Small Town Ghosts

I don't believe in ghosts. I never have. I didn't believe in ghosts that night either. When my friends asked me to go along, I scoffed at the idea. "There's no such thing as ghosts," I told them. "It's just a scary story. I'm sure it's been embellished over the years."

All towns have similar places, especially the small towns. Teenagers have to have something exciting to do. I was visiting a cousin and she told me the story. There was a train track just outside of town that years ago used to carry orphans across the country. It was an orphan train. Historically, the train would take the children across the country in hopes of finding parents in the less populated areas. One night, the train wrecked. All the children, and adults died in the flames. The tracks were never used again. Just past the tracks there was an abortion clinic. The clinic was ran during a time when abortions were not accepted anywhere. It was not a known abortion clinic, except by the girls and women that needed it. All the tools and equipment was crude and unsanitary. Many young women would go there and die.

Now, the story in this town was that the women still roamed the abortion clinic and on certain nights you could go there and see them or hear them crying. Some of the children from the train accident stayed behind to offer the women comfort and someone to care for. The children, in life, were only looking for parents; and seemed to find them only in death. You are supposed to go and park your car on the middle of the train tracks and ask the children who died on the orphan train if you were allowed to go visit the women. If they want you to, they'll push your car past the tracks. If they don't want you to go, they'll push your car the other way. There were so many different stories about seeing the light from the train and hearing the whistle, hearing the kids run around the car, and seeing the women's still pregnant bellies.

So we decided one night that we would go and find out for ourselves. My cousin was pregnant at the time and she drove. The car was pretty full. I don't believe in ghosts, at all. The events that happened that night scared me like nothing I've ever experienced before.

We parked the car on the tracks like we were supposed to. At first nothing happened and we thought we should just leave. "This is stupid!" Then out of nowhere I could hear the sound of a train whistle. As the sound got closer I could actually see what appeared to be a train light. Of course my first thought was that there was a train coming. "Go! Get off the tracks!" But they wouldn't go because the story is that you have to ask permission first. So my cousin asked, "Can we go visit the women at the clinic?" Almost immediately the car started to rock. I could hear someone walking around outside. Although it was dark, I didn't see anyone out there. Then the car started to roll backwards and you could hear people pounding on the sides. So of course we were all really scared and decided to leave. But in her hurry, my cousin accidentally put the car in drive instead of reverse and we lunged forward off the tracks. That's when the wind stared to pick up and it felt like we were pushed off the side of the road. Once we were in the ditch it was hard to get the car back on the road. The whole time she was trying to get the car out, the rocking continued.

Once we finally got home and we all got out and looked at the car, we were all scared into silence. On the outside of the back window was written the word "LEAVE". it was traced in the dust. There were foot and hand prints all over the sides and hood of the car. We all speculated that it must have been because my cousin was pregnant that they didn't want us to go back by the abortion clinic. It was very scary.