Tag: fiction

the silent car

Sarah’s commute spirals into a nightmare as she discovers fellow subway passengers eerily frozen, their vacant stares sending her into a panic. A haunting message awaits her: “Wake up.” Is it reality or a sinister dream?

Sarah slid through the closing subway doors just in time, glancing through the windows at the platform, happy to be heading home. The soft chime alerted the passengers that the train was leaving her stop. She sunk into the closest seat, feeling the cold plastic chill her legs through her jeans, sighing as she rubbed at her tired eyes with her palms. It felt good to finally sit down after such a long day. Her body lurched gently as she was transported through the underground tunnel. She had a long ride, even with the trains running express after midnight, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Her usual routine involved reading books to stay awake on her commute home, but even holding her book felt like too much work tonight.

The car was silent, but there were more people than she would have expected. There must have been some kind of event because usually, the only other people taking her subway this late at night were the kind that you had to worry about. But they looked like regular people, just a few stragglers making their way back home. Glancing around, she noticed the other passengers were seated quietly, probably just as tired as her. Their eyes were fixed blankly ahead on the seat in front of them or watching the dark, steady blur of the tunnel pass by outside of the train windows. Sarah settled in for the long ride, slumping deeper into her seat.

She opened her book, staring intently at the first paragraph. She willed the comprehension of the words to come to her, but the words just looked like symbols, refusing to form meaning in her brain. Sarah sighed, closing her book again. She glanced up, making eye contact with a middle-aged woman across the row.

Automatically, she turned her gaze away, but something felt off. The woman was still looking at her, gripping a handbag on her lap. Sarah snuck another peek, wondering what this lady’s problem was. Her eyes were open, but she was staring past Sarah, at the space where she sat, motionless. Feeling uneasy, Sarah leaned forward slightly.

“Are you… are you okay?” Sarah called out gently. The woman looked like a statue, not blinking or moving once. Urgency cut through Sarah’s tiredness.

No response. Sarah felt her cheeks get hot, as she tended to flush red when she was nervous. This was weird, in a bad way.

She turned to the next person she could see, finding a college-aged young man beside her. He wore baggy jeans, and had a big pair of earphones around his neck. His eyes were fixed forward with the same vacant stare. Her voice shook now. “Hello?”

A cold sweat flashed across the top of her lip. She swiped at it as she stood abruptly. The book that had been in her lap tumbled to the floor. Panicked, she made her way to the next person. She checked passenger after passenger, professionally dressed men and women, younger looking students or interns, even a woman with a little dog on her lap. Horrified, she found that the dog was frozen too. She started with polite taps and a low voice, and built up to violently shaking shoulders, pleading for someone to just say or do anything. She dreaded the same look on every face, present yet utterly absent. The lights were all on, but no one was home.

The subway hit a turn, and Sarah was propelled sideways. She grabbed a rail, gripping the cool metal and using it to help her keep her balance as she rushed to the end of the car. She shot a hand out for the door handle that connected her car to the next one. Her stomach dropped as the handle refused to budge. Locked. She pounded on the glass, but the next car appeared equally motionless.

   The train lights flickered, and for a brief moment, she could not see as the car was plunged into darkness. She held her breath as her heart hammered against her ribs, threatening to jump out of her chest and escape. When the lights returned, her skin crawled with dread. Every passenger was now standing, perfectly still, staring directly at her. She backed against the door, her mind spiraling.

   “Please,” she whispered. She wanted to close her eyes. She couldn’t, though. She was too afraid of what might happen if she looked away.

   Instead of words, she heard whispers. Soft at first, like the jostling and whooshing noises from the train in motion, but quickly growing louder. They filled the car, echoing unintelligible murmurs. The voices were angry, thick with accusation in her ears. What had she done to upset them?

“Stop!” Sarah cried. She jammed her fingers into her ears, plugging them. It didn’t help. The whispers grew louder and louder, judging her and taunting her and blaming her. For what?

Suddenly, the subway jolted sharply to the right, knocking her off balance. Sarah fell. She felt herself falling for too long, waiting for the impact of the dirty car floor.

She gasped sharply, jerking awake. Her head had slipped against the rail between her seat and the subway door. The train rocked as it slowed down, approaching her station.

She heard the familiar subway voice announce, “This is Franklin Avenue. Transfer is available to the 2 & 3 trains…”

Sarah glanced around, frantic. Passengers chatted softly, scrolling through phones or listening to music. Normalcy surrounded her.

