We Meet Again
By Toni Nicolino
Third Place Winner, Bow & Chariot 2025 Horror Story Challenge
Subgenre: Psychological/Supernatural Horror
I recognize you immediately. It’s the jack-o’-lantern sweater that catches my attention, the cheap heat-transfer vinyl: a gaping, hideous mouth of square teeth and shifty, rectangular eyes. The orange has faded, the black silhouette cracked along the edges, but it still radiates like a hazard light. I’m surprised you’ve kept it after all this time (how long has it been?) or dared to wear it again. But I’m glad you did. I may not have noticed you otherwise.
I’ve been waiting to happen upon you again, to confront you about the day you’d unraveled on the subway platform during rush hour. The day I felt my heart claw into my throat, felt the wet looseness in my bowels that only true fear can provoke. At the time, I thought you were just another loony in a city full of loonies.
But you weren’t, were you?
You must be in a hurry because you’re walking fast, and I’m struggling to keep up. The sidewalk is crowded, and no one seems to notice my desperate hustle. I’m anxious I’ll lose you, and an intense heat has settled over me; my skin feels tight and itchy. The cacophony of the city fades, and I can hear the clap of your soles against the cement. I’d like to call out your name, but I don’t know it; I don’t remember it being broadcast on the news, after.
You turn the corner now, and I follow. A woman in black leggings blows peppermint vape in my face, and I wave my hand at it, but she doesn’t seem to see me. On my left, a red neon light in a bodega window says OPEN, and I narrow my eyes against its irritating glare. I step over a spattering of milky coffee that’s running toward the curb, and it reminds me of the way my daughter’s bladder let go when you grabbed her.
It happened so fast. A small crowd, waiting for the 6 train, heads down. My daughter and I had been in a hurry; there was no school, and Inez had to spend the day at my office. I remember being annoyed, my armpits damp. I plucked a strand of hair, watched it drift to the ground.
We should have just stayed home. But we didn’t.
And then you dropped your phone on the tracks. The sound was like a grenade in the impatient silence of the platform. Your face had faded to a sickly cooked-corn yellow, your head flick-flick-flicking to one side, like a puppet’s on a string. You grabbed the woman closest to you and spoke to her. Then to someone else. I couldn't hear what you said at first, but then your words gathered momentum, burst forth, a pus-filled whitehead exploding onto all of us.
Don’t get on the train!
People backed away, turned their heads, walked briskly to the other end of the platform. This is New York City. People like you—loud, wild-eyed, unhinged—are like the errant bottles of warm piss sometimes left on the sidewalk: we see you, but we grimace in disgust and look away.
I felt a slight vibration then, heard the rumble of heavy machinery approaching. The air twisted around us as a train approached. And then you were there, your fingers around Inez’s collar, dragging her away. Her bladder let go just as the jack-o’-lantern on your sweater opened its mouth, wide, wider. We were all screaming, but our voices were swallowed by the deafening roar of the oncoming train.
And then the police were there and you were on the ground and Inez was in my arms and the train, silver and steel and safe, was in the station, and we backed away as you cried: enormous, breathless, wet, heaving sobs.
We should have gone home. But we didn’t.
I was late and you were crazy and the train doors were open.
And now I can't remember why I ever wanted to see you again or what I was going to say when I caught up to you. On my left, a red neon light in a bodega window says NOPE, and I narrow my eyes against its irritating brightness. I step over a spattering of milky coffee that’s running toward the curb, and something isn’t right. Up ahead, the subway entrance beckons; shiny, rebuilt, the dust and the flames and the burnt flesh forgotten.
You’re already through the turnstile, and the train is pulling in, so I slip onto the platform through the emergency exit. It’s clean and freshly painted here, but it smells putrid, and I think about the time I discovered an old wedge of cheese in the back of the fridge. I reach out to tap your shoulder, but I can’t move, my arm as weightless and fleeting as a puff of smoke.
You step onto the train, and as the doors close between us, I remember what I wanted to say.
You tried to warn me.
I see my reflection in the darkened glass. I’m still holding Inez, but her face is a rotten pumpkin—pulp and seed and stagnant goo—her right arm gone; the stump juts from her tiny body, her bones a gleaming white. The flesh on my face and chest is sizzling, blackened and twisted like the skin of a roasted chicken. My left eyeball dangles beside my teeth.
You see me now, and you place your palm against the glass. And then the hiss of brakes, the hum of metal, the lights flicker as the train pulls you away.
My heart is cold and hard and beatless in my chest, my brain a wasp's nest of fleeting images that attack, stinging me with their venom: Inez’s splotchy newborn skin against mine. The candles of a third-birthday cake. Her warm, sleeping body tucked safely in my arms at the Italian restaurant on our corner. A front-toothless grin, a five-dollar bill clutched in one little hand.
I want to scream and cry and destroy everything in my path, but I’m shattered glass: sharp and strewn and irreparable. I can only float up the stairs, back onto the city street. My eyes burn, and I lift my hand to shield them from the sun, and that’s when I see you.
I recognize you immediately. It’s the jack-o’-lantern sweater that catches my attention, the cheap heat-transfer vinyl: a gaping, hideous mouth of square teeth and shifty, rectangular eyes. The orange has faded, the black silhouette cracked along the edges, but it still radiates like a hazard light. I’m surprised you’ve kept it after all this time (how long has it been?) or dared to wear it again. But I’m glad you did. I may not have noticed you otherwise.
