The Ghost of a Train Passenger

It was a night in January when a few of us wanderers on the express train were seeking warmth and light in the narrow, vibrating car. A cold, fierce wind was tearing through the night, but the iron itself kept straight ahead. 'A miserable night for traveling,' said the conductor, checking tickets. 'I said to myself, in Denver, for my ticket is in the side pocket of my coat.' Feeling very despondent, the conductor said, 'A day like this, the brakemen can’t be outside. I saw a woman on a train from Chicago, with her baby in her arms, frozen to death, and she never thought, poor thing, but that it was asleep.'

At the stop at Hardwick, a slender young girl entered, wrapped in a gray shawl and wearing a matching hat trimmed with velvet flowers. She hesitated, like one unused to traveling, and sat near the door. She asked if the train reached Bayswater, and upon learning it would take hours, she grew quiet. Suddenly, the train slowed at a lonely station called Exmouth. The girl became visibly agitated, shivering, and pulled her shawl around her.

When a detective on board whispered to me that he was tracking a murderess—a woman who had killed four people in cold blood—I immediately scanned the passengers. My eye fell upon the lovely, child-like girl. When the train stopped again, she asked for a glass of water. As I turned, she brushed past me, rushed onto the platform, and vanished. We found her shortly after, mangled by the tracks where she had jumped from the moving train to escape. The detective stood over her remains, noting she had tried to flee to Canada. She was identified as Atilla Barton, a murderess of twenty-six years. We buried the 'fair dead thing' in a lonely farmhouse, and I was left with the haunting memory of her blue eyes and rosebud mouth.