As the Fiat rolled away from Krakus House, Edmund couldn’t help but feel a strange hush had fallen across Ozelki. True, they were yet to see a single person since their stay, but this morning, despite the cold, Edmund noticed more than one door hanging open. The old woman noticed it too, that was clear by the way she searched doorways and windows, but did not say anything. The connection wasn’t there, but it would be later when he was fighting for his life. But in the backseat of the trundling car, he was filled with unease, despite the calm. And as they put the ancestral home of the Opeikun Order to their taillights, none of them knew it would be the last, restful day in East Poland.
***
Minutes later they were passing through the outskirts of Poniatowo, out of the forest and right back into it as they headed south, away from civilization and the busy highway. For a moment, they were aimed toward Treblinka—the site of the death camp and not the town with its namesake, and although only one person in the car would know it, this was the same path the train had taken when she was aboard it. Her eyes drifted out the window to the rhythmic, sentinel-like telephone poles that weren’t there eighty years ago, and tried to remember the train tracks. Every time the old lady left Krakus House and came this way, whether it was to the doctors, the pharmacy, to get baking yeast, or just to watch Lena fish on the banks of Lake Uzek, she was reminded of the train stopping dead in its tracks. Then, it reversed and stole away to a hidden lair, near where the American was wanting to return.
“You alright?” asked Edmund, shaking the old lady from some sort of reverie.
“Fine, fine. Just admiring the snow, is all.”
There wasn’t much of it, and with another warm day or two, all evidence of it would be gone. Much like him and his friends after this trip was over. A part of him was relieved, but he was struggling to make himself change gears. He’d already been in many countries—why couldn’t his mind leave this one?
“Up here,” Edmund told Sophie. He leaned in and pointed out the steep incline where he’d pulled the car last night, and now that most of the snow was gone, he saw just how lucky he’d been. Had he driven up any closer to the treeline, the Fiat’s muffler and undercarriage would have been ripped to shreds.
Ahead of them lay the ruins of the forest. On the edges, the trees were fine, skeletal branches still pointing up to the heavens, some crowding with large, dark birds that Edmund couldn’t make out to be crows or ravens. But in the middle, as if a tunnel had been driven straight through the forest was the path the train had taken as it stormed down the mountain to pick up Otto. Trees had fallen, the snow had been pushed back into banks at least six feet high. Even a trench ran along the ground, as if the train had a rudder for a belly.
The group disembarked, with Edmund leading the way. Matilda followed behind, and even with Bill and Sophie offering to help her up the mountain, she refused. The snow had turned to rain overnight, and the rain had made the ground muck. Each of them wore heavy boots, the mud holding their feet hostage with each lumbering step.
Edmund explained what had happened as they walked. It was easy to follow the path back to where the train had first appeared, so jagged was the trail.
“How come there was no destruction in Addey’s video?” asked Sophie. “Why didn’t it knock down trees then?”
Matilda cleared her throat, coughed up a knot of green phlegm and spit in the snow. Then said, “We’ve told you. The train is getting stronger. The more people to succumb to it, the more powerful it will be.”
“Then how do we stop it?” asked Sophie. Even Edmund thought it was a foolish, naïve question.
Matilda smirked. “You don’t stop evil. You just change it. It’ll always be here, some way or another.”
“Then how do you change it?” Sophie asked.
Bill said, “Right, it became the train. How can it change again?”
Matilda considered their words for a moment, as if she’d never thought of such a thing before. “I don’t know. But anytime something changes, there’s the risk it’ll get stronger rather than weaker.”
“But isn’t it odd?” Sophie asked, helping the old woman step over a fallen tree as they moved to the apex of the mountain. “We had a force of such evil. And you, a force for good. And you just so happened to cross paths.”
“It is strange,” said Matilda, swatting away help on the other side of the log. “I’ve always thought it was a coincidence. The good Lord has a sense of humor, eh?”
