Diabolus Ex Machina

Olivia Frances is a writer, first. That’s what she’s always iden­ti­fied as. As a young child, she cre­at­ed pic­tures and sto­ries that were a part of her iden­ti­ty, even though they were absolute shit. Her par­ents’ words, not hers. She was nev­er as good as her sis­ter. Thir­ty-six years, noth­ing has changed. Same old shit­ty sto­ries, same shit­ty iden­ti­ty. The only dif­fer­ence between then and now are these damned cig­a­rettes she couldn’t kick. When the two newest rejec­tions drop into her inbox, one after anoth­er, she grips her head and weeps.

She takes a puff of her cigarette.

After twen­ty-three sub­mis­sions of just the one story–a hor­rif­ic romp called “Care­ful What You Wish For”–it is time to hang up the hatch­et. Or what­ev­er the expres­sion was. She is just not equipped for this. She can’t even get expres­sions right.

Not like that Veron­i­ca girl who shunned the up-and-com­ing-writ­ers’ sup­port group. Veron­i­ca Tal­bot. She had suc­cess in spades. Too good for them–they were all unpub­lished and togeth­er to cri­tique sto­ries in the hopes of one day being pub­lished. But Veron­i­ca had four short sto­ries pub­lished just last year. It wasn’t fair.

She takes a puff of her cig­a­rette, lets the smoke linger in her mouth a moment–why not me, she thinks–before exhal­ing and plac­ing the cig­a­rette back on the clear glass ash­tray that sits beside her key­board. Whisps of smoke cloud­ing the air before her, she pulls up a brows­er win­dow. She can’t even afford decent cig­a­rettes at the rate she’s been smok­ing these past few months. She’s tried, oh, how she’s tried. Yet every query she sends is met with the same form rejec­tions. She hates the smell of these cheap cig­a­rettes, and even more, she hates rejec­tion. She got enough of that from her par­ents. They were right about her. She needs to find a dif­fer­ent pur­pose in life. With­out think­ing much on it, she types in “Alter­na­tives to writ­ing,” and hits enter.

The page sits there, load­ing, for God knows how long. Please give her some­thing worth­while. Some­thing to dis­tract her from this lit­tle hob­by of hers. Deri­sion inten­tion­al. For­get about the dic­tio­nar­ies and writ­ing hand­books, the author site she’d built, the mid­night fits of furi­ous tap­ping at her keyboard–it was two in the morn­ing now. For­get about it all.

And then the win­dow refresh­es, and she sees it. She doesn’t find any of the search results on the left appeal­ing. But on the right side, an ad reveals a device called the Inspiwriter.

“What the hell’s an Inspi­writer?” She asks, click­ing on it.

A page loads slow­ly, bits of unfor­mat­ted text and links appear­ing in the win­dow every few sec­onds–God, load already, damn it–and then, once that ugly bull­shit fills the screen, it refresh­es, loads the style sheets and images. Final­ly.

“Stuck on ideas?” She reads. “Yes. Writer’s block? Yes. Too many rejec­tions clut­ter­ing your inbox. Also, yes. Try an Inspi­writer today.”

She scrolls to view the image.

At the most basic, the thing’s a type­writer. Black with an array of bone-col­ored keys set in the expect­ed QWERTY lay­out. A tiny screen sits above these, four inch­es max along the diag­o­nal. A dial on the right and a touch screen on the left flank the keys.

She scrolls more.

“Write,” she reads, pick­ing up her cig­a­rette and knock­ing some of the ash from the tip, “with the pow­er of AI at your fin­ger­tips.” Oh great, AI has infect­ed every­thing these days. First it was art­work; now it’s in a key­board. What’s next–a toast­er? She takes a long puff, sets the cig­a­rette back down.

So, here’s the gist. That lit­tle screen on the left, it’s a capac­i­tive touch screen that dis­plays AI sug­ges­tions as you type. The dial scrolls through the doc­u­ment, as expect­ed. And what­ev­er you type or select from the AI inter­face gets added to a doc­u­ment on the four-inch screen.

It’s not a ter­ri­ble idea. Her ideas have nev­er held ground against the tar­get­ing eye of an edi­tor. Per­haps AI could do some­thing she couldn’t. If she didn’t let it write the damn thing, there shouldn’t be a problem.

