The Train (9 page)

    But he couldn't answer her questions. He was very nice, speaking softly and clearly, turning his brown hat around and around in his hands as he spoke, but he had no answers for her. He only had questions.

    And Hannah had no answers. None that she could tell him. With Ms. Quick watching her with that frowny, worried look on her face, if Hannah told him what she was really thinking she knew she'd find herself off the train and in a padded cell before you could say, "Frog Drummond is alive and out for revenge."

    The detective, whose name was Mr. Teach, but whom Hannah had already named Mr. Brown, asked Hannah if she had seen the person who had imprisoned her in the "wooden box." He did not say "coffin." Maybe he thought it would upset her. He seemed like that sort of person.

    When she told him no, she hadn't seen a thing, he nodded and asked her if she had any idea who it might have been. She had to bite her tongue.

    "No," she lied. "I can't imagine…"

    Her friends would have disagreed with that. They would have said the problem was, Hannah could imagine, and was doing just that.

    But she wasn't - was she?

    Mr. Brown-Tench was no help. But he promised that he would check out the baggage ear and "the… ah… place where you were held prisoner."

    He made it sound like a jail, with bars and a sheriff and three meals a day. It hadn't been that nice.

    "Why are you here alone?" Ms. Quick asked disapprovingly as they got up to leave.

    "Berry's taking a shower. It's okay. I'll keep the door locked. Where's Mack? Why isn't he with you?"

    "He's talking to some of your classmates," the detective answered. "Helpful young man. Cares about you." He flushed slightly and shuffled his shiny brown shoes. "Grateful for the help. Don't you worry, miss, we'll find out how this happened. Could be a joke, maybe."

    A sigh of disgust escaped from Hannah. He couldn't seriously think it was a joke, could he? Why did adults always think that bad things involving teenagers were just "jokes"? As if everyone Hannah knew was running around stung people into coffins, just for laughs.

    She couldn't think of a single person who would think that was funny.

    Well… scratch that. Maybe one person.

    The two adults left, both visibly disappointed that Hannah hadn't had any answers. Ms. Quick warned her to stay in her compartment until her friends returned, and the detective asked her to "keep thinking. You might remember something that you've forgotten because you've been upset."

    She closed the door after them, feeling more frustrated than when they'd arrived. She had expected so much help from the detective. But he, like everyone else, believed that Frog was dead. So how could the detective help her?

    How could anyone?

    Despondent, she stood looking out the window at the passing landscape for a few minutes before deciding she wasn't accomplishing anything. Better to rest as she'd promised. She'd be able to think more clearly when her mind was fresh.

    It was too bright in the room for sleep. Hannah pulled the shades, plunging the room into an artificial "night." In the train station she and Kerry had tossed a coin to decide who got the upper berth. Kerry had lost. The climb up the little ladder was hers.

    But I would feel safer up there, Hannah thought decisively, and moved to open the latch that held the upper bunk flat against the wall when not in use.It seemed wrong, somehow, to be wasting time on sleep during her "educational excursion." But so far, the only education she'd received was the knowledge that someone was out to get her. She might not be learning any geography while she was napping, but at least she'd be safe.

    The bunk, already made-up, fell forward, and Hannah clambered up the ladder and onto the bed.

    Her knee hit something. She couldn't see, but she knew there was a small reading light up there. Her hand reached out, her fingers searching the wall for the switch.

    As her fingers fumbled along the paneling, she noticed a sharp, oddly unpleasant odor. In the darkness, she tried to make out the shape of the long, bulky object on the bed. Had Kerry sneaked in a garment bag full of clothes and stashed it up here, figuring she'd move it before they went to bed that night? It seemed like the kind of thing Kerry would do. At last Hannah's fingers found the light switch. She turned it on.

    It wasn't much of a light. The little bulb provided only a faint, sickly glow.

    But, faint though it was, the glow illuminated the thing in Kerry's bunk.

    And it wasn't a garment bag.

    Hannah's mouth dropped open, but no sound emerged. Her eyes fastened in horror on the disgusting thing lying there on its back, stiff and unforgiving, emanating a strange odor. The eyes stared, unseeing, up toward the ceiling and the face was raw and ruined - a face she had once known - a face almost unrecognizable because of the blazing inferno that had tortured it, and nearly consumed She had been right, after all.

