Ticktock

by Dean Koontz

  “This can’t be happening,” Tommy said.

  “Is,” Del said. “Boy, I wish Mom were here.”

  “You have mother?” Tommy’s mom asked.

  “Actually,” Del said, “I hatched from an insect egg. I was a mere larva, not a child. You’re right, Mrs. Phan—I had no mother.”

  “You are smart-mouth girl.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This is smart-mouth girl,” Tommy’s mother told him.

  Bracing himself for impact, he said, “Yes, I know.”

  Engine shrieking, the truck rocketed forward and smashed into their rear bumper.

  The Jaguar shuddered and weaved along the street. Del fought the steering wheel, which wrenched left and right, but she maintained control.

  “You can outrun him,” Tommy said. “He’s a Peterbilt, for God’s sake, and you’re a Jaguar.”

  “He’s got the advantage of being a supernatural entity,” Del said. “The usual rules of the road don’t apply.”

  The Peterbilt crashed into them again, and the rear bumper of the Jaguar tore away, clanging across the street into the front yard of a Craftsman-style bungalow.

  “Next block, turn right,” Tommy’s mom said.

  Accelerating, briefly putting distance between them and the Peterbilt, Del waited until the last possible moment to make the turn. She slid through it, entering the new street back end first, tires screaming and smoking, and the car went into a spin.

  With a sharp little yelp better suited to a dog one-quarter his size, Scootie shot off the backseat and tumbled onto the floor.

  Tommy thought they were going to roll. It felt like a roll. He was experienced in rolling now and knew what that penultimate angle felt like, just before the roll began, and this sure felt like it.

  Under Del’s guidance, the Jaguar held the pavement tenaciously, however, and it shrieked to a shuddering halt as it came out of a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin.

  Not a stupid dog, wanting to avoid being pitched off the seat again, Scootie waited on the floor until Del jammed her foot down on the accelerator. Only after the car rocketed forward did he scramble up beside Tommy.

  Looking out the rear window, Tommy saw the Peterbilt braking aggressively on the street they had left. Even the superior driving skills of a supernatural entity—did they have highways in Hell where demons with Los Angeles–area assignments were able to practice?—couldn’t finesse the huge truck into making such a sharp and sudden turn. Basic physics still applied. The Samaritan-thing was trying only to bring the vehicle to a stop.

  With its tires locked, the Peterbilt shot past the intersection and disappeared into the next block.

  Tommy prayed that it would jackknife.

  In the front seat, as the Jaguar accelerated to seventy, Mother Phan said, “Girl, you drive like crazy maniac detective in books.”

  “Thank you,” Del said.

  Mother Phan withdrew something from her purse.

  Tommy couldn’t quite see what she held in her hand, but he heard a series of telltale electronic tones. “What’re you doing, Mom?”

  “Calling ahead.”

  “What’ve you got there?”

  “Cellular phone,” she said blithely.

  Astonished, he said, “You own a cellular phone?”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought cellular phones were for big shots?”

  “Not any more. Everybody got one.”

  “Oh? I thought it was too dangerous to use a phone and drive.”

  As she finished punching in the number, she explained: “I not driving. Riding.”

  Del said, “For heaven’s sake, Tommy, you sound as if you live in the Middle Ages.”

  He glanced out the rear window. A full block behind them, the Peterbilt reversed into sight on the street that they had left. It hadn’t jackknifed.

  Someone must have answered Mother Phan’s call, because she identified herself and spoke into the telephone in Vietnamese.

  Less than a block and a half behind them, the Peterbilt swung through the intersection.

  Tommy consulted his watch. “What time’s dawn?”

  “I don’t know,” Del said. “Maybe half an hour, maybe forty minutes.”

  “Your mom would know to the minute, to the second.”

  “Probably,” Del agreed.

  Although Tommy couldn’t understand more than an occasional word of what his mother was saying, he had no doubt that she was furious with the person on the other end of the line. He winced at her tone and was relieved that he wasn’t on the receiving end of her anger.

