Pale
A short horror story
Trigger warnings: Descriptions of graphic violence, suicide, depression.
The reports are all anyone has been talking about for the last few weeks. Maybe the term ‘reports’ is too generous: ‘gossip’ or ‘rumours’ are probably more apt. But I suppose the more people whisper about them, the more they seem real. I am choosing to ignore them. I like a good ghost story as much as the next person, but they’re not enough to stop me from going to work or going to the shops. I know that others have stopped leaving the house, convinced by social media posts and tabloid opinion articles that being inside is the safest space. I can’t do that. Inside is the worst place I could think of. Being stuck inside my home by myself, watching another series I don’t care about on the TV, struggling to gain the motivation to take up a hobby, or pretending that cleaning and dusting is somehow productive and not just a distraction from myself. I hate it here. It is a place I eat my dinner and sleep. It is perfectly functional for those purposes and that’s it. I have barely decorated since moving in: a lone picture frame with the stock image still inside hangs on the wall near the door, a scented candle sits unlit on the dresser, and that is as close to being a homebody as I have come. I have no desire to entertain guests, as I find social interactions taxing and stressful, I have no family to speak of since they have all moved to separate corners of the globe to follow their own journeys, I considered a cat but dismissed that notion upon realising the poor thing would be stuck in this beige prison with me as its warden. The truth is, I am not inclined to change this way of living as I find it perfectly acceptable. ‘A lot of people have it a lot worse’ I tell myself as I sip my coffee in silence before my morning commute. The toast I started last night sits on the kitchen counter and I purposefully leave it there, knowing that cleaning it up will give me something to do when I get home. My job is nothing special, I work in an office, I make small talk in the lifts with my colleagues, I lie about how my weekends were when they ask, I feign interest in their newest television obsessions, I am a good person to work with.
My commute is a long but quiet one until we hit central London. A slow District line in from the east means I can do the morning crossword in peace and sat down. As the train pulls into Zone 1, the passengers pour in, flooding the carriage with bodies and bags. I almost always see someone stood up who deserves the seat more than me and I stand and offer my seat to them. I tell myself this makes me a good person, better than those around me. Bodies crush against me as I continue my crossword. I keep myself to myself, I don’t start - or get into strangers’ - conversations, but this morning I am unable to escape the less-than-subtle whispering behind me.
“The new sighting was the Victoria line” an older woman said to what I assume was her daughter.
“That’s like the 12th sighting isn’t it? You can’t still think it’s all made up now! 12 different people in different locations all seeing the same thing?” The daughter checks her volume amongst the crowds, realising the train has come to a stop and the only sound in the carriage is the tinny hum of headphones and the rustling of newspaper pages. She remains silent until the roar of the train starts again. “Why haven’t the police said anything? Or TFL? That’s what I want to know.”
“Because it’d cause a panic!” the mother shouts over the metallic crash of the tube car as we turn the corner into Earls Court station. More people push on at the next stop and the train heaves with warm bodies. I silently urge the mother and daughter to continue their conversation, desperate to hear more, but the daughter plays a game on her phone that involves squares lining up in a particular pattern, and the mother stares at the floor in silence. When we reach Barons Court, I pick up my bag from the floor between my legs and hurry off the tube, mildly annoyed that I hadn’t been able to finish the crossword as I had been too busy thinking about the conversation I overheard.
The rest of my day is indistinguishable from any other day. I speak with a woman who works in marketing in the staff kitchen. She has recently had a baby and does not need to be provoked into telling me all about it. I complete my tasks for the day in the first hour at my desk and spend the rest of the day trying to find something to entertain my brain. At 5.55pm, I pack my things into my bag and meander to the station, thinking about the cleaning up I left myself this morning. Knowing I have at least one activity ahead of me this evening is strangely comforting.
A few years ago, I had attempted to take my own life. I had used a razor blade from a shaver and dragged it across my wrists until my hands didn’t work anymore. I awoke the next day in hospital, my partner at the time had called the ambulance and apparently they had reached me just in time. I spent the next month in a special ward for people who didn’t want to be alive anymore (not the official name). Being on the ward wasn’t as bad as you would think. I kept to myself, I took no pleasure in the games room or the outdoor activities they planned for us, but I was perfectly content in a state of buffering. During this time my partner left, which in hindsight was for the best. They needed more from me but I prefer to live with low expectations held over me. I wish I could have stayed on the ward, but they needed the bed for another patient, so I was removed and forced back into the world. Since then, I haven’t wanted anything, I just don’t seem to find pleasure in things other people find pleasure in, I have assumed my place as a person who is in the background of other people’s stories, and that suits me just fine.
