Mary walked from Starbucks to the New Jersey Transit train station in under an hour, which surprised her, considering how long the trip had always felt in a car. She’d made that drive many times before with her sister, to pick Thomas up from the station. But today, she was without her sister, without a car, without Thomas. She’d called Thomas twenty times already, and he hadn’t answered. Each time, a single ring, and straight to that terrible automated voicemail. Mary became angrier the more she heard its violent flatness. It mocked her. Challenged her.
I dare you to call again, it said.
Mary did call again. And she would continue to. Whatever was happening had most likely disrupted trains, but she thought Thomas may have been lucky and early enough. How relieved she’d be to see him waiting outside the station with his bag at his feet, bored and sad and lovely. She couldn’t expect anything, though. Not anymore.
In nearly an hour of walking, only one car had passed her. Not a single person was on the sidewalk. She stopped for a moment, and waited for something—a plane overhead, screeching brakes in the distance, a siren. But there was nothing. It was as still as an empty chapel. She kept walking.
At the train station, there were people. There were cars backed up and locking each other up in the parking lot. A crowd had formed outside the two ticket windows. People shouted, pushed and bundled. When people were afraid, they wanted to be close. Safety in numbers. Not like Eddie, though. When he was afraid, he slipped away from the world and died alone. Like a dog under a porch. Mary couldn’t decide if he was a coward or smarter than everyone.
There were two young women, and a man in his 60s behind running the station. They all wore face masks—one of the women wore a gas mask. They seemed to be repeating statements. Mary couldn’t make out what. It didn’t seem to be doing any good, whatever they were saying. People slapped their palms on the glass of the window. Pointed. Bore their teeth. As Mary got closer, she could see of the two women had started crying.
On the platform, people paced, talked on their phones or stared down at them, looked up at the schedule board. All trains into and from New York were delayed or canceled. One man, who looked about Thomas’s age, leaned against a platform column, clutching his messenger bag, smoking a cigarette with zero hesitation. His eyes were deep set, and he looked peaceful. Resigned.
“Excuse me,” Mary said, and he turned. “Have any trains come in at all today?”
He shook his head.
“Apparently some trains are stuck,” he said, flicking his head. “They’re not letting anyone out of New York, though.”
Mary turned and looked down the empty railroad tracks, and imagined Thomas on an unseen train car—the muted morning sunlight warming his face through a dirty train window.
“It’s something big,” a woman said.
Mary turned and saw a sharply dressed woman in her 40s standing nearby in business trousers and a blouse and heels and a svelte rolling suitcase. She clutched her huge iPhone, and looked right at Mary.
“We got an email from my office,” she said. “They’re grounding all flights.”
She shook her head. Mary imagined her flight out of Newark to Las Vegas was canceled. A convention of some kind, Mary thought. Medical equipment.
“Is it like, an attack? Someone else said.
Mary looked over and saw a boy, no older than seventeen. He had one earbud hanging off, and was standing close, his mouth open, waiting for comfort.
The business woman shrugged.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, looking back at her phone.
The boy looked at Mary; he was afraid. Mary smiled faintly.
“We’ll know soon, I’m sure,” Mary said to him. He nodded, and put his ear bud back in and continued watching a YouTube tutorial about building a car engine.
Mary nodded at the messenger bag man, and walked to the end of the platform, where there were no people. She checked her phone again. Nothing from Thomas, but a text message from her nephew.
Mom is at the hospital but I can’t go see her
Mary felt her stomach sink. Somehow, in the last twenty minutes, she forgot she even had a sister.
Why not? Which hospital? We can go together.
She looked back at the man with the messenger bag, who was now smoking another cigarette. Her phone vibrated. It was her nephew again.
There are too many people at the hospital and now I’m sick too
For a moment, she considered going to her nephew’s to take care of him and his boring girlfriend. Another message from her nephew:
You should go home and stay there
Behind her, she heard a scream. She turned back towards the station. The man with the messenger bag was gone now, and the crowd near the ticket windows had spread out onto the platform. It was surging and roaring. Two security guards ran into it and were pushed back like it was a cresting wave. They bobbed around, nearly tripping, looking small and useless. They stayed back, each putting their hands out. One shouted something into their walkie-talkie. Somewhere in the mass of bodies, glass shattered, and Mary could see people filing inside, to the previously sealed-off ticketing area. The business woman from before fell off the platform onto the tracks, knocking her head against the steel. More screams.
Mary knew she had to go now. Without even breathing, she sat down on the platform and jumped onto the tracks, making her way north, towards the city. She looked back at the station, now falling away behind her. Mary turned and began to run, for the first time in two decades, on the gravel beside the tracks. She looked down at her shoes. She wouldn’t look up until she had to.
I had to step out of line in cvs to finish reading this! Incredible storytelling
OMG Carey, this is SO GOOD!! Can't wait for another installment!