The chill, white beams of the moon shined between an increasingly narrow parting in the clouds, providing an extra source of illumination through Sweetie Belle’s window upstairs in Carousel Boutique. Scootaloo looked out at this moonlit night, reflecting on the day she’d had. With how much time was lost bandaging Apple Bloom’s head up, they barely had enough time to pick up the milk, especially with how packed the store was. It was already drizzling outside by the time they got out of there, and Rarity needed to get Apple Bloom out of the rain as soon as possible if she didn’t want the rain ruining her bandages. Unfortunately, this meant that they couldn’t go back to check her Aunt’s rental shack to see if they returned.
Scootaloo continued to watch the clouds slowly close in on each other until they completely obscured the moon and it’s light. She turned around to see her friends in the middle of selecting their first “bedtime story” of the night. Apple Bloom, with those bandages still wrapped around her head, covered her own eyes and let Sweetie scroll through the list as if today had been no different from the last two days. The pegasus filly then looked back down at her math homework, only a few questions left. As Scootaloo hastily jotted down her best guesses, the other two finished picking a tale.
“Alright, ya can stop Sweetie.”, Apple Bloom said.
Removing her forehoof from her eyes, Apple Bloom read the title.
“Ghosts of the London Underground.”
Scootaloo paused on the last math problem, “Uhhh… ghosts?”
“Yeah. We got ourselves a ghost story.”, Apple Bloom answered.
Scootaloo tensed. There were few things in this world that she feared (at least, that’s what she liked to tell herself). But ghosts like the headless horse scared her senseless just to think about. Meanwhile, the other two sat their pillows on the floor and proceeded to lay their heads down on them. Scootaloo decided to put her pencil down, grab her pillow and join in. She was not going to draw accusations of chickening out a story anytime tonight. Once Scootaloo settled in, Sweetie finally clicked the story.
The video opened on some sort of tunnel. One that was obviously not naturally made, given its perfectly circular structure and the walking platform it had on the right. The lights that were lining the walls on the right side provided just enough for the Crusaders to notice the wires hanging from the ceiling and left wall. These were all enough clues to give away the story’s setting, an underground subway railroad. It’s a very recent phenomenon exclusive only to Manehattan, but supposedly that was no longer going to be the case. The mayor of Fillydelphia had recently announced that he had plans to construct a subway network under the city. This had the side effect of reigniting the ongoing feud he had with his older brother, the mayor of Manehattan, who made accusations that Fillydelphia was becoming a “cheap imitation of Equestria’s greatest city”.
The narrator began by describing how the “underground” has been at the center of London’s transportation infrastructure for almost a century and a half.
Sweetie Belle whistled, “These humans must have been around way longer than us!”
“Sheesh, why are we SO behind compared to these guys?”, Scootaloo puzzled, scratching the top of her head.
During that time, it has played host to many historical events. From sheltering civilians in the Second World War to being a target in the 2005 London terrorist attacks.
“We just can’t get away from World War Two, can we?”, Apple Bloom remarked.
Given how many people have lost their lives in these tunnels, could their souls remain as ghosts of the London Underground?
Apple Bloom tapped a hoof to her chin, “Ah wonder, if there’s any ghost stories about the Manehattan subway?”
“Doesn’t that require more of a history?”, Sweetie Belle asked. “Manehattan subway is still kind of new.”
“So, what? Ya think nopony’s died there in the ten years it’s existed?”, the farm filly rebutted.
After saying that, the farm filly decided that this was a question best for her next letter to Babs. Scootaloo privately hoped Sweetie Belle was right; the last thing she wanted was to be afraid of entering the subway stations next time she went to Manehattan.
As the intro faded out, the three fillies were shown a man in a suit with a pair of glasses and a very buzzed down haircut. He stood at a desk which had on top of it one of those telephone thingies sat between two bulky, square-shaped devices with pitch-black glass screens from the looks of it.
“What are all those little papers he’s counting?”, Scootaloo wondered, before considering that they were possibly train tickets.