The next morning, I set my coffee cup in the sink, check my pocket contains a pen so I can do my crossword on the commute, and grab my bag from beside the door. My commute routine is simple: A brisk walk to the station, a robotic card swipe through the turnstile, a newspaper selected from the rack on the station platform, and a glance at the front page as I wait the 2 minutes until the next train. ‘TWELFTH ‘PALE MAN’ SIGHTING ON TUBE: MAYOR STILL SILENT’ screams the front page, with an unflattering picture of the mayor underneath. I flip to the crossword section and fold the paper under my arm as the train approaches the station. I board, along with one other person, into the sparsely populated carriage. As we approach Mile End, where the train enters the underground, I feel myself tense up: I prefer the natural light in which to read my crossword clues, the lights in the tube car flicker on and off once we enter the tunnels making it harder to complete my puzzle. Like clockwork, we plunge into darkness, the rattle of the old metal shaking as we hurtle around corners approaching the next station. I glance around the carriage to see only 7 other passengers. I know as soon as we reach the next stop the train will quickly fill, so I always take a second to enjoy the moment of quiet before chaos. I scan my eyes around the carriage at the other people joining me in today’s journey. A businessman reading a worn-out copy of a fantasy book, a young couple holding hands while looking at their respective phones, a woman stood over a pram next to the doors (I assume there is a baby inside), and right at the end of the carriage, squinting up at the tube map printed above the seats, 2 tourists. Tourists are always easy to spot due to their clothes, confused faces, and backpacks worn on the front of their bodies to deter pickpockets. I drag my pen in circles at the top of the newspaper page waiting for the light to become more consistent so I could reread the clue to 13 down.
The train comes to a slow stop while we’re still inside the tunnel, the lights flickering as the engine lets out a wet hiss, accompanied by sighs and tuts echoing around the quiet carriage. The lights make a few meagre attempts at life before giving up and plunging us into darkness, the only illumination coming from phones as they light up people’s annoyed faces. A crackled, weary voice comes over the tannoy:
“I would like to apologise on behalf of Transport for London for the delay to your journey, the train ahead has stopped in the tunnel, and we are awaiting their entry to the next station before we can proceed. We will keep you up to date with any information when we get it.”
The speakers pop as the microphone in the cab is switched off. The tourists whisper to each other in a language I lack the motivation to learn, the mother fusses her baby, the couple – obviously frequent commuters - don’t even exchange glances.
A clang of metal rings through the carriage, making everyone jump and causing the baby to burst into loud, furious tears. The mother calmly springs into action, cooing over the pram. The couple take their eyes off their phones for the first time since boarding. The speakers sputter into life again:
“Once again I would like to apologise for this delay to your journey, we have been informed that th-… what the fuck is that?”
Everyone looks up at the speakers expectantly, as if the voice is housed inside.
“Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen, as I was saying…”
The rest of the sentence is lost as a metallic creak tears through the tube car, followed by a solid thud. The speakers are silent. The couple turn on the torches on their phone, which spill light onto the floor of the carriage in front of them.
“It’ll be those kids who have been scaring the shit out of everyone”, one half of the couple says to the other with an eyeroll. “You know, the ones who’ve been hiding down here and jumping out at people to put it on social media. This shit is so annoying.” As she says this, she gropes through her over-full handbag, retrieves a name badge and clips it onto her shirt. I squint and make out ‘HELLO my name is: Cookie’. My mind wanders and wonders if that was the name she was given at birth.
“Nah it’s not kids, my partner says it’s sickos dressed in white jumping out at tourists trying to mug them” replies the mother, without looking up from the baby who is still hiccupping sobs. The tourists look alarmed and hug their backpacks closer to their chests.
“You’re both wrong”, the businessman interjects in a bored voice, “it’s just some social media panic that’s got out of hand as usual. Some mad case claimed they saw something, reported it to TFL, and from there it just grew and grew until loads of idiots started panicking.” He accompanies the last sentence with a withering look towards the mother. The rest of the carriage remains silent as the businessman moves down the carriage to sit closer to the rest of the group. “The creaking and thudding are just the metal cooling from being in motion and then coming to a standstill, and the train in front will be one of the older trains that always breaks down on this line, I don’t know why they keep those old tubes in service”. At this point he makes eye contact with everyone in turn, seemingly desperate for someone to ask why he knows so much about tube trains, but no one indulges him so he falls silent again.
