Mortimer Blackwell

In life, Mortimer Blackwell was the stationmaster of Hollow’s End, a modest but vital stop along the northern rail. The yard he kept bustled with smoke and steel, trains arriving at all hours, freight and passengers alike. It was built hastily over land once consecrated, where an old burial ground lay beneath the ties and gravel. Mortimer argued bitterly with the company men, warning that iron and timetables should not trespass on the sleep of the dead. But profit spoke louder than tradition, and the rail lines carved straight across rows of forgotten graves. For a time, the yard thrived. Yet whispers grew of bones unearthed in the soil, of shadows moving between cars at night. Then came the derailment: a midnight train that never should have left the station, its brakes failing as it screamed through Hollow’s End. It tore through the yard, shattering gravestones and collapsing into fire and ruin. Dozens died. Mortimer was among them, his body never recovered, though his brass lantern was found still burning in the wreckage. But death did not end his duty. Now, the yard is abandoned, rails twisted, cars rusting, tombstones jutting like crooked teeth between the tracks. Mortimer remains, cap low over hollow eyes, uniform moth-eaten and lantern glowing with an unnatural green flame. He calls schedules for trains that no longer exist, and phantom engines answer, groaning into the fog with passengers long since buried. They say he still offers tickets to wanderers who stray too close, each stamped with a date that never comes. His pocket watch ticks without hands, marking not time but passage from one world into another. He is the Stationmaster still, not of trains but of thresholds, bound forever to the yard where the living and the dead share the same track.