Epitaphs: The Journal of the New England Horror Writers by Hautala Rick & Golden Christopher

Author:Hautala, Rick & Golden, Christopher [Hautala, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9780982727591
Publisher: Shroud Publishing, LLC
Published: 2012-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

“Have you ever heard of the Three-Eighteen?”

Paul looked up from his plate—he’d made them a risotto that had once been a favorite for both of them, but now tasted bland to Sarah. Everything tasted bland to her now.

“You mean that old story about the ghost train?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged. Even his indifference had sharp edges, cutting her with disdain. “Sure. When I was a kid we’d all talk about it. Go out to the tracks. One time I camped out down there all night with Jimmy Pryce—remember Jimmy?”

Sarah shook her head. She didn’t. Paul was two years older than she was. She’d only been in high school with him for his senior year and then he’d graduated. But he’d lost touch with most of his old friends over the years. Whoever this Jimmy Pryce was, he hadn’t sent them a card or flowers when Jonah died. The parade of faces at the funeral were a blur to her—she couldn’t remember who had been there or not—but the cards and flowers she recalled perfectly.

“No? Jimmy thought you were pretty hot when you transferred in from New York.” He smiled, and perhaps for a moment there was a glimmer of hope and life in his eyes, of happier times. It dimmed, as it always would, forever after.

“Anyway, we camped out down by the tracks one night. Spent the whole time scaring the crap out of each other with flashlights and telling ghost stories. When you’re a kid you believe that stuff, deep down, even though you’ve gotta act like you’re too mature to believe it, and too tough to be scared by it.”

Sarah pretended to smile; a kind of peace offering. Then she went back to the flavorless risotto with Paul studying her closely. Their conversations had been infrequent in the past few weeks, and often tense. They talked around and above things and never addressed what lurked below.

Jonah would never hear the story of the Three-Eighteen. He would never camp out by the train tracks and tell ghost stories, never go trick-or-treating or have a friend like Jimmy Pryce, whose antics he would look back on fondly when fatherhood and dreaded maturity came along and the hard climb toward forty had begun.

Forty. At thirty-two, Sarah felt ancient. Sometimes she thought about what it would be like to be truly old and abandoned, stashed in some nursing home, all her passions diminished or taken away, waiting for it all to end. Waiting to die. This didn’t feel much different.

“Why do you ask?”

The tone of the question, the awkwardness in his voice, put a chill between them. It should’ve had the opposite effect. Here he was, trying to have a civil conversation about something more than the weather or perfunctory work-related trivia, but it felt so forced that Sarah only tensed up further.

“No reason. I heard someone talking about it today and was surprised I’d never heard it before.”

“You were thirteen by the time you moved here. Probably too old for ghost stories.”

Again she forced a smile.

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