The Chirping 1

A Horror story by Emil Minchev

The following is part 1 of 5 of a short horror story from A Coffinful of Nightmares by Emil Minchev. Paid subscribers get it now, unpaid subscribers have to wait for ten weeks (or buy the book). Enjoy!

It was a frosty afternoon in late November and the train was slowly snaking its way up the snow-clad north side of the Balkan Mountains. I was travelling cross-country from Burgas to Sofia on the Seagull Express. The heater in my compartment was busted and my teeth were chattering. I was desperately trying to fall asleep for the first time since I got the news that my mom had finally succumbed to that ruthless killer who turned your body against itself - cancer. After four days on nothing but alcohol and coffee, my brain was completely fried. But every time I closed my eyes I started to feel the cold even more. I could even see my breath. The big fat snowflakes falling from the sky looked like crumpled pieces of paper. They were steadily blanketing the barren fields and sinister-looking ruins of the desolate Bulgarian landscape. Contrary to popular belief, the Bulgarian countryside was not dying. It had died decades ago, left to starve during the chaotic transition from socialism to market capitalism. We were travelling through a cemetery.

It was a weekday and the train was almost empty. Just five people had gotten on in Burgas, including me, and maybe a couple more in Sliven. One of them entered my compartment, sat down on the window seat across from mine, smiled toothlessly at me and produced a large winter apple from his coat pocket, which he ate in three bites. Afterwards he wiped his mouth, belched, leaned back in his seat and immediately fell asleep, drooling like an infant. The guy’s face seemed as ancient as the hills and twice as craggy. He was probably in his late 80s or early 90s and so thin that his coat looked heavier than he was. Sturdier too. His hands were positively skeletal. His kneecaps were like blades sticking out from under a blanket. Despite all that, I envied him. I envied his remarkable sleeping abilities. Lucky bastard.

He did wake up half an hour later, but that was only because the conductor was shaking him by the shoulder – a tall, long-faced redhead wearing too much make-up and smelling of cheap cigarettes and cheaper deodorant. She checked his ticket, winked at me and left. The old man yawned and licked his lips, then produced a second winter apple from his coat pocket. He saw me looking and offered it to me, but I declined, pointing at the chocolate wrapper in the bin. He shrugged and ate it, this time in four bites, and then asked me the time. After I told him, he nodded, yawned and went back to sleep. Amazing.

I tried reading the paper I’d bought at the train station in Burgas, but I had become completely out of touch with Bulgarian news and events. I had no idea who any of these people were. And you know what? I didn’t care. It all seemed foreign to me. Disembodied voices from a past I’d long forgotten and a life I’d left behind. So I folded the paper and stared out the window instead. The cemetery was rapidly becoming a featureless white desert, with winds that howled like vengeful spirits and huge pillowy snowdrifts piling by the side of the tracks. The train trundled along, seemingly oblivious: a string of metal coffins that was slowly bringing me ever closer to Sofia, to the airport, to the States, to my college dorm, to freedom.

To my life before all this craziness.