killer, had become Randolph Josephson.
“What does it do, where does it … go? ” Instead of answering me, he
smiled and said, “Did the crow ever appear to you? It never appeared to
Conrad. He said it did, but he lies. The crow appeared to me. I was
sitting by the rock, and the crow rose out of it.” He sighed. “Formed
out of the solid rock that night, in front of my eyes.” Orson was with
the children, accepting their affection. He was wagging his tail.
Everything was going to be all right. The world wasn’t going to end, at
least not here, at least not tonight. We would get out of here, we would
survive, we would live to party, ride the waves again, it was
guaranteed, it was a sure thing, it was a done deal, because right here
was the omen, the sign of good times coming, Orson was wagging his tail.
“When I saw the crow, I knew I was someone special, ” Randolph said.
“I had a destiny. Now I’ve fulfilled it.” Once more, the fearsome twang
of torquing metal punctuated the rumble of the ghost train.
“Forty-four years ago, ” I said, “you’re the one who carved the crow on
Crow Hill.”
“I went home that night, fully alive for the first time ever, and did
what I’d always wanted to do. Blew my father’s brains out.” He said this
as if reporting an achievement that filled him with quiet pride.
“Cut Mother to pieces. Then my real life began.” Doogie was sending the
kids out of the room, one after the other, along the tunnel to where
Sasha and Roosevelt waited. “So many years, so much hard work, ”
Randolph said with a sigh, as though he were a retiree pleasantly
contemplating well-earned leisure.
“So much study, learning, striving, thinking. So much self-denial and
restraint through so many years.” One killing every twelve months.
“And when it was built, when success was at hand, the cowards back in
Washington were scared by what they saw on the videotapes from the
unmanned probes.”
“What did they see? ” Instead of answering, he said, “They were going to
shut us down.
Del Stuart was ready right then to pull the plug on my funding.” I
thought I knew why Aaron and Anson Stuart were in this room.
And I wondered if the other kids who had been snatched and killed all
over the country were related somehow to other people on the Mystery
Train project who had disappointed this man.
“Then your mother’s bug got loose, ” Randolph said, “and they wanted to
know what the future held, whether there would even be a future.”
“Red sky? ” I asked. “Strange trees? ”
“That’s not the future.
That’s … sideways.” From the corner of my eye, I saw the copper wall
buckle.
Horrified, I turned toward where the concave curve had seemed to become
convex, but there was no sign of distortion.
“Now the track is laid, ” Randolph said contentedly, “and no one can
tear it up. The border is breached. The way is open.”
“The way to where? ”
“You’ll see. We’re all going soon, ” he said with disconcerting
assurance. “The train is already pulling out of the station.” Wendy was
the fourth and last child through the gate valve at the entrance to the
chamber. Orson followed her, still tottering a little.
Doogie motioned urgently to me, and I rose to my feet.
Randolph’s pale green eye fixed on me, and he gave me a bloody,
broken-toothed , eerily affectionate smile. “Time past, time present,
time future, but most important … time sideways. Sideways is the only
place I ever wanted to go, and your mother gave me the chance.”
“But where is sideways? ” I asked with considerable frustration as the
building shook around us.
“My destiny, ” he said enigmatically.
Sasha cried out, and her voice was so full of alarm that my heart
jolted, raced.
Doogie looked down the tunnel, aghast, and then shouted, “Chris! Grab
one of those chairs! ” As I snatched up one of the collapsed folding
chairs and then my shotgun, John Joseph Randolph said, “Stations on a