11
Evan’s hand didn’t loosen on the bat until they’d gotten back onto Route 33. They had to be going at least eighty miles an hour, and Sarabeth’s eyes were glued to the road. Suddenly, she swung a wide left into the IHOP parking lot and pulled up alongside the restaurant, next to the machines holding the Chicago Tribune and the Tinley Herald.
Through his shredded plastic window, Evan could see the papers were from Saturday. Saturday morning, when he’d barely been sure he’d have the guts to go to Teena’s party, much less imagined becoming one of its only survivors. It was now early on Sunday, the time when Evan figured the papers were normally printed. Would someone come to fill these boxes? Would there even be papers? It didn’t seem like anyone was left to write the headlines. Besides the family they’d failed to save, they hadn’t seen a single other person. Were the aliens taking over everywhere? And how was it possible that he was one of the last people on Earth? Or at least in Tinley Hills. With Teena McAuley, of all people. Which only made the fact that he’d probably still strike out with her all the more pathetic.
Under the restaurant’s trademark blue roof, the lit windows looked like empty, lonely eyes. If Evan had been with his stepdad, Godly Jim Gibson, this would have been a sign. And those green goblin bastards would be some swarm from hell, and the big purple aliens minions of Satan. “If God didn’t make it, then someone’s trying to fake it” was one of his Soul Purpose catchphrases.
The IHOP might have been creepier for not being dark, like everywhere else. Under the fluorescent lights, plates of food sat half-eaten and abandoned. Either people had collectively just given up on their Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruitys and decamped for Denny’s, or something more sinister had occurred. Leo must have been right. The aliens had taken everyone. And their cars, judging by the parking lot. The only car was an old silver Airstream motor home, the one people at Ermer called haunted because it had been in the parking lot for as long as anyone could remember. Rumor had it, a crazy old man lived there, but no one had ever seen him.
“Don’t you guys feel like we’re in some kind of weird IHOP commercial? Like, ‘Intergalactic attacks keeping you up at night? IHOP is open twenty-four hours,’” Leo said. Both girls shot Leo dirty looks from the front seat, but Evan didn’t mind Leo’s attempts to lighten the mood.
“Why did you stop here, Sarabeth?” Teena asked. The greenie’s scratch on her neck wasn’t as bad as Evan had initially worried it was, but she’d been quiet ever since they’d gotten back on the road. Evan wished he could comfort her, but he was having a hard enough time comforting himself.
“The lights were on.” Sarabeth shrugged. “It seemed like the only place to go, as usual.”
Evan laughed to himself. The guys on the baseball team always came here after practice or after they went out for the night. Waffles were the best way to soak up a six-pack of Bud as it sloshed in your stomach. Evan had never really been invited. And now here he was, at four o’clock in the morning, with Teena McAuley. And she didn’t even seem to hate him. It was sort of like he’d made lemonade from the lemons of the evening, even though he probably should have used them to wash out his eyeballs to forget what he’d seen tonight.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save that family,” he said softly. The dead bodies at Teena’s were gruesome, but seeing that little girl’s fearful expression would haunt him forever.
For ten seconds too long, no one answered.
“It’s not your fault, Evan,” Sarabeth said. “It’s not any of our faults. Who saw jet packs coming? I just hope we can find out where they’re taking people before they capture us.”
He appreciated the honesty. And then he wondered how much easier his life would be if he could just crush on a girl like Sarabeth and not like Teena. Of course, if he liked a girl like Sarabeth, then Sarabeth would probably be the girl who thought he was a pathetic loser. Plus, she didn’t know it yet, but Evan predicted she’d be into Leo before the night was through. Or before they were through, whichever came first.
“There’s no way in hell we can stop them.” The others stared at him like he’d just lit his hair on fire. “What? I’m allowed to say hell.”
Silence. Evan could tell he’d freaked them all out a little, just like he had with the window. “All that crap my stepfather spouts about locusts and fire and brimstone doesn’t scare me. Most days, I think it’s all BS. But this isn’t the end of days. It’s real.”
“What are you saying, Evan?” Teena asked, her big brown eyes designed to make you wish you were alone with her, or in Evan’s case, made him wish he were the kind of guy who had a clue what to do if he got her alone.
