The top brass were scared shitless. Lot of pressure came down on us,
pressure for the Mystery Train to speed up. They wanted a good look at
the future. To see whether there was any future. They didn’t quite put
it that way, but everyone involved with the train thought that was their
motivation. To see whether this screw up on the other project was going
to have major consequences. So against everyone’s better judgment, or
almost everyone’s, we put together the first expedition.”
Another silence.
Then more rhythmic, whispery chanting. , Bobby said, “There’s your mom,
bro. The other project, the one that !
got the top brass scared about the future.”
“So she wasn’t part of the Mystery Train.”
“The train was just … reconnaissance. Or that’s all it was meant to
be. But something went way wrong there, too. In fact, maybe what went
wrong with the train was the worse of the two.” I said, “What do you
think was on that videotape? The flying thing, I mean.”
“I’m hoping the man is gonna tell us.” The whispering continued for a
minute or more, and in the middle of it, Delacroix hit the stop button.
When he resumed recording, he was in a new location. The sound quality
wasn’t as good as before, and there was a steady background noise.
“Car engine, ” Bobby said.
Engine noise, a faint whistle of wind, and the hum of tires racing over
pavement, Delacroix was on the move.
His driver’s license had given an address in Monterey, a couple hours up
the coast. He must have left his family’s bodies there.
A whispering arose. Delacroix was talking to himself in such a low voice
that we could barely discern he was speaking in the unknown language.
Gradually, the muttering faded away.
After a silence, when he began to speak louder and in English, his voice
wasn’t as clear as we would have liked. The microphone wasn’t as close
to his mouth as it should have been. The recorder was either on the seat
beside him or, more likely, balanced on the dashboard.
His depression had given way to fear again. He spoke faster, and his
voice frequently cracked with anxiety.
“I’m on Highway 1, driving south. I sort of remember getting in the car
but not … not driving this far. I poured gasoline over them.
Set them on fire. I half remember doing it. Don’t know why I didn’t .
..
why I didn’t kill myself Took the rings off her finger. Brought some
pictures from the album. It didn’t want me to. I took the time .
..
anyway. And the recorder. It didn’t want me to. I guess I know where I’m
going I guess I know, all right.” Delacroix wept.
Bobby said, “He’s losing control.”
“But not the way you mean.”
“Huh? ”
“He’s not losing his mind. He’s losing control to … something else.”
As we listened to Delacroix weep, Bobby said, “You mean losing control
to … ? ”
“Yeah.”
“To whatever was fluttering.”
“Yeah.”
“Every one died. Every one on the first expedition. Three men, one
woman.
Blake, Jackson, Chang, and Hodgson. And only one came back.
Only Hodgson came back. Except it wasn’t Bill Hodgson in the suit.”
Delacroix cried out with sudden pain, as if he’d been stabbed.
The tortured cry was followed by an astonishing spell of violent
cursing, every obscenity I had ever heard or read, plus others that
either weren’t part of my education or were invented by Delacroix, a
vile torrent of rapid-fire vulgarities and blasphemies. This stream of
raw filth was venomously ejected, snarled and shouted with a fury so
blazing that I felt seared even when exposed to only the recording of
it.
Evidently, Delacroix’s vocal outburst was accompanied by erratic
driving. His cursing was punctuated by the blaring horns of passing cars
and trucks.
The cursing sputtered to a stop. The last of the horns faded.
For a while Delacroix’s raggedly drawn breaths were the loudest sounds
on the tape. Then, “Kevin, maybe you remember, you once told me that
science alone couldn’t give us meaningful lives. You said science would
actually make life unlivable if it ever explained everything to us and