Jack and Mr. Grin (12 page)

“The Wilds? Those are the woods on the other side of the tracks?”

“Yep. You’re starting to learn your Alton geography, aren’t you, Jack?”

“Reluctantly,” he said.

The car began demonstrating a disconcerting bucking effort and Jack slowed it down even more. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that this car didn’t like to exert itself. Probably not much before the crash and definitely not after it.

“I feel like we should have some kind of weapon or something,” Jack said.

“Well, then I’m afraid it’s time to thank friend Sam again,” Sam said, plopping the huge knife Maria had used between them, right next to the cell phone. Jack figured it probably came from the cafe.

“I didn’t even see you pick that up.”

“Fat guy moves faster than light sometimes.”

“Sam, if I make it through this I’m gonna buy you an ice cream cone.”

“If
we
make it through this. She’s my sister. I’m with you until the end.”

“That makes me feel very good to hear,” Jack said.

Then, out of nowhere, Sam said, “Did she ever tell you she’s adopted?”

Jack didn’t know how to respond to that. It probably would have had more of an effect if there were not such extenuating, much more serious things to deal with. People were adopted all the time. Especially now that it seemed like more twelve-year-olds were having kids themselves, coupled with the reality that no one wanted to take responsibility for anything anymore and people who were found to have abortions were called names like ‘murderer’. The fact she didn’t tell him did something to him. Of course, she could have just been sensitive about the subject and if, in the long run, it didn’t matter anyway, he guessed it wasn’t really important. Or, maybe...

“Does she know?” he asked Sam.

A look of bafflement crossed Sam’s face. “I...” he stammered. “I couldn’t really tell you. Don’t know if I’ve ever even thought about it. I know I’ve never talked to her about it and my parents didn’t introduce her as ‘Their adopted daughter, Gina, or anything. But... Well, I guess it’s entirely possible she doesn’t know. I was three when they found her so I know she was way too young...”

“
Found
her?”

“Yeah.”

“Like at the mall or something?”

“I couldn’t tell you. One day she wasn’t there. The next day there was this little baby and Mom said she was my new sister.”

“That’s unbelievable.” Jack didn’t know what else to say. Would
he
ask her about being adopted if he ever saw her again? Probably not.

“It’s just something I thought maybe you should know. Probably doesn’t make any difference but I guess it’s best not to leave anything unsaid, huh?” Jack was going to agree with him but was stopped before beginning when Sam said, “I think you can pull over any time now and we should be able to find it. ‘When Two Worlds Collide,’” Sam mused. “I never knew she called it that. That’s a cool name for it, I guess.”

“Maybe it’s even appropriate,” Jack said, easing the car over to the side of the road. He didn’t have to bother turning off the ignition. It shuddered violently, hissed and threw up a pall of white steam before the engine stopped completely.

He opened his door and stepped out. Sam came out through his side, presumably so he wouldn’t have to cut the duct tape away. With Sam’s size and girth, the struggle would have been comical under any other circumstances. Standing there, Jack felt like they were an unlikely pair of heroes, if heroes were what they were to become. Jack was short, nearly anemic in his build. He held his cell phone like a weapon. Sam was nearly a foot taller than Jack and easily outweighed him by a hundred pounds. He held the large knife in his right hand. The roll of duct tape encircled his left wrist like a bracelet containing special powers. What kind of special powers? Jack wondered. Adhesiveness? Sam was covered in blood that had now gone kind of crusty brown. Jack thought he looked more like an escaped mental patient.

A meadow spread out before them, its grass yellowed.

He didn’t feel nearly as cold as he had earlier, out trudging through the rain. It was like the weather had changed completely. The sun, although dying, peeked through the clouds. The air was much warmer and, because of the rains earlier, felt steamy. The beginnings of a thin ground fog covered the meadow.

At the back of the meadow, merely dark shapes on the horizon for now, were the two train engines, one with a cargo car still attached.

It hit Jack for the first time how extremely odd those trains were.

Twenty-one

“It’s so quiet out here,” Jack said. The road they had just pulled to the side of was a very narrow one. No yellow lines down the middle. No white lines on the sides. This was where the city saved their money. Not enough people traveled on this road to warrant the upkeep.

“Do you think someone owns all this?” Jack asked.

“Never really gave it much thought. I’m sure somebody somewhere owns it. I don’t think there’s any bit of property that
isn’t
owned these days, is there?”

“I think you’re probably right about that.”

“I guess we’d better get started, huh?”

Jack patted the cell phone in his pocket to make sure it was there. “Yeah, and we’d probably better hurry. This might not be the place. We don’t want to waste all of our time here if it isn’t. And, listen, Sam...”

“I’m listenin.”

“Whatever happens, we have to stick together. Okay? No losing each other. No getting separated.”

“Didn’t plan on it. I don’t really want to be alone out in the Wilds after dark. Those are some creepy ass woods.”

“Let’s go then.”

They set off across the meadow. It was probably around 200 yards across and maybe that deep as well. Woods were on either side of it and Jack thought it looked like the Wilds were encroaching, threatening to gobble up the meadow and maybe even, eventually, the road.

They cut through the tall grass. It would have soaked their shoes and their jeans if they weren’t soaked already. He had now spent the greater part of the day outdoors and knew this was not the greatest type of day to do that. Although it was better now. Now being outside wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t rainy or cold. It was almost balmy. For this time of year, it was a very rare type of day.

He kept his eyes set on the engines in the distance, watching them get larger and larger.

“So,” Jack asked. “You said you’ve been in those trains?”

