Whatever my mother had put into that post office box years ago had something to do with all of this. Why else would she hide this key in her special papers? Like it was just yesterday, I remembered my mother’s distress on our visit to the City of the Dead.
I looped the chain with the key around my neck, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the BART station on Market Street.
The train had almost reached the Colma station when I realized I’d been followed from my parking spot in front of the church.
Two men watched me through the doors dividing my train compartment from the next. One was on a cell phone.
I counted to ten and made a mad dash through the train door in front of me. I ran past startled passengers as fast as I could without bothering to see if the men were following. I made it all the way to the front of the train, near the driver’s compartment, before I stopped to catch my breath. My arms were sore from shoving open the train doors between compartments. I looked behind me, but didn’t see the two men. That didn’t comfort me. I was sure they were back there somewhere. My plan was to jump off the train when it stopped and hide.
Once I was sure I had ditched them, I’d sneak into the post office and then back onto a train before they knew where I’d gone. I didn’t take my eyes off the door connecting my train compartment with the one behind me, but didn’t see any movement. I tried to glance through the glass doors all the way back, but as the train wove on the windy tracks, I could not see very far back. Then, the train burst topside and the night outside, lit with streetlights, was visible.
The driver of the train must have thought he was a comedian and was feeling chatty because as soon as the train pulled to a loud, screeching stop at the Colma station, he got on the crackling announcement system.
“Okay, folks. This is the end of the line. The Colma stop. The last stop on BART and the next to the last stop of the night. And frankly, the last stop for thousands of other people. But you don’t need to worry about them. They’re all underground. I’m out of here, but there is one more train stopping at this station tonight. It will leave here at midnight. That’s forty-five minutes from now. So, if you don’t plan on staying the night in the City of the Dead, I suggest you be back here in time to catch the midnight train.”
Forty-five minutes. That meant I had to run as fast as I could. Not only to ditch the men following me, but to get the last train back to the city.
I glanced behind me as I stepped out the train doors. How fitting that the people who wanted me dead would find me here. At the end of the line. In the City of the Dead.