"Do a lot of research for the Army, doc?" "Only when something odd turns up." "I've got a contract to survey the old tracks and tunnel out here for anything strange." "Well, this is where we've had the magnetic anomalies." " The old Powder Wash train station." " Oh, man." "What a dump." "You got it." " I'll unload the truck, sarge." " Okay." "Not much to look at." "My orders are for you to bunk inside while you survey the tunnel." "Okay, how do you wanna handle this?" "First we'll set up your gear in the station then we'll survey the tunnel." "Okay, because I can't calibrate my equipment until you tell me how much that tunnel has shifted." "So if you want to go on ahead I'll set up my equipment by myself." " Okay, holler if you need a hand." " All right." "Soldier, got the maps ready?" "Ready to go, sergeant." "What the?" "A train?" "Sergeant Mapes?" "Hello?" "David?" "David?" "You've got to throw the switch." " Can't you hear me?" " What's wrong?" "What's the matter?" "Hey, you." "Wait." "Wait a minute." "For God's sakes, throw the switch." "What the hell is going on?" "Hey, you, where'd you go?" "Hello?" "Secure sector seven now." " Sergeant Mapes?" " Hey, doc, what do you need?" "Get off the tracks!" "Oh, no." "Who cut the power cable?" " Did you see the light?" " What light?" "Go use the radio in the truck, I'll stay with him." "The bell went off in the station, then the guy ran into the tunnel, hurt." " He had to have passed you." " Nobody was here but us." " There was a danger light, sergeant." " Not a chance." "Get to the truck and radio for a chopper." "Move, man!" "Since the beginning oh time  mankind has existed between the world oh light  and the world oh darkness." "Our secret society has been here horever  protecting others hrom the creatures who inhabit the shadows and the night." "Known only to the initiated by our true name  The Legacy." "Prager, get off the tracks!" "For God's sakes, throw the switch!" "The University of Mérida is faxing a translation of the Mayan beating-heart ritual." "The Mexico City House will take it from here." " Anything else?" " The U.S. Army's doing some interesting work in Colorado." " What's interesting about it?" " Dr. David Prager." "Prager?" "So the two of you finally managed to bury the hatchet?" "Not likely." "We'll never ever be able to iron out our differences but I can't help keeping an eye on his work." "If the poor man only knew that you were watching him like watching a barometer, waiting for a storm." "He's a consultant for what's called the Powder Wash Project." "What is it, an incinerator?" "Yeah, it's very high-tech." "It's used for burning chemical weapons from the Cold War." "I read about it." "Prager's a psychic debunker." "What's he doing messing around with nerve gas?" "I don't know." "But the point is, I've been having dreams about him." "It's vague, just a sensation of jeopardy." "I've had plenty of arguments with this man but I've never dreamed about him." " So you ran a search?" " Yes." "And his name finally came up in an obscure article on defense research." "I couldn't get any details, though." "Only where he's working." "I still don't understand why the Army would pull in Prager unless it was to kill some kind of a rumor about a sighting." "The man is virtually impossible to convince about supernatural phenomena." "I mean, he's based his entire career on it." "Well, whatever he's doing it's bound to have some supernatural connection." "I've got a gut feeling about this, Derek, that's very unsettling and I think we should check it out, and soon." "Powder Wash opens for business in three days." "Okay, I admit, it's only a hunch, but..." "No, no, no." "Trust your instincts." "If this project is somehow haunted what could be worse than an accident with nerve gas?" "You should go to Powder Wash, Alex." "Hello?" "Anyone there?" "David?" "Prager?" "David?" "Prager." "David." "Sorry, I just wanted to say hello." " It's me." "Alex." " Yeah, Alex." "Last time we saw each other was in New Orleans, right?" " That psi study group at Loyola." " Right." " Yeah." " I left there in '92." "I live in San Francisco now." "What are you doing in Colorado in the sticks?" "I read somewhere you were doing work for the Army, and I got curious." "About my work?" "You used to be thoroughly underwhelmed by my work." " What's changed all of a sudden?" " I never criticized your work, David." "Only your refusal to possibly see another point of view." "To see it isn't to prove it, a distinction you generally ignored." "You need a hypothesis, experiments, empirical evidence, Alex." " You can't prove everything, David." " Empirical evidence." "Okay, I'm