No such luck.

So he sat cross-legged on the dock and ate his chicken. The cars sat there, unmoving.

When he had gnawed all the meat off one of the wings, he tossed it onto the hood of the closest car. “There you go, boy, little treat for you.”

Archie had never been a big fan of the drumstick, so he threw one of those onto the roof of another car. “Enjoy, fucker!” he said.

The chicken, he had to admit, tasted pretty damn good, especially the skin, which was crisp and salty. When he’d had all he wanted, and thrown the rest of the bones onto another car, he used the napkins to wipe the barbecue sauce from his hands. What he couldn’t remove with the napkin, he licked off, finger by finger.

And sat there.

“Come on, guys,” he said. “Go chase a cat or something.”

Archie stood. He suddenly felt the need to take a piss. But where were the bathrooms? Would he have to go back into Discount Bonanza and find the public washrooms? Weren’t they in an area where the Arrivals had been patrolling?

He stood at the edge of the loading dock, facing the cars, and unzipped. Like many young boys, he had a strong and mighty stream, and was able to get a little more distance by arching his back.

And a beautiful arc it was, too, heading upward, almost as high as Archie was tall, before reaching its apex and coming back down, onto the hood of a yellow Arrival.

Archie laughed. A perfect match.

But he didn’t want to get just one car, so he spun from his hips, spraying piss like a gardener watering his flowers.

One of the car’s water-sensitive wipers engaged as Archie’s urine splashed a windshield. That prompted yet another laugh.

That was when he heard something.

A motor . . . an engine . . . a loud engine. Definitely not an Arrival. These battery-powered wusses couldn’t make an aggressive noise like that.

It didn’t sound like an honest-to-God car. No, it was more like a motorcycle. And it sounded like it was racing along one of the mall’s perimeter roads.

A couple of the Arrivals inched back, as if ready to go on the hunt.

The motorcycle sounded closer, but it was also powering down, as though turning into the mall lot. The loading bay area was recessed into the mall structure, so Archie had a limited view beyond it. Archie thought this was the first gas-powered engine he’d heard on the island since the beginning of the Arrival experiment, except for maybe the odd lawn mower.

The bike’s roar intensified. It was getting closer.

Archie glanced down, saw his open zipper, and pulled it up.

And then—

VROOMMM