So that was it. Nobody was taking their cars because the Boov had destroyed the highways. Of course they had.
I wearily unbuckled myself and fell out of the car. Pig followed and stretched and darted off after a bug.
I nearly puked. Can I say that in a school paper? That I puked? Because when I said “nearly,” what I really meant was “repeatedly.”
While I was bent over I noticed we’d blown a tire. I wasn’t sure if there was a spare, but it didn’t matter much one way or the other since I didn’t know how to change it. All Mom had ever taught me about vehicle maintenance was the number of a tow truck to call if you stopped moving forward.
Well, it was a long shot, but I figured I might as well try to call somebody. I wasn’t likely to get any answer, but we were too far from home to walk back now. I popped open the glove box and retrieved the emergency cell phone that only had one hour of talking time on it and was NOT A TOY. I flipped it open and pushed the power button, and it suddenly crackled to life. Strange voices gibbered back and forth on the other end.
“But I didn’t even dial yet,” I mumbled, and the voices stopped. “Hello?” I said.
The voices came again in bleats and pops, like a lamb stepping on bubble wrap. They grew louder, more agitated.
I quickly hit the power button again and flapped the phone shut. It was like something gross and alien in my hand now, so I pushed it back into the glove box and put a car manual on top of it.
Car manual, I thought. It might tell me how to change the tire. No. Later. It can wait.
I sat down. The sky was clear again, and blue. In the distance was a small town I didn’t know. The tallest building was an old stone church, and this had a clean bite taken out of its bell tower. Nearby I could see broken telephone poles hanging like limp marionettes. I’d been sitting long enough.
“Maybe there’s still some food in the MoPo store,” I said brightly, looking for Pig.
For you time-capsule types, MoPo was something called a convenience store, as in, “The soda is conveniently located right next to the doughnuts and lottery tickets.” People who want to understand better how the human race was conquered so easily need to study those stores. Almost everything inside was filled with sugar, cheese, or weight-loss tips.
It was dark inside, but I’d expected that. Pig followed me to the door, which opened with a jingle, and into the empty store. The shelves were nearly bare, probably looted, except for some moldy bread and yogurt health snacks called NutriZone Extreme FitnessPlus Blaster Bars with Calcium. There was also a bag and a few tins of cat food, which was nice. I sat on the cold linoleum floor and ate one of the pink health bars, and Pig had a tin of Sea Captain’s Entree.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it to Florida,” I said.
“Mao?”
“Florida. That’s where we’re going. Big state, full of oranges.”
Pig went back to her food, and I took another bite of what I was beginning to think was just a big eraser.
“Maybe we can stay here. We’re pretty far outside the city. The Boov might not even notice.”
“Mao.”
“Sure we could. We could live in someone’s house. Or a hotel. And the town’s probably full of canned food.”
“Mao mao?”
“Fine. You’re so smart, give me one reason why it wouldn’t work.”
“Mao.”
“Oh, you say that about everything.”
Pig purred and settled down for a nap. I leaned back against an ATM and shut my eyes against the setting sun. I don’t remember falling asleep, but it was dark outside when I woke with a loaf of bread under my head and heard the jingle of the front door.
I gasped for breath and scampered under a shelf. Too late I remembered Pig, who was nowhere to be seen. Something moved through the vacant store, its footsteps like a drumroll.
Go away, go away, I chanted in my head at what I was sure was a Boov. It skibbered past my row of shelves, and I got a look at its cluster of tiny elephant legs, clad in a light blue rubber suit. Boov. Probably sent to find me.
Then the drumroll stopped. A wet, nasally voice said, “Oh. Hello, kitten.”
Pig.
“How did you come to be inside of the MoPo?”
I heard Pig purr loudly, the skunk. She was probably rubbing up against each one of its eight legs.
“Did someone…let you to inside, hm?”
My heart pounded. As if Pig might say, Yeah, Gratuity did. Aisle five.
“Perhaps you are being hungry,” the Boov told Pig. “Would you enjoy to join me in a jar of cough syrup?”
The drumroll resumed. They were moving again. I poked my neck out of the shelf in time to see them walk through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
I slid out and ran, unthinking, for the door. I pushed through with a shove and a tinkling sound and thought, Oh, yeah. The bell. A quick look behind me and I was off. I sped to the car, retrieved my bag, and made for a row of hedges that lined the parking lot. I was safely behind them and watching through a gap in the leaves just in time to see the Boov peek out of the MoPo. He, it, squeezed through the door and looked from side to side, scanning the lot for whatever had been dumb enough to forget the door jingled. Then he gave a start when he saw my car, and smiled back at Pig. I could see her through the door, her front paws up on the glass.
“Hello, hm?” the Boov shouted. He looked up toward the ruined highway and whistled through his nose.
I tried to make myself as small as possible, tried to stop my heart from pounding, or the blood from thrumming in my ears. The Boov pattered across the asphalt toward something new, something I hadn’t noticed before.
In the corner of the lot was this crazy-looking thing, like a huge spool of thread with antlers. It was all plasticky and blue, and it was hanging in the air, about six inches above the ground.
“I would not to hurt you!” the Boov shouted again. “If you would enjoy to be my guest, there is enough cough syrup and teething biscuits for everyone!”
It, he, whatever, hopped his squat body atop the big spool, clamping down around the edges with his little elephant legs. His tiny frog arms reached up and gripped the antlers, and with a few flicks and twists, the blue plastic thing rose a foot in the air and sailed up the hill of shale and weeds to the highway.
“’Allo!” he shouted as he drifted away. “There is no to fear! The Boov are no longer eating you people!”
The Boov’s weird little scooter disappeared over the ridge, and I darted out toward the store—for what? To get Pig? She probably preferred to stay with the Boov. But she was all I had, and the car wouldn’t drive on a flat tire, and my only thought was to vanish into this little town and hope the Boov didn’t try too hard to find me.