Strangers on a Train (inspired by a picture)

 

The dirty light from the shabby neon strips in the ceiling bit into her eyes as she tried to exert herself into a space. The smell of damp material and stale sweat permeated the air and she forced herself to take shallow breaths from the perfumed scarf she wore. This was her drudgery: every afternoon Alice crowded onto the tube with thousands of miserable souls making their way back from work. She could never work out why everyone seemed so angry, sad or frustrated at the end of the day. Surely, they were going home or to the pub to relax with family and friends? Maybe that was the problem, she mused. She lived with two other people in a small flat in West Acton, not far from the Central Line. How she wished she lived closer to the newer, swankier Elizabeth Line with its air con and wider aisles.

On this particularly wet Tuesday afternoon in April, she found that her own mood was at a low ebb. Her boss was on holiday (lucky him), and she was doing her own job and quite a bit of his work to help out. It was the right thing to do and mostly she didn’t mind her work at the projects’ office, but today she was feeling less than charitable towards her fellow humans. The jolting carriage swayed its mechanical way through the pitch-black dark of the tunnels, emerging every now and again into the startling light of a station, where the merry-go-round of passengers would engage one another in an awkward dance.

It was only 3 more stops to her station and by now they were on the surface, grey afternoon light mingling with the stark lamination of the carriage. She took the opportunity to look around at the grim faces of the other passengers. That’s when she noticed him for the first time. He was stood 5 people away down the carriage, facing the peeling adverts and the grimy tube may above the windows. Her breath caught in her throat. Had she known he took this line? Was he usually on this train? Her mind was whirring and she had to remember to breathe into her scarf to avoid inhaling the noxious fumes around her. He shifted his position slightly and she suddenly looked down towards her feet. Had he seen her looking at him? Had she been staring so hard he had felt it? Her hand clasped the satchel she was carrying even harder and she tried to make herself relax. It was fine. She always overreacted when she saw people she thought she knew. She looked up again and her grey-green eyes locked onto his burnished copper stare. Damn.

Suddenly, she was transported back 2 months and a million miles away to an evening in a hipster pub in the West End, name forgotten in the haze of hungover memory. She had been out with colleagues to celebrate the end of a project with cocktails, food and dancing when she had bumped into a handsome stranger at the bar. They had chatted for over an hour until her colleagues had come to fetch her for the table booking and he had given her his number. She had promised to call, at the very least to text. She had meant to as well. It was hard finding people, even in a crowded city, so to have one offer themselves up in front of you is a rarity. But life had overtaken her; days became weeks and then it just felt too awkward and desperate to make the call. She had let it go as “one of those beautiful things that could have been”.

Now he was here. 5 people away and looking right at her. He surely couldn’t remember her. It must be because she was staring so intently at him, she reasoned. Anyway, it was her stop, so she braced herself and left the carriage with head down and shoulders squared. She looked up to see if he was still looking, but was too late – the train had started to move off and there was no hope of seeing anyone as the train moved away. Sighing, she walked towards the exit. The dull afternoon sky was darkening now and the drizzle had begun to fall with more force. A lovely Spring evening, she thought dolefully as she turned out of the station and headed for her flat. Maybe she should stop at T
he Greystoke on her way home and have a drink and some food. That would help, even if it was only the fact she wouldn’t have to wash up. She swerved towards the pub and already felt a bit better about her day. She might even call in to say she would work from home tomorrow. That would avoid grubby commuters and also any more awkward encounters with could-have-been men. She was trying to remember his name as she stood at the bar waiting to be served. Dan? Ben? It was short, she could remember that much. As the bar tender smiled a greeting at her, she ordered her large glass of pinot and a classic burger, but before she could pay and enjoy her wine, a voice chirped in from just behind her, “I’ll get that.” Alice spun around, shocked and bemused. Standing directly behind her, smiling placidly was a handsome face punctuated with a pair of copper eyes.

The House

The clouds drifted in packs across the misty moon, creating shadows among the trees that swayed like zombies. Kevin stood shivering, his black hoodie wrapped tightly, his arms hugging his sides. It was cold, no question, but he was scared. Really scared. A sudden noise behind him made him jump and yelp.

