Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

“Try to beat it at its own game. When it comes back, let’s find out the rules.”

  Lt. Smith began walking around the room, deep in thought. “Yeah,” she snapped her fingers. “Sure. Let’s make a game of it. Each time we win, well, maybe one of us can leave. It might go for that.”

  “And if we lose?” Hillary dumped cold water on the suggestion.

  No one said anything for a moment.

  Finally Old Mack stood up. “What the hell? We’re all dead anyway, aren’t we? What do we have to lose by at least trying to beat it?”

  In the back room, Dr. Shriver began screaming, not in agony, but in fear. The scream chilled them.

  Chapter Two

  The door to the corridor was kicked open. At first, all they could see was Shriver, his face pale. He had gone to the back to take Deputy Sid Rico some coffee. Shriver began moving in a jerky walk. Then the convicts could be seen behind him. The bulk of Logan could be seen, the muzzle of a gun pressed against Shriver’s head. Bingham and Diminno were right behind Logan.

  “That’s Sid’s gun,” Rick said.

  “How right you are, Deputy,” Logan said with a smile. “But he won’t be needin’ it no more, so don’t worry about it.”

  “Let’s get some pussy ’fore we leave,” Diminno spoke from the rear. “Let’s take a couple of these cunts with us.”

  “You dumbass!” Logan snarled at him. “There’s a whole town full of pussy outside. Snatch is snatch.” He jacked the hammer back, pressing the muzzle harder against the doctor’s head. “Clear a path for us, folks. Everybody to one side. That’s good. Right over there. Anybody gets hinky, the good doc gets dead. Understood?”

  “Just leave,” Gordie told him. “We won’t try to stop you.”

  Logan smiled, and for a few seconds, cut his eyes to the TV set. They widened in shock. “I know that guy. He whipped my ass once – long time ago when we was kids. That’s Sand. What the hell is goin’ on? Sand’s been dead for thirty years. Well, I’ll just be goddamned! That’s ol’ ugly Morg yonder. Only man I ever knew who wore a silk top hat. Silly-lookin’ bastard.” He cut his eyes to Watts. “What kind of shit are you people tryin’ to pull?”

  “Do you want to watch TV or make your break?” Watts asked him.

  “I oughtta kill you, Watts. You been hasslin’ me ever since I was kid.”

  “Nobody hassled you, Logan. You’re just a goddamned loser, that’s all.” Watts stared back at him, unintimidated. “You’re walking proof that abortion should be legalized nationwide.” Watts had been dealing with punks all his life and knew them for what they were, and to hell with what the courts and mumbling judges and sobbing lawyers thought. He knew they were trash and scum and ninety-nine percent would never change. Not that they couldn’t – they wouldn’t.

  “You’re still a mean old bastard, aren’t you, Watts?”

  “Lay that gun down, and I’ll show you how mean I still am, Logan.”

  Logan laughed.

  “Let’s split,” Bingham said. “To hell with these people.”

  “Yeah,” Logan agreed. “We can deal with them later.” He shoved Shriver toward the door.

  Diminno jerked two shotguns from the rack and checked them, tossing one to Bingham. He stuffed his pockets full of shells. “Let’s go.”

  They edged toward the door. Logan said, “If nobody gets cute, the doctor lives. We’ll leave him across the street, on the corner. He looked at Angel and licked his lips. Bergman pulled her close to him and stared at the man.

  Logan laughed and shoved Shriver out the door and into the night. They were gone.

  Mack walked to a boarded-up window and looked out the gun slit. “They turned him loose. Doc’s just standing there on the corner, looking scared. Those three hardcases are gone.”

  Duane reached for a shotgun. Gordie’s voice stopped him. “Let them go, Duane. I’m not going to risk losing anybody else on account of that crud. They’ll soon find out they jumped from the pan into the fire. Lee, get the doctor back in here. Alan, check on Sid.”

  Sid was dead. His neck broken. He was body-bagged and stored in the rear.