Minutes later, the speakers cough out another update:
“Ladies and Gentleman it’s your driver again, unfortunately we haven’t been able to get in contact with the train in front of us, so we are stuck here for the moment until I hear back from the control room.”
The driver takes a breath, which is picked up by the microphone. There’s a pause, as though he wants to tell us something else. We all wait, straining our ears for good news.
“I don’t… uh… Hopefully we will have more information soon”. A click echoes around the carriage as the microphone is turned off once again.
I feel sweat run down my neck as I glance as my watch. I am rarely late to work. I always see tardiness as a sign of disrespect, even when it’s not my fault. I am prompt for everything, in fact I am usually early by 20 minutes or so, so this situation is upsetting to say the least.
The darkness seems to linger at the edges of the pitiful light cast by phones, making the space beyond even darker in comparison. I can make out the couple lit up in a cold glow, I can vaguely see the mother hovering over the pram, the businessman is sat with the back of his head rested against the tube window, and the tourists are still clutching silently to the tube handrail, no doubt confused as to what on earth is going on. I check the time on my phone and see that I now have only 13 minutes to make it to the office, which means I will definitely be late. I have no signal, which is no surprise, but still fire off an apologetic and grovelling email to my boss hoping that it will arrive just before I do.
The atmosphere in the carriage suddenly fizzes with tension, as though an electric charge had passed through it: a high-pitched shriek of scratching metal comes from the far end of the carriage, as though something is being dragged along the outer shell. The noise proceeds slowly towards our end of the car, the sound filling the small space. It reverberates around the train, filling our heads so that nothing but that awful noise exists. There is a dull thump as the noise reaches the metal door, scraping over the rubber seal between the doors, and then continuing towards us. The couple don’t move but we can all tell that the sound is coming from their side. It slowly drags along the carriage until it reaches the couple and stops. The silence roars back into the carriage and is somehow so much worse than the wall of noise. We all sit rigidly in place, until ‘Cookie’ shakily lifts her phone to light more of the space with the torch beam. I crane my neck to get a look at my fellow travellers. They all look terrified. Cookie turns her torch towards her partner, asking if they are okay. They nod and smile weakly. The light is passed around the car, as if to check in on the rest of us, capturing our flinching squinting faces pale with fear. Cookie slowly turns to shine the light out of the window, towards where the sound stopped. The tunnel wall lights up through the scratched and faded glass. The light moves around jerkily, as though Cookie wants to check every inch of the tunnel wall. The beam falls on brick after brick, our shadows dancing inside the carriage with every movement. Then the light falls onto something pale. A smooth surface, not brick, not mortar or cement, it looks… softer. The torch lingers on this strange sight for a second, as we all stare in silence. The screeching begins again making Cookie jump and sends her phone clattering to the floor, light facing down. This seems to break the spell of silence and suddenly the carriage fills with a cacophony of shouted instructions and panicked breathing that almost drowns out the unbearable noise. Cookie scrambles towards the phone and, needing two hands to steady it, points the phone light back out of the window. We can only see tunnel wall, bricks and mortar.
“Ladies and gentlemen this is your driver again. On behalf of the TFL blah blah blah, you know the drill. I wanted to let you know that I did hear the loud noise a second ago, I’m aware of it, there’s not much I can do with regards to checking it out with where we are in the tunnel. But if you need to use the alarm to contact me about anything else, please do so.” The speaker goes dead. In the distance we hear the scraping again, fainter, moving further away, and then a noise we can feel as strongly as we can hear it: like tin foil being torn apart but heavier and deeper. Then a scream.
“What the fuck was that?” The mother says abruptly, standing upright but still jiggling the pram. The businessman stands up, craning his neck to look through the tiny, scratched up windows that lead to the other carriages. The tourists move as one towards my end of the carriage. The couple are holding hands and I think I can see Cookie crying. A silence fell over all of us, it enveloped us. The lack of sound felt smothering, like silence had replaced all the oxygen. The speaker came to life for an instant with a wordless buzzing, and then died again.
“That came from the front of the train”, the businessman announces.
“What was that scream?” Cookie asks.
“I bet it was just the wind” her partner replies, rubbing her arm soothingly.
“When have you ever heard wind sound like that? Moron” spits out the businessman, his face screwed up with derision.
They continue to bicker until the mother raises her voice to be heard above them. “It was definitely a scream and it did come from the front of the train.” She looks like she is about to say something else when the scratching sound returns, distant and menacing as it creeps through the tunnel towards us.
