The Train (2 page)

    Hannah wasn't ready to surrender. "Well, maybe someone's relatives didn't like the cons in their town, so they sent away for a fancier one. Someone with a lot of money… that's possible, right?" She paused, and then added, "I'll bet there isn't anyone in that coffin. It's just an empty box, Kerry. So quit worrying."

    Who are you trying to convince? she wondered. Kerry or yourself? Hannah tried never to think about dying, or dead things. They frightened her. Maybe that was childish, but she couldn't help it.

    Kerry shivered. "I've never been around anyone dead before. Gives me the willies."

    Hannah nodded. "When I was six," she said, the words dragging with reluctance, "my grandmother died. I went to the funeral parlor with my parents. They didn't make me do anything gross like kiss my grandmother when she was in the coffin, but I hated being there. Everyone kept saying how natural she looked, how peaceful. But she didn't. I stayed overnight with her lots of times when I was little and she'd fall asleep in her chair while we were watching television. She looked peaceful then. But in her coffin, she looked… mad. Like… like she hadn't been ready to die."

    "Hannah, cut it out! You're giving me the creeps!" Kerry sat up straighter. "I think we should go find out if someone is in that coffin."

    Hannah drew in her breath sharply. "You're kidding, right? You'd better be."

    Kerry stood up, tossing her black hair as she always did whenever she changed positions. "If I'm going to have a good time on this trip, I have to be sure that coffin is empty. You should want to know, too, Hannah. We do not want to share this tour with a lot of money… that's possible, right?" She paused, and then added, "I'll bet there isn't anyone in that coin. It's just an empty box, Kerry. So quit worrying."

    Who are you trying to convince? she wondered. Kerry or yourself? Hannah tried never to think about dying, or dead things. They frightened her. Maybe that was childish, but she couldn't help it.

    Kerry shivered. "I've never been around anyone dead before. Gives me the willies."

    Hannah nodded. "When I was six," she said, the words dragging with reluctance, "my grandmother died. I went to the funeral parlor with my parents. They didn't make me do anything gross like kiss my grandmother when she was in the coffin, but I hated being there. Everyone kept saying how natural she looked, how peaceful. But she didn't. I stayed overnight with her lots of times when I was little and she'd fall asleep in her chair while we were watching television. She looked peaceful then. But in her coffin, she looked… mad. Like… like she hadn't been ready to die."

    "Hannah, cut it out! You're giving me the creeps!" Kerry sat up straighter. "I think we should go find out if someone is in that coffin."

    Hannah drew in her breath sharply. "You're kidding, right? You'd better be."

    Kerry stood up, tossing her black hair as she always did whenever she changed positions. "If I'm going to have a good time on this trip, I have to be sure that coffin is empty. You should want to know, too, Hannah. We do not want to share this tour with a dead body. Besides," Kerry added, "every time I want something from my bag, I have to go into the baggage compartment to get it." She shuddered again. "I couldn't stand it if I knew a corpse was in the room with me."

    Hannah knew what Mack would have said. He would have said, "Kerry, don't you get it? A person inside a coffin can't possibly hurt you. You couldn't be any safer."

    Hannah didn't say that, because she shared Kerry's uneasiness. Maybe it was silly - Mack would say it was - but she couldn't help the way she felt.

    "I’m not going with you," she announced as firmly as her voice would allow.

    "Oh, yes, you are!" Kerry grabbed Hannah's hand and pulled her up out of the seat. "I'm not going in that room alone. You're my best friend, Hannah Deaton. You wouldn't want me to worry through this whole wonderful trip, would you?" Kerry's voice changed from one of command to one of pleading. "C'mon, Hannah! I'm sure you're right. The coffin is probably empty. We'll just pop in, I'll grab a white sweater from my bag, we'll see if there's a tag on the box, and once we know for sure that'it's just an empty coffin, we'll head for the Cafe and some fun."

    "What if - what if it isn't empty?" Hannah asked. "It's not like we can do anything about it."

    Kerry's mouth tightened. "It will be!"

    The train began to move then, catching them by surprise. It moved slowly at first, making its way out of the station, and then quickly picked up speed.