sorry." "Let's just not rehash all this, okay?" "Tell me about Powder Wash." "What are you doing here?" "I'm redecorating." "Can't you tell?" "Powder Wash Station." "Built 1891, abandoned three years later." "I'm surprised the old place hasn't fallen down." "We're the first people working here since before the age of flight." "It's taken two weeks for me to complete my redecorating." "You should have seen it." " So, what are you studying exactly?" " Straight physics." "At the moment, I'm measuring magnetic fields." "The Army has me looking for oddities and..." "What's it all about?" "They've..." "Well, we've had some problems." "For one thing, the magnetism fluctuates wildly around here." "I haven't pinned down the cause." "Not yet." "But I send the Army my reports and they think it's safe enough to go ahead." "But you don't buy that, I gather." "You're still testing." "Let's just say I never give up on a puzzle." "That's what makes perfectly reasonable people become physicists." "God." "It's not your usual work." "I mean, this is pretty far afield from psychic debunking." "Some smart-ass labeled me:" ""The man who measures the unmeasurable."" "But when you're looking for elusive energies it all comes down to physics." "I don't suppose you heard this bell?" "The bell?" "No." " What do you see?" " The tracks, the tunnel." "What am I supposed to see?" "A man has been walking out of that tunnel and waving at me." "You said a man." "Do you know who he is?" "A railroad employee." "A signalman, maybe." "He's hurt." "His face is bloody." "He walks out of the tunnel, and he waves at me." "He shouts, "Throw the switch."" "He puts his arm over his face, and he backs into the tunnel." "He's done it three times exactly the same way." "He never explains himself, and I can't find him." "I don't see anything, David." "It's not something I can explain." "Not yet." "But you're hearing things." "Seeing this man." "I believe they're real for you, proof or no proof." "Alex called." "Prager seems to be seeing an injured man appear and disappear repeatedly." "Now take a look at this." "From 100 A.D." ""The Chronicles of Saint Evaristus."" "What's the connection to Prager?" "When the Holy City burned, Evaristus was trapped in his cell." "The Rome House coined the term "crisis apparition" a dying specter which gives vague warnings to one person." "Or Prager may simply be delusional." "Alex had clairvoyant dreams about Prager's ghost." " It gives the situation some credence." " She dreamed about him?" "I don't know, Derek." "You know how empathetic she is." "She may have a big personal conflict here." "We have to take a chance." "A crisis apparition foretells a catastrophe, Rachel." "The Holy City fire killed 7000 people." "But Powder Wash is just 100 miles away from Denver." "If a cloud of gas gets loose it could easily kill 7 million." "Here's a sketch of the signalman." "It'll give you a general idea, but I left the blood off his face." "And he always says:" ""David, throw the switch." "Can't you hear me?"" "Yeah." "Don't ask me what it means." "I have no idea." "David, if this is so hard for you, why do you stay?" "You know, I've spent my whole career proving phantoms don't exist." "Now I've got one I can't disprove." " You want some?" " No." "Look at me, drinking like a fish." "A little white wine usually suits me, and then only at faculty parties." "Do you hear it now?" "I left this unit exactly how I found it." "And measured it for a fraction of a decibel." "Nothing." "And no electrical current to the telegraph key." "Because the rats made a meal of the power cables over a hundred years ago." "Now the light's flashing." "But that's impossible." "David, can you hear me?" "They're coming, David." "You have to make it right." "It's him." "Don't you hear him?" "David, what do you see?" "What's there?" " There he is." " Kill him." " He's the one." " Shoot him." "No." "No." "David." " Hey, you look better." " Hi." "I had a shower." "Doctors gave me something to help me sleep, finally." " They go over these with you?" " No physical damage." "Not a mark on me." "But it sure felt like I had been shot." "I've never felt anything so agonizing in my whole life." "I believe you." "And what matters here is that the manifestations you sense are real for you." "Too real." " I must be losing it." " Are you?" "I told you, I saw soldiers in old uniforms." "Turn of the century, the same era as the signalman." "This adds a whole new element." "We're not dealing with just one entity." "I wonder why they closed the tunnel in 1894." "What made these spirits so agitated?" "Forget 1894." "I need to know if anything's gonna happen now." "I