    Frog Drummond was not in his coffin where he belonged.

    Frog Drummond was in Kerry's bunk.

    

    

    

    Voiceless with horror, Hannah toppled backward off the berth. When she hit the floor, she scuttled, crablike, until her back smacked up against the seat opposite the bunks. Eyes and mouth wide open in shock, she crouched there, silent and trembling.

    Minutes passed. Hannah sat frozen, her eyes riveted on the upper berth, her fisted hands pressed against her mouth.

    Then she began shaking her head from side to side. The sound she uttered was a muted grunt of denial that, once started, she couldn't stop. "Uhuhuhuh," she moaned, head swinging from side to side, eyes dull with shock. "Uhuhuhuh."

    But the dull glaze in her eyes quickly changed to bright, blazing terror.

    She had to get out of there. Away from… it.

    When she finally moved, she was no longer making a sound. She had sealed her lips, as if staying really, really quiet, might keep the thing on her bunk from coming after her. She crawled, sideways, still staring at the upper berth, until she was at the door. Reaching up, she unlatched it and yanked it open. Still mute, she threw herself out into the hall.

    The door swung shut behind her.

    For several seconds, Hannah lay on the dark carpet in the empty corridor, now allowing herself an anguished moan.

    But the room right behind her held such horror, she couldn't stay there. She had to move, to escape, to seek safety. Away mom that… that thing.

    Scrambling to her feet, Hannah stumbled down the aisle. She still didn't scream. She was afraid to. It… might hear her.

    She had half-run half-stumbled all the way to the end of the car when she realized she was headed in the wrong direction. Both Mack and Lewis's compartment and the showers were at the opposite end of the car.

    Hannah groaned in dismay. She sagged against the wall. Why didn't someone come to help her? Where iuas everyone?

    She couldn't stay here. Turning, she reversed her steps.

    But when she reached a point of several feet beyond her compartment, she found that she couldn't continue. Her feet came to a complete halt on the carpet and refused to move.

    "Help me," Hannah whispered, and began weeping.

    She was still standing there, still weeping in de-spair when Kerry, in her white terrycloth robe, and Jean Marie, in her hot pink robe, emerged from the showers and saw her.

    Kerry waved, Jean Marie called out something friendly, and Hannah watched through a haze of tears. They don't know, she thought dully. They don't know that I'm paralyzed here and they don't know what's waiting for them in the compartment. I can't tell them. I can't!

    But she knew she would have to.

    "Hannah?" Jean Marie asked as they approached and realized she wasn't directly outside the compartment as they had first thought. "What are you doing?"

    "You're crying," Kerry said, hurrying over to Hannah. "What's wrong? I thought you were taking a nap." Alarm slid into her voice. "Hannah? What?"

    "I… I…" Hannah swallowed hard. "Frog…"

    "Get someone!" Kerry ordered Jean Marie.

    Jean Marie ran.

    AD Hannah could do was point toward the compartment with a shaky finger.

    "I don't know why you're such a mess," Kerry said, putting an arm around Hannah's shoulders, "but from the look on your face, I'm guessing we won't go back into the compartment until Jean Marie gets here with help." With an edge of the wet towel hanging over her arm she swiped gently at Hannah's tear-streaked face. "Okay, Hannah?" Kerry asked softly, patting Hannah's shoulder."We'll just wait right here in the hall for Jean Marie."

    Gulping gratefully, Hannah nodded in relief.

    A few minutes later, Jean Marie ran down the corridor, followed by Mack and Lewis.

    "Where were you guys?" Kerry demanded. "Something's happened. Why didn't you hear anything?"

    "Playing pool," Mack answered. "In the rec center. Everybody's up there. What's going on?" His eyes went to Hannah's face. "I thought you were sleeping or I'd have been here. What happened?"

    Alerted by the commotion, the conductor and Ms. Quick arrived.

    All Hannah could say was, "In there," pointing to the compartment, "in the upper berth."

