Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

  The funeral director said, “It’s just a . . . I mean, well, the casket cannot be opened.”

  “I know. Seal it.”

  “The boy’s name?”

  He and Robin had discussed it, and both had agreed. “Sand.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thank you. Lock the doors. I don’t want anybody in here.”

  “I understand.”

  Sand sat on the carpet in front of Robin’s casket. He prayed to God, to Thor, to Odin. But he could not cry. Someone rattled at the doors. Sand ignored them. The Force grew stronger until it was Sand.

  “That’s why the Force is helping us,” Howie said, awed by what he had just seen on the screen. “The Force is Sand.”

  “Or at least a part of him,” Megan said. “Although how that occurred is, and probably always will be, a mystery.”

  “Until we die,” Watts added. He pointed to the screen. “There it is. The evidence Sand withheld from me.”

  Sand did not return to the funeral home after that long night and morning. He went to his now half-home. He showed Morg the dried blood, hair, and flesh.

  “Somebody is gonna be tore up something bad,” Morg said. “I got a buddy over in Monte Rio that can snoop around some, on the QT.”

  “We know this didn’t belong to Murry. He was unmarked, except where Bruno ripped his throat. And we both know the others involved.”

  “And you want them all.”

  Sand smiled. His eyes were animal yellow. It was thundering out of a clear blue sky.

  BAH! JUST LIKE A MORTAL BEING. PISSING AND MOANING OVER THE LOSS OF SOMETHING TOTALLY INSIGNIFICANT.

  “You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Angel asked the Fury.

  WHATEVER IN THE WORLD DO YOU MEAN, YOU LITTLE TWIT?

  “You’re very powerful, very strong, very intelligent. But you can never be like us. And because of that, you want to destroy us. But don’t you see? If you destroy us, you destroy yourself. You can’t live without us.”

  The Fury pulsed for a long moment. YOU WILL ALL BE MY SLAVES. I HAVE DECIDED TO LET YOU LIVE. MOST OF YOU. I WILL PLAY WITH YOU FOREVER. THINK ABOUT IT. I AM OFFERING YOU ETERNAL LIFE.

  “We’ll think about it,” Howie said quickly. “But let us have some time to do that. That is a difficult decision to reach.”

  THAT IS CORRECT. YOU ARE WISE BEYOND YOUR YEARS. HOW MUCH TIME?

  “Oh ... I don’t know,” Howie said. “I should think perhaps a day and a night would not be too much to ask. If that’s all right with you. If not, you set the time limits.”

  I AM GENEROUS TO A FAULT. I SHALL GIVE YOU TWO DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS OF YOUR TIME. FORTY-EIGHT OF YOUR HOURS. TA-TA, NOW.

  “Smooth, Howie,” Jill told the boy. “Very, very good.”

  Howie nodded and walked over to his computers, checking the screens. “It’s returned to the mountain. When it starts to leave there, I want us all to gather in little groups and be engaged in serious debate.”

  The keys on his PC rattled. Sand wrote: The door will be ready for you all at eight tomorrow night. Be quick and do everything I tell you to do.

  Howie typed: Are you the Force?

  No. We are buddies.

  But you are part of the Force?

  In a manner of speaking. At the moment of death, the chosen are all a part of it. Talk to you later. I have to warn some friends of mine.

  “I wonder what he means by that?” Howie muttered.

  Gordie stood with a small group, looking out the gun slits. The street was devoid of life, or any other kind of movement.

  Larry ran to Martin’s trailer and jerked open the door. “Martin, come quickly. You’ve got to see this. It’s an exodus of animals from the valley.”

  Martin ran outside and took the binoculars handed him by an Army officer. He adjusted the focus and looked up into the mountains.

  “Dear God in heaven,” he whispered.

  Half a dozen gray wolves were leading the exodus out of the valley and over the mountains. The wolves were leading deer, elk, bear, cougar, and a parade of cats and dogs and horses and cattle and other livestock.

  “Incredible,” another government official said, looking at the scene through binoculars. “It’s beautiful. But how do they know? How did they sense something was going to happen?”

