"Damn fool!" I hollered at the driver, who kept on going, blowing his
horn.
Everybody scrambled to safety except one young man who hadn't seen or
heard, or else had supreme faith in his rights as a pedestrian. The
convertible was heading straight at him.
"He'll get hit!" somebody yelled. A traffic cop blew his whistle. A
woman screamed. Mae, unable to look, buried her face in my shoulder.
The pedestrian never broke his casual stride.
The massive chromed bumper was only inches from him when it began to
disintegrate.
First the bumper, then the grille and the oversized fender, then the
right front tire dissolved in a shimmering film.
As the tire disappeared, the momentum of the car sent it ahead into
what was obviously the protective shield surrounding one of the aliens.
More of the car vanished and it came to a grinding stop, its underside
providing the brake as it plowed into the asphalt.
The front of the car, almost clear back to the windshield, simply
wasn't there any more. The driver's idiot grin had changed to a look of
unbelieving dismay as he stared at the nothingness where his hood used
to be.
The young man, who I now saw was wearing a new suit, stepped onto the
curb near Mae and me. He paused, looked back for just a moment at the
remains of the convertible, and said, as if quoting, "A driver must
yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing with a _Walk_ signal,"
then lost himself in the crowd.