“Hahahahahaha” Loz erupted from the darkness behind the swings in delight. “Alright, Kev? Hope you didn’t have a little accident, did ya?”

Kevin tried in vain to look hard and untroubled by Loz’s unexpected entrance. He scuffed his feet in the dirt and attempted to look anywhere but at Loz, in case he betrayed just how scared he really was. They stood there then, the two of them pretending everything was ok, and that they were happy to be there. Together.

Neither wanted to talk about why they were there. The scariest house in the town loomed across the tree-lined park, occasionally peering back at the boys as the clouds released the moon from its intermittent incarceration. “So.” Loz tried to start the conversation they knew they needed to have. “We should get in there, get this over with…”

Kevin just stood there, transfixed with fear, with the knowledge that he would soon be in that house. Alone. Well, with Loz, which was almost the same thing, when he thought about it.

Both inched forward along the wind-whipped pine needles and leaves. It is quite a sight to see two teenage boys trying to get somewhere whilst simultaneously trying to go in the opposite direction. Loz had lost his cocky grin and Kevin had retracted into a sullen silence that meant he was listening to his own heart beating in his ears as loudly as a bass drum.

The door to the house stood skewed on ancient hinges, the rot holding it together in an ironic parody of accepted science. The boys stared at the door for what felt like weeks – mesmerised by the threat of the stories that had been told to them about what had been seen and heard in there for decades since the last known owners left in the dead of night, apparently abandoning their worldly goods for no recorded reason. “The lights flicker in the night, despite there being no electricity in the place”, that was Loz’s sister’s offering. “Once a month there are blood-curdling screams heard coming from the cellar”, that one was Kevin’s own mother. Great. With family like that, you don’t need friends…

With a collective intake of breath, they forced through the rot-riddled wood and stood squinting in the dusty gloom of the hall. Kevin produced a torch from his pocket and turned on the beam, illuminating only a few paces in front. Around them they saw decades of decay, wrapped around the belongings of the previous residents like carefully placed tissue paper. The moonlight was filtered through a thick film of dust on the windows, and then further dimmed by the motes floating in the still, dead air. The boys turned a full circle, taking in the stairs, doors to other rooms, the ornaments, coats and even letters lying on the hall table. It was the house equivalent of the Marie Celeste. Everything told a story of 50 years before, when a family fled in the dark from an untold horror. It was like a freakish museum: Everything held in a moment in time. Undisturbed by the world rushing by outside. Curiously, the boys forgot their initial fears and moved towards one of the doors off the hall. Pushing it open, they revealed a musty lounge; although without the tell-tale plasma screen TV and X-Box they struggled at first to work out that this was the main living room for a family that had 2 growing boys and a little girl. In the centre of the far wall was a fireplace, with grate and hearth still encased in a thin film of soot and grime. Above it was an ornate mirror, originally gilt and sparkling, but now dull and tarnished. In the corner, sitting in an alcove was a large brown box. It appeared to have a screen in it, but no other sign that it was in any way related to a modern television set. The furniture was arranged oddly, as though they wanted to watch the wooden box, but at the same time were used to evenings watching the fire, talking and listening to the radio. Kev and Loz were spell bound. It was like entering a parallel universe where everything was the same, just a couple of degrees off.

From the living room, they walked back to the hall and tried another door. This time they had found the dining room. An obvious assumption, as there was a large wooden table in the centre and a sideboard along the wall that looked as though it could carry enough plates for a full sitting in a restaurant. At the back of this room there was another door, which they discovered led through to the kitchen. This was totally alien. Kev had forgotten all of his previous worries now as he opened cupboards and laughed at the vintage food packets he unearthed, “Hey, look at this! Rice Krispies!” He shouted over to Loz, who was trying to work out how this family has done the washing, as he could not see anything that looked like a washing machine. “This is weird” was the only reply Loz had. He joined in the voyage of discovery through the cupboards and drawers, feeling a little uncomfortable that he was going through a family’s personal belongings. He dismissed the thought, though as he reminded himself that this family had left the house many years before and had clearly not cared what happened to it. Suspicion and fear were the only reasons it was preserved like a time capsule; a strange museum piece showing ordinary life in a 1950s suburb.

