Mr. Fahrenheit by T. Michael Martin Page B

Benji saw what could only have been a horrid hallucination in his last moments of consciousness: a real ghost, a silhouette like a man but twisted and malformed and hideous. The dark man reached for him. . . .
    A funnel of black smoke spiraled out of the cellar. Benji swooned, darkness encroaching at the edges of his vision. The next thing he knew, CR was dragging him and Ellie across the porch and onto the front lawn, telling him the fire department and Papaw were on their way. Benji gave a thumbs-up, said, “’Kay,” and knew no more.
    Now, driving with Ellie, the memory didn’t bother him anymore.
    He’d always told himself that the embarrassment was just a prologue to something wonderful. Part of him had whispered that all that dreams-come-true talk was kids’ bullshit, and that Benji was being selfish for even wanting it to be true. But now he felt that maybe, just maybe, it had been carrying him to this , to the saucer.
    When they arrived at the quarry, CR (who had driven his own truck here) went to get the tow truck at the front gate. He was jumpy and not eager to talk. Ellie popped a fresh memorycard into the camera and said, “I’m going to go find the best spot to film.” She headed up a nearby slope that rose to a summit twenty feet above the lake; from the top, she’d have a panoramic view of the quarry.
    For a minute, Zeeko and Benji were alone, looking over the frozen lake. It looked exactly the same as it had last night, the hole the same size and everything. Benji glanced over and noticed that Zeeko seemed uncharacteristically tightly wound, too.
    â€œHey,” Benji said, “you know this is going to be great, right?”
    â€œMaybe. It’s pretty scary. I want to help you guys, I love you, but messing with drones is serious biz.”
    â€œIt’s not a drone, Zeek. You’re the smartest guy I know. You have to know how ridiculous that is.”
    Zeeko looked at the ground. “Yeah. Perhaps, Benji.” He met Benji’s gaze, his eyes filled with a kind of solemnity that made him look older. “The Bible talks about chariots of fire in the sky, you know. They’re called angels in the Bible, but some people—mostly crazy people on cable TV—think those passages refer to aliens. Look, my faith in God is big enough to allow for the possibility of alien life. None of this changes the really important things about my life. But if that thingy down there really is from another world, I just hope everyone else is ready for it. If you make people get rid of one belief, you better have another one to replace it.”
    â€œPeople will believe that life is capable of beautiful and amazing things, right? This is like a miracle fell out of heaven.”
    â€œWell, I wouldn’t say ‘it fell’ so much as ‘it was blown up,’” Zeeko said, grinning a little.
    The tow truck pulled up behind them. Benji gave Zeeko a pat on the shoulder and directed CR to back up to the end of the hill just above the shore. CR turned off the ignition, hopped out,and grabbed something out of the bed of his own pickup.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Benji asked.
    â€œIt’s you, Banjo,” CR replied. Actually, of all things, it was a wooden Radio Flyer sled.
    CR set the sled on the edge of the frozen lake and then fetched a huge stack of disc-shaped lead weights from his truck, the kind you put on bench-press bars. The words BEDFORD FALLS FIELD HOUSE were stamped on the rims of the weights. “How much you weigh?” CR asked.
    â€œOne-thirty-something. Why?”
    As CR loaded 130-something pounds of weight onto the sled, Benji understood. The sled was going to test the strength of the ice before Benji ventured out onto it himself. “Dude!” he exclaimed, genuinely touched by CR’s concerned forethought. “That’s super smart, man! Thanks!”
    Something seemed to flit over CR’s face like a dark