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The Last Train

Morality is a Trip.

By Dash GetEmPublished 4 years ago 15 min read
2

“The last train will be arriving in three minutes..”

Kano staggered down the steps, his hand searching for balance along the wall as he descended, he was disoriented, and everything was hazy.

“What the fuck was I supposed to do, I didn’t have a choice”

Kano raised his bottle to his lips and drained the contents before tossing it into the abyss below, it bounced off the third track and exploded into tiny glass shards. He noticed a man with bright red hair staring at an advertisement on the wall.

“The last train will be arriving in two minutes..”

The two men both looked up at the speaker where the voice was coming from and back down.

“Hey bro, do you have change?” Kano said loudly, to the red-haired man’s back, the man seemed to be transfixed with the blank ad.

Kano, pulling out a wad of crumpled bills, slowly walked over to the other man.

“Yo, you got any change? I only have big bills”

The man hesitated before turning and looking up at Kano, “no, I don’t have any money”.

“How the fuck you gonna get on the train then”

Before the man could answer, they were interrupted by a pair of rubber rain boots coming down the steps to the subway.

Patty, the owner of the rain boots, looked around the station, there were several overhead lights broken and Patty couldn’t make out the name of the station in the dark.

She started to worry, none of this seemed familiar and it was getting dangerously late. It had been hours since she last checked on her kids, and her phone was now dead.

“The train will be arriving in one minute”

The two men turned to meet the newcomer; she was shivering in her coat as if she had been out in the cold, however it was warm when Kano arrived.

Time slowed to a stop as the train pulled in, it felt like all the air in the room was being sucked out right up until the doors blew open.

One by one, the passengers filed in.

None of them had intended to ride the train tonight, but each of them felt compelled to get on.

A heap of torn clothing, and what looked like soiled bed sheets faced them as they walked in and when the doors shut, the pile of rags began to move.

A man rose from the seat until he towered over them, he was pale, and the discoloration of his skin gave him the appearance of a sick person. He looked as though his bones might give way under the weight of his considerably large, bald head.

“Good evening, where are we all off to?”

Kano looked at the two of them, neither seemed eager to answer.

The red-haired man looked around suspiciously at the subway car they were in, just like the advertisement on the platform, all posters inside the train were blank.

“Where is this train headed” he asked?

“Well Fred, that’s up to you. You pay your fare, and I bring you there.” The Bald Man replied

The man with the red hair, known as Fred, was washed with uneasiness and started fidgeting.

“How do you know me? Just let me get off right now, I don’t even have any money”

The Bald Man shifted his body so that could face Fred directly.

“Well, there will be no ‘getting off’ for you three, not yet. I do, however, have a deal for you.”

Kano and Patty who had been silently observing this interaction each stood up in protest.

“I ensure you, you are safe on this train, and I bear no ill will towards any of you, comply and you’ll get to where you need to be.”

The three of them looked at each other, wondering if the others were in on the joke.

The bald man’s face broke out into an animated smile.

“Civilizations have used storytelling to share and teach lessons to generations for centuries, so all I’m asking is that you tell me your story.”

Fred now too stood up, his eyes bloodshot, filled with rage, his hands clenched into fists. He began to speak but was interrupted by the sudden, jerking acceleration of their subway car.

The three of them were thrown from side to side while the bald man stood perfectly still with his arms folded.

The bald man snapped his fingers and almost instantly, the jerking stopped. Once again, they were all standing staring at him.

“This train WILL deliver you to all of your individual destinations, and you will pay the fare. There is no argument to be had about that.”

The three of them sat terrified, wondering what was going to happen next, afraid to make any rash moves.

Kano racked his brain for a suitable story that he heard in passing that might suffice, this could all be a trap by the police to trick idiots into making confessions.

Almost as though Fred could read his mind, he responded to the bald man before Kano could find the words.

“You know, if you’re the police, this is entrapment, I know my rights.”

The Bald Man stepped towards Fred and lowered himself to his level and looked him dead in the eyes.

“Tell me how you think you got here.”

Patty went to the window to find out that all she could see was darkness.

The train sped up.

Fred stood facing The Bald man, his eyes darted back and forth between him and the windows.

The bald man’s pupils were two black diamonds, and every second Fred stared into them he felt more and more like running in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen; it wasn’t supposed to go down like that”, Fred started.

