From a Buick 8 Read online

  Curt looked at him, not smiling. "That's a riot," he said.

  Curt and the Sergeant spent an hour in there, running the Geiger counter all over the Buick's hull, cruising the pick-up over the engine, taking it into the cabin, checking the seats and dashboard and weird oversized wheel. Curt went underneath on a crawly gator, and the Sergeant checked the trunk, being especially careful about that; they propped the lid up with one of the rakes on the wall. The counter's needle hardly stirred during any of this. The only time the steady cluck-cluck-cluck coming from its little speaker intensified was when Tony held the pick-up close to the radium dial of his wristwatch, wanting to make sure the gadget was working. It was, but the Roadmaster had nothing to tell it.

  They broke only once, to go inside and get sweaters. It was a hot day outside, but in Shed B the needle of the thermometer had settled just a hair below 48. Sandy didn't like it, and when the two of them came out, he suggested that they roll up the doors and let in some of the day's heat. Mister Dillon was snoozing in the kitchenette, Sandy said; they could close him in there.

  "No," Tony said, and Sandy could see that Curtis went along with that call.

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know. Just a feeling."

  By three that afternoon, while Sandy was dutifully printing his name in the duty-book under 2nd Shift/3P-llP and getting ready to head out on patrol, the temperature in Shed B had dropped to 47. That was forty degrees colder than the summer day on the other side of those thin wooden walls.

  It must have been around six o'clock, while Sandy was parked around the side of Jimmy's Diner on the old Statler Pike, drinking coffee and watching for speeders, that the Roadmaster gave birth for the first time.

  Arky Arkariian had been the first person to see the thing that came out of the Buick, although he didn't know what he was seeing. Things were quiet at the Troop D barracks. Not serene, exactly, but quiet. This was due in large measure to Curt and Tony's report of zero radiation emanating from Shed B. Arky had come in from his trailer in Dreamland Park on top of The Bluffs, wanting his own little off-duty peek at the impounded car. He had it to himself; Shed B was for the time being entirely deserted. Forty yards away, the barracks was midshift quiet, which was about as quiet as it ever got. Matt Babicki had clocked out for the night and one of the younger cops was running dispatch. The Sarge had gone home at five o'clock. Curt, who had given his wife some cock-and-bull story about his call-out the night before, was presumably back in his flip-flop sandals and finishing his lawn like a good boy.

  At five minutes past seven, the Troop D custodian (by then very pale, very thoughtful, and very scared) went past the kid in the dispatch cubby and into the kitchenette, to see who he could find. He wanted someone who wasn't a rookie, someone who knew the score. He found Huddie Royer, just putting the finishing touches on a big pot of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

  Now: Arky

  "Well?" the kid ask, and there was so much of his daddy in him just then--the way he sat there on the bench, the way his eyes stared into yours, the way his eyebrows quirk, most of all the headlong impatience. That impatience was his dad all over. "Well?

  "This isn't my part of the story," Sandy tell him. "I wasn't there. These other two were, though."

  So then, sure, the kid switch over from Sandy to me and Huddie.

  "You do it, Hud," I say. "You're used to makin reports."

  "Shit on that," he tell me right back, "you were there first. You saw it first. You start."

  "Aw--"

  "Well one of you start!" the boy tell us, and wham! He hit his forehead with the butt of his palm, right between the eyes. I had to laugh at that.

  "Go on, Arky," the Sarge tell me.

  "Ah, nuts," I say. "I ain't never told it, you know, like a story. Don't know how it'll come out."

  "Give it your best shot," Sarge say, and so I do. It was pretty hard going at first--seemed I could feel the kid's eyes boring into me like nails and I kept thinking, He ain't gonna believe this, who would? But it got easier after a little bit. If you talk about something that happened long ago, you find it open up to you all over again. It open up like a flower. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, I guess. Sitting there that night, talking to Curtis Wilcox's boy, it felt like both.