  Gordie looked at his chief deputy. “Lee, take a partner and prowl from Main east to the barricades. I’ll take Major Jackson and work the other sector. The rest of you try to get some rest. I have a feeling this night is going to be a dandy.”

  It took only a few blocks for the men to realize just what a bind they were all in ... in more ways than one. As they drove, they observed men and women and kids all milling around like . . .

  “Zombies,” Jackson broke into Gordie’s thoughts.

  “Yeah. Exactly what I was thinking. But this is only a small percentage of the town’s population. If the rest were dead, we wouldn’t be able to stand the smell. So where are they, and more importantly, what are they?”

  “Look out!” Jackson yelled, as a man hurled himself onto the hood of the car.

  The citizen crawled up to the windshield and pressed his face and mouth against the glass. Drool leaked from his mouth. His eyes were red and wild-looking. He clawed at the glass with his finger; even tried to bite the glass like a crazed animal.

  Gordie braked and came to a stop in the middle of the street.

  Other men and women began gathering around the car, rocking it back and forth. They mumbled and slobbered and cursed.

  “They’re going to try to turn it over,” Jackson said.

  Gordie looked to his left and saw several men gathering up rocks and sticks; other men joined them with heavy clubs and two-by-fours in their hands. He made up his mind.

  Gordie didn’t want to do it. He had known many of these people for a long time.

  But neither did he want to die.

  “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!” they began to chant.

  Gordie dropped the unit in gear and stepped on the gas, running over anyone who was unlucky enough to be standing in front of the cruiser. Screams of pain came to the men as they drove off into the night.

  Maj. Jackson turned in his seat, looking back at the sight. Several men were flopping and rolling around in the street, with smashed arms and legs.

  He looked at Gordie. “Better them than us, Sheriff. You’ve got to believe that.”

  “I do,” Gordie said. “And I believe something else, too.” His cut his eyes at the Major. “I believe that it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse.”

  LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN. LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN.

  MY FAIR LADY!

  DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.

  “Now what the hell does that mean?” Jackson asked.

  “I know what the my fair lady bit means,” Gordie told him, pointing across the street. “Look over there.”

  A naked woman was bent over the hood of a restored MG midget, being serviced by a man with his pants around his ankles. She grinned and waved as Gordie drove by.

  “You know that woman, Gordie?”

  “Yep. That’s my wife.”

  Washington, D.C.

  “I am totally amazed that this . . . situation unfolding in Colorado has not been plastered all over the TV and the papers,” the president said.

  “It’s going into its third day,” an advisor said. “It’s got to leak out.”

  The president looked at him. “And then?”

  “John,” Martin Tobias, the president’s chief of staff said. “You don’t really believe this story, do you? Some invisible cloud of evil energy controlling the town?”

  The president smiled and pushed the latest communiques from the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and Army intelligence toward his longtime friend. The chief of staff read them, his expression growing more and more worried the further along he went. He got to the last page and jumped to his feet.

  “A neutron bomb! Jesus Christ, John. We can’t detonate a neutron bomb aboveground in Colorado. For God’s sake, John!”

  “Yes, Martin,” the president said, his face serious. “That’s
it exactly: for God’s sake.”

  Martin flushed and threw the papers on the desk. “Whatever that is out there, John, it is not, repeat, it is not something evil sent to us by the devil. This is not a holy war, John. The devil is not taking over the earth. Goddamn, John – he wouldn’t start in Willowdale, Colorado!”

  “Why not? It’s as good a place as any, I suppose.”

  “John, be reasonable. This is not like you. Look, do you realize what this would entail? You’d have to talk with the Russians – ”

  President John Marshall waved his friend silent. “Calm yourself, Martin. Calm down. I know all that. And since the Russian philosophy is that God does not exist, they would think it some sort of trick on our part. I’ve thought about that, too. Believe me, I have.”

  The other members of the president’s inner circle sat quietly, listening to the old friends have a go at one another.