“I don’t believe that,” said Edmund. He wasn’t facing the group. He was looking at the ground because Addey’s phone had to be near.
“What don’t you believe, Ed?” asked Bill.
“That it was a coincidence. What was the lesson Mr. Donnell taught us in world geography, Bill? The one about the wolves and the buffalo?”
“Right, so the buffalo in Alaska . . . or was it Russia? I’m not sure. Anyway, the buffalo were starting to thin out and everyone said it was because the wolves were killing too many of them. So what did the locals do? They started offering big money for dead wolves. Hunters showed up from all over to kill the wolves until finally, the buffalo had no predator left.”
“And then the buffalo came back?” asked Sophie.
Edmund said, “Nope. The buffalo, in another ten years, were gone too.”
“How?” she asked.
“I know how,” Matilda said. She’d stopped to rest against a tree, but talking helped her to keep her pride. “Because the wolves had been culling all the old and sick and malformed buffalo. When they stopped doing that, the sickly buffalo started to procreate. And the sickly beget sickly and so on and so forth. The absence of the wolves killed the whole herd.”
“Do you see what I’m saying?” Edmund asked.
She nodded. “You think that the Ghost Train and I are dependent on each other for survival.”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Edmund. “I think that there is a balance in the universe. Good and evil have always had it, and perhaps back in 1948, God decided that good had tipped the balance too far. He reintroduced wolves back into the herd of buffalos.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” said Matilda, “and you’re wrong.”
“How so?” Edmund asked, feeling slightly embarrassed. He rubbed his neck and kept his eyes trained on the ground for Addey’s phone.
“You think that if the train grows too powerful, the balance will be reset again. But that’s not how the world works, boy.”
“You don’t know that,” said Edmund.
She stretched out her arms, conceding the point. “Perhaps not. But I wouldn’t put all my faith in God filing down the teeth of the wolf.”
“You’re the protector of this land,” said Edmund. It came out silly but the old lady listened with intent. “You may think when you die, all is lost, but what if it’s the opposite? What if—”
“Ed,” said Sophie. She’d said his name with such trepidation that he feared to turn around because surely it was bad news. He did, though, and her eyes were just as forlorn as he’d suspected as they fell to the ground behind him. He followed her finger and there, sticking out of the snow was a bright sliver of green metal.
He bent down, plucked it from the grime and flicked off the mud. It was part of the faceplate to Addey’s phone. If this piece was here, the rest of it was likely scattered all over the hill, smashed to pieces by the fury of the train. Edmund just shook his head and tossed it into the snow.
“I’m sorry,” said Sophie.
“It’s fine. I figured as m—” His voice trailed off when he looked into the distance, squinting to make out the boxy shape of a vehicle. If not for such a clear afternoon, he might not have seen the black SUV, nor the fence.
“We need to turn back,” said Matilda. “I’ve seen all I need to see.” She painfully pivoted around in a circle and started down the mountain, but Edmund paid no attention. He’d started walking off toward the vehicle.
“Ed?” Bill asked.
The SUV was parked alongside the fence, and it didn’t take a genius to realize why.
“They couldn’t get in, so they got on top of the car and jumped the fence,” he said, getting closer. The barbed wire had been bunched together and ziptied.
“Boy!” Matilda shouted somewhere behind him. “Away from there!”
Standing by the SUV, he could make out the shapes of several buildings beyond the fence, although the incline was so steep that he only saw the edges of roofs. It didn’t make sense—he’d been over so many satellite maps and there was nothing here. EarthTrotter even showed the tipped roof of Krakus House, but nothing other than trees here. It was almost as if the place had been hidden on purpose.
A steam whistle.
Far off, but the chugga-chugga repetition of steel wheels was getting closer. Edmund turned, in a panic, but saw the old woman standing on the side of the hill, her lips pursed, shaking her head dismissively.
“Not in the daytime,” she said. “But come away. There’s other dangerous things here besides the train.”
