The Girl from the Train

The Girl from the Train

“A man walks down the city street, a suitcase swinging in his hand. He is dressed just like all the other business drones in the city: expensive pin-striped suit, with a tie and newly polished shoes. In his right hand, he swings a suitcase, bigger than most others, and made of fine brown leather. Otherwise he was not extraordinary, except for that smug smile on his face. It tugs on his lips like he discovered the greatest joke in the world yet he’s keeping it all to himself. I mean, you can’t walk down the streets of London without seeing a few people pleased with themselves, but this one is especially keen. And that suitcase – he swings it with such purpose. Not even a banker on bonus day who’s had a threesome with two lovely ladies is that smug. It would be curious, if anyone in London looked each other in the face, so no one noticed.

“Perhaps it is curious. He is walking towards Canary Wharf.

“Oh, and there’s the bomb in his suitcase.

“At the exact same time, not too far away, a woman in a raincoat walks towards a high school. The bell will ring in fifteen minutes, so she waits patiently by the main exit. This will be where the main horde of school children will flee the horrors of their school. Perhaps she is a mother, and there is nothing strange about this. Except, it’s not raining. It’s an English summer, sure, but it hasn’t rained for at least a week, so why the rain coat? Curious indeed. Maybe it is just the only coat she happens to wear? Or is it so she can conceal that 9mm handgun, so she can open fire on the on-coming children?

“Only one of them is true, Mr Parker, and time is ticking away,” The girl from the train said, her face deadly serious.

Bradley knew there was something different about the girl from the train. She swaggered in and immediately he tried to look everywhere but her twenty-something body, those long legs in leggings topped with a white vest. She let her auburn hair swing down by her shoulders and she looked at the empty carriage with a mixture of contempt and apathy. As the doors closed, she moved to sit in the seat next to Bradley. He glimpsed at her in the corner of his eye, gave a small cough, then continued to read the advertisements above the underground map.

The tube rocked past. They arrived at one of the stops. Mind the gap. The robotic woman advised. The girl placed her hand on his shoulder, a small smile on her lips, and told him that she was psychic. Bradley wondered how long the next stop would be, trying to edge his shoulder from her hands.

Then the girl from the train squeezed harder, said, “Mr Parker,” and began to tell him of the simultaneous events.

Okay, she was obviously insane. There were all sorts in London and he was no stranger to them: he grew up in Islington and his entire professional career was based in the centre. He found the best way to deal with these types was to ignore them until he got to the stop for his girlfriend’s flat; if he wished for time to pass hard enough, time would hopefully pass quicker. Still, something in the back of his mind niggled at him. What if she was right? What if when they were out walking his girlfriend’s stupid dog they overheard something? But, that was pretty unlikely, right?

“Tick-tock Mr Parker.” This time, Bradley did turn to the girl. She was still staring at him. “I can tell you are doubting my honesty. You think I’m insane. You know these are very rude accusations to think about a lady?”

Bradley didn’t believe in anything supernatural. His girlfriend, Tiffany – she believed in that rubbish. She took him along to a psychic reading, and the person supposedly spoke to her nan. She didn’t talk to him for a week when he said that every grandmother likes to cook and no afterlife would be able to tolerate her for as long as she’s been dead. She still brought it up to that very day.

“And now you are thinking about the psychic you visited. I am good, aren’t I?” The train pulled up at the station, it was one away from his stop. “A man in a brown jacket will run for the doors and he will miss the train. Then he will swear.”

The doors closed. Just as she said, a panting man slammed against the doors, pressing the button a hundred times but with no luck. “Fuck!” he shouted, before the train steamed away.

“Why haven’t you rung the police?”

“It can be stopped, but only by you Mr Parker.  I saw it. If you don’t help, everyone dies. I know you’ll make the right decision. Who doesn’t want to be a hero?”

“I don’t.” It was true; he never was very heroic. He only met Tiffany by chance. It was ridiculous really. He stared at her for an hour or so in a library and she thought he was a pervert. Funny how things work out.

