Ashlyn's Radio (21 page)

They rolled up the blanket and climbed back into the Bimmer. Within eight minutes, they’d delivered Rachel up to her door.

As always, Ashlyn felt a pang leaving her. “Are you going to be okay?”

She grinned. “I’m going to be fabulous. Quiet times at Casa Riley, remember?”

They said their goodbyes and headed out. As the SUV ate up the miles, Ashlyn cleared her throat. “You’re not actually going to drive me directly home, are you?”

He looked over at her. “What else can I do? I promised Maudette.”

“Okay, how about this for a compromise? Drive me
almost
home. We can park on the side of the road again and make out until the very last moment before full darkness. You can then run me the last quarter mile and keep your promise. And I….” She let her broad smile seep into her words. “Well, I can lay my hands on you again.”

“Why you wicked woman.”

“Like you haven’t been thinking about it too!”

He groaned. “Every damned minute.”

He pulled the vehicle over onto the shoulder a good distance from Maudette’s. Ashlyn could see the porch light through the trees. As Caden killed the engine and the headlights, she hit the seatbelt release. Then they were reaching for each other across the console, kissing, touching. Ashlyn’s right hand sought the warm, muscled hardness of his chest, while her left hand went up into his hair. As his mouth explored hers, his hand cupped her face, then dropped to her throat, her collarbone. Groaning, she put her own hand over his and drew it down to where she wanted it.

She felt his gasp against her lips and smiled. Then his hand contracted and she was too lost in pleasure to think about who was leading whom.

Predictably, it was Caden who fought his way back to sanity.

“Ash.” He smoothed his hand over her hair, her face. “Ash, baby, we have to get you home. There’s barely any light left. If we don’t get you there in the next five minutes, I’ll make a liar out of myself.”

She pulled back, drawing a shaky breath. “You’re right. Just give me a sec to fix myself up a bit.”

She dropped the visor and flipped up the mirror, which immediately lit up. Caden also obliged by turning on the dome light for her. There wasn’t much she could do to erase the flush on her cheeks, but she finger-combed her hair and rubbed away a smear of lip gloss. “There.” She flipped the visor back up. “Ready.”

Just as Caden reached to key the ignition, they heard it. The long, lonesome whistle of the troop train.

They both froze.

“Rachel!”

Caden started the car, banged a uey, and stomped on the accelerator. They shot away from the opposite shoulder in a spurt of gravel before the tires gained purchase on the pavement.

P
RESCOTT JUNCTION WAS EERILY
quiet. Eerily dark and stone-still as Caden and Ashlyn tore through the streets. It was as if every curtain had pulled tightly closed and every door had slammed completely shut when the train whistle had sounded.

“They’re all in their beds,” Caden said, as if echoing Ashlyn’s thoughts. Both his hands were tight on the wheel at ten and two, and he stared straight ahead as he sped through the village.

“Let’s just hope they all stay in their beds. Including Rachel. Especially Rachel.” Ashlyn pulled a tight breath. “She promised.”

 “Yeah, she did. But you heard the radio.” Caden’s dark eyes met hers just long enough for her to see the depth of his worry. “The conductor’s coming to meet her. He’s hell bent on meeting her. He wants her, Ash. And you saw that look on her face the other night. That….”

“Pull,” Ashlyn finished for him. “That beautiful lure. Maybe she can’t help but run to the tracks when the whistle sounds.” Ashlyn bit down hard on the fear. She’d felt that seductive dark comfort too. Apparently not as strong as Rachel, but she’d felt it. “And that song, Caden. It’s not
if
she comes. It’s
when
she comes.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ashlyn slammed a hand to the SUV’s dash as Caden squealed around the corner, but she had no complaints about Caden’s heavy foot. Less than thirty seconds later, he took another sharp turn, this time taking them off the road.

