Ashlyn's Radio (30 page)

Ashlyn saw it just as Caden did, the dark figure standing between the receding lines of rails, down at the far end of the train bridge. The figure stood facing them, exactly where the train had come to a stop the other day when the skies had darkened and the conductor had paid Ashlyn a visit. Almost exactly where Paulette Degagne had boarded. The person stood with shoulders hunched and head hung low. An unmistakable silhouette of defeat waiting for the train.

Rachel.

As if in mock warning, the train whistle shrilled again. Ashlyn and Caden started running toward Rachel.

“It’s close,” Caden panted out. Their feet grew suddenly noisy as they hit the wood of the walkway that ran alongside the bridge. “And remember how fast it was the first time we saw it.”

“I know,” Ashlyn said. “Right until it came to the train bridge. It was just a blur of—”

Guided by pure instinct, Ashlyn stopped, pulling Caden to a halt beside her.

The feeling that someone was watching had been sudden. Sudden and completely overwhelming. Heavy in the air. It was as if some malevolent being were breathing down her neck, standing so very near. Wishing to do her harm.

 “It’s not close,” she said.
Oh God help them!
“It’s here.”

Internally she trembled as she turned, fear flooding through her. And oh, God help her. There stood the train.

The dark beast hunkered on the tracks at the edge of the train bridge — the opposite edge to where Rachel now stood, begging it on toward her.

Caden closed his arms around her. He backed them both up against the walkway’s railing — but still the distance between them and the tracks was disturbingly small.

The train began huffing its way, slowly, across the bridge, and the wood creaked as if in dying dread beneath the steel wheels. The door to the engine room was pitch-black in its emptiness, but Ashlyn knew the conductor had to be inside. Waiting for the train to stop to pick up another soul.

The shades rushed to the windows as the ghost train passed. The hands of those trapped inside pounded against the smoke-dim glass, reaching out to Ashlyn. Some cried. Others seemed caught forever in what had to be a silent scream as they held on to their ticket.

“Those souls,” she whispered. “Those poor, desperate people!”

Ashlyn couldn’t turn away. Despite her fear, with desperate eyes she searched for a glimpse of her father. She couldn’t find him. Had Patrick Murphy lost even more to the vengeful conductor when he’d called out that warning to her yesterday?

But she did catch sight of Paulette Degagne, who looked at her straight on. Gripping the ticket she’d taken in one hand, Degagne splayed her other hand to the glass, her mouth shaping a silent shriek: “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” As the train lumbered slowly past, Ashlyn could plainly see the horror in the young woman’s eyes. She could see the horror in all their eyes, focused directly on her, as they clamored to get a place at the windows.

Directly at
her
, she realized. They weren’t even looking at Caden. It was like he wasn’t even there.

They’re crying out to me. Only me.

She turned her head as the last car slid past — the caboose.

Ashlyn looked up the tracks at the end of the train and there he was! Her father! Patrick Murphy. He was crying out for her, too, as he fought for a place at that final window in the caboose’s rear door. But while the others were begging for Ashlyn’s help, his frantic, one-word plea, was as unmistakable.

“Noooo!”

Even before the train fully stopped, Ashlyn was running again.

Caden ran at her side, easily matching her pace. “You stay away from the conductor, Ash.”

Ashlyn didn’t answer.

As they pelted past the caboose of the now stationary train, Ashlyn averted her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see her father’s face. Car after car they passed, until their thumping footfalls quieted again as they came off the wooden walkway and raced toward the front of the train. The engine room door remained black and empty as they drew abreast of it. Ashlyn felt like her lungs were bursting with oxygen starvation, but she knew it was from her terror as much as from her exertion. Nevertheless, she bent at the waist, bracing her hands on her knees, and gasped for breath.

Then two things happened.

Rachel stepped around from the front of the train, and the conductor came to stand in the doorway once again.

Ashlyn took an instinctive step backward.

