Tick Tock

by Dean Koontz

  “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 fo
r 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.”

  The demon driver shifted gears, and the Peterbilt pulled into the street behind them. Its headlights swept across the rear window, across Tommy.

  Scootie whimpered again. He licked Tommy’s face, either to reassure him or to say goodbye.

  Facing front, wiping dog slobber off his cheek, Tommy said, “How can I be safe? It’s not dawn yet. The thing will see where we’ve gone.”

  “Can’t follow there,” his mother said.

  “I’m telling you, it’ll drive straight through the house,” he predicted.

  “No. Quy is one who made doll, called spirit from underworld, so it not allowed hurt her. Can’t enter house if Quy Trang Dai herself don’t make invitation.”

  “With all due respect, Mom, I don’t think we can count on demons being quite that polite.”

  “No, your mother’s probably right,” Del said. “The supernatural world operates on its own laws, rather like we operate under the laws of physics.”

  As the inside of the car grew bright again from the headlights behind, Tommy said, “If the damn thing drives the damn truck into the damn house and kills me, who do I complain to—Albert Einstein or the pope?”

  Del turned right into the driveway, and the car creaked-clanked-clanged, wobbled-rolled-rocked-heaved into the open, lighted garage. When she braked to a stop, the engine coughed and stalled. The rear axle snapped, and the back of the Jaguar crashed to the garage floor.

  Behind them the big door rolled down.

  Tommy’s mother climbed out of the car.

  When he followed her, he heard the shrill air brakes of the Peterbilt. Judging by the sound, the truck had pulled to the curb and stopped in front of the house.

  A slender birdlike Vietnamese woman, about the size of a twelve-year-old girl, with a face as sweet as butterscotch pudding, stood at the interior door between the garage and the house. She was wearing a pink jogging suit and athletic shoes.

  Mother Phan spoke to this woman briefly in Vietnamese, and then introduced her as Quy Trang Dai.

  Mrs. Dai appeared crestfallen when she faced Tommy. “So sorry about mistake. Terrible dumb mistake. Feel like stupid, worthless, ignorant old fool, want to throw myself in pit of river vipers, but have no pit here and no vipers either.” Her dark eyes welled with tears. “Want to throw myself in pit so bad.”

  “Well,” Del said to Tommy, “are you going to kill her?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Wimp.”

  Outside, the Peterbilt was still idling.

  Blinking back her tears, her expression toughening, Mrs. Dai turned to Del, looked her up and down, and said suspiciously, “Who you?”

  “A total stranger.”

  Mrs. Dai raised an eyebrow quizzically at Tommy. “Is true?”

  “True,” Tommy said.

  “Not dating?” asked Quy Trang Dai.

  “All I know about him is his name,” Del said.

  “And she doesn’t get that right half the time,” Tommy assured Mrs. Dai. He glanced at the big garage door, certain that the truck engine outside would suddenly rev…. “Listen, are we really safe here?”

  “Safe here. Safer in house but…” Mrs. Dai squinted at Del, as though reluctant to grant admittance to this obvious corrupter of Vietnamese male youth.

  To Tommy, Del said, “I think I could find some vipers if you’d be willing to dig a pit.”

  Mother Phan spoke to Quy Trang Dai in Vietnamese.

  The hairdresser witch lowered her eyes guiltily and nodded and finally sighed. “Okay. You come inside. But I keep clean house. Is dog broke?”

  “He wasn’t broken, but I had him fixed,” Del said. She winked at Tommy. “Couldn’t resist.”

  Mrs. Dai led them into the house, through the laundry room, kitchen, and dining room.

  Tommy noticed that the heels of her running shoes contained those light-emitting diodes that blinked in sequence from right to left, ostensibly a safety feature for the athletically minded who took their exercise at night, though the effect was footgear with a Vegas flair.

  In the living room, Mrs. Dai said, “We wait here for dawn. Evil spirit have to go at sunrise, all be fine.”

  The living room reflected the history of Vietnam as occupied territory: a mix of simple Chinese and French furniture with two contemporary American upholstered pieces. On the wall over the sofa was a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In a corner stood a Buddhist shrine; fresh fruit was arranged on the bright red altar, and sticks of incense, one lit, bristled from ceramic holders.

