Ghost Stories

Stacey had just finished a late night shift and was walking to the underground, waiting for the tube. No one was at the station -- no business men, no tramps, no one. The tube pulled up and hissed open. No one was on it.

Stacey plunked into a random seat and plugged in her mp3 player, hoping to drown out the eerie silence.

As the next stop pulled by, two men with a girl between them hopped on and sat directly opposite Stacey. Another man also boarded the tube -- a geeky boy with a briefcase who slid into the seat beside her.

The two men were rowdy in their words and tones, and Stacy avoided eye contact; they seemed like trouble. The girl sitting between them continued to stare at her. Every time Stacey looked up, the girl was staring. Stacey shivered. The girl seemed young to be hanging out with men like them; Stacey guessed the child was fourteen, fifteen at most. Perhaps they're siblings, she thought to herself. She certainly hoped so. But then the man beside her whispered, "Get off at the next stop." He barely moved his lips.

The tube nearly drowned out what he said, and her music did the rest. "What?" shouted Stacey.

"Shhh, don't be so loud!" The man was agitated. "Just do as I say and get off at the next stop."

"No," Stacey hissed back. He was irritating her and disrupting her favorite song.

"Please," the man begged. "Just get off. I'll leave you alone afterwards -- just listen to me."

The tube was slowing down. Stacey stood huffily and hopped off with the man next to her.

"I only had three stops left. You'd better have a good reason for making me get off," Stacy exclaimed.

"You know the girl who was sitting opposite you?" The man still kept his voice low, clutching his briefcase close.

"Yeah?"

"When I got on I saw she had a dagger in her back. She was dead."

The tube pulled away, and through the window, Stacey saw that he was right.