Last Stop (3 page)

“That’s what?”

“Don’t you get it?
Thirty years ago.
It’s a rip in time! You were looking back into the past, David!”

Groaning, I launched myself onto Heather’s bed. It hit the wall with a thump. “You called me on a weekend morning, woke me in the middle of a dream, and made me come over here
for your stupid science fiction ideas
?”

“ ‘Nowadays the stations lie moldering,’ ” Heather read on, “ ‘used on occasion as storage space and movie sets.’ ”

“There you go,” I said. “A movie set.
That’s
what I saw.”

“Uh, right, David. A movie set visible only to you.
The Vanishing Mole People of Granite Street
.”

The image replayed itself in my mind for about the millionth time. But something stood out. Something I hadn’t really paid attention to.

I sat up suddenly. “It wasn’t Granite Street.”

“Yes, it was, David—”

“No! The sign on the wall. It didn’t
say
Granite Street. It was something else. A numbered street.”

Heather looked at me skeptically. “That’s ridiculous. Why would it have said that?”

“You’re asking me? The whole
thing
is ridiculous—it was a hallucination!”

“Unless, years ago, the station had another name…” Heather began clacking away at the computer again. “Like when the city was first founded…”

“They didn’t have subrails back then!”

BLEEEEEEEEP!

Saved by Heather’s voicephone.

She leaped across the room and picked it up. “Hello?…You
what
?…Get out of here!…” Heather’s eyes were darting nervously toward me. “Both of you?…What were you doing down there?…Oh my God…Okay. We’ll be right down.”

Heather slammed down the receiver and headed for her door. “Come on. We’re out of here.”

I tagged close behind. “Wait! Where are we going?”

“To the subrail,” Heather replied, grabbing a coat from a hook in the front closet. “It looks like you’re not the only one who has the sight, David. Clarence saw it, too.”

Clarence?

Curious.

I
PANTED FOR BREATH
as we ran down Wiggins Street. “Are you sure they were serious?”

“I will be
so-o-o-o-o
angry if I’m not able to see this thing,” Heather said through clenched teeth.

“What are they doing down there on a weekend morning, anyway?” I pressed on.

“It figures, doesn’t it? I’m probably the only one of us who doesn’t have the sight—”

“And why did they just happen to call
you
? And why are they still down there?”

Heather glanced my way, as if she just now noticed me. “Clarence is kind of freaked out, and he won’t stop pacing the platform. He wants to go back and take the ride again, just to be sure. Max remembered what you had seen—”

“How could he remember? I never told him!”

“I did.”

I stopped running. I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach.

“This was supposed to be a secret, Heather!”

“Sorry,” Heather said, turning toward me.

“I only told Max, though. And I didn’t mention the part about your father—”

“But you promised!”

“Don’t be a baby, David. This is important.”

“And a promise to me
isn’t
?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “We are talking about a major psychic phenomenon, okay? I guarantee, this cannot stay a secret for long. You will be needing a press agent soon.”

“And I guess
you
want the job!”

“I will ignore that remark. Instead, like a good friend I will politely answer the question you asked me. For your information, Max called
your
house first. Your mom found the note you left, and she told them you were with me. Max and Clarence and the others were on the way home from an early strike-ball game downtown. Any other questions?”

“Heather, I don’t want to have anything to do with this!”

“Fine. Good-bye.”

Heather disappeared down the station stairs.

I glowered at her for a moment.

Then, grumbling, I followed.

Max and Clarence were waiting just inside the rotary gates. So were three other kids from our class, all in strikeball uniforms—Cheryl Howard, Rod Skinner, and Lenny Feldman. All of them looked a little shell-shocked.

“Oh, great,” I murmured as I caught up with Heather. “It’s turning into a party. Soon the whole school will know.”

“I said I was sorry,” Heather hissed.

I inserted a token into the rotary gate and pushed my way through. “Listen, you guys, if this is some kind of joke—”

“Did you
all
see it?” Heather asked.

Max shook his head. “Just Clarence.”

