“Dad!” I called from down the hall
He didn’t answer, so I called louder.“Dad!,” I yelled again “The phone!”
“Right.” he sighed,“Right!” he calls back “I got it, finish getting ready!”
“I’ve been ready, Dad!” I called back with a laugh
During this time, not long after I had turned 13, I was still so naive. Some people would have called me slow, but I just had trouble picking up on certain social cues, causing me to have trouble starting and maintaining conversations. I was essentially an outcast, and not in the cool and mysterious way.
“Who in the hell calls this early on a school day?” my dad asked himself as he rounded the corner into the dining room, grabbing the receiver with one hand and gently unhooking the keys from the rack and sliding them into his pocket with one swift gesture.
“I’ll try and make it next Friday, okay?” he said with a fake smile as I came into the kitchen
A voice on the other end babbled something I couldn’t hear.“
I’ll see you Friday.” It took a moment of deliberation before he had gently set the receiver back into its cradle, with both of us knowing full well that he wouldn’t be in on Friday.
“Behind you, Pa.” I said as I sidled past him and hurried toward the counter. “Who was that?”
“Nobody, make some toast,” Dad said, “need a quick breakfast before we go.”
Already two steps ahead, I grabbed the bread from the box and tossed a couple pieces into the toaster before making a u-turn around the dining table to grab the Jelly from the fridge, a nice, boxy new Frigidaire courtesy of dads new promotion.
“Apple or Grape?” I asked from behind the door of the fridge
“I’m feeling Grape,” he said
“Apple it is.” I chuckled
We finished our breakfast and walked to the front door, Dad grabbing his denim jacket from the rack and tossing me an identical, albeit smaller one. For my dads thirty-second birthday I had gotten us matching jackets with the money from my paper route, the backs of said jackets being stitched with the phrase, “Rock On”. A term I had picked up from the radio and found quite amusing.
“Are we taking the truck?” I asked
“Bingo, buddy.” he answered, twirling the key-ring around his middle finger
The truck in question was a 1972 Dodge Pickup W100, turquoise. It was my baby, despite the fact that the car didn’t belong to me, nor was I old enough to drive it. Dad had bought the truck almost brand new with only twelve-thousand miles on it for $4,250 cash. After some fiddling with the radiator and some adjustments to the transmission, most of which was done by myself as I had the smaller hands, the truck ran like a beauty and sounded like a beast, when pushed hard enough.
After a short drive up to the school I stepped out, giving dad a quick hug and running up to meet my friends as Dad pulled away to run the daily errands. Typically Main street was bustling at this time, filled with wives dragging their bored husbands to pick up bread or milk, the men pausing to gander at the magazine rack when the misses weren’t looking.
I slapped a few high fives and headed through the push doors into the cool halls of eighth grade, definitely not the coolest kid there, and unaware of what would happen in the weeks that followed after this day.
After a long day of learning and goofing off, one of those more than the other, me and my friends were out in the school yard playing basketball.
“Me!” I threw my arms up “Pass it to me!”
The taller boy ducked around the others blocking the hoop, tossing the ball to me, as I then tossed it up to the hoop, allowing him to sink the winning dunk.
“Aw, no fair” a stockier, darker toned boy said “Cam can’t even dunk, who let ‘em play?”
“Your just mad a shorty beat you, Marc” the taller boy jeered
“Nuh-uh, Ty,” Marco grunted “your mother.”
“Shut up.” Tyler said, tossing the ball back and walking to the bench.
Tyler was taller than most kids his age, making him naturally better than the others at basketball, and I liked playing with him because he let me set up some sweet dunks. Although most of the other kids made fun of Tyler for being Jewish, I thought his parents were cool, and they let me stay the night sometimes. So we were basically best friends, along with Marco, who was more of a decent pal.
“Nice game, chick.” Tyler gave me a slap on the shoulder.
Since Tyler was 14, a whole year older than me, he made a point to berate me for it.
“I ain’t no chick, guy.” I said as I tossed Tyler an apple juice from my lunch bucket.
“While I ain’t your guy, buddy.” Tyler said as he grabbed the bottle out of the air.
Tyler and I had been friends since I’d moved to the town, with Tyler having been held back purposefully by his parents due to them believing that not going to pre-school stunted his learning. Tyler of course believed this to be “bogus”, but he respected his parents too much to say so.
“I got some magazines, wanna check em’ out?” Marco came up to us.“Quit lying, Marc.” Tyler said
“Yeah,” I added “where would you get any mags anyway?” I Asked
“I ain’t lying,” Marco grunted. “I overheard my pops saying he was going to stock the shop with ‘em, but they haven’t left the box in his closet.” he confided in us.
