Mr. Fahrenheit (21 page)

B
enji felt himself being slammed against the cold metal side of the X-ray mobile. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. All he could see was a vague shape, but the shape looked like himself, as if he was looking in a blurry mirror. A red light was flashing somewhere. He forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Benjamin,” the blurry shape whispered, “are you hurt?”

Shock and relief surged through Benji. “
Papaw?
”

“Are you hurt, boy?”

“I—no. Zeeko is.”

Benji's vision cleared a bit. Papaw didn't look surprised by the news that Zeeko was injured. “How bad is it?” Papaw said.

“He's okay.”

“Who else is here with you?”

“Nobody. Papaw, what happened to you? What happened at the house?”

“
Quiet, son!
” Papaw said urgently.

In the red, whirling light thrown by the police flasher atop Papaw's car, Benji began to notice things: Papaw was wearing his sheriff's hat and uniform, and to Benji, those were normally
the symbols and talismans of his grandfather's strength. Now a thin line of blood leaked out from the brim of Papaw's hat; the cloth of his collar was gashed.

But the worst thing of all was the look in Papaw's eyes.

Sheriff Robert Lightman's gaze was normally a bright hard gray, carrying the color and character of steel. But the gray had undergone a metamorphosis, changing into the shade of a sky tortured by an approaching storm.

For the first time in Benji's life, Papaw looked
afraid
, and somehow that was more frightening by far than anything that had happened tonight.

Hearing a squeal of brakes, Papaw and Benji looked down to the end of the alley that was not blocked by Papaw's car. There was not much light, only the pulse of the flasher, but there was enough to see. McKedrick had retrieved his SUV, and now he parked it about a hundred feet away, across the other end of the alleyway, sealing them inside.

McKedrick stepped out. Benji had felt victorious when he'd stolen the agent's pistol and “disarmed” him, but he realized now how stupid that had been: McKedrick was carrying a compact shotgun, something Benji had never seen anyone in law enforcement do.

“
Lightman—both of you—it's over! Get down on the ground NOW!
”

“Benjamin,” Papaw whispered, “don't you say one thing or move one muscle.”

And before Benji could reply, Papaw strode away to meet the man in black, who snicked off the safety of his shotgun and aimed it squarely at Papaw's chest.

Benji had, of course, zero intention of following Papaw's instructions. He began to chase Papaw but had only gone a few
feet when he felt hands seize his arm.

“Benji, no!” hissed Zeeko, who'd gotten out of the X-ray mobile.

“Let me go, Zeeko!”

“Evenin', sir,” Papaw said, greeting the agent as they neared each other, “and how the heck are
you
?” He sounded happy to see McKedrick, eager to charm his fellow lawman. As if Papaw hadn't noticed the rage on his face, or the death stick in his hands.

“Sheriff Lightman,” McKedrick said coldly, “I believe you know Standard Operating Procedure. Put your hands on the back of your head and lace your fingers.”

Benji thrashed in Zeeko's grip; his friend held tighter, bear-hugging him despite his injury. “For the love of Christ, listen to me,” Zeeko whispered in his ear. “The pod—”

“What, now?” Papaw answered McKedrick, cupping a hand behind one ear. “Couldn't quite make out that last part, sorry.”

“I tried to play nice. But you and your grandson are now property of the United States government.”

“Papaw, he's after something we found! McKedrick, he doesn't know anything! Just take the pod and leave him alone!”

But it was like a nightmare: No matter how loud Benji yelled, Papaw didn't react, didn't even seem to hear him. . . .

“I think you hear me fine, Sheriff.” McKedrick sneered. “Stop right there and put your face on the goddamn pavement.”

Papaw replied, just a few steps from the agent, “Now listen, I know I look not a day over forty, but my hearin' aid is bein' fritzy. One more time, if you'd be so very kind. I wanna know what's got you
riled
.”

And then fireworks detonated overhead, rendering the dark alleyway suddenly shadowless and vivid. Papaw looked over McKedrick's shoulder, toward the SUV, and he shouted, in a
voice filled with the same fear Benji had seen on his face, “
Get the hell outta here, honey!
”

Panicked, McKedrick whirled, firing the shotgun in time with the delayed
boom
of the fireworks. Someone screamed, and everything in Benji went cold: It was Ellie. She'd followed them to the alley and had been trying to silently crawl over the hood of the SUV.

