Stuart staggered forward, gasping for breath, grabbed Jolene’s shoulders and lifted her upright in one mighty yank, shoving her toward the equipment in the back of the van.
“Turn it off!” he cried, shouted in her ear as he shoved her, felt himself falling forward from the momentum, crashing into the back of her as she fell through the open door onto the floor of the van.
Half in, half out of the van, the top part of Stuart’s body was pinning Jolene down and Stuart managed to roll over to get his weight off her. Moving to the side placed him on his back next to the big box-like thing that was like some kind of speaker, the ghost-buster thingy. He hadn’t the strength to move away from it, but gravity dragged him out of the van when his knees buckled, unable to hold his weight, and he began to slide down to the ground beside the open side door. Beyond the van was only writhing shadows and faces … faces in the mist above.
The screech in his head was—
The sound stopped. It still rang in his skull in aftershocks, but the screaming and wailing had ceased. He drew in a breath and there was air, enough to give him the strength not to sink all the way to the ground but to catch himself and push his body upward with his knees, staggering to his feet.
It was lighter, brighter. The monsters were not as black, were fading. He reached out his hand to Jolene, she took it and …
Something banged into the door beside him and the glass shattered, raining down on the ground around him.
He heard the sound then, even in the reverberations in his ears, he heard the gunshot.
“Jolene!” he cried.
Jolene was going blind, a circle of blackness all around her was closing like the mouth of a drawstring bag. Then she felt Stuart’s hands lift her, shove her toward the open side door of the van. “Turn it off!”
He fell on top of her, then rolled away and she reached out feeling, barely able to see. There was not one single switch that would … She had to flip the … and dial down the … turn the knob.
She couldn’t think.
The machine made no sound, at least not one in a decibel range of the human ear. But reverberating out from the van, the sound waves had hit something solid … invisible, but solid, and bounced back. As more and more waves pulsed out, blasted out, the pressure inside the … what? Some kind of invisible bubble! … grew greater and greater. Incredible pressure. There should only have been a hum she could feel in the fillings of her teeth as the sound waves pulsed out and away. Instead, the pressure of the confined sound waves was … suffocating.
A random handful of synapses firing somewhere in her brain registered understanding. The Elmer Fudd rifle had fired after all, had hit its mark, had hurt the Jabberwock. Hurt it bad and it had screamed, squealed in agony … and then fought back, dropped an invisible bell jar around the van to make them turn it off. No … it didn’t scream. They screamed. Plural.
Fine, okay, I give up, you win. Uncle!
Jolene’s searching hands fell on a wire and she yanked, pulled as hard as she could, felt it let go. The little green light on the machine blinked out. The humming vibration stilled.
The iron band that had been around her chest loosened. She could draw in a breath, sucked in a huge gasp of air. Stuart was standing beside the open van door with his hand extended. She shakily reached out to him and he pulled her … and then the window beside her suddenly exploded, pieces of glass flying everywhere.
What in the worl—?
She felt a sudden stab of pain, like she’d been impaled with a skewer and the force of the blow knocked her into Stuart. She heard her name from a long way off. Then the drawstring bag around Jolene’s vision pulled shut and the world went black.
“Somebody’s shooting at us,” Cotton cried.
Jolene had lurched toward Stuart and collapsed in his arms, knocking him to the ground beside Cotton, who had been on his knees, but flattened himself on his belly at the sound of the second “bang.”
Cotton had no idea what direction the shots were coming from. Suddenly, the rain hit, like driving out into a blinding storm from beneath an overpass. Cotton could see hardly anything in the downpour, but he poked Stuart’s leg and pointed.
“This way,” he cried and began to belly crawl around the front of the van to the driver’s side.
He heard more gunfire and he kept crawling.
When he reached the driver’s side door, he looked under the van and could see Stuart still on the ground on the other side of the van in front of the open side door. Though reluctant to stand because he had no idea where the gunfire was coming from, he had to take the chance. In his best old man’s imitation of leaping to his feet he yanked open the door and leapt inside.
The sudden absence of rain in his face granted Cotton vision and he looked over the seat to see Stuart leap up and shove Jolene into the van in front of him. Without closing the door, Stuart cried, “Drive!” then threw his body on top of Jolene’s.
There was a thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk sound on the passenger side of the van.
Cotton turned the key, and started the engine just as the back window blew out. He shoved the transmission into drive, and slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the van leapt forward into the downpour. Jolene had parked beside the big tree stump with the front of the van pointed at the road. Cotton took it on faith there wasn’t anything in front of them because he could see nothing in the downpour.
Fumbling for the windshield wipers, they suddenly came to life, clearing the windshield in time for Cotton to turn the wheel to keep the van from sideswiping the raised walkway of a porch.
With the back of the van fishtailing on the wet dirt, they flew down the road in the rain.