Marco’s father, Giuseppe, ran the corner store and bakery on Main street “Barone Shoppe & Bakery”, or more so he ran the store while his wife, Lucia, ran the bakery. Marco was Italian but raised in the states, his parents were brought up full Italian and showed it in the way they spoke and carried themselves. All the kids in town would go to the store to get candy or little cakes from Lucy, but most of them stayed to watch her in the kitchen. It was no secret that everybody found her attractive, she was a stunning deep-toned woman with lovely long legs.
“What’s your dad need nudie mags for,” Tyler chuckled, “what with your mom being so hot and all.”
At this I spat my apple juice all over the pavement of the recess area, doubling down with laughter as Tyler smacked my shoulder and giggled helplessly. Marco, however, was not nearly as impressed, standing there with his brow furrowed and fists clenched.
“Fine,” Marco spat, “guess I’ll keep these babes to myself.” he opened his worn leather jacket to reveal a magazine stuffed in the inner pocket with the golden word “Hustler” printed on the front, patting it gently with a smug look on his face.
“Whoa.” Tyler stopped and looked in awe.
“What, no way.” I said, having never seen one that wasn’t covered in dirt with multiple pages ripped out, giving the opposite effect and leaving most to the imagination.
Since school was out for the day and dad would be expecting me back by 4:00, we had roughly an hour and a half to hang out together. Tyler, typically being the one to call the shots, decided for the group what to do.“I know a spot.” he said, standing up to his impressive height.
“Come on.” he said
And with that, we followed him out of the recess area and into the streets, Marco unlocking his bike from around the lamp post and me climbing onto the back of Tyler’s pegs. Riding up the street, young and free, with nothing more on our prepubescent minds than the woman adorning the pages of that book.
What I hadn’t known at the time was that hours before, the former manager of the plastic manufacturing plant my father had worked at had just left town, setting up another domino in this story that I hadn’t even registered. If we hadn’t been where we were, maybe if we had just stayed on that school yard till dark and went home like usual, I probably wouldn’t be recounting this to you now. I’ll be keeping interruptions to a minimum from this point on, but I have one final outside piece of information to give a little more context to this story.
Although I put most of this together from what people in the surrounding area had heard or seen, I believe this account to be accurate. 65 year old Oswald Baler, former plant manager and father, never made it to his destination that Friday. His car was found blown up on the side of the highway 100 miles out from our town of Root-Hill with his corpse still inside. The only person in the surrounding area to have noticed anything off was a farmer who owned the fields surrounding the state route.According to the farmer, he had begun locking up some of his livestock for fear of rain, as the sky had suddenly darkened and become quite overcast.According to weather reports of that day, rain wasn’t expected till the following week. The farmer had stated that the air seemed to fill with a loud buzzing sound, like the kind one would hear during the summer, when the cicadas are out. He had seen a car in the distance stopped by the side of the road, and a man standing beside it looking up. He had followed the man’s eyes to see a darker spot in the already shadowed clouds, stating that it had been about the size of a house. He had told police that the car had seemed to start on its own, with the engine rumbling so loud that he could hear it from his front porch. Suspecting something shady, he ran inside to get his camera, and while rummaging through his closet he heard a loud bang, “Like a bundle of dynamite” is how it was quoted in the police report.
Upon rushing outside he saw only the bent, flaming remains of the vehicle. The buzzing had stopped, and he had pointed his camera to the sky to try and capture what he believed had been a freak lightning cloud. The sky had lightened up however, and the spot in the sky had seemingly disappeared. Upon looking up and down the road, the farmer captured an image that most believed to be a fabrication, a hoax, and a downright lie. Moving south down the road from where the car had been heading was a large black sphere cutting through the clouds like a glacier through water, drifting in the direction of the town of Root-Hill, on a day where the wind was still, and no sound pierced the surrounding area.
Most called the man a crazy UFO conspiracy theorist, but the man had never claimed anything extraterrestrial had occurred that day. He said the buzzing came from inside the object, which he called “the hole”, and that it was a sign of the apocalypse. He claimed that blood would rain and the skies would tear open. He claimed that doomsday was upon us.
“What are you talking about?” Tyler asked
“The Doomsday Machine.” Marco repeated, “Y’know, the movie?” he said
“Oh yeah,” I said, remembering having seen that one on TV “with the Chinese lady.”
