“And you said cheap ones, so I thought—”
“It’s fine. What’s done is done.”
“We could do this a different night. I can get ski masks like you wanted.”
“No.” I shook my head. “We’re already here. Give me JFK.”
He tossed the mask to me and I pulled it over my head, breathing in plasticky fumes.
I despised Halloween masks. They were itchy, uncomfortable, and belonged to a holiday I abhorred. I hadn’t celebrated Halloween since I was nine and voiced my distress over dressing up foolishly and knocking on the doors of strangers just to be gawked at and handed candy I wouldn’t even eat.
The mask made it hard to see, and was it my imagination, or was it getting harder to breathe? (In enclosed spaces, it’s possible to die from asphyxiation due to the buildup of carbon dioxide from one’s own respiration.) I tried keeping pace with my brother, but in the darkness, with the trees closing in, it became increasingly difficult.
Finally, Ishmael halted. We were just inside the tree line. Ahead of us, moonlight lit the twisting path of Turtleback Road. For a moment I lamented that we didn’t time this to coincide with the new moon. But that would’ve made our trek through the woods more perilous, so perhaps it was for the best.
Quickly, I pulled out the jammer, attached it to the car battery that would power it, and pulled out the antenna.
We waited for the first car to approach. The only noise came from the woods—the rustling of some creature creeping through the underbrush, the chirp of insects. I tried not to think about the nature surrounding us.
After ten minutes, when I could feel Ishmael shifting around and getting antsy next to me, the hum of a car engine came from the direction of the church. A moment later, headlights swept across the road.
I fumbled with the radio jammer, held it up, and pressed the “on” switch just as the car passed.
Nothing happened.
“We’ll get the next one,” I said.
But the next car also passed us without so much as a flash of brake lights.
“Are you sure it’s working?” Ishmael asked.
“Am I inside the cars?”
“No, dude, you’re standing right next to me.”
“Then no, I’m obviously not sure it’s working. But it worked when I tested it on the Jeep earlier.”
“Maybe no one’s listening to the radio?” Ishmael said.
“Maybe.”
In the distance, I heard the approach of another car. I waited patiently, and when a nondescript, white sedan rolled into view, I pressed the switch.
The car swerved. Not much, not fully into the opposite lane. But enough to tell me something had happened in the vehicle.
As I watched, the car slowed, and I could almost feel the way the driver’s mind was working, how they must be trying to puzzle out what just occurred. I pictured them frantically flipping through radio stations, trying to figure out if it was a broadcast error or a problem with their vehicle. Or aliens.
“Yes!” Ishmael said.
“Keep your voice down.”
After a moment, the driver hit the gas and sped into the night.
Another car rumbled through the fall evening. I raised my arm to turn the jammer on, but dropped my hand when I saw the lime-green Cadillac.
“It’s Gram.”
Ishmael bounced up and down, his Elvis mask wobbling. “That makes it even better. Zap Gram!”
“I’m not going to zap Gram.”
Ishmael grabbed the jammer from my hand. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” I snapped.
I tried to grab it back, and for a moment we tussled. Elvis and John F. Kennedy, standing on the side of the road late at night, fighting to get control of a radio jammer.
I won by default. Gram’s car passed before Ishmael could zap her.
“You’re such a killjoy,” he mumbled.
I shushed Ishmael when I heard another car approaching. It was a minivan, and though it didn’t swerve, for a brief moment the brake lights came on.
We zapped two more cars that didn’t have a discernible change. The next one stopped entirely in the middle of the road for approximately ten seconds. The one after that also swerved.
“This is so working,” Ishmael said excitedly.
Then I heard the sound of an engine that wasn’t like the others. A louder, more aggressive rumble, a vehicle that had something to prove.
When the gold Range Rover appeared, taking up most of the road, I wasn’t surprised.
“It’s Oz,” Ishmael said. “I’m gonna zap him.”
“Don’t.”
But Ishmael shrugged me off and zapped Oswald’s car anyway. I figured it was my punishment for winning the battle over Gram.
The Range Rover faltered and the brake lights sprang