Dreamrail

DREAMRAIL

I have always enjoyed the train. This train especially has never failed to make my trip to work as much of an adventure as any daily routine can manage. I pass the same sights twice every day, but never seem to notice. This train doesn’t always run exactly on time. Too many people seem to take great pride in getting where they’re going at exactly the right time. I never seem to notice, but it’s never really hurt me. It is the train after all. This ride provides a break from all other routines, and little can be expected of me when I’m riding the rails. I only wish that a third train ride could be added in the middle of the day to break the monotony.

The ride always gives me a chance to think of more important things than my own dreary day. My work is a part of the day that doesn’t measure up to the rest of my time. It’s not a bad job. Don’t get me wrong. In fact it’s quite a good job. The rest of my time, especially during the past few weeks, has been filled with pretty rich adventure. That’s where my story starts. I still have about twenty-five minutes left on this train. I’ll try to get through this tale. I think it’ll amuse, and I know it’s a bit unbelievable. To me, it’s scary as hell, but it is my life as I know it.

I live alone in my own house in the suburbs. The suburb is called Olympia Fields, and it’s about thirty miles south of downtown Chicago. It’s normally a fairly quiet place with nice subdivisions, good restaurants, and a little nearby mall. It’s hard to imagine a more suburban suburb. Lately though, it’s had an excitement about it that most others try to avoid. We’ve had three cases of missing families.

You heard right. Entire families were missing from their homes. All three were reported within a ten day period. Friends, neighbors, and relatives had no idea of their whereabouts, and there was no trace of a plan for them to leave. They were simply gone. All of their clothes were still in the closets. Their cars were in their garages. Their doors were always locked. Their pets were starving, the papers building up on the porches, their mail stacked high, and in all three cases, the leaves had been removed from every tree in their yards. This was strange for Olympia Fields in the middle of June.

The train is up to full speed now. This stretch is the longest between stops that we have, and I love the feeling of moving fast through the landscape: Moving fast while all of those cars out there are barely trudging along: Moving fast while time slows down for the riders of a train that can’t control their fate for the next twenty-four minutes. Riders moving fast that seem relaxed. We are all relaxed, because we made it to the train on time. Now it’s somebody else’s job. We did ours.

One of the homes that one of our families live in is right down the street from me. Actually, they are all close to me, but this one in particular is very near. I drove by it on the way to the station this morning. Actually, I drove by all three, but that was only due to how early I left my own house. Also, I wanted to make sure they were still alright. I didn’t actually see anybody, but I could tell that everything was fine. I’m sorry. I seem to have jumped to the end of the story.

I saved these people. That’s what I meant when I said the past few weeks were pretty exciting. I now feel connected to them. I don’t know for sure what they think of me. I got the feeling the other day from one guy that I made him uncomfortable. Maybe I remind him of what they went through. Maybe he just doesn’t like me. Maybe it’s because he didn’t think of doing what I did. Maybe it’s all in my head.

The house down the street from me belongs to the Andres family. James and Andrea are the parents. They have two children. All three families have two children. Their two are named Mark and Allison. Allison goes by Ali. Mark goes by Mark.

The Andres were the second family to disappear. Everybody in Olympia Fields had already heard about the first family. In fact, it was probably the biggest story in the whole Chicago area. When it happened to the Andres, it was even more unbelievable than the first time. It also filled everybody with fear. That first event was obviously some mysterious fluke. When it happened again, we were all possible victims. It was not a fluke. It was a serial family disappearance with unusual missing leaves. I was glad at the time that I had no family members, and didn’t qualify as having top notch victim potential.

I did, however, manage to get involved. It started when I overheard a conversation right after I got off of this very train. There was a man in a black suit. He looked exactly like one of those guys that you would peg as a Secret Service agent: black suit, black tie, black horn-rimmed glasses

Anyway, this guy is talking to a duck. No, it’s not really a duck, but she kind of looked like a duck. She must have had that surgery where you get lip implants. Her lips looked like that actress’ lips that plays spider woman or something in those movies. They were big. The important thing is that they were talking at the train station. They didn’t know I could hear them.

“What do you do with them?” I heard the duck-lady say.

“They are all quite safe,” was the response from the Secret Service Agent.

