“Listen, Rachel,” Jimmy said, “I know you’re scared, but you’re safe in here, and I have to do my job. If your parents are in that car, we don’t want them hurt, do we?”
“GO GET MOMMY-N-DADDY, TROOPER JIMMY!” Blakie trumpeted. “WE DON’T WANT THEM HURRRT!”
Jimmy saw hope spark in the girl’s eyes, but not as much as he might have expected. Like Agent Mulder on the old X-Files show, she wanted to believe. but like Mulder’s partner, Agent Scully, she didn’t. What had these kids seen?
“Be careful, Trooper Jimmy.” She raised one finger. It was a schoolteacherly gesture made even more endearing by a slight tremble. “Don’t touch it.”
As Jimmy approached the station wagon, he drew his Glock service automatic but left the safety on. For the time being. Standing slightly south of the hanging door, he once again invited anyone inside to exit the vehicle, open and empty hands foremost. No one came out. He reached for the door, then remembered the little girl’s parting admonition, and hesitated. He reached out with the barrel of his gun to swing the door open. Only, the door didn’t open, and the barrel of the pistol stuck fast. The thing was a glue-pot.
He was jerked forward, as if a powerful hand had gripped the Glock’s barrel and yanked. There was a second when he could have let go, but such an idea never even surfaced in his mind. One of the first things they taught you at the Academy after weapons issue was that you never let go of your sidearm. Never.
So he held on, and the car that had already eaten his gun now ate his hand. And his arm. The sun came out again, casting his diminishing shadow on the pavement. Somewhere, children were screaming.
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!”