The conductor looked up the tracks. He looked down the tracks. He pulled a long, white ticket from the pocket of his jacket. He looked straight at Ashlyn. Then, grinning, with his extended hand and a tip of his hat, he offered that ticket to Rachel.

“All aboard,” he called out.

“Rachel, no!” Ashlyn screamed.

Rachel’s head whipped around, as though noticing Ashlyn and Caden for the first time.

The conductor kept his attention riveted on Rachel, but his words could have been meant for either of them. “Oh, there’s room for plenty on board. Especially for you, little girl — the one nobody wanted.”

Ashlyn lurched forward.

Caden grabbed her arm, hard, holding her back. “Don’t listen to him, Ash.”

Ashlyn could see the conductor’s hollow eyes, glowing with excitement. She knew he could practically taste victory.

“Let me go, Caden. I’ve got to save her.”

“I won’t lose you!”

“No, you won’t,” she said. With a hard, purposeful yank, Ashlyn broke loose from his grip. She moved closer to her friend, with Caden hot on her heels. “Rachel, stay with me. Stay with us.”

Rachel’s hand stilled in midair, just inches from the ticket that the conductor held out to her. “Don’t … don’t come near me, Ashlyn. You either, Caden.”  Reflexively, her other hand went to her face as if to cover the fresh cuts and bruises.

But even in the near darkness, that hand’s fleeting attempt couldn’t hide the evidence of what her father had done. Rachel saw it — the shock of the beating registering in her only friends’ eyes.

“Don’t you see?” Rachel said sorrowfully. “It’s always going to be like this. Always going to hurt as long as I stay in this life.”

“A sad fact,” the conductor agreed in a soothing voice. “But just step aboard the train, little girl. Your life won’t be the same.”

“No!” Ashlyn screamed. “We’ll fix this!”

Rachel laughed, hysterically. Bitterly. “Who are you trying to kid? I’m Rachel Riley … the local loco. Just ask anyone! I’m the witch who hides all the scars so nobody will know she can’t help but cut herself when the pain rips right through her. I’m the weird girl whose father beats her all the time. And everyone knows and nobody stops it. That’s the way it is in Prescott Junction. Everyone hides beneath the covers when darkness falls around here. But beneath those covers is the worst of it for me. Because that’s the place where he hurts me the most.”

Their eyes locked — Ashlyn and Rachel’s — in this moment of truth.

“It ends, Rachel,” Ashlyn vowed. “It ends now and it ends with me. I’ll help you — no matter what it takes. I swear. I will. You’re not going back home, ever. Just … just get away from the train.”

“It’s my fate.”

“It doesn’t have to be! Look at what happened with Lolly-Pup!”

She shook her head. “My only ticket out—”

“That’s right,” hissed the conductor. “No one should expect you to live with that much pain. I can’t imagine how you’ve done it so long. But you don’t have to do it a moment longer. Just take the ticket. Just get on board the train.”

“I’m sorry, Ash,” Rachel said, shrugging helplessly. “It’s my fate. I think it always has been.” She turned back toward the consoling conductor, raised her hand toward the ticket he offered.

Caden had closed a protective hand around Ashlyn’s arm again, but with a sudden snap, Ashlyn pulled free. She raced to Rachel and threw her arms around her, pinning her friend’s arms against her side.

“Let me go!” Rachel sobbed the plea.

“Not a freakin’ chance!” Ashlyn yelled. “You’re so determined to get on that train? Well the only way you get on is if you take me with you!”

“Ashlyn, no!” Caden cried.

She silenced Caden with a determined look. She was the only one who could save Rachel. And she would. The only way she could. Caden had to trust her. Everything depended on it.

Reluctantly, Caden stood down.

The conductor laughed as he leaned toward the two girls. With one hand he held on to the door and with the other he extended the tickets — splaying two in his hand now — toward Ashlyn and Rachel. Ashlyn felt the pulsing of his evil pull. “Relief is just a step away,” he said, his words worming seductively into her head. “Just lay your troubles down and take the ticket out.”