I thought it might have something to do with the serial family disappearances, so when they left, I followed them. During that week, I had thought that every conversation I heard had something to do with the case. I called it “the case” in short, because most conversations I was involved with were about it. People that I know think I should have been a detective or something. I always have theories about things in the news. More often than not, I’m right.

On the south side of Chicago there happens to be a large preserve area. It is by no coincidence that it is owned by the government. Anyway, it’s just east of Olympia Fields, and these two, Ducklip and Fed, went there when they disembarked from the train. I was close behind them when they suddenly darted off the sidewalk, and ran into this preserve area. The whole thing is surrounded by fences, so I wasn’t sure where they were going. I stayed by the sidewalk, thinking that they might be just inside the wooded area getting involved in activities that I really didn’t want to disturb. However, I didn’t hear anything after a while. I followed them in.

What I found in the woods was a big hole in the fence. This was heavy chain link fence, and a section had been cut out. It couldn’t have just been done. They knew where the opening was, and used it like it was normal routine. The detective in me kept telling me this wasn’t right, and that they might be up to something.

This forest preserve is huge. I didn’t see anything except forest, and I could not hear anybody. I still heard some traffic from the road, and I was starting to get a sense of a lot of nature, but Duck-lip and Fed appeared to be long gone. I kept walking away from the road. It was about 5:45pm, and there was still plenty of daylight. Going deeper into the woods seemed like a good idea at the time.

After another five minutes, I heard a voice. I stopped, and listened for a conversation, but all I heard was this one lonely voice. It was saying, “Over here…..over here.” Did somebody see me? I wasn’t sure. It sounded like she was calling for somebody. Maybe she, yes it was a girl’s voice, was trying to get my attention. It worked. I found myself trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. I was tempted to answer, and say, “Keep talking.” It was hard when she stopped for a while, but what if it wasn’t me the invitation was meant for? What if this was the duck-lipped woman?

She was still talking. Even though she would take short breaks, she kept coming back on the air. Her voice was beautiful. I could have fallen in love without ever actually finding her. She sounded raspy. That kind of voice had to come from those heavy lips. It was duck-lips. I was sure of it.

I didn’t know if she was trying to tell Fed where she was, or if he had done something terrible, and she was calling for help. She might have noticed me following them, and was trying to get my attention. After about fifteen minutes of searching, I couldn’t take it any longer, and I gave in to the need to speak. I’m sure that I lasted longer than most people would have.

“Where are you?” I started. “Keep talking so I can find you.”

I never heard that voice again. I think that he must have killed her right then. I might even be responsible for her death. I should have stayed quiet. How many times have I heard that before?

I continued to head east. I was sure I had been going east.

There is a glass dome deep in these woods. I had heard about it. Years ago it was open to the public, and you could take tours through it. Now it was in an overgrown area. It otherwise would have looked like it was ignored for years. I say otherwise, because right then I could see people milling about inside of it. Today we would call this a biodome, or something like that. It was old, but still looked like it was intact. The glass wasn’t broken. The place was huge.

I didn’t see a door. Again my instinct took over and told me that I was probably behind the dome. It was then that I heard, “over here.”

She wasn’t dead. I could hear the voice coming from a small vent down near the ground. I went to it, and this time didn’t hesitate to talk. “Who are you?” I inquired.

She said, “I’m over here.”

I could tell this was a different voice. It was light and weak. The first voice had been so full of life. At least it had been until I spoke up. This girl was not duck-lipped at all. I could tell.

“I said who are you,” I said again.

“Over here,” was the reply I got.

I was starting to get a little pissed. I walked around towards the front of the dome, and saw somebody at an entrance. He was guarding the doorway, and he was big. He was probably the biggest guy I have ever seen, and I decided right then not to go any further. I was pretty sure that I was already in grave danger, and I wouldn’t be any good to anybody if I were dead. Dead like duck-lips.

I started to backtrack the way I came into the woods, and work my way back out to civilization. I could go to the police, and get help there. They would be very interested in what was going on around here. Getting safely out of the woods appeared to be easy, so I simply walked back around the biodome, and walked east.

It was starting to get dark. I had not found the road, but at least I had not been spotted either. I was starting to believe that I was going the wrong way. I was about ready to panic when I heard a voice again. I could clearly make out, “don’t let him get too far ahead.” They had been following me after all.