The tourists whisper something to each other and perch at the end of the same seating bank as the couple and me. The businessman falls back into his seat in the next row. The mother stands frozen, staring at the location of the sound, jiggling of the pram forgotten. The scraping gets louder and louder until it reaches the car before ours, and then stops. The torch from Cookie’s phone shines at her feet, giving a faint glow in the carriage but not enough to make out anything through the grey Perspex window to the next car.
A click.
A creak.
A slam.
We all recognise the unmistakable sound of the doors between carriages opening and closing and stare towards the end of the carriage, frozen. The shaky torch light illuminates the door but nothing seems unusual. As the torch moves back down the carriage, it passes over something that wasn’t there before. In the open space between the door middle doors, at the end of the seating bank I am sitting on. Something (someone?) is crouched in the corner of the carriage, facing the wall, breathing heavily. It is pale grey, the torch light almost makes it look translucent, with blue veins creeping across its surface. Notches of spine pierce the skin on its back. A few loose strands of hair spill from its skull and rest on the nape of a long neck. Thin elongated arms tuck themselves over knees as it crouches in the corner away from us.As I stare at it, unblinking, the businessman stands up and moves past me down the carriage. He stops between the couple and me and inspects the form in the corner. I know instinctively what he is going to do. This man has analysed his fellow passengers and appointed himself the leader of this carriage. I hold my breath and my eyes flick between the businessman and the thing in the corner.
I really hadn’t paid much attention to the reports in the papers the last few weeks. ‘Sightings on the tube’ hadn’t piqued my interest at all. But now, as something sits huddled a few feet away from me, breathing a thick damp breath, I wish I had read more so I had at least some knowledge of what was going on. The businessman took a careful step forward and one of the tourists grabbed his arm, talking urgently in a language incomprehensible to all of us. The gist was clear: don’t go near it, what are you doing? But the businessman ignores them, creeping forwards, his expression stern, his steps calculated. He is about 3 steps away from it when it moves.
It lifts itself from a crouch and unfurls its spindly limbs to stand as tall as the carriage itself, even having to duck its head to the side to manoeuvre itself under the ceiling of the train. Its body is thin, with pale grey skin clutching to bone, blue blood creating thin rivers under its flesh. The arms swing low, the hands almost at knee level, as it looms in the corner, still facing the wall of the carriage. Its breathing quickens, a fast and shallow noise like an angry dog panting. The businessman, looking less bold now that he’s faced with the full horror of what’s in front of us, drags his feet as he stumbles towards the figure. The pale smooth head cocks to one side as though listening. We all stare, unable to comprehend the sight. In a motion too fast for any meaningful reaction, a long-fingered hand grabs the businessman’s neck, lifting him off the ground so his left ear meets with the ceiling of the tube car. Cookie’s torch swings upwards as she staggers to her feet, so we all see the things face in its entirety. My brain reels as it desperately scans for any previous experiences to help me make sense of what I’m seeing. It has no eyes. No nose. No ears. Simply a pale, hairless head decorated with nothing but a mouth of crooked rotten teeth. It seems to smile. It is at this point the tourists rush for the back of the carriage, one pushing the other to hurry them up, both tripping over their feet to get as far from us as possible. The mother hunches over her pram in what she must think is a defensive position. The couple and I don’t move – can’t move - until we feel the hot blood on our faces. With one sudden clench, the creature’s elongated hand snaps the businessman’s neck with seemingly no effort, and in one violent tug separates his head and spine from his body. The body falls to the ground with a wet thud. This is when we run. The tourists are trying to prise the door to the next carriage open but can’t get the handle to work. I try to signal to them that they need to make less noise, but in their panic they fail to register my warnings. Thing snaps its head toward the noise, reaching out a hand and pressing a palm into the roof of the car. For a moment it is still, I stare as it turned its head from its hand to the tourists who are now joined by the couple in their frantic efforts for freedom. The mother doesn’t move, either frozen with fear or standing her ground to defend her child in the pram. The figure drops the businessman’s head on the ground, discarding it like a toddler bored with a toy. This is when I notice its fingers: no fingertips leading to fingernail, just sharp pointed talons that are now digging into the tube’s metal ceiling as it staggers through the carriage towards those at the other end, moving slowly and jerkily. It stops in front of me and I sink back into the seat as far as I could, the back of my head meeting the glass behind me, turning my head as far away as I can. It brings its face close to mine. I can barely breathe, or I am subconsciously trying not to. Its tongue slides around behind its teeth as it tastes the air around me. I hold my breath. I feel my heart thudding from deep within my chest. I feel its breath on my face, dry and putrid. The baby starts crying. The mother screams and tries to quickly roll the pram down the carriage towards the other doors but has forgotten to take off the wheel lock, which makes the pram bump loudly down the aisle.
