Darkly The Thunder (23 page)

“I don't understand the nearly totally evil bit,” the Ranger Captain said.

“No thinking being is totally evil for very long, Captain,” Martin told him. “Not even mankind. It would destroy itself. All things have to have some, well, call it compassion, love, weakness. What does it want, Sheriff?”

“Its wonderful, magnificent life story told,” Gordie said sarcastically.

Martin removed his glasses and wiped the lenses with a very white handkerchief. “Keep it talking,” he finally said. “It will probably kill you all when it's finished.”

“Yes,” Gordie agreed. “Mr. Tobias, now that the press knows, well, that something more than bubonic plague is here, I have a request, since I am still the sheriff of this county.”

“Name it.”

“Evacuate everybody for twenty miles around.”

“We've already evacuated for five miles. Do you think that is wise?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I'm trying to keep you people alive in there, Sheriff. Let's don't make the Fury so angry that he, it, will kill you all in a rage.”

“All right. I see your point. But each time it advances a half-mile, you people back up five.”

“Done.”

“We're going to need more people in here,” the Ranger captain said. “It's one thing sealing off a town, another sealing off fifty or sixty square miles in all directions.”

Martin slowly nodded his agreement. “I have a full contingent of the 82nd Airborne standing by.”

“Get them up here, sir.”

“Done.” He looked at Gordie in the moonlight. “Sheriff, I have a bomber standing by, ready to be armed with what you requested.”

“Then our scientists have agreed with Sand's theory on destroying the Fury?”

“Yes. Unfortunately. But we've got to get you people out of there.”

“Howie and Angel. Maybe a few of the younger kids. Robin Jennings and Ricky what's-his-name, her boyfriend. The college kids if we can. The rest of us?” He shrugged. “If we have to go up with the Fury, that's the way it has to be.”

“Do you understand what is going to happen with a neutron bomb, Sheriff?”

“No.”

“It will detonate at ground level. One huge mass of energy meeting another huge mass of energy. A much larger mass of energy, I might add. There will be tremendous firestorms, possibly the most savage lightning ever experienced here on earth – at least since man became more or less civilized. In all probability, there will be nothing left for several miles in any direction. One very large hole in the ground near the center of the explosion.”

“Will this area be radioactive?”

“Our scientists don't know. It's doubtful, but that is the best they can do without further knowledge of the Fury's makeup.”

“Have you leveled with the press?”

“Not yet. Tomorrow morning, the president is going to speak on a worldwide hookup.”

The Ranger Captain grunted.

“What's the matter, Captain?” Martin asked.

“That's when the shit hitting the fan turns into a cluster-fuck, sir.”

Both Gordie and Martin laughed at the young captain's bluntness.

“I couldn't have said it better, son,” Martin said, patting him on the arm.

When Gordie returned to the office, most of the people were gathered around the TV in the main room. The new additions, including Gordie's wife, had been housed in an old unused cell block in the basement.

“I don't trust any of them,” Mack said. “Not a damn one of them.”

“I see someone put a deputy next to their door.”

“Lee.”

“Good move. What's with the television?”

“Sand has really been throwing it at us fast. It's both fascinating and depressing. He really got screwed by the law, Gordie. Makes me ashamed. I'm surprised he held on to his sanity as long as he did.”

“Jesus God, I remember this scene,” Watts was saying, as they walked up to the TV.

“Bring me up-to-date,” Gordie said.

“About a year before the bottom dropped out for Sand and his bunch, every time I'd get around Sand or Joey, I'd feel some sort of, well, strange sensation. It was like a, well, pressure, very slight, on me. Now I know what it was.”

“This Force Sand and Richard spoke of?”

“Yes. I was lecturing Sand here, Gordie.” Watts pointed to the screen. “Trying to get him to see he was screwing up his life. I thought my mind was beginning to play tricks on me. Now I know it wasn't. It was real.”

They looked at the screen.

“Goddamnit, Sand!” Watts roared. “Sit your ass down in that chair and listen to me.”

Sand sat and glared at the trooper.

“I just came from Julie von Mehren's mansion up in the mountains. She likes you, boy. Why, I don't know. But she does. She's heard, as I have heard, that all hell is about to break loose between you and those rich snots over in Monte Rio, and that one frat house that's aligned with them.”

“Captain, I swear to you, this is news to me.”

“Sand, I believe you. My own sources tell me that crap that Bill Marlson is spreading about you is all lies. But tempers are running hot and heavy. Back off, Sand.”

“Captain, where do I back off to? I have no backing room left me.”

“You could break up the Pack.”

“Why should I? Name me one illegal act that any of us have ever done? Point out one time that any of us ever set out to start a fight. All we do is work and drive custom cars. Since when is that against the law?”

“Public support is most definitely not with you people.”

“So what else is new?”

“If you continue this fight with those rich snots at Monte Rio, and with this one fraternity house – even if you people don't start a single fight – public opinion is going to harden against you. Sand, you can be anything you want to be. You're big, tough, handsome, fast on your feet, a born leader, and you're a genius – just like Joey. But all those fine qualities have been wasted on you. God, I wish you had been born a hundred years ago. You'd have been a gunfighter. I'd be reading books about you.”

