Last Stop

by Peter Lerangis

  “Hey!” I protested. “What are you—?”

  BZZZZZZZZ!

  Heather pushed the door and it swung open.

  “See? If you buzz them all, someone’s bound to let you in,” she said. “Coming?”

  I followed Heather into a dark hallway with a worn-out tile floor. The air was stuffy and smelled of fried food. At the end of the hallway, we climbed a dark, lopsided stairway, passing gray windows that were permanently shut by years of caked paint.

  Apartment 3E was at the end of a long, narrow hallway. At the other end, the doors to apartments 3A and 3B faced each other in a small alcove. We could hide there, unseen by Miles Ruckman when he returned.

  “What if he’s gone for the whole day?” I whispered. “Or the weekend?”

  Heather shrugged. “We come back another time.”

  “How long do we stay?”

  “Until we get bored.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know why I agreed to do this—”

  “Then go to the comic book store!”

  Click.

  We both shut up.

  The noise came from down the hall. A doorknob.

  Heather and I peeked around the alcove wall.

  A door was opening. The door to apartment 3E.

  The breath caught in my throat. Heather’s eyes were bulging.

  A stoop-shouldered figure pushed out into the hallway, wearing a long, tattered overcoat.

  I caught a glimpse of the person’s face as he turned, before I ducked back into the alcove.

  “Oh my God,” I said under my breath.

  “Isn’t that— ?” Heather whispered.

  I nodded. “Anders.”

  Why now?

  Why not?

  10

  “WHAT’S HE DOING THERE?” Heather hissed.

  “You’re asking me?” I hissed back.

  “Did he see us?”

  “Sssshhh!”

  Shhhhip…shhhip…shhhip…

  Anders’s shoes were scraping the linoleum floor. Coming closer.

  My breathing stopped. Heather shrank deeper into the shadows.

  Shhhhip.

  Anders was just outside the alcove now. Inches away. I could hear him muttering to himself. Indistinct words. Growls.

  Then…Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  He was going downstairs.

  I thought my lungs would explode. I let out a whoosh of breath.

  Neither Heather nor I moved until we heard the front door of the apartment building open and shut.

  “He’s a burglar!” Heather said.

  I shook my head. “It’s broad daylight. Maybe he has a key. Maybe he’s a friend of Miles Ruckman.”

  “A friend of Miles Ruckman, a friend of your dad…could there possibly be a connection?”

  “Don’t start, Heather,” I said, heading out of the alcove. “Just don’t start.”

  “You have to admit, it’s strange. Don’t deny it!”

  I began walking downstairs. I was in no mood for Heather’s crazy theories. I was not going to listen.

  But I was not going to deny it, either. Something awfully weird was going on.

  “I’m home!” I shouted as I entered our apartment.

  The door slammed behind me. I flung my backpack into the living room.

  I was still thinking about Anders, so I almost didn’t notice the change in the front hallway.

  The wall was empty. All the photos were gone, leaving faded rectangles.

  “Where were you?” Mom stormed in from her bedroom. “I thought I told you—”

  “Heather called. She needed help with …something. You know how she is. So. What happened to all the pictures?”

  Mom nodded grudgingly toward her bedroom. Her anger seemed to melt away as we walked inside.

  All the photos were stacked on her bed, along with piles of notebooks, photo albums, and papers. I turned to Mom and she smiled at me sadly. I could see she’d been crying.

  In the corner of the room stood Dad’s desk, its drawers open and empty. All that was left on top was his old world globe.

  “What are you doing with Dad’s stuff?” I asked.

  “I thought it was time to change things,” Mom replied. “Freshen up the house. Paint the walls. Clean out Dad’s desk—you know, so you can use it while he’s…gone.”

  Mom’s voice caught. She began busily shuffling papers around.