Equally strange was how the train Bradley sat in arrived at Canary Wharf underground station. This was not the route Bradley took. He had been following the stops, counting them down until he arrived there. Tiffany was all the way in Camden, waiting for him. What the hell was going on? He turned to face the girl from the train once more, but she only smiled.

Bradley stood up as the doors open and walked towards them. He didn’t even look back at the girl from the train.

“Tick-tock Mr Parker. You have ten minutes to save lives.”

Panic took over him as he leapt from the train. If anything, that girl was different. A lot of things started to bug him as he ran through the station. He was sure he was on the right train. In fact, why was the train empty during rush hour? It was ridiculous! But the what if took control. At the very least, he’ll find this random man and try to stop him.

He pushed passed all the tourists and businessmen alike. Two people swore as he slipped through a conversation. An old woman tut’ed, cursing the youth of today as she did whenever she looked upon any young person ever.  He slowed when he reached the ticket barrier, slamming his oyster card against the reader. As he slipped through and darted past the huge cattle crowd of central London, a sudden fact hit him.

He had no idea how to find this man. A suit, a smug smile, an oversized briefcase: how could he hope to find him in this crowd. He never did anything like this; Bradley spent most of his time being ignored. He worked in IT. The only terrorists he stopped were in the 24 video game.

Tick-tock, Mr Parker. He looked at his fake Georgio-Armani watch. Five minutes remaining. Shit. No time at all. Think Parker, think. What would Jack Bauer do?

Bradley slithered through the crowd as well as he could, trying to get as close to the centre as possible. At six foot three inches, he was taller than most. Perhaps that tiny, insignificant fact was why he was chosen for this job. Perhaps that’s why he would keep his girlfriend, his bottle of wine, his nice relaxing dinner waiting.

It was at that epiphany that he saw the smug grin on his face. The man sauntered to the centre of the building, so close to Bradley. He swung an oversized suitcase in his hands (as she said); he was headed for the centre of the packed building. Not caring about anything other than stopping him, Bradley rammed through the crowd and tackled the man in the suit. His suitcase skidded across the marble floor. Giving one punch to the suit man because, fuck it, you only stop a terrorist once, he leapt towards the case. There was no combination. It popped straight open. The suitcase held the Bomb. It stared at Bradley as he stared at it.

The bomb was a bomb. It was the magazine, the Bomb. The man wasn’t smug because he was going to obliterate hundreds of people; he was smug because he was pretentious.

That meant –

The school bells rang and the children fled their imprisonment. She waited, waited for them all to come out, the gun firm in her cold hands. When she thought enough arrived to witness it, she drew the gun from her coat.

Bradley opened the door to his girlfriend’s apartment with his key. He nearly got arrested for the first time in his life but all the police fled after one radio transmission. He heard it, though it was numb to him. He could have stopped that. He could have chosen the children over the adults but...

He slumped on the sofa, ignoring the stupid Labrador as it jumped on his legs for some love. He switched on the news, for closure and confirmation. The main headline: School Shooting. Underneath it said: One injured, One fatality.

Bradley dropped the remote and just stared at the screen. One fatality. How could there only be one death if only he knew what she would do? Did the girl from the train recruit someone else? Did the girl from the train set this whole situation up? Or was she actually right? There were too many questions and not enough answers. Where was Tiffany? She was late. It would be best to just have dinner and forget all about it. He picked up his phone: best give her a ring—

The girl from the train was being interviewed by the news team. She said: “This girl, before she jumped on top of that crazy woman. She said she knew what the woman would do. That her boyfriend had no time. That the clock ticked away, so she had do it.”

Anger rose from the pit of numbness in his stomach. He began to shake. As he shook, he felt a weight next to him.

“You surprise me, Mr Parker. I expected you to go for the children. Of course, I knew you’d go for the man the minute you stepped off that train. This is why I spoke to your girlfriend.”

Bradley clenched his fists. He didn’t know what to think. How to feel. Anything. “Why?” Was all he could manage.

“Don’t worry, Mr Parker. You can still save your dear Tiffany. All you need to do is make a choice. A man walks down the street, a suitcase swinging in his hands.”