May 16 2008
DarkPages - The Occultist: Late
Deep in thought, I loitered a moment, trailing slightly behind the end of the queue to board the subway. I was brought up short by the doors closing in my face, having waited half a heartbeat too long to follow the man in front of me onto the train. Stirred from my reverie, I peered through the dirty safety glass at the train conductor. He grimaced back at me and, with a squeak of metal, the train began to pull away from the platform.
“Hey!” I shouted, blinking and trotting to keep up with it. My hand slapping at the closed door. “Oh, c’mon, you’ve got to be kidding me!” As the train began to accelerate I saw the corners of the train conductor’s mouth twitch, and something inside of me gave way. The hand I had been using to pound on the safety glass twisted, traced a sigil in the air. It was practically effortless; a gesture, and the brake went down, bringing the train to an abrupt halt. Another, and the doors wrenched open with a shuddering groan.
My boots pounded kick plate as I stomped onto the train, glowering at the stupefied civil servant who was now leaning back in his seat, lazily cowering from me. “What,” I said flatly, the neutrality of my tone surprising me, “the fuck.” When he didn’t reply for a few seconds I turned to stomp down the aisle of the mostly empty train car.
“Hey,” his high-pitched voice came from behind me. “Hey, mister, you didn’t pay your fare! Hey, come back here!” Rising anger in his voice correlated directly to an increasing calm overtaking me. The world around us grew quiet, the silence between us palpable. I turned back to face him slowly, forcing myself to be so cool that my voice was shaking.
“You’re going to give me a free ride,” I said without aggression or malice. I didn’t append any of the string of obscenities or insults that crossed my mind back when I was on the platform, watching him smile and drive off. For a moment I thought it was over; I could see the sweat trickling from the conductor’s bald pate onto the lines in his forehead. Then he spoke up again.
“I’m not taking you anywhere, freak. Off the train, now!”
The next sound I remember was the dull thump of his body hitting the platform, his lips curling back into a howl of anguish that wouldn’t quit until he went hoarse. I had peered into his eyes, and now the poor bastard was going to spend the rest of his life in an imagined torment of immolation. If he was lucky, he would die from cardiac arrest in short order.
“Shit,” I muttered wearily, reaching into my pocket for the last of my cigarettes. Stepping over his writhing form and ascending the stairs towards the street, I began trying in vain to dredge bus routes from the depths of my memory. I was going to be late.