To think she was about to give up on writ­ing when there is a per­fect­ly sound solu­tion right here.

She clicks the Buy It Now button.

#

The door­bell chimes, and Olivia hangs up on her sis­ter. Just hangs up. No good­bye or any­thing. Her sis­ter knows she’s a lit­tle crazy. She’ll get over it. They’d been chat­ting it up, Olivia loung­ing in her under­wear beside a pile of fast-food wrap­pers, ask­ing each oth­er the usu­al pleas­antries like “How’s the writ­ing going? You sub­mit any­thing? Get any­thing accept­ed?” Her sis­ter was always the bet­ter writer but refus­es to talk about her own work. She always shifts the atten­tion away from her­self. But Olivia knows bet­ter. She’d once found her sister’s name on an online pub­li­ca­tion. It was hard to stay mad at her though. I want to know what my lit­tle sis is writ­ing, eh Liv? her sis­ter would ask.

But today’s a spe­cial day. Olivia has been mon­i­tor­ing the deliv­ery noti­fi­ca­tions for an entire week, and today it’s final­ly out for deliv­ery. She sets her phone on the mid­dle sofa cush­ion, slides into her pants and cross­es to the front door of her tiny apartment.

The man deliv­er­ing the pack­age stands about five feet and looks to weigh as much as a pack of Lucky Strikes. His hair is slick and swept to the right, and he’s clean-shaven. But what strikes Olivia the most is the uni­form. Not the expect­ed brown slacks and but­ton-up shirt of the mail ser­vice, but jeans and a t‑shirt, the t‑shirt bear­ing the logo of InspireTech, the devel­op­er of the Inspi­writer. He holds the brown Kraft pack­ag­ing eas­i­ly in his left hand. They are deliv­er­ing this thing in person.

“Hey,” the lit­tle man says. “Olivia Frances?”

“One and only,” Olivia says.

“I’ve got your Inspi­writer,” he says. “You ordered it with the set­up help. I’m your assistant.”

She doesn’t remem­ber order­ing any­thing spe­cial, but maybe there was a check­box she’d over­looked. Either way, it’s thrilling that the thing is here. No more of this “Alter­na­tives to writ­ing” bunk she’s got­ten her­self into.

“The place is a mess,” she says, think­ing of the ham­burg­er wrap­per and fry tubs, both of which col­or-matched the brown box in the man’s hand. “But come on in.”

“You should see my place, ma’am.” He pats his chest with his one free hand as if dust­ing his shirt. “No rea­son to clean if you’ve got no one to clean for.”

This guy is talk­ing like he knows some­thing about her, but he knows noth­ing. Still, it was just her camp­ing out there.

“I mean me, ma’am.” He steps in through the door­way, starts across the apart­ment to the 9x10 space she uses as the liv­ing room. There’s a three-cush­ioned sofa, a pot­ted plant she some­times mis­took for an ash­tray, and an enter­tain­ment stand with a flat screen tele­vi­sion. Despite being so short, he seems to fill the entire space. He walks over to the couch and ges­tures to it. “Is this where you write?”

“I’ve got a desk with a pow­er strip in the room,” she says.

“Oh, that’s unnec­es­sary,” he says. “This thing’s portable and the bat­tery life’s good for a week, three days with peak usage of the AI.” His green eyes bore into her, and she feels splayed open.

“Oh, okay. Couch it is.” She just wants the man to give her the device and leave. She heads over to the couch and picks up her cell­phone, cross­es to the kitch­enette, but then pock­ets the phone at the last moment. It is a safe­ty line in case this man proves dangerous.

Once she’s seat­ed, arms crossed over her body, the man kneels on the floor, low­ers the box and rips a cir­cle of tape from the side flap. It looks like he’s done this a lot. As the box opens, she sees it tucked in between four stiff cor­ner sup­ports. It looks like the images she’d seen, though it is a bit more of a mat­te fin­ish than the web­site made out. He lifts it out of the pack­ag­ing and removes the brown sup­ports from the cor­ners and hands it up to her. His grin is shit-devour­ing. Creepy. “Here’s your new baby.”

The thing weighs as much as the stack of hor­ror mags buck­ling the bot­tom shelf of the book­case in her room.

“The pow­er switch is on the rear,” he says, “right here on your right… uh, my right, you’re left.” Some­thing about how he mis­spoke felt arti­fi­cial, like he did this every time.