  Behind them, the Peterbilt was gaining. It had closed the gap to only a block.

  Tommy said worriedly, “Del?”

  “I see it,” she assured him, checking her side mirror and then accelerating even though they were already traveling dangerously fast through this residential neighborhood.

  With a final burst of invective in Vietnamese, Tommy’s mother switched off the cellular phone. “Stupid woman,” she said.

  “Give it a rest,” Del advised.

  “Not you,” said Mother Phan. “You bad news, wicked, dangerous, but not stupid.”

  “Thank you,” said Del.

  “I mean Quy. Stupid woman.”

  Tommy said, “Who?”

  “Mrs. Quy Trang Dai.”

  “Who’s Quy Trang Dai?”

  “Stupid woman.”

  “Aside from being a stupid woman, who is she?”

  “Hairdresser.”

  Tommy said, “I still don’t understand why we’re going to the hairdresser.”

  “You need a trim,” Del told him.

  The Jaguar engine was roaring so loudly that Mother Phan had to raise her voice to be heard. “She not only hairdresser. She friend. Play mah-jongg with her and other ladies every week, and sometimes bridge.”

  “We’re going for breakfast and a nice game of mah-jongg,” Del told Tommy.

  Mother Phan said, “Quy my age but different.”

  “Different how?” Tommy asked.

  “Quy so old-fashioned, stuck in ways of Vietnam, can’t adjust to new world, never want anything to change.”

  “Oh, I see, yes,” Tommy said. “She’s utterly different from you, Mom.”

  He turned in his seat to peer anxiously out the rear window. The truck was bearing down on them, perhaps two-thirds of a block away.

  “Quy,” said Mother Phan, “not from Saigon like our family, not born city person. She from sticks, nowhere village on Xan River near borders Laos and Cambodia. All jungle out there on Xan River. Some people there strange, have strange knowledge.”

  “Sort of like Pittsburgh,” Del said.

  “What strange knowledge?” Tommy asked.

  “Magic. But not magic like stupid Roland Ironwright pulls rabbits from hats and Mai thinks clever.”

  “Magic,” Tommy said numbly.

  “This magic like making potion to win love of girl, making charm to succeed in business. But also worse.”

  “Worse how?”

  “Talking to dead,” Mother Phan said ominously, “learning secrets about land of dead, making dead walk and work as slaves.”

  The Peterbilt was half a block behind them. As it approached, the roar of its engine was growing louder than that of the Jaguar.

  Del pushed the Jaguar as hard as she dared, but she continued to lose ground.

  Tommy’s mother said, “Xan River magic bring spirits from dark underworld, put curse on sorceror’s enemies.”

  “This Xan River is definitely a part of the planet that’s under the influence of evil extraterrestrial powers,” Del declared.

  “Quy Trang Dai know this magic,” said Mother Phan. “How to make a dead man dig up out of his grave and kill who told to kill. How to use frog gonads in potion to make enemy’s heart and liver melt into mud. How to put curse on woman who sleep with your husband, so she give birth to baby with human head, dog body, and lobster hands.”

&
nbsp; “And you played mah-jongg with this woman!” Tommy demanded, outraged.

  “Sometimes bridge,” said Mother Phan.

  “But how could you associate with this monster?”

  “Be respectful, boy. Quy your elder by many years, earn respect. She no monster. Aside from this stupid thing she do with rag doll, she nice lady.”

  “She’s trying to kill me!”

  “Not trying to kill you.”

  “She is trying to kill me.”

  “Don’t shout and be crazy like maniac drunk detective.”

  “She’s trying to kill me!”

  “She only trying to scare you so you maybe be more respectful of Vietnamese ways.”

  Behind them, the Samaritan-thing blew the Peterbilt’s air horn: three long blasts, gleefully announcing that it was closing in for the kill.

  “Mom, this creature murdered three innocent bystanders already tonight, and it sure as hell will kill me if it can.”

  Tommy’s mother sighed regretfully. “Quy Trang Dai not always as good at magic as she think.”

  “What?”

  “Probably make rag doll with one missing ingredient, summon demon from underworld with one wrong word. Mistake.”

