Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

  “Just about. I remember this meeting.”

  “What was it all about?”

  “Bradford had called us all in, then ordered us to pull our men in. I told him it was a mistake. That the shit was about to hit the fan.”

  “Was this before the deaths of Joey and Tuddie?” Sunny asked.

  “Yes. Several months before.”

  “Goddamnit, Al,” Governor Bradford’s voice came out of the speaker. “Forget about the hot rodders. They’re all a bunch of yellow punks. Nothing is going to happen. Hell, the month of December passed without a single fight, didn’t it?”

  “Sand called a halt to it, Governor. He ordered his people not to gather, not to run the roads, and to ignore the shit-heads. If we pull out, and anything happens to any member of any club that is aligned with Sand and the Pack, all hell will break loose. Sir, you don’t know Sand. He can be hell’s own creation. I have a mental picture of a Viking berserker, and his face is Sand.”

  “You also have a very active imagination, Captain. Hell, toss the punk in jail.”

  “He hasn’t done anything that we can charge him with.”

  “Then make up something and toss him in the jug,” the governor said with a wink.

  Watts did not return the wink; just stared at the state’s highest executive with disgust in his eyes.

  “Pull your men out and send them back to their regular duties, Captain Watts,” the governor ordered.

  The screen went dark.

  “Why did Sand go back and show us this?” Gordie questioned. “Why did he pull something out of sequence?”

  “To tell you that you were right in ordering the Army to pull back,” Howie called. “Get it?”

  Gordie smiled. “Yeah, Howie. I got it, and you’re probably right.” He turned his head and cocked it. “Listen.”

  They all heard it: the sounds of marching feet, growing louder.

  HUP TWO THREE FOUR. GIMMIE YOUR LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT. COUNT CADENCE, COUNT!

  Grunts and yells and unearthly moaning sprang out of the mouths of the marching dead, as they counted cadence up the street.

  COLUMN, HALT! LEFT FACE!

  “Now what?” Jackson said, moving to the boarded windows and looking out. “Jesus God!” he muttered. “Grab something to defend yourselves with, people. I think they’re going to rush us.”

  Gordie looked out through a gun slit. The street directly in front of the sheriffs office was jammed with men and women, some of them walking dead, grinning hideously through rotting lips. Others included people that Gordie hoped were in hiding from the Fury.

  He realized, finally, that his little group was all that was left in the town unaffected by the Fury’s macabre sense of humor.

  “They’ll overwhelm us,” Bos said.

  “Maybe not,” Watts told him. “Gas won’t affect those already dead, but it will turn back the living. How about it, Gordie?”

  “Everybody into masks,” the sheriff ordered. “Jackson, get your people ready with tear gas grenades. Lee, get the tear gas guns.”

  GOOD MOVE, GORD-HEAD. SOMETIMES YOU AND THE OLD COP AMAZE ME WITH YOUR ASTUTENESS.

  When no one replied, Fury said, ARE YOU ALL READY TO HAVE SOME FUN?

  “Give it your best shot, bastard!” Watts said.

  Watts was slapped down to the floor by an invisible blow. He got to his knees, grabbed hold of the edge of a desk, and pulled himself to his feet, one side of his mouth leaking blood.

  Angel ran to Watts’s side. “You turd!” she screamed at the Fury, her voice muffled through the gas mask.

  SNIPPY LITTLE BITCH.

  “Coward!” Angel yelled.

  CHARGE! the Fury roared, the force of its voice rattling windows along the street.

  The mob surged forward.

  Those outside the barricades just made it back in time. Scientists with monitoring equipment recorded the Fury’s advance of another quarter of a mile.

  “A quarter of a mile,” Martin noted aloud. “Not a half as before. But a quarter. Is it tiring? Running out of steam?”

  “No,” a scientist told him. “You’ve got to take into consideration that it is advancing in a full circle; in all directions. The territory it now controls is huge. You’ve got to make the decision to drop the bomb now, sir. And we’ve got to back off, clear out of this valley. When those two masses meet, the firestorms will be unlike any that human eyes have ever witnessed. The destructive powers will be enormous. There won’t be anything left in this valley. Nothing.”

