Paige was still a hundred feet from the cabin when the left front tire
of the Jeep hit the low concrete porch steps and climbed them as if they
were a ramp. The right front tire spun through empty air for an
instant, then grabbed the porch floor as the bumper tore through the
wall of screen.
She expected the porch to give way under the weight. But the Jeep
seemed airborne as the rear left tire launched it off the top of the
three steps.
,. , Flying. Taking out panels of screen and the frames that hold
them in place, as if they’re spider webs, gossamer.
Straight at the door. Like an incoming round of mortar fire. A two-ton
shell.
Closes his eyes. Windshield might implode.
Bone-jarring impact. Thrown forward. Safety harness jerks him back, he
exhales explosively, currents of pain briefly scintillate through his
chest.
A percussive symphony of boards splintering, jack studs cracking in
half, door jamb disintegrating, lintel fracturing. Then forward motion
ceases, the Jeep crashes down.
He opens his eyes.
The windshield is still intact.
The Jeep is in the living room of the cabin, facing a sofa and an
overturned armchair. It’s tipped forward because the front wheels broke
through the flooring into the air space below.
The Jeep doors are above the cabin floor and unobstructed. He
disengages the seatbelt and gets out of the station wagon with one of
the .38 pistols in his right hand.
Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
He hears creaking overhead and looks up. The ceiling is broken and
sagging but will probably hold together. Powdery snow and dead brown
pine needles sift down through the cracks.
The floor is littered with broken glass. The windows flanking the cabin
door have shattered.
He is thrilled by the destruction. It inflames his fury.
The living room is deserted. Through the archway he can see most of the
kitchen, and no one’s in there, either.
Two closed doors are featured in the wide pass-through between living
room and kitchen, one to the left and one to the right. He moves to the
right.
If the false father is waiting on the other side, the very act of
opening the door will trigger a fusillade.
He wants to avoid being shot if at all possible because he does not want
to have to crawl away to heal again. He wants to finish this now, here,
today.
If his wife and children have not already been replicated and replaced
by alien forms, they will surely not be permitted to remain human much
longer. Night is coming. Less than an hour away. From movies, he
knows these things always happen at night–alien assault, parasite
injection, attacks by shape-changers and soul-stealers and things that
drink blood, all at night, either when the moon is full or there is no
moon at all, but at night.
Instead of throwing the door open even from a safe position to one side,
he steps in front of it, raises the .38, and opens fire.
The door is not solid wood but a Masonite model with a foam core, and
the hollow-point rounds punch big holes at point-blank range.
Jolting through his arms, the recoil of the Chief’s Special is
enormously satisfying, almost a sexual experience, bringing a small me
sure of relief from his intense frustration and anger. He keeps
squeezing the trigger until the hammer clicks on empty chambers.
No screams from the room beyond. No sounds at all as the roar of the
last gunshot fades.
He throws the gun on the floor and draws the second .38 from the
shoulder holster under his varsity jacket.
He kicks open the door and goes inside fast, the gun thrust out in front
of him.
It’s a bedroom. Deserted.
Soaring frustration fans the flames of rage.
Returning to the pass-through, he faces the other closed door.
For a moment the sight of the Jeep flying across the porch and slamming
through the front wall of the cabin brought Paige to a halt.
Although it was happening in front of her and though she had no doubt
that it was real, the crash had the unreal quality of a dream. The