___Waiting For The Train__________________

A peaceful seaside city is the place to be. It's chock full of rich snobs and spoilt children. grubby stones twist and wind around the busy streets of the daily grind of work. It's roughly late afternoon; the sun is still hanging lazily over tall buildings, painting long patterns down the old roads. School is out; all the children are rushing off to the milk bars or the local beach for a swim.
Colleen however, was given board-cleaning duty. She smacked her head against the whiteboard, slowly dragging it down a notch then letting out a tired groan. Mrs. Flintshire poked her head in around the corner of the classroom. "Don't blame me Colleen, you're the one that was misbehaving in class." She said, giving Colleen an angry smirk.

"I keep telling you Mrs. Flint. It wasn't me shooting those spit-balls," colleen pleaded with her infamous puppy-dog eyes, "It was that Darren." It was the eyes, it must have been. Something in Mrs. Flintshire just sparked up, giving her a whole new light on the situation. She walked up to Colleen with a box of reports around her waist. She eyed colleen with a narrowing brow.
"Well, Mrs. Flint. Do you believe me?" She stood, not moving her hand away from the eraser that was still rubbing off the texta.

"No - I don't, Colleen. Keep rubbing. You've got another six boards to clean down, then you'll be able to go home." Mrs. Flintshire said, walking back out the door and out the main hall. Colleen's cheeks puffed red; she stamped her feat against the floorboards. "Stupid Darren, I'll get you tomorrow."
After the grueling boredom Colleen had endured, she slung her bag around her back and set out the door along the dirt path out in the courtyard, as Mrs. Flintshire sent her on her way with a sinister smirk, just as if she was enjoying torturing the students with punishments.
The sun was tinting to a hazy orange as Colleen left school and began to walk down the street past an old church next door. Its foreboding shadow seeped over Colleen, giving her simple shiver down the rim of her spine. She liked scary things, horrible things even. She was a weird girl like that; but she didn't mind anyone calling her that one bit. Most of the kids don't let her play with them anyway, saying she's scary. So all she does is sit in the courtyard at lunch and write scary books and dabble weird illustrations all day.

On her way to the subway, Colleen walked down along the afternoon pavement, taking in the sights, looking for anything out of the ordinary or inspiration for her small book of horrors she usually kept wrapped in her arms. She never knew when inspiration would jump out in her face, just like now.
"Ahhh - Colleen!" A pleasantly chirpy voice rang out from the bakery's door. Colleen jumped, swinging around in surprise.

"Don't scare me like that, Adamo! Damn." Colleen said, fuming as a large man with flour stains down his apron, was laughing and pointing at the enraged, hard-boiled staring of Colleen. "You should see your face, its priceless. Oh wait, you totally can," The large baker retrieved a steel baking tray from the counter just inside the shop. "You see?" he said, pushing the gritty reflection of the tray in her face.

"Always the joker. How about I hack that moustache off, the one you like so much." Colleen hissed. The old baker jumped back slightly with a worrying look. "Come on. It was just a little joke," he said protecting his prized moustache being boasted upon his upper lip, with the baking tray.
"Well, it wasn't funny. You scared me half to death."
"You shouldn't be so prone to being a victim of pranks then. How about a muffin - for an apology, hmm?" Adamo said, lifting a fresh muffin from out of the basket, protected with a fly net on the counter. "A muffin... You are forgiven." She accepted the muffin from the bakers hand, who was answered with a smile.

"Aren't you a bit late from school, young lady?" Adamo said, while proceeding to pack away his chalkboard stands. Colleen was stuffing her face with the muffin - she was quite preoccupied with chewing. She slightly spat and sounded like a washing machine. "Stuped Teacheor kop me in nd made me clen whitebords. Daron made ma get the blame for spit barwls." She churned her cement mixing gob.

"As long as you don't get home when the sun is down. Your parents would be spitting, complaining to me and all that." Adamo folded another stand and slipped it in behind the door. Colleen finished wafting down her apologetic muffin, then preceded to talk as normal, wiping her mouth of the crumbs. "So, anything scary or weird going on?" Colleen asked. She always managed to get a scary story or rumor out of Adamo. Most of her scary stories would usually spring inspiration or influence from Adamo's weird stories he'd hear from the Old Barents Brothers, who has a shoe making factory, three streets away from his bakery.

