Chapter Thirty Four

By Chris Fulmer

"I'm telling you, that was the worst nightmare I've had in years," Kevin told the others as they pulled into the next town.

"What was the worst before that?" Danny asked him.

"I think that was one where I came home to find my dad living with another woman, and Linnie and Jeff had vanished from the house without a trace," Kevin said. "Now that one gave me a shock not to be.."

"There's the car they took him in!" Kayla pointed to a police car parked in front of the station of the town they were going through.

"You sure?" Kevin asked, "It went by real fast."

"Yes!"

"Then I guess this is our stop," Kevin climbed up on the truck's rear bumper and jumped off. His colleagues soon followed. Car horns blared, and they quickly jumped up and dashed over to the sidewalk. It was once they reached it that Kevin noticed another train station right next door to the police station. His brow furled. "Do you suppose this would take us to Chicago?" he asked the others.

"Who knows, the way our luck's been on this trip so far," Danny shrugged.

"You two stay here and don't talk to strangers; I'll go check it out," Kevin trotted over to the station. He checked the departure board. As luck would have it, there was one leaving in about ten minutes. Now the question was where exactly in Chicago it was going. He galloped to the information desk.

"Pardon me," he asked the man behind it, "Does the next train to Chicago happen to stop at the station in Shermer?"

"I can check for you, sir," the man punched some information into his computer, and then said, "Yes, it does. It's the next-to-last stop."

"Thank you. You've been very helpful," Kevin smiled. As he left, he yelled out the door, "Yeah Mom, it stops in Shermer!" to dispel any thoughts by others he might be on his own.

"It does!?" Kayla asked him back at the station; apparently she'd heard him.

"Yep," Kevin told her, "and I think I know how we can get tickets. But we've only got ten minutes, so we'd better get Skylar and get out quick."

"I think I have an idea where he is," Danny pointed upward at one of the police station's windows. Even from out on the ground, crying could be heard.

"Then let's get him," Kevin said, waving them down into the alley under the window. No sooner did they disappear than a bus pulled up at a station just up the street, and Peter and Kate jumped out. "Okay, let's go wait in at the police station until they let us talk with the kid he was with," Kate said, making a beeline for police headquarters.

"Hang on, Mrs. McCallister, I've got to go the bathroom first," said the trainee, looking uncomfortable.

"Hold it, this is more important!" Kate retorted.

"Well I can't hold it!" the trainee protested.

"Then you go and we'll catch up with you!"

"Can't. My orders were to keep my eyes on you at all times." Kate groaned in frustration. "Oh all right, but let's be quick about it!" she said in resignation. As they strode toward the train station, she whispered something in Peter's ear. He looked a bit unsure, but nodded nonetheless.

In the alley, Kevin looked up at the barred window high above them.

"Skylar!" he called up at it. The crying stopped, and Skylar's face appeared at the window. "Kevin!" he gasped, surprised, "How'd you get here?"

"Never mind that now, we're going to get you out of here," Kevin called up.

"How? The guard has the keys, and you can't possible get near him!" Skylar protested.

Kayla tapped Kevin on the shoulder. "What?" he asked her. She pointed to an abandoned crane sitting nearby. It hit Kevin immediately. "Get back from the window, we're going to break it down," he called up.

Next door at the train station, the trainee was half-bowed over as he staggered toward the bathroom. "I really should have gone on the bus!" he moaned as he rushed for the bathroom.

"Don't worry about it, just take your time," Kate said. The moment he disappeared inside the men's room, however, she nodded to Peter, and the two of them barricaded the door behind him with a wooden sofa. "Hey, what are you doing out there!" the trainee yelled from inside.

"Oh nothing," Kate called to him as she and her husband scooted off. "I'm glad," she confided in him, "I was getting a bit tired of him."

"I can see why," Peter commented. "Come on, let's check out the front desk; maybe he came in here before we did."

Meanwhile, next door, Kevin jumped into the cab of the crane and started the engine-luckily the key had been left in the ignition. "Here it comes!" he yelled out to the others as he pulled a lever. Nothing happened. He tried three more before he finally pulled the right one that got the arm moving. He maneuvered it over to where Kayla was standing on Danny's shoulders out by the barred window. She grabbed it, hooked it around the window, and gave him the thumbs-up. Kevin pulled the arm backwards, ,and in no time it had ripped the bars and half the wall off the building. "Yes!" he shouted in delight.

"Jump!" Danny yelled up to Skylar. The former child star looked hesitant at the dumpster below, but jumped nonetheless. "Garbage!" he yelled once out, "You had to get me out through garbage!?"

"You're out, aren't you!?" Kevin snorted, climbing out of the crane.

"I guess so," Skylar said to him, looking very apologetic. "Kevin, I'm."

"We can talk about that later; right now we've got a train to catch," Kevin waved him and the others toward the train station. Loud voices could be heard coming from inside the police station, and he knew it was time to tango out of town. The instant he was inside the doors, his parents came running out; had they looked to their right, they would have seen him. "I hope we won't have to listen to his whining again if they let him out before we finish all this," Kate commented.

