Last Stop, Page 3

  “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.

  7

  “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.

  Next foot.

  I was completely off the train now. I turned to my left and started walking slowly.

  A squeaky noise. A skittering in the shadows.

  I froze up.

  Rats.

  I hate rats.

  Hold on.

  The card was within reach. I leaned down and picked it up.

  “David!” Heather’s voice called out.

  SMMMMACK!

  The sound of the sliding metal door startled me.

  “HEY! KID!”

  I turned. The glare of a flashlight blinded me.

  Behind the light, I could make out the shape of the subrail pug. He was leaping onto the platform, heading right for me. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

  Just what I was asking myself.

  I backed away.

  My right foot slid on the grime. Wind-milling my arms, I fell face first.

  I hit the floor with a muffled thud.

  Grit flew into my mouth. My eyes stung. I started coughing like crazy.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my friends peering out the window of the car. Dumbfounded.

  A hand gripped my shoulder and turned me around.

  I was facing a holstered gun.

  “Young man,” the guardian said, “you are under arrest.”

  We’ve lost him.

  8

  “AND I WANT TO make clear,” said the chief subrail guardian, pacing his office, “that pulling the emergency brake recklessly and trespassing on FCSS property are both misdemeanors—”

  I sat forward in my seat. “But I didn’t pull the brake—”

  “And both are punishable by law!” the chief boomed.

  Mom was glowering at me. She looked angry, but her eyes were all teary and her lips were starting to quiver.

  “I understand,” I muttered.

  I was a criminal.

  A filthy criminal. The soot I’d fallen into was like paint. If I wiped it, it just spread. The chief had to put a plastic cover on the seat before I could sit on it.

  My future passed through my mind: a small cell…ankle chains…dates checked off on a stone wall…

  “What—what’s going to happen to him?” Mom asked.

  “Juvenile court is the usual step,” the chief replied.

  “But he’s never done anything wrong before!” Mom pleaded.

  The chief walked behind his desk, sat down, and sighed deeply. “Son, I knew your dad. His department worked with ours. He was a good man. You must miss him.”

  I bowed my head. Mom choked back a sniffle.

  “I’m going to let you go,” the chief went on. “But with the strongest possible warning. What you did was not only ille
gal but extremely dangerous.”

  I nodded.

  “Thank you,” Mom said. The chief nodded. “Now go home and take a good bath, young man.”

  Mom was not in a cheery mood as we left the FCSS headquarters.

  “Do you know how lucky you were just now? Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again. Why were you on that train? Who gave you permission to leave the house?”

  “Mom, I’m thirteen—”

  “So that means you’re free to go out and disrupt the entire subrail system?” She was practically screaming.

  “I told you I didn’t do that!”

  “You could have been killed!”

  “I know!”

  “I’ve already lost one. Do I really need to lose you, too? Because of your own stupidity?”

  Enough. I had had enough.

  Enough of being yelled at. Laughed at. Framed for something I didn’t do.

  “I’m not stupid!” I shouted. “I only went out there because of him!”

  Fool

  Idiot.

  Loudmouth.

  “Who?” Mom asked.

  I wasn’t going to say it.

  But Heather knew. All my friends knew now.

  Mom was bound to find out sooner or later.

  I took a breath. “Dad,” I mumbled.

  “You were with Dad?”

  “No. See, I thought I saw Dad. On the platform.”

  Mom stopped short. “You mean—like a homeless person, living on the tracks? Oh, David, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “No. No. It wasn’t him, Mom. It wasn’t anybody. It was a hallucination.”

  Mom’s whole body seemed to cave in. “David Moore, are you making this up?”

  “No!”

  “Are you just pretending you thought you saw Dad? Like that would make me forgive you for walking onto that platform? Like, ‘The stress made me do it, Mom’?”

  “Forget it—”

  “Do not play with me, David. I have not slept for months. I jump when the phone rings. I feel as if my insides have been pulled out and dragged across the country. And as much as I love you and try to understand how you’re feeling, I will not let you use your father as an excuse to behave like a monster!”

  Mom’s words were furious, but her eyes told a different story. They were saying, Tell me it’s true. Behind the fear and confusion and numbness was hope, like the gray light before a sunrise.

  I couldn’t speak. That hope was doing something to me. Pulling me inside her. For a moment, I felt the shock of Dad’s death all over again. Through her eyes.

  Pictures flashed in my mind—the old pictures in our hallway. Dad as a skinny young guy with a ponytail and a muscle shirt. Pointing to his crew cut in mock horror after he joined the force. Kissing Mom at their wedding. All images of Dad before I knew him. A stranger, really.

  My own mental picture of Dad was so different. He was older, grayer, and heavier. That was the dad I had lost.

  In a way, though, Mom had lost all those men on the wall. Every single one.

  I realized she was feeling pain I could never know.

  And now she was looking to me for an answer. For hope.

  Well, I knew something about hope now. It transforms you. It’s like a mirage in the desert. You see it where it doesn’t exist. On a TV show. In the blank expression of a detective.

  On a rotting subrail platform.

  And just like a mirage, it lets you down. Hard.

  I couldn’t give that hope to Mom. It wasn’t fair.

  If I was cracking up, I didn’t need to drag her down with me.