Now panic really did set in. I started to run, and soon saw car headlights. I nearly ran in front of a car when the road appeared faster than I anticipated. My sudden appearance caused a driver in a little Ford Escort to lose control and go into the ditch. The car didn’t hit anything, but the driver was scared to the point that she sat there without moving until I got to her door. She took one look at me and tried to leave. It’s happened to me before.

Two men joined us. I assumed that they had seen what went on, and stopped to help. Then I noticed there wasn’t another car within sight. One of the men said, “You need to come with us, sir.”

As they each took an arm, the girl in the Escort turned and rolled down her window, “He caused me to run off the road.”

“Yes ma’am. We saw it, and we will take care of him.” The voice sounded like it was still coming from far away. “You need to get out of your car now.”

The girl turned again, and tried to start the car. It was already running, but she was stuck in the ditch. She was panicking now. The danger of the situation wasn’t clear, but she knew that something was wrong. Cries started to come from her as one of the men, without letting go of my arm, opened her door and pulled at her elbow. She came right out of the vehicle with little resistance.

Two cars were passing by and I yelled, “help!” Nobody even slowed down. That’s how this works now. In the movies you wave down a car. Today, out there in real life, try it some time. Just go to the road, and try to get somebody to stop. Zoom. They go by. They will probably even speed up. Within a couple of minutes, both of us were in the woods, being led, I presumed, back to the biodome.

It was strange that nothing more was said. We didn’t really fight back. Something made it clear that it would be useless. They weren’t mean to us. After the first few minutes, they probably could have let us go, and we would have simply followed them. The fear of them was stronger than the fear of our situation. We would not fight back. This was how they got people to go where they wanted, but I wasn’t sure why it happened or how it worked.

We were taken to the biodome, and led inside by our two escorts. The foliage inside was heavy, and the air was like a mist. There were about twenty people in all milling about. Nobody seemed concerned about our presence, nor did they appear to be trying to escape. It had to be some kind of spell that prevented any type of normal reaction to being taken hostage. It was then that I realized that I could fight back if I wanted to. I simply had to decide if I really wanted to, or if I wanted this spell to take care of things for me. After all, this wasn’t so bad. They weren’t hurting us in any way. Maybe I will wait and do something later.

The young girl that I had caused to become involved in this was looking at me, and I couldn’t keep from looking back. I kept glancing away, but she was my focus. She finally said, “I’m scared. Can’t you do anything?”

She had stopped crying, but you could tell the tears were there, right behind whatever this spell was that we were bound by. The best way to describe her was that she was sad. I knew that I had to do something. The longer this went, the less concern I had about my situation, but she wouldn’t stop looking at me.

One of the men still stood nearby, so I went to him, grabbed him by his shirt collar, and said, “You need to tell me what the hell is…..” At least I started to say this brave line. By the time I had gotten those first nine words out, he was gone.

I noticed that several of the people that had been in the dome were gone. I looked around for duck-lips. I had seen her a few minutes ago, but she too was gone. People were still milling about all over the place, but I thought right away that we were on our own. My new girl friend ran to me and hung tight to my arm. We started shaking people, and saying, “let’s get out of here.”

The spell wore off slowly. It was hard to get people moving towards the door, but once a few started, they all followed. I led them around to the back of the dome, remembering how I first came in. We then worked our way toward what I hoped would be the path home.

People were starting to come to their senses by the time we reached the road. We were finally talking. “Didn’t you ever fight back?” I asked.

“No, we weren’t sure what would happen,” was the most common response.

“Do you know who they were?” This was the girl asking the question to any of us.

None of us did, but an older guy spoke up with his idea. “I heard them talk a few times about wanting to go home. I don’t think they were from here.”

“What do you mean ‘from here’?” I asked. “You mean Illinois? The U.S.? Earth?”

“Earth,” he replied. “I don’t think they were from Earth.”

I have my own opinion. I don’t think it had anything to do with aliens. I think it was the government, and some kind of test that they’re running. The kidnapped people were guinea pigs of some sort.

We managed to flag down a cop. At least they still stop when twenty-some people run into the street waving at them. He arranged for a bus to show up, and all of us were taken to the hospital. Several had to stay. We were all questioned by the police, and the reporters showed up. I’m sure you saw some of this in the news. Nobody knows to this day who the people were.

