Thunderland

by Brandon Massey

  What if I’m trapped here, too? Brains suddenly thought, and a crippling fear gripped his testicles.

  “You don’t know? Come on, man. You’re smart.”

  “Not that smart.” After the past few days, Brains didn’t feel as though he knew a damn thing about anything. “None of this makes any sense to me. You look like Mike ... but you can’t be.”

  “Shit, man, you’ve lost it. Will you put down the gun? Stop aiming at me!”

  Brains lowered the weapon. He wanted more than anything in the world for his cousin to be alive. Maybe this was Mike. He had admitted his inadequate knowledge of Thunderland. So why couldn’t this be Mike? He was not going to blow away his own cousin based on an unproven assumption that this was really Mr. Magic.

  “Thank God,” Mike said, and blew out a whistle of air. He came forward. “Shit, you had me scared to death.”

  “Sorry,” Brains said. “If you’d seen what I’ve seen here, you’d understand why I’m so jumpy.”

  “I understand quite perfectly, you gullible little fool,” Mike said in a rich, sonorous voice that didn’t fit him at all.

  Terrible comprehension swept over Brains. He swung the gun upward, but he was too slow. The Mike-replica lunged forward and backhanded him across the face with superhuman force. Brains flew backward, the revolver tumbling out of his hand and spinning into the night. He crashed against the bridge floor, tiny white spots swarming in his vision. Intentionally he bit his tongue, and the sharp pain helped bring his vision back into focus. He did not dare lose consciousness.

  “I expected a more intelligent response from you,” Mr. Magic said, continuing to wear Mike’s body. “The great Brains. You’re a softhearted fool like the rest ofyour kind.”

  Brains spat out a tooth, blood streaming from his lips. His mouth ached. He had never been hit so hard in his life.

  He might not have a chance in hell of defeating Mr. Magic, but he was not going to give up like a punk.

  “You don’t scare me,” Brains said, though shakily. Sitting up, he gathered his courage: “You can kiss my ass. I’m not running from you anymore.”

  The Mike-replica laughed. “Such heroic words. I wish you could have heard your dear cousin’s screams when I drove my automobile over his fragile body. Like you, he was quite a fighter. But in the end, he was weak, too.”

  Fury fell over Brains like a red hood. Screaming, he leaped up and charged the Mike-thing.

  The blow came so quickly he didn’t see it. One instant he was bearing down on the Mike-replica; the next, hurtling through the air. He slammed against the metallic floor, dizzy. Warm blood filled his mouth. Probably, he had lost another tooth.

  Your arms is too short to box with God. In his delirium of pain, the phrase came to his mind, the title of a gospel play his parents had seen or something, and while he never would’ve regarded Mr. Magic as God, he was so overmatched in this fight that the expression was tragically apt. He strained to get up again and slipped, too weak, too beaten.

  Grinning madly, the Mike-creature snagged Brains’s ankles. Aware of what Mr. Magic planned to do, Brains kicked, fighting to free his legs. But he could not break the thing’s powerful grip.

  Mr. Magic took a step backward. He started to spin. Brains, sprawled on his back, started to spin, too. Around and around and around. The world blurred into grays, blacks, and violets.

  In the midst of the spinning, Brains recalled when he was younger, when his big sister used to play with him by spinning him like this. It used to be so much fun, and he would laugh himself to tears when she finally released him and he flew across the yard like a pebble propelled by a slingshot. He wondered if he would ever see his sister again.

  He did not see Mr. Magic let him go, for his world had revolved into a smudge of colors, but he felt the sudden release of his ankles. He felt himself flying in an immense, open space, and he realized that he had been cast not to another side of the bridge, but over the railing, to the hard street below.

  Swiftly he plunged downward.

  As he fell, he thought of Jason’s advice about being in this place, which he had never bothered to apply: what you imagine there becomes true. Not wasting another moment, Brains imagined himself striking the flooded road and absorbing the impact without sustaining the slightest injury. He imagined himself hitting the water like a bath toy, splashing and bobbing to the surface. He saw himself as a giant bath toy, capable of falling twenty feet without suffering any harm. He saw himself living to tell about this event.

  But the instant he collided with the earth, all he saw was darkness.