  “Mistake?”

  “Everybody make mistake sometime.”

  Del said, “That’s why they make erasers.”

  “I’ll kill this Mrs. Dai, I swear,” Tommy announced.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Mother Phan said. “Quy Trang Dai nice lady, you not kill nice lady.”

  “She is not a nice lady, damn it!”

  Del said disapprovingly, “Tommy, I’ve never heard you be so judgmental.”

  “I’ll kill her,” Tommy repeated defiantly.

  Mother Phan said, “Quy never use magic for herself, not make herself rich with magic, work hard as hairdresser. Only use magic once or twice a year to help others.”

  “Well, I sure haven’t been helped by all this,” Tommy said.

  “Ah,” Del said knowingly, “I see.”

  Tommy said, “What? What do you see?”

  The air horn of the Peterbilt blared again.

  To Tommy’s mother, Del said, “Are you going to tell him?”

  “I don’t like you,” Mother Phan reminded her.

  “You just don’t know me well enough yet.”

  “Never going to know you better.”

  “Let’s do lunch and see how it goes.”

  Almost blinded by a flash of insight, Tommy blinked fiercely and said, “Mom, good God, did you ask this monster, this nutball Dai woman, to make that rag doll?”

  “No!” his mother said. She turned to meet his eyes as he leaned forward from the backseat. “Never. You thoughtless son sometimes, won’t be doctor, won’t work in bakery, head full of stupid dreams, but in your heart you not bad boy, never bad boy.”

  He was actually touched by what she had said. Over the years she had sparingly administered praise with an eyedropper; therefore, hearing her acknowledge that he was, although thoughtless, not truly an evil boy…well, this was like being fed a spoon, a cup, a bowl, of motherly love.

  “Quy Trang Dai and other ladies, we play mah-jongg. We play cards. While we play, we talk. Talk about whose son join gang, whose husband faithless. Talk about what children doing, what cute thing grandchildren say. I talk about you, how you become so far from family, from who you are, losing roots, try to be American but never can, going to end up lost.”

  “I am an American,” Tommy said.

  “Can never be,” she assured him, and her eyes were full of love and fear for him.

  Tommy was overcome by a terrible sadness. What his mother meant was that she could never feel herself to be a complete American, that she was lost. Her homeland had been taken from her, and she had been transplanted to a world in which she could never feel entirely native and welcome, even though it was such a glorious land of great plenty and hospitality and freedom. The American dream, which Tommy strove with such passion to experience to the fullest, was achievable for her only to a limited extent. He had arrived on these shores young enough to remake himself entirely; but she would forever hold within her heart the Old World, its pleasures and beauty amplified by time and distance, and this nostalgia was a melancholy spell from which she could never fully awaken. Because she could not become American in her soul, she found it difficult—if not impossible—to believe that her children could be so transformed, and she worried that their aspirations would lead only to disappointment and bitterness.

  “I am American,” Tommy repeated softly.

  “Didn’t ask stupid Quy Trang Dai to make rag doll. Was her own idea to scare you. I hear about it only one, two hours ago.”

  “I believe you,” Tommy assured her.

  “Good boy.”

  He reached one hand into the front seat.

  His mother gripped his hand and squeezed it.

  “Good thing I’m not as sentimental as my mother,” Del said. “I’d be bawling so hard I couldn’t see to drive.”

  The interior of the Jaguar was filled with the brightness of the headlights from the Peterbilt behind it.

  The air horn blared, blared again, and the Jaguar vibrated under the sonic assault.

  Tommy didn’t have the courage to look back.

  “Always worry about you,” said Mrs. Phan, raising her voice over the airliner-loud roar of the truck engine. “Never see problem with Mai, sweet Mai, always so quiet, always so obedient. Now we die, and terrible magician in Vegas laugh at stupid old Vietnamese mother and make strange magician babies with ruined daughter.”

  “Too bad Norman Rockwell isn’t alive,” Del said. “He could make such a wonderful painting out of this.”