As the human kept counting the day’s earnings, the narrator described him as Steve Coates, whom had a fairly relaxed work day. His shift had started at 10 pm and besides the inevitable rush of commuters in the last stretch before the tube station closed, the early hours of this midweek morning had been quiet. As the supervisor of Liverpool Street Station in Central London, Coates now busied himself in the ticket office, cashing up the tills and carrying out any number of other mundane administrative tasks. He much preferred the relative peace and quiet of the night shifts compared to the hustle and bustle of the daytime, even if they did seem to pass by more slowly. There was a strange sense of priviness to having such a large public space all to himself; a tranquility he otherwise rarely got to experience. Sweetie considered trying out a night owl lifestyle once she was old enough to make her own sleep schedules; if for no other reason than just to see what it’s like.
On the desk in front of him, the phone began to ring, shattering the silence.
“He musta not been too happy about that.”
Getting two perplexed stares from her friends, Apple Bloom further elaborated.
“Ya ever interrupt a grownup durin’ their moment of peace and quiet? They get real grouchy.”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle then began nodding in understanding. The former recalled the numerous times she woke up Rainbow Dash from her naps. The latter winced at the memory of when Rarity had to cancel her spa day mid-visit after receiving a message about her little sister getting in trouble with the haydog stand owner.
Picking up the receiver, the familiar voice of the line controller - who was stationed offsite - told Steve that he was looking at the CCTV feed from the east-bound platform of Liverpool Street and that he could see a man down there standing near the tunnel entrance. Steve Coates, the station supervisor checked his watch. It was just after 2 am. The gates to the station had been closed and padlocked almost three hours beforehand, so there shouldn’t have been anyone besides him inside the station itself. As Scootaloo felt shiver dread come over her, Steve told the line controller that he would go down and check and then hung up.
The next image showed Coates down in the tunnel’s platform, flashlight shining bright, doing a thorough sweep of the area after having been taken down there by “escalator”. The trio of fillies found themselves wondering why he would need to take this so-called “escalator” when there seemed to be a perfectly usable set of stairs right behind him. As he reached the east-bound tunnel entrance, he took out his torch and shone it onto the tracks receding into the pitch dark of the subway. He also checked the line immediately below the platform as he made his way back, but there was no one there. At the bottom of the escalators, there was a public phone.
“Wait, so the escalators are those stairs?”, Scootaloo asked. “Is that what they call them in their world?”
“Ah coulda sworn ah heard ‘em just called stairs in some other story we watched.”, Apple Bloom said.
Steve used this public phone to call the line controller back and tell him that he had carried a thorough search and found the platform to be secure. However, the line controller’s response didn’t make any sense. As the controller’s reply was played, the illustration showed a blurry, out of focus white figure materialize into view.
“I can see you on the monitor right now. I can see the tunnel’s entrance; he’s standing right there. He’s wearing white overalls.”, the controller said over the phone.
Scootaloo once again experienced that now all too familiar feeling of her hair standing up on the back of her neck. She then gulped as a means of releasing her tension quickly, a sort of pacifying behavior. Confused, Steve agreed to take another look, leaving the phone hanging with the controller on the other end of the line. He went off and performed another search, but still the platform was completely empty. The illustration visually undercut the narrator’s words, showing Steve shining his light directly on the ghostly figure. Though he was still completely unfazed, as if the man was invisible to him. The figure then disappeared from the viewers’ sight after Steve turned off his light and made his way back to the phone.
“There’s no one else here,” he said to his colleague when he got back to the phone, but the line controller was having none of it.
“How did you not see him? He was standing right next to you. He was wearing white overalls, you shone your torch right at him for several seconds. There is no way you couldn’t have seen him!”
“Either you’re winding me up or there is a glitch on your screen,”, Steve replied. “I’ve done two sweeps now, and I’m telling you there is no one else here!”
“What would you assume was actually happening if you were in Steve’s place?”, Sweetie Belle asked both of her friends.
Scootaloo tried to think of what Rainbow would probably do.
“I’d probably guess that somepony is just messing with me.”, she said, relieved that she didn’t have to admit that she’d would’ve automatically lost her cool after assuming it was a ghost.
“Right…”, Apple Bloom said in a skeptical tone as she eyed the pegasus. “Well, ah would probably make the same assumption.”
“I don’t know.”, Sweetie said. “I think I would give the controller the benefit of the doubt. If there really is some magic in the human world, then maybe someone is using it to make themselves invisible.”
“If they’re invisible, then why does the controller still see them?”, asked Scootaloo.
“Maybe it only works on someone’s eyes but they can still show up on camera?”, Sweetie suggested.
