The Last Train to Nowhere

In the autumn of 2019, I found myself in the dusty town of Silver Hollow, a place where the train only stopped once a day, and the locals swore the tracks were haunted. My friends and I—let’s call them Maya, Leo, and Jess—had come to investigate the old Silver Hollow Junction after Jess claimed she saw a figure in her reflection at the station’s mirror, a woman in a tattered dress who was not there when she turned around. Jess was a skeptic, but her fear was real, and I, being the one who dabbled in the occult, foolishly suggested we try a spirit board to contact the entity. I said it was dangerous, but Maya, ever the thrill-seeker, insisted we do it. She sent Leo to the hardware store to buy a piece of plywood and some paint, and by dusk, we had crafted a crude board with letters and numbers, and a wine glass as the planchette.

The station was abandoned, save for the flickering light of a single lamp. We set the board on a rusted bench, and I lit a candle, though the wind kept trying to snuff it out. We placed our fingers on the glass, and for a long while, nothing happened. Then, the glass began to tremble, sliding to ‘H’, then ‘E’, then ‘L’, then ‘P’. Help. Jess gasped, but Maya laughed. ‘It’s probably just the wind,’ she said. But then the glass moved again, spelling out ‘THE LAST TRAIN.’ We all looked at each other, confused. The last train had stopped running years ago. ‘Maybe it wants us to leave,’ Leo whispered. But the glass continued: ‘IT NEVER LEFT. YOU ARE ON IT.’ A cold draft swept through the station, and the lamp flickered. I saw movement in the mirror behind the bench—a reflection of a woman in a tattered dress, her face pale and streaked with grime. I turned, but no one was there.

The glass then spelled ‘RUN’ before the board cracked in two, and the glass shattered. We fled the station, but as we stumbled into the parking lot, we saw the old train pulling into the platform, its windows glowing with a sickly yellow light. The doors opened, and we saw figures—passengers with hollow eyes, staring at us. ‘Get in,’ a voice echoed from inside, and we felt an irresistible pull. We tried to run, but our legs wouldn’t move. We were drawn into the train, and as the doors slid shut, I saw the conductor—a man with no face, just a void where his features should be. He held a pocket watch, and he said, ‘You’re on time for once.’ The train lurched forward, and I watched the station disappear into the dark.

We are still on that train. It never stops. We walk through the cars, passing other passengers who seem to be in a trance, their lips moving silently. There are no windows, only mirrors on every door, and in them, we see glimpses of the world we left behind—our friends, our families, but they can’t see us. We tried to break the windows, but they are impossibly strong. The conductor appears occasionally, always saying the same thing: ‘The last train is always full.’ I know now that we were not just playing a game; we were boarding a destiny. And as I write this, I see in the mirror a reflection that is not mine—the woman in the tattered dress, and she is smiling. She mouths, ‘Welcome aboard.’ I don’t know how to get off. Maybe there is no off. Maybe we are the ghosts now, doomed to ride the rails forever.