by Peter Clines
Eli turned around on the side of the road, and time froze.
The black car was caught in mid-pounce, like it didn’t drive so much as lunge forward along the strip of pavement. It seemed heavier in the front, and a thin line of silver ran along its side. The windows were short and rounded on the corners.
Across the width of the car, the driver stared at Eli. His face was shadowed by a black hat, but there was enough sunlight to see his chin and nose and forehead glisten. His cheeks were pink, “a little color to them” Eli’s mom would say, and his eyebrows and mustache were dark lines on his face. His smile didn’t show any teeth.
Both of the man’s eyes were closed. Not blinking or winking. Closed.
But his head was turned to point right at Eli.
Past the man’s face was a black gun. It was huge and blocky in the man’s hand. He was in the process of putting it out his window. The man was driving, and getting ready to shoot his gun, and staring at Eli.
All with his eyes closed.
The moment passed.
The black car rocketed past him. Dust and leaves whipped at Eli. He grabbed at his ears to block the roar, but the sound was already fading. He turned and caught a last glimpse of the car before it screeched around the distant bend.
A sharp sound echoed back to Eli. A distant bang like fireworks. It happened again.
The road went quiet. Dust settled down over the toolbox, the wrench, and the red plastic fuel can. He didn’t think they were coming back for any of them.
Eli’s left leg was clammy. His jeans were wet. He didn’t remember Harry or the homeless man spilling any water on him, but then the smell hit his nose. “Oh, no,” he whispered. He snatched up his backpack and held it to hide the stain. He looked back at his bicycle and thought of several different ways to get the bike home until he figured out an awkward one that would let him keep the backpack where it was.
He stared down the road as he struggled home. He’d seen enough episodes of Knight Rider to know what had happened. The man in the black car had been shooting at Harry.
A breeze carried the smell of urine to his nose again. Eli cringed with the thought of Zeke the Freak spotting him. Even Josh and Corey would laugh at him for wetting his pants. All other thoughts were pushed away and Eli lumbered the last few dozen yards home with his bike and backpack.
2
Eli was thirteen years old the second time he met Harry.
He’d hit the ugly phase in every child’s puberty where his body had to decide whether it would gain height or weight first. Eli’s body had chosen the second option. He still hadn’t reached five feet, but he’d passed 130 pounds last summer. He hadn’t stepped on a scale since, despite his mother’s assurances it would all even out in the end.
Mr. Jackson let him go half an hour early that day, because he’d sorted all the shelves and there was nothing to do. There was little chance of a last-minute rush this early in the season. Honestly, no matter what season it was, there was almost never a chance of a rush at any store in Sanders. If it wasn’t for last-minute goatropers (his grammy’s favorite term for tourists) who couldn’t get a motel closer to the beach, Eli was pretty sure Sanders would’ve vanished like a fart in the wind long before he was born.
He still had a decent chance to catch up with Corey and Josh, though. They’d stopped by Jackson’s an hour earlier to grab some magazines, a few comics, and a six-pack of Mountain Dew. They were heading to hang out on the bleachers for a while, until it got dark. Josh hinted there may be girls there too. Not girls like Robin, who was pretty much cool and one of the guys, but maybe someone like Nicole, who was already on the cheerleading squad as a high school freshman and wearing miniskirts and long socks to school at least once a week.
Eli dragged his ten-speed out of the storeroom, pumped the pedals, and cut down behind the Video Emporium toward the Founders House. It was a roundabout way to get to the baseball field, but it beat going by Pizza Pub and the fire station. The little lawn between the two was Zeke Miller’s favorite hangout, and Eli didn’t feel like dealing with the local bully today.
Really, there weren’t any days he felt like dealing with Zeke. Eli’s size made him an easy target. In many ways.