With that he put the phone down and turned to go back up the escalators, when something made him stop in his tracks. On the bench to his right, he saw something draped over the seat and arm rest. Shining his torch at it revealed it to be a set of white overalls which were definitely not there before.
“Don’t pick them up, don’t pick them up, don’t pick them up!”, Scootaloo ravenously repeated in her own head.
Surprisingly, the other two held similar sentiments, feeling that inspecting those overalls or touching might be asking for trouble; it was best to just get out of there instead. A sudden chill went up Coates’ spine as he quickened his pace and made his way back up to the ticket office. He didn’t know it at the time, but he had just had a run in with the famous Liverpool Street ghost. Though she knew what the narrator meant, Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but wonder if this ghost was just as famous amongst the dead as they are among the living. Like, does a ghosts’ “street cred” increase the more living beings they scare?
The story then cut to what appeared to be one of the London Underground’s entrances, closed off by some sort of striped belt stanchion. The narrator then began explaining how the London Underground was opened in 1890, making it the human world’s oldest subway system. It was said that each year 1.3 billion people pass through its 270 stations, which are collectively manned by nearly 6000 members of staff. The Crusaders all felt their eyes widen in shock upon hearing that statistic. It wasn’t enough that these humans vastly surpassed them in technological advancement, but apparently they dwarf them in population size as well. The number of humans going through London Underground alone was almost half the entire population of sapient creatures on the planet Equis where they lived.
“They’re… fudgin’ those numbers somehow, right?”, Apple Bloom asked rhetorically with a hint of uncertainty.
Most of the passengers who take the subway do so without a second thought, completely oblivious to the history which surrounds them.
“Ugh, that line sounds like something our history teacher says on our field trips.”, Scootaloo grumbled.
“Ah don’t think our trips are so bad. Sure is a change of pace from bein’ stuck in the classroom.”, Apple Bloom countered.
Sweetie Belle sighed, “I guess. But Mr. Yesteryear’s talent really does seem to be finding the boring in the exciting.”
It was true. Despite their middle school booking objectively interesting field trip destinations, their teacher still found it necessary to tediously detail the most pointless aspects of the place. Some of the places that they’ve gone to on their trips include a castle in Trottingham that famously fought off a dragon, an abandoned earth pony village from the pre-unification days that was devastated by a plague, an old theater where one of Equestria’s greatest playwrights did her best work, and a shipyard that housed the largest armada in history before it was sent off to do battle with the Kelpies. Yet, every time the whole class was ready to fall asleep by the time he got to the interesting parts.
The narrator continued explaining that the ground in which this subway system was built has been settled upon for millennia. From the Underground’s initial inception right up to the present day, there have been thousands of accidental deaths, suicides and tragic events, not to mention the amount of graveyards, cemeteries, plague pits and church crypts which have been disrupted or relocated during its construction. Add all these together and the number of potentially disturbed souls begins to soar. Apple Bloom once again thought back to her school’s field trip to that ancient earth pony village. She remembered Mr. Yesteryear explaining how back in the day when a devastating disease broke out in the earth pony nation, towns would be overwhelmed by the amount of cadavers they suddenly had on their hooves. They had to make entirely new mass graves on the fly, which they also called plague pits; they actually visited the village’s plague pit that day.
For the average commuter, the day-to-day experience of riding down the tube is one of over-crowded chaos, especially in the headache-inducing rush hour. For Scootaloo, this resurrected an unpleasant memory of one of her many trips to see Rainbow Dash’s Wonderbolts performances.
“Grrr! Don’t talk to me about rush hour, please!”, Scootaloo growled. “It was freakin’ impossible to make my way through Cloudsdale during its rush hour!”
While the other two fillies wondered how traffic was a problem in a town where everypony flies, the narrator talked about how those passing through the Underground would discover an entirely different world if they were able to visit any one of the many station during the midnight hours long after closing. One which is mostly peaceful but can also be unnerving, haunting and downright eerie.
“Mac says that’s exactly what the farm is like for him when the rest of us ain’t around or are sleepin’.”, Apple Bloom remarked. “Says he always treasures it, though.”
“Kind of like how my dad really values his time on the toilet.”, Sweetie muttered quietly.
The narrator then declared that he would be just some of the stories told by those who work on the London Underground. The screen cut to an incredibly rotund human with a mustache and suit and tie sitting in a booth. The man, named Tariq Rana, was the supervisor of Becontree Station who was working a late shift after closing down for the night. He was just finishing off some final paperwork and then planned to head home. On the right side of the office in which he was sitting, there was a door which led up to the overground District Line platform. In the relative silence, the door began to rattle, but Tariq thought nothing of it.
