenge. The cold night air was a short-lived, rude awakening and he admitted, without much conviction, that the drinks hadn’t been his best idea.

He took the stairs down into the subway carefully too, one hand on the rail, because there were moments when the worn, stone steps didn’t quite stay in focus. The platform was busy, although not crowded. You could still call it “peak hour” without the crush of the worst periods.

Joel huddled miserably against a wall, close to the platform edge in the hope he’d score a seat on the train. His connection was almost ten minutes away — he could have lingered over that pint more, or maybe got in a second — and an announcement echoed everywhere that an express service would be passing through the platform, and everybody should step back. Few people took notice, engrossed in their phone screens, while some just glanced at the yellow line to be sure. Joel didn’t move, unwilling to give up any advantage for a coveted seat.

A distant rumble grew quickly in volume, and the air became tainted with the peculiar, subway smell of powerful electricity and grinding steel. A breeze began to push from the eastern end of the platform as the lights of the approaching train appeared. Suddenly it was upon them, bursting from the tunnel and thundering towards the indifferent commuters who scarcely raised their heads. It seemed only Joel watched it.

Then an incredible and shocking thing happened. A man in a long overcoat and gripping a briefcase was standing at the front of the crowd. His head was bent although he didn’t hold a phone. He seemed to be entranced by the concrete at his feet. Someone slipped quickly between the people behind him, placed both hands on the man’s back, and shoved him violently forwards. Propelled helplessly and arms flailing, the briefcase flying from his grasp, the man barely had time to windmill his limbs for balance before he crashed onto the tracks and lay sprawled and squirming in terror.

Joel’s strangled cry of horror was lost in the roar of the train. He expected to witness a dreadful scatter of severed limbs and gouts of spraying blood and gore. Instead, the man’s body was apparently caught in the undercarriage of the engine and was carried mercifully out of sight as the train swept loudly past. It was all over in a matter of seconds.

There was no squeal of emergency brakes. No ringing alarms. The express service continued on uncaring even though the driver must have seen what occurred right in front of his windshield.

Gasping in shock, heaving in breaths, Joel stared around at the mass of commuters. Nobody had moved, no one was reacting at all. He couldn’t believe it. Even in a society where everyone was so disconnected because they were otherwise connected — to a virtual world — surely this was impossible?

A young woman nearby had noticed Joel’s distress and became uncomfortable when he caught her eye. “My God, didn’t you see that?” he croaked.

“I’m sorry?” she asked reluctantly.

“Didn’t you just see what happened?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Excuse me, I see some friends...” She walked away, clearly with no intention other than to get free of Joel's imploring stare.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Joel whispered, his heart smashing at his ribcage, and he looked wildly around for someone — anyone — to betray they’d also seen the man’s gruesome fate. There was no one. It was still just another ordinary day of commuting life.

Weak-kneed and still breathless, Joel staggered along the platform to where the man had fallen — and this did elicit some disapproving frowns from those who noticed — and he stood unsteadily at the spot, staring down at the rails for some kind of trace of what took place. Joel had been spared a gruesome spectacle. Still, there must have been some blood and, God forbid, physical evidence left behind.

There was nothing. Nothing fresh. Dried pools of oil and grease, dark stains that might have been anything. None that were new or dripping.

The briefcase. That must be somewhere close.

He searched the gloom of the tracks as far as he could see, lurching sideways a few steps at a time. There was no sign of the briefcase. A resigned voice came out of the crowd, as if someone had unwillingly taken on the responsibility.

“Look out, mate. The train’s coming. Watch yourself.”

Joel turned to see another pair of headlights emerging from the tunnel, this time slowing to stop at the platform. Abruptly, while Joel had lost all understanding of what was going on or what to do, the last thing he wanted was to board the train. He set off at an awkward run for the stairs and the exit, tripping on the bottom step and only just avoiding a fall before scrambling up them, his backpack bouncing crazily between his shoulders. At the top, he fled through the open Disabled Access gateway to the street, ignoring the outraged cry of a security guard, and ran along the footpath until he finally collapsed, exhausted and disorientated, onto a public bench. It had a shelter, gouged and splattered with graffiti, and Joel shrank into its shadow.

In the open air and surrounded by the normality of the city street, Joel had the presence of mind to try and pull himself together. And despite the myriad of colourful lights from the shop windows and the passing traffic, the night-time darkness allowed him some privacy.

He was hit by an explanation that just as effectively took Joel’s breath away and made him groan aloud, although a moment later the rationale immediately faltered slightly. He pushed that doubt away.