We ogled a section of the magazine headed “Oriental”, comparing the woman to characters we’ve seen in the late-night movies. Tyler hadn’t been lying when he said he knew a spot, having taken us behind the old Synagogue, which Tyler told me was like a Jewish church. The Jewish population of Root-Hill was small, and therefore the building didn’t get used enough to warrant new siding or nicer windows.
“It’s almost time to head out guys” I said after some time
“Right,” Tyler said, standing up and dusting the dirt off his pants “got to prep for a long weekend.”
“Hey,” Marco called, staring up at the large star high on the wall of the building “what’s the difference between Jewish and Christian anyway?” he asked
I had never really given it much thought, but I was also interested. I looked at Tyler, who was staring up at the gold star as well, lost in thought. He stood like this for almost a full minute before speaking.
“It’s Judaism.” He said finally
“What?” Me and Marco spoke at the same time
“You said ‘Jewish’,” Tyler pointed to Marco “it’s called Judaism.”
“Yeah, okay.” Marco said, looking a little confused “But what makes it so different from the other ones?”
“I don’t really know.” Tyler admitted, “My dad told me it had something to do with the ‘Oneness’ of God.”
“What does that mean?” I asked
“I think they don’t like Jesus.” Marco answered
“I guess so.” Tyler said
We all looked at each other, and once our eyes met we couldn’t help but start laughing. It was such an odd thing to think about, different people believing different things about guys they never even met. I guess, to our young minds, it was hilarious. We made our way around the side of the old building and to the bikes we had left chained out front. But halfway around, a sound caused Marco to stop.
“Do you two hear that?” he asked
“What?” I said, stopping to listen
A rattling could be heard coming from around the corner of the building, like metal against metal. With the light fading out of the sky and into the horizon, and Halloween not too far around the corner, this put us all on edge. We crouched low and began moving slowly towards the place where the bikes had been left.
“What do you think it is?” Marco asked Tyler, trusting in the oldest of our group
“I don’t know,” he threw his hands up “maybe it’s a zombie.”
“Yeah,” I added “with its chains scraping the ground.”
“Shut up.” Marco said, obviously a little frightened by the possibility
Tyler led up front with me in the middle and Marco holding up the rear, as we came to the corner of the building, Tyler tossed his hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture. He looked towards us and we nodded, he turned towards the direction of the noise and peeked around the corner.
“What the hell?” Tyler said, standing up from our crouched position and stepping out from behind cover.
“Well?” I said “What’s going on?”
“It’s our bikes.” Tyler said, gesturing for us to come out and look
As we got up and made our way around the corner, my fear turned to confusion as we came around and saw what it was that Tyler was talking about. Marco had chained up his and Tyler’s bikes around one of the metal fence poles surrounding the building, but the bikes were moved from their original positions, and the chain holding them to the poles was rattling like a maraca. Slowly, we made our way towards the chain, noticing that the pole it was wrapped around had been bent at an awkward angle. As a matter of fact, it looked as if the entire fence was being tugged on, like a strong wind was blowing through. But the air was still.
“I’m gonna try and take it off.” Tyler said
“What?” Marco spat “Why in the hell would you touch it?”
“If something really IS wrong, wouldn’t you want a quick exit?” Tyler pointed at the bikes
“He’s right,” I said “just be careful.”
Tyler looked at us and then to the chain, visibly bracing himself for some kind of shock or explosion. He thrust his hand towards the rattling chain, firmly grasping the lock that held it together and moving his fingers to unlatch it. But just as he gripped the lock, the chain went limp in his hands.
“What did you do?” Marco asked
“Nothing dimwit,” Tyler said, “it just stopped.” he looked in the direction the bikes and fence had been pulled towards.
“What direction is that?” he asked
“That’s the north side of town.” I answered, having been taught by my dad to keep a strong ‘Internal Compass’.
“We should leave.” Marco said, startled by the odd situation they found themselves in
“Yeah,” Tyler said “get on, Cam.”
“Okay,” I struggled to look away from the oddly bent pole sticking out from the dirt “yeah, sure.”
I hopped on the back of Tyler’s bike and we peeled out in the direction of our neighborhood. Marco rode in front since he had less weight to carry. He kept reaching up to scratch at his ear.
“Freaking cicadas,” Marco said, “always buzzing.”
“It’s Fall dude.” Tyler said, pedaling hard to keep next to him.
“Huh,” Marco said “whatever.”
