| rdfs:comment
| - The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit Troop D. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him, and soon begin telling him about the "Buick 8" of the title. It is in some sense a ghost story in the way that the novel is about a group of people telling an old but unsettling tale about a Buick Roadmaster. And while the Buick 8 is not a traditional ghost, it is indeed not of their world.
- In rural Pennsylvania, one of life's great losers looks up from behind his gas station counter and notices that a big old Buick is still sitting out front with its driver nowhere in sight. After a quick search, he can't find the driver but fears he may have fallen into the river, so he calls the state police. When the police arrive, they cannot find any trace of the man and take the car away as potential evidence. Only... only it's not really a car. There's no way it can drive, it's missing essential parts and looks like it never had them and seems more like it teleported in judging by the lack of mud.
- The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a state police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit Troop D. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him, and soon begin telling him about the "Buick 8" of the title. It is in some sense a ghost story in the way that the novel is about a group of people telling an old but unsettling tale. And while the Buick 8 is not a traditional ghost, it is indeed not of their world.
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| abstract
| - In rural Pennsylvania, one of life's great losers looks up from behind his gas station counter and notices that a big old Buick is still sitting out front with its driver nowhere in sight. After a quick search, he can't find the driver but fears he may have fallen into the river, so he calls the state police. When the police arrive, they cannot find any trace of the man and take the car away as potential evidence. Only... only it's not really a car. There's no way it can drive, it's missing essential parts and looks like it never had them and seems more like it teleported in judging by the lack of mud. And that's just the start because things come out of it - the story is framed as the current Chief and some other officers explaining the thing to the traumatized son of an officer who was tragically killed by that same loser years later.
* Alien Geometries: It seems to have a direct connection to the Dark Tower world.
* Ambiguous Situation: Basically the point. You don't get many answers by the end. There are multiple theories, but you don't know if any are true.
* Arc Words: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.
* Attack of the Killer Whatever: Well, it looks like a car, anyway.
* Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: Various things come out of the trunk of the Buick. They tend to get called things like birds and bats when it is very clear that that is not what they are at all.
* Canon Welding: Attached to the Dark Tower series.
* Contrived Coincidence: Subverted. Curtis is eventually killed in a hit and run by the same guy who called the police about the Buick, but Sandy speculates that the Buick somehow arranged it.
* Cool Car: It'd be an impressive vehicle if it actually, you know, was a vehicle.
* Departure Means Death: Things from the trunk can't survive in our world, and it's assumed stuff from ours wouldn't survive there either. No one knows why.
* Driven to Suicide: Eddie at the end, though it was set up to seem as though it was Ned.
* Eldritch Abomination: One officer notes that looking at the things that come out of the trunk made him feel like he was being raped.
* Gainax Ending: The story doesn't so much end as it does stop with the implication that pretty soon the Buick will 'die.'
* Haunted Technology
* Mind Screw
* Humans Are Cthulhu: The one thing that makes it out of the Buick's trunk alive sees the officers as just as mind breakingly horrible as they see it.
* Humans Through Alien Eyes: The above creature was not afraid as it was torn to bits, only very, very confused at what these horrible things were doing to it.
* Mrs. Robinson: Invoked. Sandy wonders if Shirley might be telling Ned so much and so easily because he's good looking and wonders if she might be thinking of 'playing Mrs Robinson' but nothing ever comes of it.
* Police Brutality: Commented on in-story. One of the cops notes that small town cops are good enough, but they get a bad rap from bigger cities: for every honest, hard-working cop, there's a power-tripping asshole waiting to beat you.
* Rule of Scary
* Surreal Horror: Big time.
* Vomiting Cop
* You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The Buick itself. The things are incredibly alien and horrible, but you can see them properly. The Buick is speculated to be something along the line of the breathing valve for a Cosmic Horror's scuba gear.
- The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a state police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit Troop D. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him, and soon begin telling him about the "Buick 8" of the title. It is in some sense a ghost story in the way that the novel is about a group of people telling an old but unsettling tale. And while the Buick 8 is not a traditional ghost, it is indeed not of their world. The Buick 8 resembles a vintage 1953 Buick Roadmaster, and was left at a gas station by a mysterious man dressed in black, who disappeared soon after leaving the car to be refueled. The car is later held by the Troop D police of rural Pennsylvania in storage shed B. The car, they discover, is not a car at all. Itappears to be a Buick Roadmaster, but the steering wheel is immobile, the dashboard instruments are useless props, the engine has no moving parts and ignition wires that go nowhere, the car heals itself when scratched or dented, and all dirt and debris are repelled by it. Sandy Dearborn, now Sergeant Commanding of Troop D, is the main narrator of the book, and tells the story to Ned, discussing various things that have happened with the car, and his father's fascination with it. The car will frequently give off what they dub "lightquakes," or large flashes of purple light over an extended period of time, and will occasionally "give birth" to strange plants and creatures that aren't anything like what they've seen in their world. Two people have disappeared in the vicinity of the car—Curtis Wilcox's former partner Ennis Rafferty, and an escaped lowlife named Brian Lippy they picked up for drunk driving and being under the influence of angel dust. It is later suggested in the book that perhaps the Buick was a portal, between our world and another. After hearing the story of the Buick and how it has been kept secret by Troop D for so long, Ned becomes convinced that the car was somehow related to the death of his father in a seemingly random road accident. After all, the gas station attendant who first reported the Buick sitting in front of the station was the same man who, years later, would kill his father. Ned is determined to destroy the Buick, but before he can Sandy Dearborn realizes that the Buick, in fact, wants to take Ned into the world it connects to ours. Sandy returns to the shed to find Ned sitting in it, Ned having poured gasoline under the car and holding a pistol and a match. Just as Sandy pulls Ned out, the Buick transforms into a portal, trying to draw both Ned and Sandy inside of it. The rest of the staff arrive on the feeling something bad may happen, all of them helping recall the story of the Buick's origin at their station, and manage to pull Ned and Sandy free, but not before Sandy glimpses into the world on the other side of the Buick. He sees Lippy's Swastika necklace and cowboy boot, along with Ennis's Ruger. The book closes with Ned joining the police force after dropping out of college, and he pulls Sandy over to shed B. The Buick's window is cracked, and remains cracked without healing itself. Ned believes that the Buick will one day fall apart, having expended the last of its energy in that final attempt to draw him over to the other universe.
- The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit Troop D. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him, and soon begin telling him about the "Buick 8" of the title. It is in some sense a ghost story in the way that the novel is about a group of people telling an old but unsettling tale about a Buick Roadmaster. And while the Buick 8 is not a traditional ghost, it is indeed not of their world.
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