The biodome was torn apart trying to find clues. There was never an explanation why the leaves, shrubs, and even the grass were taken to the dome. It was all still alive, and in fact had sprouted its own plants. I mean every single leaf and blade of grass had started its own new tree or patch of lawn. We were no longer involved, but I bet somebody kept studying that.

As far as I know, everybody is alright, and back at home now. I talked to a few, but didn’t really get to know anybody. That doesn’t keep me from driving by their houses and checking on them. I had met the Andres family at the hospital, and initially thought we would become friends. They seem a little distant now though. I feel like they’re a part of me. I really do feel like I saved them, and I’m proud of that. All I had to do was fight back a little. I think they may just want to get back to their lives, and I remind them of something that stands in their way.

Oh yeah, I had a date two nights ago with Lisa. That’s her name. We got her car out of the ditch. It wasn’t hurt.

The elevator ride at the office takes forever. On this particular day, I couldn’t wait to get the morning over with, and get to lunch. It was my day to present a story for the group, and I thought they were really going to like it.

Finally, we arrived at the thirteenth floor. “Hi Laura,” I said sticking my head into Laura Mornay’s office. “Lunch today, right?”

I didn’t wait for a response. I’m quick on my feet, heading down the hall, and on towards Jim. “Hey Jim, how’s the weekend? Going to Poppy’s today, right?”

Jim Cross is probably my best friend here. “Yeah, we’re going. You going to bore us to death?” He’s a funny guy.

I hit my office. It’s one at the end of the hall. I’m a big guy around here. Well, not all that big, but bigger than Jim. As usual, I got my jacket off as fast as I could, fired up my PC, and checked the audix system for messages. I had five. They can always wait for my first cup of coffee. The break room is right down the hall, so I grabbed my cup, which hadn’t really been washed in about a month, and headed right for it. It was empty, but it’s only eight twenty-five, and between three pots there is almost a cup left. Making coffee doesn’t even piss me off on this day. It took up some time.

Fortunately, this was a day full of software team meetings. Laura is on the team. So is Bob Strane. He’s another member of DreamRail. In fact, Bob probably put it best, “I couldn’t find anything on TV last night except all of this reality shit. Somebody was trying to get women to date their dad. Another group of women were trying to get a guy to pick them, just to dump him for a million bucks instead. I’ve got to get satellite or something. Why don’t we start our own network?”

Alright, maybe he didn’t put it best, but he put it first. We decided right after his observation to start our own network. We started DreamRail. You see, we all come to work on the train. Five of us are involved in this very exclusive club. I’ve told you about Laura, Jim, and Bob. Besides me, of course, there is also Tom. Tom Borch is the newest member. He’s a little strange, but he is also our boss. He accidentally overheard Laura and Bob talking about one of our lunches, and decided that he needed to join us. He came to the next meeting, went home, and came up with a whopper of a story. It took a little time to get used to his being there, but his stories are great. We secretly talk about how he must pay somebody to come up with them. As far as any of us know, we are the first people that he has really connected to since joining RMA. He came on as a VP directly from another company, and didn’t get to know people on his way up.

At any rate, the five of us make up DreamRail. It’s a living art, and one of our rules is that the stories can’t be recorded. This is for us only. Art doesn’t have to last forever to be art. These stories will probably die out, and be forgotten. For the time being, they are pretty well running my life. I live for these lunches. I think all five of us have been absorbed by them. Tom, my boss, cancelled a vacation last month, because his turn was coming up. He had already put down five hundred dollars on a trip somewhere, and cancelled. He lost the money. See, if you don’t show up for your turn, you lose it.

That’s great, but I sure wouldn’t cancel a cruise or something to keep my week. I did stop scheduling appointments over lunch hours. I sometimes have to leave a little early from work, or show up late to take care of things, but like I said, Tom is my boss. He understands.

Laura claims that Bob lost his wife over this thing. I was divorced before I even started working here, let alone joined DreamRail. I don’t know what Bob’s thinking, but he’s probably better off. I haven’t really had a date in a year, and I’m fine. We’re talking about meeting twice a week. That would be great.