I stayed silent for the whole ride home, and even after Tyler dropped me off. When I got inside, dinner was already laying out for me, with a note telling me not to stay up too late in dads scratchy handwriting. He would be asleep in his room around this time, getting a start to the weekend rest he covets so well. My mind was racing as I ate my dinner and cleaned my dishes, the thoughts clouding my head to the point where I couldn’t even watch the TV without being distracted. I made my way to my bedroom and got into my pajamas, using the light of the moon through my window to navigate the dark room.
I got into bed and still couldn’t quiet the questions in my mind about the bikes, the chain, and the fence. The only thing I kept coming back to was wind, it was the only thing that made sense, but of course this still wasn’t plausible, as the air was still at that time. But the two things that bothered me the most were also what kept me awake that night, things that made these questions feel too big for my young mind. The faint buzzing that seemed to fill the outside air with its presence, even though it was Fall and no bugs would be out till summer came around, and the fence pole jutting slightly out of the ground.
I’m not an expert on construction by any means, but I had helped my dad build the fence that surrounded our backyard, and something we had done stuck out to me. He had poured some gray powder into a bucket, which he then added water to with the hose. He asked me to pour it into the holes we had dug out for the fence poles to sit in. When I asked him what it was for, he told me that it would hold the poles in the ground, no matter what came through.
“Cement.” I thought out loud “The poles are held in with cement.”
The faint buzzing that could be heard outside seemed to grow louder at this point, now capable of being heard through the walls of the small room. The light of the moon through the window started to darken as what I assumed to be a cloud passed in front of it. I watched the darkness creep over the light and eventually take it over, waiting patiently for it to pass. But it didn’t, and the buzzing sound had grown louder.
I tossed my blanket over my head, the only way I could think to protect myself from whatever it was that seemed to be happening around me. But just as soon as the sound had grown, it had stopped. The room was still and dark, the silence scaring me more than the noise had. And as I lay, shaking beneath my covers, the metal of my bed frame began to shake. Tapping rapidly against the wall and pulling towards what I could only guess as the source of the buzzing. I covered my ears to mute the sound of the incessant metal clanging and sobbed into my pillow, completely unprepared for something like this. I heard what sounded like a car alarm but I kept my position under the covers, until I felt a strong hand grab my shoulder and shake me out of my panic fueled state.
“Cameron!” Dad said as he ripped the cover off me and pulled me into his arms.
“Dad?” I said, “What’s going on?”
He was staring over my shoulder out the window, following something with his eyes as the darkness that shrouded the room subsided. At that moment I noticed that the tags he wore around his neck were floating just past his neck and over my shoulder. Just as soon as I had noticed, they dropped back in place over his chest, the clink of the metal against the chains like a drop of water in a silent pond.
“Dad?” I whispered, shamefully wiping my tears against his shirt
“Get under the bed, Cam.” He said firmly
“What, why?” I asked
“Now.” He stared me down with a look I’d never seen, and at that moment I noticed the shiny metal object he was clutching in his hand.
I was about to try and say more but before I could speak he had pushed me down by my shoulders and shuffled me underneath the bed with ease, like a suitcase. I watched his feet as he made his way to the door, pausing to look at me and gesture to stay low. He tucked the gun into the band of his pajama bottoms and made his way down the hall. Just as soon as I was sure he had left, I scrambled out from underneath the bed and climbed on top to peek out the window.
The first thing I had noticed was the lights in all the surrounding houses were turned on, and a couple concerned adults were standing on their front porches in robes or pajamas, looking around for the source of whatever had affected them, as well as me.I scanned my front yard till I saw my dad standing at the end of our driveway, staring up the street to seemingly track whatever it was that had interrupted the quiet night. When it seemed he couldn’t find anything, he made his way towards the truck to quiet the alarm that had been blaring into the night. Here, I noticed that the truck had been pulled about 10 feet down the driveway, with the back axle being out of place and leaving the tires tilted. Once he had stopped the alarm, he gave one last look up the road and started back towards the house. I dropped off the bed and scurried beneath it as soon as I heard his heavy footfalls come down the hallway.
“You can come out now.” Dad sighed
“Did you see anything?” I asked, already knowing the answer
“No, I-“ He rubbed his temples “I need to make a call, stay in your room.”
And just as he had come, he was gone. Shutting the door behind him and leaving me feeling more confused than when this incident first began. I sat for a couple seconds trying to formulate some kind of rational explanation in my mind yet again. First the bikes and fence, and now this. It felt like something out of The Twilight Zone. I decided I had to figure out more, and I had a half-baked plan to do so. I made my way quietly out of my bedroom and into the dining room, stepping over every creaky board and dodging around the furniture illuminated by the moonlight. I waited until I was sure that I wasn’t heard, and once I had worked myself up, I grabbed the phone from its cradle on the wall and quickly closed my hand over the receiver.
