Joe came for me. He didn't pay any attention to the monkey wrench in my hand. He lunged at me and I took a swat in his direction with the wrench. We both missed but Joe was still half out on his feet. He stumbled past me and I turned and shoved him. He struck the woman and they both went down.
"Joe," the woman said. "Joe! It's starting."
She meant the truck. Or what had been the truck. It was a gleaming silver globe now, and something was hissing at the bottom of it. I didn't know what it was, but they knew. I didn't know it then, but I had won. I'd delayed them past the point where they could take me with them by force or kill me. They had to hurry.
I wasn't going to stop them. I stood there, hurting all over, and watched them run for the thing which had been the truck. It was still glowing, but the glow was fading. A hole seemed to open in its side for them, but then suddenly the glow became so bright that I couldn't see anything but the dazzling light.
Which—slowly but with increasing speed—rose into the rain and the night.
On a pillar of flame.
I blinked. I smelled ozone. The sphere was gone, but there was an afterglow in the sky.
Numbly I walked over to where the truck—then the sphere—had been.
I found Joe. Or what was left of Joe. It was a dry husk of a body, hardly recognizable, as if some great power had taken Joe and twisted him while an enormous heat had dried all the moisture from his body without burning the skin.
I never found the woman. Instead, there were a few hundred dry husky things near Joe. I didn't recognize them at first, and when I did I suddenly got hysterical and ran. I couldn't figure it out then, and I still can't although I've tried to.