Small rocks spun up and pinged off the underside of the SUV as Caden streaked across the rough, gravel-covered parking lot behind the train station. Ashlyn could almost feel him cringing — Papa Williams wouldn’t be pleased. Caden drove up to the platform, bringing the car to a stop as close to the tracks as possible.

The old train station?
“Why are we stopping here?”

“Because I imagine Rachel always watches — always waits — for the train at the same spot. The one where we met her the other night.” Caden unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Didn’t she say it was the best place for viewing?”

Of course Rachel would watch from that outcropping of land by the river. While the other night, Ashlyn and Caden had arrived there via the woods path, Rachel had taken her own short cut to get there. Ashlyn unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped into the night with Caden. Into the darkness of it, in quiet Prescott Junction.

Caden offered his hand. She took it, stepped down, then over one barely-visible silver railing to walk on the ties.

Walking home by the tracks after school under the afternoon sun was one thing, but trekking along them now on this dark, cloud-covered night, was another thing entirely. The dark closed in around them, and the cold held tight to their skin. As they walked further away from the station, down toward the train bridge they would have to cross, even the lone yellow light of the station twinkled out behind them. No crickets sounded from the brush that lined both sides of the track. No owls hooted, or dogs barked in the distance. Except for the quiet rush of the rapids that grew louder as they neared, the only sound Ashlyn was aware of at all was the noise of their own fast breathing as she and Caden hurried along the narrow tracks. She wished for sound — any sound! — until she finally heard that damnable one again, as the train whistle blew into the night.

More urgently now, closer. And somehow with promise.

Caden tightened his grip on her hand and she squeezed right back. They’d have to hurry — across the bridge and down the slope to the river to wait for the train. She felt Caden stiffen as he moved toward the center of the bridge.

“Wait,” she said. “Take the walkway along the side. We don’t want to be caught on the tracks when that train comes along.”

“Oh hell, no.”

They’d both seen how fast that train had moved the other night. Caden followed her lead as they raced to the wooden walkway, their feet clomping down on the black wood as they ran.

Would the train go right though us if we were standing on the tracks? Run us over? If our bodies dropped dead, would our souls be on that train? Trapped with the others?

But as soon as Ashlyn’s mind formed the questions, it formed one undisputable, unmistakable answer: you needed a ticket to truly get trapped on the train.

The conductor had held one out the other night to Rachel, and then offered it to her instead. And the price of the ticket was your soul, if you chose to board the dark beast.

“Is she there?” Ashlyn drew in a deep breath as they reached the end of the walkway and peered down the slope.

Caden shook his head as he looked down. “I … I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But we’d better get the heck down there.”

Ashlyn didn’t hesitate. Not just because they had to make sure Rachel wasn’t down there by the river waiting for the train, but because by the sound of the whistle blowing a third time, the train was almost upon them. Ashlyn’s feet skidded on the slick slope but she kept her footing as she made her way down.

“Thank God!” Caden said. “Rachel’s not here.”

They put their arms around each other. Not romantically this time, but in shared relief. Then in shared horror as the air suddenly changed around them. Gooseflesh rose on Ashlyn’s arms.

“It’s come,” she breathed.

Caden nodded. “Stay close.”

Again the hulking black train seemed to blur with speed as it came into view and raced along the tracks toward them. Ashlyn said a halting prayer that it would go right on by, but she knew it was futile. The ghost train slowed abruptly as it approached the train bridge, coming almost to a standstill. Then, at a virtual crawl, it huffed its way over the bridge like a living thing. A gleaming, glorious monster.

“Do you see them?” Despite the fear crawling through her, she frantically searched the windows, scanning the faces of the lost souls pressed against the panes. But as the train prowled past, she didn’t glimpse Patrick Murphy’s face.

“Caden?”

When he didn’t answer again, Ashlyn looked up to see that he was intently studying the faces himself. Of course. He was looking for a different youthful face, one that looked as if it could be his great-uncle James. Caden’s loss was different than hers, but it was just as real. Caden’s grief had to be too, as he witnessed his grandfather’s suffering.