“Oh, yeah, I think just about anybody who’s ever been a teenager in
Alton
has been in there. You said you’ve been there, right?”

“Yeah. Did you ever cross through them? You know, like get to the Wilds by going through the trains?”

“Oh, definitely. It was a, um, natural progression I guess you’d say. That’s how we discovered the motel.
The Hotel Eternity
!” He blurted nearly triumphantly. “That’s what that old place is called. The Hotel Eternity. It’s an awful fancy name for a place that isn’t really that fancy at all, if you ask me. It’s like when they call bars things like ‘Partners’ and ‘Champs’ or ‘Winners’... You know, like the complete opposite of what you’d find inside. I guess ‘Hotel Eternity’ is supposed to sound romantic but it’s the kind of place you’d go if you wanted to snort cocaine off a hooker’s back while you rammed her from behind. Anyway, yeah, I’ve definitely been through those trains. Why?”

“When I was talking to Tim Fox, he said Gina was afraid to go through the train. She would get in the train on the one side, you know, this side, but then she was afraid to go out the other side of the car. She said that if she stepped off she would be in like... another world or something. I guess that’s why she thought of calling it ‘When Two Worlds Collide.’ Now, if she mentioned the name of the place to me, it’s possible I forgot but I
know
she never mentioned that crazy theory.”

“You don’t think she was serious, do you?”

“I didn’t see how she could be and I kind of asked Tim about that too and he said that she was most definitely deathly afraid of getting off on the other side. He never saw her do it. He would even do it himself just to let her know that nothing would happen.”

“I guess our Gina could be a little crazy at times.”

“But that’s completely irrational.”

“Unless she knows something we don’t know.”

That last sentence just kind of hung there in the air, neither of them really expounding on it. Like two drunks who, after having stumbled upon some truth have to look in their beer glasses, silently, to contemplate that truth.

“So,” Jack said after a while. “You really think it’s possible?”

“Wouldn’t you say just about anything is possible at this point?”

“Probably so.”

Then, after walking a few more steps, he said, “It’s the marks.”

“Huh?” Sam said, lost in his own reverie.

“It’s the marks.”

“Oh,” Sam said, inspecting his bandaged left arm. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have thought that anything was possible if it hadn’t been for the marks. Until then, I just thought I was an extremely unfortunate fellow. But the marks make me think maybe something else is going on.”

“Like something mystical?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” Jack said.

The trains grew even closer. Less than fifty yards away now. He decided to consider the oddity of the situation. He had heard of trains derailing before. Usually due to some kind of mechanical failure. But two engines plowing into each other? It seemed ludicrous. Impossible. Didn’t they have extensive safeguards against such a thing? Were tracks even two-way? He didn’t know. It seemed like there would be only one way per track but he supposed they
could
go both ways. He didn’t really see why not. But then what about schedules? That seemed like one of the most obvious associations with trains. Train schedules. Trains running on time. If scheduling and time were so inherent to locomotion then how could two trains just plow into each other like that?

Unless one had simply come from nowhere.

The thought sent a shiver down his spine. It was that kind of thinking that threatened to drag his mind off into tangents he didn’t really want it to go. But the more he thought about it, the more things seemed to be leaning toward the supernatural. Maybe even the mystical, as Sam had put it.

The trains and the brands.

Of course, the trains had been here for as long as anyone could remember. He would have to look up their history if he made it out of this alive. Again, there was an insane thought. Making it out of things alive. That just seemed to be so much more dramatic than what he was used to.

The brands, however, the brands were something new.

He still had Sam’s in his jeans pocket.

Now nearly to the trains, he had a thought and frantically pulled the brand out of his pocket, spreading it out in his palm.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“The brands,” Jack began. “The marks. From the very first one, I noticed there was some kind of pattern to them and I think, if you’re right about that old hotel, I might have figured them out.”

“Explain please,” Sam said.

Transferring the brand to his left hand, he pointed his right index finger along first the left vertical line. Then the horizontal line in the middle. Then the right vertical line.

“See,” he said. “That’s an ‘H’.”

Then he ran his finger again along the left vertical line. Then the topmost horizontal line. The second one down, in the middle. The bottom one.

“And, that. That’s an ‘E’. See how they’re thicker there?”

A strange expression crossed Sam’s face. Maybe it was concern. Maybe it was pity.

“You don’t think I’m right, do you?” Jack asked.

“I want to think you’re right,” Sam said. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. I mean, we could be way off the mark here. That motel might not even be there, for all I know. It’s probably been ten years since I’ve seen it and the city likes to tear things down that could possibly harbor squatters and bums. I would be more surprised if it were still standing at all.”

Jack thought about the mental image in his head from when Mr. Grin had called. It fit. It fit the image of an abandoned hotel perfectly. That would explain why all the furnishings were more wildly out of date than hotel furnishings normally are.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “You’re right. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”

The trains were in front of them, reeking of oil and exhaust, even after all these years. They loomed there, larger than life.

“All aboard,” Sam said, and slowly climbed up into the freight car.

“Wait!” Jack shouted. A bad feeling soured his stomach.

It was Sam’s alarm at Jack’s warning that probably got him hurt.

He turned to face Jack and a gunshot rang out. The hand holding the rusty rail disintegrated and Sam tumbled to the ground at Jack’s feet. Jack didn’t know whether to help him or run.

“Move away,” Jack heard from the freight car. It was a voice he recognized all too well. One he’d had to listen to rambling on at unholy lengths about subjects he had no interest in.