“Wait.” I heard my dad’s voice over the line “Did you hear that?”
“All I’m hearing is your crazy ass.” an unfamiliar voice answered
I would have breathed a sigh of relief at this accidental misdirection, but I couldn’t give myself away.
“Listen,” my dad breathed shakily, I had never heard him sound this startled “I’m not asking much.”
“What you’re asking is illegal, Ron.” the other man said “I don’t think I can just tell you these kinds of things.”
“Unless you’re hiding something from me.” Dad said, “Are you?”
The man on the other end of the line breathed out a sigh that said he was getting annoyed by this conversation.
“Alright.” the man said, “No.”
“No?” Dad sounded shocked “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“As in no, air-traffic is clear.” the other man said “Not a blip since last week.”
“What about that then?” Dad said “Throw me a bone here, Russ.”
“It was nothing,” Russ said, “probably just a drunk farmer taking his crop-duster too high.”
“I know what I saw.” Dad stated
“Goodbye, Ron.” Russ said finally, with the click on his end signifying the end of their conversation.
I quickly put the phone back in its cradle in time to hear a loud bang, followed by my father spewing a hushed slew of swears. I quickly ran back towards my bedroom and hopped underneath the covers. But Dad didn’t come back into the room, and I could only assume that he had fallen into an angered sleep. I hadn’t realized it until now but I was also exhausted, and before I could think too hard about what I had learned, I found myself drifting into sleep. And the last part I could remember from that night was my matchbox cars. Typically they were lined up side-by-side on my dresser, but they were all standing on end. I slept until 9:00 am.
When I woke, Dad had already left. He hadn’t left any note but this was not unusual during a work week. Although I recalled him not working on weekends, I didn’t give it much thought. After a quick breakfast I went to the door, pausing to run back and grab one of my matchbox cars, slipping it into my pocket and rushing out into the cool Saturday morning. Hoping that one of my friends had seen or experienced what everybody else had, and if they were willing to help me understand. I decided that I would hit up Tyler first since his house was closer, and Marco could usually be found in his parents shop.
By the time I had made it to the front walk of his house, he had already opened the door and rushed to meet me. His mom was standing in the doorway, waving us goodbye.
“Be careful boys!” She called
“Will do, Mrs. Benowitz!” I called back
As soon as the door had shut, Tyler turned to me and gripped my shoulders, giving me an almost crazed look.
“Dude.” He said
“Yeah.” I said
“No dude,” He said, “like, what?”
“Yeah,” I repeated “I know.”
We stood like that for a little while, Tyler running his hands through his curls and me waiting for him to be ready to speak about what he had experienced.
“Did your dad…” He paused “Notice?”
“Yeah,” I answered “did yours?”
“No,” Tyler answered “they were out like lights.”
“I think my dad saw it.” I said
“What?” Tyler sounded confused
“Whatever caused all that last night,” I said “he saw it.”
“There was an ‘It’?” He asked
“Yes.” I paused “Or no, I don’t know.”
“What about you?” Tyler asked “What did you see?”
“Nothing, the room went dark and all I could hear was this-“
“Buzzing.” Tyler cut me off
“Yeah.” I nodded
“And the metal?” he asked
“What?” now it was my turn to be confused
“Y’know,” Tyler tried to clarify “did anything metal act up?”
Somehow I hadn’t made the connection, but as soon as he mentioned something it fell into place like a puzzle piece. The bikes, the pole, the chain, the truck, my bed and -I pulled the small model car out of my pocket.
“My cars,” I said “they were standing up.”
Tyler nodded solemnly “The drawers in my kitchen were all yanked out, I thought we were robbed.”
“We should get Marco,” I told him “I overheard something that I think might be connected to whatever it is that’s been happening.”
Tyler unlocked his bike from the post out front and we rode up towards the Main Street market. I spent the ride trying to figure out how everything connected, and how I would explain it to them when we got there. At this point I wasn’t even sure why I was so invested in this, it was like my common sense was being overridden by my own curiosity. Tyler had been gunning it since we left his house and we made it to the store faster than I expected.
“His bike is out front,” Tyler said “get him quick.”
I hopped off the back of his bike as he ground to a stop, rushing into the store to grab Marco. I was met with Mr. Barone instead.
