Night-Train Read online

  Gods! he thought as he gazed coldly at the young woman, our public school system is turning them out each year in frightening numbers! And each year they seem to be more ignorant than the last. It surely can’t keep happening or I’ll go mad …

  Lane cleared his throat and idly stroked his carefully trimmed beard. “Ah … yes, Ms. Finlay, I think you’ve made your position quite clear. However, that does not change the fact that I require three term papers for this course, plus passing grades on all four exams and the final. But of course you already know all that, don’t you?”

  He smiled benignly, watching the girl slowly realize that her charms would not be a suitable replacement for a rudimentary explanation of a syllogism.

  “Oh, yes, Professor, of course …” she said, the smile fading from her blond-framed face. “I just thought that if I needed extra help, you could … uh … give it to me.” One last shot, thought Lane Carter, and laughed to himself. “Yes, well, my office hours are clearly posted, Ms. Finlay. Don’t hesitate to stop by if you feel the need to talk. And now, I have another appointment, so I’m afraid I’ll have to excuse you for the moment. Have a nice day, Ms. Finlay.” Scooping up her books from his cluttered desk, the girl muttered a quick thank-you and disappeared from his office. He noticed that her exit was accompanied by less hip-swishing than her entrance. Perhaps she had gotten the message, despite the apparent opacity of her reasoning powers.

  Lane got up from behind his desk and closed the office door, feeling the warm, musky ambience of the room envelop him like a familiar cloak. It was not that the sexual signals he had just received were unsettling to him; no, it was simply that he was more intrigued by the tools of his trade—his books, manuscripts, and artifacts.

  Lane Carter was secure in the knowledge that he had evolved into a scholar, a true academic who derived all the necessary excitement from research, discovery, and a well-turned, beautifully phrased idea. Although New York University required him to teach several survey courses as well as the more esoteric seminars for upper-level students, he did not take this as an affront. Everyone must pay his dues, bear his crosses, thought Lane.

  His specialty was ancient cult religions and their related archaeologies, and he spent most of his free time investigating the worlds of our more mysterious ancestors. The pursuits of the flesh did not offer him anything comparable in terms of excitement; in fact, he often thought of himself as asexual, which bothered him not in the least. While other men might find their blood running hot at the sight of a Ms. Finlay, Lane Carter derived more pleasure from the contemplation of an ancient mystery. He knew that his colleagues considered him an eccentric; but he also knew that his academic peers also considered him an expert, a wellspring of knowledge on esoteric cultures and religious practices. He had traveled extensively to ponder the mysteries and the auras of places like Giza, Stonehenge, Nazca, Nepal, and Tiahuanaco. He had collected, bartered for, and purchased (when necessary) artifacts from hundreds of long-dead cultures, and he had spent many fascinating hours turning them in his hands, musing on their secrets, imagining the thoughts of the minds which had conceived them.

  Now, freed of the girl’s intrusive presence, Carter walked to a glass-doored cabinet and peered in at the array of talismans and curiosities from other ages. As it often did, his glance fell upon a beautiful quartz crystal that had been cut into the shape of a twelve-pointed star. Compared to his many other pieces, the “star-stone,” as he called it, was a striking creation. It lacked the detritus of the ages, the primitive power of an excavated shard, the worn patina of time and forgotten use. This piece seemed to possess a timeless quality, a vibrant aura of dormant energy locked within its prismed facets. Though thousands of years old, it would have looked equally at home in the Museum of Modem Art.

  Lane Carter felt an almost preternatural fascination with all his artifacts, but he felt an inexplicable personal attraction to the star-stone. Ever since the first time he had gazed into its crystalline depths, he had had the peculiar impression that he and the object were somehow linked. Call it a flash of clairvoyance or precognition, whatever; but in that first moment, he had felt that the door into time and destiny had been briefly flung open and he had seen, seen a connection, a suggestion of a significant link between himself and the stone.