  “I don’t like this woman,” Mother Phan told Tommy.

  “I know, Mom.”

  “She bad news. You sure she total stranger?”

  “Only met her tonight.”

  “You not dating her?”

  “Never dated.”

  “Turn left next corner,” Mother Phan told Del.

  “Are you joking?” Del said.

  “Turn left next corner. We almost to house of Quy Trang Dai.”

  “I have to slow down to make the turn, and if I slow down, Mrs. Dai’s demon is going to run right over us.”

  “Drive better,” Mother Phan advised.

  Del glared at her. “Listen, lady, I’m a world-class racecar driver, competed all over the world. No one drives better than I do. Except maybe my mother.”

  Holding out the cellular phone, Mother Phan said, “Then call mother, hear what she say to do.”

  Grim-faced, Del said, “Brace yourselves.”

  Tommy let go of his mother’s hand, slid backward in his seat, and fumbled for his safety belt. It was tangled.

  Scootie took refuge on the floor in front of his seat, directly behind Del.

  Unable to disentangle the belt quickly enough to save himself, Tommy followed the dog’s example, huddling-squeezing into the floor space between the front and back seats on his side of the car, to avoid being catapulted into his mother’s lap when the ultimate crash came.

  Del braked the Jaguar.

  The roaring Peterbilt rammed them from behind, not hard, and fell back.

  Again Del used the brakes. The tires barked, and Tommy could smell burning rubber.

  The Peterbilt rammed them harder than before, and sheet metal screamed, and the Jaguar shuddered as though it would fly apart like a sprung clock, and Tommy thumped his head against the back of the front seat.

  The car was so awash in the glow of the truck’s headlights that Tommy could clearly see the Labrador’s face across the floor from him. Scootie was grinning.

  Del braked again, swung hard to the right, but that was only a feint to lead the Peterbilt in the wrong direction, because the truck couldn’t maneuver as quickly as the car. Then she swung sharply to the left, as Mother Phan had instructed.

  Tommy couldn’t see anything from his dog-level
view, but he knew that Del hadn’t been able to get entirely out of the truck’s path, because as they made the left turn, they were struck again, clipped only at the extreme back end of the vehicle but hit with tremendous force, an impact that made Tommy’s ears ring and jarred through every bone, and the Jaguar spun. They went through one full revolution, and then another, perhaps a third, and Tommy felt as though he had been tossed into an industrial-size clothes dryer.

  Tires stuttered across the pavement, tires exploded, rubber remnants slapped loudly against fender wells, and steel wheel rims scraped-shrieked across the pavement. Pieces of the car tore free, clattered along the undercarriage, and were gone.

  But the Jaguar didn’t roll over. It came out of the spin, rattling and pinging, lurching like a hobbled horse, but on all four wheels.

  Tommy extracted himself from the cramped floor space between front and back seats, scrambled up, and looked out the rear window.

  The dog joined him at the window, ear to ear.

  As before, the Peterbilt had overshot the intersection.

  “How was that for driving?” Del demanded.

  Mother Phan said, “You never get insurance again.”

  Beside Tommy, the Labrador whimpered.

  Even Deliverance Payne was not going to be able to coax any speed out of the Jaguar in its current debilitated condition. The sports car chugged forward, loudly rattling and clanking, hissing, pinging, pitching and yawing, spouting steam, hemorrhaging fluids—like one of those rattletrap pickup trucks that comic hillbillies always drive in the movies.

  Behind them, the huge Peterbilt reversed into the intersection through which they had just been flung.

  “We’ve got at least two blown tires,” Del said, “and the oil pressure is dropping fast.”

  “Not far,” said Tommy’s mother. “Garage door be open, you pull in, all safe.”

  “What garage door?” Del asked.

  “Garage door at Quy’s house.”

  “Oh, yes, the hairdresser witch.”

  “She no witch. Just come from Xan River, learn few things when she was girl.”

  “Sorry if I caused offense,” Del said.

  “There, see, two houses ahead on right, lights on. Garage door open, you pull in, Quy Dai close door, all safe.”