It was an hallucination. Jesus, the fucking drugs you’ve been chewing down too quickly, and the bloody alcohol you drank in five minutes — you shouldn’t do that shit. There’s a reason they put warnings on the pill packets. You’ve had some kind of bad reaction influenced by looking at that damned website.

As far as unfortunate reactions were concerned, particularly from the somewhat mundane anti-cold and flu medication with a shot of rum ... well, it was a stretch. That didn’t stop Joel seizing the concept wholeheartedly and he let out a quivering breath.

“Christ, you bloody idiot. How can you be so stupid?”

Nobody answered him or even looked his way. The people passing by were well used to someone sitting on that bench, talking to themselves. Joel glanced uneasily back the way he’d come and quickly decided that despite his revelation, he wasn’t ready yet to face the subway. There was a bus route to his suburb, except he couldn’t remember where he could find a stop. A taxi fare wasn’t something he’d pay every day.

Tonight, Joel didn’t care about the expense.

***

The next morning, Joel awoke still feeling a bad headache, a runny nose and aching limbs. What hadn’t helped were the two bottles of red wine he’d drunk after arriving home, ostensibly to silence his chattering mind about the events at the subway platform, and also to hopefully blank out the returning, disturbing visions of what he saw — imagined or otherwise — and the man’s appalling death. There was a stunned moment when Joel realised that his hallucination wasn’t just a gruesome accident, it was a murder. The victim had been pushed off the platform deliberately. Oddly, that fact had been almost forgotten because of the shocking sight of the train devouring the man’s struggling figure. 

Joel emailed his office to explain, with a lack of subtlety, that on Julia Grey’s advice he would take a sick day and return as soon as possible. That bitch could take the blame. He added a note to the effect that he’d had a breakthrough on the new project that he couldn’t wait to share. It wasn’t true, and Joel had no idea what he might do to justify it later ... Hey, sorry everyone. I thought it was a moment of genius, then it turned out a dead end ... The point was to keep him in the game while he was away ill.

Next, he spent some time on his computer researching the side-effects and known adverse reactions between his medications and alcohol. There were a lot of sites warning against drinking without citing any real problems aside from “in rare instances” which Joel figured didn’t apply to him, and also webpages that endorsed alternative medicines and herbal teas — that definitely didn’t apply to Joel. He was a fan of Big Pharma all the way. Proper drugs, none of this white witchcraft shit. A couple of sites mentioned extreme reactions with hard-core anti-psychotic drugs.

“Not me, not anymore,” Joel told the screen. That was a long time ago.

Encouraged, he took some more pills and went back to bed. It was a priority that he get back to work. That bonus would be stolen by someone else if he gave them half a chance.

Joel slept nearly the entire day, only stirring regularly to slake a fierce thirst with anything he found in the refrigerator and to dose up on the medication. There was milk, half a bottle of stale mineral water, and three cans of beer which he chugged down despite the burning gas in his oesophagus. Joel didn’t drink tap water, hating the taste of fluoride and ancient plumbing, and whatever the hell else the city added to the water.

Surprisingly, when he woke up late in the afternoon, Joel felt pretty good. Perhaps his strategy of sleep and medication worked? Returning to the office the next day was certainly on the cards. However, right now he was starving, and there was nothing in the apartment to eat.

Or drink, for that matter.

The normal plan would be to visit any of several nearby restaurants and takeaway joints. He could phone for a delivery except it never arrived hot enough, and the order was often slightly wrong — deliberately, Joel believed. I was always better to go in person, and besides, it took him out of the apartment. Plus, he could swing by the liquor store.

Instead, Joel sat heavily down on a worn sofa and admitted he had a problem — a new problem. What was he supposed to do? Avoid that subway station for the rest of his life, or at least at that time of evening, forever more? That was absurd, and at the same time Joel knew he was quite capable of such pathetic behaviour. Every time he left the office, he would be held to ransom by the memory of that man being crushed under the train. His belief that it had been some sort of drug-induced hallucination still held water, although it had sprung a few more leaks. The vision had been so clear. So detailed. Regardless, he didn’t need a better explanation. Joel only wanted to be assured it would never happen again, and there was only one way to do that.

He sighed and tapped his foot, mustering courage. Okay, just do it. He would go into the city, have a nice meal somewhere, and check out some of the inner-city liquor shops. They always had good discounts. If he emptied all his going to work crap out of his backpack, Joel could carry a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine, maybe even a cheap whiskey. Like a reward for his bravery, that stiffened his resolve.

