JUNK
Chapter Four
"Okay, here's the plan."
Sam leaned back and sighed. He'd heard eight or nine plans since leaving Exeter, each one was different and none made any sense at all. Still, he was sitting down, he was warm and dry, he wasn't hungry and his concern for the odd young girl was distracting him somewhat from his growing discomfort. She seemed not to mind if he scratched but he tried to keep it at a minimum.
Dawn was breaking through the train's grimy windows. Sam lifted the shade a little, squinted and pulled the shade back down.
"We go up to Aberdeen. Daddy does his thing with the big oil men. You and Mother and I check out the burg. Mother likes to go shopping, so while she's shopping we just kind of slip onto a bus or a train and get the hell out of there."
"That doesn't sound like such a good idea," said Sam, scratching.
"I can get some money out of her bag any time. It's easy. I do it all the time."
"That sounds like an even worse idea."
"Okay, then what's your plan?"
"I don't have a plan."
"See?"
"What happens if we don't have a plan? What's your parents' plan?"
"Oh, well, Daddy meets the oil men and Mother takes us sightseeing, which means shopping. Mother's not big on culture."
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"Trust me. Anyway, we see boring old Aberdeen and if we're lucky we spend lots of money. Then we go over to Loch Ness and see if we can take a picture of the monster."
"You have a camera?" Sam hadn't noticed one as he had watched the Whatley's pack, back in the hotel room in London.
"We can buy one," said Rose.
"Of course."
"Then we go wandering all over Scotland looking at castles and things. It sounds like a drag."
"It doesn't sound so bad to me," said Sam.
"Well it is. Except for Daddy's work part, they're just trying to show me a good time before they dump me at that godawful school. Oh yeah, we get to visit the school too. I have to start right after the Christmas break."
"You'll be all alone at Christmas?"
"No, Mother and Daddy aren't leaving until after Christmas. Big deal. I wish they would. I wish they would just leave me alone."
"I think," said Sam, slowly, not quite noticing that the train's rumbling was getting louder and its sway wider, "that you should appreciate your parents while you can."
"You mean like before they die? Please. They're not that old."
"Well, that too, but I meant before they go back to America. Try to enjoy their company and then make the best of this school business. It won't last forever. Who knows, you might even learn something!"
"Would you come visit me sometimes?"
"I don't know," said Sam, sadly. "I will if I can. I don't know what my situation will be."
Rose reached over and patted his hand. "Don't you worry about that. We'll take good care of you. We're doing fine so far, aren't we? We were going to go to Tintagel first and see King Arthur's Castle but now we're doing that last because of you. We're getting you nice and lost!"
"Thank you," said Sam.
"Sam," said Al, popping into the seat next to Rose, "you haven't got much time."
The scientist tried not to appear too startled but Rose jumped when he did. "What is it?" she cried. "Are you okay?"
"I think I'm okay," said Sam, to Al, inquiringly. Al shook his head.
"You're not okay," said Al. "Nobody on this train is okay. You're running into a gale and it's going to knock the train clean off the track and over a bridge. Over a hundred people are going to be injured, and eighteen of them will be killed."
Sam closed his eyes. He had to risk it. "Which cars?"
"Huh?" said Rose.
"The engine and the first three cars go over. Everyone in the engine is killed immediately; it's dumped in the water and so is the first car. The passengers drown, break their heads open - lots of injuries there. In the second and third cars people get knocked around a bit. Luggage falls on them. They panic. They try to climb out and they can't. They hurt each other. It's bad, Sam. A little baby is crushed. One guy has a heart attack."
"How much time?" asked Sam, his eyes still closed.
"Almost none," said Al. "Twenty-three minutes."
Sam opened his eyes. "Rose," he said. "If I ask you to do something crazy, will you do it?"
"Absolutely," said Rose absolutely.
"We have to make everyone in the first three cars of this train come back here. Don't ask me how I know, but I know we've got to do that. We're going to have a crash. Now..." he continued, as Rose reacted in alarm, "we're all right in this car, but the people in the front are in terrible danger. We have to get them out."
"This is great!" cried Rose. "Let's do it!"
"How?" asked Al.
