CHAPTER TWO
Rachel closes the door to her cabin and situates her luggage in the room. She sits on the bed and pulls her cell phone from her handbag. Her sister requested that she text her when the train leaves, to let her know she made it on. She types the text and sends it. “I’m on board, train is leaving. Can’t wait to see you!” It’s only a matter of seconds before her sister replies with a “Yay! Have a good trip!”
Rachel smiles and sets the phone on the nightstand, thinking again about the oddity of the salt. She had seen stranger things left on airplanes, so it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, it strikes her as odd. Tired from her flight from Cincinnati, it’s already been a long morning for her. She lets her body slowly fall onto her side on the bed, pleased by its firmness. She feels the train slowly nudge forward and smiles to herself. The trip has begun and every mile she puts between herself and her old life makes her that much happier.
Not intending to sleep, she nonetheless quickly drifts off into a dreamy slumber. Her mind is active and it recounts the day’s travels, from her mother dropping her off at the airport early in the morning, to finding and boarding the train. The first images are mostly pleasant, but her dreams shift to the train ride and a darkness flows into them.
Images of blood, suffering, and violence begin playing in her mind, combined with an overwhelming sense of doom. In her dream, an overpowering smell of sulfur sickens her and renders her unable to move. The sounds of screaming, hissing, and growling reverberate within the metal walls of the train, now dimly lit and chaotic. The dream has become a disturbing nightmare, and in it Rachel is trying to scream but nothing comes out of her mouth.
The loud horn of the train awakens her, pulling her from the nightmare. Her body jerks, the paralysis of the dream state lifting. The nightmare was so vivid that she sits half way up, resting on her elbow, her eyes darting around the sleeping cabin to make sure nothing is in there with her. Her heart is still pounding and she sits the rest of the way up. There is a fleeting sulfuric smell in her cabin, just as there was in the dream.
Crinkling her nose, she glances around the cabin and up at the air vent close to the ceiling. A stronger scent of hot food wafts into her room.
“That must be lunch,” she says to herself. She hadn’t eaten all day, and was starving.
Locking the door to her room behind her, she makes her way down the plush carpeted aisles towards the dining car. There are a handful of other passengers at the booth-like dining tables, and Rachel sits at an empty one. The tablecloths are crisp and bright white, trimmed in lace. The place settings consist of white and rose print China plates, cups, and saucers, and shiny silver utensils. Each table has one unlit candle surrounded by a lively arrangement of freshly picked flowers and greenery. Rachel picks up the candle on her table and smells it, and is pleased to detect a hint of vanilla.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” a polite elderly dining car steward greets her warmly. His attire is similar to Don the steward, except he wears a white jacket instead of red. He’s holding a large silver tea pot.
“Hi,” Rachel greets him with a smile.
“Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, that would be great!” Rachel watches as he pours the tea slowly and steadily into the delicate cup in front of her.
“Are you having lunch today?” The steward’s soft voice along with light grey eyes and white hair give him a comforting aura.
“Yes, I’m starving,” Rachel says.
“Excellent. We have a hearty beef stew, or a creamy chicken pasta with broccoli florets.”
“Oh, the pasta sounds good!”
“Good choice,” he says. “I will return shortly.”
“That’s what we had, dear,” a woman at the table across the aisle says to her. Rachel looks over to see a conservatively dressed man and woman both smiling kindly at her from their table.
Rachel returns their smiles. “It sounds good!”
“It’s very tasty, but I think it needed salt. There’s no salt on this train, can you believe that?” Susan says, looking at her husband, who shrugs carelessly.
“Really? There’s no salt?” Rachel remembers the container of salt that was in her room, which Don had confiscated from her.
“Are you traveling alone, dear?”
“Now Susan, this young lady probably doesn’t want to talk to some strange old fogies like us!” Her husband scolds her.
“No, it’s okay, I don’t mind at all. Yes it’s just me.”
“Ok, well, don’t you worry, if you need anyone to talk to we will be here for the duration!”
“Susan, introductions first!” her husband says. He reaches out to shake hands with Rachel. “I’m Richard, and this is my wife Susan.”
“It’s nice to meet you both, I’m Rachel,” she says, shaking both of their hands. “So you’re headed to San Francisco too?”
