by Sam Cameron
MUZKBUX didn’t like that at all. The truck swerved, jumped a curb, and barreled into a construction lot.
Straight ahead, under the glare of headlights, stood a backhoe, some covered pallets, and stacks of cement blocks.
Danny wrenched the steering wheel and yelled.
MUZKBUX slid into a large puddle of water and slammed to a stop, hurling Danny against the seat belt. A second later, all four tires burst.
The motorcycle rider had followed them. He shouted, “Get out of the truck! Get out!”
Danny didn’t smell gasoline and didn’t think there was any risk of explosion, but he threw himself against the door. This time it opened. He stumbled out. Mud squelched under his sneakers. His legs and arms were shaking and his breathing felt tight.
“Back off!” said the rider. He’d dismounted his motorcycle and was approaching with his cell phone in hand. He was tall and slim, wiry. His helmet had a full visor, which muffled his voice and made his face hard to see. “Cover your eyes!”
Blue light arced through the air again. Danny’s ears filled with a high-pitched whine. The blue light hit MUZKBUX straight on. Purple and gold particles burst out of the truck and exploded into the air like a mushroom cloud. The force of it sent Danny crashing to the ground. Woozy and confused, he watched the cloud dissipate into the night air like a thousand twinkling stars.
The motorcycle rider was also thrown aside. He got to his knees and then staggered upright, gazing upward.
“Damn it!” He turned to Danny. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Danny had landed hard on his left wrist, but wasn’t otherwise hurt. He pulled himself up and groaned as he got a good look at MUZKBUX. He could see his future and it wasn’t pretty: grounded, his allowance taken away, and just for spite, Roger might try to take his guitars, too.
All because this stupid truck had driven off on its own.
The motorcycle rider scanned the truck again. “It’s safe now.”
“What is that?” Danny asked. “Who are you?”
The rider tucked his phone away. “You need a ride home?”
“Do I need a ride?” Danny demanded, incredulous. “Do you know how much trouble I’m in? That stupid thing just drove off on its own. But you know why, right? You stopped it.”
“Nah. I didn’t do anything.”
“You shot it with some crazy blue light!”
The rider climbed back onto his motorcycle. His casual tone was annoying. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Sure I can’t take you home?”
“Those lights,” Danny said, trying to stall him. “I’ve seen science fiction movies. You’ve got some kind of special weapon. What was in the truck? An alien from outer space? Some escaped robot or something?”
The stranger laughed a little. “Too many movies rot your brain.”
Danny said, “I’ll tell the police all about you. Your secret hero cover or whatever will be all blown.”
“You tell them whatever crazy story you want. They’re just going to think you went joyriding. Come on; let me give you a ride.”
Danny glared at him. “No.”
“Okay.” He hesitated, as if about to say something. Danny wanted it to be something helpful, something useful, something like, Your stepdad probably won’t kill you, but then he revved the engine and rode right out of Danny’s life.
Left alone, Danny’s courage faltered. It was cold out and he didn’t have his jacket. He didn’t have his phone. He should have asked his mysterious rescuer to call the police for him, but he probably wouldn’t have done it. Strangers who carried around top-secret, high-tech weapons never wanted the regular police involved, or never did in the movies.
He looked at MUZKBUX’s blown tires.
Roger Rat was never going to believe him.
A few minutes later, a car approached the lot and glided to a stop. It was a late-model gray Honda Accord, nothing special, but the woman leaning out the driver’s window had a familiar face.
“Mr. Kelly?” she asked. “Is that you?”
Things suddenly looked a lot brighter. “Mrs. Morris?”
She lifted her eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a strange story,” he said.
“Do you need a ride?”
“Yeah. I think I do.”
Danny slid into the passenger seat. He was immediately grateful for the blast of hot air from the dashboard vent. Mrs. Morris was dressed almost like a teenager, and her hair was pulled back. He would never have guessed she was a physics teacher.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Nothing, really,” Danny said.