"Wake up your mom and dad," said Sam. "Wake them up and tell them they have to help us. What we have to do is get everyone in those cars to come up here, one by one so they don't get in each other's way in the aisles. These aisles are awfully narrow..."
"How do we do that?"
"Uh... we start with the third car and we say something simple and compelling to make the two or three people in each row come with us. You start with the back of the third car, you and your mom start with the back of the second car, and your dad, he's pretty big and convincing, he can do the first car. No, I'll do the first car and he can do the third. The thing is, we have to do it fast and we have to do it quietly."
"But what do we say?"
"You wake them up while I think."
"Mother? Daddy?" Rose was shaking her parents before Sam had finished the sentence. Before their eyes had quite opened, Sam was in the third car, looking at the sleeping people. How could he move all of them and two cars besides? Suddenly he knew, and he rushed back to the Whatleys to instruct them.
"Excuse me, sir," said Rose, to the family in the back row left of the second car. "I don't mean to alarm you, but the conductor in the fifth car has told me there is a gas leak in here and you are to come out quietly and go to the dining car."
"You're kidding!" said the father of the family, barely awake. Two small children stared at Rose.
"I'm afraid not, sir. Please, quickly, go to the dining car. I have to tell the others." She moved quickly to the back row right to repeat the procedure with the long-legged young man who was trying to curl into a comfortable position there. "Excuse me, sir, but the conductor in the fifth car has told me there is a gas leak in here.…"
"You're kidding!" said the father of the family, barely awake. Two small children stared at Rose.
"I'm afraid not, sir. Please, quickly, go to the dining car. I have to tell the others." She moved quickly to the back row right to repeat the procedure with the long-legged young man who was trying to curl into a comfortable position there. "Excuse me, sir, but the conductor in the fifth car has told me there is a gas leak in here.…"
Steve, in the third car, had the most luck; all he had to do was raise his voice the tiniest bit and people moved. Madeline, starting in the middle of the second car, was also slightly more convincing than her daughter. Still, when passengers noticed others filtering out of the car, they were eager for an explanation, and accepting of the one they got. Soon passengers were anticipating the order and leaving on their own, and the Whatelys' job was no longer to convince people to go but to keep the exodus orderly.
In the first car, the aisle became quite crowded but Sam recruited helpers along the way to keep things orderly. The few who tried to bring their suitcases were discouraged from doing so and finally were willing to leave them. "Gas can't hurt them," Sam explained. "Come on!"
If anyone thought at first to question where in the world poison gas could be coming from or who the hell the androgynous child in the midnight blue dress might be, they got caught up soon enough in the rush and ceased their wondering.
The first car was all but clear, as was the second, and the third was full of people standing, waiting to get out, when the train veered left off of the bridge over which it was rattling, amid howling gale winds. Everyone screamed, Sam included. Only two people, a man and a woman, had refused to leave the first car, which, following the engine, broke free from the train and dropped into the water with a terrible crash. Several more were still in the second car; a middle-aged woman with long dyed-blonde hair went sliding toward the end of the train and Sam, who was right there, sliding too, grabbed her by the hair and hooked an arm around a seat. She let out a yell that almost made Sam let go of her, but he didn't; he let go of the seat instead and grabbed the woman by an arm, stopping his own slide by purposely slamming his shoulder into the wall next to the gaping door to the train platform. Then he was able to grab her around the waist. A glance told him that she would have gone off the platform, out of the train and into the river had he not caught her. He dragged her back into the car and shoved her into the nearest seat. She screamed obscenities at him but he didn't care; she was alive, and although his shoulder hurt like hell, so was he.
He stood panting for a moment, then offered his hand to the woman to help her out of the seat, which was tilted downwards like the whole car. She accepted his hand and came out of the seat.
Followed by the woman, he scrambled up the car, using hands and feet; he noticed then that his shoes had come off and slid away. Although they were flats, he wasn't sorry to lose women's shoes, and his toes provided more traction than the shoes would have. A boy with a green mohawk was sitting on the floor in front of his seat, looking very surprised but uninjured. Sam helped him up and half-pushed him up the car. A few more people, dazed and frightened, managed to stand up and attempt to come out of the car.
