The Cohoke Train Tracks Ghost

I almost killed Brock.

This memory still gets to me when I think about it to much. So hopefully writing it down will help. Back in college, I had a group of friends that would get together on the weekends for a few beers to hang out, shoot the wind, and talk about our week.

We sat on their porch feeling the humid air pleasantly rest on our skin, and listening to the crickets. I leaned back into the porch post and heard it slightly creak. As I took a sip of my beer Kevin said aloud to the group.

“You guys ever go to the haunted train tracks?” I looked him over and he had a big grin on his face.

“Are you talking about that one ghost story with the guy who... Umm…” Becky then raised one hand and made a chop motion into her neck.

“That’s the one!” Kevin said pointing his beer bottle toward her.

“Tell me about it.” I called over to him. The rest of the group seemed interested in hearing the story too. There were only about seven of us. Three guys, four girls.

“Story goes like this.” Kevin sat up and leaned forward for dramatic effect.

“Along this railroad track back in the 1880s, a train was having trouble with one of the hitches tugging at the engine weird as they moved. They decided to come to a full stop to see exactly what was going on. The engineer stayed put, but one of the conductors was sent to inspect it."

Kevin sat down his bottle to use both hands to gesture the rest of what I assumed was a very rehearsed campfire story.

"Turns out, some of the chains weren’t hooked up right and jumbled around in a big knot. So it would stretch and pull the car forward as it moved. The hitch itself wasn’t even done right or hooked up at all. So the conductor starts getting the heavy chains untangled before he could hook up the hitch again. But, something went wrong."

Kevin leaned in whispering the word wrong. He made eye contact with me and then trained his focus on to Gina. Frankly, she was looking uncomfortable and Kevin zeroed in on that. Good storytellers often do.

"The Engineer later at the trial said he swore up and down he saw the conductor leave the gap between the two cars. Give him the A-ok sign with his right hand and just before he stepped on the train in one of the back compartments. He said to the jury that the conductor who went to go inspect had a malevolent smirk as though he’d just achieved something. But as the engineer starts the steam engine again, the front cars inch forward. Then he hears a garbled scream, followed by silence and an audible crack sound. He turns back to see the cars aren’t connected and the moving train is spreading the gap even more. The second engineer now hops down from the engine to walk back to the two separated cars."

Kevin made eye contact with me once more.

"Lying on the ground staring up at him with wide-open eyes and a gapped mouth, the severed head of the first conductor nestled in between two rail rungs. Blood coated the chains and spilled like thick black milk over the metal track. Gushing from the conductor's neck and body. The trial pieced together what they think happened. The tangled mess of chains somehow got around the conductor's neck, and when the engineer started to pull forward….. It decapitated him.” Kevin leaned back. The rest of us were mortified, captivated, and dumbfounded.

“Who was it he saw go back into the train?” Becky asked.

“Don’t know, but they never found that guy he said he saw. The engineer was thrown in jail for involuntary manslaughter.” Kevin gave a small burp which he covered with the back of his hand.

“So what is it that makes it haunted?” I asked.

“I think we should go out and see.” I heard Brock chuckle from my left. Kevin’s smile got wider.

“Are all you guys in?!” He points around to the group of us.

“Yeah let's go!” Feeling a smile spread out on my face. "Sounds like fun."

We all piled into two cars and go out to the location that was about an hour and a half drive away. I had never been there before, so I didn’t pay attention to the directions. But when we got there, I opened my door greeted with the chirping of the occasional cricket. I shut my door and start walking out a beaten dirt trail into the thick wood.

Me Kevin, and Brock, were the only men. The girls included Becky, Gina, and two other of her friends I hadn’t met before tonight. I could tell Brock was sweet on Beckys shortest friend, but I knew to keep my mouth shut and just let him flirt in his own way. As awkward as it was.

We passed a “No Trespassing” sign covered in dirt nailed to a tree. I pointed to it ribbing Brock. He shrugged.

“Cops started putting those up a few years back. They’d sort of been done with random people coming out here. They started keeping a closer eye on the area because one guy brought his gun and shot the other person he was with. Said he saw something that made him do it. Totally weird, the families swore up and down they were tight like brothers. Since then, the police have tried to keep a crackdown, but it’s been a few years and I haven’t gotten in trouble since then. It’s more about timing.” He winked at me.

