The Underpass Keeper

I was nine when the flood came to Millbrook, a town that had no business having floods, sitting as it did on a dry plateau above the river. We lived in a cramped apartment over a bakery, and my only escape was the old railway underpass at the edge of the housing estate. It wasn’t a park, not really, just a strip of cracked asphalt with a few benches and a chain-link fence separating it from the abandoned tracks. But it was mine.

One afternoon, I was chasing a stray orange cat near the road when a delivery truck barreled around the corner, tires screaming. I froze, but a force—like a giant’s palm—slammed into my back, sending me sprawling into the gravel. The truck swerved, missing me by inches. The driver leaned out, face purple, and shouted, ‘Get out of the road, you stupid kid!’ I scrambled up, dusting my knees, and saw him: a tall man in a long coat standing by the underpass entrance, watching me. He hadn’t moved, yet I knew, somehow, that he’d shoved me to safety. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he was already turning away.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The image of his pale face and the way his lips never moved while a voice echoed in my head—’I’ll walk you home’—haunted me. Against every instinct, I went back to the underpass the next day. He was there, sitting on a bench, staring at a puddle that reflected the gray sky. I sat down next to him, my heart hammering. ‘Thanks for the other day,’ I whispered. He didn’t look at me, but he smiled, a slow, sad curve of his lips. He pointed at the puddle, and for the first time, he spoke aloud, his voice like dry leaves. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting.’

I looked. The puddle was not a reflection but a window. I saw a family—a mother, a father, a little girl—standing in a kitchen, their faces pressed against a windowpane, their mouths open in silent screams. Water swirled around their waists, rising. I gasped and looked away, but the man’s hand, cold as stone, touched my arm. ‘They didn’t make it,’ he said. ‘But they still hope. Do you?’

I didn’t understand. But over the next weeks, I kept returning to the underpass. The man, who I came to call Mr. Holloway, told me he was a keeper—not of the dead, but of their last moments. Each day, he’d show me a new puddle, a new crack in the asphalt, a new shard of glass, and in it, I’d see a different scene: a car sinking into a lake, a building collapsing, a plane spiraling from the sky. Always the same: people on the edge, hoping for a hand that never came. ‘I was like you once,’ he said. ‘I had a chance to save someone, and I didn’t take it. Now I stay here, watching the ripples of my failure.’

I asked him who he was waiting for. He didn’t answer. But that night, as I slept, I dreamed of a girl with red hair, drowning in a river, reaching for me. I woke screaming, and my mother found me clutching my chest, clawed marks on my skin. I didn’t go back for a month.

When I finally did, the underpass was flooded—not with water, but with a thick, soupy fog that smelled of rain and rot. Mr. Holloway was standing in the middle of it, his coat billowing though there was no wind. His eyes were black, like the puddles. ‘I’ve waited for you,’ he said. ‘It’s time for you to take my place. You see, the underpass doesn’t just show past deaths. It shows futures. And your friend, the one with the red hair—she’s going to drown in the river next spring. But you can stop it. You just have to believe.’

I shook my head, backing away. ‘I don’t want this.’

He smiled, and his face began to melt, like wax. ‘You already have it. I’ve seen it in you. The moment you looked into the puddle and saw the family, you became a keeper. There’s no going back.’

I turned and ran, and I didn’t stop until I reached home. I told my parents I was sick, and I stayed in bed for days. But I couldn’t escape the visions. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the red-haired girl—her name was Lily, I learned—flailing in the water, and I heard Mr. Holloway’s voice: ‘You can save her. You just have to cross over.’

I didn’t. I was nine, and I was terrified. And I did nothing. The next spring, Lily drowned in the river. I watched from the bank, my legs frozen, the underpass keeper standing beside me, his hand on my shoulder. ‘Now you know the weight,’ he said. ‘You’ll carry it forever.’

I moved away a year later, and I never saw Mr. Holloway again. But I’ve seen the puddles. Every time it rains, there’s a moment when the water looks just right, and I catch a glimpse of Lily, reaching for me, her mouth moving silently. And I hear him: ‘You could have saved her. But you chose to be a child.’

I’m thirty-three now, and I still see him in the corner of my eye, in the reflection of a shop window, in the ripple of a gutter stream. He never smiles anymore. He just points, and I know what he’s showing me: another future, another chance, another hand waiting to be taken. And I know that one day, when I’m old and tired, I’ll walk back to that underpass, and I’ll sit on that bench, and I’ll wait for a child to come and look into the water. And I’ll tell them, just as he told me, ‘They’re waiting.’

And I’ll hope they’re braver than I was.