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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/abiroadwrites on 2024-11-02 23:11:13+00:00.

I used to live in the middle of backwoods Pennsylvania, near a set of train tracks that ran through the woods. About once, maybe twice a week I would hear the cry of a train horn splitting the air, always at a different time but usually in the early morning or late evening, sometimes it would even wake me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.

The little house I was renting was nice, at the very end of the cul-de-sac I lived in, and nestled back against a copse of trees. I wasn’t entirely sure where the train tracks were, since they didn’t run through town anywhere, but every time I was startled by the piercing cry I thought it sounded like it was coming from the woods.

The longer I lived in that little house the more curious I got about the train. It probably sounds silly, but I’ve always liked trains, and even though I found the train horn startling, it was comforting in a weird way too. Every time it sounded my ears would perk up, and I would find myself tracing the sound as it moved, trying to pinpoint exactly where it came from, and where it was going to.

Finally, after about a year of that I decided to take one of my days off and go look for the train tracks. I put a few bottles of water and some snacks in a backpack, put on my favorite pair of walking shoes, and practically skipped out the front door.

It reminded me of being a kid. I didn’t have the best home life, so it wasn’t uncommon for me to pack a bag with enough provisions (and comic books) for the day before disappearing into the woods near our house. The woods were my escape, a place where I was safe from anger, yelling, and whatever my parents were throwing at each other that day. The forest was always calm and quiet, it made me feel safe, a feeling I couldn’t always get at home.

As I walked out my back door I was reminded of that, and how much I loved going for those walks as a kid. I’ll admit, I think I was expecting it to feel just as safe and magical now, but oh how wrong I was.

The forest itself was perfect. Silence punctuated only by the occasional bird call or rustle of the leaves brushing each other in the wind. It was an early spring day and the earth was spongy from recent rainfall, dew dripped lazily from the green trees and sparkled on the tall grass as I walked through it. I made my way in the approximate direction I heard the train horn coming from, no real plan in mind for when I found it, just enjoying the breeze as it played with my hair.

After about an hour I finally found the train tracks, and let out an excited whoop when they came into view. I raced forward like a little kid until I got right next to them, then I began walking parallel to the tracks, towards the mountains in the distance. My parents had always told me not to walk near train tracks, but I always wanted to follow them just once to see where I wound up.

I followed the train tracks with a spring in my step, not noticing the sun sinking lower in the sky until the shadows grew long enough in front of me to blend together into one big pool of shadow. When I realized the sun was starting to go down I stopped. I had been so lost in my thoughts (and in finally fulfilling a childhood dream) that I hadn’t realized how late it was. I turned around and followed the train tracks, now at a quicker pace, until I reached the area I thought I had started from. I was still following the tracks when a figure emerged from the twilight on the path in front of me.

I couldn’t make out any details, but it seemed to be entirely gray, like a smudge of ash on the horizon growing steadily larger.

Something about it really unsettled me, which I attributed to being a woman walking alone at night and seeing a stranger approach in the twilight. I veered off the tracks and made my way through the woods, emerging one neighborhood over from my own, and followed the streets back to my house, exhausted by the time I finally got there.

I guess the stranger I saw on the tracks just left my mind, I didn’t think about it at all for the rest of the night, and by the time I woke up the next day I didn’t even remember the vaguely unsettling encounter.

It was a few weeks before I was able to make it back into the woods, but once another lazy day off came around I packed my bag and escaped out the back door again. This time I left a bit earlier and went the other direction, towards what I assumed would be town, or maybe the next town over. I figured if I wandered to the next town by accident I could always take a taxi home (this was before uber was very popular). This time, I took a can of spray paint and made a huge blue X on one of the trees that I could see from the tracks, so I would know where to head back into the woods to get home. I can’t say for sure, but that decision might have saved my life.

Again, time seemed to escape me, and before I knew it, it was late afternoon. I turned myself around, and once again saw a smudge on the distant horizon, slowly approaching me and taking shape. This time there was enough light that I assumed it would be fine, probably just another person wandering the train tracks to fill their empty Sunday afternoon.

I kept walking, studying the trees surrounding the tracks on either side, and admiring the giant purple mountains in front of me. I was startled from my reverie to realize that what had been nothing more than a smudge the last time I looked was now a person, just a few hundred yards away at most.

I studied him as he approached, he seemed to be wearing a gray three piece suit and gray shoes, his hair was gray too. He carried some kind of bag, it looked like a white trash bag, like one of the really heavy duty ones, and it almost looked like it was filled with a liquid. It heaved and sagged, even though he carried it with such ease it could have been full of helium.

I’ll admit, I didn’t find him terrifying at first. It was a lovely afternoon, I was enjoying myself, and I’ve always been a really friendly person, so I was actually kind of excited that I might get to meet one of my neighbors out on my little walk. But when we were close enough for me to greet him, I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. It was like all my senses shut down, and the only thing I was left with was this awful feeling of complete and total revulsion. Despite my vision going gray around the edges I forced myself to keep walking, to get past the mystery person and closer to home.

When we were right next to each other all my senses returned to normal, and I noticed with a pang of fear and concern that even the man’s skin was an ashy shade of gray. He continued to face forward but his face seemed to melt and twist in my direction, all the features remained clear but it was like the skin behind his face was melting, allowing the face itself to slip in my direction. He smiled at me, flashing gray teeth and the corner of a gray tongue peeking out of his mouth. Then he passed me and I took a huge gulp of air, trying to calm my rioting stomach and nerves.

Despite how badly I wanted to collapse to the earth and sob from whatever the hell that was, I forced myself to keep walking. Now more than ever I just wanted to get home. After a few more minutes of walking I managed to convince myself I had just imagined it, or maybe the man had some kind of medical condition and I was being unfair to judge him so harshly.

As I successfully guilt-tripped myself into brushing off the weirdness, I noticed something on the horizon. A gray smudge that seemed to be getting closer to me. I debated it for a moment, then allowed myself to stop and turn around. There was nothing behind me, no traces of the strange gray man. I turned back around, and somehow he had managed to clear almost all the distance between us in the time it took me to turn around and back.

I forced myself to keep walking, insisting to my now terrified brain that it was a coincidence, or I had spaced out for longer than I realized. As I got closer to the man I forced a smile onto my own face, and with every ounce of courage I had asked, “Hey there! Didn’t we just see each other?”

The look on his face didn’t alter in the slightest, and neither did his stride as he approached. His mouth opened, and a voice as gray as a tombstone said, “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

The smile on his face stayed in place as mine faltered and crashed, and I picked up my pace to get past him as quickly as possible. As I did, a scent I hadn’t noticed before wafted from his trash bag to my nose and I had to resist the need (it was more than an urge) to vomit. What I smelled can only be described as death, plain and simple. It assaulted my nostrils and filled my mind with images of death and destruction, things I never could have pictured on my own. Wartorn battlefields scattered with the flesh and blood of innocent people, bodies torn apart by animals, corpses swaying in the breeze, glassy eyes still begging for a savior even though it was far too late.

I gasped, pressing my hands to my mouth and nose, and hurried away. After a few minutes the smell was gone, but the images and nausea remained.

I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, and more than anything I just wanted to get home, to safety and my comfiest chair, but I was still at least an hour away from my house. I glanced behind me again, let out a sigh of relief when I saw the gray man still walking away from me, then bit my tongue so hard I dre…

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