Last Stop, Page 5

  Heather grimaced. “Yuck.”

  “You’re trespassing!” Anders shouted. “I’ll call the pugs.”

  “Anders,” I said, “we just want to ask you questions—”

  “Is that what they told you to say?” Anders barked a desperate laugh. “What a cliché. Like an old World War Two movie. Did they show those to you for training? In between European literature lessons? What else, huh? Spy novels? Rich culture, ain’t it?”

  He was gone. Out of his mind. His words made no sense.

  “Let’s go, Heather,” I said.

  Anders had pressed himself against a dirty wall, covered with old strips of tape that no longer held anything. “Your dad’s one of them now, isn’t he? That’s why he wanted me to cross over. And now he went and hired you two. Maybe Ruckman, too.”

  “Hired?” Heather repeated.

  “He’s crazy,” I whispered. “Come on!”

  “It’s an act,” Heather replied.

  “Or maybe you want to throw me into an asylum,” Anders continued. “Is that it?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “Asylum, loony bin, nuthouse—” Anders burst out laughing. “Of course, you don’t know the idiom! One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rings no bells, eh?”

  “Uh…no,” Heather said calmly. “Mr. Persson, look, we’re not…whatever you think we are. David has seen into another dimension, that’s all. It happens. The problem is, he can’t see it anymore, but he wants to, because his dad is trying to speak to him.”

  “Tell them they’ll have to take me back dead. Give them back their money. It’s worthless here anyway.” Anders stumbled across the room and opened a dresser drawer. Reaching behind a mass of wrinkled underwear, he pulled out a stack of bills and held them out to me.

  They were a funny shade of green, like play money.

  Out of curiosity, I took one bill and examined it. The design was intricate, but I didn’t recognize the portrait in the center.

  “Maybe I can help, Mr. Persson,” Heather pleaded. “I want to see this other world. I’ve tried, but I can’t. What do I have to do? I mean, do you technically need a relative who lives there, like David has? Or did David just happen to see it at just the right alignment of time and space or something—you know, like a parallel world that only happens, like, once every hundred years, and now it’s too late?”

  She was as crazy as he was.

  “Heather, let’s get out of here!”

  “Do you need passage—is that what this is all about?” Anders pulled three small, odd-looking coins from his drawer and held them out to Heather. “Here. If I give you these, will you go?”

  Heather took one and held it up to the light. “ ‘Good for one fare,’ ” she read aloud. “These are some kind of subrail tokens.” She looked curiously at Anders.

  “Yes,” Anders said with a wild smile. “And they’ll work. If you’re meant to use them.”

  “How do you know if you’re meant to use them?” Heather asked.

  “If they work!” Anders howled with laughter.

  Looking at Heather, I raised an impatient eyebrow. “Now?”

  “Oh! Oh!” Anders was gasping to control his hilarity. “ ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ ”

  Heather nodded. “Now.”

  I pocketed the tokens and the money, and we both left, letting the door slam behind us.

  Anders’s hysterical howls followed us down the hallway.

  We never thought of the tokens.

  We’re not perfect.

  15

  FEET. POUNDING THE PAVEMENT.

  Voices. Battling inside my head.

  He’s insane.

  But he was Dad’s friend.

  A filbert who lives in filth, spouts nonsense, and collects play money.

  But he knew the place Dad called “home.”

  And we were taking him seriously. Running to the subrail station like little kids. To test what he’d said. About the tokens. About the other world.

  It was worth a try.

  No.

  “Heather, why are we doing this?” I called out.

  Heather was already a half block ahead of me, bounding down the subrail stairs. “Hurry!”

  I followed her. Against my better judgment. Against logic. Against every instinct. Knowing I’d face nothing but frustration.

  But I couldn’t help it. Hope, that dormant little germ, was waking inside of me. Infecting me.

  I’d forgotten what hope felt like.

  If Anders is right, the pieces of the mystery fit.

  I could not get that idea out of my mind. Because if you thought about it, Anders’s wacko story explained Dad’s journal entry.

  “AP” was wanted for a crime. That would account for all the money—Anders stole it and somehow slipped into our world. And when I said I’d “seen” Dad, Anders freaked out. He thought I’d crossed to the other world, too—and met some pugs there, who sent me back with a secret tape recorder to help catch him…

  Moore, you have lost it. Dad was insane himself when he wrote that stuff. The journal was nonsense!

  Dad lived in this world. This world was his home.

  And why even think of trusting Anders? Who was he, anyway? For all we knew, he could have been a serial killer. Maybe he was luring us to the Granite Street station. Maybe he kept his victims there. Under the platform.

  Maybe Dad was one victim. Then Miles Ruckman. Now us.

  Heather was at the rotary gates now, looking around for me as people bustled by her. “Where are the tokens?” she pleaded.

  “Heather, I have a problem with this,” I said. “I mean, what if this whole thing was made up? What if Anders—”

  “Just give one to me!” Heather demanded. “Your problem, David, is that you doubt too much!”

  I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out one of Anders’s tokens.

  Totally the wrong size. I knew it. Too small and too light.

  I dropped it into the slot.