  Huddie join in after awhile and started to help. He remembered all sorts of things, even the part about how it was Joan Baez on the radio. "Redemption's in the details," old Sarge used to say (usually when someone left something out of a report that should have been in). And all through it the kid sittin dere on the bench, looking at us, his eyes getting bigger and bigger as the evening darkened and give up its smells like it does in the summer and the bats flew overhead and thunder rumbled all the way in the south. It made me sad to see how much he looked like his father. I don't know why.

  He only broke in once. Turned to Sandy, wanting to know if we still had the--

  "Yes," Sandy tell him right off. "Oh yes. We certainly do. Plus tons of pictures. Polaroids, mostly. If there's one thing cops know about, kiddo, it's preserving the chain of evidence. Now be quiet. You wanted to know; let the man tell you."

  I know by that he mean me, so I started talking again.

  Then

  Arky had an old Ford pickup in those days, a standard three-shifter (But I got four if you count d'reverse, he used to joke) with a squeaky clutch. He parked it where he would still be parking twenty-three years later, although by then he would have traded up to a Dodge Ram with the automatic transmission and the four-wheel drive.

  In 1979 there was an ancient Statler County schoolbus at the far end of the parking lot, a rust-rotten yellow barge that had been there since the Korean War at least, sinking deeper and deeper into the weeds and the dirt with each passing year. Why no one ever took it away was just another of life's mysteries. Arky nestled his truck in beside it, then crossed to Shed B and looked through one of the windows in the roll-up door, cupping his hands to block the light of the sun, which was on the wester.

  There was a light on overhead and the Buick sat beneath it, looking to Arky like a display model, the kind of unit that shows up so pretty under the lights that anyone in his right mind would want to sign on the line and drive that honey home. Everything looked 5-by except for the trunk-lid. It was up again.

  I ought to report that to the duty officer, Arky thought. He wasn't a cop, just a custodian, but sometimes trooper gray rubs off. He stepped back from the window, then happened to glance up at the thermometer Curt and the Sergeant had mounted from one of the overhead beams. The temperature in the shed had gone up again, and by quite a lot. Sixty-one degrees in there. It occurred to Arky that the Buick was like some sort of weird refrigerator coil that had now turned itself off (or perhaps burnt itself out during the fireworks show).

  The sudden rise in temperature was something else no one knew, and Arky was excited. He started to swing away from the door, meaning to hurry directly across to the barracks. That was when he saw the thing in the corner of the shed.

  Nothing but an old bunch of rags, he thought, but something else suggested . . . well, something else. He went back to the glass, once more cupping his hands to the sides of his face. And no, by God, that thing in the corner was not just a bunch of rags.

  Arky felt a flu-like weakness in the joints of his knees and the muscles of his thighs. The feeling spread upward into his stomach, dropping it, and then to his heart, speeding it up. There was an alarming moment when he was almost certain he was going to drop to the ground in a faint.

  Hey, y'big dumb Swede--why don't you try breathing again? See if that helps any?

  Arky took two big dry gasps of air, not caring much for the sound of them. His old man had sounded like that when he was having his heart attack, lying on the sofa and waiting for the ambulance to come.

  He stepped away from the roll-up door, patting the center of his chest with the side of a closed fist. "Come on, honey. Take up d'slack, now."

  The sun, going down in a caul
dron of blood, glared in his eyes. His stomach had continued to drop, making him feel on the verge of vomiting. The barracks all at once looked two, maybe even three miles away. He set off in that direction, reminding himself to breathe and concentrating on taking big, even steps. Part of him wanted to break into a run, and part of him understood that if he tried doing that, he really might faint.

  "Guys'd never let you hear the end of dat, and you know it."

  But it wasn't really teasing he was concerned about. Mostly he didn't want to go in looking all wild-eyed and pushing the panic-button like any John Q. in off the road with a tale to tell.

  And by the time he got inside, Arky actually did feel a little better. Still scared, but no longer like he was going to puke or just go bolting away from Shed B any old whichway. By then he'd also had an idea which had eased his mind a bit. Maybe it was just a trick. A prank. Troopers were always pulling stuff on him, and hadn't he told Orville Garrett he might come back that evening for a little looky-see at that old Buick? He had. And maybe Orv had decided to give him the business. Bunch of comedians he worked with, someone was always giving him the business.

