Grim

It was well past midnight when the train began its haunting song. Loud and terrifying, the train’s symphony rang out, the sound grating on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. I cringed at the noise, eyes snapping open as the sound cried out for a second time.

The scene around me came into view. Standing on a platform inches away from a set of old, tattered railroad tracks, I came to a sudden, terrifying realization: I was not in my bed. In fact, I must have been far from it. A dense fog surrounded me on all sides, hindering my ability to see clearly into the dark night. The fog was so thick that I could barely make out the scene on the opposite side of the tracks in front of me. The moon was absent, long forgotten by the scenery, stashed away by the night sky and left in its own isolation. Stars shone in the dark night, casting faint, flickering glows above the eerie railroad, but they soon slithered behind thin, gray clouds.

In the foggy haze, a light came ‘round the bend, illuminating the darkness surrounding me just enough for me to grasp the reality of my situation. I was not home; I knew this the moment I woke up on a platform awaiting the arrival of a mysterious train. There were trees taking up residence on both sides of the tracks, shielding me from the beasts that surely lurked just within the fibrous confines of the forest.

The platform I stood on was the only one in the vicinity, placed almost randomly in its wooded residence. A little bench sat on the edge of the platform, ominous in its solitude. The wood was splintered and broken in various places, as if it had remained in its spot for years, left to rot among the shadows of the tall, looming pine trees.

The train came barreling forward, closer and closer to the platform. It was moving unnaturally fast. So fast that I was almost certain I had been seeing things. Metal screeched in agony as the monstrosity came to a screeching halt right at the edge of the platform. For a moment, the train sat still and silent.

With the absence of the train’s haunting melody came a terrible realization. No animals howled. No wind whistled. A shiver danced down my spine, setting my nerves ablaze as my head swiveled in all directions, searching desperately for any sign of life besides myself. There was no one else. I was well and truly alone, left entirely to my own devices in the strange environment.

A metallic screech filled the air as a door I hadn’t noticed before opened up on the side of the train. I stood, rooted to my spot on the creepy platform, unwilling to move even an inch closer to the train. My curiosity tempted me, begging me to go forth into the unknown to find out just what was happening to me. With sharp nails digging into the palm of my hands, leaving little crescent moons in their wake, I fought hard to rein in the panic, to turn it into something else, but my mind wasn’t budging. The possibilities of what was happening and where I could be were endless yet horrifying.

In the foggy darkness, I stood and waited.

The train remained for several minutes, the door still opened as some unseen force awaited my entrance. The horn blared, but the train remained stagnant, unmoving and still waiting. I watched in horrified fascination as a clawed hand wrapped around the side of the door before reaching out towards me.

The hand reached further, moving so close I was almost certain that this strange entity would yank me into the open door. It didn’t. Instead, it lifted its pointer finger and bent it in a come-hither motion. It beckoned me, silently calling me forward, almost begging me to throw myself into the unknown without a second thought.

My mind warred with me, screaming for me to remain as I was. Standing on the platform, waiting impatiently for something else to happen. As if aggravated by my indecision, the creature’s hand retreated back through the open door. In that moment, I could have sworn I saw the skeletal body of a tormented soul shift to the right and escape further into the confines of the metallic nightmare.

“All aboard.”

The ghostly, disembodied voice spoke loudly, calling out into the dark and demanding that I enter. The oddity of the situation wasn’t lost on me. How I got here and what exactly was happening, I would never know.

“All aboard. All aboard.”

Several disembodied voices echoed all at once, each one desperately attempting to entice my entrance. I stayed frozen, uncertainty warring with fear. In a battle between my body and my mind, I waited with bated breath to see what creature would appear next.

“Who are you?” I called out, ordering the voices to speak their truths.

To tell me their names and what they hoped to gain from obtaining my presence on the ghostly iron horse. None of them answered, still chanting their chilling call. It was quiet, yet it filled the silence, sounding louder than it truly was. The voices whispered directly into my ears as they sang their haunting hymn.

