Mr. Fahrenheit (22 page)

Anger surged through him. This wasn't what he was looking for!

The vision of space vanished, and now Benji was—he didn't understand it—he was at CR's father's quarry in the daytime, holding some kind of electronic handheld device against the ground. The device began to beep, and Benji pulled out his phone. “This is McKedrick,” he said in McKedrick's voice.

What is this? Why am I McKedrick?

“I may have something here in Indiana, ma'am,” Benji/McKedrick said. “Nothing like we've seen before. The local police and DEA finally cleared out of the area, and there are definite traces of possible activity. There's a kid involved, more than one, perhaps. Ma'am, I'd like to see if I can talk some sense into him before Omega moves in. He seems like a decent young man, if naive, and I believe I can put the fear of God in him. It's possible the kid doesn't yet know enough to be dangerous. It's even possible I'm on a wild-goose chase, perhaps. Yes, ma'am, I understand the risk to the division. I assume full responsibility.
I won't let you down. And ma'am, if you don't hear from me by eighteen hundred hours, please feel free to send in the whole damn cavalry. . . .”

The corridor, again.

A light was growing ahead. He sped toward it. It wasn't an exit, but something like a mirror maze that had been flooded with smoke. The mirrors around him bore images of the night of the saucer shootdown. Seeing the images filled him with excitement. He was closer. Where were the ones he needed?

Now Benji felt a pain so overwhelming that it was as if the Voyager were dragging Its claws across his brain, flicking through gray matter, digging deep. He crashed through mirror after mirror, searching desperately. He saw the saucer shootdown again, then went further back in time to when he'd spoken to Ellie on the frozen lake during the quarry party. That conversation had reminded him of the House, and now Benji was thinking about the hallucination of the monster that had come out of the House's cellar. Inexplicably, the hallucination filled him, for the first time, with relief. . . .

“
Get the hell away from my child!
” Papaw roared a billion miles away.

A blast of light. Benji fell, hitting the ground hard. He looked around, dazed, seeing the pebbled plain of the alley's concrete floor. He was still where he had been before the creature touched him. In fact, it was as if almost no time had passed: A few feet away, Papaw was striding toward the creature with his pistol raised. The creature turned toward Papaw, raising its own, far deadlier weapon.

“Papaw, get down! It will kill you!”

The weapon Papaw brandished began to glow.

What? When did Papaw get the ray gun?

Three green ovals jetted out from the ray gun in Papaw's
hand, painting the world atomically. The Voyager reacted too late: It spun, sparing itself a direct hit but taking the shot midway up Its left arm. The impact sent the creature corkscrewing through the air; Benji ducked and saw Zeeko, who was behind him, do the same.

The creature slammed into a brick wall beside the X-ray mobile, sending fissures through the bricks.

The creature recovered quickly, moving across the wall with the speed of a spider. Still in motion, It raised one claw toward Papaw. It was holding the ray gun. Benji did not understand, because hadn't Papaw just had the Voyager's gun?

It didn't matter. Benji reached into his tux. His fingers found the pistol, tried to draw it out.

The alien and Papaw fired simultaneously. Impossibly and inexplicably,
they both fired ray guns simultaneously.

Because both leaped to evade the other's blast, neither hit their target. Their bolts struck empty space, peppering the battle zone with brick and concrete.

Benji covered his head, then finally yanked the pistol free of the magnet. He drew the weapon, whirling on his heels, his gaze sweeping around the alley. He had no idea where the creature was.

Zeeko, who had dived to the ground when Papaw's shot sent the creature spiraling, stood unsteadily, searching the area around him, too. Benji tasted fine metallic fear at the back of his mouth.

He slowly looked in the other direction, where Papaw and Ellie stood. Holding fiercely on to the lip of a Dumpster, Papaw was struggling to his feet, still recovering from the shootout. His hat had fallen to the ground. Ellie walked to him, her footsteps the only sound disturbing the eerie quiet. She wrapped an arm around Papaw, helping him up the final few inches. Benji
felt a painful clutch of gratitude.

“Sheriff, not for nothing,” Ellie said, “but what in the blue hell is happening here?”

“Is It dead?” Papaw whispered.

“God, I hope so,” Zeeko said.

I don't think he hit It
, Benji thought, his mind still racing with adrenaline and a billion questions about how Papaw knew about any of this.

“Honey, fetch me my gun,” Papaw said to Ellie. “I dropped it under the Dumpst—”

Zeeko screamed. The arms of the creature, glistening like wasps, had erupted from the shadows beneath the X-ray mobile.

