Dracula Unbound (5 page)

“They must have loved that suggestion!”

“They'll sort it out.”

“Maybe we should hit the sack too.”

But they stood under the stars, discussing the find. Bodenland endeavored to hide his skepticism, without great success.

“Experts are coming in from Chicago and Drumheller tomorrow,” Clift said. “You shall hear what they say. They will understand that the evidence of the strata cannot lie.”

“Come on, Bernie, sixty-five million years … My mind just won't take in such a span of time.”

“In the history of the universe—even of the earth, the solar system—65.5 million years is but yesterday.”

They were walking down the slope, silent. A gulf had opened between them. The students had all gone to bed, whether apart or together. Over the desert a stillness prevailed such as had done before men first entered the continent.

The light came from the west. Bodenland saw it first and motioned to his companion to stand still and observe. As far as they could judge the light was moving fast, and in their direction. It made no noise. It extended itself, until it resembled a comet rushing along over the ground. It was difficult to focus on. The men stood rooted to the spot in astonishment.

“But the railroad's miles distant!” Clift exclaimed, trying to keep his voice level.

Whatever the phenomenon was, it was approaching the camp at extreme velocity.

Without wasting words, Bodenland dashed forward, running down the slope, calling to Mina. He saw her light go on immediately in the camper. Satisfied he swerved and ran toward the trailer his son occupied. Banging on the door, he called Larry's name.

Hearing the commotion, others woke, other doors opened. Men ran naked out of tents. Clift called out for calm, but cries of amazement drowned his voice. The thing was plunging out of the desert. It seemed ever distant, ever near, as if time itself was suspended to allow it passage.

Bodenland put his arm protectively round Mina's shoulders when she appeared.

“Get to some high ground.” He gave Larry and Kylie similar orders when they came up, disheveled, but stood firm himself, unable not to watch that impossible progress.

The notion entered his head that it resembled a streamlined flier viewed through thick distorting glass. Still no sound. But the next moment it was on them, plunging through the heart of the little encampment—and all in silence. Screams rose from the Dixie students, who flung themselves to the ground.

Yet it had no impact, seemed to have no substance but light, to be as insubstantial as the luminescence it trailed behind it, which remained floating to the ground and disappeared like dying sparks.

Bodenland watched the ghastly thing go. It plunged right into and through one of the mesas, and finally was swallowed in the distance of the Utah night. It had appeared intent on destruction, yet not a thing in the camp was harmed. It had passed right through Larry's trailer, yet nothing showed the slightest sign of disarray.

Larry staggered up to his father and offered him a gulp from a silver hip flask.

“We've just seen the original ghost train, Joe,” he said.

“I'll believe anything now,” said Bodenland, gratefully accepting the flask.

When dawn came, and the desert was transformed from shadow to furnace, the members of the Old John encampment were still discussing the phenomenon of the previous night. Students of a metaphysical disposition argued that the ghost train—Larry's description was generally adopted—had no objective reality. It was amazing how many of these young people, scientifically trained, the cream of their year, could believe in a dozen wacky explanations. Many of them, it seemed to Bodenland as he listened and sipped coffee from the canteen, belonged to one kind of cult or another. Nearly all espoused explanations that chimed with their own particular set of beliefs.

Larry left the discussion early, dragging Kylie away, though she was clearly inclined to pitch into the debate.

One of the students who had been engaged in the previous night's scuffle increasingly monopolized the discussion.

“You guys are all crazy if you think this was some kind of an enemy secret weapon. If there was such a thing, America would have had it first and we'd know about it. Equally, it ain't some kind of Scientology thing, just to challenge your I.Q.'s to figure it out or join the Church. It's clear what happened. We're all suddenly stuck here in this desert, forbidden to communicate with our parents or the outside world, and we're feeling oppressed. Insecure. So what do we do? Why, it's natural—we get a mass hallucination. Nothing but nothing happened in Old John last night, except we all freaked out. So forget it. It'll probably happen again tonight till we all go crazy and get ourselves shipped to the funny farm.”