“Yes, our son lives there, we’re going to visit him for a while,” Susan says, beaming with pride.
“Are you on vacation, Rachel?” Richard asks, taking a sip of his ice water.
“No, actually I’m moving,”
“Oh my goodness!” Susan exclaims. “You’re moving? That is exciting!”
“Do you have family in San Francisco?”
“My sister and her husband live about an hour north, in Bodega Bay, have you heard of it?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t,” Susan says.
“It’s a small town on the coast. I’ve never been, but they say it’s beautiful.”
“It must be right off Highway One then?”
“Richard, she’s never been there, she probably doesn’t know that!” Susan chides her husband.
Rachel laughs to herself at the way they verbally nip at each other. Despite that, they seem to be a very close, loving couple, something she hopes to have some day.
“I think it is, Susan, right off Highway One.”
“Oh my, that will be a beautiful place to live!”
The dining car steward returns with a silver tray in hand. He carefully removes the steaming plate of chicken pasta and places it in front of Rachel.
“That looks delicious,” Rachel remarks.
The steward bows slightly. “If I can get you anything else, please let me know.”
Rachel thanks him and he leaves to tend to the other dining car passengers.
“I think you’ll enjoy that,” Susan says.
“All right Ms. Nosey. We need to let this young lady enjoy her lunch in peace,” Richard says, scooting out of the bench seat and standing up. He takes his wife’s hand to help her stand. They both give Rachel another warm smile.
“Enjoy, dear,” Susan says.
“Thank you. It was nice to meet you,” Rachel says as they leave the dining car.
Rachel is ready to devour the pasta. She picks up the shiny silver fork and dips it into the creamy, steamy noodles. She brings it up to her mouth but stops when the odor of the food hits her nose. It is the smell of sulfur, like she had experienced in her cabin… and in her dream. Confused as to why pasta would smell this way, she twirls the fork examining the food for any visible sign of the source of the odor. She smells it again, this time the sulfur smell seeming to be stronger.
Disappointed, she sets the fork down and leans over to smell the entire plate of pasta. Her nose crinkles and her stomach turns, the odor quickly killing her appetite. She pushes the plate away and looks around. Several other passengers are chowing down on their pastas, so she concludes that there must be something wrong with her nose. Perhaps she’s coming down with a cold or a sinus infection, she thinks to herself.
Rachel sips the tea, glad to feel its warmth roll down into her empty stomach. She watches the other passengers devour their lunches and suddenly feels out of place.
The elderly train car steward returns, a concerned look upon his face. “Miss, is everything all right? Do you not like the pasta?”
“Um,
I think maybe I wasn’t that hungry after all,” she says, feeling a bit guilty to waste the food. “I’m sorry.”
“Can I bring you something else?”
The longer she smells even faint traces of the sulfur, the more it turns her stomach. She can now think of nothing but getting away from the smell.
“No… no thank you, I think I’m going to get some fresh air somewhere.”
“Try the back of the train, there’s a sitting area with large windows on the sides and on the roof. It’s very bright and refreshing,” the steward recommends as he removes the plate of pasta from the table.
“Okay, thank you,” she says. A sense of urgency to get out of the dining car overtakes her and she jumps up from her seat. “I’m sorry to waste that,” she says.
“No worries, Miss.”
Rachel turns and hurries out of the dining car, inhaling deeply as the smell of the food and sulfur dissipates the farther away she gets. Thinking she needs to relax, she stops by her sleeping cabin and picks up her cell phone and earphones so she can listen to her music in the sitting car.
She finds her way to the back of the train and is pleased to see a bright, naturally illuminated and comfortably decorated sitting room as the dining car steward had described. Instead of the typical train seating in the rest of the travel cars, there are oversized lounge chairs each with a small bookend table with magazines and plants. It looks more like an elongated living room than a train car.
The air in the sitting car seems to be cooler and better circulated. Rachel sinks down in one of the lounge chairs facing the windows. The view of the flat plains of Iowa are beautiful. Most of the corn crops have been harvested and broken stalks of golden leftovers still fill the fields. The sky is mostly clear with only a few fluffy white clouds, a pleasant sight for early October. Rachel’s thoughts drift back to the Octobers in Ohio, which were always her favorite time of year. The cooler, dryer air, combined with the oranges, reds, and yellows of the fall foliage made southern Ohio a place of true beauty.
