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Part 17: How Strange the World Could Be
The police found them the next morning, asleep and curled up together amid the foundations of an old train station, right between the rotting rails of the abandoned line. The cab driver that dropped them off at the convenience store had had a bad feeling about the sketchy guy and drugged up looking girl—they had raised a flag with the local authorities.
Gabriella's parents had already been in touch with said authorities, on the edge of filing a missing persons report after several days of radio silence. The people at the library had noted that the guy she was running around with had missed work recently.
In a small town, all this was more than enough to warrant some question-asking. The convenience store clerk confirmed spotting the two heading toward the highway. One particular caretaker remembered that they had been down to the tracks before. A few units and a bunch of local volunteers had combed the area, concerned that the girl might be in danger.
Later, the two claimed they’d planned a hike and lost track of time. The girl explained her strange behaviour away as school related stress. People were skeptical, but with no charges being pressed and no evidence of any wrongdoing, there was little the officials could do.
It was a while before Rudy saw Barton again—the kid kept to himself for a while after Gabriella went back to school. From what Rudy heard, she switched out of engineering and into astrophysics, of all things. Apparently, it was one field that let her really get into the study of time.
Not one to pry, the old caretaker let it alone, though he was terribly curious to know what in the blue hell they had gotten up to that night. He had a feeling it wasn’t the usual stuff that young folks did out there under the moon. Every now and then he would see Barton at the library, running his hand along books, sometimes standing near the filing cabinets in the rear. Rarely, they’d chat, but never about trains or tracks or ghosts.
Then one day, the kid came to him and told him he was moving. Out to the big city. Rudy asked if he was gone chasing after that Gabby girl, but Barton just smiled in sad way and told him that he hadn’t spoken to her in a while.
“Well, guess our paths be done crossin’ for any foreseeable time,” said the old man.
Barton nodded, then said, “Can I tell you a story?”
They went for a walk along the river, ambling as dragonflies darted about and tree fuzz blew in the air. He told Rudy everything that happened—the girl had remembered parts of it, believed it, but she wasn’t there with the one he called Timekeeper. She had never met the shadow.
The kid laid it all out in one go, watching the sky, not a haunted look on his face, but a peaceful one. Rudy had heard some odd tales in his time, thought he had heard it all—that was for sure. But as he watched Barton’s eyes get misty and faraway he was reminded again just how strange the world could be.
When Barton was done, Rudy said, “Sure ain’t a scoutmaster’s bedtime ditty, that.”
“I’d set my watch by it,” said Barton.
“Aye, don’t I believe you when you say so.”
Barton wrote to Rudy sometimes. In the letters, he claimed that he and Gabby were still friends and chatted occasionally over social media, something that Rudy had heard about but had no inkling as to how to make it useful for him. Barton married some art curator, had a family, the whole deal. He never mentioned the tracks again.
As time passed, the letters slowed, then stopped.
Life went on. The caretaker kept the library clean and tidy, best he could. But age was a sure thing, and Rudy’s able-bodied days ran thin. He thought a lot about time lately, and as he did, Barton’s story kept creeping back to him. He had never decided how much of it he had truly believed, but sure enough those police records and newspaper clippings never did turn up. He wondered about the old train, those lost passengers, and the shadow.
So, one late-August evening, surely against the sage advice of his doctor, Rudy had one of the local four-wheeling boys haul his bony frame up into the woods, along some back paths and old trails. It had been over five years since Barton’s last letter.
He hobbled to the spot where they said they had found the two curled up and asleep, among the crusted foundations of a long-gone destination. The sky was dimming, and the night bugs were ramping up their songs as the old caretaker got down on the dirt and lowered his withered ear to the tracks.
He pressed down on the cool metal, closed his eyes, and listened.
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