Another arch of her eyebrow.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Right now I’d better get home.”
Danny gave her directions to his house. Mrs. Morris shifted into drive and said, as the car climbed the hill, “You’re holding on to your wrist. Did you hurt it?”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Nothing.” Eager to change the subject, he said, “You look different.”
“Different better or different worse?” she asked, sounding amused.
“Better!” His face turned warm. “Not that you were ugly before.”
“Beauty is only skin deep.” Mrs. Morris slowed for the four-way stop sign at Fairbanks Avenue. “Like this car. Pretty enough on the outside, but inside?”
“Inside you’ve got a two point four liter engine, maybe two hundred horsepower at the most.”
“One hundred seventy-seven,” she said. “You know your cars.”
“I thought I did,” he admitted. “What are you doing out? Just cruising around?”
“I’m going to the football game at Waltham High,” she said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Only a few moments later, she was pulling up to Roger Rat’s house. Danny didn’t want to leave the comfortable seat, the warmth, or Mrs. Morris. But Comet was sitting in the driveway, waiting for him patiently. The dog sat up, barked once, and wagged his tail.
“Thanks for the ride,” he said.
Mrs. Morris gave him an inscrutable look. “Is there anything you want to tell me? About that truck or what happened to you tonight? I’m very trustworthy.”
Danny reached for the passenger handle. “No, I’m good. Thanks for the lift.”
He stood on the lawn and watched Mrs. Morris drive away.
Comet barked.
“Yeah, I know,” Danny said. “The football game’s on the other side of town. She was lying.”
Chapter Ten
Ruin King #5 was bored.
During the day, it had jumped from Junior’s Porsche to MUZKBUX without much excitement. After the bad man with the blue lights showed up, it leapt out of MUZKBUX into the night sky. It drifted over the sparkling lights of Piedmont, looking for a new home, and then landed in a brand new Honda Passport driven by a teenage boy named Ryan Woods.
Ryan was parked behind a movie theater, kissing a girl named Jackie Dixon.
The King liked new cars, and it liked kissing.
“I have to get home,” Jackie said, pulling away. “My dad’ll kill me.”
Ryan kept his hands on her shoulders. “Just ten more minutes?”
She scrunched up her nose and adjusted her sweater. “He’ll kill me totally dead. I’ve got to get home.”
Ryan reluctantly turned the ignition. This was his mother’s new Honda, which he’d sort of borrowed without permission for the evening. She wouldn’t be happy if she found out. She wasn’t going to be happy when she opened her birthday present perfume, either. All she’d wanted for her birthday was a ticket or two to Country Harvest, but they were sold out all over the place. He’d even tried talking to Danny Kelly, this kid at school whose stepdad was a bigwig music executive, and Danny had totally ignored him.
Stupid Danny Kelly.
The King hummed along with the engine strokes, happy to be surrounded by heat and motion. It tested the gas pedal a little. Pulled it do
wn, turned the steering wheel. The Honda responded like a dream.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Jackie asked, pushing her long brown hair aside.
“Nothing!” Ryan said. “I’m not doing anything.”
The King liked the sound of fear in young voices. It sped up a little more. Far ahead, it could sense another engine in motion, this one driven by a diesel engine. It formed a plan, an amazing, exciting, thrilling plan, the best it had in years. It gunned forward.
Jackie screamed, “Slow down!”
Ryan twisted the wheel, stomped on the brakes, threw the SUV into neutral.
Up ahead, warning bells and a dropping barrier.
“Stop!” Jackie yelled, but it was already too late.
Chapter Eleven
Kevin couldn’t believe his own stupidity.
He’d found the King just by driving around. How lucky was that? But he’d been so intent on blasting it and making sure the driver was okay (slim, dark-haired, cute driver, not that he’d noticed much) that he’d totally missed frying it.
His team was going to kill him.
He didn’t want to leave that kid alone, so he’d called Mrs. Morris and asked her to pick him up. She told him that Ford and Gear had gone over to Waltham High to get readings on the parking lot, as planned.