  I sat at the edge of the crowded bed. It was a weird feeling—as if Dad were in the room, his spirit spread out on the bedcover. I opened a photo album marked with the year of my birth. On the first page was a picture of Dad leaning over a white bassinet. He had a lot of hair and a trim beard. His eyes were narrow and puffy, as if he hadn’t slept, but his smile could have lit up the entire city.

  Mom glanced at it. “You were two weeks old. Dad woke up every time you made the slightest sound. He cared so much about you.”

  My eyes started to water. Partly because of the photo. But that wasn’t the only reason.

  Mom had said “cared.” Past tense.

  She was finally forcing herself to face the truth. Putting away reminders for good.

  I picked up a copy of my third-grade report card. A program from my summer camp play. A button I’d bought Dad at a fair that said MY SON IS CRAZY ABOUT ME!

  Mom held up a small dog-eared spiral notebook. “Did you know your dad used to keep journals, just like you do?”

  “No,” I replied. But it didn’t surprise me. Dad loved to write. For a while he even had a regular column for the Franklin City Public Guardian newsletter.

  “He stopped when you were in second grade or so. Things got too busy. Listen to this.” Mom held up the book and began reading aloud: “Picked up D from preschool today. Two of his friends ran to parents, screaming, “I love you this much,” holding arms wide, like a contest. D started crying. He said, “My arms aren’t big enough to do that, Daddy. ’Cause I love you…” ’ ”

  “ ‘…from the tips of my toes to the top of the universe,’ ” I continued. “I remember.”

  “ ‘Wow!’ ” Mom’s voice trembled as she continued reading. “This is what I call happiness.’ ” She stopped and put down the notebook. “Excuse me, David.”

  She left quickly. Soon I could hear her sniffling behind the closed bathroom door.

  As I blinked tears from my own eyes, I noticed five or six other journals piled on the bed. Dad had scrawled a beginning and end date on each. I looked for old ones, from when he was a kid. My age, maybe. But the earliest was written the year before Mom and Dad married.

  I was tempted to open one, but I couldn’t. Reading Dad’s journals seemed wrong. Like an invasion of his privacy.

  In fact, this whole project was making me nervous. I stood up to go back to my room. As I passed Dad’s desk, I gave the globe a spin.

  It wobbled jerkily on its base, then plopped onto its side and began rolling. I grabbed it before it reached the edge of the desk.

  When I was a kid, Dad never liked me to play with his globe. Now I knew why. What a lousy design.

  As I lifted it upright, I could feel something thump lightly inside.

  That was when I noticed the two small fingerholds, one on either side of the equator. And the hinge in the curved metal support that connected the globe’s axis to its base.

  I looked over toward the bathroom. The door was shut and I could hear the water running.

  I put my fingers into the holds and pulled. The globe opened into two halves.

  Inside was another journal.

  I took it out and looked at the cover.

  It had only one date written on it. A beginning date, about two years ago. After that date was a hyphen, then nothing.

  As if Dad hadn’t finished it.

  I flipped to the last page. On the top, a date had been scribbled.

  The day before Dad disappeared.

  Underneath it was a page filled with Dad’s handwriting.

  Forget privacy.


  I sat down to read.

  He is hurting.

  That, I’m afraid, is beyond our control.

  11

  T STOOD FOR MOM’S name, Taylor.

  Awful memories flooded in. Mom and Dad shouting in the kitchen. His slurred words. Her sobs. Loud. So loud I had to bury my head under my pillow.

  You’re drunk! Mom would shout. But he wasn’t. His disease—whatever it was—was beginning.

  Still, Dad’s entry didn’t make sense. By the time he wrote it, Mom did understand. She knew he was sick.

  Home?

  That was the last word Dad had said to Mom. She had asked, Where are you going at this hour? and he had answered, Home.

  But what did it mean? He was home.

  Unless…

  Another home. Another life.

  A family somewhere else.

  Impossible.

  Ridiculous.

