Skeletons (28 page)

We backed past the rest rooms and there was an entry, partly blocked off with a sawhorse.

"This is it," Mrs. Garr said. "Now we have to find a train heading west through Pennsylvania."

We went back to where the ticket counters were visible, long lines of skeletons queuing along.

Mrs. Garr craned her neck, tried to read the arrivals and departures sign. "Stay here, Claire."

She strode slowly out into view and studied the sign. A passenger near the end of one line turned to look at her, looked away, looked back.

Mrs. Garr returned. "Got it."

The curious passenger was about to leave the line to follow us when two other passengers, a man and his wife, arguing, blocked his way.

He tried to get through them, craning his neck. "I saw—" he started to say.

"You saw what, buddy?" the man said.

"Oh, leave him alone, Jeff," his wife snapped. "You're always bothering everybody. Just get me out of this god-damned city before everything turns to dust."

The line moved up. The skeleton who had been staring at us, who wore the vague outlines of a suit and tie, didn't move with it.

"You gonna move or what?" Jeff said.

He shoved the other skeleton, and the two of them started to scuffle as we backed past the rest rooms to the opening blocked by the sawhorse.

We moved past the sawhorse, found ourselves in a black, damp-smelling tunnel.

"The trains are along here somewhere," Mrs. Garr said.

As if in answer, a dirty streak of silver shot past to our left, illuminating the tunnel.

"Let's go, Claire."

There were dim bulbs overhead, barely illuminating the ledge we were on, which led us eventually to a row of train platforms.

"We want platform five," Mrs. Garr said.

Our ledge fronted platform three.

"We have to climb down and across."

Mrs. Garr lowered herself into the pit of the train path, helped me down after her.

We crossed the tracks, stepped carefully over the third rail, climbed up the other side.

Two platforms away sat a silver Amtrak train.

As we crossed the set of tracks on platform four, I felt a rumble and a headlight appeared down the dark tunnel, bearing down on us.

Mrs. Garr climbed up, held her hand down. "Claire!"

I held on. She pulled me up as the train passed. The back of our train confronted us.

We heard voices on the far side. We edged around to where we could see two skeletons, one holding a thermos.

"Last trip for me," the one with the thermos said. "I've got the wife and kids out in Ohio waiting. We're gonna hide in the hills till all this crap blows over."

"You heard about martial law, didn't you? They're shooting anyone who leaves a public-service post."

"Screw it," the one with the thermos said. "I've had enough of this craziness. Did you see they had those old-timers working the northeast corridor. Steam-engine men, for Christ's sake. When that guy Fulton broke the union, that was it for me."

"What about the army?"

"Which one? When they figure out who's in charge of everything, then they can call me again."

The other laughed. "Well, they say Lincoln . . ."

We moved around to the other side of the train.

We were confronted by the skeleton from the ticket line upstairs, the one in the suit and tie. He was climbing out of the neighboring train pit, breathing heavily.

“There's a bounty for you humans, you know. It's backed by gold—"

Mrs. Garr rushed forward, pushed him back down into the pit.

He held his balance for a moment, then collapsed, falling and hitting the third rail.

He shrieked, was gone in a cloud of sparks and dust.

Mrs. Garr ran back, pulled me flat against the side of train as the two Amtrak men from the other side appeared.

"What the—"

They walked to the edge of the neighboring pit, looked down.

“Christ," the first one said.

The second one laughed. "Maybe he was a steam man."

The first one laughed, and they went back to the other side of the train. "Time to get this sucker out of here," the first one said, "before somebody blows it up."

Mrs. Garr pulled me along the side of the train. The doors to the rear car were locked. We peered inside. It was an empty passenger car, dark and inviting.

We moved to the next, a baggage car. It, too, was locked.

The first door on the next car was open.

Mrs. Garr climbed up cautiously and looked in. Quickly she came back.

"There are four skeletons at the other end of the car," she whispered.

We adjusted our masks and climbed up. Mrs. Garr immediately pushed the door operator between our car and the baggage car.

I looked down the length of the passenger car. The four skeletons were playing cards. One of them said something and there was a blurt of laughter.

After a moment the door hissed back and opened. We entered.

The four skeletons at the other end of the car looked up briefly, went back to their card game. The door slid closed behind us.

Mrs. Garr pushed the door to the baggage car. The door made a faint rumble, didn't open. "Damn," Mrs. Garr said.

She tried again.

It didn't open, but there was a faint rumbling sound. Mrs. Garr hit the door with the flat of her hand. It groaned, began to slide back.

We pulled the door the rest of the way back. Suddenly it freed, sliding into its jamb.

We entered the baggage car.

The door rumbled shut behind us, plunging us into shadows and bare light entering the two center windows. “Thank God," Mrs. Garr said.

We took off our masks, felt our way through a maze of boxes and suitcases, sacks of mail, crates of foodstuffs. A tiny skeletal dog in a pet carrier barked feebly; a skeletal bird, in a hanging cage, squawked once, then was silent, following our progress with its tiny eyeless skull.

The backdoor to the car was locked. It was different from the other doors, a huge handle with a double keyhole.

"Enough," Mrs. Garr said suddenly, exhausted. She sank to the floor, pulling her knees up. In a few moments she was asleep.

I sat beside her. And a little while later, as the train rumbled into moving life, I, too, closed my eyes.

