Claudell Weems

Claudell Weems is a Maine state trooper whose wry humor and steady action carry him into the crisis at Haven. Working alongside Andy Torgeson, he enters a dangerous, polluted area, confronts an animated Coca-Cola machine, and makes it out alive with the first official account of what has happened inside the town.

Identity and Character

Weems is identified as Maine’s only Black state trooper. He is six feet four inches tall, with a gold front tooth that becomes part of his distinctive presence. Andy Torgeson knows that Weems’s close approach and bright smile can unsettle suspects and reluctant clerks. Weems explains the effect with a joke about “dat ole black magic,” then laughs so heartily that the windows at the barracks seem to tremble.

The scene establishes a contrast central to his portrayal: Weems can use humor to disarm other people, but he is not merely a comic companion. When events turn dangerous, he remains alert and acts decisively. His humor continues under pressure, making fear speakable without suggesting that the danger is small.

Entry into the Crisis

As events in Haven escalate, Torgeson and Weems travel toward the town at speed. Torgeson warns Weems that he may begin to feel sick and tells him to use the canned air if that happens. Weems immediately recognizes the implication: the air in Haven may be poisoned. Torgeson can only say that he does not know for certain, though he thinks it is.

The pair encounter the danger firsthand when an animated Coca-Cola machine attacks near the road. Its movement and damage make it a threat rather than an ordinary vehicle or piece of equipment. Weems reacts with alarm, while Torgeson calls for them to shoot. In the confusion, Weems falls over John Leandro’s body; the accident leaves him on the ground as the machine passes within inches of him. A near miss becomes an opening to fight back.

The Coca-Cola Machine

As the machine banks around for another attack, Weems rises and fires three quick shotgun blasts into it. The shots damage its metal casing, and it begins to buzz and jitter in the air. Torgeson adds four shots from his service pistol. Wounded, the machine can no longer move with the same force: it jerks, stalls, and rocks from side to side as soda spills from its access door.

The machine finally falls onto the road, its casing full of bullet holes and smoke coming from it. Weems sums up the reversal in a stunned report to his superior: “I have just drawn my weapon and killed a Coke machine, sir,” he says, speaking from inside his mask. Torgeson points out that Weems neither ordered it to halt nor fired a warning shot, then jokes that this might earn him a suspension. The incongruity of a routine police procedure applied to an attacking machine briefly turns terror into shared laughter. Weems laughs so hard he nearly doubles over.

Escape and Significance

Weems and Torgeson do not leave in their cruiser, which is no longer usable. They continue on foot, sharing the remaining oxygen in their flat-packs until they reach Troy and can breathe the outside air. Weems later credits the wind with helping them escape. He comes out with a bloody nose; Torgeson has lost several teeth, and both men consider themselves fortunate.

Their escape has consequences beyond their survival. They are the first official sources to report what is happening in Haven, by then widely described as a zone of pollution. Reports of dangerous air are already spreading, alongside accounts of a gigantic unidentified flying object rising from the smoke in Big Injun Woods. Weems’s experience links an apparently absurd encounter on the road to the larger emergency: a seemingly ordinary town has become inaccessible and lethal, and the danger is escaping its boundaries through witnesses and reports.