Their conversation rolled on into the realm of this and that, though at the center of it was the incident at Saxon"s Lake. I watched the baseball game with Dad, and I noticed that he kept closing and opening his right hand as if he were either trying to grasp something or free himself from a grip. Then it got time to get ready to go, and I gathered up my pajamas, my toothbrush, and another set of socks and underwear and shoved everything down in my army surplus knapsack. Dad told me to be careful and Mom told me to have fun, but to be back in the morning in time for Sunday school. I rubbed Rebel"s head and threw a stick for him to chase, and then I climbed on my bike and pedaled away.
Ben didn"t live very far, only a half mile or so from my house at the dead end of Deerman Street. On Deerman Street I pedaled quietly, because guarding the corner of Deerman and Shantuck was the somber gray stone house where the notorious Branlin brothers lived. The Branlins, thirteen and fourteen years of age, had peroxided blond hair and delighted in destruction. Oftentimes they roamed the neighborhood on their matching black bicycles like vultures searching for fresh meat. I had heard from Davy Ray Callan that the Branlins sometimes tried to run cars off the street with their speeding black bikes, and that he"d actually witnessed Gotha Branlin, the oldest, tell his own mother to go to the bad place. Gotha and Gordo were like the Black Plague; you hoped they wouldn"t get you, but once they laid a hand on you, there was no escape.
So far I had been insignificant to their careening meanness. I planned for it to stay that way.
Ben"s house was much like my own. Ben had a brown dog named Tumper, who got up from his belly on the front porch to bark my arrival. Ben came out to meet me, and Mrs. Sears said h.e.l.lo and asked if I wanted a gla.s.s of root beer. She was dark-haired and had a pretty face, but she had hips as big as watermelons. Inside the house, Mr. Sears came up from his woodshop in the bas.e.m.e.nt to speak to me. He was large and round, too, his heavy-jowled face ruddy under crew-cut brown hair. Mr. Sears was a happy man with a buck-toothed grin, woodshavings clinging to his striped shirt, and he told me a joke about a Baptist preacher and an outhouse that I didn"t really understand, but he laughed to cue me and Ben said, "Aw, Daddy!" as if he"d heard that dumb joke a dozen times.
I unpacked my knapsack in Ben"s room, where he had nifty collections of baseball cards, bottle caps, and wasps" nests. As I got squared away, Ben sat down on his Superman bedspread and said, "Did you tell your folks about the movie?"
"No. Did you?"
"Uh-uh." He picked at a loose thread on Superman"s face. "How come you didn"t?"
"I don"t know. How come you didn"t?"
Ben shrugged, but thoughts were working in his head. "I guess," he said, "it was too awful to tell."
"Yeah."
"I went out back," Ben said. "No sand. Just rock."
We both agreed the Martians would have a tough time drilling through all the red rock in the hills around Zephyr, if they were to come calling. Then Ben opened a cardboard box and showed me his Civil War bubble gum cards that had gory paintings of guys getting shot, bayoneted, and clobbered by cannon b.a.l.l.s, and we sat making up a story for each card until his mother rang a bell to say it was time for fried chicken.
After dinner-and Mrs. Sears"s wonderful black bottom pie washed down with a gla.s.s of cold Green Meadows milk-we all played a game of Scrabble. Ben"s parents were partners, and Mr. Sears kept trying to pa.s.s made-up words that even I knew weren"t in the dictionary, like "kafloom" and "goga.n.u.s." Mrs. Sears said he was as crazy as a monkey in itching powder, but she grinned at his antics just like I did. "Cory?" he said. "Didja hear the one about the three preachers tryin" to get into heaven?" and before I could say "No" he was off on a joke-telling jaunt. He seemed to favor the preacher jokes, and I had to wonder what Reverend Lovoy at the Methodist church would think of them.
It was past eight o"clock and we"d started our second game when Tumper barked on the front porch and a few seconds later there was a knock on the door. "I"ll get it," Mr. Sears said. He opened the door to a wiry, craggy-faced man wearing jeans and a red-checked shirt. "Hey, Donny!" Mr. Sears greeted him. "Come on in, you buzzard!"
Mrs. Sears was watching her husband and the man named Donny. I saw her jaw tense.
