Seize the Night

the stresses of the time-shifting phenomena occurring overhead.
    Although I might have changed my mind later, at that moment I wanted to immobilize them, seal their mouths shut with tape, put a bottle of water where they could see it, and leave them here to die painfully of thirst.
    Orson had finished the Evian. He struggled to his feet, wobbly as a baby, and stood panting, blinking the filminess out of his eyes, looking around with interest.
    “ Poki akua ,” I told him, which is Hawaiian for dog of the gods.
    He chuffed weakly, as though pleased by the compliment.
    A sudden pong , followed by a nerve-jangling squeal, as of metal torquing violently, passed through the copper room. Both Orson and I looked at the ceiling, then around at the walls, but there was no evident distortion of the smooth metal surfaces.
    Tick tick tick.
    I dragged the heavy cooler across the floor to Orson and opened the lid.
    He looked in at the icy water sloshing among the bottles of Evian and vegetable juice, and he happily began to lap it up.
    On his side, curled in the fetal position, Randolph was groaning but not yet conscious.
    Doogie clipped off a few feet of wire, all he needed to finish binding Conrad, and passed the spool to me.
    I rolled Randolph facedown and hurriedly wired his wrists together behind his back. I was tempted to cinch the bonds as tight as those on the children and Orson, but I controlled myself and made them only tight enough to ensure that he could not free himself.
    After securing his ankles, I looped wire from the shackles at his feet to those at his wrists, further limiting his ability to move.
    Randolph must have awakened as I began to apply this final restraint, because when I finished, he spoke with a clarity not characteristic of someone just regaining consciousness, “I've won.”
    I moved out from behind him and hunkered down to look at his face. His head was turned to the side, left cheek against the copper floor. Lips split and bleeding. His right eye was pale green and bright, but I saw no evidence of animal eye shine. Curiously, he appeared to be in no distress. He was at peace, as if he weren't trussed and helpless but were merely resting.
    When he spoke, his voice was calm, even slightly euphoric, like that of someone coming out of a light Demerol sleep. I would have felt better if he'd ranted, snarled, and spat. His relaxed demeanor seemed to support his unnerving contention that he had won in spite of his current circumstances. “I'll be on the other side before the night is gone. They stripped out the engine. That wasn't a mortal wound. This is a sort of … organic machine. In time, it has healed. Now it powers itself. You can feel it. Feel it in the floor.”
    Those rumblings, like passing trains, were louder than before, and the spells of calm between were shorter. Although the effect in this room had been less than elsewhere in the structure, the noise and the vibrations in the floor were at last gaining power here, too.
    Randolph said, “Powers itself with the littlest help. A storm lamp in the translation chamber two hours ago that's all it took to get it running again. This is no ordinary machine.”
    “You worked on this project?”
    “Mine.”
    “Dr. Randolph Josephson,” I said, suddenly remembering the name of the project leader I'd heard on Delacroix's tape. John Joseph Randolph, boy killer, had become Randolph Josephson.
    “What does it do, where does it … go?”
    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 to me . I was sitting by the rock, and the crow rose out of it.” He sighed. “Formed out of the solid rock that night, in front of my eyes.”
    Orson was with the children, accepting their affection. He was wagging 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, we would survive, we would 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 omen, the sign of good times coming, Orson was wagging his tail.
    “When I saw the crow, I knew I was someone special,” Randolph said.
    “I had a destiny. Now I've fulfilled it.”
    Once more, the fearsome twang of torquing metal punctuated the rumble of the ghost train.
    “Forty-four years ago,” I said, “you're the one who carved the crow on