As they were both caught up in opening cupboards and bringing decades-old objects out into the light for inspection, they did not realise how time was passing. They had already been in the house for over an hour, but neither had a watch nor any desire to leave just yet. They had both forgotten that this was a dare, a bet put to them both by the hardest boy in their year at school, Jez Chandler. Jez had sworn that he had spent the night in the house while all sorts of ghoulish things happened around him, but that he had slept soundly and not once been bothered by the noises and apparitions he described in detail. No one had dared tell him that his story had holes bigger than swiss cheese, as he would not have understood the reference. Jez was the sort of boy who ruled by brawn and attitude rather than brains and personality. He would not even have noticed that he needed to be awake to witness the things he had claimed to have seen… and so, he had set the challenge to Kevin and Loz, two boys who were quiet and well behaved, but who wanted a little of the excitement and glamour that followed Jez around like a bad smell. Kevin had jumped on the dare, informing Loz of the time and place to meet and convinced that this was his ticket to going to the prom with Natasha, the girl in the year below that didn’t know he existed. Well, for now, anyway.

The intrepid pair left the kitchen and retraced their steps into the dismal hallway. They knew what they had to do – they had to go upstairs and see the bedrooms. For some reason this seemed much worse than just snooping around the downstairs rooms – it seemed somehow more intimate and prying. With a silent nod, they advanced towards the shaft of black that denoted the way up to the first floor. Carefully, they picked their steps using the torch to guide them, noticing that the carpet here looked almost new beneath its protective blanket of dust. As they reached the top, the world opened up again onto a landing with 4 doors arranged in a similar configuration to the floor below. The door ahead led into the family bathroom: a toilet, sink and bath in a garish shade of green. No shower, no gleaming white of a modern bathroom. This room was dank and dreary, making Loz grateful for the brightness of his bathroom at home, despite having to be threatened into using it. The other rooms were bedrooms: The biggest was actually the boys’ room. This was obvious from the toy soldiers, guns and blue covering every surface. The furniture was simple and wooden, as were the toys. Kevin and Loz were amazed that boys would put up with this level of deprivation, but then they did not quite understand that the technologically advanced world they inhabited had been a recent development. The other bedrooms were equally simplistic and sparse, with ordered rows of clothes hung in wardrobes, labelled drawers and some industrial-looking under garments. Kevin kept parading large pants, bras and suspenders in front of Loz’s face as they both broke down into fits of laughter. “This ain’t so bad!” Crowed Kevin as he found the mother’s ancient, dusty makeup in the dresser. “Jez was making all that stuff up, he’s all talk… we have to make up our own stories too, now!” As he was speaking, Loz became uncomfortable. They should go. Now. His sense of urgency to leave the house grew with each passing second. “Ok, well we can do that on the way back to mine.” He suggested, as he turned for the door. “What? Oh, yeah, we should really go,, I suppose.” Agreed Kevin. “Hold on.” Kevin turned to grab one of the ridiculously exaggerated pieces of underwear. “What are you doing?” Loz was trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Souvenir. Got to show we really came.” Kevin was particularly proud of this thought process. They both moved towards the bedroom door, when they heard an almighty bang from downstairs.

To say they both jumped would be an understatement. Kangaroos have achieved less air while bounding across deserts. Loz virtually landed in Kevin’s arms, causing some nervous laughter from Kevin and irritation from Loz. Neither wanted to speak. Both held their breath. They waited. Nothing. “Maybe it was just the door banging?” Kevin tried to breathe the words, rather than risk making a sound. Loz just cast a look at him that his mother would call “old fashioned”. They crept to the door and peered into the blackness. Kevin had shut off the torch just after the sound, so the only light was that of the milky moon, struggling to reach in through the dust-clouded panes. On the landing, it was as dark as a cave, with the stairs showing as a slightly darker rectangle. There was no noise. No air moved, nothing stirred. Loz was about to allow a small sigh of relief when it struck him: no noise. Nothing. No cars passing in the street? No cats, foxes, dogs adding their voices to the night sky? It must be about 9pm, maybe a little later, but there would still be the sounds of life winding down in the world outside. Where he lived, just across the park and a few streets down, there were car doors slamming, engines revving and children crying until way into the night. Yet here, there was a complete absence of noise…

