Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

  “Absolutely not. Sand was not a bad person. Not in the life . . . not when he was alive. He was the type of person who would stop by the side of the road to help an animal that’d been run over. He wouldn’t pass a stranded motorist. Sand was a nice guy, who was born out of his time frame.”

  “You really believe that, Al?”

  “Yes, I do, Gordie. Carl Lee – Sand married his daughter, Robin – thought the world of the boy. And you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone, even now, who would speak ill of Carl. Sand went off the deep end, after Robin was killed. That’s when the killing started.”

  “Mack briefed me earlier. Sand really raised some hell that night, didn’t he?”

  “He and Mack. Yes.” Watts met the sheriffs eyes. “Those punks they wasted got exactly what was coming to them.”

  Gordie grunted. “That is a very interesting thing for a cop to say, Al.”

  “Just seconds before he died, Sand told me – Hack was there, he heard it – about something he could see and we couldn’t. And that we’d need his help someday.”

  “And you really believe that he saw something; you think that what he saw is what’s causing the deaths in town? And you think it’s some afterlife form of evil?”

  “Yes, I do, Gordie. And knowing Sand as I do – did – and Morg and Joey, too, I think they’ve been fighting this thing, perhaps helping to contain it. Whatever it is.”

  Gordie looked disgusted for a moment. He slammed his hand down on the desktop. “Aw, shit, Al!” he yelled. Outside the office, in the open dispatch area, Judy looked up at the shout. “We’ve got a damn nut working this area. Killing people. And I don’t think those cowboys just wandered off. I think they’re dead, and I think this nut killed them. This guy – or gal – is disrupting phone service. How? I don’t know. Computers, maybe. But one thing I don’t want to hear, is some off-the-wall crap about dead folks coming back from the grave.”

  Judy’s screaming brought both men out of their chairs and running out of the office. Judy was standing, her .357 Mag in her hands in a double grip, the muzzle pointed at the window.

  “What happened, Judy?”

  “Something at the window. A ... creature of some sort. It wasn’t human, Sheriff. But it wasn’t any kind of animal that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what the hell it was—is. I know that I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  That deep, well-hollow voice began singing lines from The Purple People Eater. Then, after a chuckle, silence.

  Judy holstered her pistol, then looked first at Watts, then at Gordie. “What in the name of God is going on around here?”

  All phone lines coming into the office began buzzing and blinking and ringing.

  Judy answered one, listening for a few seconds. Her face hardened, and she slammed the phone down. She punched another line-button and listened. Her face registered the same shock and disgust as before.

  She held the phone away from her and yelled, “You lousy perverted creep!”

  “Steady, Judy,” Gordie said, taking the phone from her and listening.

  I’LL HUMP YOUR EYEBALLS OUT, BITCH. THEN I’LL TURN YOU OVER AND ...

  Gordie broke the connection. But it wouldn’t break. The voice kept speaking filth, sprewing it out over the disconnection.

  The sheriff finally tossed the phone on the desk and walked away from it. He stopped and turned around, pointing at the phone. “That is impossible. I broke the connection. That cannot be happening.”

  “But obviously, it is,” Watts said, sitting down on a corner of the desk. “You ready to start talking about ways to deal with something neither of us understand?”

  BOO! the voice came from behind them.

  The three of them looked up and around. Gordie almost fell down as he tried to avoid a pair of wet, bloody-slick eyes that hovered in front of him, at eye-level with the sheriff.

  “Get away from me!” he yelled.

  The eyes shifted, staring at Watts. Watts stared back. The eyes once more shifted, moving through the air toward Judy. The eyes were now joined by a pair of bloody lips.

  KISS ME, BABY! the lips moved, making smacking sounds.

  Judy jerked out her Mag and jacked the hammer back. “I’ll blow your shit away!” she shouted.

  The eyes and lips suddenly dipped and darted as a pair of bloody hands joined them. The hands separated, one hand darting down to grab Gordie’s crotch, the other hand clamping onto Judy’s breast. The lips were on Judy’s face, kissing and sucking, leaving bloodstains on her face.