  “I suspect that somehow Sand told them,” Martin said. “Until these animals can disperse and find new shelter, order a total ban on hunting in this area. I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any so-called sportsman,” he spat out the word, “who pulls a trigger against any of those animals. See that that order goes out immediately, Larry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Martin walked to a heavily guarded trailer and was admitted inside. The trailer was packed with electronic equipment. “What’s the latest word from inside the town, Hank?”

  “The boy, Howie, struck a deal with the Fury. Fury gave them two days to make up their minds whether or not to accept eternal life as its slaves – or die.”

  “Everything else is still go?”

  “So far.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Martin walked back to his trailer, ignoring the shouts from the press corps. The shouts now contained threats that the reporters’ constitutional rights were being violated.

  “Why are those animals leaving the area, Mr. Tobias?” the question was shouted.

  “Ask the animals,” Martin said. “I assure you that I cannot speak for them.”

  “What’s going on in Willowdale now, sir?”

  “It’s very quiet in there.”

  “Are the convicts still loose?”

  “Yes.” Martin reached the door to his trailer.

  “Were those really dead people we saw the other day at the barricades?”

  “No,” Martin turned to face the knot of reporters. “The disease had affected their skin, that’s all.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mr. Tobias,” another said.

  “End of questions,” Martin said.

  Chapter Eleven

  The smell from the town was very nearly overpowering to the survivors in the sheriffs office. Fans had been located and placed around the rooms in an attempt to push the stink out. It was not very effective.

  “We can’t take two more days of this,” Gordie said. “All sorts of diseases are floating around out there. We’re going to have to go out there, push the bodies together as best we can, and burn them. I won’t order anyone to go with me.”

  “I can drive a front-loader,” Dean said. “Let’s go.”

  ARE YOUR MINDS MADE UP?

  “Not yet, Fury,” Gordie said. “But we’re talking about it.”

  I DON’T TRUST YOU, SPIC. YOU OR THE BRATS. I THINK YOU’VE ALL GOT SOMETHING COOKING AGAINST ME. I WARN YOU NOW, IF YOU TRY THING FUNNY, ALL DEALS ARE OFF.

  “Right now, Fury,” Gordie told him. “All we’re interested in is clearing away these stinking bodies You want us alive, don’t you?”

  UMMM. OH, ALL RIGHT. GO AHEAD. BUT I’LL BE WATCHING YOU.

  “Watch all you want, Fury. Tell you what, why don’t you sing to us while we work? It’ll make the work go faster.”

  FINALLY RECOGNIZING MY TALENTS, EH? GOOD. HOW ABOUT THIS?

  The Fury launched into Shake, Rattle, and Roll. Its voice was so thunderous it rattled the windows of the town and carried for miles.

  The reporters all gathered as close to the line of troops as they could, and listened.

  “What the hell is that?” one asked.

  “That’s no singer that I’ve ever heard before.”

  “There isn’t an amplification system anywhere in the world that good,” another said.

  The singing abruptly stopped. A voice sprang out of the sky. THAT’S RIGHT, ASSHOLE.

  Martin stepped out of his trailer. Fury was about to make its move, and pretense was out the window.

  The convicts Logan, Bingham, and Diminno were hurled over the barrica
des. They slopped wetly on the ground in front of the reporters and the camera crews. All the skin had been stripped from them. They were alive, but just barely.

  The reporters got to them first.

  “What’s going on in that town?” the question was asked of the dying men. “Where did you come from?”

  “A thing from space,” Bingham gasped, the words coming hard through his intense pain. “It’s called Fury. You’re all doomed. All of you. Run. Run. Get away.”

  He laid his head down on the ground and died, just as the military doctors reached the bloody men.

  Martin walked back into his trailer and picked up the phone. “Get me the White House,” he told the Secret Service agent at the switchboard.

  “And so far, we have it contained,” President Marshall told the lie as he attempted to end the hurriedly called press conference.

  But that was not to be.