    It was surprisingly quiet, Hannah thought, and there was less movement than she'd feared. The cars didn't sway back and forth as if they were getting ready to tip over. Beneath her feet she could hear the wheels. They didn't make the loud, annoying clackety-clack she'd expected. Instead, the wheels provided a steady but muted background sound, a soft, constant ga-dink, ga-dink, ga-dink.

    Kerry sighed impatiently.

    Hannah wished fervently that she could believe her own theory about the coffin being empty. But she knew people were often shipped back to their hometown for burial in a family cemetery plot. No matter how many years they'd spent in other places, they wanted to be buried close to where they'd been born. It seemed odd to her. It wasn't as if they'd know…

    Stalling for time, she said, "Kerry, how are we going to know if the con's empty without opening it?"

    "New stuff that's being shipped to somewhere else has an invoice taped to it," Kerry told her knowingly. "I had to push aside a whole bunch of boxes to get to my bag. The boxes all had invoices wrapped in plastic taped to the side. If you're right about the coffin being shipped empty, it'll have one of those invoices taped to it."

    Hannah nodded. "And if I'm wrong?" she couldn't help asking as Kerry reached for the handle on the compartment door. "What will the tag say then?"

    Kerry shook her head. "Don't think about it. I refuse to accept the possibility. Come on."

    As they left the compartment and entered the corridor, Hannah felt her stomach begin to churn. She hated and feared small or narrow spaces. The dark walls and floor seemed to press in on her, cutting off the light, as if she were walking through an airless underground tunnel.

    By the time they reached the baggage car at the far end of half a dozen coaches, Hannah was having trouble breathing.

    "What's the matter with you?" Kerry asked as she pushed the heavy door open and peered inside. "You're wheezing. You sound like my brother when he has an asthma attack."

    "Claustrophobia," Hannah answered with difficulty. "There's not enough room… I feel closed in, and I hate it."

    "You'll feel better in the Cafe," Kerry said confidently. "It's lighter and brighter and there's room to move around. This'll just take us a minute, then we'll head for the bright lights, the music, and the fun." Kerry lowered her voice to a whisper. "Now where are the lights?"

    There were no windows in the baggage car. "Wasn't it dark when you were here before?" Hannah asked.

    "No. The light was on. C'mon, help me find the switch."

    After several moments of creeping around in the dark, Kerry found the switch and flicked it on. A lone ceiling fixture cast eerie shadows over their faces and over the long, narrow room half-full of suitcases, boxes, crates, and cartons.

    Hannah spotted the coffin right away. It was, as Kerry had said, on a long, narrow table that was covered with a floor-length black cloth. Although Hannah's eyes immediately darted over every inch of the wooden box's surface, she saw no sign of an invoice, and her heart sank.

    Closer examination confirmed that there was no invoice. The coffin was not empty.

    In the chilly, shadowed room, Hannah and Kerry stared at each other with dismayed faces.

    "Look," Hannah finally said, her voice not as steady as she would have liked, "we're being silly. Nothing in this room can hurt us, Kerry. Let's just get out of here."

    "No, wait! There's a tag, there, on the corner." Kerry hesitated, clasping her hands together and then, before Hannah could stop her, she lunged forward to read the small, square white tag hanging at one end of the coffin.

    "Kerry, let's go!" Hannah cried. An overwhelming sensation of dread began to sweep over her like a chill fog. She began backing away, her eyes fastened in morbid curiosity on Kerry, bending to read the tag.

    "Oh, my God!" Kerry bolted upright and turned to face Hannah. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth and her skin became gray.

    Hannah, watching, saw the scene in slow-motion. "What?" she whispered, continuing to back away, "what's wrong?"Kerry opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried again, sidling sideways away from the coffin.

    "Hannah," she said hoarsely, "it's someone we know. Knew. I never thought it would be someone we knew."

    Confusion flooded Hannah's face. "But… but no one we know died, Kerry. No one."

    Kerry nodded grimly. "Oh, yes, someone did, Hannah. Don't you remember? Frog died."

    Hannah frowned. "Frog?"

