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"You worked on this project?"

"Mine"

"Dr Randolph Josephson," I said, suddenly re the name of the project leader I’d heard on Delacroix’s tape John Joseph Randolph, boy killer, had becoo?"

Instead of answering me, he smiled and said, "Did the crow ever appear to you? It never appeared to Conrad He said it did, but he lies The crow appeared toby the rock, and the crow rose out of it" He sighed "Forht, in front oftheir affection He agging his tail Everything was going to be all right The world wasn’t going to end, at least not here, at least not tonight We would get out of here, ould survive, ould live to party, ride the waves again, it was guaranteed, it was a sure thing, it was a done deal, because right here was the o his tail

"When I saw the crow, I kneas someone special," Randolph said "I had a destiny Now I’ve fulfilled it"

Oncehost train

"Forty-four years ago," I said, "you’re the one who carved the crow on Crow Hill"

"I went hoht, fully alive for the first time ever, and did what I’d alanted to do Blewan achievement that filled him with quiet pride "Cut Mother to pieces Thenthe kids out of the roo the tunnel to where Sasha and Roosevelt waited

"So h, as though he were a retiree pleasantly conte, striving, thinking So h soevery twelve months

"And when it was built, when success was at hand, the cowards back in Washington were scared by what they saw on the videotapes from the un, he said, "They were going to shut us down Del Stuart was ready right then to pull the plug on ht I knehy Aaron and Anson Stuart were in this room And I wondered if the other kids who had been snatched and killed all over the country were related somehow to other people on the Mystery Train project who had disappointed this ot loose," Randolph said, "and they wanted to knohat the future held, whether there would even be a future"

"Red sky?" I asked "Strange trees?"

"That’s not the future That’s…sideways"

From the corner of my eye, I saw the copper wall buckle

Horrified, I turned tohere the concave curve had seen of distortion

"Now the track is laid," Randolph said contentedly, "and no one can tear it up The border is breached The way is open"

"The way to where?"

"You’ll see We’re all going soon," he said with disconcerting assurance "The train is already pulling out of the station"

Wendy was the fourth and last child through the gate valve at the entrance to the chaie ently to reen eye fixed on ave me a bloody, broken-toothed, eerily affectionate smile "Time past, time present, time future, but most important…tio, and your ave me the chance"

"But where is sideways?" I asked with considerable frustration as the building shook around us

"My destiny," he said enigmatically

Sasha cried out, and her voice was so full of alarie looked down the tunnel, aghast, and then shouted, "Chris! Grab one of those chairs!"

As I snatched up one of the collapsed folding chairs and then un, John Joseph Randolph said, "Stations on a track, out there sideways in time, like ays kneays knew but didn’t want to believe"

I had been right when I’d suspected that truths were hidden in his strange statements, and I wanted to hear hier would have been suicidal

As I joined Doogie, the half-closed gate valve, which was the door of the charipped the valve and put all hisfro the steel disc back into the wall

"Go!" Doogie said

Because I’ood advice when he hears it, I squeezed past thethe sixteen-foot section of tunnel between the two enor worthy of the final stor, not with terror but with joy, with passionate conviction: "I believe! I believe!"

Sasha, the kids, Mungojerrie, and Orson had already passed through to the next section of tunnel beyond the outer gateway

Roosevelt edged into the breach, to prevent the valve frorinding in the wall, trying to drive the steel disc into the fully closed position

I jaap, above Roosevelt’s head, bracing the valve open

"Thanks, son," he said

I followed Roosevelt through the gate

The others aiting beyond, with an ordinary flashlight Sasha looked far ateas a tight fit for the sass h, too, and then he wrenched the chair out of the gap, because ere likely to need it again

We passed the Mystery Train patch and the ih this tunnel None of the newspaper clippings ahead of us stirred at all And yet the large sheet of art paper, which featured the graphite rubbing of the carved-stone bird, was fluttering as if a gale-force ere tearing at it The loose ends of the paper curled and flapped vigorously The crow seerily at the pieces of tape that fixed it to the curved steel surface, deter to Randolph, it had once arisen out of rock

Maybe I was hallucinating this business with the crow, sure, andto hang around to see if a real bird ht, anyto lie down in a nest of cobras and huht want proof of what I’d seen down here, I tore a fespaper clippings from the wall and stuffed theainst the wall behind us, we hurried on, keeping our group together, doing what any sane person would do when the world was co apart around him and death loomed at every side: We followed the cat

I tried not to think about Bobby The first proble would be okay He would be waiting for us--cold and sore and weak, but waiting by the elevator where we had left hi, Carpe cerevisi, bro