BooksBarbecue
Back Look Both Ways
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Praise for Linwood Barclay
  56. Also by Linwood Barclay
  57. About the Publisher

Nick blinked.

The car’s aerodynamic wedge shape meant that the back was roughly level with the top of the escalator structure. Nick, distracted by what the car was up to, had descended several steps. He ran back up and did his best to stay in place, climbing nonstop. He wanted to see what they might be planning.

A blue Arrival was lining up with the front of the red one, their noses almost kissing. Another car had lined behind the blue Arrival, and another one after it, and so on, until there were at least a dozen of the small cars touching end to end.

The blue Arrival started to move forward, driving up, and onto, the hood of the red one.

“What the hell?” Nick said.

The Arrivals didn’t need a ramp. They had turned one of their own into one. The blue car rode up the sloped hood of the red one. Metal and plastic snapped and shattered. The red Arrival sank several inches, its tires nearly flattened.

Nick’s mouth hung open. “Can’t work,” he said. “It cannot work.”

He figured, once the front tires of the blue Arrival reached the red car’s front windshield, it would be game over. The weight of the car would collapse the glass, the blue Arrival’s front end would drop into the passenger chamber of the red one, and that would be it.

Panting, he held his position, watching.

The blue Arrival’s tires lined up with the pillars on either side of the windshield glass. The pillars bent slightly, but did not give way.

The blue Arrival’s front wheels were now on the roof of the red Arrival. All it had to do was drive the rest of the way over the car and off the back end and plant its wheels on the metal housing of the escalator.

If the first car could do it . . .

The blue Arrival’s front wheels had reached the trunk. With a small burst of power, it shot forward, making a rough transition from the car below it to the gleaming silver metal that flanked the perpetually moving black handgrips.

The car now straddled the moving stairway.

“Shit!” Nick said, and dropped as the blue Arrival drove right over him.

He glanced up at the passing undercarriage, his disbelieving eyes watching as the car raced down the slope and flew off as it reached the bottom, the front end tipping down and crashing into the mall’s lower level.

People screamed and scattered.

While the blue Arrival had suffered extensive front-end damage, it was still operable. It drove a few yards away from the escalator and made a wide circle.