know, and these hauntings are the key." "Derek left for Colorado an hour ago." "He's worried about Alex." "I've mapped out all the information that we have on Powder Wash but it isn't much." "It's no coincidence they hid it in Colorado's empty corner." "The question is, why did they hide it?" "Well, if you're gonna burn nerve gas, you're not gonna do it in Manhattan." "Got that right." "The old rockets and bombs will travel by train through the tunnel where Prager's working to the incinerator." "The Army even opened up an old Northern Union track." "It closed in 1894." "First train is scheduled in two days." "These are what the Army calls "events," mostly small accidents." "So, what is this electrical symbol near the mouth of the tunnel?" "Well, that's where that man almost bought it the one that Prager helped save." "Because the first ghost warned him." "But last night, when more of them appeared they tried to kill Prager." "And Derek's counting on us to find out who they are and what they want." "We're not gonna do it this way." "The Army's information is classified." " Isn't it always?" " No kidding." "Even their report on why the tunnel was closed was made top-secret over 100 years ago." "Is there any way you can get it?" "Maybe through the Freedom of Information Act." "But it's gonna take a while and that train starts running in two days." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hi, Alex." "Jeez, Derek." "What the hell are you doing here?" "How's Prager?" "He's sleeping at the clinic." "You don't think I can handle this." "I believe there are supernatural forces at work here." "Come on, Alex, let me support what you're trying to do." "Oh, look at this." "Prager said he found it under the station when he was cleaning up." "Looks genuine." "Did you taste it?" "Are you kidding?" "He was drinking some last night, but he wasn't drunk." "Whatever's going on isn't so easy to explain." "Well, "Whenever you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth."" "Is that one of your golden rules?" "No, not me, Sherlock Holmes." "Prager's ghost shot him in this direction, right?" "Yeah." "Pretty close, why?" "A hunch." "Look at this." "A bullet." "If shots were fired from the gun last night that's exactly where it would have hit the wall." "No." "No, this is not from last night." "Look." "The lead is all tarnished." "This is from the days when the station was open." " Can I see that?" " Here." "Can you hear me?" "For God's sakes, throw the switch!" " Alex!" " Can you hear me?" "What did you see?" "What did you see?" "I saw him." "I saw the signalman." " For God's sakes..." " He was here." "The bullet." "It shocked me." "I heard a bell, and I saw light." "I tasted whiskey." "For some reason, whiskey's part of what he's trying to warn us about." "They noticed his room was empty an hour ago." "Now, where would he go?" " I tasted whiskey." " You could have smelled whiskey." " The bottle was there." " No, I didn't smell it, I tasted it." "I know where he is." "Hey, Prager." "You've been spending too much time out there by yourself." "Looking a little rank." "You might want to ease up a little." "How about I buy you a cup of coffee?" "Are you listening to me?" "David, throw the switch." "Are you listening to me?" "Doc." " David, what are you doing?" " Don't do it, doc." " What are you doing?" " Get him out of here." "I'm filing this with HQ, doctor." "They'll wonder why you're still out there when they paid you off." "Who's your friend?" "My name is Derek Rayne." "Alex and I work together." "Listen, let us take you back." "I mean, you're in no condition to go anywhere." "Besides, all your gear is back at the station." "That's not all." "I know what was there." "I saw him." "He's real, and so are the others." "You're the one getting the warnings." "Don't you wanna know why?" "I can live without it." "I doubt that, Dr. Prager." "You cannot simply walk away." "You need to know, and so do we." "David?" "What's wrong?" "Prager?" "Prager." "Prager?" "David?" "You've got to throw the switch, damn it." "No, you've had enough of that." "We should test this." "Frontier whiskey was infamous for lead content." "Lead poisoning doesn't happen overnight." "It takes years." "Everything Alex has been through bears out what Prager says." " How's she doing?" " Well, Alex seems in control and he's beginning to confide in her." "I need you two to hollow up hrom there." "I need any inhormation you can find out about this place." "All right." "You got it, Derek." "We'll get right back to you." "Look, let's approach this scientifically." "Usually there's a pattern." "Are there any family stories about ghosts or