  “It’s stupid, Mom,” I said, looking away. “Just…like a hallucination or something. I haven’t been feeling right lately. That’s all…”

  My voice trailed off. For a long time, Mom didn’t reply.

  Then I felt her arm around my shoulders.”David,” she said gently, “I think we both need a vacation.”

  What I needed first, however, was a shower. Which I took right away when we arrived home.

  Afterward I headed straight to my room. I carefully closed the door, then dumped onto my desk the contents of my pocket—a Yumm-E wrapper, subrail tokens, keys, two rubber bands, a jumbo paper clip…

  The sky-blue card was tucked into a folded-up homework assignment.

  My stomach started to flutter.

  Hope.

  No.

  Get rid of it. Don’t even look.

  I ran to the bathroom and lifted the toilet seat.

  With one hand I grabbed the flusher. With the other hand I held the card over the bowl.

  And I read the words.

  This was not part of the plan.

  In order to get closer,

  You sometimes must fall behind.

  9

  THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

  Environmental Consultants

  * Miles Ruckman *

  Administrative Assistant

  9972-7660

  My heart stopped pounding.

  The name didn’t ring any bells. Neither did the company

  Just a guy. A normal guy.

  A guy whose business card had floated onto the subrail platform yesterday.

  I pulled the card away from the toilet. What if Miles Ruckman needed it? Maybe it was his last one.

  Call him.

  I had to. I had to hear his voice and know he was alive in Franklin City. Not off in some phantom world.

  I snuck into Mom’s bedroom and picked up the voicephone.

  “David?” she called out from the kitchen. “Any lunch requests? I’m going to the food shop!”

  “Uh…hot dogs?” I called out. “Ice cream? Chocolate-stripe cookies?”

  Mom chuckled. “Okay, well, stick around while I’m gone, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I waited until I heard the front door close. The ding of the elevator bell.

  Alone.

  I held up the business card and reached for the voicephone.

  BLEEEEEEP!

  I nearly hit the ceiling.

  I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Heather. It figured.

  “Nothing’s wrong! What do you want?”

  “What’s it say? The card?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten it.”

  “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been arrested!”

  “True. But you’re only thirteen. They just scared you and slapped you on the wrist, right?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I watch TV. So, what does the card say?”

  I exhaled. No use fighting a force of nature. “Some guy’s name. I was about to call him before you interrupted.”

  “Was it the guy who disappeared?”

  “No one disappeared, Heather.”

  “Oh, yeah, right, it was a hallucination. I forgot. So why are you calling him?”

  “To tell him he lost his card, okay?”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Click.

  I waited for the buzz tone. Then I carefully tapped out the number printed on the card.

  “This is The Sky’s the Limit,” came a recorded voice. “Our regular business hours are—”

  Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong!

  I slammed down the receiver, ran to the front door, and opened it.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “Is this it?” Heather blurted out, grabbing the card from my hand as she barged inside. “Let’s call.”

  “I just did. The company’s closed. We can’t talk to him until after the weekend, I guess.”

  “Duh.” Heather went straight to the kitchen, took a residential directory off the shelf, and leafed through it furiously. “Here it is! ‘Ruckman, Miles…9766-1848.’ ”

  Sometimes I can’t stand smart people.

  I called the number.

  But I reached another recorded voice, stiff
and dull-sounding: “This is Miles Ruckman. I’m unable to answer your call right now, but if you’d like to leave—”

  “Auuuugh.” I hung up again. “He’s not home, either.”

  “That proves it!” Heather exclaimed. “He did vanish.”

  “He could be anywhere. Out shopping. In the bathroom.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait and call again.” Heather was fiddling impatiently with the business card now, turning it around. “Hey, what’s this?”

  She held the back of the card toward me. On it was a scribbled message:

  “Great speller,” I commented.

  “Yyyyyyes!” Heather leaped up and began dancing. “Between Booker and Deerfield! That’s where the Granite Street station is. Right here in his own handwriting!”

  “He wrote down the location. Big deal. Heather, lots of people like to gawk at the station.”

  “And then they just toss their business cards out the door?” Heather stuffed the card in her shirt pocket and glanced at the directory again. “He lives at 37 Bond Street. We can ring his buzzer. If he’s not there, we can stay until he arrives. If he arrives. Are you with me?”

  “You’re crazy. That’s…that’s stalking!”

  Heather started for the door. “I’ll go. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Wait!” I said.

  Heather turned around.

  “There’s a cool vintage comic book store on Bond Street,” I mumbled. “Maybe I’ll go down there with you.”

  We took the subrail. The phantom station was as empty and dark as usual.

  Thirty-seven Bond was a rundown apartment building, close to the river. A rusted fire escape zigzagged down the front of it, and a few garbage cans stood empty on the sidewalk.

  Near the front door was a list of names and apartment numbers, each next to its own black push button—just like my building, where you ring a buzzer to someone’s apartment and that person buzzes you inside.

  Right away we spotted M. RUCKMAN 3E.

  Heather pressed his buzzer, then raised an eyebrow. “Comic book store, huh?” she said slyly.

  “Uh, well, I’ll just see if he answers,” I said. “Then I’ll go.”

  We waited a few moments, then Heather pressed again.

  “No one home,” I said.

  “Guess I’ll have to go inside and wait by his apartment door.” Heather began pressing all the buttons on the board.