Ramsey Aickman: __link__

He found it easily enough. The brickwork was real. The lichen was real. But where the door should have been, there was only a shallow recess, as if something had been carefully removed. And in the recess, pressed into the damp mortar, was a single button. Mother-of-pearl. From a cream-colored dress.

A young woman. Pale. Wearing a cream-colored dress that seemed to be made of the same damp lichen as the wall. She was not looking at the train. She was looking at him.

Saturday he did not work, but he took the 5:47 anyway. He told himself it was for the quiet. The carriage was nearly empty. The door was open now—fully, squarely open, like a mouth mid-yawn. And someone was standing in the doorway. ramsey aickman

He got off at Meadowvale. Walked past the identical houses. Let himself in. Poured a glass of tap water. Sat in the dark.

He blinked. The train did not stop.

He raised a hand. Just a small, apologetic wave.

She smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was the smile of a nurse about to tell you something you would rather not know. Then the train passed through a tunnel—the only tunnel on the whole line—and when it emerged, the door was gone. The wall was just a wall. He found it easily enough

Mr. Pargeter felt his chest tighten. He had never seen her before, and yet his heart performed a strange, arrhythmic lurch , as if recognizing a tune he had never heard.