“He wants to go back,” Lenny said. “With witnesses this time. As many as possible.”

Rod Skinner circled his index finger around his ear in a
cuckoo
gesture. Max immediately poked him in the side.

“Oh. No offense, Moore,” Rod said.

“David, maybe you can get through to him,” Max said. “We can’t. He just shut off.”

“
Talk to him
,” Heather whispered.

They were all looking at me now. With concern.

I approached Clarence. He didn’t seem to notice me. He was pacing the floor, looking up the track, and muttering, “Come on…come on, baby.”

In the distance, I could hear the oncoming train. “Clarence?” I said.

“Leave me alone!” He snapped around angrily. But his face instantly softened. “Oh, it’s you…”

A
joke. He’s playing a joke.
“Uh, Clarence, can you tell me exactly what you saw?”

He shrank into himself, looking off into the distance. “This light…I mean, I guess it was light…but how…?”

Cheryl was behind me now. “He said it was bright out there, but the inside of the car was pitch-black.”

How could he have known that detail? Had I told that to Heather?

“Clarence, were there people on the platform?” I pressed.

Clarence nodded. “The door opened. And someone on the train—a kid—he stepped out. And they were so happy to see him.”

I braced myself for the question I had to ask. “Did you see…anyone you recognized?”

WHO-O-O-O-O-ONK!
With a loud horn blast, the train pulled into the station.

We all turned to one another.

“Uh, Clarence,” Lenny said, “you sure you don’t want to go home…”

“Get some rest…” Rod continued.

The train was stopping now, its brakes shrieking. “No,” Clarence said. “We have to go.”

Heather gave me a look. A
see-I-told-you-so
look.

She boarded the train after Clarence. Then Max, Rod, Cheryl, and Lenny.

I tried to move my legs but they wouldn’t go. The thought of taking the trip again was paralyzing me.

Heather stood in the door, holding it open. “Well?”

“I—I have to think about this—“I stammered.

Heather yanked me inside by the arm.

The doors whooshed closed. The car was empty except for a man in a down coat sleeping on one of the bench seats. Lenny, Cheryl, Max, and Rod were already kneeling on another seat, staring out the window.

Clarence was by the door, gripping a handrail. His jaw was set, his face grim. Heather stood next to him. “Tell me when you see it,” she whispered.

The train began to roll, picking up speed. It stopped at Deerfield, then went on.

My legs started to shake.

Then the Granite Street station was coming into view. Dim and grimy and empty. But the train was not slowing down.

We were going to pass right by.

EEEEEEEEE…
Squealing brakes.

The train lurched violently, then stopped.

I tumbled to the floor.

Then, blackness. No light whatsoever. I could feel Heather next to me, sprawled on the floor.

And Clarence started screaming.

But we were told not to interfere.

It may not work if we don’t.

I
TRIED TO SCRAMBLE
to my feet, but my legs were tangled with Heather’s.

“Get off me!”
I shouted.

“You get off me!”
Heather cried.

“AAAAAAAGHHHH!” Clarence repeated.

Heather grabbed my shoulders. I grabbed hers. We both struggled to stand up.

My blood pounded. I was scared. Scared of seeing Dad’s face. Scared that I wouldn’t see it. Scared that I wouldn’t know what to do. That the train would pull away before I could decide.

I forced myself to look out the window.

My heart stopped beating. Stopped cold.

A sooty floor. A few lightbulbs. Broken tiles.

Nothing else.

“What the—?” I said.

I don’t know who started laughing first. Max, I think.

Then Cheryl let out a snort. And before long, everyone but Heather was whooping like a hyena. Cracking up. I could see their silhouettes in the darkness, bobbing up and down.

“And the Best Actor Award goes to Clarence Mitchell!”
Max hooted.

“You guys are sick,” Heather rasped.

“Not bad, huh?” Clarence said.

This is not happening.

A setup. The whole thing had been a setup.

And the worst part? I had seen it coming, and I
still
fell for it.

