by Becky Durfee
Jenny made eye contact with Kayla, whose expression showed the apprehension that Jenny felt. Looking back at Devon, she asked, “When did he hit his head…before the fire or during it?”
The young child looked up toward the ceiling, closing one eye and sticking out his tongue as he concentrated. “At the same time.” He returned his attention to the tablet.
“Where did he hit his head?” Jenny asked. “What part of his head?”
Devon raised one hand and tapped the right side of his own head, just above his temple.
“How did he hit his head? Did he fall, or run into something, or did someone hit him…?”
“He fell.”
“Was he trying to get out of the fire when he fell?”
Shaking his little head, Devon said, “He fell because someone knocked the floor out from under him.”
“I can’t find anything,” Zack said long after their food had arrived. “When I search for fires, all that comes up are fire stations in the area, and maybe the occasional fire safety class.”
Glancing in his direction, Jenny asked, “Do you think this may have been from a very long time ago—too long ago to be featured in an article on the Internet?”
“It’s possible,” Zack said with a shrug. “There’s definitely nothing standing out on here as our incident, and I think if something had happened in the recent past, it would be popping up.”
“Maybe we should go to a fire department,” Kayla noted, “or even a police station. Perhaps they could tell us if something has happened around here recently...or maybe even not-so-recently. Even if the fire is from two-hundred years ago, there may be some folklore about it.”
Jenny pointed her fork in Kayla’s direction. “That is genius.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes people can tell you things that websites can’t.”
With a humble smile, Jenny remarked, “I guess I need to be reminded of that sometimes.”
Kayla turned to Devon as Jenny pulled the minivan into the fire station parking lot. “Do you want to see some fire trucks?”
Arms and legs immediately started flailing from behind the seat belt. Jenny couldn’t help but smile.
The van came to rest in the space closest to the building. Before long, Devon had jumped out of the car and charged toward the open firehouse door.
About a half-dozen men and a woman sat around a table, all wearing navy blue t-shirts and matching pants. “Let me guess,” a gray-haired man said to Devon as the little one bounded into the station. “You’d like to take a tour of the firehouse…and see a fire truck.”
Devon stopped in his tracks, clenched his hands into fists, and screamed, “Fire truck!”
When Kayla finally caught up to him, she discretely corrected his behavior.
The firefighter who had addressed them turned to the youngest person at the table. “Rookie…go show this young man around, would ya?”
Without a complaint, the newest member of the department stood up and took Devon by the hand. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “I’ll show you the truck first.” The two quickly disappeared from sight.
Jenny wrung her hands awkwardly and confessed to the remaining firefighters, “We’re actually here for our own benefit more so than his.”
The older gentleman laughed. “Do you want to take a tour of the truck?”
Jenny also giggled. “No, that’s not it.” She twisted her face as she posed, “I’m wondering if you can tell me if there’s been a fatal fire in the area…specifically one to the north and west of Route 489.”
“Recently?” one of them asked.
Jenny knew she looked foolish when she replied, “I don’t know.”
The gray-haired man spoke. “Well, there was that train fire back in the 1960s…”
Chapter 3
Devon’s words flooded Jenny’s mind: Matthew had hit his head because somebody knocked the floor out from under him. That certainly could have been a five-year-old’s way of describing a train crash.
Kayla made a sound that caused Jenny to glance over her shoulder; she had her head in her hands, looking as if she was making every effort to keep her composure. Jenny placed her hand on Kayla’s shoulder.
The firefighters all shared the same puzzled expression, which Jenny completely understood. She used her free hand to point in the direction that Devon had just gone. “That boy in there,” she began. “He is a very special child, born with an amazing gift. He’s been speaking of a man named Matthew who died in a fire, and he led us to a spot on Route 489, telling us that’s where the fire was. It’s a place where the road takes a sharp left, but he had told us that he wanted to go right. He also said the place he wanted to go was too far to walk.” She looked at the crowd of faces in front of her. “Does that sound like it could be the area where the train crash took place?”
“Route 489 is a long road,” the gray-haired man noted.
“I can call it up on my laptop,” Zack offered, “and show you exactly where we’re talking about.”
After a painfully long and awkward computer boot, Zack was finally able to point to where they suspected the accident had taken place. The gray-haired man nodded in acknowledgement. “Yup. The fire was right about here.” He pointed to an area of the screen that appeared to be frighteningly desolate.
“But it doesn’t show train tracks there,” Zack noted, looking at the computer. “Not on the map view or the satellite view.”
“Those tracks don’t get used anymore. They’re all overgrown now, and I imagine they wouldn’t appear on any current maps.”
Zack glanced at Jenny. “I guess that explains it.”
Jenny addressed the gray-haired man. “What happened in the train accident?”
“It was an explosion, actually, caused by somebody lighting a match too close to an oxygen tank,” he explained.
“Somebody lit a match?” Jenny asked with surprise. “Why would someone do that?”