Sam proceeded into the third car (now by default the second) and found it occupied by quite a few frightened people, some crying but all unhurt. A weak-looking bespectacled man with a surprisingly strong grip helped Sam into the car. "Thank you," gasped Sam, quite out of breath but not yet ready to rest. He made it to the top of the car and into the portion of the train that was still on the track, though the wind ripped at it and it threatened to go over altogether.
"It won't fall, Sam," said Al, "and you saved all those people. Good thinking. I can't believe you did it!"
"I didn't, Al." Sam was shaking now, not from drug withdrawal but from the adrenaline rush. "I didn't save them all. My God, Al, the people in that car... I couldn't get them all out!"
"You saved a lot of lives," insisted Al as Sam fell more or less into the lap of some stranger, a curly-haired young man who seemed not to mind at all. Sam hadn't the energy to move, or to care that he was overheard.
"What happened to them Al? My God.…"
"Name's Tom," said the curly-haired young man, helping Sam to sit up on his knee. "We had a bit of a crash is what. Seems to me you did a bit of good work around here!"
Al popped out of sight and then back in. "One of them has a broken leg. She's in a part of the car that's out of the water. She's cold and scared but she'll be okay. They'll get her out. I know there's another one but I can't find him, Sam. It's dark. I think he's in the water. I could hear him. I... I don't think he's going to make it, Sam."
"Excuse me," said Sam, picking himself up out of the pleasant young man's lap and straightening his skirt. In the general hubbub of the overcrowded car, the frightened passengers and Al's rather frantic queries as to what the hell Sam thought he was doing, he made his way back into the third car, where he found the man who had pulled him in now helping others into the aisle so they could attempt to climb out into the stable fourth car. "Do you need some help?" asked Sam. The man shook his head. Sam slapped him on the back and proceeded down the car; he half-slid down to the connecting platform, peered out of the door into the darkness, shook his head, repeated the procedure in the first car, where nothing had changed, and found himself much closer to the water then as he grasped whatever he could find to keep himself from falling in.
At first he couldn't understand why it was so dark; then he realized that dark clouds were blasting rain down upon them and the winds were whipping this up into a storm. He could feel the train's precarious sway. He couldn't hear anything from below because the storm was deafening but he could make out the fallen car. It wasn't directly below him. He though he could jump into the water without hitting it.
Had he turned around he would have seen, but not heard, Al frantically yelling, "No, Sam! You'll be killed!" This was not Ziggy's prediction but the observer's own; he was sure his friend would be smashed against the wrecked train carriage and drowned in the freezing river. Unable to catch Sam's attention from behind, he pressed a button and positioned himself in front of him, standing upon nothing in the midst of the howling turbulence, not a hair on his head so much as stirring.
The effect would have been stunning but his timing was poor. Sam dove right through him.
The water was colder than Sam had expected, and hard. He hit it as gracefully as he could under the circumstances but it was still a shock. He went far under before struggling to the surface. It wasn't much lighter above than below. He gasped, trying to breathe, squinted and shook water from his eyes, tried to orient himself and could not, and finally shouted, "Al!"
"Oh, Sam, thank God!" The hologram was gasping as if he too had dived. "This way, Sam! Hurry up!"
Impeded by waves, rain and a horrid sense of déja vu, but guided and encouraged by Al's voice and the occasional glimpse he could catch of his friend, Sam swam to the wreckage, which was more than half-sunken but had stopped. (Sam later learned that the engine had struck the pilings of an older, destroyed bridge, bounced off into the water and dragged with it the first car, which had been caught on the pilings and not sunk more than halfway.) The car's doors proper were submerged but a little platform still stuck up in the air along with a good half of the car, and of course this afforded access - to anyone who could climb or fly. Sam considered diving once more to find the underwater entrance but decided that this had to be closed, or the car would be sinking even more quickly than it was. If he opened it, the car's occupants were doomed. Nor was he eager to face the darkness of the sea. He hoisted himself up out of the water and onto the wounded bit of train. It wasn't much warmer in the air than in the water; indeed, the wind chilled him through and almost knocked him back into the drink. The rain got in his eyes and blinded him. He wasn't sure what he was holding onto but somehow he labored up the side of the he got to the top the car and then nearly fell in. He let himself drop into a seat that was almost 90 degrees out of kilter, and then he had a hard time getting out of it. A nearby voice startled him; it did not speak but whimpered. Crouched on what should have been the front of his seat, Sam looked across the aisle and saw a woman in a long flowered dress, huddled in the corresponding seat. Her face and arms were smudged and her dress was torn at the hem, but she seemed unhurt. Sam knew she had a broken leg but could not see that. The rain, falling through the opening, had soaked her; she had, to an extent, traded shelter for altitude. She stared at Sam but could neither retreat nor approach.
