Desert Angels (24 page)

The Growler pointed to a nearby range of rocky hills three miles away.

"There is where we will meet."

And with that, the Growler began marching again, though moving in a more southerly direction, away from Jack's territory. Mathias wanted to protest the action, but somehow he didn't think it would be a good idea. He had a good feeling that this new Growler, unlike the old, plodding, moronic Growler that lived no more, would have little hesitation in squashing him like a bug and not give the matter a second thought - regardless of the splendid relationship that had developed between them of late.

Understanding his recent place in the grand scheme of things, Mathias merely nodded, then raised his arm and brought it forward. With his other hand, he clutched his temperamental penis, which was inexplicably beginning to harden again. He did not hear the Growler laugh ahead of him. Maliciously.

The Maddog army, like some great tired beast, geared up and resumed its march.

FOURTEEN – SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

The night caught Laura by surprise.

It had seemed like only an hour ago that she had left Eden in search of Walter. In search of Angela. A quick glance at the Ball Job's chronometer told her a very different story. In fact, she had been on the sand for nearly six hours. By now, she knew, Jack would be both greatly concerned and angry. Justifiably so.

She decided that the search could be continued tomorrow. As it was, turning back now would return her to Eden

in the dead of night

extremely late.

Better to get back then, at least, instead of not at all.

Sitting here, alone, in the Ball Job had helped Laura considerably. She felt some control returning; for a little while there, her purchase on reason was about as firm as rice paper. She had rolled over the insoluble equation of Walter/Angela in her mind and accepted its truth, its

irrevocable
reality; she hoped that Jack was coming to grips with the problem as well as herself, though she suspected this was extremely unlikely. He was too close to it; Walter/Angela, after all, had been his pet. And wife.

God.

It was madness no matter how you looked at it. And here she was daydreaming again

in the dead of night

when she should be heading for home.

She shifted the Ball Job's complicated gears and plotted out a circular route for Eden; hoping fervently that, even as she was chatting with herself so enjoyably, Walter had returned and was talking the whole thing out with Jack over tea. Or at least a couple of beers.

Her eyes widened suddenly.

The tornadoes hadn't been there a moment earlier, but typical of this asshole world, she thought, the unexpected came in large shitty chunks, heaped in generous portions; this time, right on top of her. There were three of them, converging upon themselves rapidly, spiraling down from the soot filled clouds like angry snakes. Laura could see that a good deal of wind was about to blast her way; perhaps more than the Ball Job could ever hope to survive. Outrunning the speeding twisters was impossible at best. She considered her options, which totaled up to be zero in number, her eyes landing at last on a small rocky ridge about a hundred feet from the Ball Job's current position.

If there were miracles still left in the world, she thought, then she must have just found the last one. Her eyes squinted against the ferocious elements without, praying that the salvation she had glanced for only a second was not simply a hopeful figment of her haggard imagination.

But it was real. And beckoning.

A cave.

Laura blasted the bolts to the escape hatch above her, not wasting time with descending through the lower level of the Ball Job. Wind lashed at her body immediately, nearly knocking her off balance and to the ground nearly two stories below. Laura clung to the small ladder that spiraled down the exterior of the vehicle to about two feet above ground level. She released her grip from the ladder and landed in the sand, even now being gradually sucked toward the oncoming twisters.

She could not stand. Crawling, she strained against the invisible forces behind her, tugging her violently toward oblivion. The twisters growled deafeningly, shaking the ground and filling the air with a terrifying roar.

Laura kept one eye open in a squint, concentrating on her headway to the black opening in the rocks ahead. She could not afford to turn around, to see if the Ball Job was still intact. Those few seconds could kill her. Instead, she burrowed ahead, fighting back the tears of pain as sand whipped into her face, beginning their damnable journey into the vortex of the tornadoes now only half a mile away. She imagined herself suddenly slurped up into the massive storms, pounded by the incredible convective powers that surged through the funnels. She remembered the Wizard of Oz movie, and the Wicked Witch of the East, saddled on her broomstick, riding out the rough winds like some supernatural rodeo jockey, cackling in hysterical glee. The picture did not send Laura off into peals of amused laughter; she knew that her turn on the bronco, should it arrive, would be considerably less magical than the one the old witch might have enjoyed.