  It rattled downward. I quickly pushed the metal rotary gate.

  It didn’t budge.

  With a feeble clink, the token landed in the coin return slot.

  Rejected.

  Can we get him back?

  We still have a few tricks.

  16

  I AM DREAMING, AND in my dream I am riding the Green Line. Calmly. After that experience with Heather at the rotary gate today, I am much wiser. Now I know that my vision of Dad was just that. A vision. It is perfectly, rationally explainable.

  It was caused by power of suggestion. Months ago, I must have heard Dad talk about the station. I must have heard him tell Mom about his imaginary “home.” I wasn’t conscious of hearing it, but the words stayed in my mind. And months later, after Dad was gone and I was under stress, the image appeared to me. As for the blue business card, it had probably been lying on the platform for ages. Crazy Anders must have thrown it there. I probably saw it many times without taking notice—and it worked its way into my fantasy, too.

  Simple.

  I will definitely major in psychology in college.

  So in my dream, as I’m reading my newspaper, I don’t even look up when the Granite Street station approaches.

  Not even as the train begins to slow down.

  Only when the lights go out do I peek out the window.

  And there’s Dad. Waiting outside the door. Smiling. Looking totally healthy.

  The door slides open. Nobody is moving or noticing, just as before.

  “Come,” Dad is saying. “Don’t doubt.”

  I try to get up. But I can’t. My arms and legs are frozen.

  I open my mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a moan.

  Now Dad is beginning to fade. “I will come for you,” he says.

  “D—D—” Nothing. My mouth is locked.

  “Alan…ALAN!” It’s Mom’s voice. She’s in the train, too! I turn to her. I want her to stop Dad fro
m disappearing. I try to plead with her, but—

  “ALAAAAAAAAN!”

  My eyes opened. It was Mom’s voice. Calling for Dad. From her bedroom.

  I sprang out of bed. My dream was still with me.

  I shook all over as I tiptoed closer to Mom’s room.

  Her door was open a crack.

  “Stay…there!” Mom was crying in a sleep-slurred voice. “Don’t fade, Alan! Let me come for you!”

  It won’t work if we force it.

  The sight will drive him crazy.

  Or it will set him free.

  17

  “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA what time it is, David?” came Heather’s groggy voice through the receiver.

  “Sorry, but I had to call you,” I whispered. “I want to try again.”

  “What? David, are you, like, talking in your sleep? Because if that’s the reason you interrupted my beauty rest—”

  “The phantom station, Heather! I don’t doubt it anymore. Mom and I were having the same dream. Dad is calling to us. She’s still sleeping, but I can’t. I have to go to the station. Meet me in the lobby?”

  “Do you know what’s out on the street in Franklin City at this hour?”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “You got it.”

  I was there in twelve. Heather was already there, waiting.

  We sprinted outside. The city streets were eerily quiet. Our breath made wispy puffs in the air as our footsteps echoed hollowly on the sidewalk.

  Once again we bounded down the station steps. This time the place was deserted, except for a sleeping clerk in the fare booth.

  Heather was heading for the rotary gate.

  “Wait,” I said.

  I took two of Anders’s tokens out of my pocket. I gave one to Heather. I’d made sure to leave the third one at home. In plain sight on Mom’s dresser.

  Heather and I faced each other across a gate. I inserted my token into the slot. As it dropped, I pushed.

  This time, it worked.

  I thought Heather’s jaw would hit the ground.

  She dropped her token in and followed me through.

  “Pinch?” Heather said, holding out her arm.

  I did. And she pinched my arm.

  We were real.

  We were meant to do this. Just as Anders had said.

  The train was coming. Clattering closer.

  We walked to the edge of the platform.

  With a roar made even louder than usual by the empty station, the train pulled in.

  We entered. As the door closed behind us, we did not bother to sit.

  The train began to move. It picked up speed as it hurtled into the tunnel.

  In a moment, it began to slow. Heather squeezed my hand.

  Blackness.

  A screech of brakes. We were stopping.

  And then, the light.

  Bright.

  Searing.

  In my face.

  I had to shield my eyes.

  “I can’t see!” I shouted.

  No answer.

  Pain. Hot, ripping pain. “This isn’t like the last time,” I cried out. “Something’s wrong.”

  Heather wasn’t moving. She was still facing the door, holding my hand firmly.

  The train was now still.

  And I heard the whoosh of the opening door.

  Now.

  18

  I TRIED TO OPEN my eyes to the light.

  And I began to shake.

  Heather’s face was silhouetted. Almost translucent. And she was staring straight ahead.

  “Heather, close your eyes!” I cried.

  Smiling. I could now see she was smiling.

  And I could see something else, too. A movement, reflected in her deep brown irises.

  It was a figure, growing larger.

  I turned toward it, but my lids automatically shut.

  Run.

  My feet were ready. My body was poised.

  But I stood there.

  And soon my shaking stopped.

  I drew slow, deep breaths. And with each one the pain lessened, a little at a time, then more and more until I felt as if I were blowing it away in big gusts.

  When it was gone, when my eyes no longer ached, I opened them.

  The brightness still remained. But it didn’t hurt. It was only light now. Light without heat. Without hurt.