I looked from one hysterical, mocking face to the next.

I couldn’t take it. All the bottled-up tension, all the uncertainty and anger exploded.

I lunged at Clarence.

“Hey!” he cried out, falling onto a seat. “It was just a joke!”

“You ever do that again, I will kill you!”
I shouted.

SMMMMACK!

The door between the cars slid open. My eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to see a subrail officer barreling toward us. “Which one of you pulled the emergency brake?”

So
that
was how they had stopped the train.

“He did it!” said Clarence, pointing to Max.

“Did not!” Max protested. “I was
here.
Lenny did it!”

No one would admit to it. I slumped against the nearest car door, and Heather slumped next to me.

“What a pack of jerks,” she said.

“You should talk,” I shot back. “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t opened your big mouth.”

“
I
didn’t ask them to do this!” Heather insisted. “I
told
Max not to tell anyone.”

“Great, Heather. That’s like telling a dog not to bark.”

“It’s hard to keep something this important inside, David. Look,
you’re
the one who has this…this
power.
Maybe if you opened up, if you didn’t try to keep it a secret, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”

“I am not hearing this.”

“Be proud of yourself, David. This could be, like, the discovery of a new dimension—”

“You want to see a new dimension? Look out the window, Heather! You are seeing exactly what I see. No people. No signs. No lights. Nothing!”

“But yesterday—”

“Yesterday I was seeing things! The train was crowded, I was thinking about my dad—it was
stress,
okay? I’m over it. But now you have to go turn it into some big—”

The words caught in my throat. To my left, I was vaguely aware of my so-called friends still arguing with the subrail officer.

But my eyes were focused on something outside the window. Something on the floor of the old station.

A sky-blue business card.

Oh.

No.

“I
’M SORRY, ALL RIGHT?”
Heather was saying. “I’ll make it up to you—”

“Heather—” I whispered.

“I’m really not a bad person, David. I just—”

“Heather, look out the window!”

Heather’s face went slack. “What? Oh my God, David, are you having…the
sight
?”

“No. There!” I pointed.

“The card?”

“Yes!”

Heather gave me a look. “So?”

“So, remember? The guy I told you about, in my hallucination? The one who left the train? He was holding a business card that same color,
and he dropped it
!”

Even in the near-darkness, I could see Heather’s eyes glow. “Oh, David. Oh, this is big. Very big.”

“I mean, it could just be, like, some trash,” I said. “Plenty of people throw stuff out the window—”

“David, you have to get that card.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Ask the pug?”

“He’s about to put us all in jail!”

“Um…a long pole with chewgum at the end?”

“Big help.”

To our left, the pug was still arguing with our friends. To my right, a few irate passengers were barging through the door that led from the next car. Right past the sign that said
DO NOT ENTER OPEN AREA BETWEEN CARS.

Open area.
That was it.

I stood up. “Cover me,” I whispered to Heather.

As I ran toward the far end of the car, Heather was right behind me. I could tell she was complaining, but I couldn’t make out her words over the commotion.

I grabbed the metal handle and pulled. The door slid open with a dull
thunk.

Cold, musty air rushed into the car. I stepped through the opening. Just outside the door was a metal ledge, wide enough for one person. It curved in a semicircle around me, and I could see over it to the black chasm of the track bed below.

“I’ll wait here,” Heather whispered.

“Thanks, braveheart,” I replied.

As my eyes adjusted to the blackness, I scanned the platform. Soot had gathered as thick as a snowfall. Barely detectable footsteps led to a graffiti-smeared tile wall. Small piles of trash lay strewn about, most of it blackened by grime.

I can’t.

“What are you waiting for?” Heather hissed.

“It’s disgusting!” I said.

“You have shoes on!”

“No kidding. What if the train starts to move?”

“It won’t. The emergency brake shuts down the electricity for the whole line. It takes forever to start up again.”

I spotted the sky-blue card. It was to my left, near the center of the car. A short walk. An easy walk.

I stepped over the chasm. I planted my foot on the platform. It felt slippery.