by Dean Koontz
“When will that be?”
“Soon.”
“You can trust me.”
“Only when I’m ready. Now come on. You’ll like the trains.”
Colin followed him across the kitchen and through a white door. Beyond, there were two short steps and then the garage—and the model railroad.
“Wow!”
“Isn’t it a popper?”
“Where’s your dad park the car?”
“Always in the driveway. No room in here.”
“When did he get all this stuff?”
“Started collecting when he was a kid,” Roy said. “He added to it every year. It’s worth more than fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Fifteen thousand! Who’d pay that much money for a bunch of toy trains?”
“People who should have lived in better times.”
Colin blinked. “Huh?”
“That’s what my old man says. He says people who like model railroads are people who were meant to live in a better, cleaner, nicer, more organized world than the one we’ve got today.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll be damned if I know. But that’s what he says. He can ramble on for an hour about how much better the world was back when there were trains but not airplanes. He can bore your ass off.”
The train set was on a waist-high platform that nearly filled the three-car garage. On three sides there was just enough room to walk. On the fourth side, which featured the master-control console, there were two stools, a narrow workbench, and a tool cabinet.
A brilliantly conceived, incredibly detailed miniature world had been constructed upon that platform. There were mountains and valleys, streams and rivers and lakes, meadows dotted with minuscule wildflowers, forests where timid deer peered out of the shadows between the trees, picture-postcard villages, farms, outposts, realistic little people engaged in a hundred chores, scale-model cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, neat houses with picket fences, four exquisitely rendered train stations—one Victorian-style, one Swiss, one Italian, one Spanish—and shops and churches and schools. Narrow-gauge railroad tracks ran everywhere—alongside the rivers, through the towns, across the valleys, around the sides of the mountains, across trestles and draw-bridges, into and out of the stations, up and down and back and forth in graceful loops and straightaways and sharp turns and horseshoes and switchbacks.
Colin slowly circled the display, studying it with unconcealed awe. The illusion was not shattered by a close inspection. Even from a distance of only one inch the pine forests looked real; each tree was superbly crafted. The houses were complete in every detail, even down to rain spouting, workable windows in some of them, walkways made from individual stones, and television antennae secured by fine guy wires. The automobiles were not merely toy cars. They were carefully crafted, tiny but otherwise exact, replicas of full-size vehicles; and except for those that were parked along the streets and in the driveways, they all boasted a driver, sometimes passengers as well, and occasionally a family dog or cat on the back seat.
“How much of this did your dad build himself?” Colin asked.
“Everything but the trains and a few of the model cars.”
“It’s fantastic.”
“It takes a whole week to make just one of those little houses, sometimes longer if it’s really something special. He spent months and months on each of those train stations.”
“How long ago did he finish it?”
“It isn’t finished,” Roy said. “It’ll never be finished—until he’s dead.”
“But it can’t possibly get bigger,” Colin said. “There isn’t any more room for it.”
“Not bigger, just better,” Roy said. His voice held a new note, a hardness, an iciness; his teeth were very nearly clenched tight, but he still smiled. “The old man keeps improving the layout. All he does when he comes home from work is tinker with this damned thing. I don’t think he even takes time to screw the old lady any more.”
That kind of talk embarrassed Colin, and he didn’t respond to it. He saw himself as being considerably less sophisticated than Roy, and he tried hard to change himself for the better in every way he was able; however, he simply could not learn to be comfortable with strong curse words and sex talk. The hot blush and the sudden thickness of tongue and throat were uncontrollable. He felt childish and stupid.
“He squirrels himself away in here every damn night,” Roy said, still using that new, cold voice. “He even eats supper in here sometimes. He’s a nut case just like she is.”
Colin had read a great deal about many things but only a little about psychology. Nevertheless, as he continued to marvel at the miniatures, he realized that the uncompromising attention to detail was an expression of the same fanatical insistence on neatness and order that was so evident in Mrs. Borden’s endless battle to keep the house as clean as a hospital operating room.
He wondered if Roy’s parents really were nut cases. Of course, they weren’t a couple of raving lunatics; they weren’t certifiable. They weren’t so far gone that they sat in comers talking to themselves and eating flies. Maybe just a little bit crazy. Just a tiny bit nuts. Perhaps they’d get a lot worse as time went on, gradually crazier and crazier, until ten or fifteen years from now they would be eating flies. It sure was something to think about.
Colin decided that if he and Roy became lifelong friends, he would hang around Roy’s house only for another ten years. After that he’d maintain his friendship with Roy but avoid Mr. and Mrs. Borden, so that when they finally went completely insane they wouldn’t be able to get their hands on him and force him to eat flies or, worse yet, chop him up with an ax.
He knew all about lunatic killers. He’d seen the movies about them. Psycho. Straightjacket. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? A couple dozen others, too. Maybe a hundred. One thing he learned from those films was that crazy people favored messy killing. They used knives and scythes and hatchets and axes. You’d never catch one of them resorting to something bloodless like poison or gas or a smothering pillow.