  But my mind was sifting back through the years. Back to all the business trips Dad used to take. He’d be gone for days, on assignment—“helping the pugs,” he said.

  Was he lying all that time?

  Lying so he could visit them?

  I’d heard of cases like this. But Dad?

  Told T, he’d written.

  So Mom knew about it. Mom knew about his secret life. And she was covering it up.

  No. I refused to believe this.

  I flipped back a few pages. There had to be an explanation.

  The click of the bathroom door caught me off guard.

  I slammed the globe shut. Quickly I stuffed the journal into my rear pants pocket, letting my loose T-shirt hang over it.

  “Sorry, David.” Mom walked into the room, dabbing her eyes. “When I read passages like that I feel so guilty. Sometimes I forget what a good guy your dad was.”

  “Was he?” Easy, David.

  Mom gave me a funny look. “Yes, of course, David…”

  “I mean, I was just thinking about when you and Dad used to argue…he said some weird stuff, didn’t he?”

  “He was very ill,” Mom said with a sigh.

  “You must understand it wasn’t his fault.”

  “Didn’t he say something about…going home?”

  Mom sat down on the bed, her face clouding over. “Yes, he did. I’d hoped you hadn’t heard that…”

  “Where, Mom? Where’s his other home?”

  “It’s—” Mom cut herself off and choked back a sob. “David, promise me it’s not going to happen to you, too.”

  “Promise what’s not going to happen?”

  Mom collected herself. Taking a deep breath, she looked me straight in the eye. “Remember how upset I was this morning at the FCSS headquarters? Well, it wasn’t only about what you did. It was also about what you saw.”

  “I told you that was just a daydream—”

  “That’s where home was, David.” Mom let the words hang in the air. They began dropping into my crazy thoughts like embers on dry brush.

  “The Granite Street station,” Mom continued. “That’s where Dad said his home was.”

  One at a time.

  Her, too?

  12

  “ASK ME IF I’M surprised. No, I’m not.” Heather was practically dancing on her carpet. “I’ve been telling you all along—your dad’s in the station, and he’s looking for you.”

  “Heather, I think it might have all been a lie—Dad’s sickness, his behavior…” I showed her his final journal, which I’d brought with me. “I’ve been reading these diaries. I think he was leading a double life. Like, another wife and kids.”

  Heather gave me a wary look. “That’s crazy.”

  “Any crazier than what you believe? Think about it. No doctor could diagnose the disease. He’d wander off for days at a time—”

  “Your dad didn’t lie—”

  “He was a case solver. He specialized in mysteries. He knew how people kept secrets and got away with them. And he was full of his own secrets. Like his past.”

  “He was an orphan. He didn’t like to talk about it. You always told me that.”

  “And I never questioned it. Doesn’t it seem weird that he wrote in these journals every day but not before he met my mom?”

  Heather took the journal and began leafing through it. “This doesn’t make sense …‘D’ this, ‘T’ that…”

  I looked over her shoulder. As she flipped through, my eyes caught something familiar.

  I pressed my palm to the page, holding the journal open. And I read:

  “ ‘Home,’ ” I said. “There it is again.”

  “Who’s this AP?” Heather asked. “And what’s ‘shuffle off mortal coil’ mean?”

  “Don’t you know? You’re the genius.”

  Heather shrugged. “Sounds like language from some other century. Your dad never said stuff like that.”

  “True. I guess AP did, though.”

  AP.

  It hit me.

  I picked up Heather’s voicephone. “Heather, you are a genius.”

  “Who are you calling?” Heather asked.

  I tapped out my home number.

  “Hello?” came Mom’s voice.

  “Mom, what’s Anders’s last name?”

  “Pearson,” I heard her say. “Why?”

  Heather was right next to me now. I turned to face her. “Did you say Pearson, Mom? Anders Pearson?”

  Heather looked blank for a moment, then beamed.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “Why?”

  “Ask her how he spells it!” Heather hissed.

