Red line, p.1
Red Line, page 1
RED LINE
By
Jacqueline Druga
RED LINE - By Jacqueline Druga
Copyright 2018 by Jacqueline Druga
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Paula Gibson, Kira R. and Adam thank you all so much for all of your help and questions.
Cover Art by Christian Bentulan
www.coversbychristian.com
1 – EDGE
That day.
It will haunt me for the rest of my life.
That day.
Everything about me changed in an instant. I went from normal, in every sense of the word, to broken. Absolutely broken.
That day.
Like every other day of my life, I was up, about, and out of the house before most people roll over and hit the snooze. My uniform perfect and crisp. Unlike many others who did what I did, I loved my job. When asked as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, like my father ... a bus driver. He drove for the Port Authority until he retired and then he drove privately until he died.
I was one of very few women who became a conductor or drove a light rail vehicle, or rather the subway. It took me a while to get there, and once secured, I wasn’t giving it up.
Before the sun even lit the sky, I was behind the controls, coffee in hand ready to take on the day. My first passengers of the day were city bound, and the first stop was always one person ... Erez.
I didn’t know his last name, but he told me his first name, probably the third day he boarded my train. A skinny, lanky guy in his early thirties, shiny black hair and beautiful olive skin. He never shut up. At first it annoyed me, then it became as much a part of my routine as everything else.
Erez was still in school. One of those people who constantly changed majors and was addicted to continuing his education. He worked early mornings for a local chiropractic firm as a media consultant. Basically, he was online posting on social media before he went to classes. He was on my first run and my last … every day.
I knew he lived with his mother in an apartment and had no other siblings. Sometimes Erez would bring me a coffee or donut. He was a good person. Lonely, I figured, but good. He carried a large backpack and always dropped it to the floor, holding it tight with his feet while gripping the bar behind me right by the handicap seating.
He adopted that spot and never abused it. Three stops after his, he helped Walter board and get situated. Walter was in a wheelchair. A man in his forties who looked in his fifties, he worked for the VA. For the first six months of my knowing him, he complained a lot about Erez ‘just standing there’ then eventually he injected into the conversation with crass commentary, until he lightened up altogether.
While there were many nameless faces that boarded each morning, people I’d never see again, there were those, like Walter and Erez who rode my car every single day. Some, whose names I didn’t know, but they, like me would be forever marked on that day.
That day not only changed me, it prepared me.
It wasn’t raining or snowing, despite being early winter. It was a perfect crisp day, one I played over and over in my head. Every word spoken, sign seen, odor smelled, everything.
“Morning,” I greeted Erez when he boarded.
“Hey, Andi, morning.” He bounced a bit. “Cold as hell out there.”
“Could be worse.”
“That’s true. Hey, did you ever …” and so it began, the idle part of the conversation until we picked up Walter.
Something that always bred a cross, irritated look from Nice Suit Guy, who seemed annoyed every morning. He spoke only when he had a complaint.
You’re early.
You’re late.
Think you can go any slower.
He was always in a rush. Making his way to the doors before they slid open. Many times I’d spot him pushing through people at the first downtown stop.
“Approaching Lytle,” Automated Sally, as I called her, announced.
“That’s Walter,” Erez said and walked to the door.
I slowed down the train to a stop. Boarding Walter always took an extra minute, which drew a groan from Nice Suit Man. As if we didn’t get Walter daily.
“I’m good. I’m good,” Walter griped to Erez. “Thank you, though.”
“No problem, anyhow …” Erez edged into the conversation. “Did you hear we had one of those ‘See and hears’ not far from my stop?”
“See and hear?” I asked.
“You know, light in the sky and some weird noises. Of course, only on this side of the world do we see the light, but the noises are all over.”
“I didn’t hear about this.”
“It’s happening everywhere, this weird phenomenon.”
“Gas,” Walter said. “It’s gas.”
“Why is everything gas?” Erez asked. “Chest pains, oh, it’s gas. Belly ache, oh, just gas. Baby smiling … it’s gas.”
“Not that kind of gas, you ass. Natural gas, fires from plants burning off the gas,” Walter said. “Fracking.”
“Fracking?”
Walter nodded.
“That makes noise?”
“Sure it does.”
Erez vocally scoffed. “You know what, you believe fracking. I’m going to believe it’s something else. I have a hard time believing it’s fracking. A noise like that ... no.”
“What’s it sound like?” I asked.
“Depends,” Erez replied. “Grinding noise. Trumpets. The one I saw on the news this morning sounded like the Death Star was spinning and it needed WD40.”
Walter laughed. “Listen to you. It was on the news? Must be a slow day. You gonna say you think it’s aliens?”