  Martin put both hands on the president’s desk and leaned forward. “You’re really serious, aren’t you? You’re really going to go ahead with this . . . this . . . insanity!” He banged his fist on the scattered communiques.

  The president stood up and laid it on the line. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to come up with an alternative plan, Martin. Thirty-six hours at the maximum. Martin, the Joint Chiefs agree with me. NSC agrees. The Agency agrees. NSA agrees. The top scientists in this nation have studied printouts taken from planes from NASA . . .”

  “Who the hell sent them in?”

  “I did, goddamnit!” the president roared at his friend.

  Martin stepped back, and the two men glared at each other for a moment. “I’d like to read those graphs.”

  “Hell, Martin. Your degrees are in history and political science. You wouldn’t know what you were looking at.”

  “Did you?”

  “Hell, no!” the president admitted. “Looked like a bunch of dots on the paper to me. But,” he held up a warning finger. “The dots were only over Willowdale. Nowhere else. Now listen to me, Martin. Something very large and very strong and very . . . well, dangerous, is hovering over that little community. Take a couple of your nonbelievers out there with you. Go there. A plane is waiting. I anticipated this reaction from you. But do not go inside the barricades.”

  “Is that an order, John?”

  The president shook his head. “No. I won’t make it an order. You’re one of the most intelligent men I have ever known, Martin. You’re going to have to make that decision yourself. And while you’re out there, try to find out what you can about a young man called Sand.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s a nickname. His name is Saunders.”

  “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “He’s sort of, well, directing operations from the other side.”

  “The other side of the barricades?”

  “No. The other side of the grave. He’s been dead for thirty years.”

  Martin Tobias sat down. Heavily. He stared at the president. He cleared his throat. Shook his head and sighed. “Mr. President, sir. Old friend. With all due respect and admiration, sir, have you lost your fucking mind?”

  The others in the room braced for a storm from the president. John Marshall smiled, not taking umbrage at the remark. “I hope not, Martin. The plane is waiting at Andrews. A helicopter is waiting in Denver. Call me from Willowdale.”

  Martin stood up. “Oh, I shall, sir. I shall certainly do that. By all means. Yes.” He looked at an aide. “Get Megan and Larry. Tell them to be ready to go in one hour. A car will pick them up.”

  The aide nodded and left the room.

  Martin looked at the president for a moment, shook his head, and left the room. In the hallway, he paused for a moment. “Dead for thirty years and directing operations from the other side of the grave. Mysterious forces and evil voices. Zombies. I have never heard of anything so ridiculous in all my life!” He snorted and walked toward the elevator.

  Outside the S.O. in Willowdale, the crowds of babbling, slobbering, mumbling, and seemingly mindless citizens of the town had gathered. They rattled at the newly installed security doors and shouted obscenities at those inside.

  Many of the men urinated on the outside doors; both men and women squatted like animals and defecated on the sidewalks.

  Then, in full view of those watching from the gun slits inside the office, the men and women began coupling under the bright moon and starlit skies, as often as not, men with men and women with women.

  “If they start using young kids,” Lt. Smith said, “I’ll stop it with lead.”

  “Your option,” Gordie told her. “I sure won’t interfere.”

  “Fury has left the area,” Howie called. “The sentries are still in place, but the Fury is gone.”

  Gordie and as many others as possible crowded into the small room.

  “Gone where?” the sheriff asked.

  Howie shook his head. “I don’t know. But it is definitely gone.”

  “Why’d it leave is what I’d like to know,” Watts said.

  The words popped onto the screen: It’s growing stronger and stronger. Stronger than it’s ever been. It’s checking out the valley.

  Sand? Howie typed.

  Yes.

  What do we do?

  The townspeople, many of them, at least, are now no more than walking dead. They’re mindless. Fury did this deliberately. It wants you all to kill in defense of your lives. It wants you all because you are the strongest ones.