hauntings?" "Not that I know of." "My mother died when I was 2, so I don't know much about her side." "And on my father's side, I can only trace it as far back as my great-grandfather Douglas Prager." "He's buried in Denver." "What about your two uncles and three aunts?" "I did my research." "Very scientific, but nothing supernatural." "Until you." "You were drawn here." "Compelled." "Somehow, you feel responsible." "Maybe." "It's almost like I came here for some special reason." "How do you feel about free will versus destiny?" "Destiny." "I don't know." "I've seen a lot of things that would be hard to explain any other way but it's difficult to accept we don't have free will." "Oh, I think we have free will but now I realize I've made a lot of decisions that led me right here." "I mean, I could have gone to MIT instead of Cal Poly." "The floor's loose back here." "Look at this, an old pocket watch." "Okay, folks, the 8:00 train from Wyman is due in." "Please take all your luggage and bags out on the platform." "That's the 8:00 train from Wyman." "All aboard." "David?" "You folks have a good day." "That's right, just take your bags and head out on the platform." "Have a wonderful trip." "A secret drawer?" "Folks, get back in the station." "Folks get back in the station!" "Folks." "Mr. Prager." "David." "Let me help you." "No!" " Stay with him, I'll get a light." " David!" " David." " They're trapped." "They need help." "David." "Oh, my God, they're all dead." "Stop it, David." "Stop it." "Oh, my God." "Where did he go?" "The Army has search parties looking for Prager." "Do you think we should we tell them about this journal?" "David found it just before he ran out of the station." "It's his great-grandfather's." "No, they're not in the mood for ghost stories." "The remains have been removed, the tunnel is being prepared." "They plan to run the trains on schedule." "First one in the morning." "Well, I think they should know what's in here." "Take a look at this." "Stationmaster Douglas Prager." "It's David's great-grandfather." "He was here, that was his station." "This is his journal." "Look." ""May 10, 1894." "Telegraphed those idiots in Denver." "Told them we'd lose one from Wyman sure as hell." "They say that's what I'm there for."" ""July 6." "Four nights now." "Can't sleep." "Drank till dawn hoping the whiskey would blot out the sound of how it will be." "A hundred tons driven into that tunnel like a steel cork slammed into a bottle."" "He tried to warn them, but he failed." "He was worried about a crash." ""Lose one from Wyman."" "Prager mentioned Wyman today." "I bet you that's where we'll find him." "Yeah, this is a fax that Nick sent." "He got the Army's classified report on the Powder Wash catastrophe in 1894." "A troop train lost its brakes and crashed in the tunnel, July 7, 1894, at 8 a.m." "Forty-two men were lost." "The Army covered it up, claimed the crash never happened." "But we found them." "We gave them their last rites." "They should be at rest." "But they aren't the only ghosts at work." "The spirit of Douglas Prager has also returned." "And it's warning us for a new crisis." " So it could happen again?" " Yeah." "With a train full of nerve gas." "This is the tomb of the soldiers at the bend halfway through the tunnel." "The accidents start here but as time passes, they spread outward." "Toward the mouth of the tunnel." "They've been reaching out from the grave for a century." "An unconsecrated grave, forgotten, in unhallowed ground." "God, Nick, how much vengeance does it take to repay a hundred years of torment?" "Wyman is 11 miles from Powder Wash." "This is where Prager might be headed." "This has gotta be Wyman, Derek." "We've gotta be close." "Well, maybe we just weren't meant to find him." "This seems to be David's destiny." ""I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act." "But I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act."" " More Sherlock Holmes?" " No, my father quoting G.K. Chesterton." "It's how he taught me about The Legacy's destiny." "There he is." " David." " What's wrong?" "David, where have you been?" "Just walking." "This..." "This looks fairly flat but it's actually a 6 percent downhill grade toward the tunnel." "I worked out the math." "Six percent doubles the train's momentum every half-mile." "Okay, well, let's explain it to the Army, okay?" "A lot they know." "They feel sure that their trains can make the bend in the tunnel." "Not like the old days." "Those old steam engines, their brakes used to overheat." "New trains don't even feel it." "So it's not a problem, then." "Look, you've lost a lot of blood." "I think you should