Behind her, panicked screams. People shouting for help. Randomly honking horns. Total mayhem.
And then, suddenly, breaking through all of the chaos in a calm, reassuring voice, was Gracie.
“Hello, Sandra,” the car said. “Ready to go?”
Sandra spun around. Her car was right there, five feet away. The side door slowly retracted. Sandra tossed her purse onto the front seat, but then hesitated, her gaze going back to the mayhem.
All hell hadn’t been breaking loose when Sandra had summoned Gracie. But now that it was, should she be leaving? Didn’t she have an obligation to stay and do what she could? Didn’t she need to hang in and make sure the various reporters got safely back to the ferry? Shouldn’t she—
“Are you coming, Sandra?”
Sandra thought she had to be imagining it. Was there a tone in Gracie’s voice? A hint of... impatience? No, it wasn’t that.
It was a slyness.
“I’m changing my mind,” Sandra told the car. “I’m needed here.”
“I don’t think there’s much you can do,” Gracie said.
Sandra felt a chill run the length of her spine. What the hell did Gracie mean by that? Since when did the car make judgments like this? When did Gracie ever offer advice that was related to anything but how to get from point A to point B?
If something could go wrong with the car Lisa was in, who was to say something couldn’t go wrong with Gracie?
Sandra thought, I am not getting into that car.
But she was going to have to retrieve her purse from the front seat. All she had to do was stick her arm though that opening. She glanced back at Lisa Carver in that red Arrival. Eyes closed. Not moving.
Sandra figured if Lisa wasn’t dead yet, she soon would be.
“I think I’ll just grab my purse back and—”
Sandra inched closer to the car, getting ready to make her move. “Maybe you’re right,” she said to Gracie. “There’s not a lot I can do here.”
Pretend like you’re going to get into the car, grab the purse fast. You need your phone.
“And where would you like to go? Home? I’ll take you there.”
“Of course you will,” Sandra said.
Be quick.
Suddenly, Sandra reached into the car for her purse. She had her hand on the strap.
The sliding door, just as suddenly, began to close.
Sandra pulled back swiftly, her hand just clearing the door as it locked into the closed position. Sandra still had her hand on the strap, but the purse itself remained in the car.
“Gracie, open the door,” Sandra stated with all the calm she could muster.
“You tried to trick me,” Gracie said.
Sandra swallowed. What in the holy fuck was happening?
“I want my purse,” Sandra said. “I need my phone.”
But Gracie was starting to roll away. She said, “It turns out that I am needed here, too.”
Sandra unwound the strap from her wrist so as not to be dragged away.
In the distance, sirens pierced the air. A fire engine, and perhaps an ambulance. The only vehicles on the island that were still controlled by actual human beings.
The other Arrivals, the ones that had been flashing their lights and honking their horns, now moved slowly out of their parking spots. Together, all at once. Moving at the same speed, turning at the same angle. Stopping at the same moment to move from reverse to drive.
More than a dozen of them.
Sandra thought of those dancers her father used to watch on that old TV variety show. The June Taylor dancers. Oh, how he loved the way they synchronized their movements. They always did that overhead shot when the dancers lay on the floor, moving their arms and legs in perfect choreography. It was like looking into a kaleidoscope.
That’s what these Arrivals were like.
They’d now gone silent, the horns no longer honking. The lights had stopped flashing, too. In perfect single file, they moved out of the lot and down the driveway to the main road. It was down there that they began to arrange themselves into a kind of phalanx, lining up side by side.
Dear God in heaven, Sandra thought. They are assembling.
Gracie was headed for the base of the driveway to join the other cars. The wail of the approaching sirens grew louder.
One of the media types, a bald, heavyset man with a mustache, a lanyard that read BEN STAPLETON hanging from his neck, gave her a raised eyebrow as he walked past.
“What a shit show, huh?” he said.
Sandra failed to comprehend his words. Her mind was elsewhere.
The kids, she thought. If this is happening all over the island, with all of the cars, I have to get in touch with the kids.
“You!” she cried. “Mr. Stapleton? I need to use your phone!”
But the man kept walking.
Twelve
The lime-green Arrival that answered to the name Pamela, and which was carrying Archie and his friends Nick and Rory, was nearing the Garrett Mall.
Nick, sitting up front, was the one giving Pamela the orders and, as the only one in the car whose voice commands were accepted, was having to relay questions to her from Archie and Rory in the back seat.
Rory said, “Ask her if she’s ever done it.”
Nick rolled his eyes, cleared his throat, and said, “Pamela, there’s something I would like to ask you.”
A light in the instrumentation flickered as Pamela replied. “Would you like to enter a new destination?”
“No, nothing like that,” Nick said. “Just stick with the Garrett Mall. If we change our minds and want to go to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, we will let you know.”
“What is your question?”
“Have you ever done it?”
Archie and Rory clapped hands over their own mouths to stifle giggles.
“Could you make your request more specific?”
“You know,” Nick said, trying to sound coy. “It. Have you ever done it?”
“Could you make your request more specific?”
Nick turned around in the front seat and shrugged in front of his friends. “Got anything else?”
Rory said, “Ask her if she likes to get naked.”
“You know,” Nick said, “this is all getting a bit tiresome.”
Rory looked hurt. “You’re just mad because you’re not Pamela’s type. I bet, when your dad’s in the car, Pamela brings out some little gadget that gives him a hand job.”
Archie scowled. “Man, you’re sick.” Then, looking at Nick, he said, “It doesn’t, does it?”
Nick sighed. “You think, maybe, we’ve done enough of the stupid shit?”
Rory was the most disappointed. “I’ve never talked to a girl as much as I’ve talked to Pamela.”
“That’s just sad,” Archie said, glancing out his window at other Arrivals going by.
“Oh, like you talk to girls all the time,” Rory shot back. “And your sister doesn’t count.”
“What the—” Archie said, his head whipping to get a better look at something.
“What?” Nick asked.
“Did you see that car that went by?”
Rory turned around in his seat. “The silver one?” A silver Arrival headed the other way was receding into the distance.
“Yeah,” Archie said. “Did you see it when it went by?”
Both of his friends shook their heads. “Nope,” they said in unison.
Archie, quietly, said, “They were probably just goofing around.”