00:00The Last Train to Cars Part 2 I should have left after finding the notebook.
00:07Looking back now that was the moment everything changed.
00:11Before then, I still believed there was a logical explanation, hiding somewhere beneath
00:17the strange events.
00:19After finding that suitcase, I started noticing things I couldn't easily explain, and once
00:25I noticed them, I could not stop.
00:28The climb back out of the raven took nearly an hour.
00:32By the time I reached the tracks again, daylight was already fading.
00:37The mountains allured sunlight early during winter.
00:40Long shadows stretched across the valley.
00:43The temperature dropped rapidly.
00:45As I packed my equipment, something caught my attention.
00:49Footprints!
00:50Fresh footprints!
00:52They crossed the snow directly over the railway line.
00:55I stopped.
00:57The tracks hadn't been there earlier.
01:00I was certain of it.
01:01The snow was undisturbed when I arrived.
01:05Yet now, a trail of footprints led across the valley toward the mountain.
01:11One person, adult-sized, heavy boots.
01:15The tracks continued for several hundred feet before disappearing into the blowing of snow.
01:22What bothered me was not their presence.
01:24It was the timing.
01:25I hadn't seen anyone all day.
01:28No vehicles.
01:29No hikers.
01:31No hunters.
01:31Nothing.
01:32The valley had been completely empty.
01:35And yet, someone had apparently crossed it while I was inside the rain.
01:41Without me noticing.
01:44That evening, the storm was dead.
01:47The snow hammered the roof of the maintenance shed.
01:51The wind howled through cracks in the walls.
01:54I tried focusing on work.
01:56It didn't help.
01:57My thoughts kept returning to the notebook.
02:01The man in the next carriage keeps asking people to look out the windows.
02:06Such an ordinary sentence.
02:08Yet something about it felt deeply wrong.
02:11The winter had sounded frightened.
02:14Not curious.
02:15Not confused.
02:16Frightened.
02:17Around eleven o'clock, I heard the whistle again.
02:21Closer than the previous night.
02:23Much closer.
02:24The sound decored through the valley.
02:27Long.
02:27Moundful.
02:29Almost human.
02:30I grabbed my flash light and stepped outside.
02:33The storm had weakened slightly.
02:36Visibly stretched perhaps a hundred yards.
02:39The railway disappeared into darkness.
02:42The whistle sounded again.
02:43And this time, I saw the light immediately.
02:46Far down the track, moving toward me.
02:50My pulse weakened.
02:51The beam drifted through the snowstorm, steady, unwavering, growing larger.
02:58The rails beneath my boots began vibrating once more.
03:02A distant metallic rhythm emerged from the darkness.
03:06The sound of wheels.
03:07The sound of an approaching train.
03:10I should have gone back inside.
03:12Instead, I stayed.
03:14Watching.
03:15Waiting.
03:16The light moved closer.
03:17Then closer still.
03:19Until I found finally make out the outline behind it.
03:23A locomotive.
03:24Old.
03:25Very old.
03:26Old.
03:27The shape looked wrong somehow.
03:29Not modern.
03:31Not even from the 1980s.
03:34It assembled photographs I had seen of trains from decades earlier.
03:38For several seconds, I simply stared, unable to understand what I was seeing.
03:44Then I noticed the windows.
03:46Then I noticed the windows.
03:46There were lights inside.
03:48Dim yellow lights.
03:49And behind those windows, people, passengers, dozens of items, sitting perfectly still, not
03:58moving, not talking, not even turning their heads.
04:01They simply stared forward.
04:04As it frozen, the train continued approaching.
04:08I raised my flash light.
04:11A mistake I will never forget.
04:13The beam swept across one of the windows.
04:16A woman sat there.
04:18Middle aged.
04:19Dark hair.
04:20Pale face.
04:21The moment my light touched the glass, she slowly turned her head toward me.
04:27Then another passenger turned.
04:29Then another.
04:31Then another.
04:32Within seconds, every face in every visible window was looking directly at me.
04:37Not blinking.
04:39Not moving.
04:40Just staring.
04:41My entire body locked up.
04:43I couldn't breathe.
04:45Couldn't think.
04:46The train rode closer.
04:48The distance glows rapidly.
04:50One hundred yards.
04:52Fifty.
04:53Thirty.
04:54And then I realized something horrifying.