“Is anyone sitting here?” a gruff voice interrupts Rachel’s thoughts.
She looks over to see a very tall, very buff man in his mid-thirties pointing to the lounge chair beside her. Wearing dark blue jeans and a tight black shirt that enhances the bountiful muscles in his arms. Rachel is impressed with his level of fitness, and smiles to herself.
“No,” she says, straightening her posture in her chair. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks,” the muscle man says, plopping down into the chair and slinging his backpack onto the floor in front of him. “I’m Ben,” he says.
“Hi. I’m Rachel.” She watches him pull out a Mixed Martial Arts magazine from his bag. He flips through it and finds a picture of a fighter. To her surprise, he flashes it at her. “That’s me!” he says proudly. In the picture, he’s standing face to face with another fighter, both muscle men wearing only black shorts, their contoured bodies oily and shiny. “I have a big match coming up.”
“Oh, wow,” Rachel says, her face flushing. “That’s great!”
“Do you watch MMA?”
“No,” she says, seeing the disappointment on his face. “Sorry. I used to watch professional wrestling though!”
Big Ben snorts. “That’s fake. What I do is real. There was this one fight where I knocked the other guy out in five seconds. He didn’t know what hit him,” he says proudly flexing his arms.
“It’s a wonder you don’t kill someone with as strong as you look,” Rachel says earnestly. She plugs her white earphones into her phone.
Ben likes her compliment and takes it to mean more. He looks around and makes sure no one can hear him, then looks at her slyly. “You here with anyone?”
Rachel looks at him and recognizes the ornery look on his face. “No,” she says, popping the ear buds into her ears.
“You wanna come back to my room? It’s got one of those really comfortable beds in it. Plenty of room for both of us,” he says with a sly grin.
Rachel smiles. “No thank you,” she says, angling herself away from him and choosing a song on her phone to play.
“Suit yourself,” he says, a note of resentment in his voice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel sees him sneaking looks at her over his magazine for a while, but eventually he gives up and leaves the sitting room. She breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes into the chair, happy that the overly hormonal man is leaving her alone. The steady, rhythmic rocking of the train and the warm golden tones of the autumn fields lull her to sleep.
Night falls, and it’s dark when a sharp turn of the train firmly nudges her awake. Momentarily disoriented by the darkness, she blinks heavily and groggily surveys her surroundings before realizing she is still in the sitting room. The only light in the room comes from the adjacent car, for the sitting room has no artificial lighting of its own. She pulls out the ear buds, her ears sore from having them in too long. She wakes up her cell phone to check the time, and it’s nearly midnight.
“Oh my gosh,” she says to herself, surprised that she has slept so long in a public area. She straightens in the chair and rubs her face.
“Miss,” a voice from the darkness says to her. It sounds familiar.
Startled, she twists around and can barely make out the form and face of Don, the young train steward. Thinking she’s in trouble for being in the sitting room too long, she stands up. “I’m sorry, I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to.”
“No worries, Miss. I’m just closing the car down for the night.
“Oh, okay,” she says. In the dark, the young man seems stoic, his eyes appearing to be very dark.
“Miss, are you wearing jasmine this time?” he inquires quietly.
“No,” she says, laughing sleepily. “Still not me.”
A silent pause. “Do you wish me to escort you back to your room?”
“No, that’s not necessary, but thank you.” She walks towards the light of the train car and heads towards her room.
“Good night, Miss,” Don says.
Rachel is aware that Don doesn’t leave the dark sitting room when she does. She gets through the adjacent train car and as she passes through the doorway into the next car, she glances back. There is no sign of Don. But her stomach has become unsettled again. She holds her belly the rest of the way to her room, and is glad to get into the comfortable bed ready for a restful night’s sleep.
