The Haunted Train Journey

Every year scores of train accidents take all over the world, the majority of them happening in India and hundreds of people die or are injured in these accidents. The government pays compensation to the victims of both the living and the families of the deceased ones and it stays in the news for some time and then fades away. No one knows and no one bothers to know also that what happens afterward. Here is a story that tells of the story of one such accident and what happened afterward.

Our story takes place in a remote village where the main character Suresh is living in miserable conditions as he is unemployed, and his father is a retired government servant with a pittance for a pension. They are somehow surviving because of his mother’s ancestral inheritance.  Due to this, it is also impossible to get Suresh married as no respectable father would like to see his daughter’s future as uncertain and bleak as it seemed right now. Then one day Suresh sees that there is a requirement for a railway postmaster and he decides to sit for the examination. So is family somehow manages to help him in preparing for the examination and he passes the examination with a good enough percentage. The whole family is overjoyed that now their fortunes would change and they would be able to see better times. So Suresh waits for the opportune time when the railways will give him a plush posting, then one day, he gets a letter asking him to report and take charge of the small railway station in a remotely situated village called Minsapur which is more than 200 kilometres from this place. On hearing this both Suresh’s parents tell him not to go there and rather wait for another opportunity, to which Suresh replies that “good opportunities are scarce incoming and it’s only a matter of 2-3 years when I will get a good posting”. So reluctantly, his parents agree and the next day Suresh takes his parents blessing and leaves for Minsapur.

While during the journey, he picks up the conversation with other passengers, and when he tells them of his destination, they look at him with a strange expression of horror and looks away from him, when he asks them that “what is the matter? Why are you all so silent all of a sudden?” to which they just politely reply that it’s nothing and divert their conversation to the next thing. This seems a bit odd to Suresh but he ignores it and looks out the window. At last, when he reaches near Minsapur, he gets off by mistake at one station ahead. Now he thinks regretting this mistake won’t do him any help and comes out of the station where he sees queues of rickshaws and Tongas standing to pick passengers coming off the station. So he goes and asks one rickshaw that “will you take me to Minsapur?” to which the rickshaw wala gives him a blank stare and refuses and this continues with every one of the rickshaws and Tongas. At last one rickshaw wala agrees and tells him that he will take him only to point from where the village begins and the rest he would have to walk. Suresh now is in a hurry and he offhandedly agrees.

So while in the rickshaw, he asks the driver that “why wouldn’t anyone take him to the village and also about the reactions of the fellow passengers on the train?” the driver says that as it is getting late and no one would like to go out in this full moon night, that’s why everyone refused. This again seems strange to Suresh so he again asks the driver that why is it so? , and the driver gets angry and says that it is getting late and anyways they have reached near the village and he can walk the rest of the distance. As it is already dark when Suresh reaches the village, and on entering it seemed odd that no one was in sight; but he again ignores the feeling and looks for a place to spend the night so in the morning he can go and take charge of the station.

Now when Suresh goes and sees that all the houses are closed with lights on from inside, he decides to go and ask at one of the houses to see if they can shelter him for one night. But when he knocks on the door, he gets a rude reply from behind the door that “Go away and don’t disturb us as we are not going to open the door and nor can we help you.” and the same thing happens again with Suresh where he cannot find any positive response from anyone until one house owner who also from closed doors tells him to go the temple, where he can take shelter for the night and in the morning someone will take him to the station. At last, Suresh finds an answer to which he sounds happy and goes looking for the temple but here also he sees that the temple doors are closed and there is no sign of the priest. This infuriates him and in frustration, he decides to go to the station instead. Somehow he reaches the station and is surprised that no one is there though he had informed the station master of his arrival, anyways he decides to wait and sits on one of the benches on the platform. Some time has passed when Suresh feels that someone has come and sat near him on the bench, he looks and sees a middle-aged man with upright back but with a worried expression on his face, so Suresh decides to pick up the conversation and asks him that if he is travelling somewhere, to which the man says that “ I was going home but could not reach there and what about you?, are you also travelling?”., so Suresh says no “I am the new station master and am waiting for the previous station master to come and take me to my quarters”, the man says that the station master is only going to come in the morning and they start chatting up.

Meanwhile, it’s around 10:12 p.m. when both of them can see a passenger train arriving at which Suresh asks the man sitting next to him that he can board this train but the man says nothing. When the train comes to a halt at the station, Suresh sees that there is a change in the man’s expression and what seemed to be a normal conversation until now turns to the man being depressed and about to cry. As Suresh asks him that “why are you crying?, you should be happy that now you can go to your home and be with your family”, but the man says and keeps on crying and repeating on and on that “Someone please take me home”, Suresh feels it odd and anyway he decides to go and check on the passengers on how they are doing. There he is completely is stunned and shocked to see that every one of the passengers crying and everyone is wailing and saying the same thing as that the man was saying that is “ Someone please take us home”, now this completely scares Suresh and he hurried gets off the train and on to the platform where surprisingly the man who was sitting next to him has vanished and he can see him with the other passengers on the train come on to the platform and coming near him crying loudly and repeating “ Someone please take us home as we can’t go home”.

Suresh is completely terrified and does not know what to do and there is no place to hide and the last thing he remembers that the passenger crowding over him and pleading him to take them home as they cannot go home when he loses consciousness.

It’s broad daylight and when Suresh regains consciousness, he sees a bunch of people standing over with worried and surprised looks. At first, he thinks that they are the same people from the previous night, but when he sees the stationmaster somehow hurrying up and shooing away the crowd, it is then he relaxes and also is a bit angry at the stationmaster that where was he, to which the station master gently takes him by the hand and takes him to his room and then asks that if Suresh had any food? Which Suresh says no and he is feeling hungry since last night. After breakfast, the stationmaster asks Suresh that did he notices anything strange in the night and Suresh says he has seen many strange things and he recounts the whole experience of the previous night. The station-master then tells him that a few years ago, even before this stationmaster’s time an accident took place where the train which comes at 10:12 got derailed due to missing railway gauges which had been stolen by thieves and resulted in this particular train being derailed and all the passengers were killed and there were no survivors including the engine driver. Since that time on every full moon night, this ghostly spectre of the unfortunate 10:12 train appears along with all the passengers on it and it is said that if anyone who does not know about this and boards this train, that person will also unfortunately become part of this train as he will also die. It is also said that the passengers of that ill-fated train sometimes go to the village and knock on doors crying that someone might help them and even villager had unsuspectingly opened the door and the next day his and his whole family’s dead bodies were found gruesomely m