The Third Rail’s Cold Hum

It was the last connection of the night, the 11:20 from Pine Hollow. My father’s old farmhouse had been a tumor of memories, and I’d stayed too long, trying to bottle a few I could stomach. Now I was stranded at the Meridian Junction, a concrete wound in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a train that the flickering board said was ‘Delayed 30 minutes’ in that cheerful electronic font. The platform was a ghost of itself—peeling paint, a single flickering sodium lamp that buzzed like a dying insect, and benches that felt like ice even through my coat. I chose one, shivering less from the cold and more from the silence. No wind. No birds. Just the hum of the third rail, a low, hungry thrum that vibrated up through my spine.

I tried to read on my phone, but the screen’s glow seemed to attract the darkness. I looked up, scanning the opposite platform, which was about twelve meters away, a mirror of my own desolation. And then I saw her. A girl, maybe seventeen, in a thin summer dress that didn’t belong in that cold. She was tall, slender, with hair so pale it looked almost white in the gloom. She stood at the edge of the platform, toes hanging over the yellow line, looking down at the tracks below. I thought she was just waiting, as I was. But then she moved.

Not a step. A sway. Like she was listening to a rhythm only she could hear. And then, with a grace that was horrifying in its ease, she stepped off the platform onto the track. No jump. No hesitation. Just a step, as if an invisible stairway waited there. My heart lurched. I couldn’t process it. She landed on the gravel, her bare feet—I saw them now—on the stones, and she didn’t look up. She just stood there on the tracks, between the rails, facing away from me. My voice came out cracked, a dry rasp: ‘Hey! Hey, you!’ I waved my arms, but she didn’t move. The third rail lay inches from her, and I knew that if she stepped on it, she’d be dead, burned and thrown, but she just stood there, swaying.

I pulled out my phone to call for help, but the screen was black. Dead. I looked back at her, and she was turning. Slowly, like a door opening in a draft. She faced me now, and under the sodium light, I saw her face. It was blank—not expressionless, but like the features had been smoothed over, erased. There were no eyes, just dark hollows. No mouth, just a thin line. She raised a hand, and in the dim light, I saw that her fingers were too long, the knuckles wrong, bending in ways they shouldn’t. She pointed at me. At me. And then she opened her mouth—that thin line split into a gash that was too wide, too black, and no sound came out, but I felt it. A vibration in my chest, a hum that matched the third rail’s, and suddenly the lights flickered and died.

Darkness. Absolute. I heard a scraping sound, like something dragging itself up from the tracks. I stumbled back, my heel hitting the bench, and I fell, hitting the ground hard. I scrambled to my feet, my hands shaking, and I ran. I ran along the platform, my footsteps echoing loud in the black, and I glanced back—and she wasn’t on the tracks anymore. She was on my platform. On all fours, her head twisted at an impossible angle, looking at me, the dark sockets of her eyes fixed on me. She moved like a spider, her joints popping, and she was fast. Too fast.

I ran up the stairs to the footbridge, my lungs burning, and I heard her behind me, those popping sounds like knuckles cracking, and a clicking of her throat that was the sound of a cobra’s rattle, but sharper, more like the spark of the third rail. I reached the bridge, and I stopped. Because there she was, at the other end, waiting. She hadn’t crossed. She had always been there. She stood under the bridge’s bare bulb, and she was different now—her dress was torn, her skin gray, and where her mouth had been, there was now a row of needle-thin teeth, glistening. She raised her hand, and she was holding something, something small and dark. She opened her palm, and a coin dropped, clattering on the metal floor. Then another. Then another. They came in a cascade, like she was shaking a broken purse, and they rolled toward me, each one ringing with the same hum.

I backed away, the coins gathering at my feet, and I noticed something in the way they landed. They were arranging themselves—not haphazardly, but in a line, pointing toward me. And they were hot. I could feel the heat radiating from them, like they’d been lying on the third rail. I looked at my shoes, and the metal laces were beginning to smoke. I cried out and stepped back, but the bridge ended at a stairwell leading down to the other platform. I had no choice. I ran down the stairs, and at the bottom, I saw the train. It had arrived—no lights, no rumble, just silent, its doors open. I dove inside, and the doors slid shut with a hiss.

I collapsed into a seat, my heart pounding. I looked out the window, and I saw the girl on the platform, but she wasn’t moving. She stood at the edge, and behind her was the conductor’s booth, and I saw a figure in there, but it wasn’t human—it was a mass of shadows with the girl’s face, pressing against the glass. The train began to move, not with the lurch of motors, but with the smooth glide of something being dragged. I was the only one in the car. The overhead lights flickered, and I saw that the floor was covered in a thin film of black, and in the reflection of the dark window, I saw myself—and beside my reflection, another one. Tall. Slender. No eyes.

I turned my head, and there she was, sitting across from me, her fingers tapping on the armrest in a rhythm that matched the third rail’s hum. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. She just tilted her head, and I felt my own neck crack in response, a sharp pain. And then she pointed down, at my feet, and I looked—and my own reflection was pointing back at me, grinning with that needle mouth. The train was slowing down. I knew it was the next stop, but I didn’t know where, and I didn’t want to find out. The doors hissed open, and the darkness outside was absolute. And she rose, and extended her hand to me, palm up, empty. But I could feel the heat from her skin.

I didn’t take it. I stumbled back, but the car was somehow longer now, and I backed through the doors onto the platform. But the station was different. The sign above said ‘Meridian Junction’ but the paint was new, and the platform was pristine, no peeling, no flickering lamps. And there was a train waiting, but it was old, Victorian, with brass fixtures and a conductor in a uniform from a century ago. He tipped his hat, and I saw his face was too smooth, like porcelain. And the girl stepped off the train, and she wasn’t terrible anymore—she was just a girl, seventeen, in a summer dress, but her face was hers, tear-streaked, and she said, ‘You see it now. This is where they leave you.’

I didn’t understand. But I saw the other people on the platform. They were all facing the tracks. And they all had the same blank face, the same smooth void where their features should be. And they were all swaying. And then the girl—the real girl, the one who had stepped off the track—pointed to the rail, and I saw the third rail was not a rail but a long pale arm, extending from the dark, with a hand at the end, beckoning. And I woke up. Or I thought I woke up. I was on a bench, my coat around me, the board above flickering ‘Delayed 30 minutes.’ The station was deserted. But there was a coin in my hand, warm, and I heard the hum of the third rail, louder than it should be. And across the platform, I saw her again, perched. But now I knew she wasn’t waiting. She was searching. And I felt my own mouth tighten, the skin of my face smoothing, as the hum vibrated through my bones, and I realized I was swaying. Waiting to be chosen.