I went down the steps three at a time, my heart back in pounding mode. It was getting darker as I went, like I was descending into you-know-where. There were lots of people in front of me but no one behind. I got to the bottom quickly and then noticed that someone was following me: the guy who had stopped and looked at me on the street above. It seemed like it was only him behind me, like I’d entered the subway at a moment when there were few people about, like a bubble in the crowds. I hurried toward the row of turnstiles.
The turnstiles were upright silver steel boxes with clear plastic things like the swinging doors in a saloon. You had to insert your ticket (which I did not have) into a slot in one of the boxes and that would momentarily open the doors so you could enter. I saw lots of people going through them in front of me.
Then I saw something really bad. There was an attendant watching everyone entering!
But I had to do this. I couldn’t turn around, not back toward that solitary guy who had looked so closely at me on the street, blond and unshaven, dead blue eyes—a perfect killer in a Swedish crime novel.
The crowd in front had gone through, and I was alone for a moment. I glanced at the attendant. He was looking away, his attention taken by something in the other direction.
I leapt over a turnstile!
Then I kept running. I didn’t turn around for a second, and I didn’t hear anyone shout. I was in!
This was one of those truly awesome Stockholm stations. I remembered reading on Mom’s laptop that this subway line was like the world’s longest art gallery, filled with incredible cave-like areas painted in striking colors, all with different themes.
I checked a map on a wall and found which platform to go to—just three stops to my destination—and then went down the long gleaming silver escalator, descending into the most breathtaking cave I’d ever laid eyes on. I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it again. It was deep red, and the surface kind of hung from the ceiling like lava from a volcano, as if it could drip on you. There were streaks of black in it, and it all glowed, almost as if you were in… you know where. I had been running down the escalator but I stopped hurrying for a moment and just took it in, which was a mistake. One of those silent trains had pulled up while I stood stock-still on the moving escalator, staring at the ceiling. People had quickly filed onto the train, nice and orderly like good Swedes, and by the time I looked over at it, the doors had all quietly closed.
I stepped off onto the floor in that blood-red cave as the train pulled out, and I was all alone. You could have heard a Swede breathe. I looked up the escalator to see the guy who had been behind me. And he wasn’t there.
I stood between the tracks in that dead silence in that bizarre place and started to freak out. I remembered how long it had taken the train to come when Grandpa and I were waiting at the station.
I stood there forever. The silence continued. No train came. Then I started to worry that it was getting late and the trains had stopped running. But it wasn’t late, although it was dark outside. Then I became concerned that they’d seen me jumping the turnstile on a subway camera and they’d shut everything down and were coming to get me. But that was ridiculous, and I couldn’t hear anyone. Not a single person. Not a single sound.
Wasn’t that weird? What was going on?
I kept waiting. Nothing happened. Then the ceiling and the red lava walls looked like they were moving! But that was impossible too. I realized that I was really freaking out.
And then the guy who had been following me emerged from the shadows in the cave, about thirty feet away, and started walking toward me!
I turned and ran.