The Founders loomed in front of him. The building sprawled across the top of a small hill, its white paint yellowed with age and three or four of its windows cracked, but none actually broken. Eli could never decide if it looked more like a big mansion or a high-end hotel. He’d never seen anyone there to ask, and wouldn’t have been interested enough to ask if he had. The Founders just sat there, not quite at the center of town, getting older every year and doing nothing else. There weren’t even any good rumors about it. No suicides or hobo murders or angry ghosts or anything.
Sanders was too boring to even have a plain-old haunted house.
Then, as if on cue, one of the windows burst with a crash of breaking glass. Eli clamped down on the brakes and his bike skidded to a halt. He heard the snickering laughter just a moment before the next rock pinged off his handlebars. He yanked his hands away and the laughter increased.
“What are you looking at, Flea-lie?” Zeke bounced another rock on his fingertips, eager to send it flying. For every inch Eli hadn’t grown over the past few years, Zeke had grown two. He was already being prepped for the football team, even though school rules said he couldn’t play until next year.
Zeke’s best—probably only—friend, Dougie, was with him. They stood at the base of the Founders House hill, in the gravel side road that led over to the baseball field. Their own bikes lay in the tall grass behind them.
“Nothing, Zeke.” Eli sighed. He glanced at the road and wondered if he could get away before catching a rock in the back of the head. Zeke’s aim wasn’t fantastic, but it was good enough.
And Eli was an easy target.
A wisp of smoke curled from Dougie’s hand. Eli’s eyes went to it. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a classmate with a cigarette, but it was still something that caught him off guard. It was foolish, but in his mind smoking was something for college students and adults.
Dougie saw his eyes move. The other boy’s face hardened. “You’re not going to rat us out, are you, tubby?”
Eli shook his head. If he hadn’t stopped his bike, he’d have been past them and heading down the alley toward the baseball field. He probably would’ve been able to see Corey and Josh by now. And maybe Nicole.
“Well?” snapped Zeke. His free hand flexed open and closed, open and closed, like it did whenever he got overexcited. Everybody called it his spaz fist. “Answer him. You going to rat us out or you going to keep quiet?”
“Yeah,” Eli sighed.
A grin spread across Zeke’s broad jaw. “Yeah, you’re going to keep quiet, or yeah, you’re going to rat us out?”
Eli’s chest sagged. His belly flexed against the waistband of his jeans. He’d played this game with Zeke before. Too many times. Which is why it caught him off guard when the rules changed.
The rock hit him just above his right eye, on the brow. The blow echoed through his skull, and, for a moment, his neck and back and legs wobbled. He grabbed at the handlebars of the bike to steady himself, but it tilted with him.
Zeke and Dougie snickered. “I think he’s gonna cry,” said the ape-jawed boy.
“Cry like a chubby little girl,” Dougie said.
Eli’s legs became solid again. The world stopped swaying. He flexed his knees and the bike straightened out between his legs. A few raindrops hit the back of his hand.
Zeke’s eyes went wide. “Shit,” he muttered. He shifted his fingers and another lump of gravel dropped to the ground.
Eli glanced up at the gray but cloudless sky. He looked down at his hand. The raindrops were dark red.
He reached up to wipe his forehead. His eyebrow was sore and sticky. The fingers came back streaked with more red.
“Hey,” said Zeke. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Eli. You okay?”
&nb
sp; Insults, punches, tripping kids in the hall between classes, shoving them around. These things weren’t pleasant, but they were accepted. Drawing blood was not. Everyone knew there were rules, even to being a bully.
Eli’s body trembled. Fight or flight, his science teacher called it. Eli knew the feeling all too well.
“I’m sorry,” said Zeke. “I don’t think…I don’t think it’s bad as it looks.”
Eli put his foot on the pedal and pushed down. The bike rolled forward, carrying him across the front of Founders House. The other pedal came up and he shoved it back down with his toes.
Zeke took a few steps. “Eli,” he called out again.
