The Man In The Middle

The Man In The Middle is a story about a woman who has a scary encounter on a subway train. It appears in More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.



The Story
It was almost midnight. Sally Truitt had just gotten on the subway train at Fiftieth Street after visiting her mother. "Don't worry," Sally had told her. "The subway is safe. There is a policeman on duty." But that night she didn't see one. Except for her, the subway car was empty. At Forty-second Street, three tough-looking men got on. Two of them were holding up the third, who looked drunk. His head rolled from side to side, and his legs refused to work. When they got him seated between them, his head came to rest on one of his shoulders. Sally thought he was staring at her. She buried her head in a book and tried not to notice.

At Twenty-eighth Street, one of the men stood up. "Take it easy, Jim," he said to the man in the middle, and he got off. At Twenty-third Street, Jim's other friend stood up. "You'll be fine," he said, and he got off.

Now the only ones left in the car were Jim and Sally. Just then the train went around a sharp curve, and Jim pitched onto the floor at Sally's feet. When she looked down at him, she saw a trickle of blood on the side of his head and, just above it, a bullet hole.