Mile 81

time being. Standing slightly south of the hanging door, he once again invited anyone inside to exit the vehicle, open and empty hands foremost. No one came out. He reached for the door, then remembered the little girl’s parting admonition, and hesitated. He reached out with the barrel of his gun to swing the door open. Only, the door didn’t open, and the barrel of the pistol stuck fast. The thing was a glue-pot.

He was jerked forward, as if a powerful hand had gripped the Glock’s barrel and yanked. There was a second when he could have let go, but such an idea never even surfaced in his mind. One of the first things they taught you at the Academy after weapons issue was that you never let go of your sidearm. Never.

So he held on, and the car that had already eaten his gun now ate his hand. And his arm. The sun came out again, casting his diminishing shadow on the pavement. Somewhere, children were screaming.

The station wagon AFFIXES itself to the Trooper, he thought. Now I know what she meant by stick —

Then the pain bloomed large and all thought ceased. There was time for one scream. Only one.

6. THE KIDS (’10 Richforth)

From where he was standing, seventy yards away, Pete saw it all. He saw the state trooper reach out with the barrel of his gun to open the station wagon’s door the rest of the way; he saw the barrel disappear into the door as if the whole car were nothing but an optical illusion; he saw the trooper jerk forward, his big gray hat tumbling from his head. Then the trooper was yanked through the door and only his hat was left, lying next to somebody’s cell phone. There was a pause, and then the car pulled into itself, like fingers into a fist. Next came the tennis-racquet-on-ball sound — pouck! — and the muddy clenched fist became a car again.

The little boy began to wail; the little girl was for some reason screaming “thirty” over and over again, like she thought it was a magic word J. K. Rowling had somehow left out of her Harry Potter books.

The back door of the police car opened. The kids got out. Both of them were crying their asses off, and Pete didn’t blame them. If he hadn’t been so stunned by what he’d just seen, he’d probably be crying himself. A nutty thought came to him: another swig or two of that vodka might improve this situation. It would help him be less afraid, and if he was less afraid, he might be able to figure out what the fuck he should do.

Meanwhile the kids were backing away again. Pete had an idea they might panic and take to their heels at any second. He couldn’t let them do that; they’d run right into the road and get splatted by turnpike traffic.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, you kids!”

When they turned to look at him — big, buggy eyes in pale faces — he waved and started walking toward them. As he did, the sun came out again, this time with authority.

The little boy started forward. The girl jerked him back. At first Pete thought she was afraid of him, then realized it was the car she was afraid of.

He made a circling gesture with his hand. “Walk around it! Walk around and come over here!”

They slipped through the guardrails on the left side of the ramp, giving the station wagon the widest berth possible, then cut across the parking lot. When they got to Pete, the little girl let go of her brother, sat down, and put her face in her hands. She had braids her mom had probably fixed for her. Looking at them and knowing the kid’s mother would never fix them for her again made Pete feel horrible.

The little boy looked up solemnly. “It ate mommy-n- daddy. It ate the horse-lady and Trooper Jimmy, too. It’s going to eat everyone, I guess. It’s going to eat the world.”

If Pete Simmons had been twenty, he might have asked a lot of bullshit questions that didn’t matter. Because he was only half that age, and able to accept what he had just seen, he asked something simpler and more pertinent. “Hey, little girl. Are more police coming? Is that why you were yelling ‘Thirty’?”

She dropped her hands and looked up at him. Her eyes were raw and red. “Yes, but Blakie’s right. It will eat them, too. I told Trooper Jimmy, but he didn’t believe me.”

Pete believed her, because he had seen. But she was right. The police wouldn’t believe. They would eventually, they’d have to, but maybe not before the monster car ate a bunch more of them.

“I think it’s from space,” he said. “Like on Doctor Who.”

“Mommy-n-daddy won’t let us watch that,” the little boy told him. “They say it’s too scary. But this is scarier.”

“It’s alive.” Pete spoke more to himself than to them.

“Duh,” Rachel said, and gave a long, miserable sniffle.

The sun ducked briefly behind one of the unraveling clouds. When it came out again, an idea came with it. Pete had been hoping to show Normie Therriault and the rest of the Rip-Ass Raiders something that would amaze them enough to let him be part of their gang. Then George had given him a big-brother reality check: They’ve all seen that baby trick a thousand times.

Maybe so, but maybe that thing down there hadn’t seen it a thousand times. Or even once. Maybe they didn’t have magnifying glasses where it came from. Or sun, for that matter. He remembered a Doctor Who episode about a planet where it was dark all the time.

He could hear a siren in the distance. A cop was coming. A cop who wouldn’t believe anything little kids said, because as far as grownups were concerned, little kids were all full of shit.

“You guys stay here. I’m going to try something.”

“No!” The little girl grasped his wrist with fingers that felt like claws. “It’ll eat you, too!”

“I don’t think it can move around,” Pete told her, disengaging his hand. She had left a couple of bleeding scratches, but he wasn’t mad and he didn’t blame her. He probably would have done the same, if it had been his parents. “I think it’s stuck in one place.”

“It can reach,” she said. “It can reach with its tires. They melt.”

“I’ll watch out,” Pete said, “but I have to try this. Because you’re right. Those cops will come, and it will eat them, too. Stay put.”

He walked toward the station wagon. When he was close (but not too close), he unzipped the saddlebag. I have to try this, he had told the kids, but the truth was a little balder: he wanted to try this. It would be like a science experiment. That would probably sound bizarre if he told someone, but he didn’t have to tell. He just had to do it. Very. very. carefully.

He was sweating. With the sun out, the day had turned warm, but that wasn’t the only reason, and he knew it. He looked up, squinting at the brightness. Don’t you go back behind a cloud. Don’t you dare. I need you.

He took his Richforth magnifying glass out of the saddlebag, and bent to put the saddlebag on the pavement. The joints of his knees cracked, and the station wagon’s door swung open a few inches.

It knows I’m here. I don’t know if it can see me, but it heard me just now. And maybe it smells me.

He took another step. Now he was close enough to touch the side of the station wagon. If he was fool enough to do so, that was.

“Watch out!” the little girl called. She and her brother were both standing now, their arms around each other. “Watch out for it!”

Carefully — like a kid reaching into a cage with a lion inside — Pete extended the magnifying glass. A circle of light appeared on the side of the station wagon, but it was too big. Too soft. He moved the glass closer.

“The tire!” the little boy screamed. “Watch out for the TII-YIII– IRE!”

Pete looked down and saw one of the tires melting. A tentacle was oozing across the pavement toward his sneaker. He couldn’t back away without giving up his experiment, so he raised his foot and stood stork. The tentacle immediately changed direction and headed for his other foot.