“I’ll meet them there,” Kevin said.
It wasn’t hard to find the high school stadium. The noise, lights, and enormous parking lot were all hard to miss. Waltham High was more blue-collar than Piedmont. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to go to school here. No uniforms, no snobby kids, lots of kids who worked part-time to help their families out. Kevin wouldn’t have played sports, probably, but maybe they had a drama club or a band. That kid he’d saved, he looked like he’d be in the drama club.
Kevin had never had a boyfriend. He wondered what that was like, to always have someone answer when you called, someone you could count on.
Sappy sentimental stuff, he told himself.
Gear was in the south lot with Zeus on a leash. He said, “I thought you’d gone off in a big huff somewhere.”
“Not a huff,” Kevin protested. “Just had to clear my head.”
“Is it clear now?”
Kevin wasn’t quite ready to admit to losing the King. He used his own phone to scan a Chevy SUV. “Clear enough.”
“You think your dad blames you about Dallas.”
“I know he does.”
Gear shook his head. “Maybe you two should sit down and have an actual talk about it.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” Kevin muttered.
As they passed three SUVS, Zeus suddenly strained forward on his leash. His nose pointed toward a blue minivan with a Piedmont sticker. He didn’t bark, which was part of his training. Barking would only alert the Ruin and give it time to escape.
“Careful,” Gear said.
The minivan was rocking back and forth ever so slightly, a sure sign of possession.
Kevin nodded. He activated the Focused Ruin Eradication Device—FRED—in his cell phone and aimed it at the back doors. The minivan registered 82, which was high but not as high as a King Ruin should register.
“I think we should blast it,” Gear said.
Their usual policy was to isolate and eradicate. For an infestation under 75, the FRED did nice enough work and kept a vehicle clean for a year or two. For any of the King Ruins, the only thorough extermination was a full-fledged detonation of the fuel tank while the alien was trapped in the steel.
As much as he wanted to catch and destroy a King, Kevin was leery of blowing up the minivan in such a relatively public place. The Ruin was also likely to jump into any of the nearby cars, necessitating even more of a manhunt.
The minivan shifted more on its wheels. Kevin leaned forward, listening. He heard sounds a Ruin definitely wouldn’t make.
Gear heard them, too. He lowered his FRED and banged his fist against the back door.
“You in there!” he said, in his best stern voice. “Come on out!”
A muffled squeak, a thud, someone’s muffled voice. A tousled head rose to the window, blinked at them in surprise, and ducked down again. More thuds, a muttered curse or two, and the hatch opened. A belligerent teenage boy jumped out.
“What the hell are you doing?” His hands fisted as he glared at Gear. “Who are you?”
Zeus growled.
Gear said, “Such manners.”
Kevin said, “We’re here to warn you. Public indecency is a misdemeanor.”
The boy turned angrily. “And you’re some kind of cop?”
“We’re volunteers for Citizens Against Bad Morality,” he said sarcastically. “We encourage abstinence, wholesome living, and better morality. You want to hear the whole sermon? It takes about forty minutes.”
The girlfriend, a tall girl with long, dark hair, climbed down from the tailgate while buttoning her blouse. “Come on, Mike. Let’s go back to the game.”
“Yeah, Mike,” Gear said. “Go on back.”
The boy looked from Kevin to Gear to Zeus. He slammed the hatch shut, and with a scowl, allowed his girlfriend to pull him away toward the stadium. The girlfriend gave Kevin a backward look, obviously not thinking much of his jeans and sneakers and battered leather jacket.
Kevin waggled his fingers good-bye.
“Fag,” she said with a sneer.
Zeus barked and bared his razor teeth. Which Kevin appreciated, even if he didn’t care what people called him. Not at all.
When the students were gone, he and Gear scanned the minivan again. The reading had dropped to normal levels.
