Train to Portland
“No, no, no!”
I ran down the platform just as the doors to the train were closing. I made it to the yellow line in time to watch it begin to inch its way down the tracks, away from the station. “Fuck,” I whispered, glancing down at the watch on my right wrist. 8:10pm. Departure time. And there were no more trains to Portland until tomorrow afternoon. I knew I shouldn’t have risked the bathroom break. “Shit.”
With a deep sigh, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and made my way back to the ticket booth. A quick check to my bank account told me that there was no way in hell I was going to afford another ticket, dinner, and a hotel room. Probably not even at the most cockroach infested shit-hole I could find. I was lucky if I could afford my ticket and a McChicken. With a dejected exhale, I shuffled my way up to the wiry old woman who worked behind the plexiglass of the ticket booth. “Hello.” I gave a small, awkward wave. “I missed the 8:10 train to Portland...is there any way I could trade in this ticket for one for tomorrow?” I begged.
The woman didn’t say a word. Instead, she pointed up toward a sign taped to the inside of the booth that read, “NO REFUNDS, NO RETURNS, NO EXCHANGES.”
“Right. Well, can I buy a ticket for tomorrow?”
A skinny, wrinkled hand shot out from the cut-out above the counter. It opened, then closed, then opened again. I gave her an incredulous look, but placed my debit card into her open palm. She typed the numbers into her computer, snatched a ticket from the printer, then slid them across the counter. I grabbed them with reflexes that were a surprise to me, and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you.”
The woman nodded, then turned back to her computer. I’d been dismissed.
I stuffed the ticket into my wallet and started toward the benches against the wall near the entrance doors. A loud bang sounded behind me and I turned, startled. The old woman in the ticket booth shook her head and pointed to the wall to her left: NO LOITERING.
I couldn’t help the annoyed look I shot her way before storming out the doors. The cold breeze slapped against my cheeks, turning them instantly red, and I sunk my head and shrugged my shoulders in a feeble attempt to warm them. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and groaned at the 15% battery life I had left. As quickly as I could with my fingers growing numb, I pulled up my bank account. I bit my lip at the very low number that sat boldly at the top of my screen. If I could find a 24 hour McDonald’s, I could buy a cheeseburger and at least charge my phone. And if I was lucky, maybe catch an hour or two of sleep in a booth near the back.
With a decent plan in place, I pulled up Google to search for the closest McDonald’s, only to find that it was twenty miles south in a different county. I realized at that moment that I didn’t even know where I was. I had only stopped here because the ticket was cheaper and I didn’t mind the switch. Only now, I was stuck in Podunk, Utah with next to no money and no where to go for the night.
I looked up and down the road. Nothing to see but closed shops illuminated by the glow of the streetlamps. With nothing to go on but intuition, I turned to my right and began walking down the worn, cracked sidewalk. All of the shops were connected, made of red brick and crumbling mortar with a skinny alleyway every fifth store. I’d probably made it about a half mile before I saw a pair of headlights in the distance: the first sign of life I’d come across since stepping out of the train station. I blame the cold for what I did next. I stopped, turned, and stuck my thumb out as far as it would go.
The car began to slow as it neared, as if the driver was debating whether or not to pick me up, but ultimately pulled over and turned on their hazards. The driver side window rolled down to reveal an older man, probably sixty-five, and who I assumed was his wife. “Are you all right?” the wife called. “Do you need a ride somewhere, honey?”
I dropped my fist to my side and began to cross the road toward where they had stopped. As I approached the window, I bent down to meet his eye and gave my award-winning smile. “Thank you so much for stopping,” I said. “I really appreciate it! I’m just looking for a place to go while I wait for tomorrow’s train…. Is there anywhere that’s open all night where I can get a cheap bite to eat and maybe charge my phone?”
The woman looked aghast. “Tomorrow’s train? Where will you sleep?!”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “Well, I’m hoping to catch a snooze on the way back to Portland, I just really need to charge my phone and get some dinner.”
The man turned to look at his wife and they seemed to have an entire conversation in the blink of an eye. The woman leaned in closer so that she could see me better. “Well, honey, we just went grocery shopping last night. Why don’t you come with us and we’ll get you a hot dinner and a warm bed to sleep in tonight.”