Eli stood up on the pedals, pumping hard. Getting away was all that mattered, and he hated himself for running. He was halfway down the length of the Founders House when he heard Zeke shout and another cackle from Dougie.
A few minutes later he stopped pumping the pedals, wiped his eyes, and looked around. He’d followed the road up the hill and around half of downtown, almost looping himself back to Main Street. He was on Cross Road, right between the two churches. The bright-colored Catholic church was next to him, and the dark Protestant one stood kitty-corner across the street. Cross Road wasn’t named after the churches, but it was a handy coincidence. It also didn’t cross anything else, ending at a T intersection on either end.
His eyelid was sticky, but the wetness on his hand wiped some of it clean. He rubbed his fingers on his jeans and left a dark stain only a mother would see. Some spit in his palm helped wipe off some more.
Eli looked up at the Catholic church. Its doors were big and solid wood, but he knew there was a back door to the cellar that had a panel of glass in it. The sun was already near the trees, so he’d be able to get a good reflection and wipe more blood off his face. If he was lucky, he’d be able to pass it off as a random bike injury. High school was complicated enough for a freshman fat kid without his mother making phone calls and accusations.
“Pissbucket!”
The shout made him cringe. Zeke had decided a little blood wasn’t anything to worry about after all, and probably had a pocket full of stones. But the moment slipped away and Eli’s breath eased. It hadn’t been Zeke’s voice. Or Dougie’s. A clang of metal followed the shout.
Eli scooted his bike forward, past the line of shrubs, to peer into the Protestant parking lot. In the back, half hidden in the shadows, was an old car. Eli saw a slim figure standing behind it shaking a hand in the universal gesture for unexpected pain.
Something rolled over in Eli’s memories and stretched for a moment. He forgot his wounded eyebrow and Zeke and his mother. His foot pushed down and the bike rolled across the street. Another crank of the pedals carried him into the parking lot.
He remembered seeing a filmstrip on cars like this in history class, one about Henry Ford and assembly-line factories. This car was dark blue, with fenders that wrapped around the spoked wheels. The front seemed to be all chrome, and the round headlights were ringed with polished metal. A red plastic fuel can was strapped to the back, larger than the emergency ones the gas station sold. Panels of dark-blue metal had been stacked on top of the hood.
The older boy stood about five foot ten and thin. He had a soft face with green eyes and a small chin. His blond hair curled on the sides, and a loose ponytail with three ties in it slipped over his shoulder when he looked down at the engine. A collarless shirt hung on him, with a blue vest draped over that. The teen took a few steps away from the car, held a piece of metal up in the sunlight, and gave Eli a view of baggy black pants. The sort of Revolutionary period costume some people dressed up in for holiday parades, except these looked…real. The fabric was heavier, and the clothes looked worn-in.
A pair of cowboy belts crisscrossed over the boy’s hips. Or maybe it was one elaborate belt. A holster hung on each thigh, just below the waist, and gleaming black steel spilled out of the top of each one.
The older boy’s eyes flitted from the square plate to Eli. “Are you okay?” he asked. His voice made the warm thing in Eli’s memories stretch again. “Were you in a fight?”
“Sort of,” said Eli. He dropped the kickstand on his bike and took a few steps toward the car.
The teenager lowered the metal plate and worked something long and white back and forth along the edge. Tiny bristles scoured the coarse surface. “How do you sort of get in a fight?” asked the older boy. He lifted the toothbrush from the plate and blew some dust away.
“Do I know you?”
The teenager eyed the metal square and pursed his lips like someone working up to an unpleasant kiss. “My father always said it’s rude to answer a question with a question.”
“I’m Eli Teague.” The memories yawned and threw back the blankets. The scent of phantom urine tickled Eli’s nose. He coughed it away. “Is your name Harry?”
The older boy raised an eyebrow. “I guess you do know me.” He tucked the toothbrush into his belt and hefted a bulky object from the passenger’s seat. It looked like two cans stuck together. “So, how do you ‘sort of’ get in a fight?”
