The sun had sunk behind the concrete skyline and the sky was deepening from yellow to blue. Xuan sat by the window, watching the streetlights blink on. She checked her phone again, dismayed by the minutes ticking by. It was too late.
“Xuan, are you listening?”
She startled. The other three were staring at her with a mix of exasperation and concern.
“I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go. It’s getting late,” Xuan said apologetically. “I’ll leave first.”
“No, wait,” Sang protested. “It’s still early! Please stay a little longer.”
“There are only a couple of trains left,” Xuan said unhappily.
Shubin looked up sharply. The ring of his chopsticks striking the bowl send a shiver of silence through the restaurant. “You don’t believe those stories, do you?”
The girl turned pink while the others looked from one to the other in confusion. “What stories?” Tiancheng asked. When neither party answered, he said again, “What are you talking about?”
“It’s nothing,” Xuan protested, but Shubin smirked.
“Oh, haven’t you heard? The subways here in Beijing are haunted by the dead.” The atmosphere tightened. Xuan sat down uncomfortably, clutching her bag to her chest, but the other two leant forward. Now that he had everyone’s attention, the boy dropped his voice ominously. “When they started building the line in ‘65, there were loads of freak accidents. Workers kept being injured, equipment mysteriously broke, and the whole thing was months behind schedule. People said the workers were cursed. Then it was revealed that their digging had unearthed a huge number of human bones.”
Sang gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth. Tiancheng’s poker face needed work.
“Disturbing their resting place left the spirits without a home. Furious, they wreaked havoc on the workers. When a worker was killed in an accident, the managers became desperate and went to a group of monks to ask for help. The monks blessed the bones and begged the spirits to stop hurting people. They promised the spirits two things: that every night, the subway would shut down to allow the spirits to rest. And before the stations shut, the trains would run without passengers to allow the souls to return to their resting place.”
“This isn’t true,” Tiancheng interrupted scornfully. “They wouldn’t run the trains empty.”
“I’ve felt it,” Sang said, and the other girl nodded. “After the stations close, you can still feel the trains running beneath the ground. And they leave the station lights on for an hour.”
“That’s just so the cleaners can see,” Tiancheng insisted.
“If you take one of the last trains,” Xuan whispered, “You don’t know if the other passengers are living or dead.”
They sit in silence. Tiancheng fiddles nervously with his chopsticks.
“Maybe we should take the bus back to university,” Sang says uncertainly.
They all agree.
The Mind of Tanitha 