Roy sat on one of the stools in front of the control console. “Over here, Colin. You’ll be able to see more of it from here than anywhere else.”
“I don’t think we should mess around with this if your dad doesn’t want us to.”
“Will you relax, for Christ’s sake?”
With an odd mixture of reluctance and pleasant anticipation, Colin sat on the second stool.
Roy carefully turned a dial on the board in front of him. It was connected to a rheostat, and the overhead garage lights slowly dimmed.
“It’s like a theater,” Colin said.
“No,” Roy said. “It’s more like... I’m God.”
Colin laughed. “Yeah. Because you can make it day or night any time you want.”
“And a whole lot more than that.”
“Show me.”
“In a minute. I won’t make it completely dark. Not full night. Too hard to see. I’ll make it early evening. Twilight.”
Next, Roy flipped four switches, and all over the miniature world, lights came on. In every village, street lamps threw down opalescent pools on the pavement beneath them. In most of the houses, a yellow, warm, and welcoming glow brought life to the windows. Some houses even had porch lights and little lampposts at the ends of their walks, as if guests were expected. Churches cast colorful stained-glass patterns on the ground around them. At a few major intersections traffic lights changed gradually from red to green to amber to green again. In one hamlet a movie marquee pulsed with a score of tiny lights.
“Fantastic!” Colin said.
As he stared at the layout, Roy’s expression and posture were peculiar. His eyes were narrow slits; his lips were pressed tightly together. His shoulders were drawn up, and he was clearly tense.
“Eventually,” Roy said, “the old man’s going to put working headlights in the automobiles. And he’s designing a pump and drainage system that’ll let
water flow through the rivers. There’ll even be a waterfall.”
“Your dad sounds like an interesting guy.”
Roy didn’t respond. He stared at the small world in front of him.
At the far left corner of the platform, four trains waited for orders on the sidings in the railroad yard. Two were freight trains, and two were for passengers only.
Roy threw another switch, and one of the trains came to life. It buzzed softly; lights flickered in the cars.
Colin leaned forward in anticipation.
Roy manipulated switches, and the train chugged out of the yard. As it moved toward the nearest town, red warning lights flashed where a street intersected the tracks; black-and-white-striped crossing barriers lowered over the roadway. The train gathered speed, whistled noisily as it passed through the village, climbed a slight incline, vanished into a tunnel, reappeared around the far side of the mountain, accelerated, crossed a trestle, picked up more speed, entered a straightaway, really moving now, rounded a wide curve with a violent clatter, wheels whizzing, took a sharper curve with a dangerous tilt, and moved faster, faster, faster.
“For God’s sake, don’t wreck it,” Colin said nervously.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Then your dad will know we’ve been here.”
“Nah. Don’t worry about it.”
The train flashed through the Swiss station without slowing down, rocked wildly on the edge of disaster as it negotiated a switchback, roared through a tunnel, and entered a straightaway, picking up speed by the second.
“But if the train’s broken, your dad—”
“I won’t break it. Relax.”
A drawbridge began to go up directly in the path of the train.
Colin gritted his teeth.
The train reached the river, swept beneath the raised bridge, and plunged off the track. The miniature locomotive and two cars wound up in the channel, and all the other cars fell off the rails in a brief splash of sparks.
“Jeez,” Colin said.
Roy slid off his stool and went to the scene of the accident. He bent down and peered closely at the wreck.
Colin joined him. “Is it ruined?”
Roy didn’t answer. He squinted through the tiny windows in the train.
“What are you looking for?” Colin asked.
“Bodies.”
“What?”
“Dead people.”
Colin squinted into one of the fallen cars. There were no people in it—that is, there were no figurines. He looked at Roy. “I don’t understand.”
Roy didn’t look up from the train. “Understand what?”
“I don’t see any ‘dead people.”’
Moving slowly from car to car, staring into each of them, almost entranced, Roy said, “If this was a real train full of people that went off the tracks, the passengers would have been thrown out of their seats. They’d have cracked their heads against the windows and against the handrails. They’d have ended up in a big tangled pile on the floor. There’d be broken arms, broken legs, smashed teeth, slashed faces, eyes punched out, blood over everything.... You’d be able to hear them screaming a mile away. Some of them would be dead, too.”
“So?”
“So I’m trying to imagine what it would look like in there if this was real.”
“Why?”
“It interests me.”
“What does?”
“The idea.”
“The idea of a real train wreck?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t that kind of sick?”
Roy looked up at last. His eyes were flat and cold. “Did you say ‘sick’?”
“Well,” Colin said uneasily, “I mean ... finding enjoyment in other people’s pain ...”
“You think that’s unusual?”
Colin shrugged. He didn’t want to argue.