  “The mountains around this valley,” Martin said. “Will they contain the blast?”

  The scientists looked at one another. Finally one admitted the truth: “We don’t know.”

  “Landslides, for sure,” another said.

  “On both sides?” Larry asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The people living on the other side of the mountains,” Martin said. “How far back should they be moved?”

  “Ten miles would not be an unreasonable distance.”

  “Sand implied that there was some relationship between the Fury and the old radio antenna on the mountain,” Martin pointed out. “Have you ascertained just what the connection might be?”

  “No,” another scientist admitted. “It doesn’t make sense to us. The Fury does not need an antenna to do anything . . . as far as we can tell.”

  “But the mountain might be its source of power,” another said.

  “How?”

  The woman shrugged. “Uranium would be one guess.”

  “Or it could just be its home,” another said. “Everything has a place, a starting point. But we can’t destroy the mountain,” he was quick to add.

  “I understand that,” Martin said.

  Another scientist sighed. “There really is a God. There is life after death. There are levels of heaven and hell. Every textbook in the world will have to be rewritten. Theories tossed out the window. Avowed atheists will be flooding the churches. Religions will swell.”

  The rantings and ravings of Willie Magee, Silas Marrner, and Harold Jewelweed drifted to them.

  Martin looked around in disgust. “Larry, order the immediate evacuation of all people inside the valley, and for ten miles outside the valley. Do it now, son.”

  “Shooting in the town,” an aide told him.

  Martin shook his head. “Those poor bastards. God help them.”

  Chapter Nine

  Clouds of tear gas billowed through the streets, as the men and women in the sheriff’s office fought for their lives. Those manning the gun slits used broken-off chair legs and billy clubs and the butts of rifles and shotguns to beat back the mob of walking dead unaffected by the choking gas.

  “Fire axes!” Gordie yelled. “Get axes and hatchets – machetes, anything that will cut! Lop off their hands as they stick them through the slits. Then burn the hands to destroy them.”

  Lopped-off hands crawled around the floor like huge, pale, misshapen spiders. The college girls, along with Megan, Sunny, Jill, and Angel beat them into pulp with clubs, scooped them up with shovels, and tossed them into buckets. They carried the buckets into a back room, doused the contents with gasoline, and burned the smashed hands.

  Still the onslaught from the outside continued.

  A hand crawled up a desk, up on the lamp, and leaped at Judy, attaching itself to her throat. She fought the hand silently, unable to utter a sound. The dead fingers punctured her flesh and dug deeper into her throat, ripping and tearing veins and arteries. With each beat of her heart, long streams of blood shot from her ruined throat. She collapsed on the floor, dying. The hand jumped from the bloody mess, scurrying along the floor. Angel smashed it with a shovel and beat it flat as a pancake.

  Those prisoners that were left overpowered the deputy guarding the door to the hallway and ran into the main room, eyes wild with madness and fear. Some grabbed for weapons, others grabbed at women, trying to pull them down to the floor, ripping at their clothes; one more violent ra
pe before death claimed them.

  And death claimed them. They were shot. There was nothing else Gordie and the others could do.

  Howie sat at his bank of computers, monitoring the screens while chaos reigned around him.

  I’m sorry, Howie, the words flashed on the screen. There is nothing any of us can do to help you . . . at the present time.

  Sand?

  Yes.

  Why is God doing this to us?

  God has nothing to do with it. He did not create the Fury. He did not create the Force. They were and they are. Robin has gone into shock. See to her. We’ll talk more later.

  Howie stepped from his computer room into a blood-splattered arena of violence. He ran to Dr. Anderson and pointed to the room where Robin was huddled in a corner, her eyes wild with fear, her face pale.

  “Sand told me,” the boy shouted.

  The doctor nodded. “Go back to your room. I’ll take care of her.”

  The shouting, screaming hordes outside the door broke off their attack and ran silently into the gas-filled night. Silence fell on those in the building.

  NOW THAT WAS ENTERTAINING. OH, MY, YES. I HAVEN’T HAD SO MUCH FUN IN YEARS.