  Mrs. Dai sat in an oversize black chinoiserie chair with a padded seat covered in gold-and-white brocade. The chair was so large that the diminutive pink-clad woman appeared even more childlike than ever; her twinkling shoes didn’t quite reach the floor.

  Taking off her plastic rain scarf but not her coat, Mother Phan settled into a bergère-style chair and sat with her purse on her lap.

  Tommy and Del perched on the edge of the sofa, and Scootie sat on the floor in front of them, looking curiously from Mother Phan to Mrs. Dai to Mother Phan again.

  Outside, the Peterbilt engine still idled.

  Tommy could see part of the truck, all of its running lights aglow, through one of the windows that flanked the front door, but he couldn’t see the driver’s cab or the Samaritan-thing.

  Consulting her wristwatch, Mrs. Dai said, “Twenty-two minutes till dawn, then no one have to worry, everyone happy”—with a wary glance at Mother Phan—“no one angry with friends any more. Anyone like tea?”

  Everyone politely declined tea.

  “No trouble to make,” said Mrs. Dai.

  Again, everyone politely declined.

  After a brief silence, Del said, “So you were born and raised along the Xan River.”

  Mrs. Dai brightened. “Oh, is such beautiful land. You been there?”

  “No,” Del said, “though I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” Mrs. Dai rhapsodized, clapping her small hands together. “Jungle so green and dark, air heavy as steam and full of smell of growing things, can hardly breathe for stink of growing things, so many flowers and snakes, all red-gold mist in morning, purple mist at twilight, leeches thick and long as hotdogs.”

  Tommy muttered, “Lovely, lovely, with all the resurrected dead men slaving in the rice paddies.”

  “Excuse please?” said Mrs. Dai.

  Glowering at Tommy, his mother said, “Be respectful.”

  When Tommy declined to repeat himself, Del said, “Mrs. Dai, when you were a girl, did you ever notice anything strange in the skies over the Xan River?”

  “Strange?”

  “Strange objects.”

  “In skies?”

  “Disc-shaped craft, perhaps.”

  Perplexed, Mrs. Dai said, “Dishes
in sky?”

  Tommy thought he heard something outside. It might have been a truck door closing.

  Changing tack slightly, Del said, “In the village where you were raised, Mrs. Dai, were there any legends of short humanoid creatures living in the jungle?”

  “Short what?” asked Mrs. Dai.

  “About four feet tall, gray skin, bulbous heads, enormous eyes, really mesmerizing eyes.”

  Quy Trang Dai looked at Mother Phan for help.

  “She crazy person,” Mother Phan explained.

  “Eerie lights in the night,” Del said, “pulsating lights with an irresistible attraction? Anything like that along the banks of the Xan?”

  “Very dark in jungle at night. Very dark in village at night. No electricity.”

  “In your childhood,” Del probed, “do you remember any periods of missing time, unexplained blackouts, fugue states?”

  Nonplussed, Mrs. Dai could only say, “Everyone sure not like nice hot cup of tea?”

  No doubt talking to herself but appearing to address Scootie, Del said, “Sure as hell, this Xan River is a primary locus of evil extraterrestrial influence.”

  Heavy footsteps thudded across the front porch.

  Tommy tensed, waited, and when a knock came at the door, he stood bolt upright from the sofa.

  “Don’t answer door,” Mrs. Dai advised.

  “Yeah,” Del said, “it might be that damn aggressive Amway saleswoman.”

  Scootie crept warily to the front door. He sniffed along the threshold, caught a scent he didn’t like, whimpered, and hurried back to Del’s side.

  The knocking sounded again, louder and more insistent than before.

  Raising her voice, Mrs. Dai said, “You can’t come in.”

  Immediately, the demon pounded again, so hard that the door shook and the lock bolt rattled against the striker plate.

  “Go away,” said Mrs. Dai. To Tommy, she said, “Only eighteen minutes, then everyone happy.”

  Mother Phan said, “Sit down, Tuong. You just making everyone nervous.”