The Last Train to Meridian

The last train to Meridian left Union Station at 11:47 PM. Maya had missed it by forty seconds, watching the glowing tail of the final car shrink into the dark throat of the tunnel. She had been running since her shift ended at the all-night diner, her sneakers slapping the wet pavement, her lungs burning with October cold. Now she stood on the empty platform, breathing steam, and cursed the city bus that had gotten stuck behind a stalled truck.

Maya knew the next train wasn’t until 1:15 AM, and the station would close before then, forcing her to wait outside in the biting wind. She had her phone, but the battery was at 3%, and the charging kiosk was out of order. She pulled her thin jacket tighter and scanned the station for a place to sit. That’s when she noticed the other platform, the one on the far side, her reflection in the grimy window of the waiting room. There was a bench there, and a dim light flickered overhead, and a man in a long coat sat at the far end, unmoving.

She’d seen him before. At the diner, he’d been at the counter, nursing a coffee, reading a newspaper with a black-and-white photo on the front page. He hadn’t looked up when she’d refilled his cup, just turned a page, revealing a headline about a woman found dead in an alley. Maya had felt a chill then, and now, seeing him here, she felt the same chill deepen. She decided to wait in the main concourse, near the shuttered newsstand, where the fluorescent lights seemed almost warm.

But as she walked past the waiting room door, she heard a sound – a low, rhythmic thumping. Like something heavy hitting a wall. And then a voice, muffled, but unmistakably human. A whimper. Maya froze. She pressed her ear to the cold metal door. The sound stopped.

She waited. Nothing. She told herself it was the pipes, the old building settling. But when she turned to leave, she saw a splash of dark liquid on the floor, leading from the door toward the far staircase. Her heart hammered. She pulled out her phone – 2% – and dialed the station security number, but it just rang and rang.

Her feet moved of their own accord, following the dark trail. She told herself to stop, to go outside, to wait for the bus. But the trail ended at the staircase, and she saw footprints going down, into the underground parking garage. The air grew colder with each step. She felt a draft, as if a window had been left open, and with it came a smell – copper and rot, like wet pennies and old meat.

At the bottom, the lights were mostly dead, leaving pools of blackness between the sickly glow of emergency bulbs. She saw a shape on the concrete floor – a coat, a discarded work apron, a pair of shoes. The woman from the newspaper. Maya’s breath caught. The woman’s face was turned away, but there was a wound, a dark bloom on her apron. Maya backed away, hand over her mouth, and hit something solid.

She turned. It was the man from the station, standing closer than she’d thought possible. He was taller, greasier, his eyes like wet chips of stone. He said, ‘You should have taken the train.’ His voice was flat, like pebbles in a jar. Maya ran. She sprinted through the garage, up the stairs, out onto the street, but the streets were empty, the streetlights flickering. She ran to the station’s main entrance, but the doors were locked, and through the glass she saw the man inside, walking slowly, without hurry.

She kept running, toward the bus stop, but the sign said ‘Out of Service.’ She ran to the next block, to a 24-hour pharmacy, but the lights were off, the doors chained. She pounded and screamed, but no one came. And all the while, the man was walking, never faster, but never slower, closing the distance.

Then she heard the whistle of a train. The 1:15 – it was early. She ran back toward the station, seeing the platform gates still open, and the man was right behind her. She reached the turnstile, threw herself through, and saw the train three tracks over, doors open, waiting. She sprinted across the tracks, ignoring the third rail, and dove into the last car just as the doors slid shut.

The train began to move, and Maya saw the man on the platform, watching, his face expressionless. He raised a hand and made a gesture – not a wave, but a small, deliberate twist of his fingers, as if turning a key. And then the train entered a tunnel, and the lights inside flickered.

Maya looked around the car. It was empty, except for one other passenger at the far end – a woman in a work apron, the one from the newsstand photo, but her face was whole, and she smiled, bloodless. ‘It’s okay,’ the woman said. ‘He only comes out on nights when the train runs late. But you’re late, aren’t you?’ Maya looked down at her own hands, seeing dark stains on her apron that had not been there before. The woman stood and walked toward her, and as the train reached the next station, the doors opened onto nothing but blackness, and the platform was gone, and there was only the void, and the woman’s hand gently taking Maya’s arm, leading her into the dark.

The train pulled away, empty again, and everyone who saw it swear it had no driver – just a shape in the conductor’s booth, wearing a long coat, reading a newspaper. And on the front page, a new headline: ‘Missing Woman Found Dead in Train Tunnel: Police Baffled.’