“I’m scared. Call me a wuss or whatever,” he said, looking into IHOP at an empty high chair facing a plate of chicken fingers, like some macabre museum exhibit. “But I’m scared.”
“I’m scared, too,” Sarabeth said.
Teena looked from Sarabeth to Evan, and he steeled himself for an admonishment. “Fine. If it will help you guys get over yourselves, I’m scared, too,” Teena said reluctantly.
They all looked to Leo, who was staring out the van’s window at the Airstream camper. Evan hoped Leo wouldn’t play the cool-guy role and blow this all off like alien invasions happened every day for guys as chill as him. Not for the threat Leo’s attitude might pose to Evan’s manhood, but for what kind of liar you’d have to be to not admit this was terrifying.
Leo scratched his head with his knuckles, shook his hair out, and turned away from his window to look at them all. “Shitless,” he said. “I’m scared shitless. So call me a pussy, too. Or did you say wuss? I prefer pussy.” He grinned at Evan, like they were two guys getting psyched up for the big game. Despite playing in many big games, Evan had never had anyone to get psyched up with. He liked having Leo around.
The van was silent for a while as it sank in that their terror was something they all had in common. It was almost relaxing, sitting there, sharing a collective fear.
A pounding came at Leo’s window. Leo jumped, grabbing the pink cleaver. Evan cocked back his bat wildly. Sarabeth grabbed a can of Mace from the center console. Teena whipped out her Uzi again, then put it down with a shaking hand.
It took a second to realize the face was human. And old. And not entirely clean. Under the awning lights of the IHOP, Evan could make out a formerly white beard, now yellowing, that hung from a craggy, weathered face to the man’s chest, over a shirt that read I’M A FANITOBA OF MANITOBA, which was layered beneath a hairy brown blanket that looked like it had been made from Ewok skins. The man rapped on the window again, smiling. Surprisingly, he had a full set of teeth that were very white, very even, and obviously fake.
“What the fuck?” Leo exclaimed, opening the van door a crack.
“Don’t open the door, Leo!” Teena yelped.
Leo shook his head. “Seriously, Teena, all the shit we encountered tonight and you’re freaked out by this dude,” he said. “Anyway, he’s a living legend. It’s Winnebago Guy.”
“Who’re all of you? And why’s there no one in the IHOP?” the man asked, bringing his face close to Leo’s. Even from his seat on the other side of the van, Evan smelled the bacon grease, vinegar, and cigarettes. “And who’s got a light?” He waved a messy hand-rolled cigarette in Leo’s face but looked past him, toward Evan. “What about you, son?”
Evan shook his head and pointed at Leo. “If he doesn’t have one, then no one does.”
Leo fumbled in his pocket for his Bic lighter, which he handed to the man. The man poked him once on the shoulder. “Well, come on, you can’t expect me to smoke out here in the cold. Let me sit down. That’s not a Winnebago, by the way.”
“Well, that’s just what we call you,” Leo said. “It has a nice ring to it.”
The old man shoved past Leo into the van and sat on the floor between Leo’s and Evan’s seats. “No smoking in the van,” said Sarabeth, who’d been staring incredulously. Then she rolled her eyes. “What do I care? Go ahead.”
Teena looked at her, exasperated. “What is wrong with you guys? You can’t use an alien invasion as a reason to let a crazy drifter into the car.”
The man puffed on his cigarette for a long time and then looked at Teena with twinkly, mischievous eyes. “Alien invasions? You got wacky tobacky? Wanna share?” He sniffed the air twice, his smile disturbingly new on the old face. “And I’m no drifter. I took up permanent residence over there.” He pointed at the Airstream. “Problem is, can’t find my lighter. Checked everywhere but my ass cheeks. Would use the stove, but last time, I almost took my beard off. You all still didn’t answer my question about why the IHOP’s closed.”
“We’re under attack,” Evan said. “Everyone else is missing. We haven’t been caught yet. We think the aliens are taking people, but we don’t know where.”
“Damn commies,” the man said, offering his cigarette to them.
“Did you hear anything? Or see anything?” Leo asked, turning down the cigarette as he packed some weed into his bowl and lit it.
“Seriously, Leo, you’re smoking up now?” Sarabeth said. “I mean, I got it before, but don’t we need our wits about us or whatever?”