The creature’s head snaps round, quickly regaining its posture between the seating banks and heads towards the pram. The mother turns and stands defiantly in its way, but I could see from her face that she knew this was hopeless. With one swinging motion, the creature’s talons slice through the woman like a hot knife through butter. Her torso separates from her hips and slumps onto the floor as a pool of blood floods the carriage. The torch light is flying wildly around the car as the other passengers try to open the door at the other end of the carriage, constantly shushing each other in panicked voices. The baby is shrieking, a noise like a wounded animal, as the figure approaches the pram and leans over. The long fingers on one hand excitedly reach into the dark of the cradle, followed by a squashing sound and… I don’t have to say it. Don’t make me say it. Someone is screaming, out of the corner of my eye I can see that someone has collapsed on the floor – I assume they’ve fainted – and in the dim grey of the car I see someone else trying to use their shoe to batter the glass on the tube door.
The creature half-crawls, half-runs between the seating banks, its feet barely touching the ground, its hands moving so fast they blurred in the dim light. I cover my ears by wrapping my arms tightly around my head and weep silently. I can feel myself teetering on the edge of a panic attack, so I concentrate on my breathing: counts of 4. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Pause. I remember learning this in the ward for people who didn’t want to be alive anymore. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Pause.
The screaming stops. Everything stops. Silence once again fills the tube car. For a brief second I believe it’s over, until I feel the air in front of my face disturbed by quick breaths and a disgusting odour that reminds me of mouldy cellars, something forgotten and rotten. My eyes don’t want to open but I go against every ounce of common sense I have and force them. The carriage is darker than before (I try not to think about where Cookie’s phone is) but a dull red hue cuts through the dark. I can make out the crooked teeth of that featureless face. A blood-soaked tongue rolls over the bottom row, and before I can move the tongue is on my lips. It moves languidly from left to right and back again, as my fingernails dig into the seat cushions and I try to not react. I slowly open my eyes and see nothing. I am alone. I release a sound I’ve never heard before or since: the sound of something coming undone.
I sat there for 3 hours before the emergency services arrived. When the firefighters managed to open the door the tourists and couple had tried to escape from, one of them vomited immediately. The scene they found was a person sat frozen in fear, blood smeared across their lips and chin, and multiple bodies around the carriage, many of which had been torn apart. I was removed from the carriage, a blanket draped on my shoulders, and they helped me walk through the tunnels until we reached the light of the station. I wept as I was handed over to the police.
I was questioned for hours but I had no answers. I didn’t know how to communicate what I could barely comprehend. I was taken to a hospital and after what felt like weeks of questioning from police, reporters trying to get into my room for an exclusive story, hours of therapy, doctors and nurses telling me that I’d be okay, I was eventually institutionalised again. This was the first time I’d felt safe since what happened in the tube car. The straps holding me as I slept. The predictable routine of mealtimes and exercise time. Police officers would still stop by, trying different tactics to get me to talk, but each failed after they realised that I had lost the ability to articulate this trauma. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t process the reality of it, but I began to feel somewhat normal in this place where normality wasn’t expected or required of me.
3 days into my stay I had been put to bed. The lights were off, my restraints were hugging tight against my wrists and ankles. And I saw it. Stood in the corner of the room, rolling its tongue behind its teeth in my direction. It came every night without fail, almost like it was checking in on me. After a while it became a strangely familiar and welcome sight. It took me months to realise why it was visiting me and why it had spared me. At first, I screamed at it. I poured my rage into questioning, demanding answers, pleading for a reason or explanation. “WHY THEM AND NOT ME, YOU FUCK” I would shout into the night. When a nurse arrived to investigate the noise, the creature would, of course disappear, and the nurse would respond to my explanations with more medication. But the creature soon returned, staring at me with its mouth agape. I would mumble my memories of my fellow passengers that day, the bland snippets of their lives I had deduced from our brief and horrifying time together. Names, personalities, relationships. I would repeat these meaningless facts in a futile attempt to spark guilt in the creature. Any kind of emotion. And it was in this storytelling that I realised the difference between them and me. They were loved, they had something to live for. They had careers, love, family, a world of opportunity. They had a desire to live. I had given up a long time ago. I understood now that the monster had taken a liking to me because it wasn’t alive and neither was I. It preyed on those with a reason to live, and I was the first person it had met that didn’t have one. And now this may be my punishment. They died, I had never lived, and now I’m haunted by this awful reminder of that.