“Okay, I met this lady in a bar, right? I had seen her there a few times… sometimes with her friends, but mostly alone. She’s got issues with her bum ass husband or whatever, right? Her husband some big shot rich guy, and I figure, if I just go over there and play my cards right, this could pay out really well. “

The Bald Man sat down and slouched into the chair behind him. “Go on, I do enjoy a good tale of adultery.”

“She didn’t make it hard; she was practically begging for attention; I just knew her husband had to be a complete tool. I sat down beside her, she was drinking alone, and I could tell that she had been crying. So, I chatted her up a bit, she told me about her kid and how her husband was a drunk. I pretended to listen while I imagined how much I could get for that gold bracelet she wears on her wrist.”

“So, you seduced this unsuspecting woman into sleeping with you? Knowing she had a family at home? What could make you think it was okay to intrude into their lives” The Bald Man asked

Fred took his time with this answer, he had tried to forget the events of the day.

“I was getting desperate okay. I was on my last can of tuna and lonely women are so easy to hustle. All you gotta do is listen to em long enough for their clothes to come off.”

“and what happens when their clothes come off, Fred?”

Fred went silent, his eyes went dead, and his skin started to goose bump all over.

“Sh-she brought me back to her house, she was fucking loaded. I mean her husband was-they were. I had never seen so many overpriced paintings before in my life. We thought the house was empty, that her husband had taken their daughter to a friend’s house for the night so he could go out on his usual bar hop.”

Fred’s eyes began to well up with tears as he spoke. His voice broke, and his hands started trembling.

“I had her ass out cold by 10:30 pm, and had a bag filled with valuables beside the bedside table just waiting on me. I was putting on my clothes when the door to her bedroom flung open. Her dumb ass husband came home and was now staring at me with my member out, and his wife butt naked in bed asleep with a goofy smile on her face.”

The Bald Man, sat up a bit before saying “and you killed him, didn’t you? For coming to the aid and protection of the woman he vowed to love forever?”

“No, I… we were fighting, and… and we fell to the floor wrestling, and out of no where, he reaches under the bed and into a shoebox for a fucking gun.”

“I panicked and took it from him, he tried to take it back from me, so I kicked him off, and got up but he knocked the gun away from me…”

“so, you choked that poor man—”

“she picked up the gun and shot him in the head.”

“Didn’t see that one coming” The Bald Man said with a chuckle

“she dropped to her knees after and started crying. I didn’t know what to do, I was in panic mode, so I grabbed the gun. She just looked up at me, like a little puppy dog.”

“Then I…I shot her. I don’t know why I did it, maybe I was afraid she’d pin her husbands murder on me, say I broke in, I don’t know but I wasn’t gonna let her put it on me. I dropped the gun and ran… I ran down the hallway, and when I got to the stairs, guess who’s there? Their fucking daughter, just standing there at the base of the staircase with her stupid stuffed animal, just looking at me. It was too late, I had to commit. I pushed passed the little girl and ran into the garage. Both cars were outside, I hit the button for the garage door and bolted, slipped on something though. It was like, drill bit, or some other shit. I must have hit my head when I fell, I think I have a concussion.”

Fred put his head in his hands, then rubbed his eyes, sitting down.

“I woke up and was here at this weird ass nightmare train station, I must have stumbled here and fell asleep.”

The train sped up.

The Bald Man put his hands together and began clapping.

“Bravo, what a tale you have told. You, my friend, are truly a despicable man. However, you did tell it, so I suppose that earns your fare.”

Fred exhaled loudly.

“You have also earned a secret. Come here.”

Fred hesitated, but eventually stood up and inched closer to the Bald Man’s face.

The Bald man whispered into Fred’s ear, and sat back down.

Fred’s eyes lit up, Kano and Patty could see literal flames in place of his pupils, he turned away from them and walked towards the door.

“This is… my stop” said Fred in an almost robotic fashion, reaching for the STOP button.

The doors opened to pitch blackness, the train was still speeding through the night, and didn’t slow. Fred gave the remaining passengers one more blank look and stepped out into darkness.

Kano jumped up, “Wh-what did you—” but he lost his nerve immediately after beginning, while Patty cowered and hugged her legs.

The Bald Man tapped his fingers along his knee before standing back up and stretching his back.

“Well, who’s next?’ He said with a devilish smile.

Patty cried without tears; her weeping echoed through the empty train car.

Kano looked through the window, hoping to see some sign of Fred but it was useless. He couldn’t make out a single thing in the darkness.