I survived the morning, and got to Poppy’s before anybody else arrived. I took the table that we use every week. It’s near a corner, right by a half-wall that divides the restaurant from the bar area. You can see into the bar, but it’s typically empty at this time of day. After about five minutes Laura and Bob showed up. Then we got Tom, followed about five minutes later by Jim. Our group had assembled. The tension mounted, and I began to tell my story.

The waitress knows to bring us large waters, and leave us alone. When the story is told, we can order food. I finished, and found myself looking at four blank faces. This is customary for DreamRail. We enter the question and answer session right after the end of the story. We have learned not to ask stupid questions, so we take our time. It’s about at that point that the waitress comes in, takes our orders, and quietly departs.

I looked around the room. The bar had a couple of people that had wandered in during my story. As usual, there were recognizable faces in the crowd, and being the outgoing sort that I am, I always nod as we make eye contact. Nods typically come flying back, but never an actual wave. I don’t know these people. They’re just always here.

Finally, Jim asked, “What’s the deal about the leaves?”

“Funny you should ask,” I answered. “I don’t have a clue.”

“It’s a neat idea, but I can’t place how they did it, or even why.”

“Me neither, but it probably led to the biodome. That kind of helps it make sense. Don’t you think?” I asked.

The questioning went on. Most of it concerned the stupid leaves. I don’t know why I put that in there. It just popped in. You need three or four things to make a list of events. You know: people disappeared, left their things, no trace, leaves gone. It was just one more thing to add to the list. Evidently it takes away from the story too much, because it’s all they can remember. The dumb asses missed the little particle of a moral that I wove in there. I certainly wasted that on them, and I told them so.

Tom summed it up, “Oh, I got your little morsel there. It was cute, and probably hits us too close to home, but you’ve got to drop that leaf shit if you ever tell this again.”

Obviously, I can never tell it again. I had five weeks work harder, and do a better job. Next week it’s Laura.

The week dragged on. I sent ten emails to the group box I’ve set up that is titled DreamRail. I implored them to meet at least three times a week. We took a vote, and it passed five to zero. These losers are easy.

By Thursday, we were back at Poppy’s. The waitress smiled, but didn’t even miss a step over our quicker than normal return. I looked around; the familiar faces were all appearing, as if it were Monday. They must be here every day. Laura quickly told her story.

“Wow, you must have been pissed,” Jim started as usual after a reasonable pause and orders were taken.

Laura’s story involves the death of a stranger. Her only connection, in the story, to this person was a near miss on the road leading to the train station. By the end of the story, Laura had this poor soul on his back, on the tracks, in three pieces. Laura always has blood as a main character of her story. She’s a little bit of a mystery there, but we all love her. Every guy loves a crazy girl.

On Monday, Tom was up again. He told about a cruise that went bad. He was most likely still lamenting about his missed vacation. This boat sunk. Everybody except one old man survived. When he finished, we asked about his father.

Bob on Wednesday told of an explosion at the train station. That made two that toyed very close to breaking the “no train” rule. Laura was on her way to the station, and her character was killed on the tracks. Bob was at the station. Neither was actually on a train. Since we come up with these while on a train, it wouldn’t take much imagination to use a train as the setting. That is rule number eight. We now have twenty-two rules, but rule number three is that nothing can be recorded, so we often forget a few of them.

Jim turn was up on Friday. However, he didn’t show. He didn’t show up for work that morning either. Tom, his boss too by the way, hadn’t heard from him at all. He wasn’t scheduled to be off, and he hadn’t called in. I called his apartment, but only got his answering machine. Even his recorded message has been influenced by us. “I’m probably on the rail. Leave only your name. Your story is not for record.”

We still met at Poppy’s. No stories were told. It wouldn’t be right to go out of order. Everything seemed off. We shouldn’t have gone there, except that we thought maybe Jim would show up. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to miss work, but show for DreamRail. Even Tom wouldn’t have minded until after lunch.

The faces looked different that day. Maybe Friday is not a good day to meet. We took a vote, and decided to cut back to two days. Even if Jim voted against, we had won four to one. Friday didn’t seem like a good day to be at Poppy’s. Everything was just slightly off balance.

At about three o’clock on that Friday afternoon, I noticed a cop had been waiting for Tom around his office. They closed the door, and he spent about thirty minutes with him. Tom came out, and asked to speak with several of us. He took us into his office, and we sat around the small conference table that he uses for informal meetings. Officer Cables explained to the four of us that Jim Cross had died that morning between Westmont and Brookfield on the tracks between the stations. We believe he normally boarded at the Westmont station, and would have done so, as usual, at about 6:50 that morning. As of yet, nobody knows how he wound up on the tracks.