  The thought served to calm him, but in his heart of hearts, Arky didn't believe it. Orv Garrett was a practical joker, all right, liked to have his fun just like the next guy, but he wouldn't make that thing in the shed part of a gag. None of them would. Not with Sergeant Schoondist so hopped up about it.

  Ah, but the Sarge wasn't there. His door was shut and the frosted glass panel was dark. The light was on in the kitchenette, though, and music was coming out through the door: Joan Baez, singing about the night they drove old Dixie down. Arky went in and there was Huddie Royer, just dropping a monster chunk of oleo into a pot of noodles. Your heart ain't gonna thank you for dat shit, Arky thought. Huddie's radio--a little one on a strap that he took everyplace--was sitting on the counter next to the toaster.

  "Hey, Arky!" he said. "What're you doing here? As if I didn't know?"

  "Is Orv here?" Arky asked.

  "Nope. He's got three days off, starting tomorrow. Lucky sucker went fishing. You want a bowl of this?" Huddie held the pot out, took a really good look at him, and realized he was looking at a man who was scared just about to death. "Arky? What the hell's wrong with you? Are you sick?"

  Arky sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs, hands dangling between his thighs. He looked up at Huddie and opened his mouth, but at first nothing came out.

  "What is it?" Huddie slung the pot of macaroni on to the counter without a second look. "The Buick?"

  "You da d-o tonight, Hud?"

  "Yeah. Until eleven."

  "Who else here?"

  "Couple of guys upstairs. Maybe. If you're thinking about the brass, you can stop. I'm the closest you're going to get tonight. So spill it."

  "You come out back," Arky told him. "Take a look for yourself. And bring some binoculars."

  *

  Huddie snagged a pair of binocs from the supply room, but they turned out to be no help. The thing in the corner of Shed B was actually too close--in the glasses it was just a blur. After two or three minutes of fiddling with the focus-knob, Huddie gave up. "I'm going in there."

  Arky gripped his wrist. "Cheesus, no! Call the Sarge! Let him decide!"

  Huddie, who could be stubborn, shook his head. "Sarge is sleeping. His wife called and said so. You know what it means when she does that--no one hadn't ought to wake him up unless it's World War III."

  "What if dat t'ing in dere is World War III?"

  "I'm not worried," Huddie said. Which was, judging from his face, the lie of the decade, if not the century. He looked in again, hands cupped to the sides of his face, the useless binoculars standing on the pavement beside his left foot. "It's dead."

  "Maybe," Arky said. "And maybe it's just playin possum."

  Huddie looked around at him. "You don't mean that." A pause. "Do you?"

  "I dunno what I mean and what I don't mean. I dunno if dat t'ing's over for good or just restin up. Neither do you. What if it wants someone t'go in dere? You t'ought about dat? What if it's waitin for you?"

  Huddie thought it over, then said: "I guess in that case, it'll get what it wants."

  He stepped back from the door, looking every bit as scared as Arky had looked when he came into the kitchen, but also looking set. Meaning it. Just a stubborn old Dutchman.

  "Arky, listen to me."

  "Yeah."

  "Carl Brundage is upstairs in the common room. Also Mark Rushing--I think, anyway. Don't bother Loving in dispatch, I don't trust him. Too wet behind the ears. But you go on and tell the other two what's up. Arid get that look off your face. This is probably nothing, but a little backup wouldn't hurt."

  "Just in case it ain't nothin."

  "Right."

  "Cause it might be sumptin."

  Huddie nodded.

  "You sure?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Okay."

  Huddie walked along the front of the roll-up door, turned the corner, and stood in front of the smaller door on the side. He took a deep breath, held it in for a five-count, let it out. Then he unsnapped the strap over the butt of his pistol--a .357 Ruger, back in those days.

  "Huddie?"

  Huddie jumped. If his finger had been on the trigger instead of outside the guard, he might have blown off his own foot. He spun around and saw Arky standing there at the corner of the shed, his big dark eyes swimming in his pinched face.

  "Lord Jesus Christ!" Huddie cried. "Why the fuck're you

  creeping after me?"

