Look Both Ways, page 31
That was when he heard something.
A motor . . . an engine . . . a loud engine. Definitely not an Arrival. These battery-powered wusses couldn’t make an aggressive noise like that.
It didn’t sound like an honest-to-God car. No, it was more like a motorcycle. And it sounded like it was racing along one of the mall’s perimeter roads.
A couple of the Arrivals inched back, as if ready to go on the hunt.
The motorcycle sounded closer, but it was also powering down, as though turning into the mall lot. The loading bay area was recessed into the mall structure, so Archie had a limited view beyond it. Archie thought this was the first gas-powered engine he’d heard on the island since the beginning of the Arrival experiment, except for maybe the odd lawn mower.
The bike’s roar intensified. It was getting closer.
Archie glanced down, saw his open zipper, and pulled it up.
And then—
VROOMMM
The bike raced past. Archie knew a little bit about motorcycles, and he was pretty sure what he’d seen was, indeed, a Harley-Davidson, which happened to be the same kind of bike that Rory’s dad owned. A Sportster model, in blue, 1200 cc.
But there was something more curious than the bike itself. It was who was sitting on it.
“Mom?” Archie whispered.
It had only taken the bike a second to cross his field of vision, but he was pretty sure he’d seen his mother. It was a woman, no doubt about that. Skirt hiked up high so she could straddle the bike. She wasn’t wearing a helmet or goggles, so he could see her long, brown hair trailing behind her in the wind.
The Arrivals had heard the motorcycle, too.
Fresh meat.
The cars farthest away from Archie were pulling out of formation to follow the noise of the bike, like animals picking up a scent.
Could it really be Mom?
There was that old picture in her bedroom, of her with Dad, in their biker leathers. He’d never paid that much attention to it, thought maybe it was a photo from a Halloween party or something. Pretended to be a couple of badass Hell’s Angels. Sure, he knew his dad loved bikes and could fix them and had owned some in the past.
But seriously?
He wanted to run from the shelter of the loading bay, out into the parking lot, flag down this biker. Because if it was his mom, odds were the person she was looking for—
He could hear the bike coming back.
Even though he couldn’t yet see it, he started jumping up and down and waving his hands like a castaway on a desert island trying to catch a pilot’s attention.
“Mom!” he screamed. “Mom!”
In a millisecond, the motorcycle sped past. And half a second later, so did six Arrivals, all in pursuit.
The woman on the bike had not glanced Archie’s way. But seconds later, it made another pass. Maybe she’d spotted something in her peripheral vision on her previous pass: the boy’s frantic waving. The bike was heading straight for the loading bay area.
Archie waved.
His mother waved.
The Arrivals, unable to turn as sharply or as quickly as the bike, were struggling to keep up. But if they could corner Sandra in the loading bay . . .
Sandra aimed the bike for the concrete steps. Archie thought: No fucking way.
It was stunning enough to discover your mom could drive a motorcycle. It was something else to consider that she might undertake climbing a set of steps with it.
But that was exactly what she did.
The Harley screamed into the loading bay. Sandra braked it so she wouldn’t hit that bottom step too fast and throw herself over the handlebars. But once she had that front tire onto the first step, she gunned it, lifting her butt off the seat at the same time, and landed it, with a roar, on the dock.
Archie didn’t have to be told to get on. He ran to the bike, threw a leg over the rear half of the seat, wrapped his arms around his mother, locking one hand over the wrist of the other.
Sandra turned her head long enough to say four words.
“Hang the fuck on.”
Archie hung the fuck on. And started to cry.
Forty-Four
Derek had decided to venture out from the safety of the yacht club building to see whether the situation was improving any.
So Derek got up from his table, paid his bar tab—even in the midst of chaos, one must not take advantage—and stepped outside. The first thing he heard, coming from the center of town, were a few more gunshots. People were still doing battle with the Arrivals, trying to bring them down as though they were wild animals. There’d been so many shots over the last couple of hours that no one even turned their head anymore.
Despite the maelstrom, Derek felt strangely at peace. He’d liberated himself from Brandon Kyle. Should have done it a long time ago, but he’d been lured into staying by the money. Kyle had always paid him well, treated him decently. But Kyle, Derek had finally realized, was an evil man. He’d been wronged, it was true, by Lisa Carver, but her misdeeds did not justify the killing of innocent people. What Derek had seen happen here today was unimaginable.
He wondered whether Kyle had found a way off the island, if maybe he’d gotten to the ferry and escaped, although there’d been talk in the club that something pretty bad had happened up there, at the terminal.
Standing outside, looking over a harbor nearly bereft of watercraft, he inhaled the sea air. He’d never been to Garrett Island before. He liked it here. He wondered, if he sold his house and found a small, one-bedroom apartment here, if he’d have enough to live on the rest of his life. Maybe. It was only him. He’d never married, had no children, and tucked money away over the years. Although he was betting the winters here could be hard. Those storms coming in off the Atlantic, they could pack a punch.
Something to think about.