Kevin had obviously not thought that deeply and moved through the door frame, switching the torch back on and illuminating the scene on the landing. On the blank wall opposite where they stood, above the stairs there were letters painted 40cm high in black: LEAVE NOW. “Was that there before?” He stammered to Loz, who was still welded to the spot just inside the bedroom door. All he could manage by way of response was a small shrug of the shoulders. He had no idea if the writing had been there when they came upstairs. He could not remember if they had looked at that piece of wall while exploring the rooms up here. He could not be certain that he could remember his name right now. Kevin swung the beam along the wall, looking for anything that would show that this slogan had been there all along. He was not sure what he was looking for, so instead he crept back to where Loz swayed like an oak in a stiff breeze and grabbed him firmly by the wrist, “Let’s go.” They moved along the landing, staring at the wall above the stairs as though scared it was going to jump out at them. Carefully, Kevin picked out the stairs with the torch and they steadily made their way downstairs, to the relative safety of downstairs and the promise of freedom through the front door. As their feet found the wooden boards of the hallway, Kevin felt Loz’s arm stiffen under his grasp, but before he could question what had caused this renewed fear, he heard the same sound: a muffled electronic noise coming from the lounge. It sounded like a TV set, and as they cast their eyes towards the door, they saw lights playing under it. Someone was in the lounge watching TV. Loz screwed his eyes shut tightly, forcing himself to calm down and get a grip. When he opened them again, everything would be fine and there would be no sounds or lights coming from a dead room where there has been no electricity for 50 years.

3…2…1…

Loz bit through his lip as he opened his eyes and found the world around him just the same as when he had closed them. But how? Kevin was staring at him, his eyes searching for an answer that neither of them had. Nor did they want to have. Desperate to get out of the house, they tip-toed towards the front door. The front door that had been left ajar when the entered. The front door that was now firmly shut and bolted. Loz made a noise that he had only previously heard coming from a wounded cat. What was happening? Who had shut the door? Who was in the house? Kevin’s composure also gave up at the same time, and he pulled at the bolt, heaved the door open and dragged Loz into the chill night air.

The moon was being hidden by the clouds now, and the world looked dim and shadowy. The two boys ran across the road and took shelter behind one of the bigger trees on the edge of the park. The dash had been about 150 metres at most, yet they both stood panting as though they had just run the 1500 metre final at the Olympics. Neither was ready to speak yet. Instead they stood, waiting for their breath to return and for their hearts to stop the escape attempt from their chests. Kevin risked a glance around the tree trunk towards the house. The door was shut again. They had definitely left it open as they ran for their lives… And there were still lights flickering from behind the now drawn curtains in the lounge. As he turned to share this with Loz, he realised that Loz was actually looking over his shoulder. “What sort of ghosts close the curtains?” Asked Loz, back to his normal voice. “Er…?” Kevin had actually been wondering what they were watching on a 1950s TV set, but decided Loz’s question sounded more intelligent for now. Both agreed that any ghosts that kept the front door shut and locked and watched TV with the curtains drawn were not really that scary. They were not the “throw things, open a portal into another dimension, make your granny dance with the cat” kind of ghosts and demons that they saw in horror films.

Feeling a little calmer and more reasonable, Kevin made a suggestion: “Let’s knock on the door”. Now, there was no way Loz was going to believe he had just heard that, so he remained looking at Kevin as though nothing had happened. “Well…?” Kevin was regaining his composure at an alarming rate. Loz tried the tactic of reasoned argument: If they are ghosts, they won’t open the door. No good, Kevin was walking back across the road towards the house. Loz quickly caught up, wondering what on earth either of them would do if someone answered the door… or maybe something.

Bolstered by the appearance of Loz, Kevin tapped on the front door. “They won’t hear that”, came the helpful and bold statement from Loz. So, Kevin knocked with more confidence and they both stood rigid as the sound of an internal door opening and the lights from the TV set signalled that they had been heard. A shadowy figure passed in front of the glass in the front door, travelling quickly across the hallway to the window next to the door. They barely glimpsed the wizened face that looked out from behind the tattered drapes and darted back again. The shadow moved back across the floor and disappeared behind the lounge door again, as it shut out the dancing lights.