She reach­es back, feels the tiny switch on the back and slides it right.

The screen lights up in imme­di­ate response.

“It’s pret­ty self-explana­to­ry,” the man says. “There’s a new key beside the escape key. Push it.”

She push­es it. The screen flash­es the words New Doc­u­ment for just a sec­ond, then all that’s there is a blink­ing cursor.

“You’re ready to type.” He leans in over her to look at the screen. He smells like musk and vin­tage rum. She’s always been more of a scotch gal. She scoots to the side a lit­tle, and he frowns at this. “Yep, you’re ready.”

“Okay, so how do I put my sto­ries on the computer?”

“Easy.” He claps his hands togeth­er and rubs them as if warm­ing them against the non-exis­tent cold. “It con­nects through Blue­tooth. On the oppo­site side from the escape key, there’s the Blue­tooth key. Just push it, and you’ll see it on your com­put­er. The first time you con­nect, it’ll load the soft­ware onto your com­put­er and let you select a fold­er in which to save all files.”

“Okay, so–”

“Now, this device will solve all your writ­ing woes. We guar­an­tee that. But there is one thing I’m sup­posed to tell all new Inspi­writer Writ­ers.” His tone and stance become offi­cious, and the room seems to dark­en with his presence.

“Mmh­mm?”

“It’s about the sto­ries.” He seems hes­i­tant to bring up what­ev­er it is. He looks toward the door, brush­ing the seat of his pants as if he needs fur­ther dust­ing, and though he’s look­ing away, Olivia has the keen feel­ing of being watched.

“What about them?” She asks.

“There’s a stipulation.”

Oh great. This isn’t one of those own­er­ship issues, is it? If InspireTech owns any of what she writes on this thing, the deal is over.

“Noth­ing like that,” he says, as if read­ing her mind. “The thing is, there’s a cost. One of life.” He smacks his lips, which star­tles her.

Noth­ing about this man feels right, but she doesn’t know what to do. She fights to remain com­posed. “What do you mean by a cost of life?” She sets the Inspi­writer on the cush­ion beside her and stands from the couch, hop­ing he’ll read the cue.

“The thing is,” he says again, “this device will cure you. We guar­an­tee that, remem­ber? But it comes at the cost of life.” He paus­es from his fine print, looks around the place. His eyes linger on the pot­ted plant for a sec­ond too long, as if the plant is ven­omous. Then, he turns back to her and says, in a sud­den­ly con­fi­dent tone, “Every sto­ry you write takes a life. That’s how it is.”

She laughs, then stops. He’s dead serious.

“Any­way, it’s time for me to go.” He cross­es to the door, opens it, then turns back. “Use it and your woes are no longer. Kiss writer’s block good­bye. Just remem­ber the cost.”

He is gone then, and the room feels lighter, airier.

#

Olivia stands there, look­ing down at the Inspi­writer. This thing is sup­posed to solve all her woes. All of them?

And so, she sits down, pulls the thing into her lap. The cur­sor was blink­ing steadi­ly, one blink a sec­ond. Where to begin? That has always been the most trou­ble­some part of it all. The begin­ning. She didn’t even know what she want­ed to write about. And that four-inch screen was as use­less as any oth­er blank document.

She glances over at the capac­i­tive touch screen. There are six sug­ges­tions in a two by three grid. Whether she knew, It hap­pened that, What­ev­er any­one, Deep in the, You nev­er know, Climb­ing back into. She thinks for just a moment, then press­es It hap­pened that.

#

“Update on your Sub­mis­sion,” the email sub­ject reads. She is hes­i­tant to click it. She can’t take any more rejec­tion. If she opens this, and they reject her, it will dev­as­tate her. But then again, if she doesn’t look, she’ll nev­er know. They could offer a con­tract for all she knows, and her non­re­sponse would cause them to rescind that offer. She feels like Char­lie Brown. She has to look.

She takes a puff of a cig­a­rette, then clicks open the email.

#

Tear­ful and anx­ious, she paces the kitchen floor with a cig­a­rette in one hand and tears in the oth­er. They’ve nev­er accept­ed her before; she doesn’t know how to take it. How to cope. She must respond. She knows that. And she will. But she needs a moment–to think, to breathe, to cry.

