The girl on the Train tracks

I walked out of the front door and prepared to get into the taxi to Lungwood. I did't really know much about the place, except that they needed a new train driver, and I was to be he. I also knew that they had lost 15 train drivers in the last year, and only one was still alive to date. I wasn't told much by Mr Lanswell on the telephone about this, but when I asked why the previous driver left, he sounded awfully flustered. I of course, had to do some research to find out the fact of 14 train drivers loosing their lives, but I was unable to get any clue as to how they died other than word of 'freak accidents'. Fourteen of them.
None-the-less, I set off to start my new career. I got together my many bags and suitcases with my belongings inside, and picked up a pile of papers containing information about my B&B for that night, the paperwork of the job, family photos and a book for the journey. I bid farewell to my family, and tried to convince my brother that I would be fine (he had lived in Lungwood for about a year and was intent on preventing me from leaving to go there) to put the situation at ease a little.
"This isn't a good idea, George"
"Well it's too late now. I'll visit home in the summer and during christmas, but it's great pay for a job like this!"
"When it's too late, he'll find out why that pay's so good", my brother whispered to himself, looking worried. I didn't know what he meant at the time, so I didn't think much of it.
"We'll I can't turn down a job with as good a pay as this. If if makes you feel better, when my first few pay checks come in I'll buy a home in the city, so I'm not living in Lungwood, just working there..." My brother looked at me and tried to look reassured, but I knew he wasn't. I stepped into the taxi with my belongings and paper work, shouting "I'll call on Mr Lanswell's telephone when I arrive!" as the taxi drove away.
I relaxed in my seat and took out a checklist to make sure I'd remembered everything. I had, except my toothpaste, but I could purchase some whilst the taxi was refilling its petrol. I moved on from this to read a book for an hour or two. The journey was to be six hours long. I proceeded to open and ready book, entitled "TRAINS:HOW TO WORK THE WHEEL". As I read my book, I became oblivious to everything around me; the awkward silence I had given the driver, the children playing on the streets outside the car, and I forgot everything, just for that moment, and remembered only the book and, strangely, my childhood.
I remember how much I had always loved trains, and I used to play with my many train sets and trains with little carriages, and some complete with scenery such as wooden trees and signs for the imaginary driver. I never asked for anything else for Christmases or birthdays, and when I got them, I became more excited for each train set I unwrapped every year. I could spend hours on end driving just one small train and its carriages from one station to another, without ever getting bored of it. I would run around the garden, pretending to be a train driver, singing "choo! Choo!" to myself, wearing my train drivers hat my father bought me for my 5th birthday. Then I went to school. I began my school days as a perfect student, interested in everything, but gradually I became only interested in my subjects if it related to trains. By age ten I knew more about trains than my teachers did, and I decided to become an engineer for trains. I started a course on steam engines, however after a year I became tired and confused with the topic, so I left without haste. I left the whole theme of trains after that, and took up a modest career as an apprentice. The company became bankrupt after five prosperous years and I became unemployed. It was then that I saw the advertisement for the train driver in Lungwood and I jumped at the idea of rekindling my love of trains.
After reading up to chapter 7 of my book, I checked the time, and realised I had been lost in my own world for almost two hours. Closing my text, I attempted to make conversation with the driver. He was quite a well built man, with a full head of hair and a pair of sideburns that were beginning to grow, but still at the stage of mere stubble. His eyes sunk into his skull and he had big brow bones which made his eyes look even more sunk in. He was wearing more casual, comfortable attire but still smart, and his hear and eyebrows were neatly combed to look acceptable. However when he did speak, his voice was of a middle class citizen, but he did not try too hard in his speech and pronunciation.
"So... Do you... take people to Lungwood very often?", I asked awkwardly.
"Nope. No one really wants to go 'round there much, find it a bit creepy."
"Creepy?"
"Yeah, I don't know much about the place, but the villagers all seem to be... stand off like. You don't know them but you can tell they in't actin' themselves. All of 'em. I heard something about a girl but they never really make much a deal of themselves. What's your business there, anyway?"
"I'm going for the train driver's job in the village." I said, feeling quite proud of myself to be able to say this. However, I felt he was not telling me something and when I told him what brought me to Lungwood he became silent and the conversation died out completely. I could see in his mirror that he had become paler than before and he gulped silently. I did not know how to react to this and so I decided to amuse myself by looking out of the window and view my surroundings.
There I saw a street filled with houses, and children running out of their homes to play with each other. They were skipping and dancing, with skipping ropes and skittles, playing hopscotch together. I could hear their laughter and chatter as it filled the air. They seemed totally happy with the smallest things, like a group of boys picked up a toad from their front garden and their faces all lit up, and they gave the warmest smile to each other and that toad of any child, then ran to their back garden to play with it. I reminisced my own childhood for a while and gently fell to sleep.

I was asleep and dreaming. In my dream, I was driving a train. Then something came to the tracks, a deer or something, but for some reason my dream did not tell me what it was. I tried to stop the train and it did, but so suddenly that everyone on the train jolted including I, and I felt the train being pulled off its tracks a little. A large tug was felt and I fell over, and I shouted "HELP!" But no one replied. I looked outside in the windows to see pure darkness. A 'crash' and then the train came completely off its tracks, and after that, blackness. Still in my mysterious dream, I heard someone walk past the wreckage, and, through the darkness, I saw a perfectly white skull, staring straight at me, as I lay beneath a toppled over carriage. The skull looked unimaginably real but eerily white for the lighting in what I now considered a nightmare. It was a human skull, and there were no other bones around, but what scared me the most, was it was laid upon the very tracks that the train stood on just before the crash.
Suddenly, a piece of glass from the window fell on me, and I woke, shocked and terrified. I breathed heavily and tried to calm myself. What on earth did that mean? I have had only thoughts of joy and excitement towards my new job, but this dream... What did it suggest? I did not know, and yet I could not help but be haunted by it.
We stopped for a break, and I realised it was already 5:30 pm. We had been travelling for nearly four hours. Whilst the driver filled up the tank, I went into the shop to get the toothpaste I'd forgotten, and a small sandwich for the rest of the journey.
I came to the shop keeper, who was a reasonably short man, with a thick moustache and tidy looking hair. He was wearing an apron which covered the majority of his attire, and he seemed quite chatty and talkative.
"Just these please" I said quite formally.
"Three shillings please" I got out my wallet to pay. "Where are you headed then?"
"Lungwood, new job as the train driver" he tried to hide his sheer shock, but failing that, just said,
"Listen, kid, you don't want that job. It'll be the last thing you do" I was beginning to get worried with the number of people who were shocked at my decision to go to Lungwood, but I figured it must be something to do with the village. Once I got a home out of the village, they'd realise I could cope there. But it seemed that at that time, I struggled to put two and two together.