Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [165]
“You’re saying,” Sophie asked, entirely too enthusiastically. “If we drive down this road, lightning will strike, and we’ll enter another dimension?”
What about being struck by lightning could in any way ever be considered appealing?
“More or less,” Wisper answered her.
“How?” I asked. “Why?”
“I have no idea,” Wisper said softly, staring at the empty space before us with more than a bit of fear. “We live not far from here—my family—and one day I noticed an old car driving this way. This road doesn’t get much use since they put in the 108, so I watched the car go, wondering what it was doing here. It had your Uncle Pjuter in it— though I didn’t know he was your uncle at the time—and he was just tooling along happily when suddenly there’s rain, clouds, and lightning, and suddenly Pjuter, the car—everything—just vanished. It scared the living shit out of me. There’d always been rumors about ghosts and things, down here, and I thought I’d seen one. Then one day I notice Pjuter in his store downtown, and I realized something else was going on. So I watched him leave that night, put on clothes, hop into this old car of his…”
“This Duesenberg,” I said.
“Yeah,” she answered. “He jumped in and drove off, and I followed him and watched him vanish again, right about there.”
She pointed to a dark spot on the asphalt.
“So the day before Washburne and I are supposed to get married…”
“What?” I asked, stunned.
“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t want to, but someone…” she scowled in the direction of River, who rolled his eyes and ignored her “…kept pushing me, and convinced me it was a good idea. I knew I couldn’t go through with it, so I planned an out. Since there was nowhere in this world I could hide from him and his money, I thought about this place and where it might lead. I confronted your uncle and made him tell me what this spot was all about, and he explained how he’d found the opening, or whatever, years ago, and now went back and forth all the time.”
“He just drives through?” I asked.
“In a car that’s at least sixty years old,” she said—then seeing my expression, “Why? Neither of us knows. So I bought myself an old Rambler, filled it with food and gas, gathered my things and drove up here. It took me a while to work up the courage, but eventually…”
“You got through.”
“Found some clothes. Got a job… ”
“You didn’t even bring clothes?”
“Your uncle mentioned I’d need them, but somehow it slipped my mind.”
“You started with nothing?” I asked, my mind totally blown, and drifting down the street I might add.
“It is possible, Corky.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. I couldn’t imagine. But perhaps I needed to. Or perhaps I needed to do a lot more than imagine.
I looked at the others and got mixed reactions.
“Let’s do it,” Wendy said gamely.
“What if it fails when we’re in the middle and cuts us in half?” Morgan whined.
Sophie just smiled broadly and nodded.
River also said nothing and simply stared, absently. He seemed not to be listening, his glazed eyes looking off into space, as if he was lost in a world of his own. I wondered what he must be thinking, what horrors were coursing through his mind, when I noticed Waboombas moving her hand slightly in his lap, still with a firm grip on his ample, and now swollen, personal handle.
Ah. So his mind was preoccupied with the horror of the absentminded hand job. His expression now made perfect sense.
Behind us rose the sounds of approaching sirens and rubber tires squealing over asphalt, and I knew the decision had now been made for us.
I pressed down on the gas and, complaining all the way, the Duesenberg moved forward, slowly, to be gradually enveloped by clouds, lightning, and thunder that flowed purposefully out of nowhere. Morgan whimpered, Sophie squealed in delight, Waboombas laughed, and River turned pale, shuddering violently. Suddenly