Dawn's Entry #2: Connections

Hills covered in fields were passing by and she hadn't seen anything else for the last hour and a half. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Green. Sage's head was resting in her lap, heavy as a rock. Dawn had been close to dozing off when a loud voice distorted her half-sleep. A boy across the mid-aisle was talking loudly on his phone, yet not many people seemed to mind his obnoxiousness.
"Gone? What do you mean 'gone', like it just wasn't in the coffin or what? ... Dude ... Bet there's complete bloody mayhem at the school or what? ... But what if-- yeah, exactly! But do you really think that's possi-- ... I know! I wonder if it's happened other places too. I'll call Fr-- yeah, I'll call Freddy and let him know too, he'll go nuts for sure. ... Yeah ... Really? ... Okay ... Well, call me if you find out something more, I don't know when I'll be there, the train was r-- yeah, it was really late. ... All right ... Bye!" The boy hung up the phone returned to whatever was going on on his laptop. Very carefully, in order to avoid waking up Sage, Dawn pulled out her phone from her pocket to check the time. The train ride offered a max of 15 minutes left before arriving in Tonbridge for the first time in ages. Suddenly Dawn realized that she had not yet called her brother to inform him about the train's delay. She looked at the time again. The train was supposed to have arrived half an hour ago. Why hadn't he called her? She dialed his number and put the phone to her ear. One boop. Two boops. Three boops. Four boops. Five boops. And then a mechanic sounding female voice spoke:
"You have reached the phone of" - followed by a scratchy recording - "... Asbjørn..." - "The recipient is currently unavailable.  Please leave a message after the tone. BLEEP." Dawn cleared her throat. She wasn't used to leaving him messages as he would usually pick up.
"Hey B. I, uhm... The train is late. So I won't be at the station before, like, y'know. I'll be there in 15 minutes, I think. Just... in case you were wondering why I wasn't there yet. Anyways, uhm, yeah. See you in a bit. Bye." Dawn hung up. She was making up several different scenarios in her head as to why her brother was not picking up the phone. Trying to shake it off, she stuffed the phone back in her pocket, accidentally waking up Sage. He let out a little whining sound and stared up at her with a concerned look on his face.

Isaac's Entry #1: An Early Mourning

It was raining outside. As always. Isaac was wearing a black uniform, a special school uniform that was only to be worn whenever a fellow student or teacher had passed away. Isaac felt uncomfortable wearing the uniform. It clung to his neck like a noose, forcing him to loosen his tie to get some of the "fresh" air from the men's bathroom. He faced the mirror, staring into his own brown eyes, his smart, short hair and slightly pale look. His scar that went across his left cheek. He sighed. The sudden death of his history teacher, Mr. Allistair, wasn't a big surprise, but the fact that the other teachers described Mr. Allistair's death as being attacked by a pack of ravenous dogs brought suspicious thoughts to Isaac's mind. Most of the dogs in Tunbridge were domesticated, and the area around Tunbridge wasn't notorious for it's wildlife either.

"You a'right mate?" said Jack. Jack had always been there for Isaac. During Isaac's first years at Tunbridge School for Educated Youngsters, Isaac got into many fights with the older and much stronger boys who bullied Isaac's classmates. Among these classmates was Jack.

"Yeah," Isaac said, straightening his tie. "I just feel like I'm being strangled. It might as well be me in that bloody casket today."

Jack laughed. So maybe this Friday wasn't going to be so awful as they had thought. He had his mate with him, and the rest of the day's lessons were cancelled. And today was the day that he was going to ask Emily out to the School Ball.

An hour later both of them were standing in the school church, surrounded by seven hundred other students of all ages. Isaac spotted Emily from where he was standing. Her gorgeous blue eyes caught his, a small smile on her lips. Isaac was about to give his most charming smile back, when the church doors opened with a boom and a yell from one of the teachers:
"The body! The body's gone!" the teacher shouted frantically, waving her arms about. "Mr. Allistair's body has vanished!"

Voices sprang up like wildfire. All over the room students were talking amongst each other. Isaac stared at Jack. There could only be two reasons why the body was gone, and the first one was more likely than the other. Mr. Allistair had returned from the dead. Question was, where was Mr. Allistair now?

"SILENCE! ALL OF YOU, SILENCE!" the Headmaster shouted. "Go back to your dormitories, immediately!"

Isaac tried to look for Emily, but was whisked away by the stream of students and teachers leaving the church before he could find her.

Dawn's Entry #1: Sunrise

The train was late. Dawn checked her wristwatch again to make sure she had not just left the house too early, but the arms of her watch showed 10:50 just as the heavy iron clock in the center of the station. She checked the time table on the platform a sixth time. She couldn't possibly have missed it, she had intentionally showed up half an hour early just to be on the safe side. A little delay would normally not have bothered her but forty minutes late seemed like a long time. What was even more strange was that save for an elderly lady and a bearded fellow with a grey baseball cap, she was alone on the platform. The Saturday train to the city was usually rather crowded. Upon arrival, hopefully in a few hours, Dawn's cousin had promised to come and pick her up at the station. It would be his first car ride after getting out of jail and Dawn had promised to cook him a royal meal to celebrate his new found freedom.
Sage was sitting next to Dawn's sparingly packed luggage, staring off into space. He didn't have much to worry about; he was just a dog, Dawn thought to herself. He could not grasp the concept of right and wrong and he wasn't capable of wondering about the train being too late. Her reluctance of talking to strangers was soon overcome by her annoyance of the transportational delay. When the long arm of the clock pointed straight up resulting in a single ringing sound that made Sage lazily lift his head with a soft grunt, Dawn had built up the confidence to approach the elderly lady sitting on a bench at the far end of the platform. "Excuse me, m--" she didn't get any further with her sentence before she noticed that the lady had her eyes closed. A cigarette butt was resting between her hook-like fingers and had long since burned out. Somewhat bewildered over how one could fall asleep at a train station and slightly taken by surprise, Dawn backed up. Wanting to get back to her luggage, she turned around and almost walked straight into the bearded man who had silently come up behind her.
"I was, I.. do you know why the train is late?" she stuttered, perplexed to have the man surprisingly and suddenly close to her. He stood in silence for what felt to Dawn like minutes before a tiny smile seemed to move beneath his beard.
"Haven't you heard?" he asked "The outbreak. It's finally come." Dawn's eyes flickered between the man's brownish teeth and the shadow of his cap that made it impossible to see his eyes.
"I'm not quite sure I follow, what do you mean 'outbreak'?" she asked hesitantly, confused, still trying to catch a look of his eyes but without luck.
"Take care" he suddenly muttered and turned his head towards the railway where the train was finally coming towards the platform. The loud shriek of the old breaks on the trail forced Dawn cover her ears with both her hands. Sage threw his head back and let out a howl, requesting Dawn to protect him from the monster that was the train. The loud noise ended as the train stopped. Dawn looked back up at bearded man but he was nowhere to be seen, like had he disappeared into thin air. She took a second to look around her back for him but when she could not locate him anywhere on the platform, she grabbed her bag in one hand and Sage's leash in the other and boarded the train. As she stared out of the window as the train slowly left the station, she could have sworn that the old lady slid lifelessly down the bench.