TRAIN

SHE HUGGED JACK GOODBYE at the train station.

He felt his pockets to remind himself he left his phone back home. Which was why no one had tracked him.

He bought a train ticket with spare cash and headed south toward San Diego. It would take him 2 hours and 40 minutes but it was rare that the train was ever on time. At least one person jumped in front of the tracks every weekday. Unfortunately for people trying to get to work.

Once he got onto the train he realized the most peculiar thing . . .

The train was empty.

The train made its first move from the station and Jack stood to search for someone to check his ticket. But there was no one.

"Hello?" he shouted. He went to buy food on the first floor but there was a sign at the food counter that read that it was closed for "the holiday." What holiday?

Suddenly he thought he heard someone from behind him. He turned around and spotted the back of a woman with long dark hair scurry around the corner and up the stairs to the second platform.

"Excuse me," he said. He ran after her. "Miss, wait! Do you know where everybody is?" But she eluded him like a mouse escaping a cat. He reached the second landing but found her nowhere in sight.

He was alone again.

Jack was experiencing such a peculiar day. The same dark cloud that passed over him on the plane when Mr. Golem had first accused him of murder suddenly passed over him again.

Jack gained a strange feeling of bile swimming like slow tar down his gut. And the lights of the train flickered and every other light bulb suddenly went out. And the train turned to shadows.