I’ve lived in Atlanta for over seven years now. For the most part, it’s a wonderful place to be. All the excitement and distraction of New York City with all the southern hospitality you’d expect from the Peach State. A Krispy Kreme on every corner and the best soul food you ever tasted. For a country boy like me, it was Paradise.
It was absolutely Paradise in comparison to Valdosta, which was where I went for college. All of the tropical heat of Florida without anything to distract from it. Hell on Earth, if you ask me.
When I finally moved out of Valdosta, I was driving a Mercury Sable. It was about a year after I moved that the Mercury fell apart and I had to junk it. So here I was, newly moved to the capital of my home state and no method of getting around. Thankfully, the Big Peach has the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.
The MARTA is Atlanta’s lifeline. Most ATLiens depend on it. The only real problem is that, like all mass transit systems, you have to plan your whole day around its schedule. What could be a simple hour drive by car amounts to a whole day’s trip by MARTA. There was a Zaxby’s on Ponce de Leon Avenue and I would spend an entire day just going to lunch. On the one hand it could be really tedious but on the other it could be a fun urban adventure. I certainly got a lot more exercise in those days.
It was Halloween 2016 when everything changed. That year, I had no plans at all for my favorite holiday. Usually my brother and I would plan something but he was working so I was on my own.
I made a lot of stupid decisions that day, but two in particular really changed the course of that night.
I decided to go to the Vortex at Little Five Points for dinner. This isn’t the mistake, but it was a mistake on my part to go anywhere that served alcohol. I looked around and saw all these people eating together and having a good time, and I sat there, alone, just becoming more and more depressed at how alone I felt and thus more and more drunk. I’m an admitted lightweight, so I was woozy after only two glasses of scotch. My depression was hitting me hard at this point, so I had three more for the road. Even with a burger and tater tots on my stomach I was more than a few sheets to the wind.
Even in my stupor I thought of calling an Uber. Anybody who’s lived in Atlanta for a while has dealt with a drunken person on the MARTA and nobody likes the situation. However, after looking at how much it would cost for an Uber to take me from L5P to where I was living, I decided the MARTA was my only option. I took the bus to the North Avenue station and got on the Gold line. By the time we got to the Little Five Points station, I was ready to throw up all over the seats around me. This was where I made my second mistake.
I got off the MARTA and drunkenly sprinted my way to the nearest bathroom. You haven’t hit rock bottom until you’ve vomited scotch bricks into a MARTA station toilet. I guess I should thank my lucky stars the person who’d used it before me had flushed. It felt like I was there for hours, resting my pounding head against the lukewarm porcelain of that toilet. At one point, somebody in the next stall asked, “You okay, buddy?” I answered with, “Oh yeah! Never better!” And we both had a small laugh. After I finally felt like I’d threw it all up, I finally reached up and flushed the toilet and slowly got to my feet. I leaned against the door for a few minutes, making sure I wasn’t going to be sick again before I left.
If you ask anybody what their biggest fear is, chances are the biggest answer you’ll get is being alone. Usually, they mean having all their loved ones turn their back on them. But I can tell you that that kind of fear in no way compares to going down to a MARTA platform and seeing that you are the only one there. Maybe I’ve read or heard too many horror stories, but I immediately expected some kind of maniac to jump out with an axe. Of course, nothing happened, but I would argue that’s worse. A maniac with an axe is terrifying, but the possibility that there might be a maniac with an axe hiding in the shadows is maddening.
The sound of the train horn made me jump and gasp at the same time. Once my heart rate got back down, I sighed with relief. The train stopped, I got on, and my relief went away as I saw only one other person on the train, sitting by the window near the back of the compartment.
I figured it was some homeless person who’d made their way through the station and onto the train itself. I mean, it happens in New York, why not Atlanta, right? So I sat down and took a deep breath, closing my eyes and letting the sound of the train on the tracks lull me into comfort.
“You ever think about how you might die?”
I opened my eyes and saw that the homeless man was now sitting directly across from me. I saw that he had on a very distinctive pair of sunglasses: they were reflective and had side shields. I’ve seen a few homeless people throughout my time in Atlanta and they have never had sunglasses, let alone specialty ones. I decided not to answer his question. I figured he was talking to no one in particular.
“I’m talking to you. You ever think about how you might die?”
The tone in his voice was one of irritation, and the pointedness of the question hit me hard. I’m sure you can imagine I was feeling extremely uneasy at this point. He was just sitting there, stone-faced, and even though he had those glasses on, I got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t blinking. I was tempted to just move to another seat, but I had the feeling he’d attack me if I tried. So I answered him.
“Sometimes.”
“How do you think you’ll die?”
I hesitated. My instinct was to make light of the situation, so I answered:
“Given the way I eat and don’t exercise, maybe a heart attack?”
He didn’t laugh. There was absolutely no expression on his face. I looked at the map above his head. I still had six stops to go.
“Sounds about right,” he said, “you think you might die tonight?”
My heart sunk into my stomach. I always thought that was just a figure of speech, but it literally felt like my heart dropped. I expected him to pull out a revolver and shoot me right then and there and if I’m being honest, part of me wishes that was what had happened.
Instead, he reached up and took his sunglasses off. His eyes were pure white. Not cataracted, just white. No pupils, no cornea, no color, no nothing. Just pure white eyeballs. My own eyes opened as wide as I think I’ve ever managed, and the man across from me answered with a smile. I’d never seen such malice in a smile before. It was such an evil grin that it took me a second to realize his teeth were long and sharp. At that point, his eyes seemed to begin inflating. They grew bigger and bigger until finally they popped right out of the sockets, landing neatly in the man’s outstretched hands.
I screamed.
I think that… whatever it was timed it so I could run out of the train cab the second he showed me what he could do. The second I began to scream, the doors came open and I ran out of there as fast as I could. I expected to feel a long knife hit home right in my back, but nothing like that happened. I just ran and behind me I could hear malicious laughter from the train.
I’d gotten off several stops before I was supposed to, but I didn’t care. I took the only bus that went anywhere near where I was living and rode it until it was close enough for me to walk back to my apartment. Honestly, that was when I was most scared. Even more than I was on that train. The visceral horror I’d felt then was nothing compared to the dread I felt, waiting for that thing to pop out amongst the trees and start chasing me.
I begged my folks to help me buy a car after that. There was no way I was ever going to set foot on another MARTA train again. I move back to my hometown of Macon soon, and I hope to God that thing won’t follow me.
To anyone reading this, I beg you: whether you live in Atlanta or just visit it, stay off the MARTA.