Scootaloo frowned, “I really hope that didn’t turn out to be the last mistake he ever made.”
Rattling doors were a frequent occurrence due to the up and down drafts created by passing trains, so he simply assumed that a train was approaching on the District Line.
Sweetie Belle grimaced, “Coco Pommel would be able to talk to anypony about that all day.”
“Ain’t that the mare who helps run Rarity’s shop in Manehattan?”, Apple Bloom asked.
“Yeah.”, Sweetie answered. “One time she was having a chat with Rarity here at Carousel Boutique, she got into a super scary rant about how the trains passing by her apartment break her concentration, cause stuff to fall off the counter and break on the floor, and even how it keeps her from getting a good sleep.”
As the memory of the uncharacteristically intense raving from the usually demure mare came flooding back to Sweetie, the other two went back to listening to the narrator. He described how a few minutes later, when the door rattled a second time, Rana was sure he would soon hear the sound of carriages passing above and to the right of him. However, that sound never materialized. Confused, he made his way through the door and up on to the District Line platform to see what was going on. Looking up and down the tracks, he could see that no trains were approaching from either the left or right.
Even though he could feel no breeze on the night air, he reasoned that the rattling must have been caused by the wind and headed back down to the office to finish up, but no sooner had he closed the door behind him when it rattled a third time. This time though, it was much more sustained. Unnerved by this bizarre occurrence, he decided to heap up to the station foyer, where another member of staff was working. As he stepped out onto the disused subway platform and began to make his way up the steps, he suddenly experienced an intense feeling that someone was standing behind him.
Scootaloo, as quickly and discreetly as she could manage, turned her head back to get a look behind her. Then, just as quickly, she turned it back around and for a second it felt like nopony had noticed. That is, until she looked to her right to see Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looking back at her, snickering all the while. The pegasus filly sighed and went back to watching the story, not even making an effort to hide the very slight tinge of a blush that formed on her cheeks. The universe really did seem to have a bone to pick with her lately; so, of course, it couldn’t allow her to avoid embarrassment for once.
Turning his head, Tariq saw the terrifying image a woman with long blonde hair and a long, old-fashioned dress a few steps further down from where he was. All three fillies let out a small, involuntary gasp when their eyes fell upon the woman’s face… or lack of a face, more accurately; every part where her facial features were supposed to be was left entirely blank. Sweetie Belle slowly raised her hoof and placed it upon her cheek. If that was what happened to someone if they became a ghost, she somehow wanted to be a ghost even less than she already did, if that was even possible. Being a lost soul cursed to roam the place of your death for eternity was bad enough. But to her, being left completely unrecognizable on top of that would be the rotten cherry on top.
Utterly shaken, Tariq turned and ran up to the station foyer, taking three steps at a time. When they met, his colleague remarked how he looked like he had seen a ghost.
Tariq replied by saying, “I think I just have.”
His co-worker’s response was, “Did you see the blonde woman with no face?”
“Oh boy. It has a reputation.”, Apple Bloom stated with both anticipation and apprehension.
While this meant that they’d probably be getting an interesting backstory on this spirit, the backstory and subsequent actions of this woman during her afterlife might turn out to be stomach-turning to learn about.
Apparently, in 1958, there was a train collision at this station on the District Line, which killed ten people and Tariq was not the only person to have seen the blonde lady of Becontree.
“So, were they implying she was one of the passengers on that train when it crashed back then?”, Sweetie Belle asked.
“What else would they be implyin’, Sweetie?”, Apple Bloom responded incredulously.
The story cut to an image of two sets of those escalator stairs that were mentioned earlier, set in a station twelve miles west of Becontree at Hyde Park Corner, one of the most central stops on the network. Back in November of 1978, Barry Oakley was working the night shift, long after the last train had left. He and a colleague had shut the escalators down by removing the corresponding circuit breakers in the control room.
With her mouth hanging slightly open and one eyebrow raised, Scootaloo asked, “Why would stairs need machine parts in the first place? What do these do that’s different?”
