Four seconds

Three seconds.

Two seconds.

One—

Katie turned the wheel sharply. The Cadillac headed for the opposite shoulder, the back end swerving wildly.

Somewhere, behind them, an enormous crash.

But Katie’s and Bruce’s attention was focused on the Caddy, which had careened so sharply it was in danger of rolling over. The two left wheels lifted off the pavement. Katie had managed to avoid making the Caddy the meat in an Arrival sandwich, but it looked as though she might get them killed, anyway.

She turned the wheel hard the other way. Only one front tire was in contact with the pavement, and as it turned, the car pitched in the other direction, the left wheels slamming into the road.

Bruce was yelling something, but with all that screeching rubber, Katie couldn’t make out what it was.

Katie moved her foot from the gas to the brake and stomped on it with everything she had. She locked her arms to keep from slamming into the steering wheel—she didn’t have the security of an airbag in this antique—but Bruce was not as well prepared. He was launched off his seat and his head struck the windshield before he collapsed into the footwell. He scrambled back up onto the seat, but found himself slipping off.

As the car had come to its abrupt, bone-jarring stop, its front end was noticeably lower than the back. The front end was in the ditch.

“You okay?” Katie asked.

Bruce nodded, and began to laugh. “Holy shit!” he said. “That was some piece of driving!”

Katie slowly turned around, trying to look back onto the road, but all she could see was the trunk and the massive tailfins pointing skyward.

“I heard a crash,” she said.

Bruce took a moment to collect himself, then said, “Let’s go check it out.” Gravity pulled the front door forward as he opened it. He scrambled to grab the handle before the heavy door bent back the hinges. “Whoa,” he said.

“I’ll get out on your side,” Katie said, sliding herself across the broad seat. Bruce, once out, held out a helpful hand to Katie.

They climbed their way up to the shoulder, cleared the back of the car, and said, in unison, “Jesus.”

The Arrivals had collided head-on, and then, evidently, bounced off each other. The turquoise one sat in the middle of the road, on its side, the front end and hood crumpled almost to the windshield.

The silver Arrival hadn’t flipped, but it wasn’t going anywhere. It was half on the road, half on the shoulder, crumpled just as severely in the front end. The front tires had blown and the car was resting directly on the gravel.

There was no fire, but there was the occasional electrical crackle.

“Don’t get too close,” Bruce said as they approached the overturned Arrival. “At least they shouldn’t explode. There’s no gas tank on these things.”