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The Last Train Home
Darkness. Complete utter
darkness, pressing on his brain like all the
mountains of the world. Silent, penetrating darkness. No light, no
sound, in
the eerie empty stillness.
"Where…where am I?" He
thought. " I can't see. Everything black…no
light…just…nothing!"
"I've gone blind!" His heart
beat wildly in his neck. "Is anyone there?"
"There?" answered the echo.
"Where am I? Help! I'm
blind!"
"Blind! Blind!" shrieked the
echo.
"I'm alone," he thought in
rising panic. "There's no one there. No one can
help me. What has happened? I can't be dreaming…How could I? I just
woke
up."
"It's like waking from death.
Death! " His breath came in tortured gasps.
"Oh, no! No, I can't be…Surely I'm not dead!" He groped frantically in
the
darkness. "I'm sitting on something, " he thought. There's a wall on
this
side. No, it feels like a pane of glass. I'm sitting by a window. It
feels
like …yes, it's a train…but where am I going?"
"Where am I going?" he
shouted. It was suddenly the most important question
of his entire life. But only echoes answered in the eerie stillness.
"Hot," he gasped, "it's
getting hotter, hotter. Oh, help, help! I must be on
a train to hell!"
His screams ripped the empty
silence. The echoes returned maniacally,
taunting him, mocking, louder and louder, a melee of demon shrieks
mingling
with his own. Sweat saturated his clothes and streamed down his shaking
body. A fetid stench clung in the air. He was aware of a presence in
the
darkness. Something sinister, malevolent.
"Get away from me!" he
screamed. "Don't touch me What do you want from me?"
"Your soul." The voice was
thick with menace and power.
"Who…who are you?" he
whispered hoarsely.
"I am Beelzebub, your master.
I have come to take you home."
"Get out! I don't belong to
you!"
"Then who do you belong to?
Have you pledged your allegiance to the other?"
"You mean Go…"
"Don't say it! Don't say that
name!" screamed the demon. "No one utters that
name here. I don't see his stamp on you."
"Well, no, but…"
"Then you are mine!"
"But I can't go to hell! I've
never hurt anyone. I've led a good clean
life."
"Ha, ha!" The hideous
laughter echoed in the black void. "Only one person
lived a perfect life."
"You mean…"
"Don't say the name!" the
demon screamed. "Yes, He would have saved you if
you'd asked, but now it's too late."
"Too late, late, late!"
Shrieked the echoes.
"But…but I didn't realise.
I've done nothing to deserve this. If I could
have one more chance…"
"You've had your chance!"
roared the demon. "Now you are mine!"
"No, no, never!" screamed the
man, lashing out in a frenzy - hitting,
kicking, screaming as he felt the steely claws clutching him, choking
him.
Demon voices shrieked and
roared as he was sucked into a maelstrom of
unspeakable terror. Faster and faster he was whirled, accelerating to a
terrifying tempo and then falling, falling down, down into the abyss.
"Help, help me!" he cried
desperately. "Oh God, help me. Oh, please God,
forgive me. Just give me one more chance. Help me Jesus!"
"Don't say it!" shrieked the
demon in agony. "Don't utter that name!"
Suddenly the man stopped
falling and he felt himself being lifted and
carried toward a light. Nearer and nearer the light shone, brighter and
brighter. It hurt his eyes. He couldn't bear to look. Beyond the light,
he
was aware of a white robed figure, looking searchingly into his face.
"Yes, he is one of my
patients." Said the doctor, replacing the penlight in
the pocket of his white coat. "He suffers from narcolepsy. He can just
fall
into a deep sleep at any time. Must have gone to sleep on the train and
woke
up after it had been shunted into the tunnel."
"That lazy guard!" fumed the
stationmaster. "He's supposed to check all the
carriages before he leaves. Poor fellow," he appraised the limp figure
before him. "It must have been a frightening experience. Just as well I
heard him screaming. But how did he get in such a state…the
scratches…the
blood…the torn clothes…he looks as though something attacked him."
The doctor shrugged.
"Narcolepsy can cause hallucinations," he replied. "Who
knows what demons he was fighting."
"Did you see his eyes?"
whispered a bystander. "He had the look of a man who
has been to hell and back!"
COMMENTS
My doctor mentioned
that one of his patients had gone to sleep on the train and thought
he'd gone to hell when he woke up at the end of the line.
That was the same week our creative writing class was asked to write a
horror story...
MAMALADE
Stories
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