"As a matter of fact, yes. Got word from Giovanni that a number of kids have been playing in the subways. They'd hear some sort of pipe music, sort of Celtic. The kids would act strange, like in a playful trance. Giovanni even goes so far as to say a strange man appears, playing a flute down in the subway. People say his some funny loon that likes to play makes believe; no ones really seen him up close; his always skipping around and avoiding eyesight. Some kids have even gone missing during the past week or two." Adamo said, all while finishing his sweeping he'd commenced during his story.

Colleen looked starry-eyed, her mind bubbling with excitement. "Wow. That's a bit scary. I even have to take the subway to get home." She said, flipping open her book and dotting down a few keynotes in her small black book, with a pencil neatly tucked in its spine. Adamo straightened his back and groaned from the sweeping. "Exactly why I want you to be careful on your way home today. Who knows what type of sick'o that character could be?" He paused and leaned on his broom. "Don't think I'd ever let myself down if something happened." He said, starting to over-dramatize the situation with a fake terry face.
"Lay off it, old fart. I don't need to be protected from some Cooke." She pouted and narrowed her brows at him.
"Fine, fine. Just be careful on your way home, that's all," he said, walking back into the bakery.
"I will. See you, Adamo. Thanks for the scary story." Off Colleen went. She waved goodbye to the big prankster, then moved off towards the subway station.

Second Chapter: The Station and the Story.
=------=
The subway was almost deserted from all pedestrians, except for a few late arrivals and disobedient teenagers that were waiting patiently by the tracks - but of course, the teenagers were spraying the walls with paint. Large hanging lamps drooped down from the stations semi-circular ceiling. Feint sounds of car horns and the gentle rumbling of the trains engine in the distance drummed deep into the expansive depths of the gaping tunnels that led deep under the city.

Colleen wandered through the front doors and up to the ticket booth. The interior was decorated with wooden benches around its perimeter; about half a dozen different sorts of indoor plants lay around near the walls and corners, or between the benches; the floor was tiled with a cheap material, that was arranged in Fibonacci Spirals of a multitude of colours.

Colleen approached an elderly lady, who was stamping and checking various bookings on her desk.
"Hello, dear," The elderly ticket saleswoman said, as Colleen stepped up to her glass booth. "Do you wish to purchase a ticket?" she folded her books to the side and awaited her answer.
"Yes please. Can I get one to Frankfurter Station?" Colleen asked, searching through her bag for her purse. As the old woman was typing Colleen's ticket up, a gentle whistling noise blew down the tracks, under the cracks of the swinging glass doors, whispering softly in that lofty lobby.
"Here's your ticket. That'll be -" she spoke as her ears caught the notes, "- There's that damn pipe music again." Colleen turned, facing the doors and staring out the windows.

Nothing but rolling trash whirled past her vision, along with a few stray bystanders. Colleen felt a slight tug on her eyes as she listened, as if the corners were becoming fuzzy in her mind. It was mildly alluring, when that barely audible tone hummed then bounced around inside her eardrums. Colleen was about to take a curious yet unknown step towards that door, if wasn't for the elderly woman who tapped her gently on the shoulder. Colleen shook from her benign trance-like state, peered at the woman's face.
"You were a bit gone there, dear. Children these days, always spacing out." The ticket saleswoman said, holding a train ticket within her hands.
"Sorry about that. That pipe music was really strange, do you get it often?"
"Yes and no. Someone has been tooting their tunes for a few weeks now around here; even at a whole different number of stations -- or so I've heard," she said, impatiently waving the train ticket at Colleen. Fed up with the elderly woman's impatience. Colleen quickly paid her, swung her bag back on, and then left out the doors to the platform.

Nothing but the usual, howling silence filled the air around the platform. She scanned for a place to sit. A grubby bench bolted dead into the wall, flaking green paint and a wondrous plethora of bubblegum stuck under its length, didn't seem too appealing to her. Thus, she decided to stand by the tracks.

The overhead clock, hanging from above the door shown that, Colleen's train wouldn't arrive for about thirty minutes. She decided to entertain herself in any menial way possible, just as long as it killed time. She began looking around the interior of the station.

It was old, run down; The brickwork happened to have a black tarry substance licking its surface, giving the actual red bricks, a disgusting brown colour; Pits along the platforms were filled with trash, crunched up to the seams; Various advertised billboards lined most of the walls; one such billboard had paint drooling down its face, still fresh from the can. Colleen didn't pay much notice; but the hooligans tagging was finished abruptly, or so she thought.