“In other parts of the world,” Roy said, “people go to bullfights, and deep down inside most of them hope they’ll see a matador get gored. They always get to see the bull in pain. They love it. And a hell of a lot of people go to the auto races just to see the bad crackups.”
“That’s different,” Colin said.
Roy grinned. “Oh, is it? How?”
Colin thought hard about it, trying to find words to express what he knew intuitively to be true. “Well ... for one thing, the matador knows when he goes into the arena that he might get hurt. But people riding home on a train ... not expecting anything ... not asking for trouble ... and then it happens.... That’s a tragedy.”
Roy laughed. “You know what ‘hypocrite’ means?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Colin, I hate to say this ‘cause you’re my good friend, my real good friend. I like you a lot. But as far as this thing goes, you’re a hypocrite. You think I’m sick because the idea of a train wreck interests me, but then you spend most of your spare time going to horror movies or watching them on television or reading books about zombies and werewolves and vampires and other monsters.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Those stories are filled with murders!” Roy said. “Death. Killing. That’s practically all they’re about. People get bitten and clawed and torn apart and chopped up with axes in those stories. And you love ‘em!”
Colin winced at the mention of axes.
Roy leaned close. His breath carried the scent of Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
“That’s why I like you, Colin. We’re two of a kind. We got things in common. That’s why I wanted to get you the job of team manager. So we could knock around together during football season. We’re both smarter than other people. We both get straight-A averages in school without half trying. Each of us has been given IQ tests, and each of us has been told he’s a genius or the next thing to it. We see deeper into things than most kids do and even deeper than a hell of a lot of grown-ups. We’re special. Very special people.”
Roy put a hand on Colin’s shoulder and locked eyes with him, seemed to be looking not just at him but also deep into him and ultimately through him. Colin could not look away.
“We’re both interested in the things that count,” Roy said. “Pain and death. That’s what intrigues you and me. Most people think death is the end of life, but we know different, don’t we? Death isn’t the end. It’s the center. It’s the center of life. Everything else revolves around it. Death is the most important thing in life, the most interesting, the most mysterious, the most exciting thing in life.”
Colin cleared his throat nervously. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“If you aren’t afraid of death,” Roy said, “then you can’t be afraid of anything. When you learn to conquer the biggest fear, you conquer all the smaller fears at the same time, isn’t that right?”
“I ... I guess so.”
Roy spoke in a stage whisper for emphasis, spoke with amazing intensity, fervently. “If I’m not afraid of death, then no one can do anything to hurt me. Nobody. Not my old man or the old woman. No one. Not ever again as long as I live.”
Colin didn’t know what to say.
“Are you afraid of death?” Roy asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to learn not to be.”
Colin nodded. His mouth went dry. His heart was racing and he felt slightly dizzy.
“You know the first thing you’ve got to do to get over your fear of dying?” Roy asked.
“No.”
“Become familiar with death.”
“How?”
“By killing things,” Roy said.
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can.”
“I’m a peaceable kid.”
“Deep down everyone’s a killer.”
“Not me.”
“Shit.”
“Same to you.”
“I know myself,” Roy said. “And I know you.”
“You know me better than I know me?”
“Yeah.” Roy grinned.
They stared at each other.
The garage was as quiet as an undisturbed Egyptian tomb.
At last Colin said, “You mean ... like we’d kill a cat?”
“For starters,” Roy said.
“For starters? Then what?”
Roy’s hand tightened on Colin’s shoulder. “Then we’d move on to something bigger.”
Suddenly Colin realized what was happening and he relaxed. “You almost had me going again.”
“Almost?”
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Do you?”
“You’re testing me again.”
“Am I?”
“You’re setting me up,” Colin said. “You want to see if I’ll make a fool of myself.”
“Wrong.”
“If I’d agreed to kill a cat to prove something to you, you’d have busted out laughing.”
“Try me.”
“No way. I know your game.”
Roy let go of his shoulder. “It’s not a game.”
“You don’t have to test me. You can trust me.”
“To some extent,” Roy said.
“You can trust me completely,” Colin said earnestly. “Jeez, you’re the best friend I ever had. I wouldn’t disappoint you. I’ll do a good job as team manager. You won’t be sorry you recommended me to the coach. You can trust me with that. You can trust me with anything. So what’s the big secret?”
“Not yet,” Roy said.
“When?”
“When you’re ready.”
“When will that be?”
“When I say you are.”
“jeez.”
5
Colin’s mother came home from work at five-thirty.
He was waiting in the cool living room. The furniture was all shades of brown, and the walls were papered in burlap. Wooden shades covered the windows. The lighting was indirect, soft and easy on the eyes. It was a restful room. He was on the big sofa, reading the latest issue of his favorite comic book, The Incredible Hulk.
She smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and said, “What kind of a day have you had, Skipper?”
“It was okay,” Colin said, aware that she didn’t really want the details and would gently cut him off when he was halfway through the story. “What about your day?” he asked.