A hundred holes eviscerated the side of the SUV; the driver's window imploded. Ellie fell from the hood and landed on the ground on the near side of the vehicle.

Benji screamed, his fury at last freeing him from Zeeko's grasp. He sprinted toward Papaw and McKedrick, but most of all toward Ellie, not knowing if she had been hit.

The finale fireworks of the parade bellowed brightly, a billion points of apocalypse light illuminating the alley.

McKedrick pumped his shotgun, the weapon expending a smoking shell as he pivoted back toward Papaw.

Papaw tilted backward, violently backward, like a gunslinger falling to an inglorious death in a dusty street.

But he wasn't falling: He was preparing. He was cocking his fist back.

Papaw launched a haymaker punch at Agent McKedrick with the speed and grace of a teenage heavyweight champion. McKedrick took the cataclysmic crash across his jaw. His head snapped backward, a thin line of blood arcing from his chin like the flourish of a signature. He crumpled to the ground like dead weight, his shotgun skittering across the concrete.

Benji skidded to a stop, dumbfounded. Papaw rubbed his fist into his other palm, shoulders heaving as his punch echoed in the gray canyon of the alley.

“Sheriff! Hot
damn
!” Ellie cried shakily. Benji saw with blinding relief that she was standing up beside the SUV,
brushing shattered glass from her pants.

The last light and sound of the fireworks died. Staring at the fallen McKedrick, Papaw said, “Ellie, honey, I want you to get in that fancy car and follow me out of here. Benjamin and Zeeko, I need to ask for your help carrying this man to the Caddie.”

Benji flinched as a hand grabbed his shoulder. He turned back. The swiping fire of Papaw's police flasher swept over Zeeko's face. His eyes were wide as saucers.

“Benji,” he said, “the pod is
empty
.”

Empty.

Benji felt the word hit him like a depth charge, like a detonation heard but not yet felt.

“There's nothing inside,” said Zeeko.

“You mean no ‘Thing' inside,” Papaw said. He finally looked at Benji. “The pod's empty because the beast got out, Benjamin. It came to our house. And It's in one hell of a bad mood.”

There was the depth-charge shockwave:
BOOM
.

“
What?
” Benji said. “You
know
, Papaw?!”

But suddenly the whirling dome atop Papaw's car shattered, a miniature nova of sparks and glass. The frozen air seemed to plummet by ten degrees. All at once, Benji inexplicably felt like he was standing on railroad tracks that had just begun to vibrate beneath him. Something was coming.

Next moment, a sound like a siren amplified beyond imagining flooded the alley. He clapped his hands over his ears; Papaw, Ellie, and Zeeko did the same. The earsplitting sound awoke McKedrick, who attempted to prop himself up on his elbows.

“
It's coming!
” Papaw bellowed.

“
Papaw, what's happening?
”

“
Mary and Joseph, I thought I might've killed It back at the
house today but It's still alive. We have to go, Benjamin, It's coming for y—
”

The pitch of the siren changed, and Benji realized it was not a siren at all: It was a blaring musical note, a chord from a guitar, and now it was replaced by a young man's melodious voice:

“
We got Captain Celsius, back there on the snares and bass! Yes sir, that's right, he's a rock 'n' roll ace!
”

A manhole cover lay in the concrete floor of the alleyway between Benji and Papaw. The manhole cover began to quiver, then to dance. Sickly green light radiated from the sewer below.

“
I'm Kid Nuclear, want to know my job?
” the song went on. “
I'm the singer of the Atomic Bobs!
”

Spears of green light flew through the manhole cover holes like arrows of war fired at the heavens.

The cover erupted, spiraling into the air, higher and higher and eclipsing the moon, and just before the music died with abrupt finality, the phantom singer roared one last lyric:

“
And hey, who's that on guitar tonight? Well, that's Bob Lightman, MR. FA—!
”

And the Voyager rose.

Perhaps it was fitting, after all, that the moment should feel unreal: The arrival of the magically impossible had been rehearsed ten thousand times in Benji's dreams. It had been the shape of his hope, the great secret of his heart that he wanted to share with no one and the whole world.

