...The Last Stop

The town of Black Hollow wasn’t on any map Harper Clarke owned. She’d found it by accident while leafing through the journal of a missing journalist, Marcus Fenway. His final entry had been cryptic: “Midnight train. Black Hollow. One last stop.”

Harper’s instincts told her there was a story here, something big. Maybe even a lead to Fenway himself. Her editor had laughed when she’d pitched it—a haunted train in the middle of nowhere? Ridiculous. But Harper wasn’t chasing approval; she was chasing the truth.

She arrived at Black Hollow just as the sun sank beneath the horizon. The town felt wrong. It wasn’t deserted—there were people, or at least shapes that resembled people—but they moved too slowly, their faces obscured by shadows. The streets were silent except for the occasional creak of an old weathervane.

At the train station, the air grew colder. A brittle wind rattled the windows of the ticket booth where the stationmaster sat. He was an ancient man with a face like crumpled parchment, his eyes cloudy but sharp.

“You don’t want to be here,” he said without looking up.

“I’m here for the midnight train,” Harper replied, sliding him a crisp twenty.

He snorted but took the money. “You won’t come back.”

“That’s what they all say.” Harper smirked and stepped onto the empty platform.

When the whistle screamed, she jumped despite herself. The train appeared out of the darkness as if it had been waiting there all along. It was massive, black as coal, and somehow alive, its metal body pulsing faintly under the gaslights.

The doors opened soundlessly, revealing the opulent interior. Harper climbed aboard, her boots clicking against the polished floor. The carriage was stunning: crimson velvet seats, golden chandeliers, and walls adorned with dark wood panels. The air smelled faintly of lavender and something metallic.

She sat near the back, her camera ready. Only then did she notice the other passengers.

There were about a dozen of them, scattered throughout the carriage. Their clothes were strange—Victorian dresses, bowler hats, and long coats that seemed older than the train itself. None of them looked at her.

Harper tried to make conversation with the woman sitting closest to her, a frail figure clutching a parasol. “Excuse me, is this the midnight train?”

The woman didn’t respond. Her head tilted slightly, and Harper saw her face for the first time. Her skin was porcelain pale, her eyes sunken, and her lips sewn shut with black thread. Harper recoiled, heart pounding.

She glanced at the others. All of them were like her—silent, unmoving, their faces unnervingly wrong.

The train jolted forward, throwing Harper against her seat. She fumbled for her recorder, muttering into it. “Midnight train. Unusual passengers. Train is moving…”

Her voice trailed off as the view outside the window changed.

It wasn’t the countryside anymore. It was darkness—pure, endless black. Shapes swirled within it, grotesque and shifting, as if something vast and ancient were watching.

The whispers started softly. They seemed to come from the walls, the floor, even the air around her. They grew louder, forming words she couldn’t quite understand. Harper clutched her recorder tighter, heart racing.

A low rasp came from behind her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She spun around, but the seat was empty.

The whispers grew into a cacophony of voices, overlapping and distorted. Harper stood, stumbling down the aisle toward the front of the train. She passed the passengers, who now turned their heads in unison, their sewn-shut mouths stretching into impossible grins.

“Who’s driving this thing?” Harper shouted, trying to ignore the pounding in her chest.

The door to the next carriage creaked open, beckoning her forward.

The second carriage was worse. It was empty except for the smell—an acrid stench of decay. The walls were stained with something dark, and the whispers were louder here.

She heard her own voice among them, replaying her words from moments ago: “Train is moving… Train is moving…”

Panicking, she ran to the next carriage. The floorboards beneath her feet seemed to shift, and the train groaned as if alive. When she burst into the engine room, she stopped dead.

The conductor wasn’t human.

It was a twisted figure, more shadow than substance, with too-long arms and glowing red eyes. It grinned at her, jagged teeth glinting in the dim light.

“Welcome,” it hissed. “You’ve made it to the last stop.”

Harper backed away, her voice trembling. “What is this place? What do you want?”

The conductor laughed, a sound like grinding metal. “What we all want. To keep moving.”

Behind her, the passengers appeared, their grins wide and eyes hollow. They reached for her, their hands cold as ice. Harper screamed, fighting them off, but they were too many.

The train plunged into the void, its whistle echoing endlessly.

The next morning, the train rolled back into Black Hollow, silent and empty. The stationmaster sighed, marking another name off his list.

Somewhere in the swirling void, Harper Clarke’s whispers joined the chorus.

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