Her heart still raced. She didn’t trust it yet, but had it just been a dream? She took deep breaths, trying to will her panic to go down. Be calm. You are safe, she thought. Just exhausted and stressed out from work. She gathered her belongings, relieved to see her book on her lap, not scattered across the floor.

As she stepped off of the train, her nose and lungs were assaulted by the belly, muggy platform air. The grimy realness of the familiar gross platform felt like it was bringing her back to reality. Her legs were a little shaky, but she was grateful to be moving, to be able to leave and put the strange nightmare behind her.

Sarah made her way out of the station towards the stairs. She climbed up and out, feeling her phone vibrate. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, squinting at the notifications. Someone texted her from an unknown number.

She opened the message and read: “Wake up.”

Sarah froze, her pulse quickening again. Anxiety surged back, sharp and biting. Her fingers trembled slightly as she glanced back toward the departing subway. She saw them again. Watching her. Through the windows, all of the passengers stood motionless, facing her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise and waited until the train vanished into the tunnel and the people were out of view.

Sarah ran up the remaining stairs, emerging onto the street, desperate for the cool, open air and clarity. She continued to run, pumping her legs as the sense of unease lingered. She glanced repeatedly at the people passing by her on the sidewalk, wondering if they were going to have that haunting, identical expression on their faces.

She made it to her walk-up apartment, sprinting up four flights of narrow stairs, quickly unlocking the door, and shoving herself inside. Sarah double-locked the door and pressed her forehead into the wood as she looked out of the peephole. What if they followed her home? She waited, forcing herself to breathe as quietly as possible to see if they would appear at the top of the stairs on her floor.

“Come on,” she said out loud to herself. “Get it together.”

She opened her phone again, rereading the unsettling message: “Wake up.”

She typed back cautiously: “Who is this?”

The reply was instant: “You know who. You saw us.”

Her breath caught in her throat, fingers gripping the phone so tightly her knuckles whitened. Sarah tried to will the nightmare away, but the vacant faces, whispered accusations, and the locked subway doors all followed her.

She stumbled to her window, looking down at the street below. Cars rushed past, their honking sounds reaching her window. New Yorkers moved briskly at their quick walking pace, looking like dozens of little ants with places to be. As she stared, her reflection in the window twisted subtly. For a split second, her own eyes stared back, wide and vacant, mirroring the subway passengers.

Sarah gasped, jerking away from the glass. She collapsed heavily on her couch, pressing her shaking hands into the cushions to try and ground herself. There’s no way that was real, she told herself. Her vision was tunneling, blurred by exhaustion and fear. Her breathing came manually. In and out, she willed herself. In and out. In… and… out… In… And…

Submitted into Reedsy Contest #293 in response to: Start or end your story with someone looking out a car or train window….

meant to be

Caught between exhilaration and paranoia, a woman’s secret obsession blurs boundaries as she stalks a man, immersing herself in forbidden fantasy, grappling with the thrill and fear of being discovered.

I’m driving home and I can’t stop looking in the rearview mirror, making eye contact with myself.

I know your secret, I think to her, to the woman in the mirror with the dilated pupils.

We don’t usually pay attention to what other people are doing in their cars. Eyes on the road, and all that. But I think everyone can see me, and they all know. They know my lips are slightly swollen, like I had just been kissed for hours and hours and hours. They can tell my palms are sweaty. I might as well have a big neon sign on the top of my car, with an arrow pointing right at me.

I feel like a criminal. My heart is thump thump thumping in my chest, my cheeks just a smidge too pink for the weather. We’re having a warmer fall and I look like I am flushed from the cold. I blast the air conditioning in the car to try and clear my mind. I feel like I just got away with committing a murder and I am fleeing the crime scene. My heart can’t tell the difference between a high-speed chase and the fact that I just missed my turn because I am so oblivious to the world around me.

I don’t want anyone else to know my secret. It’s mine. I want it to be mine for as long as possible. But I also want to scream out the window and honk my horn and swerve my car and laugh and whoop. I want to run victory laps and phone the newspaper, this is front page news. I want to wrap up this silky feeling and weave it into gold like Rumpelstiltskin, and wear it proudly as a chain around my neck. I am just as greedy as the man in that story. I want all of this, as much of it, forever.

I park the car in my spot and notice brown leaves on my windshield from the big oak tree outside of his house. They must have fallen overnight. I have to clear them off before I drive anywhere else, because someone will know these are not the same leaves as the trees in front of my house. They’ll take one look at my windshield and just know that I wasn’t at my friend’s house last night like I said I was. She also has different leaves, and I wouldn’t want anyone to wonder.