They had then returned to the supervisor’s office to continue their administrative tasks. At around 2:30 in the morning, they heard an almighty commotion outside, which sounded like grinding gears mixed with a rhythmic knocking. Running out to the foyer, the two men stared in bewilderment at the escalator that they had previously shut down was now running again but making a “hell”(?) of a racket in the process. Sweetie Belle tilted her head slightly at the sight before her.
“Are those stairs moving?”, she asked.
“Why would they need stairs that carry you down to the bottom for?”, Scootaloo wondered before adding, “Seems a bit lazy, honestly.”
“Actually, ah think Granny Smith woulda loved havin’ these”, Apple Bloom remarked. “What with her back aches and bad legs n’ such.”
The farm filly’s smile slowly curved downward into a small frown as she was reminded of the fact that she can no longer get her grandma’s opinions on things like this; now that the old mare was no longer in the picture. Apple Bloom then immediately tried to bring her attention back to the story. She preferred to think about Granny Smith only for small bits at a time these days.
The running escalators came as a complete shock to the two men. As far as they were aware, once the circuit breakers had been removed, it was impossible for the escalators to run, as there was no power going to them. Not only that, but it would require a special key to start back up again. After a brief investigation, in which they found the circuit breaker was still removed, they managed to shut the escalator down once more and then returned to the office. Barry would later say that during this whole time, he had a sense that someone else was there with them besides himself and his colleague. After settling back into his paper work, he happened to glance across to his co-worker and saw that he was standing with his back flat against the office wall, pale faced and clearly in some sort of trance.
Scootaloo as well as the other two girls tensed up. After seeing the creepy faceless girl, they were pretty apprehensive about how it might escalate from that. The pegasus filly had a bad feeling this next one might not just be faceless, but headless even. Maybe even carrying its own severed head in it hands. Sort of like a certain headless spirit she was already familiar with.
Barry’s initial thought was that the man was having a seizure, as he was completely unresponsive.
“Ah actually think ah would rather have ta deal with a hauntin’ than deal with somepony with a seizure.”, Apple Bloom commented.
Scootaloo turned to look at the farm filly in confusion, “Huh? Why?”.
“Do ya know what ta do when somepony has a seizure? Cuz ah sure don’t.”, she answered simply.
After several minutes, the co-worker came back to his senses and with a haunted look he said, “Did you see the face?”.
“Uh oh.”, Sweetie thought before using her eyes to scan the illustration and see if a face had in fact come into view.
Apparently, as the two had been sitting there working away, a hideous face had appeared at the office window and stared at both of them. As the narrator said this, the ghost’s face finally materialized into view. All three fillies could feel their heartbeats increase for a moment at the sight of this ghost’s empty black eye sockets and its big “grin”. What at first they thought might have been a burlap sack placed over the ghost’s head like a mask turned out to be the an entire, leathery layer of skin with a few dumps of hair still up top covering the skull. Barry’s colleague went home shortly after this encounter and never returned to that particular station.
After the screen cut to a worker in a hard hat shining his flashlight down the dark railroad tunnel, the story began talking about one of the most “unenviable” jobs on the London Underground, track walking. Track Walkers are required to patrol the tunnels at night, long after the trains have stopped, usually moving from one station to another. They do this alone and completely in the dark, with only a “battery”(?) powered torch to light the way. Upon hearing the description of this job, all three fillies shared the exact same thoughts about it.
“No way would I ever take that job.”, Scootaloo said, giving voice to their collective consensus.
“Same.”, Sweetie Belle agreed.
Then they both heard a chuckle coming from next to them. Turning to the source of the noise, they saw Apple Bloom covering her pleasant smile with her hoof, trying to suppress her giggles. It didn’t seem to be born out of any perceived hilarity though. Rather, it appeared more nostalgic in nature when judging by the look in her eyes.
“What are you laughing about?”, Sweetie Belle asked.
“It’s nothin’.”, Apple Bloom answered. “Ah was just thinkin’ about how if we were watchin’ this a few years ago, we’d all wanna try ta see if we can get cutie marks for bein’ track walkers.”
They all shared a light-hearted giggle, paradoxically remembering those days fondly while also being glad they were behind them. During their moment of reminiscence, the story began following a veteran track walker of twenty years named Bill McCown. On one particular occasion, he was walking the Jubilee Line between the stations of Finchley and Charring Cross, a distance of about eight miles. He decided to take a break on a stretch of track between Baker’s Street and St. John’s Wood. He had been sitting down for about two minutes when he heard a strange sound off to his right. Shining his torch in that direction, he couldn’t see anything, but then he suddenly noticed that the ballast between the tracks was suddenly moving.