Unreal, yes. But not like this.

Ever since he'd shot it from the sky, the creature had made Benji feel like a kid. But until this moment, as the creature emerged from the sewer, he had forgotten that childhood carried its own terrors. And the hole in the ground before him seemed to Benji to be a dark closet. It was the closet door you
hear creaking beside you when everyone else at the sleepover is asleep but you are still awake. It was the door that you swear is shut but whose hinges softly cry as the clock downstairs is striking three and invoking the witching hour, when graveyards are reputed to yawn. It was every dark bedroom closet from all of kidhood's nightmares, and witch and werewolf and demon and vampire and dead kid are waiting in there, and if you try to move, the door will roar open like a dark eternal mouth, and it will be
their
black eyes you see flashing at you,
their
ice fingers that enwrap your naked ankles, and in the morning, all that will be left of you will be a streak of blood and the desperate, doomed tracks your fingers carved into the carpet.

The Voyager arose in a manner vaguely magnificent, like a fallen angel reascending. The terrible light that bound it was the color from outer space: ray-gun green. The creature was shaped almost like a human but then . . . but then not quite. Its skull was a misshapen bulb perched atop a neck as long and thin as a needle. Strange strings of flesh danced on Its face like the hair of Medusa. Its two arms stretched forever, ending with three-clawed hands. Between Its legs was a long tail similarly tipped by a kind of dagger. As the Voyager floated up, Benji saw It stood seven feet tall at the very least—how It fit in the pod was a mystery—and there were ridges of bones across the creature's whole body, as if God had made a mistake and put the skeleton on the outside.

Though Benji could not see Its eyes, he felt as though the creature were not just staring at him but
through him
. He stood mesmerized and terrified, unable to move.

A roar and a flash of light split the night. A chunk of brick wall beside Benji exploded. The Voyager spun in midair with somehow terrible grace, facing the source of the sound: McKedrick, staggering to his feet, his smoking shotgun in hand. The
agent's shot had gone wild, but already he was pumping a fresh shell into the breach, zeroing in on the Voyager.

The creature lunged through the air before McKedrick could react. The agent screamed, bicycling his legs as the creature raised him off the earth with one clawed hand. The shotgun dropped to the ground, discharging uselessly. The Voyager raised Its free claw, but rather than strike the agent, It did something Benji did not understand: It placed Its palm to McKedrick's forehead.

The agent was like a marionette whose strings have been severed. His arms collapsed to his sides, his mouth went slack and silent, his eyes glazed to glassy orbs. . . .

Moments later, the creature lifted Its clawed hand from McKedrick's forehead. McKedrick snapped back to his senses. He thrashed in the Voyager's grip and began to scream. In pain. The Voyager was plunging a long silvery object into the agent's chest like a dagger.

The Voyager fired the ray gun.

The blast sliced straight through McKedrick. A rainbow arc of green light and red blood jetted from the back of his perfect black suit. Ellie and Zeeko screamed. McKedrick's body hit the pavement bonelessly.

Papaw, shoot It
, Benji thought—and as if sensing the intention, the creature spun to face Benji. “
Shoot It now!
” he called aloud.

Past the creature, Papaw reached for his holster, but his arthritic hands betrayed him. He fumbled the gun, which clattered to the pavement. Benji reached into his tuxedo, remembering that the pistol he'd stolen from McKedrick was inside his sleeve.

“Benji, look out!” Ellie screamed.

The Voyager reached him. It placed Its death-cold palm on Benji's brow.

And his mind turned to flame.

He was hurled like a human bullet into a corridor of endless darkness.

He opened his mouth to scream, but he had no mouth. Nothing existed, nothing at all except for the black, cold velocity. He was searching for something: There was something in these corridors he needed, some kind of clue, something to guide his future—but what was it? Why had he come here looking for it?

Without warning, the corridor exploded around him and was no longer a corridor at all: It became a vast emptiness, gulfs of gravityless dark through which he soared alone. There were pinpricks of light in the ether. Stars, unimaginable light-years away. Benji looked back, and he saw a nearer star, furious and red, swallowing an entire world. . . .