  "I wasn't creepin, Troop --just walkin like normal."

  "Go inside! Get Carl and Mark, like I told you."

  Arky shook his head. Scared or not, he had decided he wanted to be a part of what was going down. Huddie supposed he could understand. Trooper gray did have a way of rubbing off.

  "All right, ya dumb Swede. Let's go."

  Huddie opened the door and stepped into the shed, which was still cooler than the outside . . . although just how cool it might have been was impossible for either man to tell, because they were both sweating like pigs. Huddie was holding his gun up beside his right cheekbone. Arky grabbed a rake from the pegs close by the door. It clanged against a shovel and both of them jumped. To Arky, the look of their shadows on the wall was even worse than the sound: they seemed to leap from place to place, like the shadows of nimble goblins.

  "Huddie--" he began.

  "Shhh!"

  "If it's dead, why you go shhh?"

  "Don't be a smartass!" Huddie whispered back. He started across the cement floor toward the Buick. Arky followed with the rake-handle gripped tight in his sweaty hands, his heart pounding. His mouth tasted dry and somehow burnt. He had never been so scared in his life, and the fact that he didn't know exactly what he was scared of only made it worse.

  Huddie got to the rear of the Buick and peeped into the open trunk. His back was so broad Arky couldn't see around it. "What's in there, Hud?"

  "Nothing. It's clean."

  Huddie reached for the trunk-lid, hesitated, then shrugged and slammed it down. They both jumped at the sound and looked at the thing in the corner. It didn't stir. Huddie started toward it, gun once more held up by the side of his head. The sound of his feet shuffling on the concrete was very loud.

  The thing was indeed dead, the two men became more and more sure of it as they approached, but that didn't make things better because neither of them had ever seen anything like it. Not in the woods of western Pennsylvania, not in a zoo, not in a wildlife magazine. It was just different. So goddam different. Huddie found himself thinking of horror movies he'd seen, but the thing huddled up in the angle where the shed walls met wasn't really like something from those, either.

  Goddam different was what he kept coming back to. What they both kept coming back to. Everything about it screamed that it wasn't from here, here meaning not just the Short Hills but all of Planet Earth. Maybe the entire universe, at least as C-student
s in science such as themselves understood that concept. It was as if some warning circuit buried deep in their heads had suddenly awakened and begun to wail.

  Arky was thinking of spiders. Not because the thing in the corner looked like a spider, but because . . . well . . . spiders were different. All those legs--and you had no idea what they might be thinking, or how they could even exist. This thing was like that, only worse. It made him sick just to look at it, to try and make sense of what his eyes said they were seeing. His skin had gone clammy, his heart was missing beats, and his guts seemed to have gained weight. He wanted to run. To just turn tail and stampede out of there.

  "Christ," Huddie said in a little moan of a voice. "Ohhhh, Christ." It was as if he were pleading for it to go away. His gun sagged downward and outward until the barrel was pointed at the floor. It was only two pounds, but his arm could no longer support even that paltry weight. The muscles of his face also sagged, pulling his eyes wide and dropping his jaw down until his mouth opened. Arky never forgot the way Huddie's teeth gleamed in the shadows. At the same time he began to shiver all over, and Arky became aware he was shivering, too.

  The thing in the corner was the size of a very large bat, like the ones that roosted in Miracle Caves over in Lassburg or the so-called Wonder Cavern (guided tours three dollars a head, special family rates available) in Pogus City. Its wings hid most of its body. They weren't folded but lay in messy overlapping crumples, as if it had tried to fold them--and failed--before it died. The wings were either black or a very dark mottled green. What they could see of the creature's back was a lighter green. The stomach area was a cheesy whitish shade, like the gut of a rotted stump or the throat of a decaying swamp-lily. The triangular head was cocked to one side. A bony thing that might have been a nose or a beak jutted from the eyeless face. Below it, the creature's mouth hung open. A yellowish rope of tissue dangled from it, as if the thing had been regurgitating its last meal as it died. Huddie took one look and knew he wouldn't be eating any more macaroni and cheese for awhile.