“What’s ballast?”, Sweetie Belle questioned.
“You don’t know what ballast is, lil’ Miss dictionary?”, Apple Bloom puzzled.
With a roll of her eyes, Sweetie once again asked, this time in a tone riddled with snide.
“Well, do you know the answer then?”
Shrugging, Apple Bloom proceeded to explain.
“Ballast is anythin’ that’s suppose ta help keep a structure together and make it more stable. Here, the ballast is a bunch a stones underneath the tracks that helps keep it in place.”
Satisfied with explanation, Sweetie and her friends went back to watching the story. As the commotion moved closer to him, McCown could hear footsteps walking past and, in the torchlight, he could see the ballast sinking down with each step. Dumbfounded by what he was witnessing, Bill later reported that he felt a tingling sensation, like static all through his body as it drew level with him. It carried on past him for about ten meters, and then stopped. The three fillies looked on as footprints formed in the gravel of the tracks in front of McCown, with no person visible to be leaving them in the first place.
Sitting in complete silence once more, Bill contemplated that he had to continue walking in that same direction in order to finish his patrol, which he did, with no small amount of trepidation.
In a now familiar scene, when the track walker reached Charing Cross station, his supervisor remarked on how pale he looked.
Bill responded with, “You’re not going to believe what just happened!”.
But before he could explain, his supervisor quickly cut him off and said, “Don’t tell me; you’ve seen footprints in the ballast.”
“Huh… just like the guy who saw the faceless lady.”, Sweetie Belle thought.
Bill was not the first person to have witnessed the phenomenon and he wouldn’t be the last. Records show that a track walker suffered a fatal heart attack whilst patrolling that same stretch of the Jubilee Line many years before. Scootaloo had snapped from her constant shaking after something strange occurred to her about the whole situation.
“So, wait. This guy is supposed to been working here as track walker for years and years, but everyone except him had heard of these ghost footprints during all that time?”, she asked, perplexed.
Apple Bloom raised a hoof to her chin, “Hmm. That is a bit weird.”
“Maybe he did work for years as track walker.”, Sweetie chimed in. “But this might have been one of his first night working at this railway.”
As the story proceeded to transition to an image of the inside of a subway passenger cart, the narrator described how Kennington station is one of the most haunted in the network. More unexplained phenomena is said to be reported there than anywhere else, thanks to a section of track known as Kennington Loop. Sweetie Belle’s very silly unspoken question about whether or not it was like a roller coaster loop got answered when it was explained that the loop exists to allow southbound trains to turn around and head north again. Passengers are cleared out at Kennington Station, before the empty trains are sent into the loop, where they will often have to wait for up to twenty minutes in the 150-year-old tunnels. And whilst they are waiting, there is no way anyone can get on or off the train.
All three Crusaders were shocked by that last detail.
“What!?”, Apple Bloom exclaimed, both arms extended out fully as she gestured at the screen. “So, if a fire breaks out on that train while it’s in the loop, you’re screwed!?”
“Why do I get the feeling this caused the death of the next ghost we’re going to learn about?”, Sweetie Belle rhetorically asked.
Caught in one of those moments where one feels inexplicably compelled to play Grogar’s advocate, she decided to offer a counter.
“I’m sure those humans have probably installed a gadget and gizmo for every scenario on their trains.”
After brushing her hoof through her mane from front to back and puffing her chest out, she continued.
“Plus, if you two are so scared of getting trapped in a little train carriage, I’ll totally lead us out of trouble like I always do!”, she declared.
Scootaloo’s friends looked upon her and her self-satisfied face like an over inflated balloon ready to be popped. And luckily for Sweetie Belle, she had the right needle for the job.
“OW!”
The orange pegasus covered her right eye after Sweetie’s crumpled up ball of paper hit its target.
Bob Cairn and Larry de Larrabeiti both worked on the Northern Line; Bob was a driver and Larry was a guard. Larry describes how, many years ago, he was working on a train that had been sent into the loop. There had been an incident further up the line, which meant that he and his driver were stuck there for about ten minutes. Sitting in the rearmost carriage, he heard the unmistakable sound further up the train of the interconnecting doors between each car opening. It was getting closer and closer until finally the doors to his carriage opened and he turned expecting to see his driver, but there was nobody there. Similarly, Bob also heard the sound of the doors opening at the front end of the train and he turned expecting to see his colleague but was greeted by dead air.