“Oh, young one,” the firefighter replied with a smirk, “smoking was allowed on trains back in the sixties. Anyway, that explosion immediately started a fire, and the railcar was quickly engulfed in flames. Unfortunately, they were traveling at a high rate of speed when it happened, so by the time the engineer figured out what was going on and was able to get the train to stop, the fire had already killed eleven people.”
“That’s terrible,” Kayla said breathlessly.
“To make matters worse, it happened in a desolate area. Crews weren’t able to get there in time to do any good. All of the people who were rescued were done so by other passengers on the train. They pulled people out of the windows and the holes that were created by the explosion.”
Jenny couldn’t imagine the chaos. She determined that even those who survived couldn’t truly claim they’d escaped—their dreams must have still been haunted by the sights, sounds and smells of that awful day.
Zack seemed much less affected by the story; he had simply restructured his search and announced, “Now that I know what to look for, there’s a lot of information about the explosion.”
“Does it give a list of the victims?” Jenny asked.
Taking some time to scan through a few articles, Zack finally announced, “This one does.” He glanced up at Jenny. “It looks like our victim was named Matthew Ingram and he was thirty-nine years old.”
Jenny’s shoulders sank; somehow that extra information made it even sadder.
“Let me get this straight,” one of the younger firefighters began, pointing to the door Devon had left through. “That boy in there knew that this Matthew Ingram had died fifty years ago on that train?”
Kayla said, “I don’t think he knew it was a train; he just knew that someone named Matthew had died in a fire. We’re not even from around here…we drove down from North Carolina specifically to figure out who Matthew was.”
The man looked with awe at the door. “That’s amazing.”
Zack nonchalantly referred to Jenny with his thumb. “She has the gift,
too. She’s just not getting contacted by this particular spirit.”
Overcome with awkwardness, Jenny rolled her eyes and smiled. “Yes,” she confessed, “I do have it, too, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the deceased don’t bother to contact one of us unless something is terribly wrong. The ones who are at peace just cross over and are never heard from again.”
“Most of the time,” Zack added, “the sprits who linger want us to find out who killed them, but in this case, it sounds like his death was an accident.” He looked curiously at Jenny. “I wonder what he could want, then.”
Jenny shrugged and shook her head. “I guess our next job is to find that out.”
With Devon and Kayla taking advantage of the hotel’s indoor pool, Zack and Jenny sat in the restaurant in the lobby and conducted their research.
“It looks like what that guy said is true,” Zack noted. “The accident happened on March twenty-fourth, 1961. They determined the explosion must have occurred when someone lit a match. They found the remains of an oxygen tank on board, and they concluded the tank and the open flame were most likely too close to each other.”
At that moment, Jenny’s phone rang, and she was pleased to see Kyle Buchanan was the caller. “Well, hello, world’s-best-private-investigator.”
“Hello to you, world’s-best-psychic.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Jenny said with a smile. “There’s a little boy in a swimming pool not so far from me who might give me a run for my money.” Preparing a pen and paper, she asked, “Were you able to find anything out?”
“Sure was. It appears Matthew Ingram was from Terryville, South Carolina, which is about sixty miles south of the accident site.”
Jotting that down, Jenny smiled and replied, “That’s good information. Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, I also discovered he was buried in a family plot in Landover, Ohio, in case you want to visit him for any reason.”
“We just may want to do that,” Jenny said, even though the thought hadn’t occurred to her before. “And knowing where he lived, now we can see where he most likely caught the train. The site of the accident is apparently too remote for us to conveniently get to, but hopefully we can gather some information by being where Matthew had been just prior to the explosion.”
“I hope it works for you,” Kyle said. “Do me a favor and keep me posted. I would love to hear what you find out. I have to admit this whole thing still fascinates me.”
“It fascinates me, too,” Jenny confessed, “and I’m the one living with it.”
She concluded her call with Kyle and focused on Zack. “Okay, my dear…here’s your newest challenge. If you were living in Terryville, South Carolina in 1961, and you were catching a train on a rail line that is now defunct, at what station would you board said train?”
Zack took a deep breath. “This may not be an easy search.”
“But that’s why it’s in your hands, dear. You’re so savvy.” Jenny fluttered her eyelashes at him repeatedly, emulating southern charm.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Zack replied as he began typing. Jenny sat back in her chair as Zack conducted his research, her mind wandering. Without the distraction of the investigation to focus on, she realized just how hot she was. Using her hand as a fan, she contemplated joining the Moores in the indoor pool, but she quickly thought better of it. The room that housed the pool was about a thousand degrees and reeked of chlorine; she ultimately determined she was better off sweating it out in the lobby.
After what seemed like an eternity, Zack announced, “I think I finally have it.” He tilted his laptop screen toward Jenny. “It looks like the nearest train station was about fifteen miles from Terryville in a small town called Sparta.” Pointing at the image, he added, “If he was to catch the train anywhere, I would imagine it would have been from here.”
“Okay, so how far are we from that station?”
“About an hour.”
Jenny glanced at the clock. “I guess it’s about time we get a jumpy little wet guy out of the pool.”