Donny said something in a low voice to Mr. Sears, and Mr. Sears called to us, "Me and Donny are gonna sit on the porch for a while. Y"all go on and play."
"Hon?" Mrs. Sears drew up a smile, but I could tell it was in danger of slipping. "I need a partner."
The screen door closed at his back.
Mrs. Sears sat very still for a long moment, staring at the door. Her smile had gone.
"Mom?" Ben said. "It"s your turn."
"All right." She tried to pull her attention to the Scrabble tiles. I could tell she was trying as hard as she could, but her gaze kept slipping back to the screen door. Out on the porch, Mr. Sears and the wiry man named Donny were sitting in folding chairs, their conversation quiet and serious. "All right," Ben"s mother said again. "Let me think now, just give me a minute."
More than a minute pa.s.sed. Off in the distance, a dog began barking. Then two more. Tumper took up the call. Mrs. Sears was still choosing her tiles when the door flew open again.
"Hey, Lizbeth! Ben! Come out here, and hurry!"
"What is it, Sim? What"s-"
"Just come out here!" he hollered, and of course we all got up from the table to see.
Donny was standing in the yard, looking toward the west. The neighborhood dogs were really whooping it up. Lights burned in windows, and other people were emerging to find out what the uproar was about. Mr. Sears pointed in the direction Donny was looking. "You ever seen anythin" like that before?"
I looked up. So did Ben, and I heard him gasp as if he"d been stomach-punched.
It was coming down from the night sky, descending from the canopy of stars. It was a glowing red thing, purple spears of fire trailing behind it, and it left a white trail of smoke against the darkness.
In that instant my heart almost exploded. Ben took a backward step, and he might have fallen had he not collided with one of his mother"s hips. I knew in my hammering, rioting heart that everywhere across Zephyr kids who had been in the Lyric theater that afternoon were looking up at the sky and feeling terror peel the lips back from their teeth.
I came very close to wetting my pants. Somehow I held my water, but it was a near thing.
Ben blubbered. He made mangled sounds. He wheezed, "It"s... it"s... it"s..."
"A comet!" Mr. Sears shouted. "Look at that thing fall!"
Donny grunted and slid a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. I glanced at him and by the porch light saw his dirty fingernails.
It was falling in a long, slow spiral, ribbons of sparks flaying out in its wake. It made no noise, but people were shouting for other people to look and some of the dogs had started that kind of howling that makes your backbone quiver.
"Comin" down between here and Union Town," Donny observed. His head was c.o.c.ked to one side, his face gaunt and his dark hair slick with brilliantine. "Comin" down like a sonofab.i.t.c.h."
Between Zephyr and Union Town lay eight miles of hills, woods, and swamp cut by the Tec.u.mseh River. It was Martian territory if there ever was, I thought, and I felt all the circuits in my brain jangle like fire alarms going off. I looked at Ben. His eyes seemed to be bulging outward by the cranial pressure of pure fear. The only thing I could think of when I stared at the fireball again was the tentacled head in the gla.s.s bowl, its face serenely evil and slightly Oriental. I could hardly stand up, my legs were so weak.
"Hey, Sim?" Donny"s voice was low and slow, and he was chewing on the toothpick. "How about we go chase that b.u.g.g.e.r down?" His face turned toward Mr. Sears. His nose was flat, as if it had been busted by a big fist. "What do you say, Sim?"
"Yeah!" he answered. "Yeah, we"ll go chase it down! Find out where it falls!"
"No, Sim!" Mrs. Sears said. In her voice was a note of pleading. "Stay with me and the boys tonight!"
"It"s a comet, Lizbeth!" he explained, grinning. "How many times in your life do you get to chase a comet?"
"Please, Sim." She grasped his forearm. "Stay with us. All right?" I saw her fingers tighten.
"About to hit." Donny"s jaw muscles clenched as he chewed. "Time"s wastin"."
"Yeah! Time"s wastin", Lizbeth!" Mr. Sears pulled away. "I"ll get my jacket!" He rushed up the porch steps and into the house. Before the screen door could slam, Ben was running after his father.
