Mr. Fahrenheit

by T. Michael Martin

  The Voyager arose in a manner vaguely magnificent, like a fallen angel reascending. The terrible light that bound it was the color from outer space: ray-gun green. The creature was shaped almost like a human but then . . . but then not quite. Its skull was a misshapen bulb perched atop a neck as long and thin as a needle. Strange strings of flesh danced on Its face like the hair of Medusa. Its two arms stretched forever, ending with three-clawed hands. Between Its legs was a long tail similarly tipped by a kind of dagger. As the Voyager floated up, Benji saw It stood seven feet tall at the very least—how It fit in the pod was a mystery—and there were ridges of bones across the creature’s whole body, as if God had made a mistake and put the skeleton on the outside.

  Though Benji could not see Its eyes, he felt as though the creature were not just staring at him but through him. He stood mesmerized and terrified, unable to move.

  A roar and a flash of light split the night. A chunk of brick wall beside Benji exploded. The Voyager spun in midair with somehow terrible grace, facing the source of the sound: McKedrick, staggering to his feet, his smoking shotgun in hand. The agent’s shot had gone wild, but already he was pumping a fresh shell into the breach, zeroing in on the Voyager.

  The creature lunged through the air before McKedrick could react. The agent screamed, bicycling his legs as the creature raised him off the earth with one clawed hand. The shotgun dropped to the ground, discharging uselessly. The Voyager raised Its free claw, but rather than strike the agent, It did something Benji did not understand: It placed Its palm to McKedrick’s forehead.

  The agent was like a marionette whose strings have been severed. His arms collapsed to his sides, his mouth went slack and silent, his eyes glazed to glassy orbs. . . .

  Moments later, the creature lifted Its clawed hand from McKedrick’s forehead. McKedrick snapped back to his senses. He thrashed in the Voyager’s grip and began to scream. In pain. The Voyager was plunging a long silvery object into the agent’s chest like a dagger.

  The Voyager fired the ray gun.

  The blast sliced straight through McKedrick. A rainbow arc of green light and red blood jetted from the back of his perfect black suit. Ellie and Zeeko screamed. McKedrick’s body hit the pavement bonelessly.

  Papaw, shoot It, Benji thought—and as if sensing the intention, the creature spun to face Benji. “Shoot It now!” he called aloud.

  Past the creature, Papaw reached for his holster, but his arthritic hands betrayed him. He fumbled the gun, which clattered to the pavement. Benji reached into his tuxedo, remembering that the pistol he’d stolen from McKedrick was inside his sleeve.

  “Benji, look out!” Ellie screamed.

  The Voyager reached him. It placed Its death-cold palm on Benji’s brow.

  And his mind turned to flame.

  He was hurled like a human bullet into a corridor of endless darkness.

  He opened his mouth to scream, but he had no mouth. Nothing existed, nothing at all except for the black, cold velocity. He was searching for something: There was something in these corridors he needed, some kind of clue, something to guide his future—but what was it? Why had he come here looking for it?

  Without warning, the corridor exploded around him and was no longer a corridor at all: It became a vast emptiness, gulfs of gravityless dark through which he soared alone. There were pinpricks of light in the ether. Stars, unimaginable light-years away. Benji looked back, and he saw a nearer star, furious and red, swallowing an entire world. . . .

  Anger surged through him. This wasn’t what he was looking for!

  The vision of space vanished, and now Benji was—he didn’t understand it—he was at CR’s father’s quarry in the daytime, holding some kind of electronic handheld device against the ground. The device began to beep, and Benji pulled out his phone. “This is McKedrick,” he said in McKedrick’s voice.

  What is this? Why am I McKedrick?

  “I may have something here in Indiana, ma’am,” Benji/McKedrick said. “Nothing like we’ve seen before. The local police and DEA finally cleared out of the area, and there are definite traces of possible activity. There’s a kid involved, more than one, perhaps. Ma’am, I’d like to see if I can talk some sense into him before Omega moves in. He seems like a decent young man, if naive, and I believe I can put the fear of God in him. It’s possible the kid doesn’t yet know enough to be dangerous. It’s even possible I’m on a wild-goose chase, perhaps. Yes, ma’am, I understand the risk to the division. I assume full responsibility. I won’t let you down. And ma’am, if you don’t hear from me by eighteen hundred hours, please feel free to send in the whole damn cavalry. . . .”

