“You’re not nice. You’re bossy. And you don’t want me singing, ’cause I’m better than you.”
“That’s enough,” Melanie snapped. She rubbed her brow and blew a dismal sigh at the windshield. “This is our fault.”
“No kidding.” Robert rolled the Voyager another ten inches, tapping the wheel in busy thought. “Maybe next weekend, Hannah and I—”
The piercing screech of tires filled the air, far too close for anyone’s comfort. The Givens spun their gazes all around but no one could see movement. Every vehicle was stuck on the flytrap of I-90.
The noise gave way to a thundering crunch. A long and twisted piece of metal rained down on the Camry in front of them, shattering the rear window.
Melanie covered her mouth. “Oh my God!”
Robert raised his wide stare at the overpass, where all the trouble was happening. A speeding tanker truck had flipped onto its side and skidded through the guardrail. Now the curved metal trailer teetered precariously over the edge. Robert barely had a chance to formulate his hot new worry before the Shell Oil logo bloomed into view like a mushroom cloud.
No . . .
The truck toppled over, plummeting toward the turnpike in a messy twirl. The parents froze, breathless, as their minds fell into an accelerated state of alarm. While Melanie forced a hundred regrets, Robert hissed a thousand curses at the invisible forces that brought them here, all the cruel odds and gods behind their senseless demise.
After an eternity of wincing dread, they heard the dry squawk of the wiper blades, the rustling scrapes of Amanda’s black taffeta.
“Daddy?”
Robert and Melanie opened a leery eye, then stared at the fresh new madness in front of them.
The fuel truck hung immobile in the air, a scant nine feet from impact. Floating bits of debris twinkled all around it like stars in the night. In every other vehicle, silhouetted figures remained flash-frozen in terrified poses. Only the thin wisps of smoke from the cab’s engine seemed to move in any fashion. They rippled in place with the lazy torpor of sea plants.
Amanda leaned forward, her face slack with bewilderment. At ten years old, her universe had settled into a firm and tidy construct. Everything fit together with mechanical precision, even the squeaky gears of her little sister. But now something had gone horribly wrong with the clockwork. Amanda was old enough to know that things like this simply didn’t happen. Not to the living. Not to the sane.
“Daddy, what . . . what is this?”
Robert turned around as best he could, struggling to rediscover his voice. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Just stay where you are. Don’t do anything.”
Melanie unclasped her seat belt and reached a trembling hand for Hannah. “Sweetie, you okay?”
The child shook her head in misery. “I’m cold.”
Now that Hannah mentioned it, the others noticed the sharp drop in temperature, enough to turn their breath visible. They glanced outside and saw a strange blue tint to the world, as if someone had wrapped their van in cellophane.
Amanda flinched at the new life outside the window.
“M-Mom. Dad . . .”
The others followed her gaze to the center of the freeway, where three tall and reedy strangers watched them with calm interest. The man on the left wore a thin gray windbreaker over jeans, his handsome face half-obscured by a low-slung Yankees cap. The woman on the right sported a stylish white longcoat and kinky brown hair that flowed in improbable directions, like Botticelli’s Venus. Her deep black eyes locked on Amanda, holding the girl like tar.
Hannah and her parents kept their saucer stares on the man in the middle.
He was the tallest of the group, at least six and a half feet, with a trim Caesar haircut that lay as white as a snowcap. He wore a sharp charcoal business suit, eschewing a tie for a more casual open collar. Melanie found him beautiful to the point of unease. His skin was flawless, ageless, and preternaturally pale. His only color seemed to come from his irises, a fierce diamond-blue that cut through glass and Givens alike.
The trio stood with the formal poise of butlers, though Robert found nothing helpful or kind in their stony expressions. Melanie gripped his shoulder when he reached for the door.
“Don’t. Don’t go out there.”
The white-haired man blew a curt puff of mist, then spoke in a cool honey bass that might have been soothing if it wasn’t so testy.
“Calm yourselves. We just saved your lives. If you wish to keep living, then do as I say. Come out of the vehicle. All of you. Quickly.”
He spoke with a slight foreign accent, a quasi-European twang that didn’t register anywhere in Robert and Melanie’s database. Despite all floating evidence in support of the man’s good intentions, the elder Givens had a difficult time working their door handles.