The woman was yelling something but I didn't hear what it was and I'm sure Joe didn't either. We were both breathing raggedly and swinging without much force at each other now. Call it almost a draw--except I was fighting for my life and I knew Joe had an ally in the woman. I climbed to my feet slowly, unsteadily, and found the monkey wrench on the ground. I wielded it, shaking it in Joe's face. I said: "You can do what you want. I won't stop you. But just leave me the hell out of it." All of a sudden something struck my back. It was the woman, trying to knock me over from behind. I whirled and she backed out of my reach, but then Joe was on his feet again and when I turned to face him she clawed at my back. "Kill him, Joe!" she cried. "Kill him now!" 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. The husky things were burned potatoes. Next to Joe. Where the woman had been. But the way I figure it, they went up there. Both of them.... * * * * * The police gave me a rough time but eventually let me go. What happened to Joe could have been the result of lightning. Lightning, they said, can do funny things. Nobody ever found the truck. I could have told them that. It had gone--up there. Home?