“Wait, so which direction is this ghost coming from?”, Sweetie Belle wondered.
“Uhh… it might be comin’ from both ways… somehow.”, Apple Bloom replied.
“Or there’s more than one ghost.”, Scootaloo added nervously.
The twist in this tale is that Bob and Larry were on different trains; their experiences took place four years apart from each other and the two men have never met.
“Wha?”
“Huh!?”
“The buck!?”
Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom each respectively voiced their utter confusion.
The story goes that a passenger had been killed at Kennington fifty years beforehand whilst trying to board the train between carriages. His body was dragged into the loop. None of the fillies wanted to picture the outcome of that, they didn’t need such a mental image.
“So, wait. Was it saying one of them was the ghost?”, Sweetie asked.
“Nah. Ah think they were just two unrelated guys who both encountered the same ghost.”, Apple Bloom answered. “Just at different times.”
“Well, what was the point of that?”, Scootaloo asked.
This action by the narrator reminded Sweetie of yet another one of their instructors; their literature teacher this time. She always liked to insert random twists and deviations of the story she was reading to the class. If she had to guess, Sweetie would say she probably does this to keep everypony on the tips of their hooves or make sure they’re paying attention.
The narrator continued, remarking how the London Underground seemed to be steeped in stories of the unexplained. Almost every station appears to exhibit its own strange phenomena or has its own resident ghost, sometimes several. There was so much more to tell, from the accounts regarding the “Nun”(?) of Bank Monument Station, to the phantom maintenance man of South Island Place. From the crying children of Bethnal Green to the demonic presence which stalks a disused tunnel at Embankment. Not to mention the strange activity often witnessed at the fifteen abandoned stations still attached to the network. The narrator expressed to the audience his interest in revisiting this subject in the near future.
“That sure does sound like it could be a mite good three parter.”, Apple Bloom confessed. “Ah am awful curious about all that other stuff they just mentioned.”
The narrator then began to wonder if there was an explanation for what people were experiencing in the London Underground. Unfortunately, very little exists in the way of proof. Over the years, some very interesting images have been taken, but like so many pictures of so-called ghosts, they are inconclusive; what’s left is mostly anecdotal accounts.
“Yeah, like the photo of that so-called white ghost at that tomb in Saddle Arabia.”, said Apple Bloom.
Scootaloo turned to her and crossly declared, “That was absolutely a ghost and you know it! What else glows like that during daytime?”
“Ah keep tellin’ ya, that was from the photo bein’ overexposed!”, the farm filly shot back. “For Celestia’s sake, we used ta take pictures for our school newspaper, remember? Y’all should know stuff like this!”
As the two continued arguing, the narrator went on to discussing a study from within the last decade conducted by Coventry University. It uncovered high levels of infrasound in many of the alleged hotspots. However, whilst this might account for feelings of unease or auditory anomalies, it would rarely, if ever, result in hallucinations of full-bodied apparitions. Sweetie Belle grew intrigued by this. She’d certainly heard of things like enchanted instruments being able to alter a pony’s mind, but she never knew that naturally-occurring sound could have similar effects.
Whatever the case may be, whether people really are seeing the spirits of those who have tragically lost their lives in these tunnels, or are simply repeating well-established ghost stories for their fifteen minutes of fame, it is probably best to approach the London Underground with an open mind. According to the narrator, more often than not, it is the people who expect to see something who witness nothing at all and those who expect to see nothing who end up having a life-changing experience.
“Well, when ya put it like that, it sounds like ghosts are real… real jerks that is.”, Apple Bloom concluded.
After sharing a good chuckle at Apple Bloom’s joke, Sweetie Belle turned to Scootaloo and said, “Alright, Scoots. Your turn at scrolling through the list is long overdue.”
She levitated the pen to Scootaloo, who took it in her mouth without protest.
“Actually, Scoots. Could ya check if there’s any more parts to this video before we decide to pick a different one?”, Apple Bloom requested.
“Uhh… sure.”, the pegasus filly said with the pen still between her teeth.
Of course, she didn’t let them know just how badly she hoped that a second part hadn’t been made. She really didn’t want to watch more than one ghost video tonight.