"Say what's going on over there?" Peter pointed to about a dozen cops running into the police station.

"Hopefully nothing related to the kid we're looking for," Kate said, suddenly worried again. The two of them rushed toward the station. Back inside the depot, Kevin led his friends into a phone booth and shut the door. "You've all got to be quiet while I record this, or they'll know it's a hoax," he told them, pulling out his tape recorder. They nodded. "Are you sure this can work, Kevin?" Danny asked him.

"It worked at the Plaza," Kevin shrugged. He pressed RECORD. "Good afternoon, I'm Peter McCallister," he said into the recorder. "I'd like to order four tickets for the 11:30 train to Chicago stopping in Shermer for my son and his three friends. Don't worry, they'll pay up front. Thank you and merry Christmas." He stopped the tape and rewound it. "Okay, what's the phone number?" he asked Danny, who had been leafing through the phone book.

"693-4956," Danny told him. Kevin dialed the number and made the "Shhh!" gesture. Once the receptionist picked up and said, "Merry Christmas, how may I help you?" he pressed down on the tape heads and hit the play button so that his recording was slowed down and sounded like it was being said by an older person. "Certainly sir, we'll make a reservation," the receptionist told him. Kevin hung up and smiled. "We're in," he told them.

"How are we going to pay for it?" Kayla asked him.

Kevin sighed. "I really, really didn't want to do this, but..." he gestured toward Skylar. Skylar seemed to know what he was asking and coughed up the money he'd taken the previous day. "If we can't return this money, than I guess we shouldn't waste it. Come on, let's pay up and get on board."

They walked over to the front desk, where Kevin flashed a smile to the clerk and said, "Reservations for McCallister, party of four."

Next door, Peter and Kate ran back out, having been told by the police of Skylar's escape. "He can't have gone far in only two minutes," Kate said breathlessly, "You go around the rear of the station, I'll try the front."

"Right," Peter took off around the back. He searched thoroughly through the police station's rear alley, including inside the dumpster, but there was no sign of Skylar. He hustled over toward the train station and did a quick check through of the lines. Nothing there, either. He pushed his way up to the front desk-to a different clerk. "Excuse me, he asked the man, "Did you see either of these children come in here?" He flashed the man a photo of Kevin and Skylar's mugshot. The clerk shook his head.

"Any luck?" Kate asked, running up.

"Nope," Peter shook his head, "Maybe they went straight out onto the platform and tried to get on board without a ticket."

The platform was fairly empty. Both McCallisters scanned it from left to right, but didn't see Kevin or his friends. "Well, maybe they didn't think about the train," Kate suggested, "Maybe they went..."

The whistle of the train on the track blew, and it started to pull out of the station. It was then that Peter turned around and saw Kevin sitting by the window in the rearmost passenger car.

"KATE!!" he shouted, pointing, "THERE HE IS!!!!"

Kate spotted her son a second later. "KEVIN!!!" she screamed, and the two of them took off running after the train screaming, "STOP THE TRAIN!" Unfortunately, the moment Kevin started turning around in his seat, they fell down into a ditch they'd failed to notice alongside the tracks. Onboard the train, Kevin looked puzzled. "Did you guys hear anything?"

"Not me," Skylar shrugged.

"Oh well, maybe it's just me," Kevin leaned back and closed his eyes. "Well, baring any more disasters, in about an hour and ten minutes, we'll be arriving back home."

Outside, Kate and Peter pulled themselves out of the ditch, all covered in mud. "That close, and still so far away!!" Kate lamented.

"Are you folks okay?" asked a baggage agent who'd come after them.

"Where's that train going!?" Kate asked him.

"Uh, I think that's the Chicago train," the agent told them.

"He's-He's going home," Kate realized. Then she became authoritative again. "Book us on the next train to Chicago!"

"I can't madam, that was the last one for today," the agent explained.

"WHAT!!!??" Kate jumped up and grabbed him by the collar, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S THE LAST TRAIN TO CHICAGO!!!???"

"Well, we just don't have a lot of train travel to the Windy City from here," the agent said nervously. "And besides, with the huge snowstorm coming, you'd be foolish to.."

"I DON'T CARE!!" Kate screamed at him. "NOW GET US A TRAIN, OR WE'LL HIGHJACK ONE OURSELVES AND....!!!!!!"

"Honey, honey, we agreed we wouldn't be making any more terrorist threats," Peter said, taking his wife's arms off the agent's collar.

"Right, right," Kate collected herself. She took a deep breath. "Okay, is there any bus tickets to Chicago from the...."

"Us, the bus service that stops here doesn't go into Illinois, it only local service," the agent told her. "There is, however, a rental car company about a mile outside of town.

"Good," Kate took Peter's hand. "Come on honey, he's going home, and we're going to meet him there tonight."