Unable to disentangle the belt quickly enough to save himself, Tommy followed the dog’s example, huddling-squeezing into the floor space between the front and back seats on his side of the car, to avoid being catapulted into his mother’s lap when the ultimate crash came.
Del braked the Jaguar.
The roaring Peterbilt rammed them from behind, not hard, and fell back.
Again Del used the brakes. The tyres barked, and Tommy could smell burning rubber.
The Peterbilt rammed them harder than before, and sheet metal screamed, and the Jaguar shuddered as though it would fly apart like a sprung clock, and Tommy thumped his head against the back of the front seat.
The car was so awash in the glow of the truck’s headlights that Tommy could clearly see the Labrador’s face across the floor from him. Scootie was grinning.
Del braked again, swung hard to the right, but that was only a feint to lead the Peterbilt in the wrong direction, because the truck couldn’t manoeuvre as quickly as the car. Then she swung sharply to the left, as Mother Phan had instructed.
Tommy couldn’t see anything from his dog-level view, but he knew that Del hadn’t been able to get entirely out of the truck’s path, because as they made the left turn, they were struck again, clipped only at the extreme back end of the vehicle but hit with tremendous force, an impact that made Tommy’s ears ring and jarred through every bone, and the Jaguar spun. They went through one full revolution, and then another, perhaps a third, and Tommy felt as though he had been tossed into an industrial-size clothes dryer.
Tyres stuttered across the pavement, tyres exploded, rubber remnants slapped loudly against fender wells, and steel wheel rims scraped-shrieked across the pavement. Pieces of the car tore free, clattered along the undercarriage, and were gone.
But the Jaguar didn’t roll over. It came out of the spin, rattling and pinging, lurching like a hobbled horse, but on all four wheels.
Tommy extracted himself from the cramped floor space between front and back seats, scrambled up, and looked out the rear window.
The dog joined him at the window, ear to ear.
As before, the Peterbilt had overshot the intersection.
‘How was that for driving,’ Del demanded.
Mother Phan said, ‘You never get insurance again.’
Beside Tommy, the Labrador whimpered.
Even Deliverance Payne was not going to be able to coax any speed out of the Jaguar in its current debilitated condition. The sports car chugged forward, loudly rattling and clanking, hissing, pinging, pitching and yawing, spouting steam, haemorrhaging fluids – like one of those rattletrap pickup trucks that comic hillbillies always drove in the movies.
Behind them, the huge Peterbilt reversed into the intersection through which they had just been flung.
‘We’ve got at least two blown tyres,’ Del said, ‘and the oil pressure is dropping fast.’
‘Not far,’ said Tommy’s mother. ‘Garage door be open, you pull in, all safe.’
‘What garage door?’ Del asked.
‘Garage door at Quy’s house.’
‘Oh, yes, the hairdresser witch.’
‘She no witch. Just come from Xan River, learn few things when she was girl.’
‘Sorry if I caused offence,’ Del said.
‘There, see, two houses ahead on right, lights on. Garage door open, you pull in, Quy Dai close door, all safe.’
The demon driver shifted gears, and the Peterbilt pulled into the street behind them. Its headlights swept across the rear window, across Tommy.
Scootie whimpered again. He licked Tommy’s face, either to reassure him or to say goodbye.
Facing front, wiping dog slobber off his cheek, Tommy said, ‘How can I be safe? It’s not dawn yet. The thing will see where we’ve gone.’
‘Can’t follow there,’ his mother said.
‘I’m telling you, it’ll drive straight through the house,’ he predicted.
‘No. Quy is one who made doll, called spirit from underworld, so it not allowed hurt her. Can’t enter house if Quy Trang Dai herself don’t make invitation.’
‘With all due respect, Mom, I don’t think we can count on demons being quite that polite.’
‘No, your mother’s probably right,’ Del said. ‘The supernatural world operates on its own laws, rather like we operate under the laws of physics.’