04:56The passengers were not watching me.
04:58They were pointing.
05:00All of them.
05:01Every single passenger was pointing toward something behind me.
05:05I spun around.
05:06Nothing.
05:07Only darkness.
05:09The empty maintenance jet.
05:11The storm.
05:12When I turned back, the train was gone.
05:14Vanished.
05:15No sound.
05:16No light.
05:17No tracks.
05:18Nothing.
05:18Only silence.
05:20Absolute silence.
05:22I barely slept that night.
05:24Every creak of the building made me jump.
05:27Every gust of the wind sounded like distant voices.
05:31At dawn, I made a decision.
05:33I was going to finish my inspection and leave.
05:36Whatever was happening here, I wanted no part of it.
05:41Unfortunately, the railway was not finished with me.
05:45Around midday, I reached an abandoned station marked one old map as Karkaya Halt.
05:53The station building was small.
05:55Stone walls, collapsed roofs, broken windows, inside snow-covered buffalo.
06:00Bird nested, filled the corners.
06:04It looks untouched for decades.
06:08Until I found the waiting room.
06:10The door stood partially open.
06:12Inside, the room appeared surprisingly clean.
06:15Not spotless.
06:17Just cleaner than the rest of the building.
06:19As though someone occasionally used it.
06:22A wooden bench sat against one wall.
06:25A bit hung a faded timetable.
06:28Most of the paper had disintegrated.
06:31Only fragments remained.
06:33I approached for a closer look and froze.
06:36One entry was still legible.
06:39Train number 47.
06:41Cars to Erdram.
06:44Departure 23-48.
06:48Status delayed.
06:51Not cancelled.
06:52Not discontinued.
06:54Delayed.
06:55I stared at the word for several moments.
06:59Then noticed something even stranger.
07:02The ink looked fresh.
07:04Not 40 years old.
07:05Fresh.
07:07As though it had been written recently.
07:09My heart pounded.
07:11A sudden feeling swept over me.
07:13The overwhelming sensation that I was not alone.
07:17Slowly I turned round.
07:18The room was empty.
07:20Yet the feeling remained.
07:21Someone was watching me.
07:23From somewhere nearby.
07:24I begged toward the doorway.
07:27And that's when I hurtfully stepped upstairs.
07:31One step.
07:33Then another.
07:33The station's upper floor had partially collapsed years earlier.
07:38Nobody should have been up there.
07:41The footstep continued.
07:43Slow.
07:44Deliberate.
07:45Crossing from one side of the building to the other.
07:47I called out.
07:49I called out.
07:50No response.
07:50The footstep stopped immediately.
07:53Silence.
07:54I waited.
07:55Nothing.
07:56Finally, I gathered enough courage to investigate.
07:59The staircase creaked beneath my boots.
08:03Half the upper floor had fallen away.
08:05It's now drifted through the broken roof.
08:08The rooms were empty.
08:10Completely empty.
08:11No footprints.
08:13No signs of anyone.
08:15Nothing.
08:16Then I noticed a door at the far end of the hallway.
08:19Unlike everything else in the building, it was closed.
08:22I approached carefully.
08:25The wood looked nearer than the surrounding structure.
08:28Almost recently installed.
08:30When I opened it, my stomach dropped.
08:33The room contained dozens of photographs.
08:36Hundreds maybe.
08:38Pinned to every wall.
08:39Old black and white photographs.
08:42Never color photographs.
08:44Pole rides.
08:45Snapshots.
08:46Tourist pictures.
08:48Family portraits.
08:49Every photograph showed a train.
08:52The same train.
08:53And every image had been taken in a different decade.
08:57Different weather.
08:59Different location.
09:00Yet the terrain never changed.
09:02Not once.
09:03The locomotive remained identical.
09:06Untouched by time.
09:07Waiting.
09:08Travelling.
09:09Appearing over and over again.
09:11Then I found the most recent photograph.
09:14The picture couldn't have been more than a few months old.
09:17A modern digital print.
09:19The train sat in a snowy valley.
09:21And standing beside the tracks was a man.
09:24Holding a camera.
09:26Wearing a red winter jacket.
09:28My jacket.
09:29The photograph showed me.
09:31Taken before I had even arrived.
09:35The story would continue part 3 with the discovery of the missing person records.
09:40Connected to the train.
09:41connected to the train.
Comments