Silent Facade
For the first few mornings, it barely registered. The woman, her name was Claire, took the 7:12 a.m. train from Westford Station to the city every weekday. She stood on the same section of the platform, coffee in hand, scrolling absentmindedly through her phone while waiting for the train to screech in. That was her ritual. It was only after the third or fourth morning that she noticed the man.
He was always on the opposite platform, standing perfectly still. Mid-thirties, perhaps. Average height. Nondescript clothes—a charcoal overcoat, a plain scarf. But what struck her most was his expression. He was smiling. Not just a polite smile, either. This was broader. Fixed. His teeth were straight and very white, but there was no warmth in his eyes. It was the kind of smile you might see in a staged photograph—one held for far too long.
The first time she caught his gaze, she looked away quickly, telling herself it was nothing. People sometimes made accidental eye contact on public transport. Maybe he was just a morning person.
But the next day, he was there again. Same spot. Same expression. And this time, his eyes locked onto hers the moment she stepped onto the platform.
By the end of the week, Claire had grown uncomfortable. His smile never faltered. He didn’t blink much, either. Once, she tried to ignore him entirely, keeping her eyes fixed on her phone, but when the train passed and the blur of motion cleared, he was still there—still smiling.
At first, she told herself she was imagining things. That the tension in her stomach was just from lack of sleep, that maybe his smile wasn’t meant for her specifically. But over the next few days, the smile began to change. It seemed wider now. More strained. His lips pulled back too far, the skin at the corners of his mouth taut, as if his face wasn’t built to hold the expression for so long. And yet, his eyes never softened—they only stared.
One morning, Claire thought she saw his jaw tremble, like he was suppressing the urge to laugh—or scream. By the following Tuesday, she decided to test herself. As she stepped onto the platform, she glanced across. He was there, of course, waiting. The grin snapped into place the second she appeared. Her pulse quickened. This was insane. She was a grown woman; she refused to be intimidated by a stranger’s expression. So she smiled back.
A quick, polite smile. Nothing more. To her surprise, his grin faltered just for a second. The corners of his mouth twitched, as though he hadn’t expected it. But then it returned, sharper than before, his teeth gleaming in the pale morning light. Claire’s train arrived then, and she ducked inside without looking back.
The next morning, Claire was making coffee when her phone buzzed with a push notification from a local news app. She almost ignored it—until the headline made her freeze.
“Serial Killer Linked to Train Station Sightings – Police Seek Information”
She tapped the article. The report detailed a man suspected of multiple murders across the city over the past year. His modus operandi was chilling: he would choose his victims in public spaces, smiling at them repeatedly to create a false sense of familiarity. When they finally let their guard down—often by smiling back—he would follow them, corner them, and kill them.
The police had released a description. Mid-thirties. Average build. Charcoal coat. Thin-lipped smile. Claire read it three times before her coffee went cold. It was him. The article mentioned Westford Station by name.
That day, she took the bus. For the rest of the week, she avoided the train entirely. She kept her curtains closed at night, locked her doors twice, checked the windows before bed. It was paranoia, she told herself. But paranoia was safer than the alternative.
On the fourth night after seeing the news, she woke at 3:47 a.m. to get a glass of water. The first thing she noticed was the faint smell of leather—old leather, the kind used in coats or gloves. The second thing she noticed was the floor.
Just beside her bed, barely visible in the dim orange light from the streetlamp outside, were shoe prints. Large, heavy, pressed into the carpet as though someone had been standing there for a long time.
Her breath caught in her throat. She scanned the room. Nothing moved.
Slowly, she reached for her phone and called the police.
When the officers arrived, they combed the apartment. Kitchen. Bathroom. Closets. All clear.
Then one of them, a younger cop named Harris, crouched beside her bed.
Claire watched as he lifted the bed skirt and peered underneath. His eyes widened slightly.
“Ma’am,”
He said, his voice carefully controlled,
“I’m going to need you to step out into the hallway.”
She didn’t ask why. Later, in the corridor, one of the officers told her in a low voice that someone had been sleeping under her bed. For days, judging by the disturbed dust and the small pile of candy wrappers, water bottles, and most chilling of all, train ticket stubs. Every single one was for the 7:12 a.m. Westford line.
The police relocated her to a safehouse that night. She was told not to return to her apartment, not even to collect the rest of her belongings. They’d bring her what she needed. She slept in a locked, windowless room, with a guard posted outside. And yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling of that smile stretched too wide, teeth too white hovering just out of sight. Every creak of the building made her heart race.
Two days later, Detective Raines came to speak with her. They’d found fingerprints under her bed, he said. They matched the man suspected in the serial killings. But that wasn’t the worst part. When they’d examined her bedroom more closely, they discovered a small camera taped beneath the frame of her bed, angled upward. The memory card contained hundreds of hours of footage of her sleeping. And in some of the clips—grainy, but unmistakable—she wasn’t alone in the frame. A man was lying there beside her, his face turned toward hers. Smiling.
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