Ghostly hands, each lacking the body to carry them, grasped my shoulders. They danced up my spine, pushing and shoving in an attempt to force me into the train. I desperately shook in an attempt to remove them from my body. It was hopeless; I was tugged and yanked, forced to move forward.

As my foot landed within the dark confines of the haunted train, three things happened all at once. Three things sealed my fate and sent my heart into overdrive. Escape would be unobtainable from this point forward. I was well and truly trapped.

The horn blared.

The light flickered.

The door closed.

“Departing.” The conductor called out, announcing the word loudly.

My fists desperately rained down on the door in my feeble attempts to free myself from the darkness. The dark swallowed me whole, its unwavering malice almost too much to bear. Intense pain held me in its terrible grasp. The sharp teeth of fear crunching on my bones and tearing me apart without an ounce of mercy.

Just as my tears made an appearance, falling from my eyes and landing at my feet, a sound met my ears. The flick of a match came from close by, as if someone was attempting to bring light to the darkness. As if they were trying to eradicate my fear of the night.

Footsteps approached me slowly, the steady thumping of boots on metal bringing my attention towards the approaching entity. The match was struck again but failed to produce light. The footsteps draw near, coming closer and closer. In a split second, I dropped to the floor, crouched low, and pulled myself into a ball.

Tears flowed like waterfalls, cascading down my cheeks and forming lakes at my feet. They dragged me under, waves stealing my breath away as I drowned in my emotions. The footsteps stopped, backed away, and disappeared further down the train car.

For a moment, I felt safe.

Safe to break down. Safe to feel.

Then, the steps returned. This time, the entity dropped somewhere in front of me, their weight slamming down heavily and sending a thump through the air. The match flicked again, once more unsuccessfully.

Again.

Again.

And again.

Until, finally, a bright orange flame illuminated the darkness. The flame breathed warmth into the air that I hadn’t even realized had been cold. I didn’t know I was freezing until that little flame forced the chills to recede.

Perhaps it wasn’t the cold that had little bumps forming on my sensitive skin. Perhaps it was the fear that had been sliding through my body like a serpent slithering through the promised land. Quickly, I wiped away my tears and came face to face with the ghoulish entity before me.

A gasp left my chapped lips as I stared at the being. Cloaked in darkness, the thing was half human, half skeleton. The left side of his face was normal, human. Pale skin and a single, emerald-colored eye that carefully watched my movements. The right side was nothing more than bone and an empty socket where the other stunning eye would reside if it weren’t missing.

His left hand was bony, cloaked in a dark sleeve that stopped just at his wrist. The same hand had beckoned me closer to the train as I had waited on the platform just outside of the door. The other, again, was normal. This creature was both terrifying and intriguing.

“Who are…who are you?” I asked quietly, my tears forcing my words to come out jumbled and stuttered.

The creature refused to speak, the bright green eye squinting as he took in my confusion. His lips remained sealed, unmoving and silent. It was as if he were taunting me, withholding the answers to my most important questions. As if it were a game to him. As if my nightmares were his dreams.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

Again, not a single sound escaped his lips. That dazzling eye narrowed even further before widening in understanding. As if he made a breakthrough in some secret experiment he had been performing on a terrified, unwilling subject.

“Can you speak?”

He shook his head. My heart constricted. Of course he couldn’t speak; he was only half of a person. A creature forced to hide in the dark, hidden in the creaking iron monstrosity he resided within. What a sad life.

A voice suddenly filled my ears, whispering the same way the ghostly voices had done earlier as I stood outside the train. For a moment, I was almost certain that someone else must have been on the train. Though, I could only see the entity sitting across from me.

The words registered, and realization broke through my hazy understanding: “The souls speak for me.”

“The souls?”

“I’ve collected them over the centuries. They speak whatever I wish to say. They bring my words to life and express what I cannot.” The whispering continued, elaborating on his previous statement.

For a moment, I had no reaction.

Then, I was cackling like a hyena all while the man before me stared at me in confusion. I was on the floor, tears rolling as I laughed. In my hysteria, I almost missed the death glare his single eye sent my way.

