From a Buick 8 (20 page)

On a day not long after Troop D acquired Jimmy and Roslyn, Tony Schoondist crossed his own personal Rubicon and lied to the press.

Not that the representative of the Fourth Estate was in this case very impressive, just a weedy redheaded boy of twenty or so, a summer intern at The Statler County
American
who would be going back to Ohio State in another week or so. He had a way of listening to you with his mouth hung partway open that made him look, in Arky's words, like a stark raving natural-born fool. But he
wasn't
a fool, and he'd spent most of one golden September afternoon listening to Mr Bradley Roach. Brad gave the young reporter quite an earful about the man with the Russian accent (by this time Brad was positive the guy had been Russian) and the car the man had left behind. The weedy redhead, Homer Oosler by name, wanted to do a feature story on all of this and go back to college with a bang. Sandy thought the young man could imagine a front-page headline with the words
MYSTERY CAR
in it. Perhaps even
RUSSIAN SPY'S MYSTERY CAR.

Tony never hesitated, just went ahead and lied. He undoubtedly would have done the same thing even if the reporter presenting himself that day had been case-hardened old Trevor Ronnick, who owned the
American
and had forgotten more stories than the redhead would ever write.
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'Car's gone,' Tony said, and there it was: lie told, Rubicon crossed.

'Gone?' Homer Oosler asked, clearly disappointed. He had a big old Minolta camera on his lap. property of county american was Dymotaped across the back of the case. 'Gone where?'

'State Impound Bureau,' Tony said, creating this impressive-sounding organization on the spot. 'In Philly.'

'Why?'

'They auction unclaimed rolling iron. After they search em for drugs, of course.'

'Course. Do you have any paperwork on it?'

'Must have,' Tony said. 'Got it on everything else. I'll look for it, give you a ring.'

'How long do you think that'll take, Sergeant Schoondist?'

'Awhile, son.' Tony waved his hand at his in/out basket, which was stacked high with papers. Oosler didn't need to know that most of them were the week's junkalogue from Scranton - everything from updates on retirement benefits to the schedule for autumn softball - and would be in the wastebasket before the Sarge went home. That weary wave of the hand suggested that there were similar piles of paper everywhere. 'Hard keeping up with all this stuff, you know. They say things'll change when we start getting computerized, but that won't be this year.'

'I go back to school next week.'

Tony leaned forward in his chair and looked at Oosler keenly. 'And I hope you work hard,' he said.

'It's a tough world out there, son, but if you work hard you can make it.'

A couple of days after Homer Oosler's visit, the Buick fired up another of its lightstorms. This time it happened on a day that was filled with bright sun, but it was still pretty spectacular. And all Curtis's worries about missing the next manifestation proved groundless.

The shed's temperature made it clear the Buick was build-ing up to something again, dropping from the mid-seventies to the upper fifties over a course of five days. Everyone became anxious to take a turn out in the hutch; everyone wanted to be the one on duty when it happened, whatever 'it' turned out to be this time.

Brian Cole won the lottery, but all the Troopers at the barracks shared the experience at least to some extent. Brian went into Shed B at around two p.m. to check on Jimmy and Roslyn. They were fine as paint, Roslyn in the habitat's dining room and Jimmy busting heavies on the exercise wheel in the gym. But as Brian leaned farther into the Buick to check the water reservoir, he heard a humming noise. It was deep and steady, the kind of sound that vibrates your eyes in their sockets and rattles your fillings. Below it (or entwined with it) was something a lot more disturbing, a kind of scaly, wordless whispering. A purple glow, very dim, was spreading slowly across the dashboard and the steering wheel. Mindful of Ennis Rafferty, gone with no forwarding address for well over a month by then, Trooper
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Cole vacated the Buick's vicinity in a hurry. He proceeded without panic, however, taking the video camera from the hutch, screwing it on to its tripod, loading in a fresh tape, checking the time-code (it was correct) and the battery level (all the way in the green). He turned on the overheads before going back out, then placed the tripod in front of one of the windows, hit therecord button, and double-checked to make sure the Buick was centered in the viewfinder. It was. He started toward the barracks, then snapped his fingers and went back to the hutch. There was a little bag filled with camera accessories in there. One of them was a brightness filter. Brian attached this to the video camera's lens without bothering to hit thepause button (for one moment the big dark shapes of his hands blot out the image of the Buick, and when they leave the frame again the Buick reappears as if in a deep twilight). If there had been anyone there watching him go about his business - one of those visiting John Q.'s curious about how his tax dollars were spent, perhaps - he never would have guessed how fast Trooper Cole's heart was beating. He was afraid as well as excited, but he did okay. When it comes to dealing with the unknown, there's a great deal to be said for a good shot of police training. All in all, he forgot only one thing. He poked his head into Tony's office at about seven minutes past two and said, 'Sarge, I'm pretty sure something's happening with the Buick.'

