Recite the magic words at exactly seventeen minutes past the quarter hour following the six-hour mark before midnight plus one hundred and sixty-six minutes minus seven quarter-hours plus a minute times seven, rounded to the nearest half-hour plus three. Neither a second before nor three seconds after.
(Yes, I’m fully aware it will take you a second or two to say the magic words, but I’m talking about the precise time you begin to say it. Quit being so snooty.)
“Oh, boy,” Edgar said. “Can’t say my head’s in the mood to figure that one out. Glad it’s your problem.”
Tick laid the clue down onto his lap, already scrutinizing its every word. “I’ll have it figured out by the time we stop for you to use the bathroom and buy more Doritos.” He opened up his journal and started jotting down thoughts and calculations from the clue.
“Very funny,” Edgar replied, elbowing his son. “You know, I was so worried about that ‘death’ e-mail you got, but now I’m feeling pretty fat and happy.”
“Better than skinny and sad, I guess,” Tick said.
Edgar laughed. What a great kid I have, he thought. What a great kid.
~
Frazier waited until he and his prey were well out of town, cruising down the long and straight two-lane highway that headed back to Anchorage. He hated how short the days were this far north. It wouldn’t be as fun to watch the coming mayhem in the darkness. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw some lights in the distance, but they seemed too far back for him to be worried. Once he engaged the device, it wouldn’t take long to have his fun and be done with it.
He gripped the Chu controller in his palm, put the tip of his thumb on the button.
Then he pushed it.
~
Tick stared ahead at the long blank road, lost in thought about the sixth clue. The headlights revealed nothing but cracked asphalt and dirty piles of plowed ice, swallowed up in darkness on both sides. There must not be a moon out, he thought. Even the snow seemed black tonight.
“Uh-oh,” his dad said in a worried whisper.
Tick looked over and saw the tight cowl of panic on his dad’s face. He felt something shudder in his chest. “What?”
His dad had both hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel, trying to squeeze the inner lining out of it. “The wheel’s frozen!” His legs moved up and down, alternately pumping the gas and brakes as the frightening, plastic-springy sound of the pedal filled the car.
“Dad, what’s wrong?”
His dad kept yanking on the wheel, pushing on the brakes. “It’s not responding—it’s not doing anything. I can’t do anything!”
“What do you—”
“Son, the car’s out of control—it won’t let me . . .” His voice faded as he tried everything again, his look of disbelief overcoming the panic. “What in the . . .”
Tick could only watch, bile building in his throat and stomach. Something was horribly wrong, and it had to have something to do with their new enemies. “You can’t get it to stop?”
Dad looked over at him, exasperated. “Son, I can’t do anything!”
In unison, they looked forward. The road remained straight for as far as they could see, but it ended in blackness. Anything could be hiding in the darkness, waiting for an out-of-control car to smash into it.
“The steering wheel won’t move?” Tick asked, knowing the answer anyway.
His dad unsnapped his seatbelt, squirming in his chair to turn around.
“What are you doing?” Tick yelled.
Dad reached over and unbuckled Tick’s belt as well. “Someone’s got to us, kid. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
~
From the backseat, Norbert stared at the two cars in front of him as they gained ground, knowing deep inside that something terrible was happening. He sensed frantic movement in Tick’s car—dark shadows bobbing and jerking around—and saw the calm demeanor of the person sitting in the one following them, barely revealed by the headlights of the car in which Norbert sat. They were almost on the stranger.
“It’s now or never,” Norbert said, then tapped the shoulder of the man driving. “Put the pedal to the metal, pal.”
“Do whatever he says,” the girl said to the driver like she was his mother.
~
Frazier laughed as he saw the man and the boy squirming inside their car, desperate for a way out of this little predicament. He looked down at his controller, trying to find the dial that would make the car ahead go even faster. He finally found it and turned it up just a little, loving every minute of this game.
