Ghost Story

'That's because he sucks around high school girls, right? You know that Freddy Robinson likes 'em young. Haven't you ever seen him out with a girl?'

'Yeah.'

'Who was it?'

'A girl from school,' Peter said, not wanting to say that it was Penny Draeger.

'Okay. So whatever that jerk is doing, he's not just out on a date. Now, where the hell's he going?'

Robinson was leading them through northwest Milburn, making turns that seemed random, going further from the center of town. These houses under a black sky, snow drifted on their front lawns, looked sinister to Peter Barnes: the scale of the night diminished them to something larger than dollhouses, smaller than themselves. Freddy Robinson's taillights moved ahead of them like the eyes of a cat.

'All right. Let's see, he's going to turn right up ahead, and go west on Bridge Road.'

'How do you-?' Peter stopped talking and watched Robinson's car do as Jim had predicted. 'Where is he going?'

'To the only thing out this way that doesn't have a set of swings in the back yard.'

'The old railroad station.'

'You win a cigar. Or better yet, a cigarette.' Both boys lit Marlboros; in the next minute, Robinson's car swung into the parking lot of Milburn's disused station. The railway had tried for years to sell the building; it was an empty shell with a board floor and a ticket window. Two old boxcars had stood on the overgrown tracks for as long as the boys could remember.

As they watched from an unlighted car down Bridge Road, first the woman, then Robinson, left the Camaro. Peter looked at Jim, afraid that he knew what Hardie was going to do. Hardie waited until Robinson and the woman had gone around the side of the station and then opened his door.

'No,' Peter said.

'Fine. Stay here.'

'What's the point? Catch them with their pants down?'

'That's not what they're going to do, idiot. Out here? Or in that freezing old station, with the rats? He's got enough money to hit a motel.'

'Then what?' Peter pleaded.

'I want to know what she says. She brought him here, didn't she?'

And he closed the door and began to move quietly up Bridge Road.

Peter touched the door handle, pushed it down and heard the lock disengage. Jim Hardie was crazy: why should he follow him any further into pointless trouble?

Already they had invaded a church and smoked cigarettes and drunk whiskey there, and here was Jim Hardie, not satisfied, creeping along after cradle-robbing Freddy Robinson and that spooky woman.

What? The ground vibrated and from nowhere a freezing wind slammed into him. More than two voices seemed to lift beyond the station, screeching into the sudden wind. It felt as though a hand were banging inside Peter's skull.

The night deepened about him, and he thought he was fainting; he dimly heard Jim Hardie falling into the snow up ahead, and then they and the old station seemed surrounded by a moment of pure brightness.

He was out of the car, standing up on earth that seemed to bounce, looking toward Jim: his friend sat up in the snow, his body covered with white; Jim's eyebrows gleamed, greenish, like the dial of a watch- snow did that sometimes, caught by angled moonlight- Jim ran toward the station and Peter was able to think: That's how he gets in trouble, he's not just crazy, he never gives up- and they both heard Freddy Robinson scream.

Peter squatted down beside the car as if he expected gunshots. He could hear Jim's footsteps receding in the direction of the station. The footsteps paused; terrified, Peter looked cautiously around the fender of the car. Back and legs dusted with gleaming snow, Jim was unknowingly miming his own posture, and peering around the side of the station.

He wished he were two hundred yards off, watching through a telescope.

Jim crawled a few yards farther: Peter knew that now he would be able to see the entire rear of the station. Beyond the platform, stone steps led down into the railbed. The two abandoned boxcars sat, mired in weeds, at either end of the station.

He shook his head, and saw Jim running, bent over, back to the car. Jim did not speak to him or even look at him, but opened the door and scrambled in. Peter got in-his knees stiff from kneeling-just as Jim started the car.

'Well, what happened?'

'Shut up.'

'What did you see?'

Hardie hit the accelerator and popped the clutch; the car shot widely forward. A film of snow covered Hardie's jacket and jeans.

'Did you see anything?'

'No.'

'Did you feel the ground shake? Why did Robinson yell?'

'I don't know. He was lying down on the tracks.'

'You didn't see that woman?'

'No. She must have been around the side.'

'Well, you saw something. You ran like hell.'

'At least I went!'

The rebuke quieted Peter, but more was to come. 'You damn chickenshit, you just hid behind the car like a little girl-you got the balls of a pigeon-now listen, if anybody asks where you were tonight, you were playing poker with me, we were playing poker in your basement just like last night, right? Nothing happened, you get it? We had a few beers and then we picked up the game from last night. Okay?'

'Okay, but…'

'Okay.' Hardie turned to glare at Peter. 'Okay. You want to know what I saw? Well, something saw me. You know what? There was a little kid sitting on the top of the station, and he must have been watching me all the time.'

This was totally unexpected. 'A little kid? That's crazy. It's almost three in the morning. And it's cold, and there's no way to get up to the roof of the station anyhow. We used to try it often enough, back in grade school.'

'Well, he was there and he was watching me. And here's another little tidbit.' Hardie savagely cramped the car around a corner, and nearly went sideways into a row of mailboxes. 'He was barefoot. And I don't think he had a shirt on either.'

Peter was silenced.

'Man, he gave me the flying shits. So I got out. And I think Freddy Robinson is dead, man. So if anybody asks, we played poker all night.'

'Whatever you say.'

'Whatever I say.'

Omar Norris had an unpleasant awakening. After his wife had thrown him out of his house, he had spent the night in what he considered his last refuge, one of the boxcars near the abandoned station, and if he had heard any noises during his sodden sleep, he no longer remembered them. Therefore, he was particularly disgruntled to see what he had taken for a bundle of old rags on the tracks outside was a human body. He did not say 'Not again' (what he said was 'Shit on this'), but 'Not again' was what he meant.

4

Over the next few nights and days several events of varying immediate importance took place in Milburn. Some of these events seemed trivial to the people involved, some were confusing or annoying, yet others were commanding and significant: but all were part of the pattern which would eventually bring so many changes to