weapon, he departed time present without a trace.
The throbbing electronic noise was less than half as loud as it had been
at full power, but like some of the lights and floor tiles, it didn’t
fade altogether.
None of us was relieved by this reprieve. Instead, as the past receded
into the past where it belonged, we were seized by a greater urgency.
Mr. Mungojerrie was dead right, This place was coming apart. The
residual effect of the Mystery Train was gathering power, feeding on
itself, extending beyond the egg room, rapidly seeping throughout the
structure. The ultimate effect was unknowable but sure to be
catastrophic.
I could hear a clock ticking. This wasn’t the timepiece in Captain
Hook’s omnivorous crocodile, either, but the reliable clock of instinct
telling me that we were on a short countdown to destruction.
With the ghosts gone, the cat sprang into action, padding to the nearby
elevator shaft.
“Down, ” Roosevelt translated. “Mungojerrie says we have to go farther
down.”
“There’s nothing below this floor, ” I said, as we all gathered at the
elevator. “We’re on the lowest level.” The cat fixed its luminous green
eyes on me, and Roosevelt said, “No, there’re three levels beneath this
one. They required an even higher security clearance than these floors,
so they were concealed.” During my explorations, I’d never thought to
look into the shaft to see if it served hidden realms that couldn’t be
accessed by the stairs.
Roosevelt said, “The lower levels can be approached … from some other
building on the base, through a tunnel. Or by this elevator.
The steps don’t go down as far.” This development posed a problem,
because the elevator shaft wasn’t empty. We couldn’t simply climb down
the service ladder and go where Mungojerrie directed. Like the scattered
floor tiles, like the few remaining fluorescent panels, and like the
softer but still ominous electronic hum that throbbed through the
building, the past maintained tenacious control of the elevator. A pair
of stainless-steel sliding doors covered the shaft, and most likely a
cab waited beyond them.
“We’ll be quashed if we hang around here, ” Bobby predicted, reaching
out to press the elevator call button.
“Wait! ” I cautioned, stopping his hand before he could do the deed.
Doogie said, “Bobster’s right, Chris. Sometimes fortune favors the
foolhardy.” I shook my head. “What if we get in the elevator, and when
the doors close, the damn thing just totally vanishes under us like the
floor tiles did? ”
“Then we fall to the bottom of the shaft, ” Sasha guessed, but that
prospect didn’t seem to give her pause.
“Some of us might break our ankles, ” Doogie predicted. “Not all of us,
necessarily. It’s probably only about forty feet or so, a mean drop but
survivable.” Bobby, a Road Runner cartoon freak, said, “Bro, we could
have ourselves a full-on Wile E. Coyote moment.”
“We’ve got to move, ” Roosevelt warned, and Mungojerrie scratched
impatiently at the stainless-steel doors, which remained stubbornly
solid.
Bobby pressed the call button.
The elevator whined toward us. With the oscillating electronic hum
continuing to pulse through the building, I couldn’t determine whether
the cab was descending or ascending.
The corridor rippled.
The floor tiles began to reappear under my feet.
The elevator doors slowly, slowly slid open.
Fluorescent panels reappeared on the corridor ceiling, and I narrowed my
eyes against the glare.
The cab was full of muddy red light, which probably meant the interior
of the shaft occupied a different point in time from the place or places
that we occupied. There were passengers, a lot of them.
We stepped back from the door, expecting the crowd in the elevator to
give us trouble.
In the corridor, the throbbing sound grew louder.
I could discern several blurry, distorted, maroon figures inside the
cab, but I couldn’t see who or what they were.
A gunshot cracked, then another.
We were under fire not from the elevator but from the end of the
corridor where, earlier, the sonofabitch in the suit had drawn down on
us with a handgun.
Bobby took a bullet. Something peppered my face. Bobby rocked backward,
the shotgun flying out of his hands. He was still dropping as if in slow