He walked down the planked walkway and around the back of the club. If he was going to head to the center of town to see what was happening, he’d have to be careful. Take narrow pathways between buildings. If he had to cross a road, do it as quickly as possible. Those fucking Arrivals, quiet as they were, could sneak up on you real fast.
“Derek.”
He knew the voice.
Derek stopped and turned slowly. Brandon Kyle, minus his enhanced stomach, his clothes streaked with mud, was half-hidden behind half a dozen tall blue garbage cans at the back of the yacht club.
“Mr. Kyle,” he said. “You look a little worse for wear.”
“I’m not having a very good day,” Kyle said.
“You didn’t make it off the island.”
“No,” Kyle said. “But not for lack of trying.”
Derek nodded, feigning sympathy. He offered up a weak smile. “I kind of like it here. Or think I would, when the crazy car thing is over.”
“Like to spend the rest of your life here?”
Derek gave the question some thought. “Perhaps.”
“I can help you with that,” Kyle said, raising his arm suddenly.
“Jesus, Mr. Kyle,” Derek said, seeing the gun in the man’s hand. “There’s no call for that.”
“I’ve been so good to you,” Kyle said.
“Mr. Kyle, please—”
Kyle fired, putting a bullet squarely in Derek’s chest.
The man’s mouth opened wide—as much in shock as in pain—but no sound came out. He put a hand to his chest, held it there, then dropped silently to his knees. Five seconds after that, he fell to the ground completely.
If anyone had heard the shot—and Kyle had no doubt that people had—they weren’t coming to investigate. It was the Wild West in Garrett today.
Kyle tucked the weapon into the back of his belt, flipped his jacket over it so it wouldn’t be seen, then got out his phone to double-check how to get to the address he’d looked up earlier. He was going to have to do it on foot, of course. Maybe a ten-, fifteen-minute walk, more if he had to take a longer route to avoid Arrivals.
Derek attempted to speak, but his throat was filling with blood. But in his last few seconds, he managed to raise one hand a few inches off the pavement and extend his middle finger.
But Kyle didn’t see it. He was already on the move.
Forty-Five
They still had to get home.
Sandra was comforted by Archie’s arms locked around her as they sped through the streets of Garrett, but she was constantly watching for more Arrivals. She hadn’t forgotten how, while on that bicycle, she’d dropped her guard a moment and nearly ended up as an Arrival hood ornament.
But as they’d sped out of the Garrett Mall parking lot on Rory’s father’s Harley, Sandra had noticed an interesting development. All but one of the Arrivals that had been pursuing her had given up the chase.
One by one, they had either slowed down, or stopped altogether right where they stood. The lone car still after them—a green one—wasn’t keeping up. Granted, the Harley had superior pickup and handling skills, but this Arrival didn’t seem to have its heart in it.
And then, checking her mirror, she saw the green Arrival turn into a driveway, pull up close to the house, and stop.
What the hell?
Ahead, a yellow Arrival turned onto the street, coming their way.
“Hang on!” she said, veering off the road and seeking shelter in the narrow gap between two houses. She stopped the bike and killed the engine. The car might have seen them, but now that they were off the road, there was no sense in letting it hear them, too.
They both turned around and watched to see whether the Arrival would turn off the street in pursuit, even if the space between the houses was too small to allow it to reach them.
But the car did not turn. The Arrival rolled right on by.
“Maybe it didn’t see us,” Archie said.
“It saw us,” his mother said. “It had to have seen us.”
Using her feet, she pushed the bike back out into the open so they could see where the car had gone. About ten houses down, it had turned into a driveway and nosed itself right up to the house, just like the car that had trailed them as they left the mall.
Sandra got out her phone, brought up Joe on her texting program, and sent a message.
U did it!
She waited to see if Joe got the text, and whether he would be able to reply. Soon, she saw the three dancing dots.
Then: Did what?
She wrote back: They’re stopping. Like they’re out of gas.
Joe replied: Couldn’t disable virus. No idea what’s doing it.
Archie, who’d been looking over his mother’s shoulder as she exchanged messages with the police chief, said, “Not gas.”
“What?” said Sandra, looking away from the phone.
“Battery power,” he said. “They must be running out. Like a phone down to one bar. While they still have power, they’re heading home to get plugged back in.”
Sandra started to smile.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. And then her smile turned into a laugh. “All this time, we were trying to think how to stop them, and all we had to do was wait for them to run out of juice!” She let out a triumphant shriek. “What are they gonna do now? Plug themselves back in? I don’t think so!” She couldn’t stop smiling. “As smart as the little shits are, they need us to plug them back in.”
Archie wiped away some tears that hadn’t been blown away during their ride. “Guess they need arms.”
It was the first time it had been quiet enough for them to have a conversation since she had rescued him from the loading dock. Archie was almost afraid to ask, but he did:
“What about Katie?”
“Katie’s at home,” Sandra said. “Kinda shook up, though. Like you, she’s had quite a day.”
“I’m sorry,” Archie said. “I tricked her. I went to the mall.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sandra said. “With Nick and Rory. I got this bike at Rory’s. No sign of Nick yet.”