  “Where did this thing come from, Mr. President?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Why Willowdale, Colorado?”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  “What are you doing about it, sir?”

  “We are attempting to negotiate with it, trying to find out what it wants.”

  “What does it want, sir?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “And you’re firm in your decision not to allow anymore reporters into the area?”

  “No one is allowed in the area we have cordoned off. This mass has killed nearly everyone in the town of Willowdale. Only a few survivors remain.”

  “Is there a rescue operation planned, sir?”

  “No. Not at this time.”

  “Why not, Mr. President?”

  “Unworkable. Our technology is not far enough advanced to match that of the Fury. All we would do is lose more people.” The president had been briefed to say that, knowing that in all probability, the Fury was somehow listening.

  “Do the people inside the town know they are expendable?”

  “They are aware of that. They’ve accepted it.”

  “Why didn’t they get out when they could?”

  “They never had a chance to escape. The Fury moved that fast.”

  The president tapped a finger on the side of the rostrum, and an aide came out at the signal and whispered in his ear.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a call I must take. There will be another briefing tomorrow.” He left the podium without taking another question.

  Whenever possible, the teams working the body detail removed identification before burning the corpse. That I.D. was taken back to Howie who transmitted it out by computer. Gordie knew, however, they had not encountered a living being this day.

  “That’s good,” Maj. Jackson said in a whisper. “In a way. It means the Fury will be used to lots of smoke. We can work right up to bug-out time.”

  “Better yet,” Gordie whispered without lifting his head from his work, “we can put some of the young people through the door, while the rest of us continue working.”

  Jackson grinned. “I like it.”

  Lee straightened up with a grunt. “I’m about ready to call it a day, boys.”

  Gordie checked his watch. Nearly five o’clock. “I’m with you. Let’s hit the showers. We all smell like the bodies we’ve burned.”

  NOT SO FAST, GORDIE-BABY. YOU QUIT WORK WHEN I TELL YOU TO QUIT, AND NOT BEFORE. I KNOW YOU PEOPLE ARE UP TO SOMETHING, SO I’M GOING TO WORK YOUR ASSES UNTIL YOU DROP.

  “Whatever you say, Fury. None of us have lied to you before, why would we start now?”

  WORK. I SHALL SING WHILE YOU WORK. DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.

  They worked until after dark, and when Gordie checked his watch, he was pleased to see darkness would fall sometime before their scheduled breakout. Now if their luck held out.

  Luck has nothing to do with it, the voice sprang into his head.

  Sand. It startled Gordie. He can read my thoughts.

  You are all very close to death. Everything about you is transparent now . . . to those of us on the other side. We won’t have to use the computer from this point on. Just think what you want me to know.

  How about Fury?

  It cannot read your thoughts. It knows only what it has learned from the souls of beings.

  YOU MAY QUIT NOW. RETURN TO THE OFFICE AND HAVE YOUR SUPPER. IT MIGHT BE YOUR LAST ONE. HEE HEE HEE. GET IT? LAST SUPPER? SOMETIMES I CAN BE SO HUMOROUS.

  Asshole, Gordie thought.

  Right, Sand projected.

  THE LAST DREAM

  There had been nothing heard from those behind the door that had been welded shut. Dr. Anderson felt they were dead. Gordie merely grunted at the opinion.

  Everyone was too tired to even think about using the jail’s kitchen to fix dinner. They dined on military MREs.

  Megan LeMasters almost spilled her cup of coffee when Sand’s thoughts entered her head.

  The president is on my side. Be sure to take all the video tapes you have made to him. He wants to view them.

  All right, she projected. Bos will carry them through the door in a knapsack.

  Everybody listen to me!

  All heads jerked up.

  The door is moving into position. When you step through, you will enter a world that is strange to you. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you, but you must do exactly what I say. Stay on the path I point out. Do not step off of it. Al?

  Watts looked up.

  My story is almost finished. We won’t be able to talk, because you won’t be coming here. You’ll move to a better place. You and Mack. So don’t be afraid of death. Think of it as a new beginning. Now go to the television set.

