The Last Thing You Lose

A heavy haze washed over her as she slowly woke, the rhythmic sound of the train begged to lullaby her back to sleep, though she felt as though she had already been asleep for a very long time.

Wait, I'm on a train? To where?

I found when I opened my eyes I was greeted by a smudged window. The night was so dark I could barely make out any shapes or tell that the train was even moving.

I looked around the car, it was eerie how sparsely filled the train was. Though I noticed an older man a few rows front right of me stirring as well. Rubbing his hands into his eyes. His beefy neck turned looking around the train scanning it as well, he seemed to be equally as lost as I was. He made eye contact and gave a sort of a confused smile. He gingerly stood waddling toward my row.

“Pardon me, but this is going to sound very, very idiotic.” He slicked back his remaining swab of cotton colored hair. “But what train am I on? Here I thought I had a few good many years before I would have dementia.” He gave a nervous laugh.

I found trying to find the words myself difficult. “Well here I thought I was going crazy, um I was actually wondering the same thing. I don't remember getting on this train.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, so.. I don't think you have dementia my friend.”

We both sat pondering for a moment. I then thought to check my watch, I saw that it was 5:56 AM, before pulling away I noticed that the second hand was frozen in place. “Hmm”

The old man stood, “well let me see if we can't find a conductor on this damn thing.”

I watched him go for a moment as the distance between us grew, I was hit by an ice cold feeling of loneliness. I felt as though the dread would devour me; it was unbearable.

“Let me come with you.” I said coming to my feet.

He looked back, “very well then. I'm Melvin, what's your name by the way?”

I began to respond, but then winced, I felt my smile hanging awkwardly. ”My name is…” the answer was right on the tip of my tongue, but where there should've been words forming there was a blank sentence. Like a cursor blinking on a computer screen waiting for words to be typed. “My name.. I don't know my name.” I felt my eyes well with tears uncontrollably.

“Really?” Melvin's eyebrows raised in surprise. “Well I'll be damned, maybe there was a bump on the train and we both hit our heads or something, huh.”

“Yeah, yeah maybe that's it.” I could hear the lack of hope in my own voice.

We walked down the aisle, Martin humming a strange tune as we went. There were a few other passengers who swayed in their seats lifelessly.Though I could see that a few ahead were stirring. A bald headed man scratched his scalp, and some teenagers across from him also were moving.

“Excuse me sir? What train are we on right now?” The bald man looked at Melvin with regard and sat back in thought. He answered with a strong Eastern European accent. “Ehh, You know, I actually don't.” When he said “know” it sounded like he had cotton stuck to the roof of his mouth.

I nodded to the boy and girl. “And how about you two?”

They both seemed just as shocked at their lack of knowledge. “What the hell.”

The female teenager perked up, "let me check my phone. I'm sure I had a virtual ticket,” she said, pulling out her android cell phone.

“Eh, I never could deal with those things..” Melvin said, shaking his head.

The boy pulled out his phone as well. Both only grew more confused. He spoke first

“I… got nothing. I mean like don't have service at all.”

“What the hell? Freaking T-mobile, I don't either.” She irked.

Everyone took turns pulling out their phones now, finding that we all had no service.

A mixture of voices melted together in all confusion.

“What is happening? I know I had photos on here.”

“You don't have photos either?” I asked no one but everyone.

“Okay this is too odd, are we being pranked orrr Punk'd?”

“What is Punk'd?” The European asked.

“Okay Okay,” Melvin waved his arms like he was doing jumping jacks. “Let's find the conductor or someone, there's got to be someone.” So the four of us went down the aisles making our way between the rumbling cars encountering more confused people. Every car we made our way through our group grew in number. People all in a fog, some not remembering their names, some knowing they were on a train, most not.

Finally we encountered a conductor. He had a thick white mustache that sat beneath a pair of circular glasses. He adjusted his half heartedly tucked in shirt.

He turned shocked at the line of us in the aisle. “Excuse me folks, we can't have you blocking the aisle, please some of you return to your seats.”

Melvin held a wrinkly hand up, “sorry sir, we all are having the same problem and this is going to sound crazy. But, all of us have uhh woke up recently and can’t remember a damn thing. I mean, getting on the train, some of us don't even know our names I mean, I expected-”

The girl cut in “we don't remember getting on this train or what train it is?”

I added with a smile, “yeah so could you alleviate some of that?”

The conductor, who according to his name badge was named Steven, seemed to lean back as if the wave of information had physically moved him. “Well of course. We are on the train to… the train to..uhh.” His face glowed rosey colored and flushed as he glanced among us. “Umm well.. Damn.. I uhh, I can’t remember either.” He said, scratching his head.

There were equally moans of dismay, and aghast expressions of bewilderment. The boy put his hands behind his head. “Don't you have like tickets or something?”

