Unplanned stop

 I tell it from my father's words, he likes to tell this story a dozen times to everyone who is happy to listen. He was teaching physics at the time and rode the subway every day. It was a long time ago, when our metro was still called Leningrad.

He was driving after work one day, and then the train stopped in the tunnel. Passengers are not panicking, everyone is doing their own thing. Only a sound began to be heard, as if water was gurgling somewhere, or a tunnel draft. They said over the speakerphone that the train would resume movement soon.

And then the lights went out.

There were no mobile phones to light up, and people in the dark began to worry. Someone lit a lighter, but it was of little use. A girl started crying in the carriage. People gradually began to worry and grumble, saying what an outrage. Through the grumbling, my father could make out the sounds from the tunnel: the murmuring had become louder.

"The tracks are flooded," a passenger said knowingly. — We'll be standing for a long time.

People started to worry, someone had already panicked and started shouting that the tunnel was going to flood up to the ceiling, and they would all drown here.

The train had been waiting for ten minutes. The water was gurgling quite clearly now — it seemed as if it was flowing directly under the carriages, and in a rather violent stream. In addition, there was another sound — as if someone was slapping wet palms on the glass and rubbing the glass with a characteristic creak. You never know what anyone does in the dark from idleness — my father did not pay attention to it at first, but then realized that the sound, firstly, was moving - the "flip—floper", invisible in the dark, moved from one end of the car to the other, faded away, and then returned back. And secondly, the sound was clearly coming from outside.

Even my father felt a chill here. Other passengers also began to notice something was amiss. At first, an aunt told them not to bully, but then a more attentive citizen whispered, "It's outside," and everyone fell silent at once.

Soon, the sound began to come from the other side of the car, as if this bully had easily bypassed the car and walked on the other side. The train was standing in pitch darkness in a tunnel in which water was clearly gurgling. The invisible minx easily reached the windows with his hands, although everyone can imagine the height of the car. At the same time, he jokingly walked around the car in a circle, as if the coupling between the cars was not a hindrance to him.

The guy with the lighter decided to investigate what was going on there. When the sound got closer to him (he was standing at the door), he lit a light and held it up to the glass...

Everyone who saw who was outside jumped to the other side of the carriage at once, so that it swayed. A face was staring at the glass. White, even bluer. It was difficult to see the details through the glass, but this creature had small dark eyes framed by thick dark circles, like those of a terminally ill person. His mouth was wide open, and the skin around it was sagging and flabby. It was only visible for a couple of seconds, then the guy dropped the lighter, and the car plunged back into darkness. Now the slapping on the glass has become more frequent. Someone screamed, "Close the windows!" People huddled together in the center of the car in a panic. Then the splashing of water was heard already inside the carriage, as if someone had knocked over a bucket on the floor...

My father doesn't remember much about what happened next, but for about five minutes there was complete confusion — people were screaming, clinging to each other, no one understood anything. And then suddenly the lights turned on. People looked at each other and at the black windows. The splashing stopped, the murmuring of the water subsided. The train started moving slowly. When the doors opened at the station, people rushed out so quickly that those on duty at the station even became worried.

And when my father looked back, he saw that the sides of the car and the windows were all wet, although, as it turned out later, there was no flooding of the tunnel, there was just a wiring malfunction, which was repaired in ten minutes.