‘Yo, Doc! Come in Doc!’
There was no response.
Marty tried again:
'Hello, Doc, do you read me, over?’
There was nothing on the walkie-talkie but static.
‘Doc, answer me, please!’
He was answered instead by another blinding flash of lightning, followed by a great boom of thunder and pouring rain.
This stuff was coming down hard! Marty had to find cover somewhere! He ducked quickly behind the Lyon’s Estate billboard. There was just enough of an awning overhead to leave a couple of feet dry back here.
Somebody had also left a bicycle behind the billboard. It still had the price tag on the handlebars.
That’s right! Doc had gotten around town on a bike, hadn’t he?
Doc, Marty thought. What had happened to him?
Marty stepped out from behind the billboard.
‘Doc!’ he yelled one more time, but his voice was lost in the storm.
Through the rain, Marty saw a pair of headlights coining down the road from the direction of town.
Maybe, Marty thought, he’d better get back out of sight - he didn’t want any more complications than he already had. He stepped behind the billboard again, and leaned the hoverboard against the sign, right next to the bike.
The car stopped on the other side of the billboard. What was going on now? For a wild second, Marty was afraid that Biff had somehow gotten out of the manure! Marty peeked around the edge of the sign - no, the car was some kind of dark sedan. Marty didn’t recognise it.
A man wearing a hat and trenchcoat stepped out of the car.
‘Hello?’ the guy with the trenchcoat yelled. ‘Anyone here?’
Who was this guy? It was hard to tell in the darkness and the rain, but Marty could swear he’d never seen him before. And the trenchcoat and the hat - did that mean he came from the FBI or something?
‘Marty?’ the other guy yelled. ‘Marty McFly?’
The guy knew his name? Marty stopped an urge to run the other way.
‘Marty McFly,’ the guy called over the storm, ‘if you’re here, please show yourself.’
Still, this guy hadn’t threatened Marty or pulled out a gun or anything. Maybe, Marty thought, he should find out what was going on here.
He stepped out from behind the billboard.
The guy in the trenchcoat turned his head toward Marty he had seen him. The way the newcomer was standing in front of his car headlights though it was hard for Marty to get a real good look at the other guy’s face.
‘Is your name Marty McFly?' Trenchcoat demanded.
Marty almost said it wasn’t. But he’d gone this far.
He might as well finish this off and find out what was happening.
‘Yeah,’ he answered slowly.
Trenchcoat looked Marty up and down.