  A sudden very bright blip appeared on another screen for an instant, then was gone.

  Howie typed: What was that?

  The cops who were manning that particular barricade are no more. Fury is spreading its territory.

  “I’ll get on the horn,” Watts said. “Tell the troopers to pull back.” He looked at Howie. “Ask Sand how far back.”

  Howie asked.

  A half-mile each twenty-four hours.

  Howie asked: Is that good for us; Fury spreading itself out?

  Maybe, the word appeared on the screen. It’s too soon to tell. Don’t use your radio to warn the cops. Howie, you’ll have to hack into the state police computer.

  No problem, Howie typed as he grinned.

  “Do it,” Gordie ordered.

  Talk to you later, Sand’s words appeared.

  The screen went dark.

  Howie went to work.

  Martin Tobias and his people were boarding a plane at Andrews Air Force Base.

  In the Oval Office, the president picked up a phone, hesitated, then – bypassing the White House operator – punched out the numbers.

  At a top secret listening post, deep in the Rocky Mountains, a CIA staffer sat behind his huge bank of computers and watched as Howie hacked his way into the Colorado State Patrol’s computers.

  The CIA man smiled. “The kid is good. Damn good. We need to start talking to him as soon as this is over,” he said to Gen. Brasher.

  “Isn’t ten years old a bit young?” the general said, the sarcasm thick.

  “Naw. Just right. Colleges give football players money, cars, and pussy to play stupid games. We’ll give the kid a new computer. Everything balances out in the end, General.”

  Brasher shook his head at the man’s logic. But it was just logical enough to stall any argument. “Can you talk to the boy?”

  “Oh, yeah. When the time comes.” The CIA man was not military. Yes, sirs and No, sirs were rare from his lips.

  At the White House, after completing his phone call, the president took a mild sleeping tablet before retiring. He knew he had to get at least a few hours’ sleep.

  In Los Angeles, the bureau chiefs of two major networks were rapidly working themselves into a blue funk over the abrupt disappearances of their reporters and crews. They could get nothing from Willowdale. For once, they were cooperating with each other, talking on the phone.

  “If I don’t hear from Jill by dawn, I’m going out there myself,” one said. “You want to come with m
e?”

  “Something big and funky and ugly is going down, Bob. Our man in Washington reports some strange goings-on in and around the White House.”

  “Andy? What the hell does Willowdale, Colorado have to do with the White House?”

  “I don’t know. You really want to wait until the morning to leave?”

  “Hell, no. Match you to see whose Lear we use?”

  “Come with me. I’ll meet you at the airport in an hour.”

  The prime minister of Canada was awakened by the ringing of his telephone. The United States secretary of state was on the other end. The PM listened for a moment, spoke a few words, then hung up.

  He sat up in bed and rubbed his face. “Holy Mother of God,” he muttered. “A neutron bomb!”

  Chapter Three

  “Sand said the Fury wants us,” Gordie mused aloud. “Because we are the strongest. Does it think that if we kill in defense of our lives, that will weaken us?”

  “It kills and grows stronger, because it feeds on evil energy from souls,” Watts picked it up. “Sure. Wait a minute! What does it do with the . . . well, compassionate souls it consumes? What I’m thinking doesn’t say much for the human race as a whole.”

  “Perhaps,” Sunny said, “that is why the only Being that could have prevented this, is doing nothing.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Jill said. “Babies are innocent.”

  “They are also insured a place in Heaven,” she was reminded by Hillary. “But Jesus said: suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

  Those in the room became silent, each with their own thoughts.

  Norris finally broke the silence. “I don’t know whether it’s in the Bible or not, but there is that bit about God helping those who help themselves.”

  “Aesop,” Bergman said. “The gods help them that help themselves.”

  “While we’re on the subject,” Dr. Anderson said, “there is a fable about the eagle who was stricken with a dart. And when the eagle saw the fashion of the shaft, said, ‘With our own feathers, not by others, are we now smitten.’ ”