My mind was blank. I heard what Officer Cables said, but it wouldn’t register. It couldn’t register. I looked around the room, and saw the looks on several other faces that matched what was going through my head. I finally asked, “Do you mean Jim is dead?”

It was a stupid question, but the officer must be used to it. “Yes,” he responded. “I’m sorry, but he was hit by a train. It doesn’t make sense to me that he would have been walking on the tracks. We found him about a mile from the Westmont station. If any of you know whether he did things like this before, say he sometimes walked to Brookfield and took a later train, please let me know. We’re dumbfounded. It would have taken about an hour to make that walk. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. He could have caught the later train at Westmont, but people do strange things. That’s one thing one learns in my line of work. People do strange things.”

None of us were any help. I knew that Jim walked about the minimum number of steps per day required for him to get where he was going. He wasn’t going to walk four or five miles to catch a train.

This made for a long weekend. I knew Jim’s brother, and went to visit him. His family had no more idea why this happened than anybody else did. They were planning on a funeral for the coming Tuesday afternoon. Everybody was still in shock.

Monday came around, and I managed to get to work. Nobody said anything about DreamRail. Any office chatter concentrated on Jim. However, at noon I found myself on Wabash, heading right toward Poppy’s. When I arrived, I found Laura, Bob, and Tom. The four of us wouldn’t give this up, even in the eyes of death. No stories were told, however. We talked only about Laura’s train story, and how it coincided with what had happened to Jim. I never asked about the state of Jim’s remains. I only knew that the casket would be closed for tomorrow’s funeral.

We were sure this was no coincidence. Perhaps Jim had decided to end it all, and planned this as one last joke on us, but we had all been around him lately, and knew he wasn’t depressed, or that anything unusual was bothering him. I asked his brother about his health or money problems. Nothing was wrong, but now he is dead.

The place was normal for a Monday, except for us. We were anything but normal. Our waitress noticed that we were short, and commented on it. She sat down to catch her breath when we told her what had happened. Others around us seemed to take notice of the strange actions, even though they didn’t know what was going on. This was a familiar crowd that noticed when things changed.

When the waitress left us alone we talked more about what was going on. “I don’t think this was Jim’s joke,” said Laura. “He wouldn’t have done this. He would sooner kill one of us than himself. Besides, this is about me, too. He wouldn’t have done this to me. That was my story.”

“I noticed whose story it was,” responded Tom. He seemed a little too agitated. “Who could get Jim down to those tracks? I think you’re a little too smug about all of this.”

“Wait a minute,” I said.

“No, don’t wait. What the hell are you saying,” asked Laura. “You don’t have the right to start accusing me of something like this. I’ve known Jim a lot longer than you have. You’re the one nobody knows much about. You were late on Friday, weren’t you?”

“Whether I’m late or not has nothing to do with you. Why are you watching what time I come in?”

“How did you know that Jim would have had to go down to the tracks?” asked Bob.

The question took us all by surprise.

“You asked Laura who could get Jim down to the tracks. Are the tracks in a valley or underground there?” Bob had what sounded like a legitimate question.

“Yeah,” I added. “You did say down, Tom. I don’t know what the area looked like. I went out that way on Saturday, and I could see the tracks, but I don’t know right where it happened.”

“It was just a figure of speech,” Tom piped in. “Most tracks that I’ve seen, you would have to go over a fence, and down to them, or at least go through a ditch or something. They aren’t usually just running along with the road. You see the top of a lot of stations from the highway.”

Laura wasn’t convinced. “Well, you were the first to start accusing people: Me to be exact. I didn’t do anything to hurt Jim. The others know I never would. Why were you late?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide from you, or to explain to you. You guys can go screw yourselves.”

Tom left Poppy’s. We never saw him again.

Back at the office, we were greeted by the police. Officer Cable was there, and he brought a detective. Laura, Bob, and I were each talked to separately. We had to explain DreamRail. Jim’s brother had told him about it, and explained that it seemed overly important to Jim. There was nothing much to explain, except for Laura’s story.

