The train carriage was busy, far from full, but still quite jammed.
The woman opposite Boyle was the center of everyone’s attention. She was well-dressed. Classy, not showy, yet clearly from money. It wasn’t doing her any good at this exact moment though, not with a pair of children under five screeching beside her. 
The boy had knocked the girl’s yoghurt over, destroying the back of some man’s trousers in the process. She’d reddened his face with an almighty slap–the sort of belt only siblings can deliver. There were tears, spit, roars and shouting. The flustered mum was on her hunkers, trying to separate the two of them.
Weary commuters eyed the trio, muttering audibly, tutting loudly. The train pulled into Castleknock station, and Boyle was up. A quick dip as he feigned struggling to get around the mum, stepped out onto the platform, then hot-footed it from the station. He ducked beneath the bridge until the train departed.
In the clear now he removed the handbag from under his coat and riffled through its contents. A phone, passport, purse. All these found their way into his pockets. Twitching fingers lingered over a cheap, metal do-dad for a moment, decided it was worthless, then dropped it back amongst the tissues and other trash before hurling the bag into the canal.
Smiling Boyle set off to find Miles and get himself a bip.
Boyle woke up, head buzzing like a busted radio, eyes scratchy.
He rolled over. There was something on the pillow beside him, which was odd. There normally wasn’t.
He blinked. Focused. It certainly wasn’t a head. It was something else.
Boyle sat bolt upright and looked at the handbag that was perched where nothing should be.
Had he snatched it last night? While high? He couldn’t remember.
Boyle tilted the bag. The surface was sticky, like hot tar. Inside it was all old make-up, rubbish and a cheap metallic object. Two bars twisted together. It was weirdly familiar, and after a moment he recognised it as the same thing from the bag he’d ditched yesterday.
With a grunt, he chucked the bag onto the floor, pulled the covers over his head and tried to go back to sleep.
Boyle got home that evening to find the same bag waiting for him on the kitchen counter. There was a chill in the air as if he’d left a window open.
He frowned. He knew for sure he hadn’t put it there. If someone was fucking with him, it wasn’t funny.
He grabbed a knife from the dishwasher and stomped through the house, hunting.
The bag was on the living room couch the next day.
Boyle initially recoiled at the sight of it. Then he heard the whispering, like ghostly voices, like the wind. They seemed to draw him in.
Boyle sat down. He reached out, hands shaking.
The surface of the bag was sticky. It clung to his fingertips, icky and wrong. It stuck to his palms as he lifted the bag up. The noise got more intense the closer he brought it to his face.
The top folded open, forming a widening hole into the darkness. Inside he could see the twisted metal shape gleam, and he leaned towards it.
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Ken McGrath lives, with his wife, in an upsidedown house in Dublin, Ireland. His fiction has previously appeared in horror magazines and anthologies, such as Dark Descent: Whispers From Beyond, The Siren’s Call, Hyphenpunk and Tales From The Moonlit Path. You can find him online here https://kenmcgrathauthor.tumblr.com/ if you like.