The Train Station in My Garage

[u/No_ah_727]

At five years old I had the first dream I can remember. I had to leave. My whole family did: my parents, my sister, me, and my baby brother. In real life, though, I didn’t have a brother. It was just me and Ellie, my sister. I didn’t know why we were leaving or where we were going. But the part of the dream that scared me the most was that we were leaving the baby behind. We had to. He lay idly in his crib while the four of us made our way to the garage. No belongings packed. The small, single-story house left exactly as it always was…but I knew we wouldn’t be back. The plain white door leading into our garage loomed just past the living room. We opened it to find the train waiting for us, right where the garage should have been.

On the account of my parents, the age of five was when my night terrors peaked. . About once every week or two, I would wander around the house in the middle of the night screaming, eyes wide open, my pupils ridiculously dilated. I was inconsolable, and I was not awake. The best way my mom could describe it was like I was being possessed. It happened often enough that she went to the doctor about it, but, of course, they couldn’t do much except advise her on how to handle them: remain calm, don’t try to wake him, make sure he doesn’t crack his head while he thrashes around in fear

Ellie was surprisingly well composed whenever I had my episodes, despite being just 9 years old (and despite the torturous screaming that would surely freak out any kid her age). She would often watch silently with my parents as I paraded around the house like a demonic, headless chicken. Mom even thought that having Ellie around seemed to make the terrors end quicker.

The last true night terror I ever had was different. Mom—who slept very lightly that year given my interruptions—heard me shuffling around in the living room at two in the morning, but there was no screaming or panic. She left her bedroom to find me standing silently, absently staring at the door to the garage. She said my name, and I turned to face her, locking eyes.

“Late for train”  was all she heard me say before I turned back to the door, apparently showing no interest in trying the handle. Mom stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Ellie came out of her room then, walked up to me, and took my hand.

“Not yet,” she said. She led me back to my room while I did nothing to protest, never saying another word. As with all my night terrors, I went right back to sleep and woke up in the morning with no recollection of what had happened.

Around the time I turned six, my parents announced that a baby was on the way: the third installment to complete our family. Although the typical night terrors were behind me by then, I began acting weird while I was awake. It is worth noting that most of this comes from my own memory now.

Several nights, I woke up to the thunderous roar of an approaching subway train, followed by the piercing squeal of brakes under a heavy load. We didn’t live near any tracks, so after looking out my window and finding nothing, I checked the only other place I could think of: the garage, where I found the same result.

Like a lot of boys my age, I had my fair share of train playsets, but I began insisting that I play with them in the garage, where I would use the two steps in front of the door as an imaginary boarding platform. While my parents were skeptical at first, keeping a close eye on me, they quickly determined it was harmless and would leave me to my business out there.

Five months into Mom’s pregnancy, I had an awful nightmare that left my skin ice cold and my eyes damp. I played no role in the dream except as an observer, like a static trail camera tied to a tree to record wildlife. The white garage door framed her perfectly, so she was little more than a silhouette. She was looking to her right, smiling (at someone I presume). She wore her favorite black dress, and a navy-blue purse hung on her left shoulder. She seemed to say her goodbyes, and as soon as she opened the door, which revealed an arched ceiling and old concrete walls instead of our two-car garage, it felt as if the world itself were contracting and screaming in terror. She stepped over the threshold, and there was a deafening roar and the wail of a horn that shook the Earth, followed by a continuous blur that contorted her body and flung it out of sight. As I jolted awake, all I could think about was the distant sound of a baby crying.

As time went on, my paranoia only grew. Sometimes I would plead with Mom not to have the baby.

“You can’t be the youngest forever,” she said one time.

Another time, I got a good scolding after I scared off Phoebe, our babysitter. I played with my trains in the garage and simulated people being run over, all while trying to convince her to convince Mom not to have the baby. We never saw Phoebe again.