Mr. Sears went back to the bedroom he shared with his wife. He opened the closet, got his brown poplin jacket, and shrugged into it. Then he reached up onto the closet"s top shelf, his hand winnowing under a red blanket. As Mr. Sears"s hand emerged, Ben walked into the room behind him and caught a glint of metal between his father"s fingers.
Ben knew what it was. He knew what it was for.
"Daddy?" he said. "Please stay home."
"Hey, boy!" His father turned toward him, grin in place, and he slid the metal object down into his jacket and zipped the jacket up. "I"m gonna go see where the comet comes down with Mr. Blaylock. I won"t be but a little while."
Ben stood in the doorway, between his father and the outside world. His eyes were wet and scared. "Can I go with you, Daddy?"
"No, Ben. Not this time. I gotta go now."
"Let me go with you. Okay? I won"t make any noise. Okay?"
"No, son." Mr. Sears"s hand clamped down on Ben"s shoulder. "You have to stay here with your mother and Cory." Though Ben stiffly resisted, his father"s hand moved him aside. "You be a good boy, now," Mr. Sears said as his big shoes carried him toward the door.
Ben made one more attempt by grasping his father"s fingers and trying to hold him. "Don"t go, Daddy!" he said. "Don"t go! Please don"t go!"
"Ben, don"t act like a baby. Let me go, son."
"No, sir," Ben answered. The wetness of his eyes had overflowed onto his pudgy cheeks. "I won"t."
"I"m just goin" out to see where the comet falls. I won"t be gone but a little while."
"If you go... if you go..." Ben"s throat was clogging up with emotion, and he could hardly squeeze the words out. "You"ll come back changed."
"Let"s. .h.i.t the road, Sim!" Donny Blaylock urged from the front porch.
"Ben?" Mr. Sears said sternly. "I"m goin" with Mr. Blaylock. Act like a man, now." He worked his fingers free, and Ben stood there looking up at him with an expression of agony. His father sc.r.a.ped a hand through Ben"s cropped hair. "I"ll bring you back a piece of it, all right, Tiger?"
"Don"t go," the weeping tiger croaked.
His father turned his back on him, and strode out the screen door to where Donny Blaylock waited. I was still standing with Mrs. Sears in the yard, watching the fiery thing in its last few seconds of descent. Mrs. Sears said, "Sim? Don"t do it," but her voice was so weak it didn"t carry. Mr. Sears did not speak to his wife, and he followed the other man to a dark blue Chevy parked at the curb. Red foam dice hung from the radio antenna, and the right rear side was smashed in. Donny Blaylock slid behind the wheel and Mr. Sears got in the other side. The Chevy started up like a cannon going off, shooting black exhaust. As the car pulled away, I heard Mr. Sears laugh as if he"d just told another preacher joke. Donny Blaylock must"ve stomped the gas pedal, because the rear tires shrieked as the Chevy tore away up Deerman Street.
I looked toward the west again, and saw the fiery thing disappear over the wooded hills. Its glow pulsed against the dark like a beating heart. It had come to earth somewhere in the wilderness.
There was no sand anywhere out there. The Martians, I thought, were going to have to slog through a lot of mud and waterweeds.
I heard the screen door slam, and I turned around and saw Ben standing on the front porch. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He stared along Deerman Street, as if he were tracking the Chevy"s progress, but by that time the car had turned right on Shantuck and was out of sight.
In the distance, probably up in Bruton, dogs were still baying. Mrs. Sears released a long, strengthless sigh. "Let"s go in," she said.
Ben"s eyes were swollen, but his crying was done. No one seemed to want to finish the game of Scrabble. Mrs. Sears said, "Why don"t you boys go play in your room, Ben?" and he nodded slowly, his eyes glazed as if he"d taken a heavy blow to the skull. Mrs. Sears went back to the kitchen, where she turned on the water. In Ben"s room, I sat on the floor with the Civil War cards while Ben stood at the window.
I could tell he was suffering. I"d never seen him like this before, and I had to say something. "Don"t worry," I told him. "It"s not Martians. It was a meteor, that"s all."
He didn"t answer.
"A meteor"s just a big hot rock," I said. "There"re no Martians inside it."
Ben was silent; his thoughts had him.
