Haunted Highways by Tom Ogden

Author:Tom Ogden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762751723
Publisher: Globe Pequot

At exactly midnight, Jim pulled his car into a turnoff by the side of the road. Here on Route 5, far from the city lights of Schenectady, he could just make out a piece of the old tracks that lay between the road and the nearby Mohawk River. He rolled down his car windows, tilted the seat back just a bit, and waited. The night’s vigil had begun.

It was already spring, but the April night air was still crisp. There was a moon, but lazy clouds kept drifting across its face so the night scene was bathed alternatively in light and shadows. All seemed to be at peace.

Perhaps too much peace, thought Jim. Odd. He noticed that all of the insects had suddenly become quiet. He got out of the car, leaned against the door, and immediately felt overwhelmed by an eerie stillness.

And then he saw it: At first a hazy mist seemed to hover above the train tracks far off to his right, just where the rails met the horizon. Then the fog seemed to take shape. Was it possible? Incredibly, he could make out a large nineteenth-century-style locomotive steam engine emerging from the haze, billowing out puffs of smoke from its stack. But there was no sound of wheels rattling against the iron rails. It was the ghost train!

Softly, the sorrowful sound from the train’s whistle cut through the air. Then the engine passed directly in front of him. Jim could clearly make out the crew in the open compartment: The train was being manned by skeletons.

Before he could react, the strains of a somber dirge floated to Jim’s ears. It was the saddest, most melancholy melody he had ever heard. Where was it coming from? There: Just a few cars behind the engine was a compartment in which sat a spectral uniformed concert band, all skeleton musicians, playing the solemn requiem on phantom instruments. As he watched, transfixed, mesmerized, the other cars passed by, filled with the spectres of hundreds of Union soldiers.

On one of the last cars of the funeral train, Lincoln’s casket was clearly visible through the black-curtained windows. An honor guard of skeletons, wearing their Union dress blues, surrounded the coffin. The only thing missing was Lincoln’s ghost. Then one of the most interesting parts of the legend was true, thought Jim: Despite the countless times over the past century the funeral train has been spotted, no apparition of the president himself has ever been seen on any of the coaches.

With one last cry of its whistle, the train hurtled on, disappearing into a vapor that hung over the tracks. It was gone.

Jim remained speechless, spellbound and unmoving as he reflected on the miracle that had just occurred. He glanced down at his watch. It was still midnight. How could that be? Had time simply stopped to allow the ghostly train to pass through the world of the living? Although he knew he could never fully understand the phenomenon he had witnessed, Jim felt satisfied.

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