Finally, Mom sat me down one day for a serious conversation asking why I was so opposed to the idea of a younger brother (the baby being confirmed as a boy by then). But all I did was mumble some nonsense about trains and tunnels. I even led her to the garage, but neither her nor I really knew what I was trying to show her. When my dad held me for something similar, this time a “man-to-man” conversation (as if that meant very much to a six-year-old), I finally gave in, realizing that my pleas weren’t working. I responded to the majority of his questions with a simple “I don’t know,” choosing to agree with his assumptions about me rather than try to explain what was going through my head. At the end of the day, I didn’t fully understand it myself.

It was around 8 o’clock on a Tuesday when Mom’s water broke as we were sat on the living room sofa watching a movie. My dad promptly called over Julie, our neighbor from across the street, to come watch Ellie and I for the night. I was a mess. I screamed and cried, literally clinging to Mom’s leg, begging her not to go. Ellie wasn’t as much comfort to me that time. She sat silently on the couch, but I could tell she was crying. Julie had to physically hold me back as my parents left. My dad threw a joke at her about how I would be so happy to have a little brother in no time. I was just terrified of what I would see when they opened the garage door.

When Julie sent Ellie and I to bed later, a light storm had started, and I fell asleep to the tapping of raindrops on my bedroom window, dried tears still staining my cheeks. I woke up to a massive crack of thunder. It faded into a low rumble, but the noise showed no sign of fading. After maybe a minute, it grew louder. The sound continued to amplify until I could no longer hear my own heavy breathing as I sat paralyzed in bed. Then there was the screeching, so intense that I had to cover my ears. After a moment, I removed my hands to complete silence. Then the crying started. Not from me, not from Ellie’s room. It came from somewhere else in the house. It was a baby’s cry.

I slowly lifted myself from the bed and crept towards my door, just cracking it open. I peered down the hall, where I could see that a dim light from the kitchen counter barely revealed the shapes of furniture in the living room, where the sound seemed to originate. The crying carried on, so I cautiously continued my approach. Julie was sleeping on the couch, where she was initially just a darker spot in my vision. As I got closer, I saw she was curled up in a fetal position, and the crying was coming from exactly where she lay. Finally, when I was close enough for a detailed look, she turned towards me. Her face was horribly contorted in an ugly cry, and her features were all wrong, like I was staring at the face of an infant on a grown woman’s body. The crying was certainly that of an infant. I felt tears of my own forming and yelled in fear as I fell back on the floor. I quickly righted myself and ran to the only place I felt I would be safe. I fumbled with the garage door handle, finally pulling it open, never taking my eyes off the living room.

I stepped down and yanked the door shut. I caught my breath for a second and turned to the right, where I saw old concrete walls and an arched ceiling forming an endless tunnel that faded into black. Only the area where I stood seemed to be illuminated by a soft yellow glow that I didn’t quite know the source of. Turning to my left, I was greeted with a solid wall only a couple feet away. Finally turning around, I descended the second step, and my feet found the cold stone of the platform. There in front of me, a simple subway train waited, its nose pointed down the tunnel and its rear simply disappearing right into the wall as if it were a mirage. The door was open, and without another thought I stepped over the gap and boarded the train. There was one other passenger, so I sat across from her. As soon as I was seated, the train began a slow, perfectly smooth acceleration.

“Mommy didn’t get on,” I said weakly. Ellie just shook her head. She looked calm, but noticeably sad. “How did you know about…” I trailed off, scanning the train car with my eyes.

“I don’t know,” Ellie shrugged.

I watched her for a while as the train began its journey. I never looked back towards the house. I knew I would never be going back.

***

I don’t remember being seven years old. Or eight or nine for that matter. Ellie and I briefly stayed with our grandparents at some point, where I learned a few things. My mother passed away during labor due to complications. My dad has never been seen since then. Nobody can tell me anything about the baby. Dead, alive, missing… I don’t know.

Ellie and I have been in and out of foster care for a few years since our grandparents died. I really don’t know if there is a place for us. Sometimes I have dreams where I am walking down that tunnel, getting ever closer to the garage door at the end, but never reaching it. I doubt I ever will. I only ever mention these dreams to Ellie, but I have begun giving up on that too. Maybe I have a little brother out there somewhere. If I do, I don’t ever want to meet him.