“No. And I’m not gonna say it’s angels blowing their trumpets. I was on this site …”
“Of course you were,” said Walter. “Isn’t it your job to be on the internet?”
“Using the phrase, ‘on the internet’ really shows your age. What do you think, Andi?” Erez asked.
I shrugged. Truth was, I listened to the conversation, but between stops, it was hard to think about the subject. It wasn’t unlike Erez to stir a pot with Walter, and I didn’t even know if what he was saying was true. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t have an opinion since this is the first I heard about it.”
“I’ll find it for you.”
“She can’t watch and drive,” said Walter.
“She can listen.” Erez fiddled with his phone. “I think they’re building something up there.”
“In the sky?” asked Erez. “Or in space? If it’s in space, there’s no way you’re gonna hear it. If it was in the sky we’d see it.”
“Just like the floating cities?” Erez asked. “Look it up. Strange floating cities. The next time you’re … on the internet.”
“I will,” said Walter. “I’m objective and open-minded.
“Found it,” Erez said.
“You know, if it’s all over the world, why did it take so long to find a video?” Walter asked.
“I want to find the right one. What if it’s a monster or something?”
That made Walter laugh even harder.
Then Erez played the video for me. I couldn’t see it, but I heard the noise. It was odd, a mechanical sound, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind, Walter said it.
“Fake,” Walter said. “Someone made that. It’s a fake.”
“All of them?”
“There’s an explanation for everything, you’ll see.”
“You know what?” Erez asked. “I’m gonna put this away, my phone and the conversation.”
They were my first trip and they brightened my day. I looked forward to them. I didn’t look forward to Nice Suit Man. I figured I would have been used to him. I wasn’t. My co-workers had a hard time believing that I was that friendly.
‘Was’ being the vital word.
In a snap of a finger, it turned. Smiles dropped and lives were changed forever. At least mine was.
The subway veered into the tunnel to descend under the city. I rounded the bend to the first of the downtown stops where over half of my train would disembark.
In the morning, during rush hour, the train was extended.
That was a lot of weight.
Too much weight.
“Approaching First Avenue,” said automated Sally.
“That’s me, Walter,” Erez said. “See you later, Andi.”
I nodded. Erez didn’t rush to the doors like most people, he waited knowing I wouldn’t close them on him.
Round the bend.
Stop ahead.
That’s when I saw her. She was closer to me than anyone else. Farther away from the group of people waiting to get on, as if she wanted the last car.
I recalled every detail of her, not sure whether it was my mind or the video that I had watched over and over. She wore a knee length brown jacket over a dress or a skirt with simple high heels, the belt loops were tucked into her pockets, the coat open. Her hair was down, purse over her shoulder, with an umbrella in one hand, a case in the other.
She walked to the edge of the platform, turned her head toward me, looked at me and never stopped. With eyes focused on me her slow stride, which seemed intentional, took her from the safety of the First Avenue stop directly over the platform.
I gasped in shock at the same time Erez mutt
I tried. My God did I try. I not only lifted my foot from the Dead Man’s switch, but without hesitation or missing a beat, slammed my right hand on the red, kill button.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t try hard enough.
There was too much weight behind me, and before the woman even hit the tracks, midway of her drop, I smashed into her.
Her shoulders and head hit against the window just below my eye level with a loud thud and the force of the train sent her forward and down to the tracks ahead of me.
The train still hadn’t stopped. It finally did just as it crushed her body beneath us. I felt it. Whether it was real or my imagination I don't know, but I swore I felt the cracking of her bones between my train and the rails.
The carriage erupted in screams and I froze. Hand still on the red button, my other on the controls, my eyes widened in horror, fixated on the small blood stain on the window.
My entire body shuddered as if some electric jolt continuously flowed through it. It was a wave that swept over me, causing my hands to tremble.
Instantly I replayed it in my head.
It didn’t happen. It didn’t just happen. Oh, God. No, I didn’t just kill someone.
I couldn’t move forward or back, because she was right underneath the train.
Commotion filled the platform and the car. My passengers banged on the doors screaming at me that they wanted to get out.
“Open the door,” they screamed. “Let’s us out.”
I feared moving a single inch, even to open the doors.
My stomach knotted and I wanted to vomit. I was sick. Completely and utterly sick, down to every fiber of my being.
I was in shock. Not a sound or word came from my mouth. I just couldn’t do anything.
I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but more than that, I had taken a life and at that moment, I too, just wanted to die.
2 – DOWN
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“There was nothing you could do.”
To me, they were only failed words of encouragement.
“Everything happens for a reason.” Was thrown at me as well, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what reason there would be for a woman to die.
Immediately following the accident, I was taken to the hospital and tested for drugs and alcohol, which I knew would be fine.