  The corridor, again.

  A light was growing ahead. He sped toward it. It wasn’t an exit, but something like a mirror maze that had been flooded with smoke. The mirrors around him bore images of the night of the saucer shootdown. Seeing the images filled him with excitement. He was closer. Where were the ones he needed?

  Now Benji felt a pain so overwhelming that it was as if the Voyager were dragging Its claws across his brain, flicking through gray matter, digging deep. He crashed through mirror after mirror, searching desperately. He saw the saucer shootdown again, then went further back in time to when he’d spoken to Ellie on the frozen lake during the quarry party. That conversation had reminded him of the House, and now Benji was thinking about the hallucination of the monster that had come out of the House’s cellar. Inexplicably, the hallucination filled him, for the first time, with relief. . . .

  “Get the hell away from my child!” Papaw roared a billion miles away.

  A blast of light. Benji fell, hitting the ground hard. He looked around, dazed, seeing the pebbled plain of the alley’s concrete floor. He was still where he had been before the creature touched him. In fact, it was as if almost no time had passed: A few feet away, Papaw was striding toward the creature with his pistol raised. The creature turned toward Papaw, raising its own, far deadlier weapon.

  “Papaw, get down! It will kill you!”

  The weapon Papaw brandished began to glow.

  What? When did Papaw get the ray gun?

  Three green ovals jetted out from the ray gun in Papaw’s hand, painting the world atomically. The Voyager reacted too late: It spun, sparing itself a direct hit but taking the shot midway up Its left arm. The impact sent the creature corkscrewing through the air; Benji ducked and saw Zeeko, who was behind him, do the same.

  The creature slammed into a brick wall beside the X-ray mobile, sending fissures through the bricks.

  The creature recovered quickly, moving across the wall with the speed of a spider. Still in motion, It raised one claw toward Papaw. It was holding the ray gun. Benji did not understand, because hadn’t Papaw just had the Voyager’s gun?

  It didn’t matter. Benji reached into his tux. His fingers found the pistol, tried to draw it out.

  The alien and Papaw fired simultaneously. Impossibly and inexplicably, they both fired ray guns simultaneously.

  Because both leaped to evade the other’s blast, neither hit their target. Their bolts struck empty space, peppering the battle zone with brick and concrete.

  Benji covered his head, then finally yanked the pistol free of the magnet. He drew the weapon, whirling on his heels, his gaze sweeping around the alley. He had no idea where the creature was.

  Zeeko, who had dived to the ground when Papaw’s shot sent the creature spiraling, stood unsteadily, searching the area around him, too. Benji tasted fine metallic fear at the back of his mouth.

  He slowly looked in the other direction, where Papaw and Ellie stood. Holding fiercely on to the lip of a Dumpster, Papaw was struggling to his feet, still recovering from the shootout. His hat had fallen to the ground. Ellie walked to him, her footsteps the only sound disturbing the eerie quiet. She wrapped an arm around Papaw, helping him up the final few inches. Benji felt a painful clutch of gratitude.

  “Sheriff, not for nothing,” Ellie said, “but what in the blue h
ell is happening here?”

  “Is It dead?” Papaw whispered.

  “God, I hope so,” Zeeko said.

  I don’t think he hit It, Benji thought, his mind still racing with adrenaline and a billion questions about how Papaw knew about any of this.

  “Honey, fetch me my gun,” Papaw said to Ellie. “I dropped it under the Dumpst—”

  Zeeko screamed. The arms of the creature, glistening like wasps, had erupted from the shadows beneath the X-ray mobile.

  The claws wrapped around Zeeko’s ankles. Zeeko fell, hitting the ground face-first. “No!” he cried, clawing the ground as he was reeled toward the shadows. “Help me! Oh God, please help me!”

  One claw reached out and seized Zeeko’s forehead. Instantly, Zeeko went limp.

