After several paces, the floor of the first cave ended abruptly in a deep, black pit.

A vile stench wafted up from the depths and when he tossed a rock down the hole he never heard it hit the bottom. He retreated and continued to the next tunnel farther down the canyon. Above the entrance to the second cave there was an old clock set into the cliff wall. Three of the numbers had fallen off and the hands were stopped at 12:16. Below the clock, partially covered with dirt and small rocks, was a wooden sign on which the words “Waiting Room” were painted in neat lettering. He could hear shuffling and intermittent buzzing sounds from within the cave, and every so often he saw a brief flash of dim light in the distance. Taking a deep breath, he lowered his head and entered the dark passage.

(Larger is much better)

Strangeness on a Train (a serial mystery)
Episode 13
See it in sequence

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The problem with starting a story, of course, is that you have to finish it. Since this story began quite accidentally and since it depends on existing images that I already have, it is unfolding at a leisurely pace. Although I have some fairly clear ideas what will happen next and already have some photographs earmarked to use to further the mystery along, I am still not entirely sure how it all will end.

And then there is the matter of the train. The story is called “Strangeness on a Train”, after all. Will our hero find his way back onto the mysterious, haunted train? Is the desert in which he now finds himself actually on the train? Or has he fallen through a portal into another dimension?

Stay tuned…