There was something about the look in her eye that gave me pause, but the rumbling in my stomach won. “That would be very kind of you, thank you. But really, I just need some dinner and some electricity and I’ll be out of your hair.”
The woman shook her head. “It’ll be close to freezing by midnight tonight. You’ll be staying with us and I won’t hear another word about it!”
I smiled and nodded graciously. “Thank you so much, ma’am, I really appreciate it.”
I heard the click of the lock and opened the rear door., pushed my suitcase onto the seat behind the woman, and slid in next to it before closing the door behind me. The ride was short and full of small talk. Where did I grow up? Where was I going? Did I like living there? What did I do for work?
They were mindless questions that I answered without much thought. I grew up in Seattle. I was going back home to Portland. Yes, I did like living there. I’m currently looking for a job, which is what I was doing in Santa Fe. I endured about fifteen minutes of more questions about myself before we arrived at their house. It was a blue suburban at the top of a picturesque cul de sac. The yard looked freshly mowed and the bushes in the front were pruned to perfection. It was the kind of house that I dreamed about living in with my future husband and our three boys.
We all exited the car and made our way into the house. It was as beautiful as I imagined it would be. A gold chandelier hung from the entryway ceiling, illuminating the foyer that lead into the living room. Pictures hung in white frames on the walls and there was an ottoman to her right that the woman sat on and began to remove her shoes. I followed suit, not wanting to be rude or to track mud onto the pristine blue and white rug that lay on the hardwood before her. I placed my shoes on the mat by the ottoman. “Your house is beautiful,” I complimented.
The man smiled and spoke for the first time. “Thank you very much, Jenny.”
I froze. Throughout the entire interrogation on the way here, never had they asked me what my name was – and never had they reciprocated. My heart began to pound and I could feel the anxiety creeping into my chest, numbing my fingers. “W-what?” I stuttered.
The woman rose from her seat with an identical smile and took a step toward me, hand outstretched. I couldn’t move. I watched in slow motion as she stood before me and stroked my cheek with her cold hand. “You’re a beautiful woman, Jenny,” she crooned.
I recoiled, tearing my face away from her hands. My mouth opened to speak, to say anything, but the words wouldn’t form. I couldn’t whisper or scream or tell these weirdos to fuck off. Everything I wanted to say – everything I could say – was trapped in my trachea. I took a step back, only to have my heel collide with the heavy wood of the front door. My back pressed against it and I leaned as far away from her outreached hands as I could. The woman took a step forward and her fingertips once again connected with my cheek. This time she cupped it, held it delicately as though I may shatter at the slightest tremor.
Her smile never faded as she stepped forward again, bringing us chest to chest. I could see every detail of her face: every wrinkle, every acne scar, every pore. I could see the plaque building up on her yellowing teeth, the dry skin around her nostrils.
And I could see the look in her eye. A look that I’ll never forget. It was hungry, playful, like a lioness about to catch her antelope. I couldn’t stop staring at them.
Then, it morphed. Her pupils began to dilate, wider and wider until her hazel iris was no longer visible and the whites of her eyes turned a deep red, as though all of the vessels in her eyes had spontaneously burst. Her wide smile remained.
I could see behind her the man who had yet to move. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he, too, began to change. His skin began to slough off in sheets, landing in thick, wet piles on floor. It began with his forehead, then his cheeks, and nose, and chin, and neck. It continued to peel away, revealing wet raw meat that smelled of iron. The last thing to fall were his lips, still stretched into a grin.
This time, I did scream. I closed my eyes and released a deep, guttural scream that couldn’t be emulated by even the scariest of movies.
And then it was gone. All noise, all sensations, gone. It was like someone had vacuumed the air from my lungs. My heart squeezed in my chest, begging for oxygen. My ribs tried desperately to expand, but could only produce a strangled squeak from the bottom of my throat.
My eyes snapped open to find the woman mere inches away, with her mouth wide, jaw dislocated and dangling down to her chest. Her tongue lolled to the side like an overheated dog’s. She began to inhale a slow, raspy breath and it felt like my insides were about to pour from my mouth.
“It is your time,” the man spoke. I could no longer see him as my vision began to fade to black at the corners, but I could feel him coming closer. “Judgment day has arrived and your soul is ours for the taking. You will know nothing more than pain and torment, of sorrow and grief. You will beg for mercy, and you will not have it. You will be frightened and alone…forever.”