“He threw a rock at me,” said Eli.
Harry cradled the football-sized thing in his arm. “You didn’t get out of the way?”
“I wasn’t ready. He usually punches me in the arm. Or pinches my belly.”
The other boy grunted.
Eli watched, then cleared his throat. “What is that thing?”
“This, young Master Teague,” said Harry, “is one of the miracles of the twentieth century.” He lined up the piece of metal and pushed it down into the larger shape. “It’s a modified Garrett carburetor. I had some of the plates replaced with superconductive material to improve the electrolysis rate, but impurities build up and they need to get polished every few thousand miles or so.” The plate clicked into place and Harry sealed the metal shape closed.
Eli nodded in a slow, thoughtful way.
“You have no idea what that means, do you?”
“Yeah, I do,” Eli insisted.
“No, you don’t.” Harry crouched down on his side of the car. “It’s okay. A few years ago I didn’t know what it all meant either.”
Eli stepped closer and glanced at the exposed engine. Rather than leaning back toward the windshield, one whole side of the hood folded up and over the center line, becoming the stack of metal he’d seen from the other side. Harry leaned forward into the engine compartment, and Eli found himself looking along the engine and down the older teen’s shirt.
While Eli wasn’t an experienced boy, by any means, he’d been studying his female classmates’ swelling bodies for some time now. The sight of cleavage in Harry’s shirt made Eli’s breath catch and his temperature flare. They weren’t as big as some he’d seen in pictures and on videotapes, but those were definitely boobs. Boobs unhindered by a bra. As the older teen lowered the carburetor into position, there was even a quick flash of dark nipple.
“You’re a girl,” he squeaked, feeling both ashamed and excited.
Harry looked up and followed his eye line. She shook her head and pushed her shirt closed with her free hand. “Don’t be rude, Master Teague. We’ve only just met.”
One finger came free of the shirt and twirled in the air. Eli stared at it for a moment, baffled. Then he turned around.
He heard a rustle of cloth and a mutter. “Okay,” said Harry, “you can turn around.”
He did. She’d turned her vest around backward. It sat on her like a high-necked apron, hiding any other glimpses from Eli’s eyes.
“If you’re going to stand here,” she said, leaning back into the engine compartment, “you can at least earn that little show you just had. Grab a crescent wrench.” She waved at the passenger seat.
Eli looked through the car and saw a battered toolbox. He jogged around the car, rooted through the tools, and came up with a rusted wrench that looked like it might have been last used during World War II. He dragged his thumb across it and the wrench unscrewe
d by a quarter inch.
“Any day now,” said Harry.
“Sorry.” He walked over and held up the wrench.
“Good.” She slid a bolt home through one of the carburetor’s edges and twisted a washer and a nut over the end. “Put it on the nut under this while I tighten this down.”
Eli squeezed in and reached over the front fender. He got the wrench over the little hex and tightened it. The engine compartment smelled very clean. “Okay,” he said.
Harry’s wrist whipped back and forth. Her own wrench grabbed the bolt, twisted it, let go, and grabbed it again. Eli felt the nut shift and tighten itself against the washer. “Next one’s a little harder,” she told him. The bolt slid through on the other side of the pipe, next to the engine itself. He stretched his arm around and realized he was pressed up against Harry. He could feel her body through the clothes between them.
Eli got his wrench on the nut and tried very hard to think of all the issues of Amazing Spider-Man he needed to complete his collection. When Harry leaned forward and shifted her leg, rubbing it against his, he began listing members of the Teen Titans and the X-Men. Her wrist moved again, the nut and bolt snuggled together, and the carburetor settled into position.
She held out her hand for the wrench. “I can get the last ones myself.”
“I can help,” he said.
“Better if I do it myself,” she said.
Eli handed over the wrench.
“Besides,” she added, “I think you might pass out if we bump hips again.”