She stood on the platform waiting for the next train. Two of the three lamps on her side of the platform were out so she huddled under the stark yellow light of the one remaining bulb.
She held her coat tight around her to keep out the damp night air. The cold gnawed at her cheeks and eyelids, making her eyeballs feel dried out by the chill. She could feel her warm breath condensing against the scarf wrapped over her mouth, making her lips and nose uncomfortably wet.
Everything around her was wet, the air full of dampness that wasn’t quite rain so that she was saturated without feeling a drop land. Mizzle is what her mother would have called it. She let out a small huff of breath and switched her attention to the arrivals board. She’d been watching the arrival time of her train steadily creep upwards for the last twenty minutes and now the time had just been replaced by that dreaded word flashing in orange text, delayed.
She sighed, glancing around the platform, peering down the railway track as if staring harder would summon the train. The wet pavement gleamed faintly, reflecting the weak light of the single working lamp. Across the tracks, the other platform stretched out into the gloom, a mirror image of hers but entirely devoid of people. Yet, when her eyes wandered back, there was someone standing on the far platform. They hadn’t been there before, she was certain of it. A lone figure, tall and still, positioned just out of reach of the working lamps. Their outline shimmered faintly, as though viewed through water.
She frowned, squinting against the dim light and the mist that clung to her lashes. No train had arrived for them to disembark from, and she hadn’t heard footsteps crossing the footbridge. She would’ve noticed. They’d have had to have walked past her to get to the footbridge that led to the opposite platform. She let out another heavy breath feeling the uncomfortable dampness trapped between the scarf and her lips. They were standing in shadow and the air was hazy with moisture, she must have just failed to notice them before, wrapped up in her own journey.
She turned back to the arrivals board, watching it’s faintly glowing lettering flicker between delays and cancellations. A whole list of stations scrolling along which wouldn’t see a train any time soon. As she tried to stay focused on the board she could feel the faint flicker of the figure on the other platform in her peripheral vision. It’s outline ringed in a soft haze from the drizzle.
The arrivals board buzzed faintly behind her, flickering between delays and cancellations. The figure across the tracks didn’t move. She couldn’t even tell if they were facing her.
A train roared past, too fast and too loud, making her instinctively flinch. Her scarf slipped down slightly, and she pressed it back against her mouth, her breath quickening. When the train was gone, the platform was silent again, save for the dripping of water somewhere close.
But the figure was still there.
Closer now. Not by much, but enough to be certain they’d moved while the train passed. The shimmer around them seemed stronger now, making them appear less like a person and more like a memory of one. She realized she couldn’t see any details of their face or clothes. Just an outline, wavering and indistinct.
“Hello?” she called out before she could stop herself. Her voice cracked slightly, swallowed almost instantly by the damp air. The figure didn’t respond. She internally chastised herself, no one on train platforms actually spoke to each other unless you wanted to mark yourself out as some kind of weirdo. Of course they wouldn’t reply. If it were her she certainly wouldn’t.
She glanced up and down her platform, there was no one else save for her and the figure on the other side. Her pulse quickened, and she gripped her coat tighter. The arrivals board crackled again. This time, the text displayed nothing at all.
Her eyes kept darting to the figure across the tracks, her chest tightening with every glance. Something was wrong. It wasn’t just their blurry, shimmering outline, or the way they seemed to vibrate slightly, as though they were half-present in this world and half-somewhere else. It was the stillness. The unnatural stillness of them, like a statue carved from water, waiting for something she couldn’t comprehend.
A low hum vibrated through the air, and she turned to the arrivals board. The word delayed flickered, wavered, then vanished. For a moment, the board went blank. Then, almost reluctantly, a single word replaced it:
Arrived.
She felt it before she heard it, a deep, oppressive force bearing down on her chest. A train was pulling into the station. She couldn’t see the driver’s cabin, nor read the destination displayed just above, the glaring lights at the front of the train causing her to squint and cutting out all shape behind. The train slowed with a metallic groan, the screech of brakes setting her teeth on edge. The doors pinged open, sliding with that soft well-practiced swoosh sound that had become some familiar to her after years of travel.
She took a hesitant step forward, her boots squelching slightly on the wet platform. Peering inside, she saw the bright, flickering lights of the carriage. The seats were empty but then it was late. She felt the urge to be off the platform as quick as possible, escape the cold, the damp and the eerie figure. She hopped up onto the train into the warm dry air, her fingers looping around the metal handholds as she paused and perused the aisle to select a seat.
As her fingers touched the metal she felt a cold cloying dampness and from beneath her feet suddenly was affronted by a foul draft, damp and heavy with the smell of mildew and rot. It clung to her like smoke, soaking through her scarf. She held her scarf to her mouth and released the pole, stepping back slightly with unease. Her eyes were now caught by the walls of the train, streaked with something black, like damp veins creeping beneath the paint. The air in the train wasn’t just stale, it was alive. She felt it crawling over her skin, wriggling, twisting, like invisible worms burrowing into her coat.
Her throat tightened, her instincts screaming at her to get off this train now. She turned back toward the platform, her pulse pounding in her ears. Her foot lifted to step back onto solid ground. Then she saw it. The figure from the opposite platform. Standing in the doorway of the train, blocking her way with it’s cold unnatural bulk.
It was closer now, its outline shimmering with unnatural clarity. Its form no longer blurred; she could almost see a face, but it rippled and shifted like ink spreading through water. Her breath hitched as she locked eyes, or what she thought were eyes. Two black voids, deep and endless, stared into her. They weren’t human. They weren’t even trying to be.
The air rushed out of her lungs as she felt something pulling her, something immense and cold, dragging her back toward the open door. Her body was weightless, like she was falling in a dream. She clawed at the air, at the doorframe, but the pull was too strong.
She plunged backward into the cold. It hit her like icy water, searing her lungs and muffling the sounds of the world. Her limbs flailed, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but the infinite blackness closing in around her.
As her vision faded, she heard it, a soft, metallic voice, distant yet clear, echoing through the void.
“Doors closing.”
You can feel everything in this story. Excellent.
This was so creepy!!!! I love the slow burn and pacing. Stellar.