  He hadn’t rested until he’d gained possession of the stone, and it had reposed in his cabinet at the University ever since, as though both Lane and the stone itself were waiting for that moment when the two of them would achieve that almost mystical connection that he had perceived.

  Reaching into the cabinet, Carter picked up the star-stone, once more wondering what secrets were locked within its sparkling facets.

  CHAPTER 2

  MARSDEN

  The tunnel was dark and empty, like the open mouth of a black beast.

  Lya Marsden stared into its depths, watching for the telltale headlight of an approaching train. For an instant, she had the sensation of falling into the shadowed cavern, and she inadvertently stepped back from the edge of the platform, disturbed.

  Her mind was playing tricks on her, Lya told herself. Having just finished taping her next news segment, she was fatigued. Her quick shower and change of clothes had not refreshed her.

  The station under Grand Central is not a single tunnel like many of the other subway stops, but a standing forest of sooty girders and black troughs, of polished rails and the confluence of tunnels. As Lya looked down the dark length of the tunnel by the platform, down to the dwindling point of perspective where the track curved away, she thought she saw the headlight of an oncoming train. It was a dim light that wavered and shimmered as though it shone through heat currents.

  A train, she thought as she readied herself for its earthquaking entrance.

  But there was no far-off sound, no subtle trembling in the foundations. The light remained in the distance, seeming to move and then not move, as though it were the eye of some beast couched in the darkness, its head bobbing as it watched Lya in the cold light of the station.

  Unnerved by the image, she turned to see if any of her fellow travelers were aware of the light, of the something farther down the tunnel. No one seemed to notice. All the passengers were wrapped up in their own thoughts, their plans for the evening—catch the new movie, cash the paycheck, pick up some groceries, whatever. Lya shivered and thought that she had never liked riding the subways because there was something unnatural about going underground, something that made her feel uneasy. She never rode them late at night; it was that simple.

  She turned to look back down the tunnel; the phantom light was stronger now, more real. But this time, as she stared down the tracks, she could feel a difference in the air. Relax, she told herself, it’s okay now—just a trick of vision and being tired.

  Then came a subsonic rumble under her feet, a subtle movement of the very molecules of the platform. The light grew even stronger in the dwindling darkness of the tunnel and the roar and clatter of the train became audible. Lya stepped back from the yellow line at the edge of the concrete as the train rushed into the station, a blackened, graffiti-speckled beast. It was like a creature that had been beaten and defiled, abused and coerced into unwilling submission.

  Its doors slid open and a stream of passengers departed, making room for the waiting Grand Central crowd. The train was heading north up the East Side of Manhattan, and Lya Marsden was about to go with it.

  She slid into a seat, looking up automatically, as she always did, to the row of advertising placards above the windows of the car. The doors closed and the train lurched off into the tunnel, and Lya swayed with the sudden motion. Amid the pictures of cold-relief medicines, au courant liqueurs, and designer jeans, she was not surprised to see her own face smiling from one of the ads:

  LOOK FOR LYA! SHE MAKES THE EVENING NEWS

  WORTH WAITING FOR!

  Watch Lya Marsden’s “Cityscapes” feature

  every weeknight at 6:00

  WABC-TV Eyewit
ness News.

  Seeing her picture in subways, on the sides of buses, and on the backs of cabs had become a commonplace experience for her, but she still got a kick out of seeing herself, then noticing someone else make the connection between the woman in the picture and the woman in the flesh.

  She liked being recognized, and she didn’t mind when people talked to her on the street as if they knew her. Hell, they did know her; she just didn’t know all of them. But it didn’t matter, because Lya Marsden was making it big. Her colleagues told her that eventually she would tire of being recognized, but she doubted it—this was what she had always wanted. Right now, she had only a filler-feature show following the news, but she knew what she would be doing eventually—holding down the anchor spot, first for the local news, and then, with a little luck and a lot of persistence, she hoped to get a shot at the national scene. She laughed to herself—yeah, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and me. What a crazy, beautiful idea!

