"Who is it?" Evans said, looking in the mirror.

The blue pickup was advancing fast. Very fast. In the next instant, it banged into the back of their car. Evans was startled, swerved, got control again. "What the fuck? fuck?" he said.

"Just drive, Peter."

Sarah took the revolver from its holster. She held the gun on her lap, looked out the side mirror.

The blue truck had dropped back for a moment, but now raced forward again.

"Here he comes-"

Perhaps because Peter stepped on the gas, the impact was surprisingly gentle. It was hardly more than a nudge. Peter careened around the curves, glancing at the rearview mirror.

Again, the blue truck dropped back. It followed them for the next half mile, but it was never closer than five or six car lengths.

"I don't get it," Evans said. "Are they going to ram us or not?"

"Guess not," she said. "See what happens if you slow down."

He slowed the SUV, dropping their speed to forty.

The blue truck slowed too, falling back farther.

"They're just following us," she said.

Why?

The first scattered drops of rain spattered the windshield. The road ahead was spotted. But they weren't yet in full rain.

The blue truck dropped even farther back now.

They came around a curve, and immediately ahead of them saw a big silver eighteen-wheeler, with a big trailer. It was rumbling slowly along the road, not going more than thirty miles an hour. On its back doors it said, "A&P."

"Oh shit," Evans said. In the back mirror, they saw the blue truck, still following. "They've got us front and back."

He swerved out, trying to pass the big trailer, but as soon as he did, the driver moved toward the center of the road. Evans immediately fell back.

"We're trapped," he said.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't get it."

The trailer blocked them at the front, but behind them the blue truck was farther back than ever, several hundred yards down the road.

She was still puzzling over this situation when a bolt of lightning crashed down at the side of the road as they drove past. It couldn't have been more than ten yards away, a white-hot, dazzling blast of light and sound. They both jumped.

"Jesus, that was close," Evans said.

"Yes..."

"I've never seen one that close."

Before she could answer, a second bolt crashed down, directly in front of them. The sound was explosive; Evans swerved involuntarily, even though the bolt was gone.

"Holy shit."

By then Sarah had a suspicion, just as the third bolt hit the car itself, a deafening crash and a sudden pressure that made knife pains in her ears and a blast of white that enveloped the car. Evans screamed in fear and let go of the wheel; Sarah grabbed it and straightened the car in the road.

A fourth bolt smashed down by the driver's side, just inches from the car. The driver's-side window cracked and splintered.

"Holy shit," Evans was saying. "Holy shit! What is this?"

To Sarah, it was only too obvious.

They were attracting lightning.

The next bolt cracked down, and was immediately followed by another, which smashed into the hood and spread burning white, jagged fingers over the car, and then was gone. There was a huge black indentation in the hood.

"I can't do this," Evans was saying. "I can't, I can't do this."

"Drive, Peter," Sarah said, grabbing his arm and squeezing hard. "Drive." "Drive."

Two more bolts hit them, in rapid succession. Sarah smelled the odor of something burning-she wasn't sure what. But now she understood why they had been so gently rammed.

The blue pickup had stuck something onto their car. Some kind of electronic thing. And it was drawing the lightning to them.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Evans was whimpering. He howled as each new bolt struck.

But they were trapped, driving on a narrow road, hemmed in by dense pine forest on both sides of the road...

Something she should know.

Forest...What about the forest?

A lightning bolt cracked the rear window with explosive force. Another bolt struck them so hard it bounced the car on the macadam, as if it had been hit by a hammer.

"The hell with this," Evans said, and spun the wheel, turning off the highway and onto a dirt track in the forest. Sarah saw a sign flash by, the name of a town on a battered post. They were plunged into near darkness under the huge, green pines. But the lightning immediately stopped.

Of course, she thought. The trees. The trees.

Even if their car was attracting lightning, it would strike the taller trees first.

A moment later, it did. They heard a sharp crack just behind them, and lightning flashed down the side of a tall pine, splitting the trunk open with what looked like steam and bursting the tree into flames.

"We're going to start a forest fire."

"I don't care," Evans said. He was driving fast. The vehicle was bouncing over the dirt road, but it was an SUV and it rode high so Sarah knew they would be all right.

Looking back, she saw the tree burning, and the fire spreading laterally in fingers along the ground.

Kenner on the radio: "Sarah, what's happening?"

"We had to leave the road. We're being struck by lightning."

"A lot!" Evans yelled. "All the time!"

"Find the attractor," Kenner said.