Tony looked up from his yellow legal pad, where he was scribbling the first draft of a speech he was supposed to give at a law enforcement symposium that fall, and said: 'What's that in your hand, Bri?'

Brian looked down and saw he was holding the gerbils' water reservoir. 'Ah, what the hell,' he said.

'They may not need it anymore, anyway.'

By twenty after two, Troopers in the barracks could hear the humming clearly. Not that there were many in there; most were lined up at the windows in Shed B's two roll-up doors, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. Tony saw this, debated whether or not to order them away, and finally decided to let them stay where they were. With one exception.

'Arky.'

'Yessir, Sarge?'

'I want you to go on out front and mow the lawn.'

'I just mow it on Monday!'

'I know. Seemed like you spent the last hour doing the part under my office window. I want you to do it again just the same. With this in your back pocket.' He handed Arky a walkie-talkie. 'And if anyone comes calling who shouldn't see ten Pennsylvania State Troopers lined up in front of that shed like there was a big-money cockfight going on inside, shoot me the word. Got it?'

'Yeah, you betcha.'

'Good. Matt! Matt Babicki, front and center!'

Matt rushed up, puffing and red-faced with excitement. Tony asked him where Curt was. Matt said he was on patrol.

'Tell him to return to base, code D and ride quiet, got that?'

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'Code D and ride quiet, roger.'

To ride quiet is to travel
sans
flashers and siren. Curt presumably obeyed this injunction, but he was still back at the barracks by quarter to three. No one dared ask him how far he'd come in half an hour. However many miles it might have been, he arrived alive and before the silent fireworks started up again. The first thing he did was to remove the videocam from the tripod. Until the fireworks were over, the visual record would be Curds Wilcox's baby.

The tape (one of many squirreled away in the storage closet) preserves what there was to see and hear. The Buick's hum is very audible, sounding like a loose wire in a stereo speaker, and it gets appreciably louder as time passes. Curt got footage of the big thermometer with its red needle standing at just a hair past 54. There's dirt's voice, asking permission to go in and check on Jimmy and Roslyn, and Sergeant Schoondist's voice coming back with 'Permission denied' almost at once, brisk and sure, brooking no argument.

At 3:08:41P, according to the time-code on the bottom of the screen, a blush like a violet sunrise begins to rise on the Buick's windshield. At first a viewer might pass this phenomenon off as a technical glitch or an optical illusion or perhaps some sort of reflection. Andy Colucci: 'What's that?'

Unknown speaker: 'A power surge or a - '

Curtis Wilcox: 'Those of you with goggles better put them on. Those of you without them, this is risky, I'd back the hell off. We have - '

Jackie O'Hara (probably): 'Who took - '

Phil Candleton (probably): 'My
God!'

Huddie Royer: 'I don't think we should - '

Sergeant Commanding Schoondist, sounding as calm as an Audubon guide on a nature hike: 'Get those goggles down, fellas, I would. Chop-chop.'