#

Olivia parks her car in the apart­ment complex’s lot after a long night shift over at the din­er. She greets a first-floor neigh­bor who always leaves home at that hour. Good morn­ing for him. Good­night for her. She slow­ly scales the steps to her sec­ond-floor apart­ment. Sit­ting there at the base of her door is the local paper. For her, news is an end of the day thing.

She fid­dles with her keys for a moment, then snatch­es the paper up off the door­mat as she enters.

She warns her­self some ramen, pours her­self a glass of water, then heads out to the couch to read. The Inspi­writer lies on the sofa beside her, and she’s care­ful as she’s jug­gling the ramen, water, and news­pa­per not to spill any­thing on the device.

Front page, there’s a mur­der. Some elder­ly woman in hos­pice care was blud­geoned to death in the gar­dens. Not an unusu­al thing for the big city, but there is some­thing that catch­es Olivia’s atten­tion. The woman was a suc­cess­ful writer. A dozen nov­els and count­less short sto­ries to her name.

Olivia sets her ramen down and glances over at the Inspi­writer, remem­ber­ing the small assistant’s warn­ing about a cost of life.

Every sto­ry you write takes a life. That’s what he’d said. Now, she just pub­lish­es her first sto­ry, and some old writer bites it. Cost of life. The sound of crack­ling paper makes her real­ize her hands are trembling.

But she didn’t know the old woman. It’s not like she’s done any­thing wrong. She just authored a sto­ry, so why should it both­er her so much?

She shakes her head. Clear­ly, she’s let­ting her­self get spooked. There’s noth­ing to tie some old woman to her Inspiwriter.

She should trash this paper and stop read­ing into things.

She stands, cross­es the room to the trash can beside the kitch­enette counter and shoves it down inside amidst some fast-food wrap­pers from the oth­er day.

#

A month goes by, and Olivia gets that famil­iar itch. It starts in her chest, extends to her hands. She gets it every time she’s been away from writ­ing for a while. It makes her feel antsy. Time to write some­thing new.

So short­ly after wak­ing one Sun­day after­noon, she pours her­self a glass of whisky, lights up a cig­a­rette, and sits down beside the Inspi­writer. She sets the whiskey on the floor beside the couch, pulls the device into her lap and fires it up.

She push­es “New”. New Doc­u­ment flash­es for just a moment, then that blank screen greets her.

This time, the words flow at once. She relies on the AI only sel­dom­ly. And after a few hours, she’s com­posed a 2,500-word short sto­ry about a man and a hor­rif­ic ren­di­tion of an escape house. She believes she has writ­ten it well. Well-writ­ten and, frankly, quite brilliant.

She throws her hands behind her head and leans back in her seat. Her par­ents should see her now.

#

Com­ing home from work one ear­ly morn­ing, she drops the paper onto the couch and heads to the bed­room to check her email. It’s there, an email from Dark Plague Mag­a­zine. She clicks it, feel­ing con­fi­dent this time, and they meet her con­fi­dence with approval.

“This is exact­ly the mate­r­i­al we would like to rep­re­sent Dark Plague Magazine.”

She claps her hands on her desk, then push­es her chair back away from the table. They love it.

#

After they pub­lish her sto­ry, Olivia ignores the news and accepts the pub­li­ca­tion as a win. She’s feel­ing great. Nev­er greater.

A week after, she gets a call from the lit­tle man who’d helped her set up the Inspiwriter.

“Olivia?” His voice rings in her ear.

“Huh?” Why was he call­ing her? She has the device. They’ve done their part.

“Just call­ing to see how you’re doing. We’ve seen two suc­cess­ful pieces from you!”

“Keep­ing tabs, huh?” She asks.

“We always do,” he says, offi­cious again. “It’s impor­tant to us that the Inspi­writer works, and the only way to know that is to… keep tabs.”

“I guess,” she says. She under­stands that, but that doesn’t make it any less intim­i­dat­ing. Like he’s been watch­ing her.

There is a brief silence on the line, then the man says, “So, how’s it going?”

“Like you said,” she says. “I got two shorts published.”

“That’s fan­tas­tic to hear! Any­way, just know that we are here to ensure this process goes smooth­ly for you. If you need any­thing, we’re only a phone call away.” The way he said process seemed to indi­cate some­thing oth­er than writing.

“Thanks, I guess.”

