Keep a Light On

Darlene sat at the station watching the first snowflakes of winter land on the tracks. When the train arrived she boarded with a woman dressed all in black who walked briskly despite an obvious limp. Must be new to the area Darlene thought nervously.

She limped through the lurching train, counting numbers on the sleeper compartments. Here. Number 13. She tossed her backpack into the compartment, lit a cigarette and fished the photo from her pocket. "Geez Darlene," she said. "You're even worse looking than your mugshot."

The bedraggled creature was even more terrifying and had far fewer teeth than her mugshot. There was a cheesy, musky smell in the sleeper compartment. “Darlene, if you’re going to help us, you’ll need to shower. This. Year.” It would take work to have her pass as a bank teller.

Darlene was begrudgingly escorted from her RV and hosed down in the open campsite. Weeks of murky sludge cascaded down her jorts-clad legs. "All this for a job interview?" she asked between sprays of water. "With your missing teeth, you need all the help you can get," we replied.

That night Darlene warmed herself up by the campfire, surrounded by her new cohort. Had she passed the test? No one would make eye contact with her.

The fire’s smoke drifted up through the trees, into the black night. Darlene raised her eyes to the sky; as she tuned her haze to the stars, she felt a hand on her arm.

Darlene turned around to see the train conductor, smiling, a flaming torch in his hand. “Run, Darlene. Run.” He said quietly, his smile turning into a face more evil than any she had seen before.

So she ran. Though she’d never admit it, she actually had a pathological fear of trains and wanted to get away from this one as soon as she could. She kept an eye out for a friend.