When he finally glanced back up to the road, he yelped as a car zoomed past him on the left, then swerved to the right to cut him off. Overreacting, Frazier slammed on his brakes and twisted the steering wheel, shooting off the road with a horrible squeal of brakes before slamming into a massive snowbank.
His airbag exploded open, scorching his forearms and catapulting the Chu device into the backseat.
~
Tick felt like a sailor going down with a submarine. The front doors wouldn’t open; some kind of permanent locking mechanism kept them sealed.
“What could possibly be doing this?” Dad yelled, struggling to lean his huge girth over the back of the seat to check the rear doors. From the click of the handle being yanked and released, Tick knew they were locked, too. His dad groaned as he dropped back into the driver’s seat.
The car had inexplicably sped up just a few moments earlier, rocketing them faster and faster toward the unknown. The car remained on a straight path for now—the steep piles of snow on the roadside nudging the wheels back onto the road if they began to stray—but it couldn’t last much longer. Tick knew if they hit a turn, they’d be in a whole heap of trouble.
Tick felt a block of ice in the pit of his stomach; they probably had only a minute or two before they’d crash. “We need to break a window!” he yelled.
“Right!” Dad replied. “Plant your back on the seat and kick the windshield with both feet on my signal, okay?”
Desperation swept away Tick’s fear, clearing his mind. “Okay,” he said as he got into position, tucking his journal down the seat of his pants as far as it would go.
When they were both ready, feet stuck up above them, coiled for the kick, Edgar grabbed Tick’s hand. “On three—one . . . two . . . three!”
With synchronized screams, they both kicked the windshield with all their might.
It didn’t budge.
~
Screaming his frustration into the frigid air, a plume of frozen vapor shooting from his mouth, Frazier Gunn tried to open the buckled back door. When it stubbornly refused, he leaned over to look through the window, searching for the Chu controller. He couldn’t see a thing.
How could this have all fallen apart? How?
He shot a quick glance down the road to see the fading red glow of two cars’ taillights. The device would be out of range in a matter of seconds and once that happened, he’d have no more power over the car’s operations. It would continue to drive like a maniacal machine until it ran out of gas or smashed into something.
Of course, without being able to turn, the latter is exactly what would happen. Crash, boom, bang. The thought made him pause, then smile. Chances were, he’d still complete his task, one way or the other. Mistress Jane didn’t need to know all the details.
Not caring anymore about the controller or his banged up car, Frazier turned and headed back toward town.
He needed to find a cemetery.
~
On Tick and his dad’s fifth synchronized kick, a huge crack shot across the wide glass with the sound of breaking glaciers. Tick’s heart leapt to his throat and the next kick seemed to have twice the power from his adrenaline rush. Several more cracks splintered through the windshield like an icy spider web. Tick was crouched too far down in the seat to see up ahead, but his mind assured him they were probably shooting toward a bend in the road with brutal speed. One way or another,
it would all be over very soon.
“One more ought to do it!” his dad yelled, gasping in breaths. “One . . . two . . . THREE!”
Tick kicked with both legs again, and almost slipped to the floor of the car when his feet kept going, crashing through the windshield with the horrible clinking and crackling sound of shattered glass. Several tiny shards flew back into the car from the onrushing wind, but the bulk of the windshield, held together by a strong film of clear plastic, flew up into the air and tumbled away behind them.
“Come on!” Dad yelled, helping Tick back into a sitting position.
The air ripped at their hair and clothes, so cold that Tick’s skin felt like frozen rubber. Squinting his eyes, he saw a big turn in the road a couple of miles directly ahead. He couldn’t tell what waited there, be it a cliff or a field or a towering barn; he saw only darkness, a wall of black tar.
“We’ve gotta hurry!” his dad screamed over the wind. “Together now, come on!”
Summoning every last trace of courage left in his body, Tick followed his dad over the dashboard and through the gaping, wind-pummeled hole that led to the hood of the car.
