The Last Train Before Morning

Cabin 18

At 11:48 p.m., Elena Ward found a man sitting in her compartment.

He had taken the window seat.

That irritated her before anything else did.

The overnight service was already humming beneath the station roof, its dark carriages reflecting fluorescent strips and blurred figures moving along the platform. Elena had booked Cabin 18 three weeks earlier, paid extra for sole occupancy, and arrived with exactly enough time to board without having to loiter beneath departure boards pretending she wasn't tired.

She stopped in the doorway.

The man looked up.

Not startled. Not apologetic.

Relieved.

That was worse.

He was perhaps forty, maybe a little older, dressed in a charcoal coat over a black shirt. Dark hair beginning to silver at the temples. A narrow scar close to his right eyebrow. No visible wedding ring.

Then he said, “You're early.”

Elena tightened her grip on the suitcase handle. “Excuse me?”

His expression changed. He closed his eyes briefly.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

He looked at her again. “For forgetting that you don't remember me yet.”

His name was Daniel Mercer. He knew about a scar Elena never discussed. He claimed they had shared eight months, six previous journeys and a love neither of them had survived cleanly.

Then the Conductor checked his silver watch.

It showed 5:17.

Elena's phone showed 11:52.

“Your watch is wrong.”

The Conductor smiled. “No. It is simply set to the only hour that matters.”

The train slowed beside a platform that did not exist on any timetable.

A single sign stood beneath amber lamps.

MORROW.

A grey-haired woman stepped off. Moments later Daniel could no longer remember that she had existed.

Then a Polaroid slid beneath the door of Cabin 18.

Elena and Daniel were together in the photograph.

On the back, in Elena's handwriting:

HE WILL TELL YOU HE LOVES YOU.
DON'T TRUST HIM.