go back." "There's no time." " Time for what?" "What's the problem?" " The bend in the tunnel." "It's no coincidence that's where I found the corpses." " But you said the train can make it." " Lf the brakes work." "But those soldiers' corpses their souls, they want to pay them back." "I found a letter at the station." "It's a bank draft from the railroad to his widow my great-grandmother." "Her hardship allowance." "Her hardship allowance because he was killed on a job." "Douglas was shot, just like you relived it." "The survivors hunted him down and killed him on the tracks." "Can't you hear that, Alex?" "Listen." "Hear it now?" "Let her go, or I'll bring you back." "Don't be ridiculous." "We're out of time." "Listen." " Let her go." " You're not trying." " You're not trying!" " I don't hear anything, David." "The spirits in that tunnel are gonna destroy the train." "The nerve-gas shipment is on its way." "We've gotta stop the train." "Sergeant Mapes." "Stop right there." "This is off-limits." "Hold it there." "You found him." "How bad is he?" "You've gotta stop the train before it hits the tunnel." "The chance of an accident is just too great to risk." "I wouldn't worry about it." "Man your posts." "Double the guards..." "Take him out of here and clear the area." "That's an order." "We just cleared Wyman." "We're on the downhill grade." "ETA, five minutes." "Conditions normal." "Speed within limits." "Delta Company reporting." "Train is clear." "I'm serious, you can't come in here." "Yes, sir." "This is Sergeant Mapes." "All secure." "Yes, sir, we're set." "Call them back and stop the train." "That was a full-bird colonel, lady." "Colonels start trains, sergeants don't stop them." "It's going through that tunnel at 8, on time." "Hey, we're picking up speed." " Check the speedometer." " I'm checking it." "Hold on." "My brakes are failing." "This guy is never gonna to listen to us, Derek." "Well, he can convince his officer that he caught two terrorists." "How do you know we aren't planning some act of sabotage, sergeant?" "Emergency." "I've got a bad situation here." "Speed building." "Revise ETA, four minutes." "Slow us down." "Do something, man." "I can't!" "Do you hear that?" "That's what Prager's been hearing." "You've been through signalman's basics." "You can read code." "Runaway?" "What runaway?" "It's not even connected." " What have you rigged up here?" " Nothing." "If you've jigged the tracks or planted a bomb..." "Not a bomb." "Not us." "The dead soldiers who have been left in that tunnel for over a century it's their revenge." "History is about to repeat itself." "How can that be?" "That's crazy." "Oh, you want to take a chance?" "If that train slams into the mountain then those old nerve-gas bombs will blow apart." "There will be a lethal cloud over the whole state." "Stop the train now." "It's up to you, sergeant." "You, halt." "Prager." "I won't warn you twice." "Keep off the tracks." "David, you've done all you can do." "David..." "David, that thing hasn't moved since they boarded up the station." "This was his job, switch a runaway train away from the tunnel so that it would miss it because the Army overloaded it." "But the siding is gone." "It doesn't exist." " The Army's gonna stop their train." " They can't do it." "It's up to me." "No one is going to interfere with that train." "Leave him alone, sergeant." "Whiskey." "My God, I taste whiskey." "The stupid bastard was drunk." "How could he?" "For God's sakes, pull the switch." "Can't you hear me?" "You've got to throw the switch, David." " It's gone." "What should I do?" " Can you hear me?" "Get off the tracks, David." "Please." "You've got to throw the switch, David." " You'll get killed." " Hit the warning light." "Get off the track!" "Alex, I gotta stop this train for all those soldiers he killed, so they can rest in peace." "Please, please, let me do it." "Alex, get away from him." "Prepare to fire." "Prager, get off the tracks." " Shoot him." " No." "Shoot him!" "Leave him alone." "No." "My brakes wouldn't hold." "I've never seen anything like this before." " Check under the train." " It was like a big hand pulling the train." "There's a bend that would have killed us all." "Where's David Prager?" "I saw the poor SOB go under the wheels." "Where's his body?" "You saw someone named Prager, sergeant but I don't think it was David." "Alex, I'm sorry." "Like he said, he was born to do so." "It was his fate, Alex." "But we brought him back here to die." "It was our fate." "Because of David Prager, 50 men are finally at peace and a million are spared." "And if it was our fate to help him we have no choice than to accept it."