  Gordie leaned against a wall, a bloody axe in his hand. His face mirrored his exhaustion. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, Fury. Personally, I didn’t see the humor in it.”

  “It’s gone,” Howie called. “The main body of energy is centered around Thunder Mountain.”

  The government technicians had also noticed the Fury’s move to the mountain.

  “It must have some importance,” a scientist said. “But what?”

  “The mountain has been studied from every possible angle,” another scientist said. “It was mined out before the turn of the century. There are no minerals of any significant amounts in the mountain.”

  The men and women looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Robin wasn’t as bad as she appeared,” Dr. Anderson told Gordie. “I’ve sedated her.”

  “What are the odds of her flipping out?”

  Anderson grimaced at the nonprofessional term. “As long as we can keep her mildly sedated, I don’t think that’s going to happen. You have to bear in mind, she’s been through one hell of an experience. She remembers meeting her dead mother and father. Really, she’s a damn tough girl.”

  Gordie nodded and looked out a gun slit. It would be daylight in about an hour. In one way he was looking forward to it. He glanced around the big room, blood-splattered and body-littered. Come the daylight, they had to get rid of the bodies.

  “Burn them,” Gordie ordered. “Behind the impound area. There’s no point in jacking around with body bags any longer.”

  Soon, black stinking smoke was rising up into the air.

  YOU ARE A VICIOUS LITTLE MEX, AREN’T YOU, GUNFIGHTER?

  “I do what has to be done.”

  ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS SEALED OFF ALL ROADS LEADING INTO THIS AREA?

  “No,” Gordie lied. “I was not.”

  THEY’VE EVACUATED ALL THE PEOPLE FOR MILES AROUND. THAT DISPLEASES ME, GORDIE.

  “There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, Fury. Not one thing.”

  THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE TRUTH. BUT SOMEHOW I SUSPECT IT IS. THOSE ON THE OUTSIDE HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS OF YOU POOR WRETCHES.

  “Then we’ll just have to fight you with what we have.”

  THAT’S THE SPIRIT, GREASEBALL. RAH RAH, SIS BOOM BAH.

  “Shit on you,” Gordie muttered. He walked back into the office and said, “I’m going for a ride. Anybody want to tag along.”

  To his surprise, Angel raised her hand.

  “Angel, it’s dangerous out there.”

  “I want to go to my house, just one more time. There are some things I want to get.”

  Gordie waited as Judy’s body was wrapped in a blanket. Lee looked at the sheriff.

  Gordie shook his head. “Burn it,” he ordered. “She’d want her body to be rendered useless, rather than risk having it used against us.”

  Sunny took Angel’s hand. “I’ll go with you, Gordie.”

  “As will I,” Bergman said, picking up an M-16 and tossing it to Gordie. He chose one for himself and moved toward the door.

  “Wait,” Gordie said, holding up a hand. “Angel, what if your parents are there?”

  The child stood a little straighter. “They aren’t my parents anymore, Sheriff. They belong to the Fury. I belong to God.”

  Gordie smiled. “All right, Angel. We’ll take a trip to your house. And Angel, all of us here in this room belong to God. He hasn’t forsaken us.”

  “No, sir. I don’t think He has either. I think He sent Sand to help us.”

  Watts grunted. “God must surely like His warriors, then. As much as I liked the boy, I’d sooner have stuck my hand into a sack of rattlesnakes than cross him.”

  “Wanna come along, Al?” Gordie asked.

  “No. I think I’ll stay here and watch the TV. There are some pieces to the puzzle that I still haven’t quite fitted together. I think Sand will get around to it. I don’t want to miss any of it.”

  “That’s why we’re taping it, sir,” Bos reminded the man.

  Watts looked at the college student and smiled. “I hope you make it out of here, son. But I won’t.”

  Everybody still in the room looked at the tall, straight, ex-head of Colorado state police. “What do you mean, sir?” Dean asked.

  “Fury isn’t here, sir,” Howie called. “We can talk freely.”

