As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins Page B

smile was lively.
    “You bet,” she said. She disappeared through a curtained doorway and returned with a Styrofoam cup of steaming brown toxins.
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said when Del asked her how much.
    “Do you need a lift?” she asked. “I can call someone.”
    Del said no thanks, and as they started their hike back toward the car, juggling the generator, the jewelry kit, “breakfast,” and Del’s coffee, Ry asked him why.
    “No sense making someone go out of their way,” saidDel. “We can probably get a ride with someone who’s already going where we need to go.”
    And even as he spoke, he turned and raised his thumb, along with his coffee cup, at a passing tractor trailer. The trucker tootled at them and eased his rig to a halt a few dozen yards ahead.
    “Don’t worry,” said Del as they trotted toward it. “Most people are nice.”
    “I’m not worried about ‘nice,’” said Ry. “Carl was ‘nice.’”
    Del smiled his almost-smile.
    “And most people are better drivers than Carl,” he said.
    Ry was worried, a little, about “nice.” Maybe more than a little. Like five-eighths. But he didn’t say so.
    His inner voice issued warnings. He climbed up into the cab anyway. Why did he? Because sometimes it’s hard to tell if your inner voice is wise, or if it’s made out of your fears and your mother’s fears and too many psycho-killer movies all balled up and clamoring. So he went along with the crowd outside of himself—Del and the sunny day and the shiny truck. It could have gone wrong, it could have been bad, but it turned out okay. The guy was just a guy. He knew how to drive. Beforelong they said, “Thanks” and climbed back down.
    The Willys looked like home, though.
    When they got there, they made the fire. Del soldered the wire and put the generator back into its place. They climbed in, the Willys started up, and off they went.
    They had not been traveling long when, in the distance, a dot appeared. A dot with its headlights on, wavering from side to side, growing larger. Coming at them in their lane, skipping back over to the other. Boxy now, and whitish, way bigger than a bread box. A head, silvery, hanging out the window; a hand, too, reaching to adjust the outside mirror. Maybe for a better look at the other dot growing into a box behind it. That one had a flashing red light on top. It was catching up.
    As soon as they knew the first car was Carl, Del eased off the road out into the dirt where it was safe. No sooner done than Carl whizzed by, close enough that they could see his eyes, and the delight and terror in them. He saw them, too, and maybe it was trying to recall who they were that made him lose what grasp he had of what he was doing. The big old car went zigzagging; it tipped up onto two tires, the two on the right. For a long half second, it could have come back down on four or tipped right over, either one. It went over. And over again. And liftedslightly once more, but fell back down with a whomp.
    Light wisps of smoke rose from the folded hood as the cop car pulled off, a distance behind. Wisps thickened to plumes as the cop doors flew open. Del had backed up, turning, as if to head down there, too. But the cops jumped from their car and ran, and it was plain that they were the ones in a position to do anything.
    The plumes of smoke inflated to clouds as the policemen tried to open the door but couldn’t. One of them reached inside, lifted Carl from under his armpits, hauled him mightily through the open window. Carl’s arms wrapped around the cop’s shoulders in an embrace, like a child with his mother. The cop set him down on the ground, but when his legs crumpled and he started to sink so rapidly, both men were there, lifting him back up. Hurrying him away, they looked back over their shoulders. The thick smoke grew thicker and blacker; a dark geyser poured up into the clear air.
    And then, like the striking of a match, there was flame that exploded