He’d no sooner stepped away from the SUV when the trees on the far side of the mountain began to groan. The group of four stood there silently, watching as they shivered in the wind, dumping snow from their eaves. It was as if a giant beast was on the other side of the foliage, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey.
And then, the trees snapped, the woods fell apart, and the train burst through the snow in a frenzy of gray muck. It was blowing steam straight up as well as to the sides, and all Edmund could think about was an angry Popeye the Sailorman. They could only see the engine, Otto and the co-conductor with his head blown out. The rest of the train was down the mountain, out of view.
It lingered there for a moment, no more than a hundred yards away, and looked up at the group as if it had just caught them in a trap. In a sense, that was exactly what had happened. The engine gave another ear-piercing wail, and then slowly started to stalk the hillside, crunching everything beneath it.
“Stay close to me,” said Matilda. “And head back to the car. Now.”
They wanted to run away, but the old woman simply couldn’t. Edmund was more reassured than either of his friends because he’d seen firsthand how the old woman had stood against the train—and lived. But now, with it barreling down behind them, that was merely an afterthought. He was scared, whether the old woman was here or not.
The car was in sight—it was much easier to follow the train’s path of destruction from last night, and just when they made it to the apex of the hill, Sophie lost her balance and went tumbling down.
“Soph!” Bill screamed, chasing after her. Edmund stole a quick glance, just long enough to see her picking up speed, her body summersaulting down the hill, away from him and the old woman. Bill was running as fast as he could and was barely gaining on her.
The train suddenly took advantage of the division of the group, and just as Edmund was about to veer off to the left, to go after his friends, the engine zipped by him so close and with such speed that he felt its unnatural heat slap him in the face. Matilda pushed him aside just in time to dodge reaching hands from the cars that followed.
Now, Bill and Sophie were on the other side of the train, which was picking up speed, the engine racing off ahead of both packs. Edmund didn’t know what was happening, but as he saw the car in the distance, he understood what Otto was trying to do. The engine, now at least thirty cars past the running duo, veered back to the left. They couldn’t see it, but they heard the noise—the impact as the pilot picked up their little Fiat and turned it into scrap. Edmund slowed his gait for just a moment as he saw the ruin of their rental go end over end, disappearing down the next mountain. The train continued on.
In both directions was nothing but cars, the trainset disappearing into a foggy haze. Edmund tried not to look at the people as he ran, but it was difficult. They saw him, and they pleaded. The kids were the worst—little boys and girls with half their faces hanging down, dirty fingers reaching through windows. Matilda shook him from his stupor and pulled him off the path, away from the car, and down another steep hill. In the distance, he could see buildings.
The only thing they had going for them was that the train still behaved like wood and metal. And even though it could appear out of thin air, run on tracks that weren’t there, it didn’t seem able to bend itself. If that theory held true, it would be difficult for Otto to bring back the engine—the threatening end—to where they now ran.
Halfway down the mountain, he grabbed the old woman’s dry hand just before she went tumbling like Sophie. She allowed herself to be held, and as Edmund pulled her close, it was like holding a bag of feathers. Matilda was nothing more than bones and a hummingbird’s heartbeat. They could still hear the train above, could still hear the whistle from the engine, almost a quarter mile away. A plume of smoke rose up to blot out the sky.
“Should we wait?” Edmund asked. “Sophie and Bill may have stopped.”
“They haven’t stopped, boy,” she said through deep panting. “They’re running just like us. Now c’mon!”
She took the lead and trudged down the mountain to where the landscape leveled out just before a narrow stream. The water was almost nonexistent, and they were easily able to walk across the bedrock to the other side. There were houses just a few yards away, and Matilda stopped to listen for the train before moving on.
“It’s halted,” she said. Indeed, they were finally surrounded by silence.
“Or maybe it disappeared. Went back to wherever it hides.”
She listened a moment longer, then said, “No. It’s stopped. He’s out, looking for us. Or your friends.”