“This is the wildest prank anyone has ever played on me, but I’ll say it was a good one.”

Halloween was still nearly two weeks away, but my friends must have thought this would be an amusing, spooky joke. I had to admit, they had me for a while. I was almost willing to believe that I had been kidnapped by ghouls on a ghost train in the middle of the night. How they managed to pull it off, I couldn’t be sure, but they certainly did a good job.

“Prank?” a voice asked quietly.

“Yes. A prank. A joke. I know my friends put you up to this. Come on, you can take the costume off now; I’ve caught you.” I laughed, wiping my tears away.

“A mask? You must have mistaken me for someone else. I’m not wearing a costume, and this is no joke.”

“Sure, whatever you say.”

As another bout of laughter threatened to overtake my senses, a horrible sensation stole my breath. Phantom hands wrapped around my throat and held my gasping breaths hostage as the man watched across from me. The hands closed tighter, crushing my neck and trying to evict me from this cruel existence.

Just as suddenly as they came, the hands were gone. Dropping away from me entirely and allowing me to crumple to the cold floor. I huffed in several terrified breaths as I lay there, reeling from the cruelty of the shadows.

“Wh-what was,” I gasped another breath, forcing myself to calm before trying to speak again, “what was that?”

“Certainly not a joke as you previously believed.”

My mind whirred with possibilities. Terrible realizations of my predicament at the hands of this ghastly being. He leaned in closer, the match coming dangerously close to my face as his eye met mine.

“You did that to me? How?”

“It’s a perk of the job.”

My head shook as I took him in, watching him as he leaned closer. His face was mere centimeters from mine. A minty scent invaded my senses, seemingly coming from the being in front of me as he came even closer than before.

“What job? What the hell are you?”

He laughed, his eye twitching as he took in my horrified expression. By that point, I was shaking in fear, terrified of the things he would tell me.

“The name is Grim.”

“Grim? As in the reaper?”

He backed away suddenly, climbing to his feet and opening his arms boldly as he spoke, “The one and only.”

“You’re lying.”

His arms fell to his sides as he sank back down to his knees. He shuffled closer, the minty scent wrapping around me once again. That single, deep green eye squinted in disbelief as he took in my expression.

“You really don’t believe me?”

“No. This has to be some joke, right?”

He shook his head, “No, Freya. Unfortunately, this is your reality.”

My gasp left my lips without warning, the little sound coming to rest between the two of us as I watched him carefully. He knew my name. He said it. He knew it. My friends must have told him, so that means this is some trick. Some cruel joke they put into play.

“You said my name.”

“I did,” he agreed easily.

“You must know my friends then. They put you up to this, didn’t they?”

He shook his head. “They did not.”

The words came as a whisper, almost as if he was attempting to find a better way to break the news of my worldly departure. It was as if Grim had never had someone question the scenario he had just presented to me. As if everyone had merely accepted the circumstances for what they were and not some sick joke.

“Freya, what do you remember from before you arrived on the platform?” A voice whispers into my right ear.

The lack of lip movement whenever Grim spoke was still something I had to get used to. It was odd to hear the voices in my ears as if the wind itself were speaking to me. Grim watched me curiously as I formed a response to his strange question.

Though, I found myself drawing a blank at the events that had transpired prior to my arrival at the eerie tracks. My head was empty as I attempted to sort through my thoughts. Nothing came to me; I was at a loss.

“You don’t recall?”

I shook my head.

“Oh dear, then this will come as a shock to you.” Grim shook his head as well, mimicking my movements as he looked truly concerned.

“What will?”

“Brace yourself for what I’m about to tell you, okay? Don’t panic.” He stated quickly before stepping backward, as if he were removing himself from whatever reaction I would have.

Stepping out of the line of fire and back into the safety of the dark, desolate train. His eye twitched as he watched my facial expressions. Grim’s next words came as a disembodied whisper in my left ear.

“Freya, you’re no longer alive. You passed yesterday at half noon.”