~
“There they are!” Norbert screamed, his voice squeaky with panic. “Pull up there, right to the front! If those guys jump, they’re dead!”
“Hurry!” the girl yelled.
The blond, fancy-dressed driver obeyed without a word, gunning the engine until their vehicle pulled even with the out-of-control car. Just a few feet away, to Norbert’s right, Tick and his dad had climbed halfway onto the hood of the car, the wind trying to rip them to pieces.
“Okay, get as close as you can,” Norbert said, rolling down the window. “I wanna see every scratch on that there paint job!”
Once again, like a soldier following orders, the driver did as he was told.
~
Tick couldn’t believe his eyes. Out of nowhere, a car had appeared to their left, just a few feet away. His first thought was that whoever had caused this whole mess had pulled up to finish them off. But then the backseat window rolled down, and his heart lifted when he saw the ridiculous face of Norbert Johnson, who was somehow smiling and yelling and crying at the same time.
“Norbert’s come to save you!” he screamed over the howling, rushing wind. “I’ll pull you through the window!”
Tick’s dad immediately scooted back into the car to gain solid footing, then grabbed Tick by both arms, yanking him over to his side and toward Norbert’s open window. “You first!” he yelled.
With no time to lose, Tick carefully inched across the hood, gripping the metal with the tips of his icy cold fingers, his dad helping him along with a firm hold. The other car was literally a foot away from theirs, running side by side like insane drag racers. Before Tick knew it, Norbert had reached out and grabbed him, pulling him through the window and into his car. He groaned and grunted as he rolled past Norbert and fell onto the floor of the backseat, suddenly safe and warm, feeling the sharp corners of his journal poking him in his side.
He scrambled up and onto the seat, looking toward his dad with a sudden burst of terror. His dad had half-crawled onto the hood, gripping the edge of the door bar with one arm and reaching out for Norbert with the other. The look on his dad’s face made Tick hurt inside. He had never seen anything close to the fear and panic and sheer horror that now masked his favorite person’s normally cheerful and bright demeanor. The man looked as terrified as any kid would be, and it scared Tick.
“Get my dad!” he cried. “Please save my dad!”
But Norbert didn’t need any further instruction. He was on his knees, leaning out the window, grabbing at the large man with both hands. Tick knew his dad had to weigh three times what he did, and it wouldn’t be easy to pull him off the other car and into this one. Not able to breathe, he looked ahead.
The road curved sharply to the right, just a hundred feet from where they were.
“Hurry!” he yelled.
Norbert suddenly jerked back into the car, his arms gripped tightly, pulling on Tick’s dad as best he could. Tick watched as his dad’s hands, then arms, then head, then shoulders squeezed through the open window, Norbert screaming with the effort.
“I’m stuck!” Dad yelled. “My big fat tubby body is stuck!”
“No!” Tick yelled. He reached forward and grabbed his dad’s shirt, yanking and pulling as hard as he could. “You can do it, Dad. Suck in your breath!”
“Son, I . . . can’t, I’m stuck!”
Norbert and Tick kept working, gripping and regripping, heaving and reheaving. Though he couldn’t bear to look, Tick knew they only had precious seconds left until it was all over.
“Pull away from the other car and slow down!” Norbert yelled to the driver. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Higginbottom. We won’t let go of you. Keep your feet up!”
The driver veered to the left as he slowly applied the brakes, though it seemed like the worst roller coaster ride in history to Tick. His dad would be roadkill if he slipped out of the window.
“Don’t let go of Big Bear,” Dad whispered to Tick, actually breaking a smile. “Please, don’t let go of me.”
Tick couldn’t talk, he just squeezed his grip even tighter.
Just as the car slowed to a snail’s pace, they heard a horrendous screeching and metallic crunch as the other car slammed into something they couldn’t see. A bright flash lit the night around them as a terrible explosion rocked the air.