The abandoned station had a giant pothole on the platform and boards with a keep out sign covering the front door. The windows were broken and graffiti tagged the cobweb-covered walkway. It looked nothing short of eerie—the kind of building that neighborhood kids would dare each other to enter. For a moment Jenny chuckled at the irony—perhaps the station really did have lingering spirits. She wondered how many kids would actually accept the dare if they knew that.
Jenny took Devon by the hand as they walked closer to the station. Sounds started to fill Jenny’s ears—horrible sounds: screeching brakes, terrified women shrieking and men howling in pain. She turned to look at the little boy next to her, desperately hoping he was being spared from the horrific noises that swarmed around Jenny’s brain.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered.
Devon looked up at her innocently. “You mean the birds?”
Relief washed over Jenny. “Yes, honey. I mean the birds.” Whoever this Matthew was, he seemed to have mercy on his five-year-old conduit. Jenny’s respect for Matthew Ingram grew at that moment, making her all the more determined to figure out the message he was trying to send.
The screams were distracting to the point of being debilitating. Jenny closed her eyes, trying to calm herself enough to get some kind of message. It appeared Matthew’s spirit may have been stuck in the throes of the accident; was there something specific from that moment in time he wanted her to know? Or was he just unable to get past the horror of it?
In a second, the screams all stopped, exiting Jenny’s head in a sudden and dizzying swirl. For the brief moment that followed, she saw the station the way it had looked in its prime—the windows intact, the building free of spray paint and the overgrown weeds replaced with neat landscaping. People bustled on the platform in every direction, although Jenny’s attention was drawn to one face in particular. A pretty, dirty-blond woman stood near her, dressed style reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy. The mystery woman glanced in Jenny’s direction and flashed a subtle smile before dissolving out of sight.
Jenny kept her eyes closed for an additional second, committing the contours of the woman’s face to memory, before turning to the young boy holding her hand. “What are you seeing?”
“I see an old building,” Devon said, pointing to the station itself. “Somebody broke the window.”
Was it possible that Jenny was the only one receiving a vision? “Do you see anything else? Is Matthew visiting you?”
Devon shook his head. “No, but he’s been here.” He raised his free hand to point down the abandoned tracks. “The bad place is that way.”
Jenny squatted down to look at the young boy at eye level. “Do you know what I want to do, sweetie? I want to draw. Do you like to draw?”
With wide, adorable eyes, Devon nodded silently.
“So, what do you say we find a store that sells paints and crayons, and we sit down somewhere and make some pictures?”
Jenny tried to ignore the fact that she was sweltering as she sat at a picnic table next to Devon. The sun was beginning to set, so she was optimistic that the temperature would only get lower as the evening progressed.
Devon busied himself with his own drawings as Jenny reproduced the image of the woman at the train station. For fun, Zack and Kayla drew their own pictures, too.
“I think I am the worst artist that ever lived,” Zack said flatly, holding up his picture and regarding it with a furrowed brow.
“No, I’m pretty sure that honor belongs to me,” Kayla replied with a smile, showing Zack her paper. “I’m not even sure what this is supposed to be.”
“I’m good at drawing,” Devon announced in typical kindergartener style.
Kayla smiled. “Yes, honey, you are very good at drawing.” She looked over at his picture. “What are you making?”
“Fire,” he said innocently as his feet swung under the picnic table.
> “Is the train on fire?” Zack asked.
Looking a little confused, Devon replied, “It’s a school bus, but some of the seats are sideways.”
“He’s never seen the inside of a train,” Kayla explained. “I guess a school bus is the only point of reference he has.”
“I can fix that,” Zack said, pulling out his phone. He called up an image of the inside of a train from the 1960s, turning the picture toward Devon. “Is this what you’re talking about?”
After a quick glance and a nod, Devon simply said, “Uh-huh.”
Jenny leaned back as her colored pencil made its last sweeps across her paper. “Hey, Devon,” she called, turning her drawing so the boy could see the finished product. “Do you know who this woman is?”
He looked at the image for only a second before his eyes rose to meet Jenny’s. “That’s Julia.”
“Julia,” Jenny repeated. “Who is Julia?”
With an expression more serious than any Jenny had ever seen him wear, Devon replied, “She’s my wife.”
Jenny exchanged worried glances with the other adults at the table. “She’s your wife?”
With a subtle nod Devon added, “Have you seen her? I’ve been looking all over for her.”
Chapter 4
The fact that he spoke in first person was worrisome to Jenny, but she decided to respond in kind. “Was she on the train with you?”
Confusion set in to Devon’s little eyes. He stuck out his lip, shrugged his shoulders and returned to his drawing. His feet resumed their fidgety swing.
Zack discretely pulled his phone out of his pocket, pressing some buttons without saying a word. Jenny and Kayla both remained silent, the gravity of the moment taking a little time to sink in.
“There was no one by that name on the list of victims,” Zack eventually stated in a soft but serious tone. “If she was on the train, then she was one of the survivors.”
“She was definitely at the platform,” Jenny said, “but that doesn’t mean she got on the train with him. She may have been waiting with him so she could say goodbye when he boarded.”