Bodenland stood up.

“People don't go crazy so easily, son. You're just shooting your mouth off. Why, I want to know, are you so keen to discount what you actually saw and experienced?”

“Because that thing couldn't be,” retorted the student.

“Wrong. Because you try to fit it in with your partial systems of belief and it won't fit. That's because of an error in your beliefs, not your experience. We all saw that fucking thing. It exists. Okay, so we can't account for it. Not yet. Any more than we can account for the ancient grave up there on the bluff. But scientific inquiry will sort out the truth from the lies—
if
we are honest in our observations!”

“So what was that ghost train, then?” demanded one of the girls. “You tell us.”

Bodenland sat down next to Mina again. “That's what I'm saying. I don't know. But I'm not discounting it on that account. If everything that could not be readily understood was discounted by some crap system of belief, we'd still be back in the Stone Age. As soon as we can talk to the outside world again, I'm getting on to the various nearby research establishments to find out who else has observed this so-called ghost train.”

Clift said quietly, “I've been working this desert fifteen years, Joe, and I never saw such a thing before. Nor did I ever hear of anyone else who did.”

“Well, we'll get to the bottom of it.”

“Just how do you propose to do that, Mr. Bodenland?” asked the girl who had spoken up before. Supportive murmurs came from her friends.

Bodenland grinned.

“If the train comes again tonight, I'm going to be ready to board it.”

The students set up such a racket he hardly heard Mina say at his side, “Jesus, Joe, you really are madder than they are …”

“Maybe—but we've got a helicopter and they haven't.”

Toward evening, Mina climbed with Bernard Clift to an eminence above the camp and looked westward.

Joe had been away most of the day. After having persuaded Larry and Kylie to stay on a little longer, he had ridden out with them to see if they could track down any signs of the ghost train.

“What's out there?” Mina asked, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“A few coyotes, the odd madman rejecting this century, preparing to reject the next one. Not much else,” Clift said. “Oh, they'll probably come across an old track leading to Enterprise City.”

She laughed. “Enterprise City! Oh, Joe'll love the sound of that. He'll take it as an omen.”

“Joe doesn't believe what we've got here, does he? That's why he's allowing this train thing to distract him, isn't it?”

Mina continued to stare westward with shielded eyes.

“I have a problem with my husband and my son, Bernard. Joe is such an achiever. He can't help overshadowing Larry. I feel very sorry for Larry. He tried to get out from his father's shadow and rejected the whole scientific business. Unfortunately, he moved sideways into groceries, and I can see why that riles Joe. No matter that he's made a financial success and supplies the whole southeastern area of the USA. Now marrying into Kylie's family's transport system, he'll be a whole lot more successful. Richer, I should say.”

“Doesn't that please Joe?”

She shook her head doubtfully. “Whatever else Joe is, he's not a mercenary man. I guess at present he's just waiting to see if a nice girl like Kylie can cure Larry of his drinking habits.”

“As you say, she's a nice girl right enough. But can she?”

She looked straight at Clift. “There's danger just in trying. Still, there's danger in everything. I should know. My hobby's free-fall parachuting.”

“I remember. And I've seen the articles on you in the slick magazines. Sounds like a wonderful hobby.”

She looked at him rather suspiciously, suspecting envy. “You get your kicks burrowing into the earth. I like to be way above it, with time and gravity in suspense.”

He pointed down the trail, where three figures on mules could be discerned in a cloud of dust.

“Your husband's on his way back. He was telling me he's also got time in suspense, in his laboratories.”

“Time isn't immutable, as the science of chaos proves. Basically Joe's inertial disposal system is a way of destabilizing time. Ten years ago the principles behind it were scarcely glimpsed. I like that. Basically, I'm on Joe's side, Bernard, so it's no good trying to get round me.”

He laughed but ignored the jibe.

“If time isn't immutable, what is it? Being up against millions of years, I should be told.”

