The Talisman

down a few feet under this turf anywhere, you find cinders and pieces of rail and all sorts of stuff. But all that’s left now is that little building. The Depot. Of course it never was a real depot; it’s too small, anyone could see that. It was the main rail-yard office, where the stationmaster and the rail-boss did their respective things.’
    ‘You know a hell of a lot about it,’ Jack said, speaking almost automatically – his head was still filled with that savage new light.
    ‘It’s part of the Thayer tradition,’ Richard said simply.
    ‘What’s it used for now?’
    ‘There’s a little theater in there. It’s for Dramatics Club productions, but the Dramatics Club hasn’t been very active over the last couple of years.’
    ‘Do you think it’s locked?’
    ‘Why would anyone lock The Depot?’ Richard asked. ‘Unless you think someone would be interested in stealing a few flats from the 1979 production of The Fantasticks .’
    ‘So we could get in there?’
    ‘I think so, yes. But why—’
    Jack pointed to a door just beyond the Ping-Pong tables. ‘What’s in there?’
    ‘Vending machines. And a coin-op microwave to heat up snacks and frozen dinners. Jack—’
    ‘Come on.’
    ‘Jack, I think my fever’s coming back again.’ Richard smiled weakly. ‘Maybe we should just stay here for a while. We could rack out on the sofas for the night—’
    ‘See those brown patches on the walls?’ Jack said grimly, pointing.
    ‘No, not without my glasses, of course not!’
    ‘Well, they’re there. And in about an hour, those white bugs are going to hatch out of—’
    ‘All right,’ Richard said hastily.
    10
    The vending machines stank.
    It looked to Jack as if all the stuff inside them had spoiled. Blue mould coated the cheese crackers and Doritos and Jax and fried pork-rinds. Sluggish creeks of melted ice cream were oozing out of the panels in the front of the Hav-a-Kone machine.
    Jack pulled Richard toward the window. He looked out. From here Jack could make out The Depot quite well. Beyond it he could see the chain-link fence and the service road leading off-campus.
    ‘We’ll be out in a few seconds,’ Jack whispered back. He unlocked the window and ran it up.
    This school exists because Andrew Thayer saw the possibilities . . . do you see the possibilities, Jack-O?
    He thought maybe he did.
    ‘Are there any of those people out there?’ Richard asked nervously.
    ‘No,’ Jack said, taking only the most cursory of glances. It didn’t really matter if there were or not, anymore.
    One of the three or four biggest American railheads . . . a fortune in rail shippage . . . mostly to the west coast . . . he was the first one to see the potential in shipping west . . . west . . . west . . .
    A thick, mucky mixture of tidal-flat aroma and garbage stench drifted in the window. Jack threw one leg over the sill and grabbed for Richard’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he said.
    Richard drew back, his face long and miserable with fright.
    ‘Jack . . . I don’t know . . .’
    ‘The place is falling apart,’ Jack said, ‘and pretty soon it’s going to be crawling with bugs as well. Now come on. Someone’s going to see me sitting here in this window and we’ll lose our chance to scurry out of here like a couple of mice.’
    ‘I don’t understand any of this!’ Richard wailed. ‘I don’t understand what in the goddam hell is going on here!’
    ‘Shut up and come on,’ Jack said. ‘Or I will leave you, Richard. Swear to God I will. I love you, but my mother is dying. I’ll leave you to fend for yourself.’
    Richard looked at Jack’s face and saw – even without his glasses – that Jack was telling the truth. He took Jack’s hand. ‘God, I’m scared,’ he whispered.
    ‘Join the club,’ Jack said, and pushed off. His feet hit the mucky lawn a second later. Richard jumped down beside him.
    ‘We’re going to cross to The Depot,’ Jack whispered. ‘I make it about fifty yards. We’ll go in if it’s unlocked, try to hide as well as we can on the Nelson House side of it if it isn’t. Once we’re sure no one’s seen us and the place is still quiet—’
    ‘We go for the fence.’
    ‘Right.’ Or maybe we’ll have to flip, but never mind that just now. ‘The service road. I’ve got an idea that if we can get off the Thayer grounds, everything will be okay again. Once we get a quarter of a mile down the road, you may look back over your shoulder and see the lights in the