  Lya planned to turn her “Cityscapes” feature into a showcase for her journalistic and reporting abilities. If she could convince the top-floor office boys that she had brains as well as looks, she would get her shot at anchoring the real news, instead of just covering trivial stuff like new playgrounds in the parks or segments on the summer ethnic festivals. She was going to use her position to dig out some real news, some real stories.

  The train pulled into the 51st Street station and several people edged toward the doors. Lya glanced through the dirty windows of the train at the pallid light of the platform. God, it was dirty down here. It never ceased to amaze her. There was an exchange of bodies, and the train was moving again into the darkness of the tunnels. She continued to look out the window, cupping her hands against it to peer out into the dark blur of blue lights, the passing flash of support girders, and the black walls of the tunnels themselves.

  She had been distracted for a few minutes, but now the memory of the peculiar light returned to her.

  How could I have forgotten such a thing? You wanted to forget it, she answered herself.

  What was it she had seen? Could there really have been some kind of figure, or had it been merely the shadows and light and a trick of the eye? It must have been just a Transit Authority employee, a maintenance man inspecting something on the tracks.

  Whatever it had been, she would never know now. But she wondered why the whole trivial incident had bothered her so profoundly. It was as if some unconscious part of her had sensed that there had been danger back in the tunnel.

  As she settled back into her seat, the train slowed and stopped at 59th Street, and again there was movement all around her as passengers prepared to depart. The doors opened and people slipped out and were replaced by new riders. In the bright light of the car, Lya felt a bit foolish for letting her imagination get away from her. As the train pulled out of the station, she resolved to turn her mind to other things.

  She tried to think of ideas for her next weekly feature, but her mind was a total blank. Whenever she didn’t have a weekly to research and put together, her producer would hand out little one- or two-night assignments to keep her busy. Sometimes the assignments were good, but other times Lya hated them. She always felt more confident when she was doing one of her own ideas.

  The next stop was 68th Street, and Lya took note of it because she would be getting out at the station after that. The party she was going to was on 77th Street off Lexington Avenue. She hoped it wouldn’t be another of those deadly boring affairs that New York was capable of creating. It wasn’t that Lya was an aficionado of parties, but there were some kinds of parties she really hated. Lots of martinis and olives, stale canapés, starched shirts, and pale women in long gowns really turned her off. As a reporter, she needed to be around interesting, vibrant people. People were ideas and stories, were the breath of life itself.

  The train rumbled and swerved through the darkness and emerged at the 68th Street station. Fewer people were getting on the car than departing now, and Lya knew that the farther uptown the train traveled, the more deserted it would become. The thought of remaining on the train all the way up to Woodlawn Cemetery chilled her. She sat watching the doors close in a kind of blank mindlessness. She felt drained tonight, lacking her usual energy and enthusiasm, her nerve.

  What was wrong with her tonight?

  The train shot northward into the tunnel, and she smiled ironically to herself. That something she had seen at Grand Central… that had changed her whole mood.

  Get it off your mind, forget it, she admonished herself.

  She looked back up at the WABC-TV advertisement, at her picture in the righthand corner. Curly hair right from the permanent bottle (she hated it when it started to grow out) that looked a little too strawberry-blondish in the photo, blue eyes that were always a little droopy-lidded, and an acceptable smile. Lya thought that her eyes looked awful because of the half-closed eyelids, but people were always telling her it was sexy. She liked her smile, but had always believed her nose was too big. She absolutely detested profile pictures of herself and refused to let anyone shoot any. Yet enough people had told her that she was pretty through the years. She believed them, on the whole, and felt confident about her looks and her impression on people.

  She believed that her appearance was distinctive enough for her to make it as a television anchor. She didn’t exactly fit the mold, but she was going to make it, dammit!