"I think it's attached to the car," Sarah said. As she spoke, a bolt smashed down on the road just ahead of them. The glare was so bright she saw green streaks before her eyes.

"Then dump the car," Kenner said. "Go out as low as you can."

He clicked off. Evans continued to race forward, the SUV bouncing on the ruts. "I don't want to leave," he said. "I think we're safer inside. They always say don't leave your car because you're safer inside. The rubber tires insulate you."

"But something's on fire," she said, sniffing.

The car jolted and bounced. Sarah tried to keep her balance, just holding onto her seat, not touching the metal of the doors.

"I don't care, I think we should stay," Evans said.

"The gas tank might explode..."

"I don't want to leave," he said. "I'm not leaving." His knuckles were white, gripping the wheel. Ahead, Sarah saw a clearing in the forest. It was a large clearing, with high, yellow grass.

A lightning bolt smashed down with a fearsome crack, shattering the side mirror, which blew apart like a bomb. A moment later, they heard a soft whump. whump. The car tilted to one side. "Oh shit," Evans said. "It blew a tire." The car tilted to one side. "Oh shit," Evans said. "It blew a tire."

"So much for the insulation," she said.

The car was now grinding, the underside scraping over a dirt rut, metal squealing.

"Peter," she said.

"All right, all right, just let me get to the clearing."

"I don't think we can wait."

But the rut ended, the road flattened, and Evans drove forward, creaking on the rim, into the clearing. Raindrops spattered the windshield. Above the grass, Sarah saw the roofs of wooden buildings bleached by the sun. It took her a moment to realize that this was a ghost town. Or a mining town.

Directly ahead was a sign, auroraville, pop. 82. Another lightning bolt crashed down, and Evans hit the sign, knocking it over.

"Peter, I think we're here."

"Okay, yeah, let me get a little closer-"

"Now, Peter!"

He stopped the car, and they flung open their doors in unison. Sarah threw herself bodily onto the ground, and another bolt crashed so close to her that the blast of hot air knocked her sideways and sent her rolling on the ground. The roar of the lightning was deafening.

She got up on hands and knees, and scrambled around to the back of the vehicle. Evans was on the other side of the SUV, yelling something, but she couldn't hear him. She examined the rear bumper. There was no attachment, no device.

There was nothing there.

But she had no time to think, because another bolt struck the back of the SUV, rocking it, and the rear window shattered, sprinkling her with shards of glass. She fought panic and scrambled forward, staying low as she moved around the SUV and through the grass toward the nearest building.

Evans was somewhere ahead, yelling to her. But she couldn't hear him over the rumbling thunder. She just didn't want another bolt, not now, if she could just go a few more seconds...

Her hands touched wood. A board.

A step.

She crawled forward quickly, pushing aside the grass, and now she saw a porch, a dilapidated building, and swinging from the roof a sign bleached so gray she couldn't see what it said. Evans was inside, and she scrambled forward, ignoring the splinters in her hands, and he was yelling, yelling.

And she finally heard what he was saying: "Look out for the scorpions!"

They were all over the wooden porch-tiny, pale yellow, with their stingers in the air. There must have been two dozen. They moved surprisingly fast, scampering sideways, like crabs.

"Stand up!"

She got to her feet, and ran, feeling the arachnids crunch under her feet. Another lightning bolt smashed into the building's roof, knocking down the sign, which fell in a cloud of dust onto the porch.

But then she was inside the building. And Evans was standing there, fists raised, yelling, "Yes! Yes! We did it!"

She was gasping for breath. "At least they weren't snakes," she said, chest heaving.

Evans said, "What?"

"There're always rattlers in these old buildings."

"Oh Jesus."

Outside, thunder rumbled.

And the lightning started again.

Through the shattered, grimy window Sarah was looking at the SUV, and thinking that now that they had left the car, there were no more lightning strikes on the SUV...thinking...nothing on the bumper...then why had the pickup nudged the SUV? What was the point? She turned to ask Evans if he had noticed- And a lightning bolt blasted straight down through the roof, smashing it open to the dark sky, sending boards flying in all directions, and blasting into the ground right where she had been standing. The lightning left a blackened pattern of jagged streaks, like the shadow of a thorn bush on the floor. The ozone smell was strong. Wisps of smoke drifted up from the dry floorboards.

"This whole building could go," Evans said. He was already flinging a side door open, heading outside.

"Stay low," Sarah said, and followed him out.

The rain was coming down harder, big splattering drops that struck her back and shoulders as she ran to the next building. It had a brick chimney, and looked generally better built. But the windows were the same, broken and thickly coated with dust and grime.