Archie’s face saddened. He told her.
“Oh my God,” Sandra said, and put her arms around him and squeezed.
“I saw it happen,” he said, his voice breaking.
Sandra gave him another squeeze. “We’re gonna be okay. It’s over. You’re okay, Katie’s okay. The cars are running out of juice. The only one I’m worried about now is Bruce.”
“Bruce?”
Sandra filled him in, briefly, about what had happened with Katie. It had to be brief, because she really didn’t know that much herself about what had happened.
“So he’s not a serial killer?” Archie asked.
“We need to get home, figure out what to do next.”
She got back into the driving position and revved the engine as Archie resumed his grip around her waist, a little opossum clinging to his mother’s back.
Sandra gave a wide berth to any further Arrivals they encountered but none showed much interest in running them down. All of them, it appeared, were heading home for supper.
She’d felt a tremendous sense of relief when she’d been reunited with Katie, and again when she’d scooped up Archie, but what she was feeling now was something more. A kind of weight being lifted from her. This nightmare was finally coming to an end.
Sandra turned down their street.
If, as it appeared, the worst was over, the islanders could start the process of putting their lives together. The first step would be to get rid of all these goddamn little cars. Load them up on the ferry and, as far as Sandra was concerned, dump them into the ocean before they reached the mainland. They couldn’t get their regular cars back fast enough.
There would be a lot of grieving, and a lot of healing. Plenty of lawsuits, too, Sandra figured. She had no idea how many lives had been lost today, but this was a strong community and it would pull through. Not overnight. It would take months, if not longer, but Garrett Island would move forward.
And what would she do? Would she stick with public relations? Would having represented Arrival become a stain on her record? Would the locals hold it against her that she had played a role in organizing the Arrival event?
She’d have to find a way to forgive herself first.
Up ahead, she saw her house. And there, in the driveway, was an Arrival. A bright red one.
Gracie.
If she hadn’t already seen other Arrivals heading back to their home bases, looking to be recharged, she’d have been alarmed by the car’s presence. But if Gracie had come home, it had to be because she was wrung out. Like Adam used to say, Ridden hard and put away wet.
The little bitch, Sandra thought. If she thinks I’m going to plug her back in, she’s out of her little electronic mind.
But then Sandra saw something that prompted her to suddenly hit the brakes. Archie’s head slammed into her upper back.
“What?” he said.
He peered around his mother and saw what had made her stop.
Pinned at the knees, between the house and the front bumper of the Arrival, was Katie. She faced the wall, her arms outstretched, her face turned to one side.
Sandra turned off the bike. Archie hopped off first, then she swung her leg over and put both feet on the ground.
As she started running toward the Arrival, its lights began to flash, a warning for Sandra to stop.
Gracie spoke.
“Plug me in.”
Forty-Six
Joe was leaving the community center when he got Sandra’s text congratulating him on disabling the cars. He had no idea what she was talking about, but when he got outside, he started putting it together.
Many of the Arrivals that were still operable after they’d attacked the fire engine and ambulance were leaving. An Arrival that had been given to the community center to replace its staff car came back up the drive and stopped at the charging station that had been set up for it. On a post was a small box holding a cable that, once unspooled, could be hooked up to the car and have it ready to go again in short order.
“Son of a bitch,” Joe said under his breath. “Of course.”
Then he saw something equally startling.
A Garrett Island police force cruiser was speeding up the road, the cherry on top flashing, the siren engaged. Whoever was behind the wheel—and it was a real person behind the wheel—maneuvered around the overturned ambulance and the burned-out shell of the fire truck and drove up to the community center entrance.
And then Joe remembered. There was one car they didn’t trade in for an Arrival because it was in the police garage being repaired.
The car screeched to a halt. As the window powered down, Joe saw that it was Ronny, the well-intentioned but somewhat dimwitted officer he’d spoken to earlier, although it felt like days ago.
“Ronny?” Joe said, stepping toward the car.
“Hey, Chief,” he said, smiling. “Need wheels?”
“That would be nice, yes.”
“I got someone else to take over the phones and decided to have a look at it myself since today was Ernie’s day off, and he’s on the mainland, the lucky bastard.”
Ernie being the department’s full-time mechanic.
“So I looked at the work order on it, and Ernie hadn’t figured out what was wrong. But it was mentioned that the car had a full tank of gas, and I remembered one of the guys saying he was driving a car that never seemed to run out of gas and—”
“Ronny, give me the car.”
“Yeah, right, okay, but I just wanted to tell you that I started to wonder if the gas tank was actually empty, but the fuel gauge was busted? Showing a full tank all the time. So I put some gas in, and sure enough, it was empty and—”
Joe made a thumbing motion.
Ronny got out of the car and let Joe slip behind the wheel. “I’ll drop you off back at the station,” he said.
As Ronny was coming around the other side of the car, he said, “All the cars are going back to their houses. It’s totally weird!”
As Ronny was getting in, Joe’s phone rang. He grabbed it without looking at the screen.
“Yeah?”
“Joe.”
It was Sandra.