The conductor put up his index finger before pulling out a booklet. He licked his fingers as he skimmed through the first few pages. The air around Steven was thick with the collective exasperated breath of all us. The pages whooshed by as he skipped numerous finger fulls. “This can't be.. This isn't right.” He even turned the book around and skimmed the pages from the back.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“It's.. blank. There's nothing at all, this should be full of tickets.” Opposite of earlier now his face now flushed of its color.

Once again our group erupted into a cacophony of dismay.

Steven collected himself before pulling up his radio, “Hey is Steven anyone available?”

The radio squealed in response causing all of us to clamp our hands over our ears.

“What the fuck is going on?” Someone asked.

We continued our march down the aisles of the train, the gravity of the train pulling us haphazardly back and forth. “It's one more length Steven said.”

We passed through the now ever dormant snack cart. I noticed that there wasn't any food. It looked like there never was.

Steven then stopped. “Alright let's get to the bottom of this. I'm going to the driver to see what he says.” We continued into the economy class, there was but one man in a suit that stood in the aisle on his phone. I couldn't help but notice the suit he was wearing was very old looking, like it was a generic Italian mobster type suit. We all stopped as if it were the first phone we had ever seen.

I led the way this time, “excuse me sir? Sorry to bug you.” He pulled back his head from the phone, and turned to the large group of strangers who were asking for him. “Pardon me, I'm on a very important.” He then stopped himself. His mouth slowly lowered and his face went pale as he stepped backwards.

“Eh is something the wrong?”

The teenage girl lost her temper at the situation. “We just want to ask you some questions!!”

He continued backing away and turned running into the next train cart.

“Well what the hell?” Steven muttered.

“Let's not yell at him,'' I said, struggling to hide my annoyance. Despite me saying that, the man was indeed acting weird so we followed him into the last cart. Only one thing was wrong, he was nowhere to be found. We all looked into the empty seats as we passed. “Where the hell did he go?”

“There's like literally nowhere he could've went” The teenage boy said

“Must be a slower schedule for this train, hardly anyone is on it.” Steven added, peeking in and out of the seats.”

Steven stopped in front of the door that led to the train driver. He rattled his knuckles on the silver door.

Nothing but the rumbling of the speeding train answered.

“Hello?” He knocked harder.

I couldn't help it but I got the feeling again, the despair as we all started banging on the door. I could feel that it spread to the others, the teenagers cried, Marvin sat in a chair with his hands clasped behind his head, the European banged angrily on the door.

I felt tears falling from my eyes again. Why am I crying?

The door burst open, forcing some of us to stumble into the room. I fell onto the European, apologizing.

We all gathered ourselves, it seemed we all realized how crazy we just were acting.

The feeling of normalcy did not last.

I looked around the small control room, different odometers lined the steering column. Though there was no driver.

“So you're telling me this train has no driver?” My voice rose as I spoke.

Steven opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.

“Was that him? The guy on the phone?” Melvin asked.

The European fellow spoke for the first time in a long time. “Where are the lights?”

We all murmured in agreement. Steven looked along the column, and flipped a switch. Lights kicked on, lighting up nothing but dark. There was nothing, no railroad, nothing in front of us.

There was a gasp from somewhere in the room.

Everyone sat staring at the darkness before them, it was as if we were staring into the depths of a giant pupil staring back. Staring out in a window into the inky black depths of the ocean. A few in the group started crying.

It hit me now. The words came back as if I were coming out of a dark tunnel. “My name. My name is Christina.. My name is Christina!”

The teenage girl next smiled, “My name is Brooklyn.”

The European sighed in relief. “My name is Yuri.”

Steven in a toneless voice spoke. “It's the first thing you lose. The last thing you remember.”

Melvin looked at me with a weak smile, and his gaze rose to the exterior again. His look was a bewildered one. Outside had lit up, on both sides of the track were gravel. The train continued to rumble as it had been; however outside showed a different story. Nothing was moving. The train shifted like it went over a bump causing the group to shift their balance, and yet outside, the train sat dormant as it had for many years.

“Dude! You wont believe this!” Kevin ran up to his two friends Mark, and Zena.

“Oh my god, what Mark? Did you close on your little tinder link up?” Zena was dressed ironically as Xena The Warrior Princess, Mark as a zombie.

“No, no, well not that, I mean I was on the phone and I swear to god, I turned around hearing a voice. Well not just one voice it was like a bunch yelling at me, and when I turned around I shit you not there was like 10 people there!”

“Like other people? How do you mean?” Mark asked.

“No, not at all, like they came from NOWHERE, and on top of that you could see through them. Like they were empty or vapors or something.”

Zena, rolled her eyes skeptically. “Okay Capone.”

“Really man come on I swear to god, I ran away and when I turned around there was NO ONE there. NO ONE.” He pointed his finger for emphasis.

“Uhm okay okay, why don't you show us where this happened.” Kevin continued to plead his case as the three walked by the giant sign.

“Halloween special Haunted Train ride 20 dollars per person.”