Midnight Creek Tales

#3. The Midnight Railroad / Chapter 5

They all gazed at where the clock once ticked. Behind it, it read a simple statement. 'Bakersfield. 6:00.'

It was engraved into the ceiling with corroded black ink. Gage felt a chill go up his spine, "Everybody if you are from Bakersfield raise your hand!"

Gage looked up. Every single person except Jojo had their hand raised, "How do we not know each other?" Asked Jack.

"I mean it's a big town," Debbie commented.

"Well, how about the schools?" Helen remarked, feeling a little better than before.

"Do you guys go to the same school?" Gage asked.

Both of them nodded their heads no, and then Sarah spoke up.

"I go to Washington School."

"And I go to St. Mary's down Oak Street."

"Okay, well how old are you both?" Gage replied.

"Nine years old."

"I'm seven, but I'm turning eight in February," Tom said.

Gage looked over to Max, "What school and grade are you in?"

"I'm a junior and go to the public high school."

Gage nodded his head and peered over towards Helen and the baby, "I guess she's from Bakersfield too." Jack and Glenn chuckled as Helen smiled.

Gage grabbed the clock from Rick; it was a behemoth! It was even bigger than the size of Rick's chest and weighed a ton. Gage could feel the vibrations of it, as the second's hand moved. The constant bombarding 'tick' and 'tock' were buzzing throughout the boxcar...

Everyone got to thinking about what the words on the wall meant. "I felt a chill go down my spine when I read it, I'm sure as hell the Devil wrote it himself!" Jack snapped.

Gage looked down at his hands and began to blow air into them to try to create friction. "Not again!" He threw his shirt back on and started to rub his skin to try to keep warm.

"What do you think this all means?" Debbie said breaking the silence that ensued for more than twenty seconds. Everyone was dumbfounded, all trying to think and come up with a reason for why this was happening.

"Well, we all have to be connected by something because we're all residents of Bakersfield. Me being a skeptic myself I'd assume that we were all kidnapped. But even that thesis seemed a little farfetched to be in fact correct."

"Maybe we all just don't remember getting on the train? Maybe we were drugged?"

"I doubt that Max, I don't take nothin' from strangers." Rick retorted.

"Someone could've snuck into your house and tried to poison you."

"What makes you say that? Who would drug a fucking baby?!"

Jojo started to break out into a mix of emotions but then stuck to crying, "Oh great." Gage rubbed his forehead to soothe the pain; his headache was getting worse and worse.

"Jesus I wish I had a pain killer for this migraine," Gage uttered in misery.

Max reached his scrawny hands down into his pocket and pulled out some pills, "Take these." He said shoving them into Gage's face.

"What the fuck are these?!" Rick asked.

"Painkillers like he asked for."

"But we emptied all of our pockets! Why the fuck do you still have these?!" Rick demanded like an interrogator.