“I wish the same, Captain.”

“I know you do. But you can't go back in time, son. You've got to conform; you've got to, Sand.”

Sand blurred in his eyes; the young man seemed to be wearing buckskins, his hair shoulderlength. The wall behind him changed into a saloon scene from the Old West. Watts shook his head. The vision seemed to clear, blurred again. Watts blinked his eyes. Sand wore a pirate's outfit, the wall behind him became the sea, and the air was thick with smoke from a battle at sea.

Thunder cracked in Watts's head. He could not keep his eyes open.

When he finally forced his eyes open, Sand was wearing a breastplate and he was mounted on a horse. A castle loomed in the background. Watts gripped the arms of his chair and fought the images.

“What the hell!” he whispered.

“Is something the matter?” Sand asked.

Watts's vision cleared. Sand was looking at him curiously.

Watts looked out his office window. The day was clear. “Did you hear thunder just then?”

“Thunder? No, sir.”

“I've been working too hard. You're driving me nuts, Sand. I don't know what motivates you. I don't understand you. I don't know whether to offer you a job with the state patrol, or to petition to have you placed in a crazy house. And me along with you. Get out of here, Sand. I have work to do. And Sand? Stay out of trouble.”

The picture on the TV set faded.

“What happened after that, Colonel?” Megan asked.

“The next week those crap-heads over at Monte Rio ambushed a Pack member. His name was Norris. His girlfriend, Gloria, was with him. Norris was badly beaten, and Gloria was raped – repeatedly. They continued to rape her even after they had beaten her into unconsciousness. A deputy sheriff who was patrolling the back roads found her crawling along the side of the road, naked, babbling in hysteria, blood dripping from her mouth, nose, and ears. She was brain-damaged. She was finally placed in an asylum. She's still there. Norris regained consciousness only once, long enough to tell a doctor who had done him in. The DA rejected the deathbed statement. Norris died, Gloria sat in her padded room and rocked her dolly, the punks who raped her and killed Norris walked free, and the war was on.

Sunny said, “Sand and his friends seemed to get the shaft everytime they turned around.”

“Yes, they did,” Watts said with a heavy sigh.

They all turned and walked toward the computer room at the sounds of Howie typing. He had typed: Sand? Were you all those people that Mr. Watts saw that day in his – office?

Yes, the reply quickly came.

Reincarnation?

Watts said, “Tell him that the government is ready with a bomber.”

Sand replied:
That was a good idea the sheriff had about the fire and smoke. It might work. Keep it in mind.

Gordie grunted. “Ask him about my wife and the others who came in today. Can they be trusted?”

The screen went dark.

“How would you read that reply, Howie?” Watts asked.

“That they can't be trusted,” the boy replied.

“Look out!” Mack screamed the warning, just as the door to the basement burst open and a butcher knife was driven into the back of the deputy guarding the door.

Mack jerked his old .357 from leather and shot the knife-wielding man between the eyes. The bullet went all the way through the head and wanged off the steel door frame.

The man dropped to the floor, then opened his eyes and grinned at Mack, while slowly getting to his feet. Mack emptied his .357 into the man's chest, the slugs knocking him back. He would not die. But his weight was preventing the others in the basement from pushing open the door and flooding into the room. All on the ground level could hear them cursing and howling to be freed.

“Is there another way out of the basement?” Jill asked, as men moved furniture moved against the door, temporarily blocking any escape.

“One door. But it's steel, just like that door,” Gordie said. “They'll not get out that way. Lee, get that welder's set from the evidence room. I know something about welding. We'll seal them off.”

“I know a lot about welding,” Sgt. Janet Dixon said. “My daddy is a welder. I'll seal that sucker shut.”

“Gordie, honey,” the sheriffs wife called from behind the door. “I'm not part of the Fury's plan. I love you, baby. Open the door and let me out.”

Others behind the door picked up the call, pleading to be set free.

Judy quickly set up a PSE machine and began monitoring stress in the voices. “They're lying,” she said. “Everyone that I've checked.”

“Those things are not reliable,” Leon said. “They're not admissible in a court of law.”

Mack – his .357 fully loaded – looked at the boy and inwardly fought to keep from shooting him.

Watts had handcuffed the man who refused to die, and with the help of Rich and Capt. Hishon, dragged the man outside and tossed him into the street.

The screaming behind the door was a howling roar as Janet began welding the door to the steel frame. Those trapped pounded on the door and cursed.

NOW YOU'RE CATCHING ON, FOLKS. NOW YOU'RE PLAYING THE GAME. I LOVE IT.

No one chose to reply.

SINCE THE ENTIRE WORLD – STUPID PLACE THAT IT IS – WILL KNOW ALL ABOUT ME COME THE MORNING, I SHALL GIVE YOU ALL A TREAT. YOU MAY ROAM THE TOWN BETWEEN NOW AND THEN AND I WON'T HARM YOU. YOU HAVE MY WORD. REMEMBER, I SAID I WON'T HARM YOU TA-TA.

DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.

“Meaning the people are out there waiting for us,” Watts said.

“Yeah,” Maj. Jackson said. “So bullets won't stop them, we know that. But I know something that will.”

All looked at him.

“Fire,” the major said.

 

 

Those trapped inside the sheriffs office spent the next hour scrounging up empty bottles and filling them with gasoline siphoned from vehicles in the impound area.

OH, MY. BUT THIS IS GOING TO BE SUCH FUN!

“You going to watch and not interfere?” Gordie asked.

I GAVE MY WORD, BURRITO-BREATH.

“So you did. All right. Let's see how much your word means.”

The air inside the office grew heavy, and all could sense the Fury was very angry. I HAVE NEVER BROKEN MY WORD, PONCHO. I MIGHT TRICK YOU, DECEIVE YOU, SET TRAPS FOR YOU. BUT IF I GIVE MY WORD, IT'S A FIRM BOND. DON'T EVER ACCUSE ME OF BEING A WELSHER AGAIN.

“Sorry.”

THAT'S BETTER. BY THE WAY, WHAT IS A MODEM?

“I don't have any idea,” Gordie quickly responded. “What language is that?”

I'M NOT SURE. IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH A MACRO AND A SYSTEM DISK.

“I'm afraid you're asking the wrong people, Fury. I'd guess that those are reporters' phrases of some kind.”

YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT. IF YOU ARE, IT WILL PROBABLY BE THE FIRST TIME. HAVE FUN.

The people behind the welded-shut door had shouted themselves hoarse and were silent. But all knew that anytime the Fury wanted the door open, it could open it.

Gordie hefted a Molotov cocktail, half-filled with gasoline with a rag stuck in the top.

“Let's go to work, people.”

The night had turned cool, cooler than usual for early spring in the Rockies. The men and women stepped out of the sheriff's office and looked up and down the street. It was deserted, and very silent.

“They're waiting for us,” Watts said. “I spent too many years as a cop not to sense a set-up.”

Gordie could also feel the intangible eerieness that Watts was experiencing, and it was not something he enjoyed. And neither was he going to enjoy the assault against the townspeople. He knew and liked most of the people in Willowdale. It was important to keep in mind that those they would face were merely shells of what they had once been – now they were dangerous, the enemy. The camera crews that had stepped across the line into the town were filming the desolation and the silence. Jill and Dean were speaking softly into tape recorders.

Dean felt eyes on him and looked up, meeting Gordie's gaze. “Reporter to the end, Sheriff,” he said with a smile.

“Let's hope this isn't the end,” Gordie replied, then walked to his car, Sunny going with him.

The men and women went to their preassigned vehicles, got in and pulled out, driving into the unknown.

Watts rode with Gordie and Sunny, in the back seat. Gordie keyed his mike. “One to Whiz kid.”

Mack took it. “Go, One.”

“Where is the Coach?”

“Everywhere,” came the terse reply.

“That's ten-four.”

WHO IS THE COACH?

“The enemy,” Gordie said truthfully.

AHH. THE TOWNSPEOPLE. YOU REALLY DIDN'T THINK YOU COULD FOOL ME FOR VERY LONG DID YOU, GUNSLINGER?

“I wouldn't even try that, Fury. I'm just going to beat you, that's all.”

THAT'S THE SPIRIT, GREASEBALL. WHAT IS MY CODENAME?

“We didn't name you. We didn't think it would do any good.”

WISE DECISION. CARRY ON.

The electricity in the air left them.

“Sentries all around the perimeters,” Mack said. “The main mass is located near the stadium.”

They could feel the electricity as the Fury leaped from the football field to center around the car. SO I AM THE

MAIN MASS, EH? THAT'S NOT A VERY FLATTERING NAME.

“I thought you were going to stay out of this, Fury? What's the matter, afraid we'll be successful this night?”

DON'T BE RIDICULOUS. OH, VERY WELL, THEN. YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN.

“You'll stay out of this, completely out, and we can speak freely, without your eavesdroping and snooping?”

YOU ASK A LOT.

“Not so much. You're stronger and smarter and braver than we are,” Gordie stroked the Fury's ego.

THAT IS CERTAINLY TRUE.

“Well? How about it?”

UMMM. I WILL STRIKE A BARGAIN. I WILL WATCH, BUT NOT LISTEN. HOW ABOUT THAT?

“You said your word was your bond. I accept.”

YOU'RE A TRUSTING FOOL. BUT VERY WELL, YOU HAVE MY WORD ON IT.

The electricity left them.

Gordie keyed his mike. “One to headquarters. Where is the conceited, lying, ugly son of a bitch?”

Mack almost swallowed his chewing tobacco at that. But the Fury was keeping his word. It was not listening. “Whiz kid says it's back at the stadium. Whiz kid says some of the blips have diminished on the screen, so it's cut its power.”