Free Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

lit the pocket lining. The fluid-soaked cloth jumped to bright life.
    Lem turned to run. He hadn't gone three steps when the can blew. The heat slapped his back and the explosion thundered inside his head. He reached the street, looked back.
    The house opened its front door and howled like a sixty-mile an -hour tornado. The upstairs front window shades went up, eyes glinted savagely in the moonlight. A spear of flame spurted out of the house's side.
    Harry was crossing the street, running for his house when he looked back. The creature howled again. Arms came out of its sides. All around windows went up and wings sprouted out of them.
    "Jesus," Harry said, and he turned away from his house so as not to lead it to Edith. He started up the street toward his car.
    Lem came up behind him laughing. "Ha! Ha! Flame on!" Harry glanced back.
    The explosion had ignited internal gases and the thing was howling flames now. Its tongue flapped out and slapped the street. Its wings fluttered and it rose up into the sky.
    Doors opened all down the block. Windows went up.
    Edith's head poked out of one of the windows. "Harry?"
    "Be back, be back, be back," Harry said, and ran on.
    Behind him Lem said, "Pacemaker, don't fail me now."
    They reached the car wheezing.
    "There . . . she . . . goes," Lem panted. "After it!" A bright, orange-red mass darted shrieking across the night sky, moved toward the ship channel, losing altitude.
    The Ford coughed to life, hit the street. They went left, driving fast. Lem hung out of the window, pointing up, saying, "There it goes! Turn left. No, now over there. Turn right!"
    "The ship channel!" Harry yelled. "It's almost to the ship channel."
    "Falling, falling," Lem said.
    It was.
    They drove up the ship channel bridge. The house-thing blazed above them, moaned loud enough to shake the windows in the Ford. The sky was full of smoke.
    Harry pulled over to the bridge railing, parked, jumped out with Lem . Other cars had pulled over. Women, men, and children burst out of them, ran to the railing, looked and pointed up.
    The great flaming beast howled once more, loudly, then fell, hit the water with a thunderous splash.
    "Ah, ha!" Harry yelled. "Dammit, Lem , we've done it, the block is free. Tomorrow we break out the paint, buy new windows, get some shingles . . ."
    The last of the thing slipped under the waves with a hiss. A black cloud hung over the water for a moment, thinned to gray. There was a brief glow beneath the expanding ripples, then darkness.
    Lem lifted his flask in toast. "Ha! Ha! Flame out!"

Author's Note on The Man Who Dreamed
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    T his was written for Twilight Zone , but, alas, it wasn't picked up. I sent it to The Horror Show , and they grabbed it. It's an obvious Ray Bradbury influenced story. It's light, but I like it.
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The Man Who Dreamed
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    T he old man drove a red pickup that looked ready to fall apart. He went up one street of Mud Creek and down another, driving slowly, looking out the window, sweating inside the pickup, cooking in the summer sunshine like a turkey in the oven.
    Finally he found what he was looking for: a small, white frame house with a freshly mown lawn that you could smell from three blocks away. There was a low, decorative white fence that encased the yard and the old man parked in front of the curb next to that, got out on his rickety legs, went through the gate and up the walk.
    A tricycle lay overturned near the front steps. The old man picked it up and set it right. He went up the steps and knocked on the door.
    A young woman with her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail answered his knock. She had a white apron tied over her jeans and sweatshirt. She was barefoot. And very pretty. She smelled faintly of fried chicken.
    "Yes?" she asked the old man.
    The old man wore a sweaty cowboy hat and he took that off with a wave of his hand and held it in front of his stomach in a manner reminiscent of one clutching a wound. His face certainly seemed to