Ghost Train
1.
The JAL flight from Tokyo to New York's JFK airport was nearly full, but even so it had been possible for Black Jack and Pinoko to get seats together in first class. Pinoko had been pouting and in a sour mood for most of the flight. The doctor finally broke down and asked her what was going on.
"Couldn't we have left a day later?" she finally asked. "I missed Hosuke's Halloween party."
"So that's what this was all about," the doctor said. "I'm sorry Pinoko, but our patient couldn't have waited. That's why we had to hurry up and pack to grab the first direct flight to New York."
"Yes I know," Pinoko sighed. "Hippocratic oath and all that." Suddenly a new thought crossed her mind. "Will it still be Halloween in New York when we get there?", she hopefully asked.
"No, it doesn't quite work that way," Black Jack replied. "It will actually be evening the day after Halloween when we land in New York."
"Rats!", she pouted.
"Did you really want to go to some haunted house and get scared out of your mind?", the doctor laughed.
"It would have been fun!", she replied back.
"Yeah, I'm sure," the doctor smirked.
Pinoko turned away and just read her manga books for the rest of the flight.
Black Jack grabbed the last of his checked luggage from the conveyor belt. Pinoko was still peering into the opening of the tunnel in the wall of the terminal building, trying to see what suitcases were about to emerge onto the moving belt.
"Where is my pink suitcase!" she demanded.
"It should be coming soon," the doctor told her. We checked all of our bags together, and that is the only one left."
"They better not have lost it!", Pinoko growled.
Suddenly, a large bright pink travel bag, covered with 'Hello Kitty' stickers, emerged from the gloom. "There it is!", she happily cried out, reaching for the handle of the suitcase to pull it off of the conveyor belt.
"Careful Pinoko," Black Jack warned her, too late.
The large, overweight suitcase pulled Pinoko onto the baggage carousel, like a huge fish caught by a midget angler. She landed head first onto the moving belt, and was quickly sandwiched between a large duffel bag and a tuba case. "Help, Sensei!", she cried out in panic.
Before the doctor could make it to Pinoko's aid, a burly Red Cap pulled the hapless child off of the luggage belt with one hand, and grabbed her pink suitcase with the other. "My, that bag is bigger and heavier than you, child!" the uniformed gentleman laughed in a thick Harlem accent. He noticed the doctor standing next to two other suitcases, and pushed a long flatbed cart towards him. "I think you two could use my help," he smiled.
"Yes, thank you," the doctor nodded. The Red Cap quickly loaded the cart with the doctor's and Pinoko's luggage, and then sat who he thought was a young girl on top of one of the suitcases.
"I'll help you two out of the terminal," he said in a kind voice.
The uniformed terminal agent wheeled the luggage cart out of the terminal building and stopped between a taxi stand and the elevator leading up to the Air Train.
"Where you headed?" he asked.
"I need to get to Coney Island Hospital," Black Jack replied. "I'm needed to perform surgery on a patient. Can you summon me a taxi?"
"No can do," the Red Cap said in an apologetic voice. "Seems all of New York's taxi fleet is on strike. They've been involved in a big law suit with the city against Uber, and it didn't go their way. So now they've got this big protest going, and they've been blocking the airport livery entrances to keep all private car services out of the airport. City can't stop them, they've got some judge to sign a permit order for their protest demonstration. You'll have to take the Air Train out of JFK, and try and call car service or Uber elsewhere, or use the subway."
The doctor sighed, and thought for a moment. "Well I've heard that New York has one of the best subways in the world," he said. "Can we get to our destination that way?"
"Sure can," the agent said proudly. "But you'll have to change trains a bit. Take the Air Train to the Howard Beach stop and then transfer to the "A" train. You then take that to the Franklin Avenue stop and grab the shuttle train. That will get you to the Q train south bound to Coney Island. The Ocean Parkway station is about a mile from the hospital, but it's a pleasant walk along a nice tree lined avenue."
"Sounds simple enough," the doctor agreed, handing the man a ten dollar tip.
Once upstairs on the Air Train platform, the doctor strapped the handles of his two suitcases together, and then added Pinoko's over stuffed Hello Kitty bag to the group. Thanks to the casters on them, he was able to push the three suitcases along, while Pinoko managed with just her small carry on. The doctor looked along the track and could see a train approaching the station. In the distance, the sun was just beginning to approach the horizon. It would be dark soon enough.
