The baby still had to be freed. A second man from the same restaurant patio ran out with another metal chair and used it to smash the front side window of the car, but not before yelling at the child to close his eyes.

The kid closed his eyes.

Once the glass had crumbled, the long-haired guy—thinner and more agile—crawled through the opening, reached between the front seats to the back, and released the little boy from his safety seat. He handed him through the open window to the other man, who rushed the baby back to the arms of the weeping mother.

It was, Brandon Kyle had to admit to himself, an amazing thing to watch.

“That was something,” he said under his breath.

As he slipped into an alley between two storefronts that would lead him closer to the harbor, he wanted to believe he was only seconds from attempting to save that boy himself.

I’d have thought of something.

I’d have acted.

I’m not a monster.

But in the end, well, it wasn’t necessary. Others stepped up. And good for them, whoever they were.

Kyle’s conscience was clear.

Up ahead, he saw boats.

Eighteen

There was another huge fwump as the Arrival carrying—no, imprisoning—Archie and Rory and Nick tossed one more Garrett Mall shopper onto the hood. A well-dressed, silver-haired woman in her early seventies rolled until she was facedown across the windshield, her face a mask of agony and horror.

A driver in a conventional car would have had to hit the brakes at this point, what with the view forward blocked. But the green Arrival had its own electronic eyes mounted all over the vehicle, and kept on moving.

Nick, up front, was close enough to the windshield to see the woman mouth: “Help me.”

“Make it stop!” Archie cried.

Nick shouted the name his father had given the vehicle: “Pamela! Pamela, stop!”

But Pamela wasn’t listening. Or if she was, she wasn’t interested in taking orders. She was too busy looking for other shoppers to mow down. The car’s detour into the mall hadn’t even lasted a minute yet, but people were already screaming and shouting, alerting others to find cover.

They were running into stores, diving behind kiosks. Shoppers already inside some retailers were foolishly running out, wondering what the hell was going on.

There wasn’t just one crazy Arrival to worry about.

Arrivals from the parking lot—presumably belonging to people now inside shopping—were now streaming into the massive building, motion sensors at the entrance kindly obliging and sliding open the glass doors with each approaching car.

When Pamela reached the end of the concourse it executed a wide, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn that was enough to toss the woman off the hood and deliver her to the entrance of JC Penney.