The Last Carriage

"Good afternoon, Miss. May I see your ticket?" Said the ticket inspector on the train.

Willow lifted her head up and looked at the person — a man who appeared to be in his late thirties. Her eyes then fell on his name tag. Michael McOwen, that was his name. She pulled out the ticket from the back pocket of her jeans and gave it to the man.

The man took the ticket and mumbled, "Thank you." as he smiled at Willow, who quickly looked away from the man.

Since she got on the train, Willow had been very careful and cautious. She avoided eye contact with anyone. She felt lucky when she found that the carriage was half empty and there was no one sitting next to her.

He inspected Willow's ticket thoroughly before he put the edge of the ticket into the hole puncher he carried. However he frowned and pulled the ticket closer to his eyes that were now narrowed as he read it. He then looked at Willow before he looked at the ticket again.

Seeing the speculative action of the ticket inspector, Willow turn stiff. If she could hear her own heartbeat, she was sure that it beat rapidly. She tried her best to put a calm face and prayed internally that her anxiety would not appear on her face. Although she was certain that her face was paler now than usual.

Unable to contain the suspense any longer, Willow chose to speak. "Is everything alright, Sir?" She managed to make her voice sound as calm as possible.

The man showed Willow her own ticket and pointed at her carriage and seat number. "I think you board the wrong carriage, Miss. You are supposed to be at the front carriage. The very first one."

Willow frowned, confused. "Isn't this Carriage A?"

"It is. However, you are supposed to be in Carriage A(1)." He pointed at the number again which was A(1)-4C.

Willow cursed herself mentally. She never had boarded any train before but she was annoyed that she did not pay attention to that detail when boarded the train. She should not have rushed to jump into the carriage. Now she could only hope that the inspector would not get suspicious of her reckless action.

"Is this seat even taken?" Asked Willow arrogantly, who acted as if she could not be bothered to move from her seat, while mentally Willow thought what could have gone wrong if she sat in the wrong carriage.

The ticket inspector shook his head yet the frown remained on his face. "This seat is vacant. However it might affect your destination, young Miss, as this carriage will be disconnected from the rest of the carriage at the next interchange station, and will travel separately. Are you sure you would like to stay in this carriage?" The man asked her tentatively.

Willow had never been certain of her destination. She did not know where she would and should actually go, and she never asked. It would be too risky to know, she thought. She was already lost. So what was going to matter if her destination changed?

"I'll stay in this carriage, then." Came the solid answer from Willow. Her voice was full with nothing but certainty.

The man shrugged and punched a hole on her ticket with his hole puncher. Before he returned the ticket to Willow, he crossed the (1) on the carriage number section of her ticket and gave it back to her. "Have a safe journey, Miss."

Willow gave him a nod and shoved her ticket back into her back pocket.

Time passed. The train finally arrived at the interchange station. Some people got off of the train to switch to another train, some got onto the train. The ticket inspector, who stood by the door of the last carriage, turned to look at the particular passenger in the middle seat. His eyes watched the girl with black baseball cap sitting there, looking at the window. The man sensed something was amiss about the girl. She was boarding the wrong carriage yet she seemed to not mind about it. Did she even realise where this carriage would actually take her?

He heaved a sigh. With one last glance at the girl, he stepped out of the carriage and got into the next carriage. Upon entering the next carriage, he bumped into one of his colleague.

"Is everything good in that carriage?"

"Yes." Michael answered without mentioning about the girl he saw before. He decided it was not his business if the girl wanted to board that carriage. After all he was not the one who was going to that place.

In the meantime, the carriage where Willow sitting in began to move and Willow felt a sudden jolt forwards. Slowly, the train started to leave the station where the name of the station was not even caught by Willow as she was too busy thinking about the murder case back in the town she lived in.

She was feeling sad. She wanted to cry but she did not want to catch any attention from others. Her heart was clenched in pain as she did not understand how she could end up being the suspect of a murder. As she thought thoroughly about the whole thing, she realised that Sister Anne and the others must have found out about her freelance job by now. She wondered what they thought about her now. Would they still believe in her? She should have told them all about the job.

Feeling sad and frustrated, Willow brought her hands onto her face. At that time, she wished she could turn back time.

Not far from behind where Willow was sitting, a man whose eyes were red watched each and every move that the girl make. The girl seemed to be oblivious to what was around her. She seemed to not know where this single-carriage train would take her. As the train moved pass the town and entered the dark forest, an evil smirked played on his lips.