The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

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 grown-ups 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!’