I gave them examples of some other stories that have been told over the past few months, and explained that I didn’t believe that Laura could have had anything to do with this. At one point, I thought they were coming close to taking us downtown, but afterward, all three of us were left to shake in our shoes. We had just lost a friend, and now we were being accused, or felt like we were being accused, of having something to do with his death. We all went home early. We would have asked Tom, but he never came back from lunch.

The next morning, I still went to work. I was leaving at noon for the funeral, and did not plan to go back. Somehow, I would try to get some work done during the morning. Laura, Tom, and Bob were not there. I was sure I would see them that afternoon, and didn’t blame them for not showing up for work. I’m not sure why I did. Laura and Bob had called in.

Tom never called anybody. There isn’t a phone at the bottom of Kingswood Lake in the park at Oakbrook Terrace.

A boat was found capsized in the park. It belonged to some kids who lived nearby, and at first, neighbors thought they had lost them. They were fine. Tom was not. He lived near the park, and was often seen around there. He had never been known to borrow the boat.

Tom’s boss, William Sharell, was in conference with a new officer, and the same detective that we had talked to. Of course, they called me in. That’s how I get all of my best information these days: in the office of my managers, and in the company of police. Of course, I had not told about Tom’s cruise boat story when the detective asked yesterday. It didn’t come to mind. It wasn’t that good of a story.

“You will need to come with us to make a statement,” said Detective Stone.

I had talked to him twice in two days, and this time he wasn’t very friendly. It wasn’t looking good for me at all.

“I am going to his funeral, Detective. I’ll come downtown later, but we all want to be with Jim’s family.” I had to explain that I meant Jim’s funeral, not Tom’s.

“I will be going with you, then,” said Stone. “I need to be there anyway, as part of that investigation. Will your other dream friends be there?”

“I had nothing to do with this. Don’t act like I’m in on something. I have no idea what they were doing last night, but don’t include me in this just because I go to lunch with a few people.”

“I never said anything happened last night, “ Stone quietly slid in. “How did you know Tom wasn’t killed this morning?”

“Obviously, I don’t know. It’s just that he didn’t come back to work yesterday, and I assume that whatever happened to him happened after he left here. When was it?”

Stone never answered my question. He took me to Jim’s funeral, and insisted that we stay together.

I took Wednesday off, but I did receive a call from Laura. She had gone into work, and was concerned that I didn’t show up. Bob didn’t make it either. Laura and I had both checked the morning paper, halfway expecting to see something about a train station getting blown up. I even watched the local TV news that morning, and told Laura nothing had happened, or at least nothing was reported.

Detective Stone had spent some time with her yesterday as well. “He is convinced that one of us had something to do with all of this,” Laura said. “I kept looking around on the way in this morning. I’m sure that he knows exactly where we are, and have been for the past couple of days.”

“There’s been a car sitting two houses down, out in the street all night,” I informed her. “You’re right, I’m sure of it. I swear I’m in the dark on this, Laura. Tell me that you don’t know what’s going on either. You were the one that seemed really pissed off last week, and came up with that crazy story.”

“Wait a minute. They’re all crazy stories. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but all I’m saying is that you’re always telling blood and guts shit, and now we’re dealing with blood and guts. I’m sorry. We can’t start accusing each other.”

“I didn’t accuse you. You’re the one starting…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right, and I’m way out of line. Let’s start over. Do you have any ideas?”

There was a short silence on the other end, and then she started. “Have you noticed some of the people at the restaurant?”

“The regulars?”

“Yeah, there are always the same few people around us when we’re there. Have you noticed them?”

“Some of the faces have become familiar,” I was remembering a few of them. “I nod to a couple guys now, when I see them. Do you think somebody overheard our stories?”

“It could have happened. A couple of times, I’ve noticed somebody smile when something funny in a story came up. It was like they were listening. In fact, I’m sure of it. I didn’t mind. It was kind of neat that somebody that wasn’t supposed to be involved was like a silent part of our club.”

“Laura?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you meet there for lunch today? I think we need to identify a few friendly faces. In fact I think I’ll let Stone know what we’re doing. He may want to talk to them. We might as well get some company on the bad guy list.”

“I’ll be there. Can you make it by noon?”

“Yeah, noon it is.”