The train came to a dead stop exactly where it had before, with the engine just past the train bridge, and just up from the slope where she and Caden watched and waited. The wails from those trapped on board grew louder as the chugging ceased. Those cries and whimpers absolutely broke Ashlyn’s heart. Suddenly, they too stopped and Ashlyn knew why.

She saw him again: evil personified.

The conductor.

The skeletal form stepped into the doorway of the engine car again. And despite having seen this sight before, Ashlyn again couldn’t look away from the conductor’s mesmerizing presence. Yet her mind could barely grasp what she saw. As she watched, he pulled a ticket — long and glowing white in the night — from his pocket. The conductor held it carefully as he examined it, nodded approvingly. He looked up, then down the tracks. With one hand on the doorframe, he leaned out from the train.

“All aboard!”

His booming voice shook Ashlyn down to her toes and Caden held her tighter. “Stay right here,” he said.

“I know.” Only then did she realize his grip on her was more than comforting now. It was protective. Holding on to her, holding her back. And Dear God, she was actually leaning toward the conductor! Her feet were planted hard on the ground, but she was definitely leaning toward that luring, strong, dark pull.

“All aboard!” The conductor’s gaze swept up and down the tracks again. Then he looked directly down, his fleshless, gleaming face focusing on Ashlyn and Caden. His grin grew wide. Terrifyingly wide, as he extended his hand toward them.

“Screw you!” Caden shouted.

Startled, Ashlyn turned to look at him. Hard anger shone in his eyes as he glared at the conductor.

“You can’t have her! You can’t—”

He stopped suddenly, and Ashlyn caught the gasp of fear in Caden’s voice as the words choked off. Slowly, dreading what she would see, she turned back toward the train. Her stomach clenched savagely as she saw that someone now stood before the conductor.

“She … she just walked around the front of the train,” Caden whispered. “From the other side of the tracks.”

Ashlyn recognized the long hair, the skirt, the tight sweater. And she recognized the broken, defeated posture of the young woman who stood crying beside the train.

Paulette Degagne.

Horrified she watched the conductor extend his ticket-holding hand out toward the young woman. His skeletal smile held comfort.

“Ms. Degagne!” Ashlyn shouted. “No!”

If Ms. Degagne heard, she didn’t let on. She took a step closer to the conductor, almost within his reach now. Almost close enough to take the ticket.

Without even thinking, Ashlyn tore away from Caden and began climbing the slope.

Caden raced beside her. “Ashlyn, don’t let him grab you. Don’t go near that train! You don’t know she’ll board.”

She heard him, and part of her mind wanted to heed that warning, but she was running on pure adrenaline, pure fear-fuelled panic. She alone knew how desperate Ms. Degagne was. How lost and hopeless. Looking for a way out.

“Don’t get on the train!” Ashlyn shouted again, and this time the librarian twitched, as if maybe she had heard the warning. Ashlyn was almost at the top of the slope, a few yards short of the tracks. “Please stop!” 

Degagne turned toward her and Ashlyn skidded to a stop.

“It’s … it’s my ticket out,” she said in a sad and pitiful voice. “The only ticket there is for me. The only way. Tell … tell Anthony Berg I loved him. That I always will.”

“Nooooo!”

Degagne took the ticket.

Instantly, her knees bent and her back arched as she let out a blood-curdling scream. Even as she writhed in agony, her hand remained closed tightly around the ticket. Her body did a spasmodic half turn, and Degagne’s eyes locked with Ashlyn’s. Horror claimed those eyes now, as if in her final moments, she realized just what she had done. The price she had paid.

Ashlyn’s knees gave out; she sank to the ground. Instantly, Caden was down beside her, his shaking arms around her once again.

The librarian’s body crumpled in a defeated heap beside the tracks. But her shade — her ghost of a soul — remained standing, staring at the conductor, ticket still clutched in her hand.