CHAPTER 15
It was a bright, sunny Nebraska Sunday morning. The left front fender of Bob Eastley’s old blue pickup made a tack-etta, tack-etta, tack-etta sound as the washboard surface of the gravel road sent a throbbing vibration through it. The fender sounded like it might just rattle right off this trip. Bob knew he could get rid of the noise by slowing down, but he liked to ride these wide plains as fast as he could go and still keep the truck on the road. Otherwise he’d never get where he was going, given the distance between the farm and just about anywhere else. Travel was simple enough here in corn country. Forty acres of foot-high corn sprouts on one side, forty acres of soy beans on the other, then forty of alfalfa and another forty of corn, and a dirt road between ’em as straight as an arrow. Even if you lost control on a bumpy stretch, you’d just spin off into a field without the inconvenience of a ditch. And then you’d pull right back on and keep a-going wherever it was you were headed.
This morning, that would be church, thirteen miles straight ahead in Albion. Bob ordinarily had little use for services when plowing and planting got busy this time of year. But there was that other matter: the world was coming to an end—and well, his mother had just insisted on church today.
He’d often wondered how such a tiny little woman could give birth to a big lug like him. He was one hoss of a farmer, with hands like hams and a keister as big as a pair of watermelons. He had a sun-hardened, square-jawed, fat-cheeked face gawking out from under his dirty white-straw cowboy hat like a big tomato. Compared to him she looked like a midget, sitting quietly with her purse in her lap, dressed in her dark blue Sunday dress. She was about as small as a woman could get and scrawny as a new lamb. And as dusty as his coveralls were, that’s how clean she was, like she still needed to be an example to him and teach him some manners. Her black hat with flowers on top sat above her pasty white face just as tidy and perfectly straight as it could be.
He kept his boot down on the accelerator and the pickup truck barreled along at a clip of almost seventy miles an hour. The vibrations rumbling through the truck didn’t do anything more to his mother than make the flowers on her hat jiggle a little bit.
This morning, of course, he kept a wary eye on the flat horizon. Strictly speaking, they weren’t supposed to be out here halfway between home and town, what with the invasion and martial law and all that. But Mother’d insisted. She was about the strictest Lutheran in the county and there wasn’t much that kept her from Sunday worship.
She’d said, “God will keep us and protect us on our way.” He hadn’t been able to argue with that.
Besides, there’d been no sign of an invasion other than the radio and TV being out. Nor was there any sign of the Army, the police or anything else going on around these parts. Things were just like always—real quiet. Bob had decided he was better off taking Mother into town without any back-sass. So far, rattling along under a clear blue sky, he had no cause to regret it.
Then he caught a glint out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to look across a rolling field of green soybean sprouts. Somewhere, way out there, something had flashed in reflected sunlight. Just about at the horizon. There. He saw it again. Beyond the wagon-spoke rows of soybeans, he saw another flash of sun on metal in a new-plowed tract of dark brown land. He checked the road ahead, which was empty, and didn’t let up on the gas pedal. It seemed like slowing down to find out what was over there wasn’t a good idea. Sweat came up on the palms of his hands.
It wasn’t long before what was over there came to find out about him. Each time he glanced sideways at the metal thing—or things, he could make out three of them now—they were closer. Some kinda machines, maybe a half-mile away and moving awfully fast over loose-plowed dirt. He pushed the accelerator down a bit farther but when he looked again the things were closer and moving on a line that would cut him off in a matter of seconds. Now he got a good look at them. Good Lord! They were like nothing he’d ever seen. They were running on pairs of legs, and running fast.
A cold chill flowed through him because he knew he was about to regret leaving home today. He clutched the wheel tighter and bore down on the accelerator. The speedometer read just over seventy-five and his tires were floating over the loose gravel and washboard. He couldn’t go any faster.
“I’ll be danged,” he muttered as the things drew alongside him, their metallic feet pounding the ground but their streamlined silver bodies gliding smoothly above the soy sprouts. He peered at the dark canopy glass of the cockpits but couldn’t see anything inside.
As the soy field gave way to one of new-mown winter wheat stubble, the machines drew ahead of him and angled onto the roadway. When they deliberately slowed down in his path he took his foot off the gas. The truck rolled to a halt and they turned to face him, spreading themselves across the road twenty feet in front of his bumper. He muttered, “What the hell are those things?”
“Watch your mouth,” Mother scolded.
The trio of machines stood like eerie mechanical gunslingers with their arms held out to their sides as if ready for a fight.
“Now Mother,” Eastley said. “D-don’t you be s-scared. I’ll handle this.” Somehow, he thought, I’ll handle it. But how? While the machines took stock of him and his truck, he squinted into the glare coming off their dark canopies. There was someone, or something, inside each machine. But he couldn’t quite make out what. To his surprise, the truck’s passenger door opened and he turned to see his mother stepping down onto the roadway.
“Mother? Mother! Get back in here!”
Ignoring him, she walked out in front of the truck and stood up as straight as her ancient bones would let her. Facing the mechanical menaces, she reached into her purse and came up with her old black bible, which she raised above her head and held out in a white-gloved hand toward the invaders. Everything froze for a moment except the bible’s red bookmark ribbon fluttering in the breeze.
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” she shouted, thrusting the bible at them as if it might radiate a bolt of God’s divine power. She clutched her purse to her breast with her other hand and held her head so high that her hat slipped off her pinned-up gray hair and tumbled to the dust behind her. She stood her ground defiantly, bible held high, though she was dwarfed by the size of the mechanical monsters. Bob eyed the gun-barrels on the right arms of the machines and sat riveted to his seat by indecision. If he let her stay out there they’d take a shot at her sooner or later. If he ran to fetch her they might think he was charging and start shooting anyways. But he had to do something.
He took a hand slowly off the wheel and gripped his door handle while Mother continued, unbowed. “Praise God! Satan, be gone!”
Easing his door open, Eastley could just make out the drivers behind the machines’ canopy glass: reptiles of some kind, leering at Mother with their jaws agape. Faintly, he heard the sound of cackling laughter.
The machine on the left pointed its gun-barrel straight at Mother and Eastley’s heart froze in his chest. The others followed suit and in the terrible silence that followed, he knew he had to act. He threw his door open wide and charged out. But as his feet hit the ground the three machines let loose a barrage of laser blasts. Beams of light shot in every direction. The truck’s left front tire exploded, knocking Eastley to the ground. There was a horrible din of clanking metal, pieces of pickup whistling through the air, and the lasers’ sizzling vip, vip, vip. His truck dropped down once, twice, three times as its other tires blew out. Then there was a momentary silence as the invaders stopped to take stock of the damage they’d done. Dust and steam swirled around the stricken truck.
Eastley stared bug-eyed at the space in front of the truck, expecting the worst. But to his utter surprise, Mother still stood there like a statue with bible held high. Either they were incredibly bad shots, or… The sound of cackling laughter came from the fighting machines again, this time louder. Then the three mechanical monsters turned in unison and raced off across the farmland. Within seconds th
ey disappeared over a rolling hill, moving in the direction they were originally going.
Eastley got up and dusted himself off. He took off his cowboy hat and wiped his brow. Mother lowered her bible and turned to inspect the shredded tires of his truck and listen to the hiss of its punctured radiator. She stooped slowly to get her hat but he ran and picked it up for her. Though she hadn’t been touched, she looked a mite pastier than before.
“Damn them to hell,” she said as he handed her the hat. “How will we get to church?”
It was the first time he’d ever heard her swear. He stood a moment in shocked silence. Then he took her by an elbow. “C’mon, Mother, let’s get you back in the truck. Better keep out of the sun or you’ll get a burn.”