  “Fury is on the mountain,” Howie called, turning in his chair so he could see the TV.

  The group gathered around.

  “That’s the old cemetery just outside of town,” Gordie said. The cemetery of Sand’s dreams.

  Sand stood alone atop a knoll, looking down on the knot of people gathered around the two boxlike holes in the earth. Sand had avoided all contact with Robin’s parents. Her mother was under heavy sedation, and the doctors were worried she was close to a nervous breakdown . . . or worse.

  Sand was apart from what had been his kind, mourning his losses alone; the only way his mind could now cope. Morg squatted a few yards behind Sand, to his right, his top hat in his hands. They both had dreamed their last dreams, and now waited for time to run out.

  Sand had not seen the face of Robin since that day at the funeral home. He did not want that face in his memory. His mind was already crowded with the memories of those he loved shrouded in Stygian darkness. Sand wanted to remember Robin alive . . . in the time he had left.

  The minister who had married Sand and Robin, now spoke the burial words over mother and son.

  As Sand stood on the hill, he felt the wind pick up, great dark clouds rolling above the cemetery, thunder rumbling in heavy waves. Midway through the graveside services, the skies opened, and the angels cried. Those who brought umbrellas quickly opened them, and placed their sad expressions back on their faces, as is required by all who attend such public barbarisms. Occasionally, Robin’s father would glance up at the tall young man, standing alone on the hill.

  But Sand was not alone. The Force was in him.

  Just as the minister was intoning his final pleas for whatever he felt stretched beyond the grave—Sand already knew – his words muted in the rain, Sand caught the faint but unmistakable sounds of howling. His dream was now complete. He would not dream it again. He searched the dim light of the stormy afternoon for the source of the howling, knowing it was his quarter-breed, Bruno. The animal was sitting on a hill, his head thrown back, face to the sky, voicing his displeasure to his own ancient gods. Only the theory that man is superior to beasts prevented Sand from joining the breed in the petition.

  The howling from the quarter-breed wolf stirred something deep in Sand; something dark and archaic and Druidlike. T
he stirrings screamed for justice, justice in the form of revenge. A monster roamed within the young man, hairy and fanged. Sand allowed the grotesqueness to come close to the surface, before pushing it back.

  “Wait,” the Force whispered. “Wait.”

  The roaring became a whimper, the cloaked monster squatted in Sand’s mind, picking at itself, momentarily calmed and silent, but still a part of him.

  Bruno’s howling ceased, the rain dripped off Sand’s face, the downfall coming harder, in thick sheets of silver, until it finally drove off the last of the curious. Only then did Sand walk down to the gravesites.

  “Get out of here,” Sand told the workmen.

  They dropped their shovels and got.

  Lightning split the heavens as the wind raged and thunder rolled, the wind ripping the tent over the graves, sending the canvas flapping through the air, the ends popping and cracking like a giant bullwhip.

  Sand did not notice. He worked through the cruel afternoon, filling in the holes of his past nightmares, shoveling wet dirt over what was once life and love, hopes and young dreams, laughter and pain, birth and death.

  Sensing someone behind him, Sand turned to look at Robin’s father.

  He turned away, resuming his shoveling, filling in all the holes of his nightmares. Then the tears came, filling Sand’s eyes. When the muddy earth was patted into place, forming two earthen mounds, Sand collapsed on the ground between the twin earth mansions of eternal quietude. The steel wall of his emotions clanged open. On his knees, he put his muddy hands to his face and wept.

  Robin’s father walked away. His own eyes were streaming rivers of tears.

  On the hill overlooking Willowdale’s most prestigious cemetery, Morg squatted in the downpour, waiting. He had the information that Sand needed, but a man should have the time to grieve his losses. Then, together, they would do the deed.

  Somehow Morg knew they had just enough time left to do that. And no more.

  It was dusk when Sand rose and walked to his car. Watts was waiting at his house when he got there. The highway patrolman waited until Sand showered, then Watts handed him a cup of coffee.