"It's all right," said Sam, wondering how she had managed, with a broken leg, to pull herself to temporary safety. He had trouble just climbing the rest of the way out of his seat and down to a lower one; he did not allow himself to fall in. His dress was clinging to him, but this actually made it easier to climb than if the dress had been dry and billowing; it did not occur to him to wonder what the woman thought he was doing in a dress. "You're all right," he said. "People are coming. They know you're here." He would use the seats as a ladder and climb down to the lower half of the car, where he could see dark water.
"Not really," corrected Al, "but they will. They'll get her in time. Go! Find him!" Sam cocked his head at the woman. "Cynthia. Cynthia Tartini, thirty-nine, of York, clerk in a drug store by day, by night a graduate student of economics, on her way to Edinburgh to pick up her young daughter, who's visiting Daddy. I guess Daddy doesn't live with Cynthia anymore. Hobbies include... I guess you don't need to know her hobbies, Sam."
"Cynthia," called Sam, lowering himself more and more, "wait there! Help is on the way!"
"Where's she going, Sam?"
Too overcome yet to wonder how Sam knew her name, the woman cried, "Where are you going?"
Instead of answering, Sam said, "Al, where the hell is he? Is he in this water? Is he already dead?" Without waiting for a reply he lowered himself into the water, then forced himself to go under. He had an irrational dread that he would find not a living man, or even a dead man, but a dead child, a child with a word carved into its flesh. Indeed, the flesh he encountered on the fourth dive was lifeless, and he used all the courage he had to drag the man to the surface; the seats helped him to pull them both up.
"I can't believe you found him!" cried Al. "Is he alive?" Sam was too out of breath to answer, or to do much of anything for several minutes. Then he clambered up into a seat and pulled the man in after him. "He doesn't look alive, Sam. Oh, Sam. I'm so sorry."
Sam wasn't listening. He was pumping the man's chest. He was breathing into the man's mouth. He was pounding on the man's chest. The man refused to return to life.
"Sam.…"
"No, Al, it's not fair!" Sam pounded on the man's chest until even he had to realize it was doing no good; then he pounded on the seats. "No, no!"
"I'm sorry, Sam."
Sam looked down at the dead man sprawled on the seat; Sam was sitting on his legs. He was an ordinary-looking guy, a little overweight, balding, soaking wet - it was hard to picture him alive. "Who was he, Al?"
"Do you really need to know that, Sam?"
"Yes."
"Okay. He was Michael Cantor, age fifty-seven, a banker from Edinburgh. His wife and two children are back on the train. That's all."
"That's all?"
"Yeah. That's all. That's all that was in the newspaper, anyway."
Sam looked up. "Al, why am I here?"
"You know why you're here, Sam."
"No, Al, I don't. Am I here to help Ray and Bodie catch a serial killer? Am I here to get Luther off of drugs? Am I here to see that Rose stays in Britain and gets an education, or am I here to see that she doesn't get left here all alone and do something stupid? Am I here to save people on a train? What's the leap, Al? What do I have to do?"
"Well, Sam," Al said slowly, "Ziggy still says you're here for the children. I have a theory, though." Sam just stared. "My theory, Sam, is that you will find a reason to be wherever you are. It's how you are."
Sam pulled himself to the top of the car and leaned in to see how Cynthia was doing. She nodded toward the bottom of the car. Sam shook his head. She began to cry. Sam put a hand on her shoulder, then climbed out of the car, into the night.
Helicopters were already circling, battling the fierce winds.