He noticed a man standing on the platform

March 1, 2025

by Citlalli

2 min read

Story Premise 2 min read (335 words)

"Tom had always worked late shifts at the diner on the edge of town. Most nights, he drove home on the same empty road, passing old buildings and quiet streets. But one night, something felt different. As he neared an abandoned train station, he noticed a man standing on the platform. The station had been […]"

Tom had always worked late shifts at the diner on the edge of town. Most nights, he drove home on the same empty road, passing old buildings and quiet streets. But one night, something felt different.

As he neared an abandoned train station, he noticed a man standing on the platform. The station had been closed for years, its windows shattered, the tracks covered in rust and weeds. The man wore an old-fashioned suit and a dark hat pulled low over his face. In his hands, he held a silver harmonica.

Tom slowed down at the stop sign near the station, watching as the man lifted the harmonica to his lips. Though his windows were rolled up, a faint, sorrowful tune seemed to fill the air. The sound made Tom’s chest feel heavy, like an old memory pressing down on him.

The man turned his head slowly, as if sensing Tom’s gaze. Though it was too dark to see his eyes, Tom felt an unsettling chill creep up his spine. The music stopped. The man lowered the harmonica and just stood there, watching.

Tom’s hands gripped the wheel tighter. He had the sudden urge to drive away, but for a second, he couldn’t move. The streetlight flickered above him, and when he blinked, the man was gone. The platform was empty, the station silent.

Tom sped home without looking back. The next day, he asked an old customer at the diner if anyone used to play music at the station. The man nodded.

“Yeah, back in the day, there was a musician who played for travelers. But one night, he was waiting for a train that never came. Poor guy froze to death right there on the platform. They say he still plays, hoping to catch the last ride home.”

Tom never took that road again after work. And on quiet nights, when the wind was still, he sometimes swore he could hear the whisper of a harmonica in the distance.

Related Horror Movies to Watch

Bone Lake

2025

The Perfect Companion

2010

The Changeover

2017

Nicodemus

2012

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Cleaver in the Pines

Maya and I were doing our usual laps around the old gravel track that hugged the tree line. The autumn air was crisp, carrying the smell of damp leaves and something faintly metallic, like old coins. We were joking about our history teacher’s toupee when a flicker of movement caught my eye. At the edge […]

The Green Pea Incident

My name is Elara, and I’m sixteen. Since we moved into this old farmhouse on the edge of Morrow’s Hollow, things have been… off. Not just strange, but specific. Every single odd occurrence happens when I’m by myself. If my mom or my little brother are around, the house is as quiet as a tomb. […]

The Last Rake

The last time I saw my father alive, he was staring out the hospital window, his gnarled hands tracing patterns on the blanket. We thought he was just restless, but later the nurse told us he kept muttering about his fields, about the north quarter, about the raspberry canes. He died that same night, and […]

The Weaver of Hollow Threads

I never believed in the old stories about the Larkspur House, a creaking Victorian relic that had been converted into student lodgings. The place had a reputation, sure, but I chalked that up to the usual collegiate penchant for drama. My room was on the second floor, where the floors and walls were all dark, […]

The Fourth Visit

My friend Marcus has always been a little off. Not in a bad way, but in a way that makes you uneasy. He’s died three times, or so he says. Three separate occasions where his heart stopped, and each time he came back with something new. The first time, he started seeing flickers at the […]

The Loft in the Hill

When I was eight, my family spent weekends at the old Millbrook place, a sprawling farm owned by our friends, the Hardings. We’d arrive early, when the dew still clung to the grass, and leave long after the stars came out. There were four of us kids: me, my brother Sam, and the Harding twins, […]

The Gilded Visitor

I was sixteen that autumn, when the rowan berries hung heavy and the nights came early. My parents had left for a wedding in the city, and I had the farmhouse to myself for three days. I invited two friends, Mara and Jace, to keep me company. We were not bad kids, just bored, and […]

The Warning on the Shore

My grandmother left us in the autumn of 1995. Two years later, I had a dream so clear it felt more real than waking life. She was standing on a familiar beach, the one from our childhood summers. She was looking out at the stormy sea, her dress whipping in the wind. She turned to […]

The Phantom Dribble

In the sweltering summer of 1985, in a quiet barangay in Bulacan, our family lived in a two-story wooden house that creaked and groaned like an old man’s bones. My younger sister, Maya, had a peculiar habit: she would take a small, worn-out rubber ball and pretend she was a basketball star, bouncing it on […]

The Weft and the Warp

The summer I turned sixteen, my cousin Lila and I spent our days in my grandmother’s defunct weaving mill, which she’d converted into an apartment. The mill’s machinery had long been removed, but the enormous wooden looms remained, draped in dusty cloth, their shuttles and heddles skeletal in the dim light. My grandmother had told […]

The Fever That Left

It was the autumn of my twelfth year when we moved into the old house on Birch Lane. My mother, my younger brother Leo, and I had come to live with my mother’s new boyfriend, a man named Paul. Paul was a quiet, heavy-set man with a nervous smile, and he told us that his […]

The Inheritance of Static

My grandmother, Elowen, was the only one who ever believed me. When I was a child, I’d sit on the peeling linoleum floor of her kitchen, tracing the pattern of stained roses with my finger, and tell her about the not-quite-there presences that lingered in our house. They’d rattle the radiator, make the curtain billow […]