The claws wrapped around Zeeko's ankles. Zeeko fell, hitting the ground face-first. “No!” he cried, clawing the ground as he was reeled toward the shadows. “Help me! Oh God, please help me!”

One claw reached out and seized Zeeko's forehead. Instantly, Zeeko went limp.

Benji fired his pistol at the shape in the dark. The shot was off by yards, way too high. Somebody pushed him to the side. The shotgun appeared over his shoulder, and fired.

The buckshot hit just below the driver's door of the X-ray mobile.

The front tire exploded with an airburst.

The shotgun pumped, then shot out one of the rear tires.

The X-ray mobile plummeted violently on the flattened rubber. In his mind, Benji felt a cold inarticulate rage and pain from the Voyager. The creature released Zeeko, Its arms vanishing back under the car.

Zeeko scrambled to his feet, tears of fear and relief in his eyes. “Oh holy Jesus, thank you,” he wheezed. “Also, Ellie, thank you.”

Benji turned and saw with a small shock that Ellie was holding the shotgun. “This is one of those moments,” she whispered shakily, “when I am very grateful that my dad refused to pay for ballet lessons.”

Papaw patted Ellie on the shoulder. Once again, Benji was bursting with questions, and this time, Papaw seemed to acknowledge it: He looked at Benji and, after a moment, nodded sympathetically. Still, he spoke only to Ellie. “That was smart thinking, Annie Oakley. But I need to see the body.”

With the inexplicable ray gun in his hand, Papaw approached the X-ray mobile. He bent cautiously, peering under the vehicle a few feet away. He unfastened an LED flashlight from his belt.

“You guys,” Zeeko said to Ellie and Benji, “something happened to me. When It touched me, I saw—”

Papaw clicked his flashlight's button several times. The flashlight wouldn't ignite.

“Here, Papaw,” Benji whispered.

“Stay back, Benjamin.”

Benji snapped his fingers, demonstrating the fire, and Papaw relented. They kneeled together. Benji put the pistol in his outer jacket pocket, snapped again. The phosphorescent flash was brief, the FireFingers nearly exhausted, and the light didn't quite penetrate the hiding place beneath the vehicle.

“Maybe we crushed It,” Papaw said.

“Papaw, can you tell me what—”

“Snap again, boy.”

This time his light breached the dark, barely.

“Again . . .” Papaw instructed. They moved a few inches closer. Benji snapped again, his heart a fist pounding at the base of his throat.

The fleeting light washed across almost everything beneath
the vehicle. At the farthest rim of his light's reach, something large shimmered in the dark.

Benji snapped, one final time.

The shimmering object was a manhole cover, standing almost on end.

Everything inside Benji froze.

He breathed: “
Trapdoor.
”

“What?”

“Trapdoor—to the sewer!—” Benji stammered. He spun back toward the manhole the Voyager had first emerged from, knowing even as he did that he was too late, that he had been bested by the oldest trick in the book.

Ellie Holmes didn't see it coming. An instant ago, the creature had vanished down one manhole, into the dark network of pipes, and now, with a speed no conjuror had ever dreamed, It rematerialized from the hole behind Ellie. Hideous claws flew from the dark, seizing her by the waist. The shotgun flew from her hands and hit the pavement, discharging into the air. She cried out. Benji ran for her with every measure of strength his unathletic frame possessed, and when she began to fall into the dark pit, he dove, flying, arms outstretched, and there was one infinite moment when their fingertips grazed one another. . . .

Then she was gone, vanished, poof and good-bye, the sound of her scream fading into the catacombs below Bedford Falls.

He stared into the pipe, shock surging through him. Her voice grew softer, farther away, the wail of a little girl lost. A wild thought echoed in Benji's mind:
Ladies and gentlemen, for my next trick, I will make the love of my life disappear! And then someone—some Thing—will saw her in two!!

Benji's torso was already into the pipe when hands grabbed
him and pulled him up. He threw them off—they were meaningless, nothing mattered except getting down there—but Papaw wouldn't let go.

“Son, stop!”

“Papaw, It's got her!”

“I know it, but you goin' down there won't do a thing to help.”

“
I don't care!
This is my fault, let me go—”

“
Benjamin, listen to your grandfather, dammit!
”

Benji looked up at him.

“If there's a chance on this earth to save that girl, we'll do it. I swear to you. But I don't think the beast will hurt her yet.”

“How do you know that?”

Papaw turned to Zeeko, who was sitting on the ground shaking and gazing a light-year away. “Zeeko, can you drive a stick?
Zeeko!
”

Zeeko snapped from his stupor. “Yes, sir. I can.”

