Night Train

This story is based on an actual case of high functioning autism known as the Oasis Syndrome AKA Asbergers. Victor was in one bad mood despite everything that happened in Los Angeles. His plane was late coming into JFK from LAX on top of the fact turbulence made him puke all over the place.
He ordered some Sushi but it wasn't what he expected. His surf clam moved around on his plate. He screamed,
“I said raw not alive.”
He instantly regretted flying Hooters Airlines but it was cheap and Hooter's girls were like New Strip Steaks with legs. Even if the pilot graduated last in his class from a fly by night pilot school {pardon the pun} and the stewardess was a bad mama covered with tattoos on the run from a semi-literate bounty hunter, he got plenty of eye candy. The co-pilot got letters of recommendation from Nicaraguan contras that vouched for him as a CIA drug runner.
He had to board the subway at night to go to the suburbs. He feared getting mugged in the station or on the train. Since the police went non-union he was more afraid of starving cops than thugs and junkies.
Can you call the muggers if you get stuck up by off duty cops?
He feared falling in the tunnel not to mention getting killed on the way to some urgent care staffed by rejects and trained by offshore for profits.
Once he boarded the subway he feared the darkness. Maybe he found company.
They say misery loves company and through his whole life he was miserable. .In spite of self centered parents and envious siblings, he persevered at St. Francis College.
He fell in love with an adjunct professor who made ends meet stripping for horny old men. He felt sorry for her but she felt relieved to be an impoverished American instead of well nourished proctologist in the Soviet gulag.
He wanted to marry her but she didn't want to leave New York City where even an STD infected sex worker could out earn some public school teachers. He knew she wouldn't let him pass up the job offer in Los Angeles even if it ended their relationship.
As he contemplated his problems, he looked outside into the deep dark abyss. He saw a glimmer getting closer and closer. When the subway car passed by on an adjacent track, he thought he saw a child dressed up as an engineer.
Perhaps he was haunted by a New York Times article about a teenager who spent his childhood playing on the trains. He was a latchkey kid who became obsessed with the subway.. He was arrested so many times for impersonating an engineer, he got sent to Rikers Island where he fell in the shower and bled to death. Victor heard eerie stories about sightings of this child even after he died so how could it be him?
Suddenly, the subway stopped and the engineer said that there were minor problems. When Victor looked outside, he saw the same child with a derailment device.
Every railroad has derailment devices just in case a mad man hijacks a train but now he thought he saw a mad man armed with a lethal weapon.
The teenager held it in his hand and then Victor realized this apparition has no face just a piece of bleeding flesh attached to a neck. The picture in The New York Times showed a punk with a vacant look like a suicide bomber.
Victor screamed and screamed but nobody else noticed the signs of impending doom. As the punk made signs with his hand, the doom went from impending to imminent.
It was like that Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner, Terror at 20,000 feet. Victor pulled down the shade and hoped it was a mirage.
Victor started hearing sounds coming from outside. It was humming. On second thought it was was TAPS.
Now the subway started moving again but humming sounded closer like the punk was seated next to him.
Now he was more afraid of dying alone and pulled up the shade. He saw fire engines and ambulances. The dead bodies overwhelmed the makeshift morgue so zombies moved them to refrigerated trucks. He screamed so loud he lost his voice.
He thought for sure there was an accident and passengers would be evacuated but instead two men in white suits boarded the train.
“They 'rei coming to take me away, They're coming to take me away” he said, but to the other passengers there was silence.
“Why don't they hear me?”, he asked.
He didn't know he lost his voice earlier.
They put Victor in an ambulance to the infamous Belleview Hospital where a physician was murdered by an escaped psycho roaming the halls.
The ambulance exited the interstate and Victor heard sounds.
The driver said,
“I need to get filled up.”
Victor looked outside and saw the neon sign of the service station. A few seconds later Victor wondered why the attendant had no face just like the punk on the subway. Everything went black and Victor lost all his senses seconds after the attendant lit a match.


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