The train’s movement woke me up
as it pierced through the longest tunnel in the route. The trip from Italy to
Germany can be quite annoying because of that, although you get to check out
some beautiful sights in between the tunnels, so it’s not that bad. The very
dim lights of the tunnel gave me an eerie glimpse of the people that were in
the same cabin, all of them fast asleep, not disturbed by the movement as I
was. It was right then when I heard someone rushing by the aisle, stumbling and
then running off.
I was about to yell and pull the
door of the cabin making a lot of noise, but I remembered my friends were
sleeping so I stood up and carefully pulled the door open. Once I was standing
on the hallway, I close the door again and enjoyed the show the little lights
on the floor of the train were doing. They turned on and off and on and off. It
made the hallway look like some kind of disco. I looked down the hall but there
was no one there, at least not where I could see. I decided to walk in the same
direction as the person I had seen.
I had to move from one car to the
other. Apparently most people were asleep because there was not one noise
breaking the silence, only the one of the train travelling on steel. The
tunnel, I recalled, was so long it could take up to half an hour to traverse it
completely. And if I was not mistaken, we had entered it less than ten minutes
ago. So walked on knowing that natural light would take its time to comeback.
The third car I entered was completely dark; the lights on the floor were not
working.
Then, I saw him. The lights on
the tunnel were too weak to actually see anything but his form was noticeable.
I stood there, on the entrance to the car and waited for the shadow to make its
move. But it didn’t. It just stood there, most likely watching me, until it
dropped something on the floor and my curiosity pushed me forward, in order to
check the object closer. I walked half way and then the shadow bent its knees
and fell to the floor, apparently unconscious. Something was wrong.
Not only wrong but very wrong.
The object on the floor shimmered with the dim yellow lights of the tunnel. It
was obviously a knife, the kind you use to cut a steak. I remembered watching
those on the restaurant car, a place I had only sat once earlier that day. It
was a bit too expensive for me but I did remember watching someone eating a
piece of juicy red meat with a knife just like that one. However, the handle on
the one on the floor was glistening with dark red blood. Some of the silver edge
had stains of it too. It was so strange to see that there, doing nothing but
dripping blood.
The train moved violently and it
was then I realized what was going on and how serious it could be. I wanted to
tell someone about it but I also realized I hadn’t seen one single person from
the train company around the hallways. Neither a security person nor a waiter.
There was no one around to denounce such a strange thing happening. Because
bloody knives are only found on the floor of trains in novels or movies, but
never in real life. What to do in that case, when there’s no one to turn to?
The shadow then groaned. I got
scared, walking back a little, abstaining myself from touching the bloody
knife. I was about to turn around and look for someone to help, when the shadow
said something. I had no idea what it said, because it wasn’t really
articulating words. At least not words I understood. I got closer and the
shadow coughed and suddenly looked up. I could not tell if it was a man or a
woman, even if it was young or old. But I knew it was someone disturbed, as its
eyes were red and mad.
Then, the shadow spoke once
again. I finally understood what language it was speaking but I had no idea
what the words meant. I had seen several movies in German and I had even
studied a bit of German back in college, but not enough to understand what the
shadow was saying. Maybe it was asking for help or maybe it was begging for me
to go away. I had no idea, as my trip through Europe had not contemplated
helping dying or crazy people in dark trains while traversing a long tunnel.
However, my instinct told me to
help that person. So I got closer and tried to make something out of the words
it was saying. By getting closer, I finally realized I was interacting with a
young man, maybe half my age. He had delicate features covered by a large
amount of very blonde hair. He was obviously of Germanic descent as the eyes
that were looking at me were made of a very deep blue, almost the color that
ice gets sometimes. Those eyes gave me a shiver.
I spoke to him in English, asking
if he needed any help. He wouldn’t answer, so I decided to speak a little
slower. That seemed to do the trick because the young man started nodding
violently, his eyes becoming even redder and more insane. It was quite
disturbing to watch but not as disturbing as when he stood up and revealed his
tainted clothes to me. He was wearing what any boy would ear in the summer:
shorts and a stripes shirt. However, both were soaked in the same dark blood
that covered the knife. I tied one and two together and realized I had a killer
in front of me.
I started breathing heavily but
had to control it because the kid was getting worked up to. I relaxed so he did
too. However, he did seem to be breathing a lot heavier than he should. He was
obviously scared. Maybe he had killed his mother or father, or maybe a brother
or sister. He had done it with a knife he had found close by and he had taken
advantage of the tunnel to run away. But they were in a train and there are not
that many places were you could hide. Ask Agatha Christie.
For a moment, I was lost. I had
no idea what to do. Yeah, maybe looking for a security agent and giving them
the kid would be the smartest thing to do but it also seemed like a very wrong thing
to do. The kid was obviously traumatized and maybe he had done what he had done
out of self-defense. Maybe he had been bullied by someone or harassed by his
family or at least one member of it. There were so many things to consider and
reflect on before just running out of that car. It wasn’t simple.
Then, as if in a dream or a
religious movie, natural light filled the space. They had finally come out of
that dreadful tunnel and the train was now advancing through the mountains by a
large beautiful lake. The view out there was amazing but inside the train
things were not exactly that. I realized then, with light, that the young man
had not injured anyone else. Someone had injured him. He had blood pouring out
of his body from a point around his stomach. It was something of a miracle to
see him standing there.
I finally did what took me so
long to do: I ran out of the car and made noise, lots of noise. Finally a security
guard appeared and I took him directly to the place where the knife and the boy
were. When we got there, the young man had collapsed on the floor, falling on
his face next to the knife. Some people on the neighboring cabins had stepped
out and were screaming like lunatics. I ran to the boy and tried to wake him up
but there was no point. He had bled out to death. I had acted too slowly.
When we finally got to a train
station, the body was brought out and sent the local morgue. Every single
passenger was questioned by the police, especially me. I told them every single
thing that had happened and they let me go without saying anything. I saw the
parents on my way out of that place.
The train departed later the
following day. As curious as I was, I went one more time to the police station
to ask about what had happened. Apparently, the autopsy had revealed the wound
had been self-inflicted. The young man had committed suicide. I would think of
him for the rest of my life.