Ten feet, five, one – and she was there. The cavern was more a hole than a cave and, to boot, it was cold and slimy. At the moment, it was more appealing to Laura than the warm beaches of Maui. She crawled to the rear of the cave and huddled against the cool walls. Near the entrance, she could see sand and rocks racing past; the end to their ultimate skyward journey to culminate with the joyous union of several million tons of already blasted fallout circling the globe. The size of the rocks were much larger, and Laura realized had she not reached the cave seconds earlier, she would have been shredded by the flying detritus, even now reaching speeds of hundreds of miles an hour.

The twisters plowed into the rock ridge.

And Laura screamed as the ground rolled and the world went black.

* * *

Even from Eden, the twisters could be determined to be the most massive Jack had ever seen. More than five miles away, the cyclones took up the whole horizon, weaving in a sluggish, lumbering fashion that made them appear almost harmless. It was an illusion Jack recognized; the winds within the storms were exceeding velocities of sound.

Gleeson hobbled up next to Jack’s Humvee. Jack had remained on top his Humvee, hunched over the gun nest for several hours, not taking his eyes off the skyline.

"The scouts are all back. The tracks disappear in that direction," Gleeson pointed directly at the cyclones.

"Then she's out there," Jack said dully, his eyes half-way closed. "
They're
out there," Jack added, remembering (as if he could forget) Angela.

Gleeson looked momentarily puzzled, but did not press for further explanation. He felt there was little need to; if Laura was anywhere within a mile of the tornadoes, then she was dead. A pity, Gleeson thought; he had liked the girl.

"They're heading our way, Gleeson. You'd better get everyone ready."

Gleeson nodded and disappeared, his chores for the next half hour frighteningly clear. If any of the Edenites were going to survive the twisters, then they would have to be secured underground in Jack's massive bunkers. They had been designed with survivors in mind, but Jack felt that to keep people underground for vast periods of time was unhealthy, both physically and mentally. The entire population of Eden, some two hundred people, had never tried to cram itself into the bunkers in toto until now. It would not be an easy effort.

But for Gleeson, nothing was easy in the world anymore. He accepted the challenge of hopelessness as a mandate for living; this next hurdle would be only one more in a long line of impossible tasks. Whether he succeeded or not mattered not as much to Gleeson as the fact that he would try. For this endearing and admired trait, Gleeson was the next loved man next to Jack Calisto in Eden.

Jack watched the mutated tornadoes and his stomach knotted. Realistically, he had to confess that Laura's chances of still being alive were slim. Correction, non-existent. Nothing could live within the wake of what he was watching.

But she couldn't die, Jack needled himself mercilessly. She couldn't, because he loved her.

He surprised himself with the force of this revelation. Up until the storms appeared – and Laura's absence took on worrisome proportions, Jack had been completely absorbed with Angela. Now, Laura occupied his thoughts solely. Whatever had happened to Walter/Angela, Jack suspected, it was under the protective auspices of whatever magic or power that had enabled her to defy the natural laws of science, life and death. There was no doubt in Jack's mind, at all, that his dead wife - and former pigeon - was completely safe.

He could not, if pressed, say the same for Laura.

Jack dismounted from his gun nest and headed toward the driver’s side.

From the corner of his eye, Gleeson saw what was happening. He did not waste time trying to entertain conversation with his boss. Bounding from across the other side of the camp, Gleeson put two bear-like arms around Jack's body and lifted him in the air. Jack struggled, cursing, while Brandon and Mimi watched

nearby; a small crowd of Edenites gathered around and stared at the violent byplay in silence.

"I'm going out there, goddamn it!" Jack roared.

"No, doc, you're
not
. You'd be torn to pieces."

Gleeson knew he couldn't restrain Jack for long; he simply didn't have the strength or energy to do so. He needed an edge.

He found it in Jack's automatic pistol.

