31 Days of Halloween

Halloween Express

Something was wrong. Lights flickered in the dark cabin, the glow of the orange and green lights disappearing, leaving the old steam engine in the dark. The four girls huddled close in fear, what started out as a haunted train ride had suddenly turned into a harrowing outing. Thirty minutes into the two-hour journey, they knew something wasn't right. Ashley, Anna, Brianna, and Leigh huddled together in the otherwise empty car. There had been enough room the girls chose a car for themselves. Now, they second-guessed that decision.

After the lights first went out, the door to the car opened and closed. No one had walked through the door, or had they? The engine lurched through the forest, metal against metal, clanking, as the wheels rolled along the track. Decorated for Halloween, the train had been creepy enough, but now, it was downright terrifying.

"What do we do, Brianna?" Ashley asked her older sister.

"I don't know. We're going to be fine, remember it's a haunted train ride. We just didn't think it would be this scary," the older girl said, trying to reassure herself as well.

Anna slid closer to Ashley and whispered, "I don't know, but I don't think we're in here alone. I can feel it."

"Don't be ridiculous, there's nothing in here besides us. Whoever opened that door, did so to scare us. It's their job," Brianna hissed, "Look, if everyone freaks out now, it's gonna be a long trip."

Leigh, who had been sitting quietly staring out the window spoke up, "Hey, guys, we're slowing down but not going uphill."

Before anyone could speak, the wheels began to squeal, and the smoke from the engine blanketed the windows, the engine was coming to a stop. If not a stop, it was slowing down a lot. Finally, it came to a grinding halt. Filled with a new terror, they watched and waited.

Leigh noticed it first. The swinging light of a lantern floating next to the tracks, someone was coming. As the girls tried to look out the window, they saw her. A woman, pale white skin, black holes where her eyes should have been. Backing slowly away from the window, they tried to keep her from seeing them, but they were too late. Staring blankly into the window which they had looked from, she wailed, a banshee screaming in the night. Ashley cried, the woman terrified her. Brianna comforted her sister.

"Ashley, come on, it's okay, it's a haunted house on a train, just remember that."

Before she had finished speaking, the door to the car opened once again. Filling with the fog bank which had overtaken them, they could see the light from the lantern as it began to enter the car. Ashley trembled, and the others huddled around her both to comfort her, and comfort themselves. Closer and closer, moving ever so slowly. Her shredded white dress covered in blood, long, flowing sleeves, blowing in the breeze from the open door. Brianna and Leigh looked at each other, terror filled their eyes. She wasn't walking. She was floating. No part of the woman touched the floor of the train. Then she began to scream.

"I see you! I'll get you! You took my baby, didn't you? You can't lie to me, I know!" Her voice echoed throughout the small car, but she never veered from the aisle.

As she reached the closed door in front, she vanished before their eyes.

Then, as it had grown quiet, all that could be heard in the car was the soft whimpering of Ashley and Anna, Leigh and Brianna gazed about the interior, there was nothing else there.

"Come on, we're okay. That thing didn't move from the aisle of the car, it's smoke and mirrors, all an illusion," Brianna spoke up first.

"If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have come," Ashley exclaimed.