Sue caught her grandmother's eye. The old woman was tightly holding on to John's hand. He was staring at the fire, the colors of the flames reflected on his face, and he was smiling.
Influenced.
Her grandmother nodded once at Sue, turned her attention back toward the blaze. She understood. The fire had been deliberately set. The cup hugirngsi wanted to destroy the willow trees.
Sue ran back into the house to grab some pots and pitchers they could fill with water.
The fire truck arrived a few moments later. The flames, by this time, were a high as a man and had blackened the first six feet or so of each trunk. Individual branches had also caught on fire and looked like drooping sparklers, the thin willow leaves igniting quickly and in sequence. The fire lit up a full half of the block, and in its glow Sue could see their neighbors standing in front of their own houses, watching, waiting--not volunteering to help.
There was no hydrant nearby, Sue realized as two fire men jumped off the back of the truck, pulling a large canvas hose.
"Stand backt" one of the men ordered. She and her father moved back onto the porch with the rest of the family. Another man ran around the side of the truck, flipped some levers, pushed some buttons, and a powerful jet of water shot out of the hose held by the other two men, drenching the tree on the left and almost instantly dousing the fire.
Three minutes later, both fires were completely out, and the hose was shut off.
A man walked toward them across the scorched grass, and she recognized Mr. Buford from the burger stand. She and her father met him halfway.
"Thank you!" her father said, taking the fireman's hand and pumping it" Thank you very much for putting out fire!"
Mr. Buford smiled, embarrassed. "That's what we're here for."
"Thank you!" :
"Thank you. This is the first time we've gotten a chance to try this new pump outside of practice." He looked from her father to the rest of the family. "Are you all okay? "We're free," Sue said.
"Thanks."
Chief Simmons walked over. Sue was suddenly embarrassed to be outside and in her pajamas. Neighbors were coming out now, coming by to survey the damage. She saw curiosity on the faces, interest. But no sympathy.
The chief took off his hat, wiped his forehead. "Do you have any idea who might have done this?"
Sue shook her head.
"This was arson, you know."
She nodded. "I know."
"But you don't know who did it? You can't think of anyone who would want to do something like this?"
The cup hugirngsi, she wanted to say, but she sensed that this was neither the time nor place to bring that up. One look toward her grandmother confirmed the rightness of her decision. "I don't know," she said.
"We'll come back in the morning, go over everything, see what we can discover. We're only volunteer, but we're not bad at investigating arson, and we may be able to come up with something. So don't walk out here or touch anything until we go over it first, okay?"
She nodded.
"That goes for your neighbors too."
"No one will touch anything."
"We'll fill out a full report in the morning, too, Your father will have to sign it."
"Then tell him, not me."
The chief looked embarrassed. "I just thought--" "I understand English," her father said, offended. "I'm sorry," Chief Simmons said.
"That okay," her father said.
Sue nodded to the chief, to Mr. Buford, left them talking to her father, and walked back toward the porch. Her mother was still clutching the jewelry box, as though she had not yet realized the fire was out and the danger was over, and her grandmother was still holding tightly on to John's hand John was staring dejectedly toward where the fire had been. She realized that he had not spoken, had not uttered a single word, since he had come outside. Sue moved to her grandmother.
"That was close," she said.
Her grandmother nodded, did not look at her. "Yes," she said. Her voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion. "Yes, it was."
Huell Hinkley had never liked working the lot at night. It wasn't because business was slow at that time, though it was. It wasn't because he would rather be home with Ellie, though he would.
It was because he could never be certain that someone wasn't hiding behind one of the cars.
It was a weird phobia, and not one that should have affected a grown man, but there it was. Although he would never admit it to a living soul, not even to Ellie, that was why he asked Steve to stop by on the nights he worked late. He pretended it was for the company, claiming that he got lonely working at night by himself with no one to talk to, but the truth was that he was scared.
In the daytime, there was no problem. He was king of the car lot. He could be working alone, the whole street could be empty, the whole damn town could be abandoned, and he wouldn't give a rat's ass. But at night it was a different story. At night, he remained a prisoner on the steps of the office, looking over the shiny metal roofs and hoods, peeking through the windshields and windows trying to detect signs of movemenL He would come down from the steps if a browser came by, using the o1> porumity to look behind whatever vehicles had seemed suspicious to him that evening, and he would do the same thing if Steve stopped by, but otherwise he would remain in the office or on the steps, waiting, worrying.
Hinkley stood on the steps now, wondering if someone had crept between the Nova and the Impala on the north east corner of the lot while he'd been on the phone a few minutes ago. He stared at the two cars, at the two cars immediately in front of them, but saw nothing, no shadows no movement.
Did a vampire even have a shadow?
That was what he was worried about. A vampire. The vague fears he'd previously held had coalesced into concrete form within the past week, and had made these past couple of nights a living hell. Once again, he cursed Tanner for making him work evenings.
He glanced to his left, toward the desert. Past the buildings, the sand was purple with dusk, and those sections of hill and butte which had been so clear and so clearly defined only moments before were now little more than hulking amorphous shapes against the darkening sky.
The vampire could be anywhere, He realized. In one of the canyons, in the arroyo, by the river. Behind one of the cars. There was a honk from the street, and he jumped, nearly slipping off the step.
"Popl"
He looked up to see Steve sticking his head out of a police cruiser parked in the middle of the street. "You scared the shit out of me!" he yelled.
"Sorry!" Steve grinned. "I just came by to tell you that I can't stop in tonight! Too many things going on! I'll try to swing by again, though, a little later!"
Hinkley nodded, smiled, and waved, his stomach sinking as his son drove off. His heart was still pounding, and he tried to catch his breath as he scanned the car lot. He had a bad feeling about tonight.
Turning, he walked up the last two steps into the office and closed the door. He switched on the portable black and-white TV on the desk, and sat there, one eye on the
TV, one on the lot, nervously twisting the jade ring on his right pinkie .... Immediately after stepping outside onto Miss Atwood's porch, Emily knew that it had been a mistake to walk rather than drive.
The night air was freezing, more like December than October, but it was not the cold that convinced her she had made a mistake--it was something else, a feeling in the air, a sense that this night was different from others. She had never believed in ESP or pre monitions or any of that psychic stuff, but this was not like a vision. It was something she knew, something she felt deep in her gut, and it frightened her.