  “Gordie has the start of a pretty good plan for a bustout, when the time comes. Somebody has to keep the home fires burning, so to speak. I volunteered myself. I’m no hero, but I’ve lived a full life. And I won’t be alone. Another person here has volunteered.”

  “You just had to go and flap your mouth, didn’t you, Al?” Mack spoke from behind the console.

  “I don’t think we have much time left to us, Mack. I think it’s down to hours now. We’d best start gathering up materials, and getting Major Jackson and his people to give us short courses on these plastic explosives.” He held up a hand. “And I don’t want to hear any weeping and moaning about our decision. It’s firm, so keep your comments to yourselves. You ready to conduct a class, Major?”

  Jackson nodded his head. “I’ll get the materials.”

  “Gordie, honey,” the voice of a woman came from behind the welded door. “Please let us out. I love you, baby.”

  Gordie took Angel’s hand, and together they walked out the door. Behind the steel door, his wife started cussing him.

  The television clicked on. Watts took a seat. “I remember this,” he said. “Joey and Tuddie’s funeral.”

  The others gathered around the set. “He’s doing it again,” Mack said. “Pulling events out of sequence. Why?”

  “I think I know,” Watts said. “Watch.”

  Joey and Tuddie were buried side by side. Joey’s parents – who had disowned him, his mother burning a yarzheit candle – did not attend the funeral. Robin was in shock and heavily sedated all the way through the ordeal. She went to stay with her parents.

  Watts was at the funeral, in civilian clothes. After the ceremony, he walked a short distance with Sand. “What are your feelings at this time, Sand?”

  “I don’t have any feelings. My guts are cold.”

  Watts glanced up at Morg, sitting on a small knoll above the hallowed ground.

  “What’s Morg doing, Sand?”

  “Waiting.”

  The Force chuckled darkly. The sky rumbled with thunder. But there was not a cloud in sight.

  “Why did you just chuckle, Sand?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “All right. What is Morg waiting for?”

  “For me.”

  “Then what are the two of you waiting for?”

  Sand stopped and looked at the cop. Darkness leaped from his eyes. The gaze gripped Watts, chilling him. “You wouldn’t understand, Captain.”

 
“Probably not,” Watts said after a sigh. He felt strange, as if someone else were listening.

  “Oh, yes,” a voice spoke.

  “Damnit, Sand!” Watts said, exasperated. “Who’s doing that?”

  “We’re almost out of time, Captain. When you shoot, please shoot straight.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about, Sand?”

  Sand walked away. Watts looked up at the knoll. Morg was gone. So was Bruno, Sand’s big quarter-breed wolf. Bruno howled. Watts shivered.

  “Eerie,” Watts said.

  “Oh, yes,” a voice whispered. “Quite.”

  Watts looked quickly around him. There was not a living soul in sight.

  A living soul.

  Watts walked out of the graveyard. He resisted with all his might the urge to whistle.

  The TV screen went dark.

  “So what’s he telling us, Al?” Mack asked.

  “The Force is going to help us, I think.”

  Howie called from his room. “Come in here, people. This just popped up on Sand’s screen.”

  They all gathered around and looked. The one word gave them all new hope.

  Sand had typed: Yes.

  Chapter Ten

  Gordie pulled up in the driveway and gave the place a visual once-over. It had been a strange drive from the office. Not one person had been on the streets of the town. One living person that is. The streets were littered with the bodies of the newly dead.

  Angel had looked at the bloating bodies through young eyes, that had already seen far too much of the darker side of life.

  “Watch my back,” Gordie said to Bergman, as the men got out of the car.

  Gordie walked to the front door and knocked. He could hear nothing from inside the house. He tried the door and found it unlocked. He turned the knob and pushed open the door, his .357 in his right hand, hammer back.

  No odor of death struck him. The house appeared to be empty. “I’m checking it out,” he called to Bergman.

  The house was void of living or dead.

  Gordie checked the fenced-in backyard. Nothing. He looked in the basement. Nothing. He walked back to the front door and waved Angel in. “Stay with the car,” he told Bergman. “This may be a set-up.”