  Benji fired his pistol at the shape in the dark. The shot was off by yards, way too high. Somebody pushed him to the side. The shotgun appeared over his shoulder, and fired.

  The buckshot hit just below the driver’s door of the X-ray mobile.

  The front tire exploded with an airburst.

  The shotgun pumped, then shot out one of the rear tires.

  The X-ray mobile plummeted violently on the flattened rubber. In his mind, Benji felt a cold inarticulate rage and pain from the Voyager. The creature released Zeeko, Its arms vanishing back under the car.

  Zeeko scrambled to his feet, tears of fear and relief in his eyes. “Oh holy Jesus, thank you,” he wheezed. “Also, Ellie, thank you.”

  Benji turned and saw with a small shock that Ellie was holding the shotgun. “This is one of those moments,” she whispered shakily, “when I am very grateful that my dad refused to pay for ballet lessons.”

  Papaw patted Ellie on the shoulder. Once again, Benji was bursting with questions, and this time, Papaw seemed to acknowledge it: He looked at Benji and, after a moment, nodded sympathetically. Still, he spoke only to Ellie. “That was smart thinking, Annie Oakley. But I need to see the body.”

  With the inexplicable ray gun in his hand, Papaw approached the X-ray mobile. He bent cautiously, peering under the vehicle a few feet away. He unfastened an LED flashlight from his belt.

  “You guys,” Zeeko said to Ellie and Benji, “something happened to me. When It touched me, I saw—”

  Papaw clicked his flashlight’s button several times. The flashlight wouldn’t ignite.

  “Here, Papaw,” Benji whispered.

  “Stay back, Benjamin.”

  Benji snapped his fingers, demonstrating the fire, and Papaw relented. They kneeled together. Benji put the pistol in his outer jacket pocket, snapped again. The phosphorescent flash was brief, the FireFingers nearly exhausted, and the light didn’t quite penetrate the hiding place beneath the vehicle.

  “Maybe we crushed It,” Papaw said.

  “Papaw, can you tell me what—”

  “Snap again, boy.”

  This time his light breached the dark, barely.

  “Again . . .” Papaw instructed. They moved a few inches closer. Benji snapped again, his heart a fist pounding at the base of his throat.

  The fleeting light washed across almost everything beneath the vehicle. At the farthest rim of his light’s reach, something large shimmered in the dark.

  Benji snapped, one final time.

  The shimmering object was a manhole cover, standing almost on end.

  Everything inside Benji froze.

  He breathed: “Trapdoor.”

  “What?”

  “Trapdoor—to the sewer!—” Benji stammered. He spun back toward the manhole the Voyager had first emerged from, knowing even as he did that he was too late, that he had been bested by the oldest trick in the book.

  Ellie Holmes didn’t see it coming. An instant ago, the creature had vanished down one manhole, into the dark network of pipes, and now, with a speed no conjuror had ever dreamed, It rematerialized from the hole behind Ellie. Hideous claws flew from the dark, seizing her by the waist. The shotgun flew from her hands and hit the pavement, discharging into the air. She cried out. Benji ran for her with every measure of strength his unathletic frame possessed, and when she began to fall into the dark pit, he dove, flying, arms outstretched, and there was one infinite moment when their fingertips grazed one another. . . .

  Then she was gone, vanished, poof and good-bye, the sound of her scream fading into the catacombs below Bedford Falls.

  He stared into the pipe, shock surging through him. Her voice grew softer, farther away, the wail of a little girl lost. A wild thought echoed in Benji’s mind: Ladies and gentlemen, for my next trick, I will make the love of my life disappear! And then someone—some Thing—will saw her in two!!

  Benji’s torso was already into the pipe when hands grabbed him and pulled him up. He threw them off—they were meaningless, nothing mattered except getting down there—but Papaw wouldn’t let go.

  “Son, stop!”

  “Papaw, It’s got her!”

  “I know it, but you goin’ down there won’t do a thing to help.”

  “I don’t care! This is my fault, let me go—”

  “Benjamin, listen to your grandfather, dammit!”

  Benji looked up at him.