The Air Train made several stops at a few other terminals before leaving the JFK airport, and then arrived at the Howard Beach station. The doctor and Pinoko took an elevator down to the transfer tunnel that led them to the subway station. Black Jack purchased a subway fare card and added $20 worth of credit to pay for the ride. He swiped the card into the turnstile once for Pinoko and again for himself. It was a hassle getting their luggage through the subway entrance, but soon they found themselves on the Brooklyn bound train.
The train wasn't too crowded, but they could see that that the subway cars on the other side of the tracks were packed with people. "Looks like the rush hour crowd is heading the other way," the doctor smiled to Pinoko.
"Yeah, I guess so," she sighed.
Before they knew it, the conductor's voice sounded in a loud and crackly voice from the PA system. "Next stop is Franklin Ave. Change here for the shuttle to the Q line for Coney Island!"
"That's our stop," the doctor told Pinoko as the trains brakes squealed. He tapped Pinoko on the shoulder, and the two of them made their way towards the door.
They exited the train and followed the signs leading towards an escalator out of the subway and onto a bridge that leaped over the avenue, this led to yet another escalator leading downwards. With some difficulty they managed to get their baggage on the escalators with them, and arrive on the platform where the shuttle trains stopped. By now the sun had set, and a deep purple twilight sky appeared above them. The night air was much cooler, and a slight mist swirled about.
The single track station was built in the remains of a larger two track line that no longer existed. In the distance, the right of way disappeared into the mist. If you looked hard enough, you could just make out where the old roadbed for the ancient tracks had once been.
"It's spooky," Pinoko cried.
"It gets like that sometimes," a stranger laughed. "This station is the end of the line now, but a century ago the rails continued that way," he said, pointing into the gloom towards the north. "The line connected with the old El, and went into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. But that was before what happened at Malbone Street."
"What happened at Malbone Street?" Pinoko asked, noticing that the doctor had walked a few feet away to get something from the nearby vending machines.
"It was exactly a century ago this night," the stranger said, "on what is now the last stop on this train. There was a strike by the BRT workers and the company tried to break that strike by using supervisors and non union workers to run the trains. There was a very tired and incompetent motorman at the charge of an El train coming down the Brooklyn Bridge heading towards the Brighton line. He took the sharp curve into the Malbone Street station too fast and there was a horrible crash. Nearly a hundred passengers were killed, and many more were injured. Some people say that on nights like this when a misty fog covers the tracks, you can see the ghost train from the Malbone Street wreck riding these rails."
"Like tonight?", Pinoko asked with a shake in her voice.
"Especially like tonight," the stranger said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the crowd waiting for the next train.
"Who was that?", Black Jack asked as he walked back to where Pinoko was standing while holding a bag of chocolates, and a newspaper.
"Some creepy guy telling ghost stories about a train wreck that happened right here, a hundred years ago!", she answered.
"Well, I guess you got to have your bit of Halloween after all," the doctor laughed.
"It's not funny!", she spat back. "We might end up on a ghost train!"
Suddenly a chilling wind blew on them, bringing with it a moist fog that was brightly illuminated by the lamps on the station platform. For an instant the visibility decreased to almost zero as the fog thickened. The sound of steel wheels clicking over the small gaps between the rails of the track and the hum of traction motors in the distance, announced the presence of an arriving train just outside the station.
The fog lifted just a bit, and the color of the lights illuminating the station platform seemed to change from the blue white of florescent lamps to a warmer and dimmer yellow color. Pinoko looked around, and saw that the crowd now waiting for the train appeared to be wearing different clothing than before, dark wool coats, and leather shoes instead of bright colored nylon jackets and Nikes. It was almost as if they had gone back in time a century.
Then the headlamps of a train appeared as it entered the station. It was an old looking train with wooden sided, deck roofed cars, that had open gated ends. Kerosene lantern style headlamps glowed on the front of the lead car, and the interior space was lit by carbon filament lamps. The passengers standing close to the edge of the platform quickly jumped back as the train roared into the station at high speed, overshooting the end of the platform. After braking hard to a stop, the engineer sheepishly backed the five car train correctly into the station.
Black Jack grabbed the handle of his lead suitcase and pulled the group of bags towards an open door of the train. Pinoko followed him inside, and the two of them managed to find seating on a worn wicker bench in the last car of the train. A man holding a newspaper grabbed onto a leather strap attached to the ceiling of the car, and stood in front of them. Pinoko looked up at the newspaper he was reading and spied the date printed on the top of the first page, November 1, 1918.
"Sensei!" she cried out. "Some thing's not right!"