“How did you get your mom to lend it to you?” she asked. Since his father’s accident, Rex’s mother hardly ever showed her face in Bixby. Dess couldn’t imagine her handing over the keys for an early morning joyride.
“She dropped by for a visit night before last,” Rex said. “And I got the idea of pulling her starter cable out.”
Dess’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“It was easy. I snuck out while she was in the bathroom and pulled out the starter cable.” Rex gave his new evil smile. “She was in a hurry to get somewhere else, like always, so I called her a cab. She’s already rented another Caddy, so this one’s mine until I tell her it’s fixed.”
Dess and Jonathan exchanged a glance, and she saw that even Jessica had woken up enough to be impressed.
“Rex,” Dess said. “That is so cold-blooded.”
“True.” He nodded. “But I needed a car. We have important things to take care of.”
“Like getting us all out of bed at six-thirty on a Saturday morning?” Flyboy asked.
“Exactly.” Rex looked at his watch. “Come with me.”
He led them across the field toward the rip, and Dess found herself glad that she’d worn a skirt that didn’t fall below her knees. At this time of morning the long grass was heavy with dew, and her sneakers got soaked as fast as if she’d been strolling through a car wash.
As they marched, the sun began to crest over the distant tree line, its glaring eye finally putting a dent in the fierce pre-dawn chill.
“This better be good, Rex.”
“Don’t worry, Dess,” he said. “I think you’ll find it interesting.”
“At six-thirty in the morning I was hoping for better than ‘interesting,’ Rex.”
“I’m sure Jessica won’t disappoint us.”
Dess looked at Jessica, who just shrugged back at her.
Suddenly Dess noticed that Melissa hadn’t walked with them. “Hey, where’s the bitch goddess? She’s not back at your Caddy sleeping, is she?”
Rex shook his head. “She’ll be along in… two minutes.”
“Great. More split-second timing.” Dess sighed. “Hope this goes better than your last little scheme.”
“There’s just one thing, guys,” Jessica said nervously. “Cassie Flinders lives right over there. What if she sees us?”
“She won’t remember us.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Rex raised an eyebrow. “Why would she?”
Jessica looked over at the Flinders’ double-wide with an unhappy expression on her face. “Well, I wasn’t going to mention this, but she and my sister have been… hanging out. I was afraid to tell you guys in case…” She didn’t finish.
In case the bitch goddess decided to rip your little sister’s brain in half, Dess thought.
She looked at Rex, wondering if he was about to do one of his psycho transformations. But after a pause he only shrugged. “Everyone will know about the blue time soon enough, Jessica. It doesn’t matter.”
“Wow,” Jessica said, looking stunned. “That’s actually kind of a relief.”
Flyboy put his arm around her, smiling, but the idea of Rex not caring about secrecy sent a minor shudder through Dess. As she turned away to study the rip, the realness of how Samhain would change everything sank in yet another notch.
The rip wasn’t glowing red here in normal time, but Dess could see its current shape in the color of the grass, as if the contortion were a giant piece of lawn furniture. Maybe the dark moon was mutating the chlorophyll or something. She noted the rip’s geometry: a long, thin oval pointing almost due east and west.
She took out Geostationary and noted the coordinates of its center. Almost exactly on the 36th parallel.
Maybe not worth getting up at six-thirty in the morning for, but interesting.
“Okay, good. No daylighters around,” Rex said.
“That’s because they’re all in bed,” Dess pointed out.
Rex ignored her. “I want to do a few experiments here today, and I want all of you to see them. When Samhain comes, all of Bixby—at least—is going to be swallowed by this contortion. And as we’ve noticed, the rip isn’t exactly the same size as the blue time. You’ve all seen those leaves falling at midnight?”
“Yeah,” Dess said. “But what’s the point? It’s not midnight now.”
“Not yet,” Rex said.
“No.” Dess looked down at Geostationary. “And it won’t be for another 62,615 seconds. So why are we here so—?”
“Whoa!” Jonathan interrupted. “What’s up with Melissa?”
Dess turned to see the Cadillac galloping across the field. It climbed up the railway embankment and straddled the tracks, its tires spitting gravel and dust as it bore down on them like a maniacal pink freight train, headlights flicking on.
“Has she gone crazy?” Dess shouted.
“Nope,” Rex said, glancing at his watch. “She’s right on time. But we might want to get out of the way.”
The four of them skidded down the slope of the embankment, and the Cadillac seemed to roar its approval, bolting forward with a burst of acceleration, the spinning tires churning up a giant cloud of dust.
Dess felt a tingling in her fingertips, stronger than she had in the lunchroom, and suddenly knew what was about to happen.
“It’s back,” she said softly.
“You got it,” Rex answered.
Dess looked up at the charging Cadillac with alarm. “But won’t she…?”
The inky blue of an eclipse swept in from the east, across the cloudless sky and open fields, stilling the icy wind and blanketing the world in silence. The dark moon shot into the sky, like a huge flying saucer hovering just out of reach.
Yet the Cadillac kept rolling across the red-tinged oval of the rip.
Its engine died, the headlights going dark, but it didn’t freeze like it should have. The car continued to coast until it finally skidded to a halt in a shower of dust and gravel.
Dess blinked as she took in the sight: instead of throwing Melissa through the windshield, the pink Cadillac had maintained its momentum.
“Is she okay in there?” Flyboy asked.
Rex nodded. “She’s fine. As I suspected, the rip brings everything into the blue time, not just people. I figured if dead leaves could still fall, then dead metal would cross over too.”
“It’s awfully lucky you figured right.” Dess didn’t much care for Melissa anymore, but it wasn’t like she wanted her back in the hospital. Her current scars were creepy enough.
“She was wearing a seat belt,” Rex said calmly.
“Wait a minute, Rex,” Dess said. “How did you know there was going to be an eclipse?”
He was silent for a moment, his violet eyes narrowing. “There’s a pattern. I can see when they’re coming, all of them between now and Samhain. This one should last for a while longer.”
“You can see a pattern?” Dess cried. “Then write it down for me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t express it in numbers, not without my head exploding. But she can give it to you.” He pointed toward the Cadillac.
The driver’s side door opened, and Melissa got out shakily, grinning from ear to ear. “That was cool!”
Dess shook her head. No way was Melissa touching her again.
“I thought you were afraid of driving fast,” Jessica said.
The bitch goddess shrugged. “You have to face your fears to conquer them, Jess. That’s what Rex has been telling me lately.”
“You two are both nuts,” Dess said softly.
Rex raised an eyebrow. “This experiment wasn’t just for kicks, Dess. We had to make sure that when midnight falls on Samhain, it won’t kill everyone who happens to be in a car. Which is one less thing to worry about.”
Everyone was quiet for a second, and Dess realized she hadn’t even thought about that. If the rip really did expand to consume a million people, and only one percent of them were driving at midnight, that would have been ten thousand Melissas going through their windshields all at once.