She’s able to fall asleep quickly, but doesn’t stay asleep for long. Having not dreamed any yet, she jerks wide awake after just an hour of being asleep. Her room is pitch black, save for the light coming in from the bottom of the door from the train car’s illuminated public aisle. She lies in bed for a moment as her senses come back, and she is suddenly filled with a sense of impending danger. The room is unnaturally cold, and the darkness feels smothering.
A horrid scream from right outside of the door to her room chills her to the bone. She jumps out of bed and stumbles as far away from the door as she can get. She sees movement in the light at the bottom of the door, it appears to be at least two people moving around outside. She strains to hear as the low sound of an animal-like panting rolls under the door. Frightened, she jumps as she hears fingernails lightly scrape the outside of the door, and someone jiggles her door as if trying to open it. Then, a loud BANG on the door makes her scream and jump backwards, pressing herself up against the window. Feeling trapped and under attack, the fear and panic become nearly unmanageable.
As suddenly as the incident started, it stops. Rachel stands plastered against the window, holding her breath as her heart races wildly, watching and listening for more bizarre activity. After moments of silence pass, she tiptoes towards the door. If whatever it was is gone, maybe she can run for help. Still seeing no movement in the light under the door, she slowly unlocks the door and slides it open.
She peeks her head into the hallway, and looks both ways. She sees no one. All the other sleeping car doors are
closed, and she can hear a man’s heavy snoring coming from the room across the aisle from her. There is no activity. She examines the outside of her door, expecting to see gouge marks by the sound of the force used to scratch the door. But there are no marks.
Gazing cautiously down the hallways, she checks once more for any sign of activity, and slowly retreats back into her room, locking the door. She turns on the light and decides to keep it on the rest of the night. With the light on, and scared out of her mind, she doesn’t sleep anymore.
Rachel hears the first rustling of activity just before 7:00AM the next morning. Making sure the noises are human, she peeks out of her door and is relieved to see other passengers up and about. She closes the door and leans against it, letting out a sigh of relief. “What the heck was that?” she asks herself. Tired from not sleeping, she takes out her toiletry bag and heads to the private shower in the train car.
The hot shower is comforting and relaxes her tense muscles. She leans with eyes closed against the tile wall as the strong streams of water run over her head and body. She is nearly to the point of nodding off when she thinks she hears a voice.
“Rachel,” the voice says, mostly muffled and far away sounding.
Assuming she imagined it due to her sleep deprived state, she ignores it and continues to let the hot streams of water pour over her head and body.
She hears it again, only this time it’s coming from just outside the shower curtain and the voice is deep and unnatural sounding.
“Rachel!” It half screams, half growls.
Rachel gasps and swipes at her eyes to wipe away the water flowing over them. She flicks open her eyes and looks around wildly, expecting to see someone in the shower room with her based on the proximity of the voice.
“Hello?” she calls out in a panic. “Who’s there?”
She pulls back the shower curtain and peers around in the small but empty shower room. She is the only one there.
Heart racing, she doesn’t want to close her eyes again and turns off the shower. The shower room falls quiet, and she can only hear the drain and the hollow dripping of water as it rolls off the curtain and walls and plops onto the shower floor. She waits reluctantly to see if the terrifying voice will say her name again.
“My God,” she breathes. “What is happening?” she asks herself out loud.
The loud plop of a thick liquid catches her attention and she looks down at the white tile floor. Blood is dripping from her nose. She wipes at it with the back of her hand and stares at it. Her head is suddenly aching.
“Great,” she says, wiping more blood from her nose with her hand. She pulls a handful of tissue paper from the tissue box on the sink and holds her nose until it stops bleeding, then towels herself dry and hurries to get dressed. She blow dries her hair and checks her reflection in the mirror. Her green eyes are bloodshot, but otherwise she appears normal to herself. She wonders if the nightmares, the scream in the middle of the night, and hearing something say her name are all stress-induced. It has, after all, been the most stressful year in her life, dealing with the news that her husband fathered a child outside of the marriage and the subsequent divorce. Perhaps, she told herself, she is going through some sort of post-traumatic stress, and this is the fallout from her life’s drama.
Collecting her wits and her belongings, Rachel goes back to her sleeping cabin and chooses to go with her stress theory and tries to relax. The smell of breakfast wafts through the train car, and she desperately hopes her sense of smell is back to normal so she can eat.