“That’s what happens when you get a little loving going on,” Gear said. Ruins got excited around love, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. No one knew why, but then again, it wasn’t like you could strap one down and dissect it.
The breeze brought the smell of hot dogs to Kevin’s nose. “I’m starving,” he said.
“No time for food,” Ford said, zigzagging his way through the cars. With him was Apollo, straining on his leash. “Something you want to report on, Kevin?”
Gear’s gaze shifted to Kevin’s face. He tried not to look sheepish. “I guess I kind of ran into a Ruin on the way over.”
“Kind of,” Ford said flatly. “Mrs. Morris just identified the driver. Daniel Kelly, a Piedmont Prep student. Did he see your face?”
“No! I’m not that dumb. I never took off my helmet.”
Gear asked, “Did you fry it?”
“It jumped out,” Kevin said. “I wasn’t quick enough.”
A cheer went up in the stadium, as if to mock him. He could feel disappointment rolling off both Gear and his dad.
Ford said, “Tell me you at least got a signature reading.”
Kevin displayed the data on his phone: 5699D. Ruin King #5. Both adults sighed.
Gear said, “Well, at least we have proof it’s still in town. So what now?”
Ford rubbed the side of his head. “We’re going to have to cast a wider net. I told Richie Venezuela and his people to start putting out the sensor stop signs. We’ll get the city’s help tomorrow to work on the major intersections.”
Gear asked, “Are we done here?”
“Not yet,” Ford said. “I want to get more readings, see how many cars are infected.”
Gear let out a low whistle. “You know the home office doesn’t like big operations.”
Ford said, “I’ll take care of the home office.”
“Good to hear.” Gear tugged on Zeus’s leash. “How about you two finish this lot, and I’ll try the overflow lot?”
Kevin recognized what Gear was doing—leaving him with his dad to talk. As if they ever had real conversations. Once Gear was gone, they worked the rows and aisles quietly, with little chatter. Every now and then Kevin caught sight of the scoreboard: second quarter, Piedmont in the lead. Most of the students and parents were in the stands, but some knots of kids were gathered around cars with beer cans in paper bags. Kevin didn’t ma
ke eye contact with them.
“You saved that kid’s life,” Ford finally said.
Kevin tried not to think about Danny Kelly and how he might have ended up—broken neck, smashed-in skull, or incinerated in a fire. “I was just in the neighborhood.”
“Still, good work,” his father said. And then, a few minutes later, “Mrs. Morris said you’re supposed to take the SATs next month, but now you want to cancel.”
Damn. She’d ratted him out.
“I don’t need them,” Kevin replied. “I don’t want to go to college. I don’t need to for this job.”
“You’re not going to have this job all your life, Kevin.”
“I might.”
“Well, you’ll never get much of a raise without a college degree.”
Mrs. Morris had told him the same thing. Kevin believed them, but it wasn’t as if he ever expected to be rich anyway. He didn’t say that, because then he’d get the speech about ambition and realizing his true potential and all that well-meaning stuff that meant nothing at all, really.
“I don’t want to sit in some stuffy classroom for the next four years,” he said. “You didn’t.”
“Which is why we live in an RV,” he said.
“Tell you what, Dad.” Kevin stopped him. “Why don’t we both go to college together? We can graduate in the same class. They’ll let us walk the stage together and write about us in the local newspaper.”
He meant it in jest, but it wouldn’t be so bad, really, seeing his father on campus every day, and knowing he wasn’t out putting his life in danger.
Ford’s phone rang. He answered, “Yes? Where? We’ll be right there.”
“What is it?” Kevin asked.
“The King,” Ford said grimly. “It just killed two more people.”
Chapter Twelve
Fifteen minutes later, Kevin and the rest of the team were standing with other spectators at the railroad crossing on Flynn Street. Emergency lights cast red strobes against tall pine trees. Radios in squad cars squawked messages back and forth. The firemen were using saws to get to the corpses, and the cut and wrench of metal made Kevin’s teeth ache.