  And I saw the figure I’d spotted in Heather’s eyes. Stepping through the light, his arms reaching out to me.

  “Dad?”

  His smile put the surrounding brightness to shame. His eyes were slits, as if he’d been sleeping. But he looked healthy. Healthy, like he used to be.

  “This is a heck of an hour to do this,” Dad said.

  Go. It’s safe.

  I leaped at him. I felt as if ten years had stripped away and I was three again, ecstatic that Dad had come home from work.

  I’d forgotten how that felt.

  This was better. Much better.

  I heard the whoosh of the train door again. I turned around.

  Heather was inside, looking at us through the glass. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Heather!” I cried out. “What are you doing?”

  She waved, smiling, as the train pulled away.

  “It’s all right,” Dad said. “She knows she doesn’t belong here. You do.”

  The dresser. The token on Mom’s dresser.

  “TELL MY MOM—” I yelled to Heather.

  But it was useless. The train’s noise swallowed my words.

  Dad put a hand on my shoulder, and I turned toward him again.

  This time I took a longer look at his face.

  Clean-shaven. Bright-eyed. Sane.

  “Dad, are you—okay now?” I began.

  Dad nodded. “They can treat my disease here. Unfortunately, we weren’t built to cross over, David. At least not for long periods of time. I learned that the hard way. Our bodies react. I had to come home.”

  “So you—you’re from this…this world? And Anders—”

  “He’s from here, too. He was a brilliant guy, a scholar. No one suspected he was a thief, too.”

  “Except you.”

  “He knew about the subway station, David—or subrail, as you call it. We crossed over together while I was chasing him. Then, once we were on the other side, what could I do? Arrest him?”

  “So you just stayed?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I figured I’d wait Anders out, until he got homesick or something, then take him back in handcuffs. But I kind of liked being a new person in a new place. And Anders and I became buddies. Odd how that happens. We moved into Wiggins Street…and then I met your mom.”

  “And had me.”

  “And never regretted a minute of it,” Dad said.

  “So…your childhood…your parents…”

  “I lied to you. I’m sorry. It wasn’t a very convincing story, I know. But it’s the first one I thought of, and I had to stick to it. And you do have grandparents. I’ll introduce you, when the time is right.”

  “So…you just left them…and then you left us.”

  Dad smiled sadly. “Sometimes you have to lose a world to gain your soul.”

  “I’ve heard something like that.” I thought back. “Anders said it!”

  Dad’s smile vanished. “Actually, it’s from the New Testament. Anders often quoted from it—and from Shakespeare and a thousand others. The sickness hit poor Anders a lot earlier than it did me. He didn’t want to return, though, not with a bounty on his head. But when I started to lose it, I knew I had to come back. I tried to tell Mom, but she wasn’t ready to hear.”

  “I left a token on her dresser,” I blurted out. “But Heather doesn’t know—”

  “You did the right thing, David. We’ve been working on Mom, too, you know.”

  “We?”

  “I mean, I. Between the two of us, we’ll get her here.”

  “So…this is it? We’ll all be living…here?”


  “We’ll just have to figure that one out, won’t we?” Dad sighed and put his arm around my shoulders.

  As we walked away from the track, I was noticing the station around me. The gray cement floors. The tiled walls. The strange ads.

  A new world.

  “It’s not bad here,” Dad said confidently. “You may like it.”

  “What about school? Am I going to have to learn about all that stuff Anders talked about? What’s World War Two?”

  “Where you come from is a good place, David,” Dad said with a laugh, “but I think ours is more interesting.”

  “They sure have more signs in the subrails here.” I pointed to one I’d noticed before. “Why does that say ‘us open’?”

  “That’s U.S.,” Dad replied. “It stands for United States—the name of your new country. The U.S. Open is a sports event. Tennis.”

  “ ‘New York City’…‘Bronx’…weird names.”

  “To be honest, those places don’t look much different than Franklin City. I mean, they do occupy the same space, sort of.”

  “What do you call the planet?”

  “Earth.”

  I shivered. So much was going to be different. “You’ve got to be kidding. Sounds like a burp noise.”

  Dad burst out laughing. “Believe me, David, you get used to it.”

  He sounded so sure.

  I wasn’t.

  I had a feeling I hadn’t even begun to understand what had happened to me.

  Congratulations.

  Congratulate him.

  In due time.

  WATCHERS

  Case File: 3583

  Name: David Moore

  Age: 13

  First contact: 33.35.67

  Acceptance: YES

  A Biography of Peter Lerangis

  Peter Lerangis (b. 1955) is a bestselling author of young adult fiction; his novels have sold more than four million copies worldwide. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lerangis began writing in elementary school, inventing stories during math class—after finishing the problems, he claims. His first piece of published writing was an anonymous humor article for the April Fools’ Day edition of his high school newspaper. Seeing the other students laughing in the corridors as they read it, planted the idea in his head that he could be a writer. After high school he attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry and sang in an a cappella group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. Intending to go on to law school, Lerangis took a job as a paralegal post-graduation. But after a summer job as a singing waiter, he changed his path and became a musical theater actor.