“What do we do?”
“The train is blocking the way back to Krakus House. Your friends were luckier than us. They can run back to safety, provided they don’t get lost. But us . . .we need to get inside one of those buildings and wait it out.”
“For how long?” Edmund asked. He tapped his phone, then pulled it out to look at the screen.
“You won’t be making calls out here, boy.” She was right, there wasn’t a drop of service.
“My name’s Edmund. Stop calling me boy,” he said.
“Fine, fine. Edmund, that’s a warehouse. Let’s go see if it’s open.”
She started off, not waiting for a response.
They were on a street now that could have passed for the same one where Edmund grew up, at least before his father took them on the first of seven moves by his twelfth birthday. He counted six houses, bookended by a warehouse on one side and a church on the other. An assortment of vehicles parked along the road, ranging from the usual farming trucks to one surprisingly modern sports car. But not a single person.
“Is this place always so dead?” he asked. Still, that silence.
“That’s my friend Gus’s house,” said Matilda, pointing to a little two-story, white-thatched cottage. “He’s ninety-six and never leaves the house. There’s no smoke coming from his chimney.” Edmund noticed that was the case of all the houses.
“And his door is opened.”
She stood staring at it for so long that Edmund circled around and found her with her eyes closed, but they were moving beneath their lids, as if in deep, REM sleep.
“You okay?” he asked.
Matilda’s eyes flew open and she swiped a single tear. “He’s dead. Let’s go.”
“How could you possibly know that for sure?”
“I just do. Look, the warehouse door is open too. Come.”
As they crossed over and headed through, something loud crashed up on the hill, and both decided that the train was on the move again. Edmund shut the door behind him, unsure why, but feeling a little better because he did so.
The warehouse was empty except for tiny feet running across the floor, snatching up whatever food was available. Someone lived here, at least until recently. Upstairs they found a quiet bedroom with a candle on the bedside table, burned down to a nub. A bla
ck and white television in the corner showed nothing but static. On the edge of the bed was a book and a plate with a half-eaten muffin on it.
“They left in a hurry, didn’t they?” said Edmund, but he knew the truth of it already.
“They heard the call,” said the old woman, moving over to the window that overlooked the street. “Seems a lot of people hear it lately. God, it’s moving about in the daytime now. There’ll soon be nothing left of Poland.”
“So what do we do?” Edmund asked, sitting on the bed. He immediately stood up, not liking the feeling of complacency that quickly washed over him.
“I told you, boy. Sorry, Edmund. We are going to wait it out.”
“It’s a ghost. Can’t it wait us out?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Edmund didn’t like the finality of her answer, so he turned to his phone again, desperate to see it connect to the network.
He was still checking his phone periodically as the sun crept behind the fog-enshrouded mountains and a fat, cotton ball moon loomed in the sky. Matilda had dragged a rocking chair into the room and was sitting by the window. From here, she could see both ends of the street, as well as the mountainside they’d scaled earlier that day. The moon’s silvery glow glinted off something at the far end of the creek, and he was sure it was the ruins of the Fiat. But with the dark, it was hard to see anything beyond the little rings of orange lights that the streetlamps provided.
“If you’re sleepy, then sleep,” she said, catching him in mid-yawn. She looked up long enough to hike her thumb toward the bed.
“What about you?” he asked, letting himself yawn again.
“I sit with the owls,” she said. “I won’t be sleepy until the sun comes back.”
“What would you do if . . . if I heard the call? Just got up and walked out like all the rest?” He hadn’t really thought about it until now. But with the lack of people in the surrounding towns, it seemed the statistics were growing less and less in his favor.
She lifted her jacket and there in the waistband of her pants was what looked like a yellow gun. When she noticed he didn’t recognize it, she pulled it out and turned it over in her hand. Now, Edmund had no doubt that this eighty-something year old woman was packing a taser.
Ghost Train of Treblinka Page 15
