Ghost Train (special preview)

During a horrible winter, my daughter, Gracie, and I are returning from church. It is snowing hard and we can barely see the streetlights ahead of us.

“C’mon, Mama!” Gracie is giggling. 

“Slow down!” I squeeze onto her hand. “There is ice everywhere. I don’t want you to fall.” Her hand slips from her mitten and she races ahead of me. I panic as I lose sight of her and I give chase. I run through the thickest of white until my heel gets caught and I slip on ice. I slide and flop around.

“Mama!” Gracie gasps as she stands beside me.

“I told you not to run!” I groan. My hip and ass are in agonizing pain. “That was very bad, Gracie!” I whimper and fall back onto the ice.

“Mama!” Gracie starts to cry.

I try to sit up, but my hip hurts far too bad. I look up at Gracie, wondering what I can tell her. In this snow, it is so hard to see anything. I know I can’t send her out on her own. She will easily get lost in all of this.

I then hear the blaring scream of a train whistle. I grab onto Gracie, holding tight onto her. Looking up, there is steam and heat in the air. I knew we were far from the train tracks, at least, I thought we were. 

Through the snow, I can see the light of the train. It glows and is warm before it. It hisses and settles, a deep groaning going through the air.

“Mama?” Gracie clings to me. “What is that?”

Someone comes down the stairs from the train. The heavy soles of their shoes make a loud noise as they step off the stairs. They crunch through the snow, stopping just before us.

“You alright?” They ask.

“Mama fell,” Gracie says before I can stop her. “She’s really hurt. Help her.”

The man sighs. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll try and help as much as I can, little lady.” He kneels down, scooping us both up in his strong arms. I smell the smoke of a cigar before the pain makes me faint.

When I come to, Gracie is snuggled up beside me, snoring as she cuddles a teddy bear I’ve never seen before. I sit up, realizing we are in the sleeper car of a train. I push away the curtains, looking out into the hallway. Outside, I only see the white of snow. My hip is still painful, so I can’t get out and look around. 

I sigh with nerves so heavy and cling to my daughter, feeling she’s the only thing keeping me calm at this moment. Had I been alone, I probably would have been freaking out.

I hear heavy footsteps come down the hallway and, in a moment, there is a knock beyond our curtains. 

“You alright in there?” He asks.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Where are we?”

He chuckles. “Only where you need to be, love.” His voice is gravely and somehow echoes. “No need to worry.”

“Well, I feel as if I need to,” I scoff. “Who are you?”

The curtain starts to peel back. It opens up and the man that stands there is strange and ghastly. My heart drops out and everything I had feared as a child feels suddenly too true for me to stand.