At 3:09:24, that violet light took an auroral leap in all the Buick's windows, turning them into brilliant purple mirrors. If one slows the tape down and then advances it frame by frame, one can see actual reflections appearing in the formerly clear window-glass: the tools hung on their pegs, the orange plow-blade stored against one wall, the men outside, peering in. Most are wearing goggles and look like aliens in a cheap science fiction movie. One can isolate Curt because of the video camera blocking the left side of his face. The hum gets louder and louder. Then, about five seconds before the Buick starts shooting off those flashes, the sound stops. A viewer of this tape can hear an excited babble of voices, none identifiable, all seeming to ask questions.

Then the image disappears for the first time. The Buick and the shed are both gone, lost in the white.

'Jesus Christ, did you guys see that?'Huddie Royer screams.

There are cries of
Get back, Holy fuck,
and everyone's favorite in times of trouble,
Oh shit.
Someone says
Don't look at it
and someone else says
It's pissing lightning
in that weirdly matter-of-fact tone one
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can sometimes hear on cockpit flight recorders, a pilot who's talking without realizing it, who only knows that he's down to the last ten or twelve seconds of his life.

Then the Buick returns from the land of overexposure, looking first like a meaningless clot, then taking back its actual form. Three seconds later it flashes out again. The glare shoots thick rays from every window and then whites out the image once more. During this one Curt says
We need a better filter
and Tony replies
Maybe next time.

The phenomenon continues for the next forty-six min-utes, every bit of it captured on tape. At first the Buick whitesout and disappears with every flash. Then, as the phenomenon starts to weaken, the viewer can see a vague car-shape sunk deep in soundless lightbursts that are more purple than white. Sometimes the image joggles and there's a fast, blurry pan of human faces as Curtis hurries to a different observation point, hoping for a revelation (or perhaps just a better view).

At 3:28:17, one can observe a jagged line of fire burst up from (or maybe it's through) the Buick's closed trunk. It shoots all the way to the ceiling, where it seems to splash outward like water from a fountain.

Unidentified voice: 'Holy shit, high voltage, high volt-age!'

Tony: 'The hell it is.' Then, presumably to Curt: 'Keep taping.'

Curt: 'Oh yeah. You better believe it.'

There are several more of the lightning bolts, some shooting out of the Buick's windows, some rising from the roof or the trunk. One leaps out from beneath the car and fires itself directly at the rear roll-up door. There are surprised yells as the men back away from that one, but the camera stays steady. Curt was basically too excited to be afraid.

At 3:55:03 there's a final weak blip - it comes from the back seat, behind the driver's position - and then there's no more. You can hear Tony Schoondist say, 'Why don't you save the battery, Curt? The show seems to be over.' At that point the tape goes momentarily black. When the picture resumes at 4:08:16, Curt is onscreen. There's something yellow wrapped around his midsection. He waves jauntily and says, 'I'll be right back.'

Tony Schoondist - he's the one running the camera at that point - replies, 'You better be.' And he doesn't sound jaunty in the least.

Curt wanted to go in and check on the gerbils - to see how they were, assuming they were still there at all. Tony refused permission adamantly and at once. No one was going in Shed B for quite awhile, he said, not until they were sure it was safe to do so. He hesitated, maybe replaying that remark in his head and realizing the absurdity of it - as long as the Buick Roadmaster was in Shed B it was never going to be safe - and changed it to: 'Everyone stays out until the temperature's back over sixty-five.'

'Someone's
gotta
go,' Brian Cole said. He spoke patiently, as if discussing a simple addition problem with a person of limited intelligence.

'Ifail to see why, Trooper,' Tony said.

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Brian reached into his pocket and pulled out Jimmy and Roslyn's water-reservoir. 'They got plenty of those pellets they eat, but without this, they'll die of thirst.'

'No, they won't. Not right away.'

'It might be a couple of
days
before the temperature in there goes up to sixty-five, Sarge. Would you want to go forty-eight hours without a drink?'

'I know
I
wouldn't,' Curt said. Trying not to smile (and smiling a little anyway), he took the calibrated plastic tube from Brian. Then Tony took it from
him
before it could start to feel at home in Curt's hand. The SC did not look at his fellow scholar as he did this; he kept his eyes fixed on Trooper Brian Cole.