Quickly unstrapping the weapon from Jack's holster, Gleeson brought it down hard on the other man's head. Jack stared in momentary bewilderment, then dropped to the sand.

Gleeson released the gun and it, too, hit the ground. He sighed, mumbled something unflattering about himself then bent down and hauled Jack's limp form over his shoulder.

The crowd grew around Gleeson, but he did not turn to acknowledge it. They probably didn't understand, Gleeson thought tiredly; perhaps Jack wouldn't either, once he woke up. But better to be confused and pissed-off than dead, was Gleeson's motto of the moment. His maxim for living.

"We can't leave her out there," Jim Rosen spoke up.

"I know," Gleeson replied, throwing Jack's limp frame over his shoulders.

Brandon was staring at the storms on the horizon. "Jim and I could be back in an hour."

"No," Gleeson sighed. "Get everyone in the cellars."

Jim nodded and walked off. Brandon hesitated, but finally gave in. He became Garbo a moment later. "Hope you know what you're doing, sweetheart."

Gleeson sniffed and began walking back to the Dome.

"So do I, Garbo. So do I."

* * *

The Stiffer smiled.

It was almost time to break free of the ridiculous bonds that held him. The chains binding his arms and legs began to suddenly melt. It would be awhile still before they were rendered ineffective, but once again, the Stiffer knew that time was on his side. The cage would pose no more of a challenge to the Stiffer than the chains; in a few hours, the bars would be about as malleable as warm licorice.

The Stiffer closed its eyes. A part of him was miles away, guiding the body of the Growler, who in turn guided the hirsute army of Maddogs and living dead toward the destructive cyclones. But the Stiffer knew that by the time the Growler reached his destination, a small rock ridge in the middle of the desert, the deadly tornadoes would have passed out of the area. In fact, at the time the Growler was arriving to find Laura, the twisters would be ravaging Eden.

And shortly after that piece of rape, Jack Calisto would be in the Stiffer's ready hands.

The Stiffer thought briefly about Walter. It would be nice to get
that
one, too. But the Stiffer already suspected that the bird-woman had fled this place some time ago. The Stiffer's powers could not assist him in figuring out where Walter may have gone, no more than they could completely discern Walter's true nature. This very fact again made the Stiffer feel vaguely uneasy. Walter had taunted him; had, in fact, caused him pain. He would make her pay for that. If he could find her. He did not like being ignorant; for there was not much in this world the Stiffer did
not
understand. Walter was alien to the Stiffer. This translated simply that Walter was dangerous.

After Jack was dead and Eden destroyed, the bird creature would have to be searched for and killed. The Stiffer made a mental note of it.

But that was later.

For now, Jack's death was foremost on the Stiffer's list of things to have done with. And best of all, before he killed Jack, he would make the man regret the day he was ever born. Daydreaming of fine times ahead, the Stiffer chuckled and watched the chains holding his appendages quietly steam.

* * *

The world was suddenly a loud, clanging monster of noise. Laura brought a weak hand to her head, clawing at her face, as if this would somehow diminish the horrible sound that cranked up in volume around her. But even this slight movement shot waves of agony through her; so severe was the pain, in general, she found difficulty in focusing on a specific region where it was emanating.

The rocks that had plummeted on to her were large and deadly. In shock, with a massive concussion, Laura had no way of determining how serious her injuries actually were.

Consequently, she could not tell that she was dying.

She tried to move her body – and was rewarded with a thousand lacerating nails of excruciating anguish for her effort. With the little energy remaining within her, she began to cry softly. She hurt everywhere, and the taste of blood was strong in her mouth. She wanted Jack and she wanted to be held. But most of all, she wanted the noise to stop.

Her vision was wildly blurred, and yellow spots kept appearing intermittently whenever she blinked. A fever was brewing to a boil within her, but she was not yet hysterical; she could determine that the tornadoes had come and gone. Outside the entrance to the cave, which was now half covered with sand and stone, Laura could see calm skies. This minutiae of information gave her a little comfort; with the storms out of the picture, Jack would be searching for her with every resource Eden could offer.