We awoke suddenly, blinded by sunlight. The car was brightly illuminated. Beneath, I felt the comfortable rumbling roll of the moving train.

We rose and made our way to one of the windows. The light hurt my eyes, and for a moment I shut them.

When I opened them, I saw what looked like a dream.

"Oh, Claire," Mrs. Garr said.

We were moving through green countryside. The summer trees, the lush growth at the side of the tracks, the rolling unspoiled hills, made such a stark contrast to what we had seen that for a few moments we sat transfixed.

"I wonder where we are," Mrs. Garr said.

We crossed to the window on the other side of the aisle. The tiny skeletal dog began to bark. The bird in its cage cocked its head, followed us with its eyeless gaze. As I moved past its cage it pecked out.

In the far distance, behind the train, were the ruins of a city. Brown smoke spoiled the blue summer sky. “That's not New York," Mrs. Garr said.

She studied the city skyline for a few moments, then turned away.

“That used to be Philadelphia."

I continued to look. Mrs. Garr rejoined me, pointed up to a high hill where a gutted white building with columns on it that looked vaguely like a Greek temple lay smoldering.

"That was the Museum of Fine Art," she said. "Michael and I were there. They filmed the first Rocky movie there."

I remembered now, the long steps, the fighter played by Sylvester Stallone running up, jumping at the top, hands thrust high in the air in triumph.

"Everything's going," Mrs. Garr said wearily. "Soon everything will be gone."

We went back to the other window. The bird squawked once, angrily, adding to the tiny dog's yelps.

We looked out at the hills, spoiled now by what we had just seen and the occasional sights of a rutted country road, a burning farmhouse. In the middle distance a white church sat on a hillock, its steeple knocked askew. Next to it a small patch of a cemetery was churned up, potted with open holes, gravestones pushed over.

"Soon we have to get off the train," Mrs. Garr said. Her voice sounded devoid of hope. She turned away from the window, sat down with her back to it, motioned for me to sit by her.

She took my hand in hers, looked at me with a sad, tired smile.

"I don't know what's going to happen, Claire," she said. "I don't know if Michael's brother will be in
Arlentown
when we get there, or if he'll be able to help us. I don't know if I'll ever see Michael again. I miss him so much it hurts. . .

"But I want you to know that whatever happens, I'll try to take care of you. It's the one thing I know I have to do."

She looked closely at me. "You've changed, Claire. I think that seed has begun to sprout inside you."

I nodded.

"You
do
know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

I nodded again, and smiled.

"Oh, Claire," she said, pulling me to her and hugging me. “That seed will bloom into a beautiful flower. I know that. I wish I could tell you—"

She stopped, and looked away from me.

"I will tell you," she said after a moment. "I know you were never told how you came to be at Withers. And you were never told who your parents were. In another two years, when you were eighteen and old enough to leave, you would have been given that information if you had demanded it."

I waited for her to go on.

'The truth is, Claire, I came to Withers because of you. Sixteen years ago, when I was just about your age, long before I met my husband, Michael, I met a man and I stayed with him for one night. He was black, a colonel in the air force. The next year I had his baby, a beautiful brown-skinned girl. Because I was so young, the baby went into foster care, and I never saw her again. I was told a good home would be found. After a while I met Michael and my baby slipped to the back of my mind.

"But then a year ago I began to have dreams. And in my dreams was a beautiful, young, brown-skinned girl who wouldn't speak. That young girl was my daughter, and I knew I had to find her and take care of her. . ."

She held me and began to cry. "Oh, Claire, I told Michael about you. He understood everything. There was paperwork that Mrs. Page at Withers was getting ready for me. In another six months I would have been able to take you home. Your real father knew nothing about you, but we were going to get in touch with him. He was a good man. I think he'd be very proud of you.

"Claire, why did all of these bad things have to happen before I could take you home?"

Mrs. Garr, my mother, held me very tight, then turned and looked at the countryside rolling by. There were tears in her eyes.

There were tears in my eyes, too. The train rolled on. I stayed with my back to the window, watching the solemn little skull of the bird in his cage, and he watched me.

Wearing our masks, we left the train at
Arlentown
. Only one other passenger got off, a skeleton up toward the front. The platform didn't reach the baggage car, so we jumped down and hid behind it while the skeleton passenger walked to a car in the small parking lot, got in, and drove off.

The skeletal conductor leaned out of his compartment, waved at the engineer up front, and the Amtrak train pulled slowly away.

The station, and the surrounding hills, were untouched. It was only when we checked through the few cars in the parking lot that our real world came back to us. In one of them all four doors were locked. The windshield was shattered by a hole on the driver's side. When we looked in, we saw a pile of dry dust on the front seat.

There were two other cars. One was open but empty, the other locked, its keys lying on the front seat near a pile of dust.

My mother searched near the platform, found a large rock, came back, and shattered the driver's-side window.

We brushed out the glass and dust and got in. The engine turned over once, coughed, died, but on the second try it roared into life.

We pulled out of the parking lot.

We drove through beautiful country. The roads were empty of movement. We passed an overturned mail truck, a bakery delivery truck with all four tires punctured and its backdoors open. The few farmhouses we passed looked quiet and empty.

"Michael's brother's place isn't far," my mother said. She tried the radio. There was only static. She turned it off. I watched her tension mounting as we went on.

We turned down a narrow country road, under a long spread of trees, then into a long dirt path leading behind a hill. A silo was visible.