“Maybe it didn’t see us,” Archie said.
“It saw us,” his mother said. “It had to have seen us.”
Using her feet, she pushed the bike back out into the open so they could see where the car had gone. About ten houses down, it had turned into a driveway and nosed itself right up to the house, just like the car that had trailed them as they left the mall.
Sandra got out her phone, brought up Joe on her texting program, and sent a message.
U DID IT!
She waited to see if Joe got the text, and whether he would be able to reply. Soon, she saw the three dancing dots.
Then: Did what?
She wrote back: They’re stopping. Like they’re out of gas.
Joe replied: Couldn’t disable virus. No idea what’s doing it.
Archie, who’d been looking over his mother’s shoulder as she exchanged messages with the police chief, said, “Not gas.”
“What?” said Sandra, looking away from the phone.
“Battery power,” he said. “They must be running out. Like a phone down to one bar. While they still have power, they’re heading home to get plugged back in.”
Sandra started to smile.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. And then her smile turned into a laugh. “All this time, we were trying to think how to stop them, and all we had to do was wait for them to run out of juice!” She let out a triumphant shriek. “What are they gonna do now? Plug themselves back in? I don’t think so!” She couldn’t stop smiling. “As smart as the little shits are, they need us to plug them back in.”
Archie wiped away some tears that hadn’t been blown away during their ride. “Guess they need arms.”
It was the first time it had been quiet enough for them to have a conversation since she had rescued him from the loading dock. Archie was almost afraid to ask, but he did:
“What about Katie?”
“Katie’s at home,” Sandra said. “Kinda shook up, though. Like you, she’s had quite a day.”
“I’m sorry,” Archie said. “I tricked her. I went to the mall.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sandra said. “With Nick and Rory. I got this bike at Rory’s. No sign of Nick yet.”
Archie’s face saddened. He told her.
“Oh my God,” Sandra said, and put her arms around him and squeezed.
“I saw it happen,” he said, his voice breaking.
Sandra gave him another squeeze. “We’re gonna be okay. It’s over. You’re okay, Katie’s okay. The cars are running out of juice. The only one I’m worried about now is Bruce.”
“Bruce?”
Sandra filled him in, briefly, about what had happened with Katie. It had to be brief, because she really didn’t know that much herself about what had happened.
“So he’s not a serial killer?” Archie asked.
“We need to get home, figure out what to do next.”
She got back into the driving position and revved the engine as Archie resumed his grip around her waist, a little opossum clinging to his mother’s back.
Sandra gave a wide berth to any further Arrivals they encountered but none showed much interest in running them down. All of them, it appeared, were heading home for supper.
She’d felt a tremendous sense of relief when she’d been reunited with Katie, and again when she’d scooped up Archie, but what she was feeling now was something more. A kind of weight being lifted from her. This nightmare was finally coming to an end.
Sandra turned down their street.
If, as it appeared, the worst was over, the islanders could start the process of putting their lives together. The first step would be to get rid of all these goddamn little cars. Load them up on the ferry and, as far as Sandra was concerned, dump them into the ocean before they reached the mainland. They couldn’t get their regular cars back fast enough.
There would be a lot of grieving, and a lot of healing. Plenty of lawsuits, too, Sandra figured. She had no idea how many lives had been lost today, but this was a strong community and it would pull through. Not overnight. It would take months, if not longer, but Garrett Island would move forward.
And what would she do? Would she stick with public relations? Would having represented Arrival become a stain on her record? Would the locals hold it against her that she had played a role in organizing the Arrival event?
She’d have to find a way to forgive herself first.
Up ahead, she saw her house. And there, in the driveway, was an Arrival. A bright red one.
Gracie.
If she hadn’t already seen other Arrivals heading back to their home bases, looking to be recharged, she’d have been alarmed by the car’s presence. But if Gracie had come home, it had to be because she was wrung out. Like Adam used to say, Ridden hard and put away wet.
The little bitch, Sandra thought. If she thinks I’m going to plug her back in, she’s out of her little electronic mind.
But then Sandra saw something that prompted her to suddenly hit the brakes. Archie’s head slammed into her upper back.
“What?” he said.
He peered around his mother and saw what had made her stop.
Pinned at the knees, between the house and the front bumper of the Arrival, was Katie. She faced the wall, her arms outstretched, her face turned to one side.
Sandra turned off the bike. Archie hopped off first, then she swung her leg over and put both feet on the ground.
As she started running toward the Arrival, its lights began to flash, a warning for Sandra to stop.
Gracie spoke.
“Plug me in.”
Forty-Six
Joe was leaving the community center when he got Sandra’s text congratulating him on disabling the cars. He had no idea what she was talking about, but when he got outside, he started putting it together.
Many of the Arrivals that were still operable after they’d attacked the fire engine and ambulance were leaving. An Arrival that had been given to the community center to replace its staff car came back up the drive and stopped at the charging station that had been set up for it. On a post was a small box holding a cable that, once unspooled, could be hooked up to the car and have it ready to go again in short order.
“Son of a bitch,” Joe said under his breath. “Of course.”
Then he saw something equally startling.
A Garrett Island police force cruiser was speeding up the road, the cherry on top flashing, the siren engaged. Whoever was behind the wheel — and it was a real person behind the wheel — maneuvered around the overturned ambulance and the burned-out shell of the fire truck and drove up to the community center entrance.
And then Joe remembered. There was one car they didn’t trade in for an Arrival because it was in the police garage being repaired.
The car screeched to a halt. As the window powered down, Joe saw that it was Ronny, the well-intentioned but somewhat dimwitted officer he’d spoken to earlier, although it felt like days ago.
“Ronny?” Joe said, stepping toward the car.
“Hey, Chief,” he said, smiling. “Need wheels?”
“That would be nice, yes.”
“I got someone else to take over the phones and decided to have a look at it myself since today was Ernie’s day off, and he’s on the mainland, the lucky bastard.”
Ernie being the department’s full-time mechanic.
“So I looked at the work order on it, and Ernie hadn’t figured out what was wrong. But it was mentioned that the car had a full tank of gas, and I remembered one of the guys saying he was driving a car that never seemed to run out of gas and—”
“Ronny, give me the car.”
“Yeah, right, okay, but I just wanted to tell you that I started to wonder if the gas tank was actually empty, but the fuel gauge was busted? Showing a full tank all the time. So I put some gas in, and sure enough, it was empty and—”