When we finally reached the track the moon was out and it was bright. We didn’t need flashlights on a night like this. Kevin and Brock helped me gather some wood and lit a small pit fire next to the tracks. Listening to the fire crackle, we had a few more beers and started to tell each other scary stories. One after the next, each one sucking us further and further into scarring one another. We stared into the dancing fire at the center of us, eventually falling silent.

The quiet was broken with a short scream from Becky across from me. She was staring right behind my shoulder. I whirl around to see something I can only explain as a light. A distant ball of white light, no bigger than a lantern flame. It hovered over the ground about 40 yards away. It moved so slowly and bobbed unevenly. It crossed the tracks over and disappeared into the woods on the other side. The group breaks out into a panic of conversation “Did you see that?” “What was it?” “You should go check it out.”

At “You should go check it out.” I immediately said “No way.” but Brock squared his shoulders up to be very tough. He slapped my shoulder and said

“Come on man. Let’s go.” I looked to Kevin who shrugged and nodded to go with us. The girls huddled together holding arms as they watched us walk out into the dark night over the gravel of the old tracks.

“How far do you think we need to go?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t know, far enough,” Brock said. I kept walking behind the two of them. We looked out at our surroundings as we went. The strange thing was, there were no power lines or streetlights. We were truly out in the middle of the wilderness. No crossroads for us to think a drive-by motorcycle or car with one headlight probably tricked us in our drinking. Nothing like that. The funny thing was, I felt pretty clear walking out there, not buzzed at all.

We had walked out pretty far at one point and stopped to talk to each other. We questioned if we’d gone too far or to keep going to see if we could get a better look at the light. I hear a chorus of screaming from the girls behind way back at the pit fire. All three of us turn to look.

Emerging out from the woods is that same glowing light crossing back to the original side it came from. Only it was floating in the distance where we stood, and the pit fire where the girls were. I turn back to talk to the guys to run with them. But they were gone. Silence cuts abruptly from behind me mid-scream.

I turn back to face the pit fire. There was no fire, it was dark.

I felt silence encompass me.

Everywhere around me was quiet, and I was alone.

Where am I?

I stood there frozen for a moment. The whole thing was surreal. How could I just turn around and have everyone be gone? The tracks underneath my feet began to rumble. And I mean… violently vibrate and shake as though 380 TONS of metal was hurtling my way. That was impossible these tracks are abandoned. I felt my blood turn to ice as I hear a distant whistle. I look in both directions of the track trying to find out where it’s coming from. But the sound is getting louder, and I turn to move off from the tracks.

From the wood, a shell of a shadow, one arm holding up an old metal lantern. Its headless neck was jagged and uneven, a halo of blood around where its head should have been. Its free arm lunged at me. I screamed and fell back into the gravel feeling it dig into my elbows.

It walks toward me as the rumble of the train on the tracks starts up again. I feel the bulge of a large rock under my palm as I scramble to stand back up to run. I’m about to take my first step to sprint but am stopped. The conductor's hand grabbed my arm and I felt myself reel around punching him hard in the stomach. I do remember thinking it was odd that something that looked no more than a shadow felt so solid and flesh-like. I bend down and pick up the heavy rock to throw it at the headless ghost, and I’m stopped. Holstered into place mid-air. I blink and yelling fills my ears.

“Carl! What are you doing? Stop! Stop! You’re going to kill him!” Kevin’s arms are bracing me from the back and I’m standing at the ready with a large rock over my head, and poised to thrust it down. Only, what was in front of me wasn’t the ghost, it was Brock. On the ground, and holding his stomach in pain.

“What happened?” I looked at Kevin dropping the rock letting it crack into pieces.

“You just lost it! First, we saw the lights cross the tracks, and then you started looking around like you were really confused. You didn’t respond to us when we talked to you. Soon as Brock touched your arm you turned on him and sucker-punched him. Then I saw you grab the rock and was afraid you were going to bash his brains in because you had the most insane look of anger on your face I’ve never seen before.”

I stared at Kevin. I was here the whole time? I turned to Brock at a loss for words, embarrassed that I had hurt him.

“Brock… I…. ah…….I’m sorry. I have no idea what happened.”

The girls saw us fighting and decided to run over. Soon as they got there, Brock picked himself up from the ground, not letting Kevin or I help him.

“Let’s all just leave.”

We put out the fire, and I followed everyone back to the cars. The ride home was uncomfortable. We all knew we had gotten more than what we bargained for. I suppose in an odd way, I was the lucky one.

Whatever illusion had taken me, didn’t win.

We all left there alive. I have no intention of going back, I and warn anyone who goes looking for the light on the tracks, of the Cohoke Ghost.