    Another nod. "Yes. The tag on the coffin has his name on it. Frederick Roger Drummond. On its way to San Francisco, where his parents live."

    Speechless, Hannah stared at the coffin.

    Kerry did the same. "Hannah that's… "

    Hannah finished the sentence for her. "That's Frog in there."

    

    

    

    In the stunned silence that followed, the steady gadink, ga-dink, ga-dink of the train wheels racing along the rails seemed to send Hannah a warning: Go-back, go-back, go-back…

    But we can't go back, she thought as she reached out to clutch Kerry's hand. They won't take the train back to the station just because Kerry and I don't want to travel with…

    "How could they put it on this train?" Kerry cried, still staring at the coffin. "It's just not right! Why didn't they put it on a regular train with people who never knew Frog? Why did they have to put it on this one and ruin our trip? It's not fair!"

    "I don't know," Hannah whispered. But the part of her that hadn't been shocked senseless pointed out silently that maybe there wasn't a lot of choice when it came to shipping a body. You probably couldn't sit around and wait for a particular train. Arrangements would have to be made, grieving relatives would be waiting… You probably had to use the first train that was going in the right direction.

    Would there be grieving relatives for Frog? There would have been for her: her parents, her younger brother, Tad, her grandfather. Even her parakeet, Disraeli, would miss her and probably wouldn't eat for a while. Kerry, too, had parents, grandparents, cousins. And Mack and Lewis had tons of friends and relatives who would mourn if anything terrible happened to them.

    But Frog? Did he have anyone? In California or anywhere else?

    He must, or he wouldn't be on his way west.

    But it was hard to imagine.

    "Do you think Lolly and Eugene and Dale know Frog is on the train?" Kerry whispered. "He was their best friend. They never went anywhere without him. That's creepy."

    Was that why the trio had looked so glum in the terminal, Hannah wondered? Because they knew Frog's coffin was on the train?

    "Maybe there's a memorial service in California. Maybe they're going for that."

    "Let's get out of here," Kerry said finally, breaking the silence. She began backing away, as Hannah had earlier, as if turning her back on the coffin would be inviting trouble. "Let's go tell Mack and Lewis."

    "They won't care. They'll think we're silly for getting upset. They'll say Frog can't hurt anyone now, so why let it bother us that he's on the train? That's what they'll say."

    Hannah was right. That was exactly what the boys said.

    They were in the Cafe, sitting with Jean Marie Westlake, a red-haired girl who had once dated Mack. Hannah felt no pangs of jealousy upon seeing the two together. That was history and, besides, Jean Marie was too nice a person to flirt with someone else's boyfriend.

    Hannah quickly glanced around. She saw no sign of Lolly or Eugene or Dale. But the backs of the shiny red booths were very high, hiding people from view.

    "You will never," Kerry breathed as she and Hannah slid into the booth occupied by their friends, "guess what's in the baggage compartment. Never!"

    "Baggage?" Lewis quipped, sliding over to make more room. Mack started to laugh, and then caught the expression on Hannah's face.

    "What's wrong?" he asked her quietly, and Jean Marie looked at Hannah with concern in her eyes. "Are you sick?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

    "That's what I'm trying to tell you," Kerry said. "Not that we've seen a ghost," she added hastily, "but it's almost that bad." She took a deep breath and exhaled before saying dramatically, "Frog's coffin is on this train!"

    "Yeah, I know," Mack said calmly. "I was out there when they loaded it on the train."

    Hannah looked at him sharply. "Why didn't you say anything? Maybe if we'd known ahead of time…"

    "Sorry." Mack shrugged. "It's not the kind of thing you bring up in ordinary conversation. It would sound pretty weird to say, `Hey, let's have a good time on this trip - even though Frog's coffin's on board.'"

    Kerry sent him a disgusted look. "You wouldn't have had to say it like that. But you still could have told us. I can't believe you didn't say anything."

    "How would I know you were going to pack your entire wardrobe in a carry-on bag? Is it my fault you have to run back and forth to the baggage car every five minutes?" Mack asked. "I never expected you or Hannah or anyone else to know the coffin was there. So why would I mention it?"