Last Stop by Peter Lerangis

Author:Peter Lerangis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781453248201
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2012-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

In order to get closer,

You sometimes must fall behind.

9

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

Environmental Consultants

* Miles Ruckman *

Administrative Assistant

9972-7660

My heart stopped pounding.

The name didn’t ring any bells. Neither did the company

Just a guy. A normal guy.

A guy whose business card had floated onto the subrail platform yesterday.

I pulled the card away from the toilet. What if Miles Ruckman needed it? Maybe it was his last one.

Call him.

I had to. I had to hear his voice and know he was alive in Franklin City. Not off in some phantom world.

I snuck into Mom’s bedroom and picked up the voicephone.

“David?” she called out from the kitchen. “Any lunch requests? I’m going to the food shop!”

“Uh…hot dogs?” I called out. “Ice cream? Chocolate-stripe cookies?”

Mom chuckled. “Okay, well, stick around while I’m gone, okay?”

“Sure.”

I waited until I heard the front door close. The ding of the elevator bell.

Alone.

I held up the business card and reached for the voicephone.

BLEEEEEEP!

I nearly hit the ceiling.

I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“What’s wrong?”

Heather. It figured.

“Nothing’s wrong! What do you want?”

“What’s it say? The card?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten it.”

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been arrested!”

“True. But you’re only thirteen. They just scared you and slapped you on the wrist, right?”

“How do you know?”

“I watch TV. So, what does the card say?”

I exhaled. No use fighting a force of nature. “Some guy’s name. I was about to call him before you interrupted.”

“Was it the guy who disappeared?”

“No one disappeared, Heather.”

“Oh, yeah, right, it was a hallucination. I forgot. So why are you calling him?”

“To tell him he lost his card, okay?”

“I’ll be right over.”

Click.

I waited for the buzz tone. Then I carefully tapped out the number printed on the card.

“This is The Sky’s the Limit,” came a recorded voice. “Our regular business hours are—”

Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong!

I slammed down the receiver, ran to the front door, and opened it.

“That was fast,” I said.

“Is this it?” Heather blurted out, grabbing the card from my hand as she barged inside. “Let’s call.”

“I just did. The company’s closed. We can’t talk to him until after the weekend, I guess.”

“Duh.” Heather went straight to the kitchen, took a residential directory off the shelf, and leafed through it furiously. “Here it is! ‘Ruckman, Miles…9766-1848.’ ”

Sometimes I can’t stand smart people.

I called the number.

But I reached another recorded voice, stiff and dull-sounding: “This is Miles Ruckman. I’m unable to answer your call right now, but if you’d like to leave—”

“Auuuugh.” I hung up again. “He’s not home, either.”

“That proves it!” Heather exclaimed. “He did vanish.”

“He could be anywhere. Out shopping. In the bathroom.”

“Okay, we’ll wait and call again.” Heather was fiddling impatiently with the business card now, turning it around. “Hey, what’s this?”

She held the back of the card toward me. On it was a scribbled message:

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