Things Beyond Midnight (25 page)

She spooned some into her mouth.

“How does it taste?”

“Kinda sour.”

Gus shook his head, trying some for himself. “Ummm... delicious.” He paused. “Know what’s in it?”

She shook her head.

He grinned, leaning toward her across the table. “It’s owl-eye soup. Made from the dead eyes of an owl. All mashed up fresh, just for you.”

She looked at him steadily. “You want me to upchuck, don’t you, Uncle Gus?”

“My goodness no, Janey.” There was oiled delight in his voice. “I just thought you’d like to know what you swallowed.”

Janey pushed her plate away. “I’m not going to be sick because I don’t believe you. And when you don’t believe in something then it’s not real.”

Gus scowled at her, finishing his soup.

Janey knew he planned to tell her another awful spook story after lunch, but she wasn’t upset about that. Because.

Because there wouldn’t
be
any after lunch for Uncle Gus.

It was time for her surprise.

“I got something to tell you, Uncle Gus.”

“So tell me.” His voice was sharp and ugly.

“All my friends at school know about the thing inside. We talked about it a lot and now we all believe in it. It has red eyes and it’s furry and it smells bad. And it’s got lots of very sharp teeth.”

“You
bet
it has,” Gus said, brightening at her words. “And it’s always hungry.”

“But guess what,” said Janey. “Surprise! It’s not inside me, Uncle Gus... it’s inside
you!
”

He glared at her. “That’s not funny, you little bitch. Don’t try to turn this around and pretend that—”

He stopped in mid-sentence, spoon clattering to the floor as he stood up abruptly. His face was flushed. He made strangling sounds.

“It wants out,” said Janey.

Gus doubled over the table, hands clawing at his stomach. “Call... call a... doctor!” he gasped.

“A doctor won’t help,” said Janey in satisfaction. “Nothing can stop it now.”

Janey followed him calmly, munching on an apple. She watched him stagger and fall in the doorway, rolling over on his back, eyes wild with panic.

She stood over him, looking down at her uncle’s stomach under the white shirt.

Something
bulged
there.

Gus screamed.

Late that night, alone in her room, Janey held Whiskers tight against her chest and whispered into her pet’s quivering ear. “Mommy’s been crying,” she told the cat. “She’s real upset about what happened to Uncle Gus. Are
you
upset, Whiskers?”

The cat yawned, revealing sharp white teeth.

“I didn’t think so. That’s because you didn’t like Uncle Gus any more than me, did you?”

She hugged him. “Wanta heara
secret
, Whiskers?”

The cat blinked lazily at her, beginning to purr.

“You know that mean ole Mr. Kruger at school... Well, guess what?” She smiled. “Me an’ the other kids are gonna talk to him tomorrow about something he’s got inside him.” Janey shuddered deliciously. “Something nasty!”

And she giggled.

00:14
LONELY TRAIN A’COMIN’

Lonely train a’comin’

I can hear its cry

lonely train from nowhere

Takin’ me to die

—folk ballad fragment, circa 1881

At Bitterroot, Ventry waited.

Bone-cold, huddled on the narrow wooden bench against the paint-blistered wall of the depot, the collar of his fleece-lined coat turned up against the chill Montana winds blowing in from the Plains, he waited for the train. Beneath the wide brim of a work-blackened Stetson, sweat-stained along the headband, his eyes were intense, the gunmetal color of blued steel. Hard lines etched into the mahogany of his face spoke of deep-snow winters and glare-sun summers; his hands, inside heavy leather work gloves, were calloused and blunt-fingered from punishing decades of ranch work.

Autumn was dying, and the sky over Bitterroot was gray with the promise of winter. This would be the train’s last run before snow closed down the route. Ventry had calculated it with consummate patience and precision. He prided himself on his stubborn practicality, and he had earned a reputation among his fellow ranchers as a hard-headed realist.

Paul Ventry was never an emotional man. Even at his wife’s death he had remained stolid, rock-like in his grief. If it was Sarah’s time to die, then so be it. He had loved her, but she was gone and he was alone and that was fact. Ventry accepted. Sarah had wanted children, but things hadn’t worked out that way. So they had each other, and the ranch, and the open Montana sky—and that had been enough.