After fifteen minutes of curiously examining everything in her eyesight, she suddenly realised: Where were all the teenage gangsters and junkies that usually scoured this station. They have nowhere better to be, that's for sure.

Colleen then quickly caught the sight of a young boy, who was running down the platform at the far end from her. As he approached, she seen his face was thick with terror; his eyes wide, his hair rustled about and he was gasping in great breaths. He was about to rush past Colleen, but she grasped him by the hood of his jumper. He recoiled back, falling on his side. "Stupid cow." The young boy said. He looked about four years younger than Colleen. She loved nothing better, than to bully a few of the younger primary kids.
"Shut up, kid. I'll knock your teeth out, if you don't tell me what you're running from." She threatened, looking down at the boy as he got to his feet.
"Stuff you, I'm not telling you anything. I'm getting out of here before anything bad happens again." He said starting back up into a mad sprint. Colleen tucked her black book under her left arm and used her right, to grip the front of his collar.
"You're not going anywhere, squirt," She pushed him backward a few steps. "Tell me what you seen." A number of people started to crowd around, so she loosened her grip, then giggled slightly at the spectators. "His my brother. I'm angry because he ran away when I told him not to." She lied. The crowd thinned and went along their business. She resumed her usual grip, and then pulled him over to one side, behind a bricked column.
"Now tell me what you saw, or the people who clean the tracks will have an extra job to do." She said, trying to scare the information out of him. Sweat beaded down his brow as he struggled against her grip. He finally buckled. He wasn't going to get away until he told her what was going on.
"OK dammit - I'll tell you what happened. Just let go of me." He gasped. She let go of his collar, a clump of creased clothing left behind from her tight grip. Colleen didn't trust him though, oh no. This line was quite often used in unison with an action, where the student would quickly dash out of the way and run off towards the nearest teacher on duty. So, she primed herself to quickly grab him, if this would happen to occur.

"Around thirty or so minutes ago. My friends and I were hanging out around the tunnels, tagging the inside walls with paint. My friend Don, told me he thought he seen something up the track, near the second platform. We thought it was the cops, so we hid down the tracks. Next thing we knew, some crazy flute stuff, started playing. My other mate Tom started acting weird. He got up and walked off towards the sound, followed by Don. I wasn't really affected properly, I guess - as I have hearing aid. We vaulted the platform, then," He stalled, flushing over with apprehension. "That's all I remember."
"You do too, remember what happened. Tell me now, or - " "You wouldn't bloody believe me!" he yelled, pulling away from her.
"No you bloody don't, shit-head." She yelled pulling the boy back and pushing him back into the wall. He started tearing up, almost crying. Colleen sighed, trying to repeat her request with a softer voice, even though it was a hassle. She tried to sound nice; even though she isn't the one who you'll see giving old ladies help across the street. Quite the opposite in fact, where you'll see them under traffic.
"Please? Tell me what happened. I will believe you; trust me." She struggled into the sentence. He whimpered and slid his jumper sleeve across his nose, calming down slightly.
"Fine," he sniffed. "When we got to the platform, a monster appeared. It was playing with pipes in its mouth. I couldn't see properly, everything was blurry and bubbly. A whole bunch of kids were with us too, probably under the same sort of thing my friends had. I heard other sounds, other than the music. It was like a horse was down on the platform with us. Next thing that happens, is we are being led somewhere, like into one of them billboards." He finished, just as the roaring of the trains whistle blew down the tunnel. Colleen quickly looked over to the clock. All this talking had killed so much time; her train had arrived without her pretty much noticing. She quickly glowered her gaze back down on the boy. "Why are you here, then? You said they disappeared into a billboard." She quickly questioned.
"I was the last one to go in, as I resisted the most. When the music stopped: My eyes got better and I realised what was going on. I freaked out and ran back down the tracks, then you stopped me." He said, squirming out of her grip, sprinting down the platform and out into the lobby.

Colleen didn't believe him, just as he said. A weird monster that would lure teenagers through billboards with pipes in a train station. That sort of stuff only happens in fairy-tales and peoples imaginations, she thought. You'd be a real fool, to believe such a ridiculous thing was happening in real life. Even though, it would be pretty cool if the world still had some unexplainable occurrences, where you'd have to label it under paranormal, she chimed in her mind.

The train roared up to the platform, and the doors wailed open. She hopped on and sat down on padded seats. For the rest of the way to her station, she just sat there, writing in her black book and churning the events of her day that had transpired.