“Then get into that SUV and follow me. We may need two cars later. Benjamin's riding with me.”

Gritting his teeth, Papaw pulled Benji to his feet, and as he led him toward the cruiser he'd stopped in front of the X-ray mobile, he finally spoke to Benji again.

“There are things you need to know, Benjamin. It's time to tell you all of them. It's well past that time, actually.”

“Papaw, none of this makes sense.”

“This is my fault, Benjamin.
My
sin.”

“W-what?”

“I met this Beast before. A lifetime ago. I was . . . I was your age, driving this car like it was the only thing that ever mattered.”

Confused, Benji followed his grandfather's gaze.

The car Papaw had driven here had a removable domed police light attached to its roof, but it was not a police cruiser.
It was a 1959 Cadillac. It had been pelted with debris, but even in the aftermath of the confrontation, it glowed like a moonlit dream.

Dream Machine
, Benji thought.
That's the car from . . .

“This is happening,” Papaw said, the words catching in his throat, “because of something I did when I was younger. . . .”

Benji barely heard. He was staring at the side paneling of the Cadillac, which was covered by hand-painted words that time had faded but not erased . . . .

“OFFICIAL” CAR OF THE “ATOMIC BOBS”!

BOBBY “CAPTAIN CELSIUS” VOLPE!

ROBBY “KID NUCLEAR” KING!

BOB “MR. FAHRENHEIT” LIGHTMAN!

Fire always has been, and seemingly will always remain, the most terrible of the elements.

—Harry Houdini

Thank you, Bedford Falls! You've made this a real unforgettable night! Drive careful out there!

—Robert Lightman of the Atomic Bobs

(Homecoming Carnival, 1959)

“W
hen I was young,” Papaw said, “my father told me the best thing about being a teenager is that it won't last long. He never bothered to tell me that it's also the worst part. Benjamin, remember that. As I'm telling you this story, please remember that and try to forgive me.”

Benji nodded, speechless, numb, as Papaw drove the Cadillac out of the alley. Papaw switched on the mobile scanner on the dashboard. The dispatcher reported some fender benders and fights around the football stadium, and said a snowstorm was moving in from the east. Satisfied that there were no reports about the battle in the alley, Papaw turned the scanner off.

They steered onto the highway, Papaw's face pale in the thin, lonesome lights that baptized it.

“In the alley,” he said, “that wasn't the first time I seen the Beast. It came lookin' for you at our house this afternoon. I fought It off, barely. But that wasn't the first time, neither. It's been to Bedford Falls before.”

Benji was silent for a long time, still unable to process any of what was happening. “When . . . when did you see It?”

“A lifetime ago.”

“You saw the alien a lifetime ago.” Voice flat.

“Yes, son.”

“Then, why . . . You said . . . You've never acted like you believed in anything like this, Papaw.” He felt like he was trying to grasp an ungraspable thing.

“I
didn't
believe in it. I know it doesn't make sense, Benjamin. You'll understand everything soon.

“I was seventeen when I saw It. Just outside of Bedford Falls, there was a drive-in theater, and I was there—well, near it.”

“You were in this car, weren't you? Your Dream Machine.”

Papaw looked at him, stunned.

“And you were on a date, with a girl named Judy.”

“How in the
hell
did you know that?”

“I dreamed it. But how? How could I dream
your
memory? It doesn't make any sense.”

“No, it does. It makes perfect sense, son. What else do you know about that night?”

“There was a green light in the sky. The radio started playing that song, ‘The Voyager.' I heard this voice in my head—your head, I guess—say, ‘I AM MR. FAHRENHEIT.' I thought it was the alien's name. But Mr. Fahrenheit was you?”

“Well, not precisely.”

For a moment it seemed that Papaw's breath was hitching in his chest. He turned his head quickly, checking the side-view mirror. They drove on, passing through shades of shadow and light, and when Papaw looked back, his voice was steady.

“Mr. Fahrenheit was some Hollywood bullshit name I made, that's all. I thought it sounded good, like somethin' Brando or James Dean would have—
oh, who gives a damn about that, Lightman!
” Papaw said bitterly.

Benji flinched. He'd never seen Papaw so upset, so angry at himself.

Papaw took a deep, steadying breath. “Point is,” he said, “I was practically pissin' myself when I saw the light that night, so I did what I always did when I was scared back then: I told myself I wasn't just Bobby Lightman. I was somebody else. Mr. Fahrenheit.

