Eleanor’s blood turned to slush. She looked at her own ticket. Seat 6A. She’d bought it at the kiosk in Penn Station. She remembered the screen flickering. Remembered the machine printing two tickets instead of one. She’d thrown the extra away.
“You hear it too,” Eleanor whispered.
The hand paused.
A ticket. Car 1402. Seat 6.
But there was no luggage rack above. Just the smooth, riveted metal of the train’s roof. suspense digest june 2019 part 2
Eleanor was alone in Seat 6A. Her paperback was open to the last page. The Wi-Fi signal was full.
The ceiling gave a great, groaning shudder. The lights went out. Eleanor’s blood turned to slush
“It knows my name,” he whispered. “I took the fifth seat. But it’s the sixth it wants.”
“Not because I’m brave,” she said, looking at Arthur. “But because you’re lying. There is no sixth seat. There never was. You’re the one who died in 1997. And you’ve been tricking the living into taking your place ever since.” She’d bought it at the kiosk in Penn Station
The dragging on the roof resumed. It slid slowly toward Seat 6A. Her seat.
He was tall, with the forgotten-collar of a man who’d once been fastidious. His name, according to the ticket clipped above his head, was Arthur. Arthur hadn’t spoken since New Haven. He just stared out the window, watching his own ghost reflect back at him.