I worked night maintenance at the old Pennsylvania Railroad yard in Gary back in 1991. The yard had been mostly shut down for years by then, but they kept a small crew of us on to maintain the few active lines that still ran through. Four of us on the night shift, me, Tommy, Big Jack, and a guy we called Diesel. We were all big guys, you know what I mean? You had to be for that kind of work. Hauling rail ties, swinging sledgehammers, moving equipment. Jack was six-four, must've weighed two-sixty. Diesel was shorter but built like a truck. These weren't guys who scared easy. I'm saying this because of what happened later, because of how we all reacted. The yard was massive. Probably forty acres of rails and ballast, most of it dead track leading to nowhere. At night it was just us and the sound of the active lines when a freight would come through, maybe once every couple hours.
It started in late March. We'd be working on a section of track, and you'd get this feeling. Like something was watching. You'd turn around and there'd be nothing there, just rows of empty rails disappearing into the darkness. But the feeling wouldn't go away. Tommy mentioned it first. Said he kept seeing something moving between the cars on the dead tracks. Just glimpses, he said. Something tall and thin, keeping pace with him while he worked. We gave him shit for it, told him he was seeing shadows. But I'd felt it too. That presence, like being watched by something patient. Then one night in early April, I saw it clearly. I was replacing rail spikes on the south end, near where the old roundhouse used to be. The work creates vibrations, you know? Every time you drive a spike, the whole rail hums. The ballast, that's the crushed rock under the ties, it shifts and settles with each impact. Creates this cloud of iron dust that catches in your throat.
I was maybe twenty spikes in when I stood up to rest my back. Looked down the line and there it was, standing about fifty yards away. Right in the middle of the track, just watching me. It was tall, maybe seven feet, but so thin it looked wrong. Like something stretched out. The posture wasn't human, it stood too straight, too still. In the work lights I could see its surface had this texture, rough and dark, almost like it was covered in rust or grime. The head was the worst part. Elongated, no features I could make out from that distance. Just a smooth oval shape tilted slightly down, like it was studying me. No eyes that I could see, but I knew it was looking right at me. You know how you can feel eyes on you? It was like that, but stronger. with no visible face is the worst kind of scary - Otto'
[ Story continues in the full game... ]