Neither boy was sure what had just occurred, nor what they really thought about it. Both remained facing the door, as if puzzled by its reluctance to open. “Come on…” Kevin pulled at Loz as he left the front step and moved towards the lounge window. He was not going to let this go now, not when he was so close to knowing for sure what was going on in this house. The pair sidled up to the window and peered around the frame as though expecting to be shot at. The curtains obscured the view on this side, but there was a gap in the middle. They moved across to the centre of the pane and squinted through the tiniest gap into the gloomy room beyond. The room was the same as they had seen earlier: old fashioned, dusty and very brown. The difference this time was that the large brown box in the alcove was on, flickering light across the dark as black and white images played across it. Loz realised he recognised the show it was playing. “That’s The Voice!” He exclaimed in shock and excitement. Kevin elbowed him in the ribs “shhh!” They froze as the figure in the room looked towards the window and eased out of the chair. It was an unsteady walk to the window, which gave the boys time to duck down and hide before the curtains were pulled back and the same wrinkly face looked out into the night. After a couple of moments surveying the scene, the curtains were tightly drawn together and the boys crept off from the front of the house.

As they sipped their hot Ribena back at Loz’s house, the boys were trying to make sense of what they had seen. Loz’s mum had at first been a little angry that the boys were later than she had expected, but as Loz explained their adventures and the things they had seen she became absorbed in the history of the house and forgot any fleeting thoughts she had about grounding him. She had insisted that Kevin call his mother straight away to prevent her from worrying, and had even suggested that he stay the night so that they could talk about their adventures – this was also because she knew that Loz would be less likely to have nightmares if he had a friend there. She sat mesmerized by the tale, only asking questions when the boys paused. As the three of them sat there, each gave their own theory about the house and its mysterious occupant. Kevin still insisted that is was the ghost of one of the family that had left in the 1950s; Loz didn’t agree, but was struggling with his own theory, and his mum thought it might be a criminal lying low away from the law. It was at this point that Loz’s dad entered the kitchen carrying a laptop. “I think I may have found something interesting”, he announced to the room in general. He placed the laptop onto the kitchen table without saying anything else. Expectantly, he waited. “What am I supposed to be seeing, exactly?” Loz’s mum broke the spell first. She was looking at her husband with a puzzled frown. In return he placed his finger to his lips as a sign that they needed to be quiet a little longer. Suddenly, Loz stood up, his chair flying back and crashing to the floor. “Laurence!” Exclaimed his mother, but the boy was not listening. “That’s him!” Loz was waving his finger frantically at the screen. Kevin leaned in closer to the black and white image of the vanished family that was being displayed on the screen. “Who? Who are you pointing to?” Loz looked up at his father to be rewarded with a knowing wink and a smile. “You knew?” Loz asked with disbelief and a little awe. His father just gave a single nod of his head and then signalled towards Kevin. He wanted Loz to be the one to share the discovery; the one to take the credit. He moved the cursor on the screen so that it highlighted a smaller image underneath the main photograph. This one was of the reporter who had covered the disappearance of the family in the local paper. At the time of the disappearance he had been an apprentice reporter, just a young teenager trying to make his way in journalism. He had investigated every lead, tried to trace the family, spoken to the police, hospitals and even visited local mortuaries on the off-chance that someone from the family might turn up. It became an obsession and he lost his position at the paper because he would not cover anything else. He followed the story for years until he too disappeared sometime in the 1970s. Kevin stared, open-mouthed at the image of that man. It was him. The old man from the house; the one they had been terrified by – the journalist trying to find out what happened to the missing family.

As they eventually made their way to bed, the boys still had so many questions that needed answering, but Loz’s parents insisted that they all needed some sleep. On his way upstairs, Loz turned to his dad and asked the question that had been annoying him since the laptop had been brought into the kitchen: “But…how did you know? And why wait until after we went to the house?” His father looked him in the eye and winked, “There are some things you have to find out for yourself.”