Amy’s death was not the same. Losing his sister had been wrong. He did
not
accept it. Which was why he was doing this, why he was here. In his view, he had no other choice.

He had been unable to pinpoint the trains exact arrival, but he was certain it would pass Bitterroot within a seven-day period. Thus, he had brought along enough food and water to last a week. His supplies were almost depleted now, but they could be stretched through two more days and nights if need be; Ventry was not worried.

The train
would
be here.

It was lonely at Bitterroot. The stationmaster’s office was boarded over, and bars covered the windows. The route into Ross Fork had been dropped from the rail schedule six months ago, and mainline trains bound for Lewistown no longer made the stop. Now the only trains that rattled past were desolate freights, dragging their endless rusted flatcars.

Ventry shifted the holstered axe pressing against his thigh, and unzipping a side pocket on his coat, he took out the thumb-worn postcard. On the picture side, superimposed over a multicolored panoramic shot of a Plains sunset, was the standard Montana salutation:

GREETINGS FROM
THE BIG SKY COUNTRY!

And on the reverse, Amy’s last words. How many times had he read her hastily scrawled message, mailed from this depot almost a year ago to the day?

Dear Paulie,

I’ll write a long letter, I promise, when I get to Lewistown, but the train came early so I just have time, dear brother, to send you my love. And don’t you worry about your little kid sister because life for me is going to be super with my new job!

Luv and XXXXXXX,
Amy

And she had added a quick P.S. at the bottom of the card:

You should see this beautiful old train! Didn’t know they still ran steam locomotives like this one! Gotta rush—‘cuz it’s waiting for me!

Ventry’s mouth tightened, and he slipped the card hack into his coat, thinking about Amy’s smiling eyes, about how much a part of his life she’d been. Hell, she was a better sheep rancher than half the valley men on Big Moccasin! But, once grown, she’d wanted city life, a city job, a chance to meet city men.

“Just you watch me, Paulie,” she had told him, her face shining with excitement. “This lil’ ole job in Lewistown is only the beginning. The firm has a branch in Helena, and I’m sure I can get transferred there within a year. You’re gonna be real proud of your sis. I’ll
make
you proud!”

She’d never had the chance. She’d never reached Lewistown. Amy had stepped aboard the train... and vanished.

Yet people don’t vanish. It was a word Paul refused to accept. He had driven each bleak mile of the rail line from Bitterroot to Lewistown, combing every inch of terrain for a sign, a clue, a scrap of clothing. He’d spent two months along that route. And had found nothing.

Ventry posted a public reward for information leading to Amy’s whereabouts. Which is when Tom Hallendorf contacted him.

Hallendorf was a game warden stationed at King’s Hill Pass in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. He phoned Ventry, telling him about what he’d found near an abandoned spur track in the Little Belt range.

Bones.
Human
bones.

And a ripped, badly stained red leather purse.

The empty purse had belonged to Amy. Forensic evidence established the bones as part of her skeleton.

What had happened up there in those mountains?

The district sheriff, John Longbow, blamed it on a “weirdo.” A roving tramp.

“Dirt-plain obvious, Mr. Ventry,” the sheriff had said to him. “He killed her for what she had in the purse. You admit she was carryin’ several hundred in cash. Which is, begging your pardon, a damn fool thing to do!”

But that didn’t explain the picked bones.

“Lotta wild animals in the mountains,” the lawman had declared. “After this weirdo done ’er in he just left her layin there—and, well, probably a bear come onto er. Its happened before. We’ve found bones up in that area more than once. Lot of strange things in the Little Belt.” And the sheriff had grinned. “As a boy, with the tribe, I heard me stories that’d curl your hair. It’s wild country.”

The railroad authorities were adamant about the mystery train. “No steamers in these parts,” they told him. “Nobody runs ’em anymore.”

But Ventry was gut-certain that such a train existed, and that Amy had died on it. Someone had cold-bloodedly murdered his sister and dumped her body in the mountains.

He closed down the ranch, sold his stock, and devoted himself to finding out who that someone was.

He spent an entire month at the main library in Lewistown, poring through old newspaper files, copying names, dates, case details.

A pattern emerged. Ventry found that a sizable number of missing persons who had vanished in this area of the state over the past decade had been traveling by
rail.
And several of them had disappeared along the same basic route Amy had chosen.