  Both Judy and the sheriff hollered, in pain and shock and fright.

  Watts jumped up and grabbed one of the hands.

  It vanished under his touch.

  He looked around. The hand that had been fondling Judy’s breast was gone. But there were bloodstains on her shirt and face, on Gordie’s crotch, and on Watts’s hands where he’d grabbed the hand.

  The eyes and lips had disappeared.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Gordie said.

  AH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE! DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.

  When the college kids camped near the old ghost town of Thunder awakened, the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day, clear and crisp. Paul was the first one out of his blankets. He built a fire and put the coffee pot on. He laid strips of bacon in a skillet and placed the skillet on the wire rack over the rock-encirled fire. Then, on impulse, not totally convinced that what had taken place the night before had been real, he walked over to the line of vehicles. They all started. He turned on the radios and began punching buttons. Various stations. He could not find any fifties music at all.

  He returned to the campsite and woke up his friends. They gathered around the vehicles, listening.

  “Then it was a dream?” Leon questioned. “It didn’t happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Hillary said. “It sure seemed real to me.”

  “Me, too,” Bos said.

  “Let’s fix some breakfast,” Doyle suggested. “And then let’s get the hell gone from this place.”

  That sounded like a fine idea.

  They gathered around the fire, warming their hands and waiting for the coffee to boil. Just as they were pouring the hot coffee, all the radios in the vehicles came on.

  Rock Around The Clock, from back in the fifties.

  Watts finished his breakfast and rinsed out his plate, then put it in the dishwasher. He slipped into a shoulder holster rig and checked the loads in his snub-nosed .357. Watts had slept deeply and surprisingly well. He felt refreshed. He also felt excited for the first time in a long time – since his retirement. He felt like an old firehouse dog who’d just jumped on the fire truck for a ride to another three-alarmer. He turned at the ringing of the phone and picked up the receiver.

  STUPID OLD COPPER!

  He slowly replaced the receiver into the cradle and headed for the door.

  Sheriff Gordie Rivera sat in his car for a moment. He looked at the radio, puzzled by the music. He could not find anything except for one station that played all fifties music, and he’d never picked up that particular station before.

  He stopped fooling with the car radio and picked up the mike to his unit radio. “Blanco County One to headquarters.”

  WHAT DO YOU WANT, ASSHOLE! the voice sprang out of his speaker.

  Gordie tossed the mike to the seat beside him. He had made up his mind during the often-restless and sleepless night, that this entire thing was the work of a nut. Nothing supernatural about it.

  And he wasn’t going to dignify that nutty craphead with a reply.

  HEY, GREASER, I’M TALKING TO YOU.

  Gordie’s good intentions went flying out the window. He grabbed up the mike and keyed it. “Listen, you jerk. I’m gonna put your butt so far back in jail, somebody is going to have to pump light to you. Now what do you have to say about that?”

  The voice started singing Jailhouse Rock.

  “You miserable ...” Gordie choked back the rest of his remark, w
hich was to have been laced with some very personal comments about the ancestral quality of the voice’s lineage.

  Gordie turned off the sheriff’s department radio and backed out of the drive.

  “You got traffic for us, Sheriff?” dispatch asked, the words coming out of a dead speaker.

  Wearily, Gordie picked up the mike. “Yeah, headquarters, I have traffic.”

  No response.

  “You copy, headquarters?” Gordie asked.

  YOU DUMBASS! YOU HAVE TO TURN THE RADIO ON!

  Chapter Three

  “It’s the reporter,” the man said. “It’s time, honey.”

  Their eyes met. “How much time do we have?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Enough, I hope.”

  She returned to the stove. It felt so strange, cooking again.

  But Robin had to eat.

  “Is anybody going to answer the door?” a teenage girl asked, walking into the kitchen.

  “Yes,” her father said, but there was reluctance in his voice. He hoped that he could pull this off. He had to make this reporter believe.

