Benji had ever heard him use, âChrist on a frigginâ cracker, man, I said letâs go.â
âNo,â Benji murmured, eyes still drawn to the disc.
â What? â
Benji understood he should be terrified, too. And on some level, he was. But fear and awe battled inside him, and wonder won the war.
Twenty feet away, the saucer eclipsed the moon. Its portalopened. The hypnotic light shot out, again rupturing the ice.
Itâs gonna take us up into the saucer.
CR grabbed Benjiâs arm; Benji yanked it free.
âGod damm it, what are you doing?!â CR said.
At first, Benji did not quite know. He was raising his arm, not sure why he was doing it, just suffused with an inexplicable and absolute certainty that he should do it. He was raising CRâs rifle.
Which was normally so rusted and rickety-looking. But in that instant, as Benji curled his finger on the trigger, the rifle with its black slender barrel and moonlit sights seemed to undergo a metamorphosis.
Benji pulled the trigger, and the magic wand blazed.
The bullet screamed over the misted face of the lake and found its target on the far shore: the cluster of propane gas tanks. CR and Zeeko and Ellie shouted in time with the BOOM as the bulletâs impact ignited the tanksâ flammable payload. BOOM BOOM , and a pair of tanks jetted straight up, missiles ripping skyward with rooster tails of red fire. A chain reactionâ BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMâ animated a half-dozen more rockets, but Benjiâs gaze didnât trail them to the stars.
The last of the tanks, like an improvised torpedo, came caroming over the surface of the lake toward the saucerâs beam.
The portal began to seal but the saucer had reacted too late: The flaming tank touched the rim of the tractor beam and screamed up into the ship.
Benji spun away, shouting, as the detonation bloomed. Air displaced and threw him to the shore, the heat and light rippling his clothes like a storm. He looked back as the saucer nosedived perhaps fifty feet away. Fire and silver smoke bellowed through a breach in the hull as it crashed through the ice.
The gun dropped from Benjiâs quaking grip. His ears rang.His vision was imprinted with the afterimage of the saucerâs explosion.
Ho.
Lee.
Shit.
A weak red glow streamed from the impact crater in the ice. The pair of propane tanks that had rocketed into the sky now clanked, malformed, onto the lake.
The light from the lake bottom flickered off, on, off . . . off.
And then Benji was stepping onto the lake, heading toward the crater.
Through the ringing in his ears, he dimly heard CR shout for him to come back, that Benji was out of his mind, that the ice was going to crack underneath him. Benji stomped on the ice ahead of him. Solid.
When he reached the crater, he went to his knees, looking into the water. It bubbled like a cauldron.
Someone arrived next to him. He looked over, and was surprised to see Ellie.
âWhat the ass has just happened here, Benji Lightman?â Ellieâs voice shook, and her green eyes filled with . . . not fear, but for a millisecond something purer. Higher. Was it awe? âWhat exactly did you just do?â
I donât know , Benji thought, pulse slamming in his temples. Oh my God, Iâve got no idea.
âHow deep you think the lake is?â Benji asked her, and CR shouted from the shore, âDeep? What does that matter?â
Benji said, âWhereâs Zeeko?â
Zeeko, who had thrown up beside Ellieâs car, stood up and croaked, âHere.â
âAre you guys okay?â Benji asked.
CR said, âCompared to what ?â
Benjiâs gaze returned to the water, which was now as seamless as black glass. All he could see was his reflection. âItâs too dark,â he said, mostly to himself.
âHaul ass outta here, thatâs what weâve gotta do. Right? âC-cause what if more come?â CR shouted, his