Last, he would catch the train home from the same station, at the same time, and prove to himself the macabre, spectral death of that man was a strange aberration that would never occur again. Why or how it had happened in the first place wasn’t Joel’s concern anymore.

***

The waiter was giving Joel bad attitude and angry looks. Not because Joel had decided to order a bottle of wine for himself. It was about occupying a table for four all by himself. The waiter had already turned some customers away from the crowded restaurant’s entrance. Joel persevered through the thick pasta and sipped his wine at a rate that ensured he’d finish the bottle. The backpack between his feet clinked if he nudged it. He’d scored a no-name bourbon for under fifty bucks and a half-dozen beers, then the sales guy pointed out that he’d qualified for a bargain-bin bottle of clear-skin wine at half price. The backpack straps strained at the weight. Joel figured it was worth it.

He kept close attention to the time and finally left, pointedly not dropping anything into the tip jar, and he headed for the train station. It felt a little weird being surrounded by the usual commuters with their weary looks and plodding footsteps, when he’d slept all day and just enjoyed a good meal and wine. Joel could get used to this lifestyle if he was ever able to get ahead.

His stomach churned anxiously as he went down the stairs into the station, pushed through the turnstiles, and made his way to exactly the same spot as before. He was even close to the same time, give or take a minute. He scanned the people on the platform and didn’t see anyone familiar. Sometimes when you took the same trains every day you began to recognise fellow travellers, however this wasn’t his usual service. A girl who might have been the one he’d scared away was concentrating so fiercely on her phone, purposely not looking his way, that Joel decided it was her.

The announcement echoed that the express service would be passing the platform and that passengers should keep clear. The air around the platform began to shift as the rumbling noise increased. Joel realised his folded arms were so tightly gripped that his muscles hurt, and he was holding his breath, watching the press of people.

The man in the long overcoat was suddenly there. He didn’t just pop into existence or appear out of nowhere — as soon as Joel spotted him, it was as if the man had always been there. Joel couldn’t describe it any other way. He moaned softly in fear, knowing what would happen next. Moments later, the same dreadful scene played out and the man, his briefcase tumbling into the darkness, was thrust into the train’s path.

Joel managed to close his eyes an instant before the train engulfed the struggling, terrified figure. He kept them squeezed shut while he was buffeted by the express passing by, the noise deafening, then he slowly opened them.

Like before, no one else had moved. Nobody screamed or reacted. No one cared.

Joel felt sick and sat on a nearby seat. He took deep breaths and tried to calm his racing heart and jangling nerves. Slowly, his stomach settled. The good thing was that Joel wasn’t frightened into fleeing like the previous night. He even managed to wait for the next connection and boarded it, finding a seat, and he sat staring blindly out the dark window until he reached his own station.

***

With weak sunlight pushing past the thin curtains, he emailed in as still sick and spent most of the morning researching accidents and crimes committed on the Metro. Nothing he found remotely matched what Joel was witnessing. He was still ill too. The head-cold persisted while he crunched more tablets, washing them down with a few beers left over.

A reluctant, midday trip into the street for something to eat surprisingly brought Joel back to life a little, and after another nap and fortified by the last of the bourbon, he shouldered the empty backpack and set off for the city.

As much as the sight would sicken and horrify him, Joel was determined to watch this time. Not the man falling helplessly to tracks — everything before that. He wanted to see it all and maybe get a clue what the hell was going on, and why Joel for some God-alone-knew reason was able to witness the shocking killing when nobody else could.

Joel’s routine was similar, having a meal (at a different restaurant) after stocking up on supplies from the liquor store, then making his way into the subway. Joel’s resolve began to waver slightly, and he choked down his fear, forcing himself to take his place next to the wall while he tried to closely observe the crowd without arousing any offense. It struck Joel that he should identify precisely where the overcoated man appeared, and when that happened — as before, with the odd sensation that he’d always been there — Joel took an instant to note a scuff mark on the yellow line along the platform. As for everything else, the awful replay of a violent murder, it was impossibly vague. There were no details to see, nothing distinguishing in either the victim or the fleeting figure who pushed him to his death. It was like Joel was watching through a dirty window that obscured any clarity.

Then he turned his head away as the man’s feet left the ground and his anguished face revealed that he knew exactly what would happen next. The train’s slicing, steel wheels would chop him into bloody pieces.

As the wind slapped at Joel and the passing express assaulted his senses, Joel felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Dragging himself back to something like normal, he pulled the phone out. It was message from his ex-wife reminding him the car payment was due. The car she owned and drove, and that Joel was expected to pay for.

