The ghost train

Shivering I pulled my fur lined coat tight around me. The empty platform vibrates as the echoing sound of the train approaches. Why do I do this, day after day? I hate the underground. Matt calls it the ghost train as it’s empty. Like clockwork at 7pm every evening it collects me and takes me to the station a few miles down the track. I have no need to be scared, but tonight I am. For the first time since Matt started his stupid joke, hearing the train made me nervous.

Seeing it approaching, I can’t see a driver. Why can’t I see a driver? What’s happened to him? “Stop it Rach, pull yourself together”. I say it out loud, ordering myself to stop the nonsense. Looking around, the platform is empty and the train has its door open waiting for me to alight. This is the same train, that I get every night, why am I worried?

Feeling physically sick now and cursing Matt, I step into the inviting carriage. Sitting down on a hard bench with the words Lucy 4 Will engraved into it, I tell myself again that it’s just an empty train and I will be home soon.

It used to be packed with people, then steadily fewer and fewer caught the 7pm service. Now it’s just me and I don’t understand why. Where did they all go?

Stopping at the next stop, my heart sinks as the door opens and a man with a large hat and long coat steps on. I heard again, “but Rachel it’s a ghost train”. Shut up Matt, I thought.

The stranger

Shuffling a newspaper, the man now sat opposite me, crossed legged, and the train appeared to speed up. This had to be my imagination surely?

It was a few minutes later as we sped through ‘BlackBerry junction’, my stop, that I now started to cry. This was it, this was the end, why had I not listened to Matt?
“Rachel, don’t be scared”. Looking up I found the stranger staring at me. His eyes looked kind under the brim of his hat. “It’s okay, this is a new world”.

“A what? How do you know my name?” I stammered. I was feeling disbelief, surely this wasn’t happening. This was not a ghost train.
“I’m Morrigan, this is the train to ‘Grestown’.”

“To where?”
“You have been chosen Rachel.”
“Me? What happened to the other passengers?”
“They are still here, but you can’t see them and they can’t see you.”
This sounded like something straight out of a fantasy novel. This can’t be real.

“Why me? What about Matt?”
“Rachel, this will be hard but I’m just going to tell you.”
I could feel my heart pounding, what was I about to learn? What had happened? Why was this happening?
“Two weeks ago, do you remember you and Matt went to Castle Beach?”
Worried now I said, “Well yes, course. We got caught in the tide together. It was romantic”.

I thought back to Matt holding me tightly as the waves caught us”. We had been alright, and had been relieved to step back on the beach afterwards.

A revelation

“Rachel, here is what really happened. You were caught in the tide and dragged out to sea. You are both in a coma in ‘Bradford Hospital’.
“I’m dead?” I was shocked.
“In a coma. This is an in between town now, everyone is expecting you.”

“Where’s Matt? Has he been chosen too?”
“No Rachel just you”.
This had to stop, this was crazy. I’m not in hospital in a coma. This Morrigan isn’t really here talking to me. Soon I’ll be home with Matt, all will be okay.
As we reached a station reading ‘Grestown’, my heart sank again. This can’t be true.
“We are here Rachel, come on, take my hand?”

Grestown

Holding on, I stepped off the ghost train. Surprised now to see cobbled streets and masses of people waiting for me. This was unreal, it had been a normal day despite being ignored by people. I guess now I know why.  I just want Matt, not some strange new world. Who were all these people? Were we all dead?
A small boy came bouncing up to me.

“Rachel, Rachel, thanks for coming.” Looking down at his happy face I wondered again, why me?
Morrigan took my hand again, come and sit down.

“Every one hundred years someone special is chosen to come here and be our queen. You will pass away in your own world and exist here forever; this will be your life now and these people will adore you. They know your story; they even saw what happened and have watched you in hospital. You were chosen to come here. This is not an accident.”
I wasn’t sure what to think.

“Are you all ghosts”?
Morrigan laughed, “kind of, but we are on a different life plain then the rest of the world.”
“Okay, so in this world plain, where are we?”
“We are in your home town, Bradford. Right now, in the other plain, people are going about their day to day lives. They are not aware of us.”
I thought about this. “is this why sometimes people report seeing ghosts?”

The plains

“There are points where the two plains meet and there have been incidents of us stepping through. Those on the other plain, can’t step through to us but we can go through to them. This is closely monitored though as scaring people is not strictly allowed. It’s more to help loved ones that are grieving us.”
I thought about this and liked his explanation.

“Morrigan, is Matt dead?”
“We knew that you would ask this. You were chosen to be our queen, but we know how you feel about Matt.”

Hearing a voice behind me, my heart leapt. “Queen Rachel, will you be my bride, together forever after being caught in a tide?”
Matt was all I wanted. This was like a fairy tale. Looking away from Morrigan, I saw him.

“Rach, I was brought here by Ramona over there.” I looked and saw a young woman looking at us. “How did you get here?”
I laughed, “The ghost train and Morrigan”.
“The what train?”
I laughed, of course we had both been in a coma. These last two weeks had been in my head. But somehow, I had been riding the ghost train as usual. Just today Morrigan had found me and brought me here.
I have heard stories about active brains in comas but maybe this was the time to say goodbye to our old lives. I had Matt right here and these people had chosen me.

A decision

“Matt, do we stay? What do we do?
“Rach, it’s either back to the usual working stress or we live here forever. From what Ramona says there’s no pain or illness, we are already dead”.
“Morrigan, where is the Queen?”
He smiled kindly. Queen Ramona, my wife, is here. We have been here one hundred years now, it’s now time for her to step down”.
Matt and I stared at each other. “So, you don’t age?”

“Why would you, you’re dead. You will stay exactly the way you are forever”.
“Matt do we do this?” I thought of our families, would they really miss us? We could visit them at any time.
Matt took my hand, “the way I see it, we stay here forever, stress free and don’t ever age. Or we go back, have stress, age and die of some horrible disease. Our families are already grieving us. Come on Rach, let’s do this.”
“Okay, Morrigan we are in, just call me Queen Rachel.”

Bradford Hospital

Watching the couple lying in their beds, Mrs Jenkins cried as the machines started to scream as simultaneously they flat lined. Nurses flooded into the room to rescue them but it was too late. Twenty minutes later Rachel and Matt were declared dead.

A month later

Declared as a drowning accident, Mrs Jenkins, Rachel’s mum, was not sure how she would get over losing her daughter. Every so often though, she was sure she could smell her scent. This gave her comfort as if she was watching out for her and she hoped that this was true.

Written for –  Write the story on Writers Unite

For more see, The fate at Bleakden Lake, written for Writers Unite