“Time's like a fog with a wave structure. It's all to do with strange attractors. I can send you a paper about it. Tamper with the input, who knows what output you'll get.”

Clift laughed again.

“Just like life, in fact.”

“Also subject to chaos.”

They climbed down the hill path to meet Bodenland and his companions, covered in dust after the ride.

“Oh, that was just wonderful,” Kylie said, climbing off her mule and giving Mina a hug. “The desert is a marvelous place. Now I need a shower.”

“A shower and a dozen cans of beer,” supplemented Larry.

“It was wonderful, but it achieved nothing,” Bodenland said. “However, we have left a pretty trail of flags behind. All I hope is that the ghost train calls again tonight.”

“What about Larry?” she asked, when they were alone.

“He's off with Kylie tomorrow, whatever happens tonight.”

“Don't look so sour, Joe. They are supposed to be on their honeymoon, poor kids. Where would you rather be—on a beach in Hawaii or in this godforsaken stretch of Utah?”

He smiled at her, teasingly but with affection. “I'd rather be on that ghost train—and that's where I'm going to be tonight.”

But Bodenland was in for a disappointment.

The night brought the stars, sharp as diamonds over the desert, but no ghost train. Bodenland and his group stayed by the mobile canteen, which remained open late to serve them. They drank coffee and talked, waiting, with the helicopter nearby, ever and again looking out into the darkness.

“No Injuns,” Kylie said. “No John Wayne stagecoach. The train made its appearance and that was it. Hey, Joe, a student was telling me she saw ghostly figures jumping—no, she said ‘floating'—off the train and landing somewhere by the dig, so she said. What do you think of that?”

“Could be the first of later accretions to what will be a legend. Bernie, these students are going to want to bring in the media—or at least the local press. How're you going to handle that?”

“I rely on them,” Clift said. “They know how things stand. All the same—Joe, if this thing shows up tonight, I want to be on that helicopter with you.”

“My god, here it comes,” Mina screamed before Bodenland could reply.

And it was there in the darkness, like something boring in from outer space, a traveler, a voyager, an invader: full of speed and luminescence, which seemed to scatter behind it, swerving across the Escalante. Only when it burst through mesas did its lights fade. This time it was well away from the line of flags planted during the day, heading north, and some miles distant from the camp.

Bodenland led the rush for the helicopter. Larry followed and jumped into the pilot's seat. The others were quickly handed up, Mina with her videocam, Clift last, pulling himself aboard as the craft lifted.

Larry sent it scudding over the ground, barely clearing the camper roofs as it sped up into the night air.

“Steady,” Kylie said. “This isn't one of your models, Larry!”

“Faster,” yelled Mina, “or we'll lose it.”

But they didn't. Fast though the ghost train sped, the chopper cut across ground to it. Before they were overhead, Joe was being winched down on the helicopter's wire ladder, swinging wild as they banked.

The strange luminous object—dull when seen up close, shaped like a phosphorescent slug—was just below them. Bodenland steadied himself, clasped the wire rope, made to stand on the roof as velocities matched—and his foot went through nothingness.

He struggled in the dark, cursing. Nothing of substance was below his boots. Whatever it was, it was as untouchable as it was silent.

Bodenland dangled there, buffeted by wind from the rotors overhead. The enigmatic object tunneled into the night and disappeared.

The closeup shots of the ghost train were as striking as the experience had been. Figures were revealed—revealed and concealed—sitting like dummies inside what might have been carriages. They were gray, apparently immobile. Confusingly, they were momentarily replaced by glimpses of trees, perhaps of whole forests; but the green flickered by and was gone as soon as it was seen.

Mina switched the video off.

“Any questions?” she asked flippantly.

Silence fell.

“Maybe the trees were reflections of something—on the windows, I mean,” Larry said. “Well, no … But
trees
…”

“It was like a death train,” Kylie said. “Were those people or corpses? Do you think it could be—No, I don't know what we saw.”