As the car got closer, those red splotches became more vivid.

Could they be . . . blood?

Had the car hit a pedestrian? That seemed unthinkable, and looking up the street, she was relieved that she did not see anyone stumbling about, or lying on the pavement.

Aloud, she said to herself, “I wonder what—”

And then the white Arrival drove past her house.

Lillian Bridgeman felt her heart skip a beat, and placed her hand over her chest as if to check that it was still working.

The Arrival was dragging someone down the street. A body—Lillian couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman, young or old—was caught on the car’s undercarriage, a dark, ghostly shadow beneath the car.

But there was still screaming.

It wasn’t coming from whoever was under the car, but from Lillian herself.

“Oh dear God,” she said. “Oh dear God.” She had no sooner said the words than the car slowed, coming to full stop about twenty yards past the end of her driveway.

It was as though it had heard her.

Lillian, while unaware of what, exactly, might be happening, suddenly felt very uneasy sitting out here, alone and exposed, at the end of the driveway. She wanted to get back in her house.

Something, clearly, was up with these cars. Those other ones, slipping away quietly all on their own, and now this.

The car slowly began to reverse. Its movements seemed almost cunning. There had been a sound, and now it wanted to find out what it was.

Lillian had a cell phone tucked down in the wheelchair, next to her butt, and briefly considered calling her son. But using her cell phone would leave her no hands free to move this chair. And how fast, realistically, could she expect Joe to get here?

If there were someone else on the street, someone she could shout to for help, someone who could quickly wheel her back up to the house, she’d have given that a try. But there was no one. And if her gut was right, that the car had stopped because it had heard her, she didn’t want to attract any more attention by raising her voice.

So she placed a hand atop each wheel and pushed back.

Squeak.

No no no no. Hadn’t Joe just pointed out to her that morning that her wheelchair needed a shot of oil? She hadn’t even noticed the wheel squeaking. After a while, you just tuned these things out.

Now, it was the loudest sound in the world.

But it was a very faint squeak. Her scream had been much, much louder. If the car was listening, would it really hear a barely audible chirp from the mechanism of her wheelchair?

She pushed back again.

Squeak.

And again.

Squeak.

Slowly, she retreated backward up the level driveway, each partial rotation of the wheel sending lightning bolts of pain up her arms and to her shoulders. She kept her eye on the Arrival the entire time.