  I covered the receiver. “Why?”

  “David, what’s going on?” Mom’s voice asked.

  “Um, Mom, how do you spell that? P-E-A-R—?”

  Heather grabbed the receiver and put her own ear close to mine.

  “No, David,” Mom said. “It’s P-E-R-S-S-O-N.”

  I thought Heather was going to faint.

  A. PERSSON.

  He’s smart.

  That’s why we need him.

  13

  I MUST HAVE READ the back of Miles Ruck-man’s business card a dozen times as we left Heather’s apartment and raced down the stairwell.

  “Anders was sending a message to the other world,” Heather said over her shoulder. “The message was ‘Hi everybody. Wish you were here.’ And Ruckman was supposed to deliver it.”

  “But he dropped the card,” I replied.

  “Right! So you believe me?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  We pushed through the door to the eighth floor.

  Anders lived in 8B. I pressed the doorbell.

  “Rrraoogllf,” crackled a voice from inside.

  “Mr. Persson?” I shouted. “It’s David Moore. Alan’s son?”

  The door opened a crack and a bloodshot eye peered out. “Yeah?” Anders said.

  “Did you lose this?” I handed him the business card.

  He looked at it briefly. “Nope.”

  The door began to shut, but I stuck my foot in the opening.

  “What about the other side?” Heather said.

  I turned the card over and pointed to the handwritten message. “You wrote this, didn’t you?”

  “So?” Anders growled.

  “Miles Ruckman dropped it,” Heather said. “What did the message mean? ‘Hi everybody, wish you were here’? Where was he taking it?”

  “To his office,” Anders replied. “Now, go away.”

  “But he’s gone, isn’t he?” Heather asked. “And you’ve been to his empty apartment.”

  “I will call the guardians!” Anders cried out.

  “Did he shuffle off his mortal coil?” Heather blurted out. “Like you wanted David’s dad to do?”

  Anders let his door slowly open. A thick, musty smell wafted out of the apartment, like old socks and moldy potatoes. “Shakespeare,” he muttered. “How do you know—?”

  Heather poked me in the ribs. “Tell him where you found the card, David.”

  “In the Gran
ite Street station,” I said. “On the platform.”

  “What were you doing there?” Anders asked.

  “That was where Miles Ruckman dropped it,” Heather replied.

  “A few days ago, while I was riding the train home, it stopped there,” I explained. “The platform was full. Clean and all lit up. With posters on the wall. Miles Ruckman was in the car. But when the door opened, he walked out. He was holding the card, as if he wanted to give it to someone. Then the door closed and the train took off. And…and I saw my dad.”

  Anders’s restless eyes were now steady and bright. “You saw your dad. And on your way to him you picked up Ruckman’s card.”

  “No. I stayed on the train. I picked up the card on another trip.”

  “Another trip…” Anders looked from me to Heather.

  Heather was grinning with triumph. “So? Talk to us?”

  Anders let out a giggle. Then, in a sudden burst, it became a loud, wild cackle. “You must think I’m awfully stupid.”

  With that, he slammed the door shut.

  Good.

  14

  MY ARM WHIPPED INTO the swiftly closing crack.

  “Go away!” Anders cried. “I don’t believe you!”

  “Open it!” I yelled in pain.

  “Let go!” Heather screamed, ramming her shoulder into the door.

  It swung open.

  Anders was backing into the room. “You’re wired for sound, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re taping me. You’re going to play it for the U.S. marshals!”

  Heather shot me a confused glance. “We don’t know what you’re talking about, Anders,” she replied.

  I heard the click of a lock down the hall. A neighbor’s opening door.

  We stepped into Anders’s apartment. The door swung shut.

  Anders had backed in as far as he could go. His home was one small room. Everywhere I looked—the floor, the furniture, the windowsills—lay piles of old clothing, half-empty containers of food, open books, yellowing newspapers. The windows were shut tight and the smell was overpowering.