Ashlyn gritted her teeth against the conductor’s draw, keeping her eyes trained on her friend. “You want to talk about betrayal, Rachel Riley? Well, you’re damn well a good one to talk. If you let this monster win, you’re betraying me. Caden. Our friendship. All of it! But I’m not letting you go this alone. No way in hell. You get on that train — I get on that train.”

Ashlyn felt Rachel draw three shuddering breaths.

Then she felt her friend still in her arms, no longer struggling. But neither had she gone limp.

Then Rachel lifted her head and forced out a message through clenched teeth. “Screw you!”

Ashlyn heart staggered. Had she lost her friend? Or wait….

“Rach? You’re not talking to me, are you?”

Rachel shook her head. “No, I’m talking to that ugly bag of bones.”

Growling his fury, the conductor swiped at Rachel, but when she ducked, it was Ashlyn’s shirt collar he caught hold of in his dead-cold hand. 

“Ha! I may not get two this night, but you’ll be the biggest prize of all, my green-eyed Caverhill. Take your ticket like a good little girl,” he pulled her close and hissed the foul words into her ear. “Get on board the train.”

Oh God, she could feel it. Sorrow dripped right through her. Defeat beat with her heart as the conductor — his hands upon her — sought to fill her with despair.

She had to fight this. She had to stop this.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rachel make a lunge.

“Rachel, stay back!” she shouted, twisting within the conductor’s grip.

Rachel stopped her advance.

Caden didn’t.

“Ah, what have we here? Another passenger to board the train tonight?” the conductor sneered.

Caden crouched in the martial arts pose Ashlyn remembered from the confrontation at the school dance. His eyes burned with intensity and concentration, his body exuding threat.

 “Come to save your little girlfriend? Well, you can’t. It’s too late for her. But I’ll sell you a ticket, too, if you want to join her on board.”

With a warrior’s roar, Caden hurled himself toward the conductor’s door in a blur of speed. At the last instant, he spun in midair and kicked his left foot high and out. His boot didn’t connect with the conductor, but it wasn’t intended to. Rather, it came within a whisper of that skeletal face, drawing the desired reaction. The conductor’s hand shot up to block the blow. The same hand that until a split second ago had held Ashlyn!

Caden whipped by the conductor, grabbing an already-moving Ashlyn as he did.

The three of them — Ashlyn with her hand close on her throat where the conductor had held her, Caden and Rachel — backed away from the train. They moved slowly and carefully, halfway down the riverbank, their eyes never leaving the furious conductor.

Fire blazed through the conductor’s skull as he threw his head back and roared. “You don’t win, Ashlyn Caverhill!” he vowed. His arm stretched long as he pointed one bony finger at her, marking her with a promise that she knew damn well he’d keep. “I’ll come back for you. I’ll track you down! Always for you! You and your friend and your mother and everyone else with a weary soul.”

The piercing whistle sounded again, deafening at this proximity. But this time, the conductor startled with it. Both his hands flew out to brace himself in the doorway, and he quickly backed out of sight as the train began to throttle up in preparation for moving on.

“He’s terrified of falling out,” Ashlyn said, astonished. “Scared shitless.”

Rachel choked out a laugh. “Yeah, well, I’m just about ready to drop a load myself.”

Caden shook his head. “I know what Ashlyn means. He’s terrified to let go of the train. He
can’t
let go.”

The chuffing sound increased, and slowly, the train started moving again.

The three sat in silence, watching the train’s snail-like pace as it moved along the tracks. Ashlyn felt Rachel beside her, trembling now as the worst of it was over.

For her at least.

For now.

Ashlyn closed her eyes a moment, steadying herself to her fate. She stood.

As if divining her thoughts, Caden stood too, catching her hand. “Where you going, babe?”

She looked at his eyes, saw the worry there. The pure dread.

Ashlyn pulled what breath she could. It was surprisingly little.

“I have to get on board that train.”

“W
HAT
?”
CADEN SHOUTED THE
word at her over the enraged howls of the thwarted conductor. “Are you crazy?”