“So, I get out of the Dream Machi— the Cadillac. Judy is raisin' hell, but she calms down a little when the music stops and the light starts going into the woods a-ways deeper. She wants to go home. I say, ‘No, Judy. Let's go see what this was.' She says maybe it's a meteorite, maybe it's a satellite, neither of which sound very appealin' to her. ‘I'm not gettin' back in the car, Bob Lightman, unless you
promise
to take me home.' Now, I'm not proud of this, but I just told her, ‘Okay, then,' tossed my flashlight to her, and drove off. The actual drive-in was only a five-minute walk down the hill, but she 'bout turned the air blue. I never heard a girl curse like that. Well, Bob Lightman wasn't exactly being gentleman of the year, either, so okay, fair enough.”

“Why didn't you want to go home?”

“I have no earthly idea.”

“Did you know what the light was?”

“No, I just . . . I seen that light, and I just felt like I was
supposed
to follow it, like if I was brave enough to go after it, then I—”

“You could
become
Mr. Fahrenheit,” Benji finished.
Like I thought I could become Benji Blazes.

“Or some such similar bull,” Papaw said brusquely. “I tailed that green light for miles and miles, almost all the way back to Bedford Falls. It started rainin' real heavy, and I had to follow it through the woods on these roads that weren't hardly roads at
all. Then there was this lightning flash, and when it ended, the green light wasn't in the sky anymore. I thought I'd lost it. No such luck. It had
landed
.

“I seen the light ahead in this kind of valley. I parked in the woods and walked the last hundred feet or so. I truly did think of goin' back to the car, 'cause I had no notion of where in the world I even was. There were sounds ahead of me, like the earth was being ripped up. Thunder, I reckoned.

“I couldn't quite see the saucer yet—it was farther back in the valley—but I could just see this shape moving in the rain. It had legs but they were not touching the ground. I thought,
It's an angel
. Ha. Maybe the one that lost the War in Heaven.

“I tried to go closer, but It must have seen me. It just flew at me, like It wanted to stop me before I could see what It was doing. I couldn't even move. And I felt something touch my head.”

“What happened?” said Benji. “Did you—did It make you see anything?”

“No, because the Beast didn't use Its
hand
to touch me. It was holding this thing.” Papaw patted the ray gun strapped in his hip holster.

“It wanted to kill you?”

“Sure seemed that way. But right then, I hear this
BANG
, and there were black cars speedin' up this hill. I guess you know where the boys drivin' the cars drew their paychecks. The Beast turned, like to go back to Its saucer—”

“Why didn't It just kill you? All of you, if It had Its ray gun?”

“I don't know, Benjamin. You're right: It probably could've killed me
and
most of them in a heartbeat. All I know is, the creature saw those cars, and all of a sudden It turns back to me, and then It
did
touch me with its hand. The world kinda went away, like everything was fading. I could feel Its panic, Its fear.
I believe that once It touches you, you have some kind of weak connection to It, maybe one that's activated when It's close to you. And It can't look into your mind without letting you look into Its own. When It touched me, I knew: It had a secret. It had
buried
something there. . . .”

“What did the Voyager bury?”

“I . . . dammit, I couldn't quite see it! But It had come here for a reason, and It didn't want me to remember seeing It at all. I could feel It fogging my mind, Benjamin, making my memory get dimmer. It didn't disappear right away, but it happened soon enough. And I haven't been able to even think about that night for decades, until today.”

“Why can you remember all of it now?”

Papaw sighed wearily. “The last few nights, I been having nightmares. I suppose that Beast and I are still connected, and when It came back and sensed me close by, that helped It—and me—remember bits and pieces.

“Anyway, that night, It went back to the saucer and flew away.
Adios
went the cars, too. But It dropped Its gun accidentally, It was so scared. I didn't know this monstrosity was a weapon, a'course. I just put it in my pocket, and you better believe I left skid marks on the road that night goin' home. I locked that gun in a trunk in our attic, and the memories got locked away, too.

“That Beast—that Voyager, that's as good a name as any—did do somethin' to my mind to make me forget. But . . . maybe that's not the whole reason I forgot, Benjamin. Maybe as time passed, I just doubted myself in the light of day. You tell yourself it's not possible, how could you believe such foolishness? And then you start a summer job at the police station, and you push back college for a semester to take 'er easy, and hell, the job you had over the summer is still open, so why not stay until you leave? Then one day, you look up from your desk and realize
your job has become your career. It's become your life. I told myself, well, I can be like my own daddy. A real cowboy gunslinger. I don't know if I ever filled those boots. But you don't want to spoil the happiness you've found by lookin' back. God, you don't know how rare happiness is.

