The Inconvenience

Ninty Eight passengers. That's how many people the small mainline train could take. It was cold that Wednesday when those ninety-eight strangers pinched their tickets and boarded the train. Southbound for twenty-six miles, a mere thirty-five-minute journey - no more no less. That was the plan. Eliza, however, was not an accustomed regular to the train. She had taken the above-ground steamers before but this would be new. As an entirely different style of travel. This train traveled a mile a minute - and all two hundred feet below the surface. An underground commuter.

Eliza had boarded the train with everyone else. Shuffling down the tight aisle and finding her way to a seat near a window which made her laugh. What were the windows for? Watching a dark wall of dirt go by? She looked around at the other passengers. All chattering and drinking their morning coffee with long sips. None seemed uncomfortable. None seemed alarmed. She rested back in her seat and listened calmly to the hum of the train pulling away from the station. Cutting through town before in the blink of an eye - she was descending. The whole train dived deeper and deeper and deeper until it leveled out in an infinitely long black hole. Eliza was enchanted, like a kid on a rollercoaster. She pressed her face to the window with excitement and watched the tunnel fly past her very eyes. Small amber glowing emergency lights pass in a blink every few minutes, spread out between haunting stretches of blackness.

Fifteen minutes passed. Exactly fifteen minutes. Passengers all just settling in. Some falling asleep. Some playing Clash of Clans and others just mindlessly staring. Eliza had begun to read. Then a shrill emergency alarm made everyone jump. It came out of nowhere. Just as the train screeched to an alarming stop.

That was three days ago.

October 11. At least, they were guessing it had been three days. None of them had seen sunlight or moonlight in what felt like weeks. The Mainliner had malfunctioned. At least, that was all the captain had said. He was still hiding in the conductor's quarters ever since he announced just how stranded they were. Because that was when the people became violent. And for an understandable reason. The conductor guessed - guessed - that it would be a fifteen-mile walk for there even being a chance of finding an emergency phone. Fifteen more miles for an exit from the tunnel. For obvious reasons that would be an impossible task. Twenty people were injured. There were seventeen children under the age of eight.

But worse yet was no food. No water since yesterday. So now that trek was their only hope - except now they had no fuel. No energy. And the injured were now sick.

At least that was what Eliza saw. Somehow she got sucked into a scouting party that left last night at 9 pm. They had walked through the night and now it was 8 am. And the strange things were just getting stranger.

“I don't get it.” Samson was the first to break the begrudged silence. He turned to look where they had just come from. No train. He turned back to look ahead. No phone box. No sunlight. No signs. “We got on the train and walked maybe fifteen miles. But according to Max -”

“We have walked twenty.” Max consulted the half-dead fit bit on his wrist. Eliza felt her stomach physically do a backflip at their words. Twenty miles? How? She looked at her bare feet. Saw how awful they looked in the dim light. And all for nothing - they had done that to see if they could feel another train’s vibrations coming towards them.

“We need to go back.” Said a familiar voice.

Everyone audibly groaned.

Renna had spoken once again. A forty-something-year-old woman who looked like a kindergarten teacher with the personality of a rock. She had been saying that since they left which did nothing but fire everyone up. Eliza sighed. She knew how the next ten minutes would go. Renna would suggest doubling back. Max or Samson would argue that they were close. Just a bit longer. Some other party members would side with Renna. Saying she was right - were they just leaving everyone back at the train to die? This would go on for the remaining eight minutes before the team would split. Some would go back. Some would press on. Until those who were close to going back realized how terrifying the walk would be and they would run back and join Samson Max and Eliza.

This time though, something ever so slightly different occurred. The lights... the lights changed colors.

Not everyone noticed at first. In fact, Eliza found herself pointing and shouting to get everyone to just look up. And there they were. Blue lights. No longer that stranger fluorescent white. Now admittedly she didn't like this. The blue trail of lights into the black abyss was utterly terrifying to look at. It seemed as though a creature would come limping out of the darkness any second. Swallow them whole. She had barely the time to cope with the accident itself. It would probably all hit her when she made it out but right now, standing on the threshold of the horrifying empty tunnel with a bunch of starving strangers, she realized just how real their situation was. And it was only getting worse.

Someone's phone buzzed. Everyone else whipped around so fast to look at it - as a shaking hand lifted the phone for everyone to see. They had been trying to get service since day one - but now everyone was suspicious. The boy opened his phone. He was just a kid like Eliza. Maybe eighteen. And he was shaking like a leaf there in the dark. Everyone took a step closer to him. The screen buzzed to life, as well as a robotic but feminine voice.

“Passengers,” The voice crackled. “We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”

Renna held her breath against her heart pounding in her throat. Inconvenience? She thought. We are way beyond that…

The voice continued. “Just know that -” She was breaking up, “help... is on the way.”

No one spoke. No one breathed. You could hear a pin drop in the seconds of silence that followed - at least, just for those two seconds. Because then, with no warning or flicker or anything - the lights switched off. One by one. Down and down and down the line with a sinister click.

Someone screamed.

Eliza took off running, back the way they came.