  Exasperated, the girl plopped down in a chair. “Mother, why won’t anybody in this family ever talk about Uncle Sand? It’s stupid!” She brushed back a lock of raven hair from her forehead, her dark eyes moving from man to woman as the knocking on the door came again.

  She has changed, the mother thought, looking at her daughter through loving eyes. All grown up now. And looks so very much like her namesake.

  “Sand didn’t do anything wrong,” the man defended the mysterious Sand. “Those punks had it coming. All of them.” He balled big hands into big fists.

  His wife noticed and thought: After all these years, and the emotion is still within him.

  And the sorrow still within me, she finished it.

  “Now somebody wants to write a book about Sand, and make a movie about his life.” He snorted and then smiled, the smile was a bit savage, a lot more knowing, and a bit scornful.

  “We started it, Richard,” his wife said. “So now let’s get it done.”

  A woman’s voice spoke from the open window by the breakfast nook. “I really hate to be a pest.”

  “Then why are you a reporter?” the man asked, but it was said with a smile.

  The young woman standing on a box outside the window laughed. A nice laugh. Not like some of those reporters who used to come around.

  “Come on in,” Richard said. “Have a cup of coffee. I don’t believe I’ve ever talked with a big city reporter.” He fibbed about that, having talked with a lot of reporters where he’d been first sent some years back. He hoped the fib would go unnoticed by those who kept such records.

  His words sounded rather hollow to the young woman. A deep, rather odd sound to them. She shrugged that away, stepped off the box, and walked around to the back door, stepping into the kitchen.

  The teenager wriggled with excitement. A book and a movie about Uncle Sand. Wow! The local legend. A hero to some, an outlaw to others. But a legend that few would ever talk about.

  And the girl could never understand that.

  “I’m Sunny Lockwood,” the young woman introduced herself.

  “Richard and Linda Jennings. Our daughter, Robin.” He looked at Robin, the love shining in his eyes. Richard had been dreading making contact, but knew it had to be. The Fury was loose. And if it was to be stopped, it had to be in this time frame.

  Richard did not really fear the Fury. The thing could not destroy him, or any with him. But if Sand didn’t like this young woman; didn’t believe she would tell the truth – it would all be for naught. For if the growing Fury was to be stopped, the townspeople had to have Sand’s help. For no one could stop it without help from the other side of life.

  But the truth – the truth from Sand’s mind, and only he knew the truth – had to be told.

  That the truth would set you free was a lot more than mere words to Richard and Linda and several others. When one took into consideration where they’d been existing for some time.

  Around them, for some distance around them, time ceased its passage, allowing just a tiny part of the universe to settle stationary.

  Sunny felt a falling sensation. She grabbed at the corner of the table to steady herself. She blinked. The sensation passed.

  Jesus! she thought. Earthquake?

  Then she could not remember anything about the odd sensation.

  Richard closed his eyes for a moment. Time and strength and truth, he prayed. Please? Amen.

  He opened his eyes to find Sunny looking at him. “Some breakfast?” he asked her. “Robin must eat to sustain herself.” Watch yourself, Ace, he cautioned his mind. Remember where you are ... and what you are.

  Talks funny, Sunny thought. “Some coffee would be very nice, thank you.”

  “I’ll get it,” Robin volunteered.

  “No!” the father’s words were sharp. He smiled at his daughter and said, “You . . . can’t, baby. This time will be on us. You just relax.”

  “You mean I don’t have to do dishes?”

  “That’s right, baby.”

  “You got a deal, Pop.”

  Sunny looked down. A steaming cup of coffee was on the table in front of her. Who put it there? She could swear that no one in the room had moved.

  She sighed. “Lots of excitement in town yesterday and last night. But I guess you all heard about it.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Richard said. He looked at Robin.

  The girl closed her eyes, then slowly opened them.

  “Did you hear about it, Robin?” Sunny asked.

  “Hear about what?”

  “Those gruesome murders.”

  “What murders?”