Even when they finally came to a complete standstill, and cheers erupted from everyone, including his dad, Tick couldn’t let go. He scrambled around Norbert and hugged his dad’s arms and shoulders and head like he hadn’t seen him in ten years, bursting into tears. After a very long moment, his dad finally spoke up.
“Professor, do you think you could give me a push now? I’m, uh, kind of stuck.”
Chapter
25
~
The Girl with Black Hair
Frazier stood in the snow-swept graveyard, shivering and rubbing his hands together as he waited for Mistress Jane to wink him back to the Thirteenth Reality. He’d sent the nanolocator signal several minutes ago, but she often took her time about these things. She always wanted to make sure people knew the Mistress was in charge; she helped others at her convenience, not theirs.
A crunch in the snow behind him made Frazier spin around to see who had intruded on his waiting ground. He almost lost his lunch when he saw what stood there.
Where did she come from? She must be—
He didn’t have time to finish his thought before the gigantic woman covered his nose and mouth with a foul-smelling piece of cloth, gripping it in place with her huge hand.
As he faded into blackness, he couldn’t help but wonder if Mistress Jane would even miss him.
~
Tick, his journal now clasped in his right hand, stared in disbelief at what could’ve been his death.
Next to him, his dad shook his head, arms folded as he stared down into the gully. “Boy, I’m sure glad I paid ten bucks for insurance. The rental company can pay for that mess.”
They stood with Norbert on the side of the road, watching the licking flames as the once out-of-control car burned. When it ran off the road, the car had shot off a steep embankment and crashed into a rocky ditch, crumpling into a mass of metal and broken glass, consumed by gasoline fire.
Despite the cold, Tick was still sweating from the intensity of their last-second escape. As soon as their rescue car had come to a stop and they’d managed to dislodge his dad, they’d run to this spot, unable to believe that if Norbert had shown up only a few seconds later, Tick and his dad might be buried somewhere in the wreckage below.
“Norbert, I don’t know how we can ever—” Dad said.
The postal worker waved his hand like swatting at flies. “Not another word, Mr. Higginbottom, not another word. I just a-did what any good upstanding citizen would’ve done in the circumstances. You folks made me fee
l like myself again. That’s thanks enough.”
Tick finally broke his stare from the burning car and looked at Norbert. “How did you know we needed help? And who are those people in the car back there?” The driver and his daughter had not gotten out yet, probably still in shock over what they’d just seen. “Why would they want to save us?”
Norbert smiled, a barely noticeable crack in his still-panicked face. “Those are some good questions you’re
a-spouting out, boy, good questions indeed. I reckon they’re in the same boat as you and your daddy, here. Back at the house, I’d just noticed a suspicious car pull onto the road to follow you folks when this fancy man and his little girl showed up, a-looking for the same stuff as you. Let’s go talk to them.” He gestured to the destroyed car. “Gazing down there won’t fix a thing. What’s done is done. Come on.”
They walked back to the car and to the people who had saved their lives. The driver’s side door popped open when they were still a few feet away; a tall, nicely dressed man stepped out, smoothing his greased blond hair back as he did so.
He bowed slightly as they approached, closing his eyes for a long second. “Good evening, sirs.” His accent was thick, maybe German. “I apologize that we have not formally made acquaintance—if you’ll excuse me.”
Tick’s dad had moved forward to shake the man’s hand, but stepped back in surprise as the stranger hurriedly walked around the car and opened the passenger-side door, bowing in deference to the person inside. Baffled, Tick stared as a girl about his age got out of the car and waved at them. Even though they’d been a couple of feet apart during the few crazy seconds it took to save his dad, Tick had not gotten a good look at the girl until now, thanks to the car’s headlights that were still shining brightly in the darkness.
She had an olive complexion and long dark hair framing her brown eyes and thin face. She was maybe an inch or two shorter than Tick and wore clothes that seemed like nothing special—he’d almost expected a princess the way her blond companion acted toward her.