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the slowing of the train. The 77th Street station was coming up and she stood slowly, holding on to the vertical pole near her seat. The darkness beyond the windows splintered into the beige dinginess of the mosaic tiles and the signs announcing the Lenox Hill hospital and 77th Street.

  The doors opened and Lya stepped out onto the platform. Only one other passenger, a smartly dressed middle-aged woman, joined her. Momentarily disoriented, Lya stood still on the platform, looking down the long row of plastic seats, past the closed-up newsstand, and up toward the steps that led to the turnstiles. The doors rattled shut behind her and the train slipped into the artificial night.

  The footsteps of the other woman echoed on the concrete as she ascended the stairs, and Lya stood alone. She wanted to take in the strangeness of the place, the sense of the alien; she tried to figure out why the subways and the underground passageways unnerved her so much. Face your fears: if you can name that which scares you, then you can conquer it. That was Lya’s general theory on survival. It was more than a theory, actually; it had worked for her many times in the past. She was not a successful woman by accident.

  The clatter of the departing train had faded into a memory now, and the station was very quiet. Lya forced herself to look down the tracks, back along the route she had just traveled. The line of girders faded away, one into the next, and were lost in the gloom. Little blue lights hung like mutant fireflies at intervals along the tracks. Other than that, nothing. Lya breathed deeply, taking in the stale, heavy atmosphere of the place—a blend of machine oil, ozone, and trash—then turned to leave.

  In that instant of turning, she detected movement in her peripheral vision.

  She stopped, looking sideways back into the darkness of the tunnel—and saw it staring at her again.

  Farther away this time. The light did not look so large, so round, so deeply yellow, but it was there just the same. Her breath rasped in her chest, and her heart jumped as a shot of adrenaline pinged through her body.

  Turning to face the thing in the tunnel more squarely, she was shocked to see nothing there. She stared blankly. No light. No deeply burning yellow-gold. Nothing. As though it had never been there. But that possibility scared her more than the presence of something out there. The idea of a figure, a man, or at least something, following her train up to the station was eerie, even frightening, but the thought that she might have hallucinated the entire event was even more disturbing.

  Get the hell out of here, she thought quickly. You’re doing this to yourself.

  Turn
ing, and this time keeping her eyes focused firmly on the steps, Lya Marsden half ran from the platform and didn’t stop until she was through the turnstile and up the stairs to the sidewalk.

  It turned out to be a very interesting party after all. Although it was being hosted by Lya’s assistant producer, Theresa Corvino, it was not just a TV-people gathering—that kind of affair always ended up with everyone talking shop, and even Lya liked to get away from her job once in a while.

  She moved gracefully through the crowd, talking to everyone, allowing people to introduce themselves (since they already “knew” her). She drank white wine at a steady rate, hoping that it would relax her and slowly wash away the unpleasant memories of the subway, and carried on conversations fluidly and with her usual charm. She liked playing the celebrity once in a while, especially if the people were interesting. This was a good mix—neighbors, friends, TV types, friends of friends, a couple musicians, a carpenter, even a candlestick maker.

  “Lya! There you are! I was hoping you’d make it,” called a familiar voice.

  She looked up to see Theresa coming toward her, towing a rather attractive man along with her.

  “Hi, Terri.”

  “Sneaked in without me catching you! Have you been here long?” Theresa was short and dark and full of energy, as cheery now as always.

  “I don’t know,” said Lya. “I knocked and someone let me in. I helped myself at the bar.” She glanced quickly at the dark-haired man with her friend, then back to Theresa. He was a very nice-looking fellow, she thought, and he possessed an air of self-assurance that showed in the way he held his shoulders, the way he moved.

  “Lya, I want you to meet my brother, Michael. Remember, I kept telling you I wanted you two to meet each other? Well, he surprised me and showed up at my party! Michael, this is Lya Marsden.”

  “Hello,” said Michael, shaking Lya’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”