“Fuck off,” he snarled at the screen, although he wouldn’t dare message that back. Then Joel did a double-take and blinked at the screen again. “Oh, you fucking idiot,’ he whispered. “Why didn’t you think of that before?”

***

It was odd and yet not surprising that while Joel had worried someone among the commuters on the platform would be offended that he was closely watching them, no one gave a damn that he took out his phone and started videoing. Holding a phone aloft and taking pictures was completely acceptable. A few even threw an amused look his way, wondering why Joel bothered with videoing something that took place on a dozen train platforms every minute of the day. A train passing through? What was the big deal?

Joel’s hands were shaking and the muscles in his arms quivered as he grimly focused the lens on where he knew the man would appear. In the distance, the express roared out of the tunnel, lights flashing, and thundered towards him. Joel kept his nerve then gasped in an unexpected instant of triumph when the doomed man was suddenly in the centre of his screen before vanishing to the left to suffer his fate, his killer emerging to deliver the murderous shove into his back. The lens even caught the briefcase spinning away.

“I got it … I got it,” Joel breathed, ignoring the commotion of the passing express. “I fucking got it.”

Almost laughing at his success, Joel sat on the nearby seat and eagerly replayed the video. It wasn’t that he wanted to watch it — he needed to confirm his cleverness. That he’d finally had a win.

There was nothing to see.

“What?” Joel spluttered at the phone. “What? Where the hell are they?”

It was an expensive phone with a lot of cool functions. The footage was impressively clear, given the conditions. It even removed Joel’s slight shaking. The video faithfully recorded the platform, the press of commuters, and the approaching express. There was no sign of the victim or the man who pushed him. Nothing at all.

Joel shocked himself by almost bursting into tears, and he raised his hand to hurl the phone away. Common sense cut in at the last second and he fumbled it back into his pocket. Wiping at his face with his sleeve, feeling empty and cheated, he waited for the next train.

***

Joel stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom and stared at the pale, gaunt face looking back at him, the dark rings under his eyes. His fingers toyed with a tumbler of whiskey beside the sink.

“That’s it, give it up,” he told himself. “Just don’t go there again, forget the whole thing. Take a bus, leave earlier, leave later — hell, whatever it takes, you can leave all this bullshit behind. It’s never going to follow you home, right?”

Or would it?

“No,” he slapped the thought away. “It’s just some fucked-up Twilight Zone shit happening in a subway station, and you don’t have to be there to see it. God knows why I can, it’s not my fault, and I don’t want to know anyway. I can walk away.”

A small voice wryly pointed out that Joel was even lying to himself now. That’d he’d tacitly accepted he was seeing an other-world event, maybe a supernatural phenomenon that could never be explained, was no comfort. No excuse he might use. Why him? What did he do to deserve this? That’s what mattered. Could he bear to never know that?

The easy way out was so tempting, so tempting. He didn’t need this, and he’d already swallowed his fear enough that he’d choked on it, standing on that platform and nearly vomiting with terror and disgust at seeing a man dismembered by a train for fuck’s sake — and for once he had tried to do something … who cared that he’d failed? No one. He certainly didn’t.

It was over, and there was nothing else Joel could do. He’d got it all wrong as usual, and he didn’t have the courage to try anything else. To try what might work.

I’m not a coward.

It was too much to ask.

“You could get closer,” he told the mirror, and he shuddered at that. Joel didn’t want to get closer, and that’s when thoughts of cowardice and failure threatened to torment him.

“You could get closer, maybe see something — a name on the briefcase, or any sort of clue.”

Why should he put himself through that kind of stress? What was the damned point? It could ruin his life. Well, what was left of his miserable existence. He’d already spent too much time away from the office and likely lost the chance at that bonus. This shit had cost him even now.

Then an epiphany struck Joel, so unexpected and left-field that he let out a grunt of surprise.

There was another way to look at this.

“Wait, this thing might be your ticket out of this shithole.” He jabbed a finger at the mirror, amazed this hadn’t occurred to him before. “This is some years-old mystery, right? What do they call it? A cold case. I’m seeing a murder that happened who knows when? It was never solved — hell, maybe it wasn’t even reported? That’s why I can’t find anything on the internet. If I can figure out what went down, this could be a big deal.”

Suddenly, Joel’s head was swimming with possibilities that smothered his misgivings and fears. It didn’t matter that nobody else could see what he did. The important thing was it might let him solve a mystery, and when he explained how he did it, what occurred in front of his eyes only, that was worth … a lot.

