In the light of a candle - The Sleeping Compartment

A Story by D.Y.Petkova

Part of the In the light of a candle series

Oh, hello. Are you in this compartment, too ? Come it. Put your bags here. So, you are going to the capital, too ? Just like me. But sit, don’t be shy. We would not want you to get lost like that whole carriage, right ? What carriage ? You mean you’ve never heard that story ? Explains why you are travelling in this hour. Do you want to hear it ? So listen…

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It was a night just like tonight. And a carriage just like ours. Not one of the sleeping compartments, because weird things don’t go there �" they are afraid of what they could meet. But here ? It’s fair game. But my point is, the whole carriage was full. Every compartment, even the corridors. People were talking and laughing, they’ve just left the station and the mood was still high. Nobody was sleeping, they were too exited. It was an hour before midnight, but not a single lamp was off. But this is our train company, after all. The nights are either too cold or too hot. And the monotone sound of the train makes everyone too sleepy and, in the same time, too jumpy. It is an atmosphere that could make even the calmest person restless. Blankets were pulled out of the cases, lights were turned off and everyone tried to make themselves comfortable enough for a nap. Not sleep, because that is simply impossible.
The train that night was cold and dark, and the clouds were obscuring the full moon. Outside the windows there was darkness so thick that it could be touched, even tasted. Heard. Felt in the lungs and the heart, in the pulse behind the eyes and in the slight shiver in the fingers. Darkness, that made even men, who had travelled this route before, swallow nervously. No one should be alone in a night like this. Yes, in a night just like tonight. See the trees ? Neither do I. You can’t see the woods, the lakes and the sky tonight, you couldn’t see them then, too. You could only feel the night, squeeze your eyes and pretend that nothing was outside, that the monster under the bed hadn’t followed you to this forgotten train. Some of the passengers actually made themselves believe in this. It didn’t make a big difference in the end. But maybe it has been some relief. Who knows…

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It was two and a half hours after midnight. After one terrifying hour and before another. They say that three in the morning is the witching hour, but who has ever heard about a witch riding on the train ? Yes. Nobody. The train stopped. It was time for a break and he passengers were relieved. Some of them didn’t even move from their seats �" they were sleeping so deeply that they didn’t hear the loud conversations outside the doors. Some believe that this saved them. This is true, if you are looking at the new version. The romantic one, where there were actual survivors. Do not believe that. There weren’t. The sleep just bought them time to feel the true meaning of fear. But this comes a bit later. Now, imagine the cold night air. The train stopped on the barren station. The smokers were the first to leave �" they were desperate for a cigarette. The others left behind them and the sleepers stayed in the train. Now, I do not know what really happened there because I wasn’t there. And I am happy about that. All I know is that although that station isn’t the most popular place, there still were supposed to be people there. There should’ve been people in the shops, selling food and tickets. There should’ve been guards and these men who wander around the trains and try to steal bags. Or that man with the bell who is always urging people to get on the train. You get it. But there wasn’t anybody there. And the town isn’t very small. Not like the capital, but it still is a pretty big place. And it was quiet. Completely. Like it had been forgotten by God, but that wasn’t possible. The town was bright with lights but it too was quiet.
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The doors closed. The smokers thought it had been the move of someone who had gotten cold. One woman tried to open the door, but it didn’t move. She asked then big man next to her for help. He tried and failed. Whispers began to run through the crowd. The people got closer to the door. Everyone tried to open it. Nobody succeeded. And then a scream froze the whole crowd. It was a little girl, no more than five years old. What she saw I do not know. All I know is that in the morning a man, whose route to work went around the train station, was found on the ground. He woke up later in the hospital. The policemen, who were called, said that they had thought about fainting, too. One of them left his job right on that moment. The other, you would ask ? The other quit on the next morning, when the train arrived in the capital and the doors were opened.

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On the station there had been a slaughter. A precise work of a maniac who was never found. Every single person, from the oldest to the youngest, was found without his or her eyes. And without their blood since it had leaked on the cement through the gashes on their necks. The eyes were never found. In the sunny morning the blood had been to bright, the empty faces of the victims too grotesque. Every person, who had seen the picture of the station from that day, went mad in one way or another. The workers, the reporters, the policemen. The man, who had found the massacre, shot himself in the head. He left a note saying that he just couldn’t keep up this way. That every time he closed his eyes, he saw the faces of the murdered. It took him a week to get out of the hospital and find a loaded gun.

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Yes ? Why did the second policeman quit ? Yes, I will tell you. When the train arrived in the capital, the people at the station got worried when nobody left it. They opened the doors. What did they saw ? The impossible. Since the person who did this to them had obviously been on the station when the train had left the break station. When the doors had locked , the people outside had been still alive. No windows had been broken, no locks �" forced. And not a living soul was found in the train. Everyone’s documents showed that they were all on the train when it left the first station, hours before this happened. There wasn’t anyone missing. And the eyes still are somewhere. Maybe in a jars in the room of some madman. Or in the train somewhere. Who knows…

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The killer in the midnight train was never found. How did he do this was never understood. What did he do with the eyes and how did he do it remains a mystery. But this isn’t some old story, a myth or a legend. This happened on this route five years ago. In a night like this. I travel like this a lot. And I’ve heard from different people that sometimes, when the train stops in that town for a break, they hear voices. And screams. And they see men and women and children trying to claw their way into the carriages and break the windows. Not one and not two had been scared that way. One thing their stories have in common ? The beggars miss their eyes. It has been five years. The nights are still that dark, the train that quiet. But do not forget that not everyone was killed outside. And not everyone was peaceful. Some of them want revenge. And get violent…
Just be prepared. Oh, it’s two-thirty. Want to go out for a coffee ?