  Sunny began to wonder if she’d wandered in through the back door of a nut house.

  Then she couldn’t remember what she’d been talking about.

  Something cold touched the young woman; something the hot coffee could not warm. She shuddered.

  “We’re too close,” Linda said.

  “Can’t be helped,” her husband told her. “We’re running out of time.”

  There was a roaring in Sunny’s ears. She could see the lips of Richard and Linda moving, but she could not hear the words.

  Then the roaring abated, and she could not remember ever experiencing it.

  “I got into town yesterday, Mr. Jennings,” Sunny said, “and went to the local newspaper to go through their morgue. But all the stories concerning Sand were gone. I found that really odd.” She stopped when she noticed the word morgue had brought Richard’s head up, his eyes changing to a very strange color . . . and so cold-looking. She was suddenly uncomfortable under his cold gaze. “I’m sorry. Morgue is newspaper jargon for . . .”

  “I know,” the man said, a gentleness to his voice. “It’s just that we,” he indicated his wife, “have a very close friend named Morg. M-O-R-G. He was killed the same night Sand got his ticket punched.”

  Sunny let that register. She blinked. “You have a friend named Morg who is dead?”

  Richard smiled. “Why don’t we all go into the den? We’ll be much more comfortable there. We must talk about Sand. We’re wasting time.”

  “I’ll bring the coffee pot,” Robin said.

  “No!” her father told her. “You . . . can’t. Remember our deal, honey.”

  Sunny sighed, thinking: Weird family.

  “Nice-looking town,” Major Claude Jackson said. “Friendly-looking place.”

  “I wonder if they’ll remain friendly, when they learn why we’re here?” Capt. John Hishon asked.

  Three officers rode in the lead van. Three sergeants in the van behind them.

  “I don’t see why they shouldn’t.” Lt. Kathy Smith said. “It’s going to mean big bucks in their pockets when this is set up.”

  Major Jackson shrugged and put the van in gear, pulling away from the shoulder of the road and onto the main highway. “You never know how civilians are going to r
eact to the military. Especially when they learn the base – however small – will be used for the rough training of special warfare troops. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”

  Since government vehicles don’t normally come equipped with personal radios, Sgt. Keith Preston had brought his own, complete with ear plug.

  Sgt. Janet Dixon noticed Keith’s frown. “What’s the matter, Keith?”

  The nineteen-year-old buck sergeant looked at her and smiled. “I just lost all my stations except for one. And all it plays is crap out of the fifties.”

  “Watch it, buddy,” Sgt. Maj. Gary Christensen said jokingly. “You’re talking about my music now.”

  “You can sure have it, Sergeant Major.”

  Keith listened for a moment, his face a study as he changed expression several times.

  “What’s the matter now?” Janet asked.

  “Jesus, Janet. This guy’s voice is spooky. And the crap he’s laying down is wild. Here,” he jerked the jack out of the radio, allowing the sound to come through the speaker. “Listen.”

  Raw, undiluted sewer filth came spewing out of the speaker, embarrassing the men and shocking Janet.

  “That’s a radio station?” she asked, disbelief in the question.

  YEAH, YOU DUMB ARMY WHORE. the voice sprang from the radio. WHAT DO YOU DO, SCREW THE TROOPS?

  Janet’s mouth dropped open.

  YOU WANT A DICK SHOVED IN THERE?

  Janet closed her mouth.

  “Turn that crap off, Keith,” Gary ordered. “And keep it off.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major.” He turned the radio off.

  “Was that a tape, Keith?” Janet asked, finding her voice.

  “No. Look.” He opened the cassette compartment. It was empty.

  The lead van pulled over, and Gary pulled in behind it. Major Jackson ran back to the van. “Have you people been listening to a radio?”

  “Right,” Gary said. “I never heard anything like that before.”

  “Same with us. That can’t be a licensed station. Has to be someone with a sick sense of humor.”

  Janet looked around at the outskirts of the town. “I don’t know whether I like this place or not.”