“Unlock the doors,” Riley shouted.
Nick’s voice was barely audible from the outside. “I didn’t lock them.”
Riley started to explain and then just begged Nick to unlock them.
Nick’s lack of urgency was beginning to drive Riley crazy. He looked over his shoulder and didn’t see anything coming. That was good. Maybe the thing was afraid of the car.
“The other one,” he shouted when a window on the opposite side of the car started to descend.
He banged in frustration as Nick hit yet another wrong button. Not taking the story seriously earlier—that was his mistake. He had made Nick mad and now Nick was making him wait while trapping him outside with a potentially dangerous creature.
“Just do the one on my side. It’s that one,” Riley said, pointing down through the window.
He glanced towards the rear of the car, where the exhaust smoke was curling in the taillights. For a moment, he thought he saw something there. When he looked back through the window to watch Nick’s fumbling, Riley realized that there was something there. He just couldn’t see it when he looked directly at it. The thing was camouflaged, just like the other one. Or maybe it was the other one. It had somehow gotten across the road when he wasn’t looking.
Only looking at it with the corner of his eye worked. Riley turned around and put his back to the vehicle, looking down the tracks so he could see the thing’s progress in his peripheral vision.
What he saw there made him forget about the camouflaged creature.
At first, he thought he was seeing the light of the train. There was something glowing on the tracks. It was too low to the ground to be a train headlight, and it wasn’t casting a bright cone of light. The light coming from the thing on the tracks was subtle and alluring.
Riley didn’t feel like he had any control over his own body. He wanted to see the thing up close. He began to walk towards it. With each step, the light was more and more intriguing, but he still had absolutely no idea what he was looking at. The moonlight was distracting. Riley put up a hand in order to shield his eyes. That was much better. Without the moonlight, he could see that the light was swirling, almost spiraling. Riley stepped between the rails of the train tracks and walked past the ringing bell and flashing red lights.
The light in the middle of the tracks was retreating from him. Riley picked up his pace. The light was beautiful, and there were two of them. They were side by side, shorter than him but almost like…
“Eyes,” he whispered to the night.
Riley stopped. He saw movement at his sides and realized that other shapes were closing in on him. The thing on the train tracks—the thing with the beautiful eyes—was drawing him in and the others were surrounding him. It was a trick. He had to run away from it.
A fat snowflake landed on the back of his neck and that pinprick of cold was enough to snap him out of his trance.
“Get away from me,” he yelled, taking a step back. The ringing of the train signal sounded like it was far behind him. He lowered his hand and looked up at the blurry moon. Riley wondered how far he had walked while he looked into those eyes. Just the thought of them made him want to look again. There was peace in that swirling light.
“I said get back,” he shouted.
The swirling light was at the lower reaches of his vision. It called him—begged him to look again.
Riley turned away.
The flashing red lights and the headlights of his car were impossibly far away. Nick was standing at the edge of that circle of light, waving his arms. Riley ran towards that safety and tried to ignore the shadows moving along the edge of the woods in his peripheral vision.
“Help!” he yelled in between gasping breaths.
His foot hit something and he stumbled. The thing that had tripped him felt soft and yielding. Riley caught his balance as he staggered a few more steps. Nick was coming towards him now. Only a few dozen paces separated them.
“Riley?” Nick shouted. “What is it?”
This time, one of the things grabbed his ankle. It didn’t just trip him, it held on and Riley’s knee popped as he went down. With a hand stretched out in Nick’s direction, Riley hit the train tracks, slamming his chin against the steel rail. The swirling lights were inside his head this time as his brain sloshed inside his skull. He rolled to the side and saw the blurry moon.
Then, his vision was filled with the swirling eyes and his fear and panic melted away.
# # #
Nick thought it was a bad joke as Riley walked away. He was either trying to frighten him or just making fun of him for believing in ghosts. Either way, Nick resolved that he wouldn’t participate. The keys were still in the ignition. Nick thought of the perfect plan for revenge. He would drive away and leave Riley to think twice about playing pranks.
Nick finally found the button to unlock the doors and reached over to push open the driver’s door before he got out.
When he yelled, Riley just kept walking down the tracks, like he hadn’t even heard.
“Hey!” Nick shouted over the sound of the ringing train signal.
He slammed the car door and walked around the hood.
Something caught his eye in the flashing red lights. There was something moving at the edge of the woods.
“I’m leaving you,” Nick shouted.
Riley stopped.
Nick heard a sound between the ringing bells—Riley shouted something into the night and then turned. A shiver ran down Nick’s back. Nick started towards Riley and stopped at the edge of the light from the train signal. He waved his arms over his head.
It sounded like Riley said something else as he ran, but Nick didn’t hear it.
When Riley stumbled and then fell, Nick’s blood ran