I feel like reminiscing, so I think of the first time we met. We were at the grocery store, and the line was moving so slowly. He was in front of me, buying flowers. He kept sneaking eye contact at me, and then looking away as if I wouldn’t notice. I knew he wanted me to say something, and found it sweet that he was so shy.

“Lucky girl,” I said, nodding at the bouquet in his hands.

“They’re for my mom,” he replied, looking bashful. He glanced at the line in front of him, as if wishing it would move even slower so we could have our moment.

“Well,” I smiled, showing him how happy I was that he was single. “Lucky mom.”

They opened up another lane then, and he was forced to leave too soon. He gave me a passing smile as if saying how unlucky he was, after all. I met his disappointed look with one of my own. As he walked by, I caught the scent of him. He smelled like toothpaste and a musky cologne.

I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot long after he left, gripping my purse with both hands. I needed to make sure I remembered every second of this moment. I repeated his words in my head until I could match his exact tone. Understated, but sure.

They’re for my mom.

I rolled the phrase over my tongue, whispering it under my breath until it felt like something I had said myself.

I didn’t follow him home that night. That would have been too much. Too soon. But the world is so small, and fate has a way of bringing people together. A few days later, there he was, standing in his front yard, tying up a bag of leaves. I had just been driving by, just happened to be on this street. Coincidences like this are what picture-perfect, big-screen movie romances are made of.

I slowed but didn’t stop. That would have been too obvious. Instead, I memorized the details: the color of his house (dark brown with white trim), the shape of his mailbox (arched, like a tiny chapel), the make and model and license plate number of his car (Honda, silver, a practical man). The way his white T-shirt clung to his back where he was sweating from the yard work. The pinkness of his neck from the sun that the big oak trees in his front yard couldn’t shield him from.

That night, I parked two blocks away and walked back, pretending I was just one of the neighbors going for a walk. I just wanted to see his living room. Did he have a real couch or one of those bachelor futons? What kind of life did he live when he thought no one was looking?

And now, weeks later, I know him.

I know that he leaves for work at 7:45 a.m. sharp, but he always sits in his car for an extra two minutes before pulling out, checking something on his phone. I know that on Mondays, he takes the trash bins to the curb and then stands outside for a few minutes, looking up at the sky like he’s waiting for something. I know that on Wednesday nights, he watches a movie alone, usually comedies, and he has such an underrated sense of humor.

I know he eats toast for breakfast.

I know he sleeps with one pillow.

I know he hasn’t brought a woman home in weeks.

Last night was the closest I’ve ever been to him.

I parked across the street for longer than usual, watching the shadow of his movement inside his house. He brushed his teeth at 11:03 p.m., I could hear the faint hum of his electric toothbrush through his slightly opened bathroom window. I pictured myself next to him, brushing my own teeth. Him wrapping his arms around me from behind, looking at us in the mirror and laughing.

Instead, I was in my car, huddled underneath a blanket I keep in the backseat for picnics I never go on. I chewed on my lower lip, my worst habit, and cracked the windows down to keep the glass from fogging up. The oak tree above me swayed, the wind whistling through its leaves. I whistled lowly with it, joining it in making music. I imagined that if he heard the sound, he would think it was the wind. Not me. Never me.

And then, something unexpected.

He stepped outside.

Barefoot, his T-shirt wrinkled from falling asleep on his couch again, he stood on his porch and stretched. I saw a flash of his hipbone as his shirt rose up. He exhaled a deep breath that I could almost feel on my cheeks. I shrank down in my seat, gripping the steering wheel. I breathed quickly and quietly, afraid to blink. He rubbed his hand over his face, looking out at the street like he knew something was there.

Like he could feel me.

For one electric moment, I thought he might walk toward my car. Knock on my window. Ask me what I was doing.

And I would have told him the truth.

Lucky girl.

I would have told him everything.

They’re for my mom.

But he only sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and went back inside.

I didn’t leave until the first light of morning.

Now, sitting in my own driveway, I trace my fingers over the brown leaves on my windshield, proof that I was there. Proof that he was close enough for the wind to carry something from his world into mine.

I bring a leaf to my lips and kiss its dry, crinkled surface.

I will go back tonight.

And maybe this time, he will see me.

Maybe this time, he will understand.

Maybe this time, he will finally let me in.

This story was originally submitted for Reedsy contest #290 under the prompt “Write a story about love without ever using the word “love.”