“Look, this dude has lived in that RV by the IHOP for fucking ever. I’ve never gotten to see him. The IHOP is void of any people, another first in its twenty-four-hours, seven-days-a-week history. Plus, we just realized that we’re probably all gonna die. So yeah, I’m smoking up, SB,” he said, inhaling deeply and holding the smoke in. “Why not enjoy what’s left?”
“That’s my motto, and I’ve been enjoyin’ what was left since 1976,” the man said, folding his long legs up like a spry yogi. He was wearing bike shorts and big fuzzy brown slippers under the Ewok blanket. “That little spot, where my silver beauty sits, that spot is a piece of unincorporated land. And I occupy it. I even got a full bar in there. I’ll serve ya, too. Shots are a nickel. Bring your friends. I don’t card or nothing. Just ask for me, Abe.”
Abe poked Evan lightly on the shoulder, and he couldn’t help but feel a little better. He’d always appreciated a harmless weirdo, since he was a little kid. In weekly White Sox games with his dad, sitting in the cheap seats, they’d met a homeless guy who believed he was part dragon and part Viking, an elderly lady with flame-red hair who claimed she could summon pigeons (it seemed to work), and an amateur magician who dabbled in portable pyrotechnics (he’d been thrown out of the game for shooting two fireballs out of his sleeve after a home run).
“So the only bar in Tinley Hills is in the IHOP parking lot?” Evan asked. Tinley was a dry town, which was one of the reasons Godly Jim liked it so much.
The man’s eyes twinkled happily. “Yup. Now, what are you kids talking about, aliens?”
“Aliens. Big, slimy, purple, indestructible aliens,” Teena chimed in. “Aliens that puke puddles of green shit that turns into little, nasty, flying goblins … ”
“Greenies,” Leo piped up. “I’m calling them greenies, and if we survive, I’m going to breed a strain of pot and name it Mean Greenies.”
“Anyway,” Teena jumped back in, clearly annoyed with Leo’s interruption, “they killed about a hundred people at my house, and they’re kidnapping everyone else.”
“Yup, does sound like we’re all gonna die. I should be getting back to my beauty,” Abe said. He flicked Leo’s lighter and waved it around, the flame shimmying. “Can I have this?”
“Why don’t you come with us?” Evan asked. Teena and Sarabeth reeled around like they wanted to capture Evan’s brain as it ran away from his body. Leo looked at him with quizzical admiration, he thought.
“I like that idea even better,” Abe said, scrambling up from the floor to sit between Leo and Evan.
“And you can have this book of matches. I’m hoping this lighter is lucky,” Leo said. He pulled some Phat Phil’s matches from his jacket pocket.
Still grinning, the man took the matches and raised them over his head like a trophy. He lit another cigarette and leaned back in the seat between Evan and Leo. Leo hit his pipe hard and tried to pass it to Evan.
“Not right now, man,” Evan said. “But thanks.” He didn’t function as well as Leo did when he was high. Maybe because he’d done it only once.
“Okay, so now that we’ve all admitted we’re terrified and we picked up a drifter, we need a plan,” Sarabeth said. She was right, Evan knew, and he wanted to be the one to send them on the right path, not a deathly one. But he didn’t know what that was. If only he could be on the mound. On the pitcher’s mound, everything always became so much clearer. On the mound, he felt like he could see in front of him and behind him and into the past and into the future. There was a stillness on the mound. Wisdom. Perspective.
It came to him then, how they could get some perspective.
“What’s the highest point in Tinley Hills?” Evan asked, getting excited to finally have an answer to something. “That’s where we need to go. We could figure out where the aliens are taking people.”
“Yahoo! An adventure!” the old man yelled. He pointed out the window at the mobile home. “But if we’re really under attack, I’m not leaving Janie here. She comes with.”
Leo nodded as he hit his pipe, again, for a long time. “Evan, I like your thinking. And, believe it or not, I know just the place.” He exhaled slowly and dramatically, keeping everyone in suspense like he was the hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. “We go to High Point. And we bring Janie.”
“You hear that, girl?” Abe hollered out the window to his vehicle. “We got a plan!”
Evan grinned for what felt like the first time in forever. Leo might have been very, very, very high, and Abe might have been very, very crazy, but they were just the votes of confidence Evan needed.