“I could write a book, or get movie rights,” he said, wide-eyed and gulping at the whiskey. “No, too much … what about one of those Netflix documentaries? Those guys who chase ghosts and use those bullshit machines and special cameras? Okay, now we’re talking. It’ll be the real thing, not the crap they make up, because I’ll have solved the mystery, remember? It doesn’t matter a shit if they get nothing, they can’t deny I got all the answers. Jesus …” Joel’s hands shook as he discovered the tumbler was empty.

He hurried back to the bottle and poured a hefty slug. Joel saluted his computer monitor which was ticking over a lurid screensaver.

“This is what’s it’s been about all along. A chance to get ahead, break out of this shit existence, and I never saw it until now.”

He thought furiously, downed the whiskey and acknowledged he was drinking it at a stupid pace — even for him — and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator instead. Joel sat at the computer and regarded the whirling colours and shapes on the screensaver, mesmerised by the rush of ideas they prompted.

Yes, he had to get closer. See something that gave him a clue. A name badge maybe, or the brand of clothing that could perhaps date the killing. Anything at all would be a start. And if he saw nothing, he’d go back the next night — and the next. This was too important a chance to let go. Joel mused about getting a small loan to pay for his cost of living while he concentrated on this one thing — quitting his job, of course. That was the great thing about being heavily in debt. The banks wouldn’t hesitate to loan you more.

“I’ve got to get closer,” he whispered to the screensaver. The swirling colours seemed to approve.

***

For the first time, Joel wasn’t afraid. Now he quivered with anticipation as he lurked at his usual place next to the wall. He even gave the girl he’d scared an apologetic smile and was dismayed momentarily to see it alarmed her more. She shuffled further out of his reach.

Joel twisted around, facing the wall, and took a hasty swig from a hip flask that was in a jacket pocket. No backpack this evening, he wanted to be unencumbered should he need to move fast for some reason. Turning back, he studied the yellow line and picked out the scuff mark where he knew the overcoated man would appear. This was a few minutes earlier than normal and Joel wanted to be casual about placing himself exactly where it was necessary.

The plan was to be right next to the victim, actually staring at the very spot, ready to absorb every detail, the slightest clue, when the man manifested on the platform. A thought came to Joel, what if someone was standing in the way? It had never happened before. Perhaps people instinctively stayed clear? That feeling of someone walking over your grave — perhaps that occurred if you strayed too close? 

With exaggerated nonchalance that Joel wasn’t aware appeared ridiculous, he sauntered along the platform until the scuff mark was only inches away from his shoes. He didn’t need to focus on the spot just yet — hearing the approaching express would be his cue.

A minute later, the public address system squealed with its recorded announcement and the distant rumble began to grow. The air started its uneasy shifting with the approaching express.

Stay calm, get it right, Joel thought with gritted teeth. Concentrate on seeing something important. Anything will do. He allowed himself a moment to wonder at and admire his new-found determination whereas a day before he’d be stricken with fear.

The sounds swelled and the shifting air turned into a false breeze, and the express emerged from the tunnel to rattle and crank fast towards him. It came closer … and closer.

Joel experienced a wealth of emotions in an instant — anticipation and excitement, and the thrill of being perhaps on the edge of some spiritual enlightenment — only to have these swamped by bitter disappointment. Because now the express was too close, and Joel still stood alone. The overcoated man hadn’t materialised. Something was wrong. Joel had somehow jinxed whatever circumstances were needed to make the ghostly scenario occur. It wasn’t going to happen. Perhaps it was never going happen again because Joel had ruined everything as always?

That’s when he felt two hands thump into his back between his shoulder blades, and Joel was thrown forward with such force he couldn’t prevent it. Screeching in horror as he toppled over the edge of the platform, the murk of the track bed rushing up to meet him, Joel dimly heard someone scream. Then his face smashed into one of the steel rails.

He didn’t have time to feel that pain. The train wheels were already cutting through his body.

End

What do you think? I’ve really enjoyed how Substack has re-energised my writing and provided the inspiration to create shorter stories like this. This is the kind of horror I’ve always liked to write —traditional themes inspired by the old-school stories I read as a teenager. Tales that had titles like The Claw or The Locked Room (paraphrasing here) and were often set in the early part of the twentieth century. Not that I’ve written any books based in that period. I just like the vibe of that style. In other words, you won’t find a chainsaw in any of my novels. You can check them out for yourself at www.graemehague.com.au.