The train beat against the tracks like a mechanical heart. 

Thump-a-thump. Thump-a-thump. Thump-a-thump. 

Ethan Murdock didn't know how everyone managed to sleep on this thing. If only his dad had sprung for a sleeper car. At least there was no one sitting next to him. Not that it made much difference. He was tall, not fat, so legroom was more important than having room to move his arms around. 

Other than the noises of the tracks, everything was quiet on the VIA Rail train. The lights were dimmed and the other passengers were dozing. It was just the thump-a-thump, thump-a-thump that drove Ethan nuts. He pulled his hood over his shaggy head of hair and stretched the strings taut, but it did little to dampen the noise.

He wondered where his dad was now. Probably in the air. It was Ethan who convinced him to take the job in Tokyo. Ethan was almost done high school, and his dad's job offer wouldn't come up again. At the time, Ethan hoped his mother would take him back, if just for his senior year. But she was still living in Toronto with that Alec guy, and apparently Alec didn't want any teenagers around. 

So Ethan would be staying with his Uncle Vic in suburbia instead. A guy Ethan barely remembered, in a little prairie hamlet. Somehow that was the best option. But an artsy city kid like Ethan, going to school with what were probably the children of canola farmers and oil field labourers? He'd be eaten alive. 

My fault for pushing Dad toward the Tokyo gig, he thought with a sigh. Least I'll have somewhere cool to live after I graduate out of Nowheresville.

Nothing else to be done but try and sleep, he decided. He'd be arriving early in the morning; early enough to still make it to his first day at the new school. If he was going to be the "new kid," he didn't want his classmates' first impression of him to be that of a sleep-deprived zombie.

He crossed his arms and tried again to get cozy. Each new position was just as uncomfortable as the last. He closed his eyes, but they'd slide back open when he wasn't paying attention. Outside the window, the shadowy silhouettes of pine trees shifted and distorted in the moonlight. It was eerie, but comforting, too, in a way.

"You have to help me."

Ethan looked away from the window to the source of the voice. A man stooped over him from the aisle, trembling violently. 

Something about his features seemed off, like a bad drawing come to life. He had a broad, round-shaped face, not fat but shrunken, with pale skin and wide, purplish lips. His eyebrows were huge and dark, like two black caterpillars napping on his eyeballs, and his hair was thick on the sides but wispy on his scalp. Even his ears stuck out like those of some demented clown.

Worst of all, his already distorted face was twisted in agony and terror.

Cold fear shot up Ethan's spine, freezing him in place. He wanted to say something, or maybe scream, but his voice was a ghost in his throat.

"Please," the man wheezed. He extended trembling, skeletal hands toward Ethan. Some of his fingers were too long, some too short, and the hands had no symmetry. 

This man needs help, Ethan thought distantly as he shrunk back. He's hurt. The stranger's clothes were shredded beyond recognition, hanging off his pallid body as though he'd been savaged by wolves. Yet Ethan was on the verge of lashing out and breaking the man's brittle, groping fingers. 

"Please," the stranger said again, suddenly clutching at his side. "They are coming for me."

"Wh-who?" Ethan asked. He blew the question out of his lungs and mouth soundlessly.

"You have to understand." The man's sickly purple lips quivered like a snake. "They are coming for me because of you."

Then he lurched forward, hands forming claws. 

Ethan tried to scream but alien fingers closed around his throat, too tight for sound or breath to escape. Oh god, oh god. He thrashed, kicking at the man's gaunt body, but the grip only tightened. Let me go, I can't breathe, I can't--

The stranger shrieked like he was even more scared than Ethan. "Help me! Why won't you help me?!" 

But there was no help--for either of them. The passengers must have heard the screaming, Ethan thought, but nobody came. Why won't you help?

Scratching at the man's arms and hands only added to the cuts and bruises already there. The grip never loosened. Ethan's eyes felt like they would pop out of his skull, so he closed them tight to keep them in. He needed air, just a little bit of air. Clenching his jaw and trying to force open his throat with the raw muscles of his neck didn't work. Blind and scared and dizzy, he was running out of energy with which to fight back.

He tried to open his eyes again to see if anyone was coming, if someone would be there to save him, but it was as though he'd kept his eyes shut. He saw nothing. He heard nothing--nothing but the thump-a-thump, thump-a-thump of his raging heart, and the screeching cry of the stranger.

And then everything went black.

Thump-a-thump. Thump-a-thump. Thump-a-thump.

Air flooded into his throat as he woke. He choked on it, coughing and gasping and swinging his arms with the feral instinct of survival. 

But the man was gone. The aisle was as empty as it was before the stranger appeared.

Ethan searched the train car with wild, roving eyes, backing hard into the corner of his seat and massaging his neck. There was no sign of the man anywhere--no balding scalps among the still-sleeping train passengers, no ragged breaths or groans of pain from anyone but Ethan. Nothing.

It was just a dream, Ethan gradually realized. He must have nodded off while looking out the window. He must have. He thought his throat hurt, but realized the pain was just in his mind. 

Even after several minutes of slow breathing, he was far from calm. He stood up to take a closer look at the different train passengers, still half-expecting to find the nightmare man among them. But none of them looked a thing like him. How could they? The guy had barely looked human.

Yeah, he thought. Just a dream...

Sitting back down, he checked the time on his phone. It was just after midnight. He'd be meeting Uncle Vic in a few short hours. But there was no way he was getting back to sleep, so he pulled his duffel bag from the overhead compartment and dug around inside it for his sketchbook and a pencil. The light above his seat was dimmed, but it was bright enough for him to doodle. He flipped the book to a blank page and put the tip of his pencil to it.

After a pause, he began to draw the face of the man from his dream.

He started with the broad head shape, then sketched in the thick black eyebrows, the beady eyes, the protruding ears, the dark lips, the wispy hair. He had to fight against his own artistic instinct in order to deliberately get the man's proportions wrong.

Soon the nightmare man stared at him once again. 

He swallowed, and his throat felt raw. He thought he might have seen this man before tonight, but he didn't know where. Even worse, he had a sick feeling he'd see him again--and not in a sketchbook.

A few hours later, the train arrived at his destination. It was time to start his new life.