  “If there’s a chance on this earth to save that girl, we’ll do it. I swear to you. But I don’t think the beast will hurt her yet.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Papaw turned to Zeeko, who was sitting on the ground shaking and gazing a light-year away. “Zeeko, can you drive a stick? Zeeko!”

  Zeeko snapped from his stupor. “Yes, sir. I can.”

  “Then get into that SUV and follow me. We may need two cars later. Benjamin’s riding with me.”

  Gritting his teeth, Papaw pulled Benji to his feet, and as he led him toward the cruiser he’d stopped in front of the X-ray mobile, he finally spoke to Benji again.

  “There are things you need to know, Benjamin. It’s time to tell you all of them. It’s well past that time, actually.”

  “Papaw, none of this makes sense.”

  “This is my fault, Benjamin. My sin.”

  “W-what?”

  “I met this Beast before. A lifetime ago. I was . . . I was your age, driving this car like it was the only thing that ever mattered.”

  Confused, Benji followed his grandfather’s gaze.

  The car Papaw had driven here had a removable domed police light attached to its roof, but it was not a police cruiser. It was a 1959 Cadillac. It had been pelted with debris, but even in the aftermath of the confrontation, it glowed like a moonlit dream.

  Dream Machine, Benji thought. That’s the car from . . .

  “This is happening,” Papaw said, the words catching in his throat, “because of something I did when I was younger. . . .”

  Benji barely heard. He was staring at the side paneling of the Cadillac, which was covered by hand-painted words that time had faded but not erased . . . .

  “OFFICIAL” CAR OF THE “ATOMIC BOBS”!

  BOBBY “CAPTAIN CELSIUS” VOLPE!

  ROBBY “KID NUCLEAR” KING!

  BOB “MR. FAHRENHEIT” LIGHTMAN!

  PART FOUR

  THE SKY IS A TIME MACHINE

  Fire always has been, and seemingly will always remain, the most terrible of the elements.

  —Harry Houdini

  Thank you, Bedford Falls! You’ve made this a real unforgettable night! Drive careful out there!

  —Robert Lightman of the Atomic Bobs

  (Homecoming Carnival, 1959)

  19

  “When I was young,” Papaw said, “my father told me the best thing about being a teenager is that it won’t last long. He never bothered to tell me that it’s also the worst part. Benjamin, remember that. As I’m telling you this story, please remember that and try to forgive me.”

  Benji nodded, speechless, numb, as Papaw drove the Cadillac out of the alley. Papaw switched on the mobile scanner on the dashboard. The dispatcher reported some fender benders and fights around the football stadium, an
d said a snowstorm was moving in from the east. Satisfied that there were no reports about the battle in the alley, Papaw turned the scanner off.

  They steered onto the highway, Papaw’s face pale in the thin, lonesome lights that baptized it.

  “In the alley,” he said, “that wasn’t the first time I seen the Beast. It came lookin’ for you at our house this afternoon. I fought It off, barely. But that wasn’t the first time, neither. It’s been to Bedford Falls before.”

  Benji was silent for a long time, still unable to process any of what was happening. “When . . . when did you see It?”

  “A lifetime ago.”

  “You saw the alien a lifetime ago.” Voice flat.

  “Yes, son.”

  “Then, why . . . You said . . . You’ve never acted like you believed in anything like this, Papaw.” He felt like he was trying to grasp an ungraspable thing.

  “I didn’t believe in it. I know it doesn’t make sense, Benjamin. You’ll understand everything soon.

  “I was seventeen when I saw It. Just outside of Bedford Falls, there was a drive-in theater, and I was there—well, near it.”

  “You were in this car, weren’t you? Your Dream Machine.”

  Papaw looked at him, stunned.

  “And you were on a date, with a girl named Judy.”

  “How in the hell did you know that?”

  “I dreamed it. But how? How could I dream your memory? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, it does. It makes perfect sense, son. What else do you know about that night?”

  “There was a green light in the sky. The radio started playing that song, ‘The Voyager.’ I heard this voice in my head—your head, I guess—say, ‘I AM MR. FAHRENHEIT.’ I thought it was the alien’s name. But Mr. Fahrenheit was you?”