There is a click, and the line is dead. She goes into her call his­to­ry and adds that num­ber to her con­tacts under the company’s name. Lit­tle Creepy Dude is the individual.

#

They find her the same day of the call. Veron­i­ca Tal­bot, the writer who’d shunned Olivia’s writ­ing group. Suf­fo­cat­ed dur­ing the night. Yes, Olivia hates her, but that is much more than she deserves. By reports, she’d slipped into a pool the day pri­or and swal­lowed water into her lungs. Olivia imag­ines her bloat­ed corpse lay­ing there in her bed–a four-post princess bed in her mind–and she shud­ders and sticks a cig­a­rette to her lips. Then she imag­ines Veron­i­ca wak­ing with a sti­fled gasp, thrash­ing about, and suck­ing for breath, her pur­pling skin grow­ing increas­ing­ly pale against thick blue veins.

Olivia shud­ders.

That is the sec­ond writer to die after Olivia pub­lished a suc­cess­ful sto­ry. She paces her liv­ing room back and forth, back and forth, flick­ing ash from her cig­a­rette into the planter every few pass­es. Then she stops.

She grabs the Inspi­writer and tucks it under her bed in the bed­room. She shoves a pile of dirty clothes and old shoes against it to con­ceal it. As if that’ll help. As if that’ll keep the itch away.

She could go back to writ­ing the old way.

#

A month goes by, then two, then she gets a call she doesn’t expect. She’s just laid down for the day, sheets already pulled up around her, her room musty and cold. Winter’s near­ly upon her, and she always runs cold in the Fall. She’s about out when her phone plays its ringtone.

The call is from Dark Plague Mag­a­zine, or Dark Plague Inc., its pub­lish­er, to be specific.

“Hi Olivia, my name’s Jim­my Sachs. I’m an assis­tant to the edi­tor of Dark Plague Magazine.”

“Oh,” she says, and she throws the sheets off her and sits up. “I’m sor­ry, I work a night shift and was just lay­ing down. How can I help you, Mr. Sachs?”

“Please, call me Jim­my,” he says.

“Ok, Jim­my, you got it,” she says.

“So, Olivia, every year, Dark Plague Mag­a­zine pub­lish­es a Best of Hor­ror Anthol­o­gy. Have you heard of it?”

She hadn’t heard of it, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Yes,” she says. “What about it?”

“Well, we have select­ed the piece you pub­lished in our June issue for inclu­sion. I’m call­ing to con­grat­u­late you.”

“Oh my god,” she says. “That’s fan­tas­tic! What do I need to do?”

“Noth­ing, actu­al­ly. The con­tract you signed with us spec­i­fied this pos­si­bil­i­ty in the Author Grants sec­tion. We just want­ed to let you know so you can look out for it.”

“Is there like a contributor’s copy or something?”

“I’m afraid not,” he says. “But you can buy one direct­ly from us.”

#

Olivia is ecsta­t­ic. She has only pub­lished twice, and she’s already get­ting select­ed for a Best-Of anthology.

She can’t sleep. Not now. She must ride the momen­tum. So, she gets up, looks down at the pile of clothes tucked under­neath the bed, then sits at her desk and opens her laptop.

She opens a new doc­u­ment and sets the cur­sor sev­er­al lines down from where the title will even­tu­al­ly go. And then she sits there, star­ing at the screen like an idiot for thir­ty minutes.

She types a word, any word, and in this case, any word is It. She types the sec­ond word, hap­pened. That’s how her first pub­lished piece start­ed. But in this case, it’s shit. It’s all just shit. So, she holds the back­space down to delete those two stu­pid words.

She sits there for anoth­er half hour before slam­ming the lid of her lap­top shut.

She can’t do this. She nev­er has been able to. Why can’t she just write like oth­er writers?

She can’t. Not without…

She clears away the laun­dry and shoes under her bed and pulls out the Inspi­writer, promis­ing just this once.

And she com­pos­es yet anoth­er bril­liant story.

#

After a brief sleep, she can’t believe what she has done, so she tucks the Inspi­writer back under the bed and buries it with­out even hav­ing trans­ferred her newest hor­ror story.

She dress­es into her work-appro­pri­ate garb, then hits the road.

She gets a call from her sis­ter around the time she’s due for a break, so she asks for her break and returns the call.

“Sis, hey, how are you doing?”