The Bald Man walked over to sit himself next to Patty now. He caressed her back as she cried, and then helped her sit up straight.

Once again, he stared directly into her eyes, almost like he was trying to see through her.

“What is your story? Patricia Jenkins…”

The train sped up.

Patty tensed up a bit at the mention of her full name, she wiped her dry face, and stopped sniffling. It was like she had awoken from a bad dream in the middle of a high school exam.

“As you can see, this train isn’t stopping anytime soon, and it’ll only take us longer to reach our destination if you waste my time”. The patience in the Bald Man was starting to wane, and Patty could sense it.

“I just wanted to be a good mother, but life is so hard, and I was never given a real chance.”

“Come now, you’re already giving excuses? Let’s get to the MEAT of the story”

Patty continued, “I used to be an addict, I mean I am an addict… I used to use.”

She stumbled on “It ruined my life, and I got myself away from it all. That was before my Phil died. Phil was the most amazing man, he made me feel safe in an unsafe world. He found me when I was living needle to needle and gave me a home- he gave me a life. He helped me get clean, and we had two kids together, Stacy and Jack.”

A smile etched its way onto her face whenever she spoke about the love she had for her family.

“He did some bad things, I’ll admit that, but no one’s perfect so I never held it against him. I was a fucking crackhead for God’s sake. It didn’t matter to me that he was a drug dealer, I had met my fair share, and none were as loving and caring as that man.”

The Bald Man yawned.

“I thought I said GET TO THE MEAT,” he shouted at her. His voice was so deep it felt like the vibrations shook the train car.

The train sped up.

“It was a couple weeks ago when it happened, the day he left us; I was at home with the kids. He said he had to make a quick run, and handle something. I didn’t think anything of it because he does that shit all the time. After a few hours, I was starting to get nervous. I was pacing up and down, couldn’t even hear my kids asking me for things because I was so anxious.”

“Then a call came in; it was Ryan, one of Phil’s childhood friends.”

The Bald Man motioned a glance at his imaginary watch and began tapping the space on his wrist where it would be.

“He was fucking dead. My love, the father of my children. He was GONE for good.” Patty shrieked.

“A few days later, the stress of it got to me. I began using again. I needed the release, and I didn’t care where it came from.”

“and today? Did you use today?” The Bald man asked impatiently.

“This morning, I slept in and the kids missed their bus. I told them they could have a sick day and left them watching the tv while I got high on the couch. I passed out and when I woke up, I was fully dressed, and standing at the stairs to this fucking station. Was that you? Did you lace my shit?”

The Bald Man grinned, “Of course not. It sounds to me like you enjoy your high more than you love your family.”

“NO, I love them, and I would do anything for them. I’d die a million times if it meant protecting my babies. I was just weak. It was just a moment of weakness.

“So, you’re telling me it would NEVER happen again? Never in a million years?” The Bald man inquired.

“I will spend the rest of my life trying to take care of them, they already lost the most amazing man in the world, and I owe it to them.”

The Bald Man just stared at her, then after a few seconds he motioned her forward. He leaned in and whispered into her ear.

She smiled a small smile.

“It was nice meeting you”

Then she calmly stood up and walked towards the door.

As she got up, her entire demeanor changed, her posture relaxed, she held her head high. Her eyes weren’t burning from the inside out like Fred’s, they were still. There was a peacefulness that washed over her now.

The doors slid open, and she stepped back out onto the original train station platform, then headed back up the same stairs she came from.

The Bald Man took his seat once more, and the doors slid shut.

Kano was fed up and determined to find out what was going on.

“Okay bro, I need some fucking answers. I’m not telling you any fucking stories, you hear me?”

The Old Man sat silently for a moment before stretching his arm out and grabbing Kano by his collar.

“Kano Ericcson, You’re a piece of shit. I know your type, I know that you saw him on the other side of that car door, begging you to help him. I know the heartbreak you felt when those policemen riddled your only little brother with lead, and how you didn’t hesitate to run away when he needed you the most.

The Bald Man saw through his bluff, Kano gulped and tried to break away from his grip to no avail.

“You want answers? Tell me, what would you like to know?” he said with the same creepy smile as before.

“Tell me who the FUCK you are, what did I ever do to you?”

The Bald Man’s smile widened.

The lights on the train went out, all that could be seen was the whites of the Bald Man’s eyes, illuminated in the darkness.

“I am The Last Train.”

The End?

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