“Hey, Cammy!” He exclaimed, “Feel the ‘quake last night?” he asked
“Uh, no, slept like a baby.” I lied “Where’s Marco?”
Just as I had asked, Marco came out from the storage room and rushed around the counter, holding a small bag that was filled with what looked like pop and snacks. He seemed relieved to see me.
“Is Ty here?” Marco asked
“Yeah, out front.” I answered
“I’ll see you later pops!” Marco said over his shoulder as he rushed us out of the shop
“Those are coming out of your allowance!” Mr. Barone yelled as we made our way out of the store
With Marco now in tow, Tyler led us to the old synagogue where we had first noticed these odd occurrences. Once we had made our way around back, Tyler motioned for us to go further. He pushed aside some thorny bushes in front of the woods that dotted the rear of the building and led us through a small crawlspace of bramble and dead trees to a small clearing in the vegetation. The area had a few old candy wrappers and comic books in zip-lock bags lying around. It was obviously a popular hang-out spot for older kids.
“Wow.” Marco said “You’ve been hiding this from us?”
“Yeah,” I said “it’s like a private oasis.”
“Shut up.” Tyler said “We need to focus.”
“Is this about those crazy sounds from last night?” Marco asked
“Of course it’s about that.” Tyler said “Cam said he thinks he’s got something.” he gestured towards me.
We all sat down in a circle and I explained to them what had happened from the time I had got home to when I had eavesdropped on the phone call between my dad and who I believed to be one of his old military buddies.
“Holy shit.” Tyler said, “Like the Twilight Zone.”
“Uh, yeah.” I said, slightly taken aback by Tyler swearing
“Wait,” Marco chimed in, “so it wasn’t a plane or something?”
“No.” I said “And it wasn’t an earthquake either, or else everything would have shook, not just metal.”
“Like some kind of floating magnet?” Marco asked
“Maybe.” I answered
“I don’t think it’s a magnet specifically.” Tyler said “Toss me a Coke, Marc.” he opened his hands
We sat in silence for a while, sipping our pop and nibbling the little cakes Marco had brought. Whatever it was, it sure behaved like a magnet. The only things that were being affected were all metal. But Tyler was right, if it truly was a magnet, it would affect every piece of metal that it came across. I had some semblance of an idea, but I couldn’t quite put it together.
“It’s casting.” I thought aloud
“What’d you say?” Marco asked through a mouthful of pound cake
“It’s like, reaching out.” I answered, “Like throwing out a net and scooping up whatever is near.”
“That’s gotta be it.” Tyler snapped his fingers, “My drawers were pulled out, but everything else was still where it was left.”
“Yeah,” I said “and my bed and cars were moved, but the drawers in my kitchen were fine.”
“It’s like a boat,” Marco said “throwing nets behind it and pulling along anything it catches.”
I pulled the small car out of my pocket yet again, turning it over in my hand. Tyler looked lost in thought yet again, and Marco sat flipping the cap of his Coke bottle into the air. I remembered something I had learned about in school, about how magnets could magnetize other smaller metal objects like paperclips. I couldn’t remember much about it besides something with blunt force damaging magnets. Since we all seemed to have run dry on ideas, I grabbed a small rock and set the car in the middle of us. Without explaining myself, I gave the car a good whack. Just as soon as I had struck it, the bottle cap that Marco had been flipping had suddenly stopped in the air.
“Huh?” Marco said
And before we even had time to comment on this, the cap Marco had flipped flew towards the toy car, along with the caps from our drinks and some spare change that had littered the ground. They flew at the car with so much force that one grazed my arm before sinking itself into the metal of the toy like a bullet along with the others. We all dived off to the sides to avoid whatever pieces of shrapnel might try and decapitate us.
I peeked up from the ground to see the small car start to shake violently in place, starting to put up haze like the heat of the sun off the tin roof of a shed. We all sat up to watch as the toy suddenly began to glow white and radiate enough heat to cause our skin to itch and turn red. It made a pop like a cherry bomb and we all ducked back into are arms, lying like that in the fetal position for a few seconds.
“Guys.” Tyler said, The first to look up from his cover, “Look.”
I peeked up and met Marco’s eyes, we both looked to the spot where the toy had been, but where it was now lay a small, smoking crater about the size of a hub-cap and about 2 inches deep. There was an acrid smell of smoke around us.
“What the hell?” Marco said
And it was here that we realized that this was far more dangerous than bent metal and constant buzzing. We were kids, out of our depth, and scared shitless. We were David, and this was our Goliath.