It was there, I lost it, I broke down and couldn’t stop crying. The local news was all over it, the entire subway system was down for the day, with my one single inability to stop the train, I shut down the entire city.
Before noon everyone knew the victim. Her name was Marcy Willems, and she worked for Catholic Charities. A thirty-three year old mother of three young children all under eight. She was married to her high school sweetheart, people adored her.
And before noon, everyone also knew me.
I wasn’t painted as favorably. Despite the fact that I didn’t drink, I was speculated as an alcoholic and a desperate woman, seriously in debt with a husband that had an inability to hold a job. The only thing positive thing they mentioned was that I had a twelve year old son.
My son, my poor son. My face was plastered all over the news, I hated him knowing anything, I worried how he’d see me.
I hated how I saw myself.
Some said she was pushed, some said she walked off.
All of Marcy’s family argued that. There was no way she would just take her own life.
There were those who said I could have stopped, and other witnesses who said there was nothing I could do.
It didn’t matter, I still felt I had caused her death.
During the first weeks I sunk into a massive depression. My dry and sober life went out the window. The only thing that numbed my pain was alcohol. It didn’t make it go away, it helped me sleep and put the pain on a shelf for another day. As soon as it appeared, I drank it away.
There was a massive investigation, and along with the police and Port Authority teams, the lawyers appeared.
Marcy’s family was suing the transit company and me.
My husband Barry handled everything at first. He took time off, and took care of our son, Sawyer. But his patience grew thin with me. I didn’t blame him.
Video footage from the interior of my train and the subway station cleared me of any wrong doing. An autopsy showed Marcy had some sort of brain abnormality that they believe caused her to be confused and step off the platform.
None of that made me feel any better.
I couldn’t justify it.
I spent countless hours watching the videos over and over.
Could I have done this or that?
Play, rewind, watch again.
It was morbid, but it was my punishment.
I became so obsessed with it, Barry stepped in. He removed the footage from the computer. When he did that I lost it, but I realized it was for my own good.
It took me four months. Four months of therapy, drinking and watching as my own son started to withdraw from me for me to realize I had to get it together.
I took the steps to do that.
Get my life … back on track.
That meant going back to work.
In the aftermath of that accident, I couldn’t reason why it happened to me. Why I was the person that delivered the death sentence to Marcy.
Little did I know that day was really only the beginning and what I felt and witnessed would be nothing compared to what would lie ahead.
3 – LOOK UP
It wasn’t an easy transition from sitting at home to going back to work. The months following the incident were a blur. I missed Christmas altogether. Sure I knew it occurred, I just failed to celebrate it.
I went from watching my own tragic videos to watching others on the net. Trying to look up the ‘cerebral’ thing that happened to Marcy, only to discover there were a lot of cases of it recently. People doing strange, out of character things, like walking into traffic and jumping out of windows. It was scary, I was so in my own world before it happened, I never realized there was an epidemic of those sort of things.
Occasionally something on the sidebar suggestions of videos would catch my attention and I would think of Erez. Topics he would bring up just to get a rise out of Walter. The strange noises from the sky, the rash of drug overdoses that Erez was convinced were part of the government’s plot to cull the population.
Erez.
I truly looked forward to seeing him if he was still riding the subway.
After a month of a desk job at Port Authority, then another month at dispatch, I passed every psychological test, even the alcohol one and was put on the schedule to return as a driver.
The spotlight on the accident had long since dimmed.
Sawyer stopped hearing about it at school, and Barry no longer had to babysit me. He returned to working on the house, something he had stopped doing.
I know I seemed weak, and maybe I was a bit more affected than I needed to be, but while getting ready to return to work, I felt stronger.
Almost.
I had a fear that people would recognize me and worry about getting on my train. I didn’t know what the perception was of me and I had built it up bigger in my mind than it needed to be. Barry kept telling me, “Andi, no one even remembers your name. Don’t worry.”
Still, I cut my hair short and even lightened it. It made me look older, but I didn’t care.
The day came and I was back. I would be the driver on Light Rail Vehicle 440. Replacing LRV 5230 that I was driving that day in December.
I barely slept the night before, tossing and turning. Nervous and antsy. That was probably why Barry fell asleep on the couch. I covered him and shut off the television, then went in to check on Sawyer.
His fish tank lit his face as he lay partly on his back in bed. I smiled looking down at him with the huge headphones on.
I stared at him for a few seconds. He looked so innocent and young. He was twelve, but I still saw a five year old boy. Leaning down to kiss him, I paused when I noticed the headphones weren’t his normal ones. They were the ones Barry wore when working on the house. They blocked out the noise.
I reached to take them off and Sawyer jolted at my touch.
“Mom?” Sawyer squinted. “What time is it?”
“Four-thirty.”
