Jack did indeed park, or, as I would’ve put it, sideswiped a shoulder barrier until both driver’s side wheels were punctured. The van jerked to an unhealthy halt, and the engine coughed until it died. I felt bad for Dad but for only a second: Jack pulled down his mask, planted his hands on the edge of the window, and leapt out.

I heard him land on his feet in a pile of dead leaves and hurry away. The other doors were already opening and so I followed. There was a bank leading down to a dry canal bed, but getting there meant trudging through overgrown weeds. These slowed me down, as did several decades of trash tossed from the street. Only when I had reached the bottom with the others did I realize the significance of the location.

It was the Holland Transit Bridge.

35.

Though I’d heard my dad speak of the location all of my life, I’d always avoided it. It was easily done: for a generation, people had eschewed it because of a nasty urban legend about a boy being eaten beneath the bridge in the ’60s. And then, in the 1980s, a freeway bypass ended its usefulness as a thoroughfare.

Now it existed as the last respite of homeless junkies. I stepped into its shadow and warily examined the chunks of cement dangling overhead by thin iron rods. More empty beer bottles than I’d ever seen had been tossed next to a concrete wall covered in graffiti: demonic beings who bore resemblance to ARRRGH!!!, as well as nonsensical yet ominous declarations like Harpakhrad Lives! The structure was in deplorable shape but held the portent of ancient ruins. Something important had happened here, you could feel it.

Jack wandered about with his astrolabe as one does when trying to find a phone signal. ARRRGH!!! snuffled her nose along every clammy surface, giving experimental licks to mold and bird droppings. Blinky’s tentacles pushed and prodded for any door that might be hiding in plain sight. Minutes went by, then half an hour. Tub and I sent each other private telegrams of panic until Jack kicked at a pillar, sending pellets of cement skidding down the canal.

“This is the place! I know it is!”

“Gumm-Gumms,” Blinky concurred. “I feel them with my every beautiful pore.”

“I can’t single out the door. I just can’t.”

“The Machine, Jack. Remember the Machine and the will to fight shall prevail!”

The discussion was interrupted by a soft thud. ARRRGH!!! was hunched over the wilted cardboard box that she’d tossed to the ground. Dirt scritched against concrete as the box shifted around on its own. Jack did not hesitate: he withdrew Victor Power from its scabbard and bolted for the box as if meaning to run his blade through its center.

ARRRGH!!! held out a gentle paw to block him.

“Choice none,” she said.