"Your dad"ll be okay," I said.
Ben spoke, in a voice terrible in its quiet: "He"ll come back changed."
"No, he won"t. Listen... that was just a movie. It was made up." I realized that as I said this I was letting go of something, and it felt both painful and good at the same time. "See, there"s not really a machine that cuts into the backs of people"s necks. There"s not really a big Martian head in a gla.s.s bowl. It"s all made up. You don"t have to be scared. See?"
"He"ll come back changed," Ben repeated.
I tried, but nothing I could say would make him believe any differently. Mrs. Sears came in, and her eyes looked swollen, too. But she managed a brave smile that hurt my heart, and she said, "Cory? Do you want to take the first bath?"
Mr. Sears was not home by ten o"clock, when his wife switched off the light in Ben"s bedroom. I lay under the crisp white sheet beside Ben, listening to the night. A couple of dogs still conversed back and forth, and every once in a while Tumper offered a muttered opinion. "Ben?" I whispered. "You awake?" He didn"t answer, but the way he was breathing told me he wasn"t sleeping. "Don"t worry," I said. "Okay?"
He turned over, and pressed his face against his pillow.
Eventually I drifted off. I did not, surprisingly, dream of Martians and X-shaped wounds on the backs of loved ones" necks. In my dream my father swam for the sinking car, and when his head went under, it did not come back up. I stood on the red rock cliff, calling for him, until Lainie came to me like a white mist and took my hand in a damp grip. As she led me away from the lake, I could hear my mother calling to me from the distance, and a figure stood at the edge of the woods wearing a long overcoat that flapped in the wind.
An earthquake woke me up.
I opened my eyes, my heart pounding. Something had crashed; the sound was trapped inside my head. The lights were still off, and the night still reigned. I reached out and touched Ben beside me. He drew in a sharp breath, as if my touch had scared the wits out of him. I heard an engine boom, and I looked out the window toward Deerman Street to see a Chevy"s taillights as Donny Blaylock pulled away.
The screen door, I realized. The sound of the screen door slamming had jolted me awake.
"Ben?" I rasped, my mouth thick with sleep. "Your dad"s come home!"
Something else crashed down in the front room. The whole house seemed to shake.
"Sim?" It was Mrs. Sears"s voice, high-pitched. "Sim?"
I got out of bed, but Ben just lay there. I think he was staring at the ceiling. I walked through the hallway in the dark, my feet squeaking the boards. I b.u.mped into Mrs. Sears, standing where the hall met the front room, no lights on anywhere.
I heard a hoa.r.s.e, terrible breathing.
It was, I thought, the sound a Martian might make as its alien lungs strained on earthly air.
"Sim?" Mrs. Sears said. "I"m right here."
"Right here," a voice answered. "Right... here. Right... f.u.c.kin"... here."
It was Mr. Sears"s voice, yes. But it was different. Changed. There was no humor in it, no fun, no hint of a preacher joke. It was as heavy as doom, and just as mean.
"Sim, I"m going to turn on the light now."
Click.
And there he was.
Mr. Sears was on the floor on his hands and knees, his head bowed and one cheek mashed against the rug. His face looked bloated and wet, his eyes sunken in fleshy folds. The right shoulder of his jacket was dirty, and dirt was smeared on his jeans as if he"d taken a fall in the woods. He blinked in the light, a silver thread of saliva hanging from his lower lip. "Where is it?" he said. "You see it?"
"It"s... beside your right hand."
His left hand groped. "You"re a G.o.dd.a.m.ned liar," he said.
"Your other hand, Sim," she told him wearily.
His right hand moved toward the metal object lying there. It was a whiskey flask, and his fingers gripped it and pulled it to him.
He sat up on his knees and stared at his wife. A fierceness pa.s.sed over his face, ugly in its swiftness. "Don"t you smart-mouth me," he said. "Don"t you open that big fat smart mouth."
I stepped back then, into the hallway. I was seeing a monster that had slipped from its skin.
Mr. Sears struggled to stand. He grabbed hold of the table that held the Scrabble tiles, and it went over in an explosion of vowels and consonants. Then he made it to his feet, and he unscrewed the cap off the flask and licked the bottle neck.