Laura was sitting at our usual table when I got there. Detective Stone was sitting at the bar. He could see over the half-wall, and was watching from there. We had agreed that it would look suspicious if he joined us, and arranged a system for us to point out the usual suspects.

“Hey, did you get Bob?” I asked as I sat across from Laura.

“No answer. I left him a message in case he gets it in time to get here. Actually, with everything else that has happened, I’m a little concerned about him.”

“I know. I told Stone about him, and I think he’s sending somebody to check on him.” I had told Stone, but I wasn’t sure that he was as concerned. Surely he would have had somebody following Bob too.

Both of us were already looking around the room. I gave a nod, and kept looking past one guy before I realized what I was doing. He was one of the people we were looking for. I put a finger to my nose, and pointed towards him. Stone picked up on it, and motioned toward the guy. I concurred that he had the right man. Stone made a note in his pad.

“Look at the couple behind me,” said Laura. “Do you recognize them?”

“No.”

“I thought I did, but maybe I was wrong,” she said. “I do know that the guy on the other side of this wall is always there.”

“I didn’t see anybody there,” I said. I was a little surprised. From my side of the table, I never have seen anybody there. I stood up, and walked to the restroom. After a few minutes, I returned and glanced from Laura’s viewpoint through the half-wall. I saw a man for what I thought was the first time.

“I don’t know him,” I told Laura. Then I touched my nose, and motioned to Stone. He looked toward the man, nodded, and pulled out his pad.

The man obviously saw this. He bolted from the table, out of the bar, through the restaurant, knocked over a table on his way, and got out the door before Stone was on his feet.

Laura and I both reflexively got up, and followed this commotion toward the door. Just outside, two guys had tackled the man no more than two steps past the door. By the time we got there, Stone was with them, and they were cuffing the guy.

“Why did you run, buddy,” Stone asked him.

There was no answer. The guy had his eyes closed, and was starting to shake like he was having a convulsion of some sort. It wasn’t real violent, but he was shaking and rocking. They weren’t about to get anything out of him, so they got him to his feet, into a car, and away they sped.

Stone told Laura and me that he would be in touch. “Thanks for letting me know you two were coming here. I don’t know what this is about, but that guy must know something. I’ll let you know when we find what it is. In the meantime, call if anything else happens.” Stone was turning to go toward his car.

“What about Bob?” I yelled.

“I don’t know. I did send two uniforms over to check out his place. I’ll let you know when I hear back. I’m sure he’ll be back at work tomorrow.” With that said, Stone got into his car and left.

Laura was smiling at me. “Bob’s dead,” she said.

“They’ll find him under one of those six foot plastic domes in his back yard. Sorry, it’s the best I could do. We’ll get away with it. Don’t worry. That silly ass that they’re taking downtown will probably wind up confessing. He’s a little off. I noticed him coming here about a month ago. He just sat in the bar, hunched down at that table. He can’t defend himself.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why? It’s where this club needed to go. Too much dream, not enough real,” she responded.

“No, I mean why did he run, then?”

“Oh, that. I told him before you or Stone got there that this man was coming in, and he was very bad. If he noticed him, he better leave. That worked pretty well, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, real well,” I wasn’t sure what to do. I could still see the back of Stone’s car at a stoplight a block away. I thought about chasing after him.

Laura was still smiling at me. “Oh yeah, you ordered a six foot geodome from a small company in Washington state. Got it through the Internet, and it arrived with your name all over the order. Now, I don’t think anybody will ever have reason to come across this. Your little secret is safe with me, unless you start to feel like you need to tell somebody about how our club has evolved. Comprende?”

Laura might have had me. I still didn’t know whether to run, yell, strangle her, or just walk away.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We are really fine. We can dissolve the club. DreamRail is over, but it was quite a ride. Remember, art doesn’t have to go on forever. If we kept this up, we would get caught, so let’s just drop it. Come on, let’s go to work. You’ve got a good job. So do I.”

Laura walked away. She turned back, “How did you get here?” she asked. “I took the train.” She laughed as she walked on.

I had taken the train too. In fact that’s why I’m here now, and we’re about at the station. Told you I could tell this in twenty-five minutes. It’ll work well for lunch today. Thanks for listening. A little practice never hurt anybody.

The End

Dreamrail was previously published in The Writer’s Post Journal.