“Olivia, stop talk­ing and lis­ten to me,” her sis­ter says “It’s Kyle. He… he hit me. He’s nev­er hit me before, but he hit me, Liv. I don’t know what hap­pened, but he seemed mad. Like crazy mad.”

“Are you kid­ding me? Of course he is if he’s hit­ting you. How long has this been going on?”

“Aren’t you lis­ten­ing? This is the first time, Liv.” Once an abuser, always an abuser. “But, Liv, I think he hurt me. Like, real­ly hurt me. I don’t know, but I’m bleeding.”

“Hang on. Where’d he hit you?” Olivia lights a cig­a­rette, then rush­es out the diner’s front doors to stand outside.

“I don’t know. He kicked me in the stomach.”

“Kicked you? That’s worse. And you’re bleed­ing?” She begins to pace, imag­in­ing that freck­led man in his Yan­kees cap kick­ing her sister.

“Yes, but it’s not that time, Liv.”

She was bleed­ing from her uterus? This was bad. He could have real­ly dam­aged some­thing. “What are you doing call­ing me then?” She takes a puff. “Call the police or get to a hos­pi­tal or something.”

“No, Liv. Like I said, he’s nev­er done this before.” What kind of stu­pid bull­shit was that–protect the man who kicked you in the uterus? “I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

“Then what are you gonna do, sis?”

“I… I’m com­ing to see you.”

“Okay, what­ev­er.” What could she pos­si­bly do to help her sis­ter? “Just be safe.”

“Will do, Liv. I love you.”

#

She nev­er makes it. She pass­es out at the wheel and slams into a sec­ond sedan. The high­way patrol pulls her bleed­ing body from her car with­in the next hour, but it’s too late.

Olivia cries as she hears this from the offi­cer stand­ing with her out­side of the din­er, his cruis­er sit­ting in the mid­dle of the dim­ly lit park­ing lot. This is fucked up!

“What hap­pened to the oth­er fam­i­ly?” She asks him between sobs.

“I’m afraid only one of them made it, a child, and she’s in the ICU. I’m sor­ry for your loss.”

Fuck your sor­ry!

#

Back at home, she picks up her cell phone and opens her con­tacts app. She scrolls until she finds it, InspireTech. She push­es the call but­ton and holds the phone to her ear.

The phone rings ten times before some­one answers, “InspireTech, Inspir­ing Authors since 2022.”

She rec­og­nizes his voice. It’s him, the small man.

“Take it back,” Olivia says.

There’s a long silence. “Olivia, is it that bad?”

“Uh huh,” she says, not car­ing that he knows it’s her. “I need you to take it back.”

“What’s the mat­ter with it? Is it not working?”

“You know damn well it’s working!”

“I see. Here’s the thing. We can’t take it back unless you’re absolute­ly cer­tain. Our guar­an­tee, you see, will no longer apply.”

Mean­ing no more bril­liant sto­ries. She didn’t care. She was cer­tain that the device had a curse on it. This man, this lit­tle, devi­ous fuck­ing man, is a stain on the world. It doesn’t mat­ter. She needs to be rid of it. “I understand.”

“Do you still want to return it?”

“Absolute­ly!”

#

When the door­bell chimes, she runs to answer it. It is the man. He is car­ry­ing the Kraft pack­ag­ing from before. She hes­i­tates a moment, then lets him in to fill her house with his evil yet again.

“It’s on the couch,” she says. “I don’t even want to touch it.”

The man with slicked hair goes to the couch, eyes that pot­ted plant as if it had slight­ed him in some way and grabs the device. “You’re sure about this?” He asks.

“Just get rid of the damned thing!”

“Very well.” He kneels to the floor and slow­ly, metic­u­lous­ly reassem­bles the pack­ag­ing, sup­ports and all. Once the box is closed, he pro­duces a cir­cu­lar stick­er from his pock­et and seals the box with it. “We’ve only got the one, but we would be hap­py to give it to some­one else.”

#

Six months go by, and though she’s pub­lished in the Best-Of anthol­o­gy, she doesn’t pub­lish a damn thing new. She doesn’t even write.

Six months to the day, she’s stand­ing over the stove at work, flip­ping burg­ers, drop­ping fries. A car comes crash­ing through the glass pane at the front of the store. The last thing she sees is the thing’s front license plate.