    Kerry swallowed her curiosity and stayed with Hannah while the others opened the door and went inside.

    They were only in there a few minutes. When they emerged, every face registered bewilderment.

    "What?" Mack asked Hannah again. "We didn't see anything. What are we looking for?"

    "In… in the upper berth," she managed. "I told you, in the upper berth."

    Mack nodded. "Yeah. We looked. Nothing there."

    Hannah blanched. "What? No, no, that's not right. Look.again, Mack, please! There's… there's something there, there is! I saw it… I felt it…" her voice fell to a murmur.

    His mouth grim, Mack turned and went back inside the compartment. Ms. Quick and the conductor looked at Hannah, and then at each other, but no one said anything.

    When Mack came back out, he was shaking his head. "There isn't anything there, Hannah, honest. I looked. I can tell someone was sleeping there, because the sheets are all messed up. But that's it. Come see for yourself."

    "No!" Hannah shrieked, recoiling. "No! I'm not going back in there. Frog was there, he was! He was in my bunk just lying there, staring up at the ceiling and his face…" She sobbed, and her hands went to her mouth… "His face… it was horrible… all burned…"

    "Hannah, stop this right now!" Ms. Quick said sharply, coming over to put an arm around her. "You fell asleep, you had a nightmare… understandable considering what you've been through. But you're going to make yourself sick. You must calm down."

    Hannah lifted her head. "A dream?" she cried. "A drown? I hadn't even," she bit off the words, "gone to seep!" She looked from one person to the next. "How could I? I couldn't climb onto the berth because he… he was in the way! So how could I have gone to sleep?"

    Ms. Quick patted her shoulder. "Many times in nightmares we believe that we were awake the whole time. You must know that, Hannah. I'm sure this isn't the first bad dream you've ever had."

    "It wasn't a dream!" Hannah shrieked. "I keep telling you - " But she could see no one believed her. Pulling free of Kerry's arm and Ms. Quick's hand, Hannah shouted, "I'll show you! I'll go back in there if that's the only way I can prove…" Taking a deep breath, she ran to the compartment, yanked the door open and burst inside crying out, "Come! Come and look and you'll see!"

    Her heart was thudding sickeningly, her breathing labored as she stopped short directly opposite the upper berth, still suspended like a roof over her own, exactly as she had left it.

    No, not exactly.

    Except for rumpled white sheets, the bunk was empty.

    

    

    

    Hannah stared, disbelieving, at the empty berth.

    "But I…" she whispered. "I…"

    "It's okay, Hannah," Kerry said quickly, pushing Lewis and Mack aside to wrap an arm around Hannah's shoulders, "you just had a really rotten dream, that's all. Because of last night, I'll bet. I mean, you couldn't be over that horrible business already. I'd have nightmares, too, if I were you. We shouldn't have left you here alone."

    Mack nodded agreement. "I can't believe we were playing pool and having a high old time while you were wrestling with demons. I'm sorry, Hannah."

    "Me, too," Lewis said solemnly. "We'll stick together from now on, I promise."

    Unable to speak, Hannah stared silently at the berth. I wasn't even asleep yet. I was still awake when I saw… that thing.

    But there was nothing there. How could she argue with that? She saw it, they all saw it: the empty berth, with the sheets rumpled, as if someone hasbeen sleeping in it. That someone had been her.

    A dream? It had been a dream - a nightmare? She hadn't really seen it?

    A long, deep shudder escaped from Hannah. She had seen it. Let them think what they wanted. She knew what she'd seen with her own eyes. But if she kept arguing, if she insisted that she had seen a dead person in her bunk, everyone would think the train had taken her into the Twilight Zone for good.

    But, the thing was, it hadn't been a dead body. She knew that now. At first, when she'd seen it, of course she'd thought it was dead. Oh, it was burned, all right - horribly. But it had to be alive. How else would it have gotten up into the upper berth, and then gotten away. It was just pretending to be dead, to scare her. And scare her it had. No wonder there had been room for her in Frog's coffin. He wasn't using it. He was roaming around the train, hurting people and trying to scare them to death. Now Hannah knew for sure that Frog was alive and on the train. She had seen him.