The Icebound Clocktower and Other Noise Inspired Stories

The Train Ride

White Noise, Railroad Noise, Babble Noise

The earpiece hanging half-off its assigned ear gives off a shifting wave of static as the attempts to adjust/fix the miniature nanoradio prove unsuccessful. The chattering of other passengers can be heard on the left ear, which can be frustrating while trying to listen for the voice of someone trying to get an important message across. There may be signal scrambler somewhere on the train...

Getting up off the leathery burgundy seats and sliding open the thin glass barrier, the noise of other seated passengers grows louder. Before leaving, a few switches activate a feature on the little radio. It has indeed found an offending signal and now it's a game of hot-cold played to the beeping in the earpiece. The outside of the compartment is a narrow corridor with wooden walls interrupted with other glass doors, both open and closed. The rumbling of the wheels on the tracks can be heard, and the train car shudders a bit. It's difficult to look casual pacing from one end of the car to the other to determine which direction, but nobody seems to pay any mind.

The beeping gets stronger farther up the train, but it's nowhere in this car. Upon opening the door to the next one, the outside in all its windy, shaky glory is experienced for a few startling seconds. The knowledge that this train is probably going at least a hundred miles an hour is reminded as the door to the next train is open and stepped through.

This process is repeated, and once an attendant inquired upon the object of the search, and was politely brushed off with assurances of self-sufficiency, and a well-timed distraction from a stranger. The beeping almost overwhelms the white noise now, and it's almost close to the engine of the train. Hopefully it's not in the engine of the train, or else getting rid of it would be made even more difficult. Another car... and another...

...And suddenly, an empty one. Searching through the compartments, there's not a trace of one person. This is strange, as the train was supposed to be booked completely, not one seat up until now had been vacant... and this is definitely the location of the scrambler. Moving as quickly as possible now, with the little black device curled inside a fist, and fingernails digging into the smooth, plastic surface that was getting sticky from sweaty hands, the stride to the far end of the car, the final search is finished swiftly. The beeping over the earpiece is ear-splitting and rapid, and can finally turned off. Under the small wooden table, is the scrambler. It's fastened right up against the short metal pole supporting the little light brown square. 

With a flick of the switch it's off. 

And upon standing up, a small knob tunes the nanoradio in to the correct frequency, and two things can be heard...

"—Look out!"

And a gunshot.