“Then this afternoon, the Voyager came to the house. It touched me, unlocked and looked into my memories, and that's when I understood: It was lookin' for
you.
”

“I don't understand. Why would It need
anyone's
memories, let alone mine?”

“Don't you see, son? It's been playin' those damn old songs because It doesn't have any
new
ones to play. Ellie is safe, at least for now, at least I think, because you and your friends have something It
needs
. That Beast was here years ago, It went away, and now It's come back . . .
but It doesn't know
why
it did any of it
. It had a plan, but can't remember what the reason is! The night you shot It down, you damn near killed It—It took a few days to recover—and you did something to Its mind.

“It doesn't know why It came back, Benjamin . . .
but you do.
”

It doesn't know, Benjamin . . . but you do.

The words clanged in Benji's mind like discordant bells.

You know
.

There was undeniably a kind of logic to Papaw's theory; it made sense of the mysteries since the Voyager's arrival. But Benji felt no relief—only a kind of vertigo.

Because even if Papaw had just explained everything, on a deeper level Benji didn't
know
anything. He looked at his grandfather's face, which, in the soft radiance of the Cadillac's instrument panel, appeared almost unlined. Benji had recently feared Papaw would die, but now, hurtling through a nightmare
in the front seat of a long-lost dream, a new and overwhelming knowledge came to him: His grandfather was
alive
. Papaw existed now, and always had,
independently
of Benji. Papaw had had his own youth and dread and hopes and a heart that beat with the same fierce and chaotic yearning as Benji's own. His grandfather was a
person
, neither more nor less real than Benji. The world of his youth had surely been different, but “different” was a past-tense idea, something that could only be understood by looking back. And Papaw had not lived looking back. He had only lived.

And it was then that Benji understood his own great sin: his blinding, idiotic obsession with obliterating his past. The dreams of childhood were dangerous illusions, things he should have left behind. The true “dark man,” the true man in black, was Papaw, for he'd held more mysteries within him than either of them knew. Neither Benji nor Papaw had seen what was really happening around them, because they didn't want to. They hadn't paid attention to reality, but only to their desperate attempts to make it into what they wanted it to be.

I didn't feel like I should spend time with the pod because I was “meant to,
” Benji realized.
The Voyager was just manipulating me.
It had hidden in the pod, gravely injured and trying to piece everything together in Its scattered mind, only emerging and pursuing Benji when It was about to be turned in to the government.

“I don't know what the Voyager wants, Papaw,” Benji said. “When It touched me, It looked through my memory, but I didn't even see anything important. There were flashes from the night we shot it down, but there wasn't anything useful. Some of what I saw wasn't even real. All I felt was Its anger. And that It's lonely. All alone, maybe.”

“I think you know more than you realize, son,” Papaw said. “Let's talk to Zeeko, okay? Maybe that'll help.”

“Sure, I definitely saw something real when It touched me for a second, Mr. Lightman,” Zeeko said. It was clear that he kept his voice steady only with tremendous effort.

They'd pulled over to the side of the highway. A sodium lamp buzzed overhead. “I saw it that night at the quarry, when we shot it down,” Zeeko said. “Benji, remember I said I saw something else at the bottom of the lake? That's what the alien kept looking at, in here.” He tapped his temple.

“Did you get any kind of feelin' about why It wanted to see that?” Papaw asked.

“I just know it's something very important to the Voyager. It buried something there; I don't know what the something is, but I think It was trying to use the tractor beam to pull it out of the lake when we shot the saucer down. It's something
powerful.
” Zeeko shivered. “Mr. Lightman, should we go to the lake and try to stop It?”

Papaw shook his head. “No, that Thing had a head start on us. I imagine It's already got whatever It needed.”

“Papaw, when you were young and saw the Voyager burying something, could that have been at the quarry?”

“No, the quarry was just farmland back then. I saw the Voyager in the woods.”

“Okay. But if the Voyager needed to get something from the lake, and It already knew that after It touched Zeeko, why would It still need Ellie?”

Zeeko answered. “Because whatever was in the lake was only
part
of what It needs. The Voyager was really relieved when It got my memory, but It also felt angry, or frustrated, like I hadn't given It enough info.”

“Zeeko, you're doin' a helluva good job tonight,” Papaw said. Zeeko smiled gratefully. “So, it seems like you all—Zeeko, Ellie, Benjamin, and maybe CR, although I'm sure he's safe now, at the game—have bits of information. But none of y'all have the whole puzzle, so It's just tryin' now to put it all together. Benjamin, did Ellie ever say anything unusual, anything
she
saw that nobody else did?”