  By the time Thomas parked in front of Mike Johnson’s house, the water had, amazingly, almost completely run off the streets. Although he would have to exercise caution whenever braking or turning—the roads glimmered darkly, showing they were still wet—traveling at regular speeds was relatively safe. He appreciated the miracle that had caused this. In spite of the protection the Buick provided, driving slowly around this newly unfamiliar town had coated his forehead with cold sweat. He could easily imagine someone chasing after the crawling car, reaching it, and smashing a window and climbing inside.

  He shut off the car. The engine ticked and pinged as it cooled.

  “It looks deserted.” Linda gazed out of the window at the Johnson residence. “Like every house we’ve seen.”

  He agreed. Curtains of darkness veiled the windows of the white two-story Colonial, and he did not see anyone moving either inside the house or around the yard.

  “We have to check it out,” he said. ‘We can’t leave a single stone unturned.”

  She sighed. “I know. But I’m so worried about Jason and where he might be, I’m starting to feel sick.”

  “I feel the same way. But as far as I’m concerned, after all we’ve been through, we’re destined to get through this and pull our family together again. We have to keep our hopes up.”

  “And our guards up.”

  “Right. Those, too.”

  She smiled a little, touched his face gently. She opened her door and got out. He followed.

  A slow, cool drizzle, the kind that could go on for hours without a break, pattered to the earth. Gray-black clouds capped the sky.

  As they walked on the path toward the house, the shriek of spinning tires pierced the night.

  They spun in the direction of the noise.

  A car whipped around a corner, a couple of blocks away. At that distance, Thomas could not ascertain many details—it appeared to be a large, dark sedan-but at once he recognized the feeling it gave him: fear.

  He did not require a glimpse of the driver to understand why seeing the car had elicited that reaction from him. Instinct told him everything. This was the bogeyman Jason had warned them about.

  The skin at the nape of his neck tightened.

  Headlights glaring, the vehicle—definitely a black sedan—roared forward.

  Running was out of the question, and he did not like the idea of hiding in a nearby house or garage. Until they formed a plan, they needed to stay on the move. Sitting in one place was suicide.

  He put a hand on Linda’s shoulder. “Get back in the car.”

  She was an independent woman who did not take to being ordered around, but thank God, she did not protest or waste time asking questions. She hurried to the Buick. He followed closely behind her.

  The black car was several hundred yards away. Closing fast.

  She threw open the passenger’s door and hustled behind the steering wheel. He got in, slammed the door.

  She twisted the key in the ignition.

  The Buick did not start.

  “Shit!” Linda smacked the steering wheel, turned the key again. Nothing. The engine clicked uselessly.

  Fresh sweat broke out on his face. Damn it, it figured that something like this would happen. They had stumbled into a nightmare, and in nightmares, things upon which you could ordinarily bet your life never worked when you most needed them.

  Brig
ht, urine-yellow light washed over them. He looked through the rear window, shielding his eyes with one hand to cut down on the glare. The sedan was a couple hundred yards behind, maybe closer, and it bore down on them faster than ever.

  She gunned the engine again.

  This time, it started.

  The black car growled. Closer.

  She mashed the accelerator, simultaneously wrestling the steering wheel to the right. The tires screamed against the slick pavement, and then the car shot forward like a kicked horse. Thomas snapped back in his seat. The Buick jumped over the curb and bounced onto the sidewalk.

  Thomas twisted around in time to see the sedan speed across the spot they had occupied on the road, like a bull that had charged a matador and missed. They had been damned lucky. If they had moved a second later, they would have been crushed.

  He strapped on his seat belt. The protection it offered might prove insufficient in a major collision, but it beat counting on luck to save the day again. Seeing what he had done, Linda engaged her safety harness, too.

  The driver of the enemy car braked. The sedan skidded a few hundred feet, slid around in a complete circle, and stopped.

  Linda cut the wheel to the left and hit the gas. They bumped over the curb and onto the road. She kept turning until they faced away from the black car, and nothing but the empty, dark avenue lay ahead of them. She tramped on the accelerator. The Buick scrambled for purchase on the wet blacktop, then exploded forward with such abruptness, it was a wonder neither of their necks snapped.

  The town raced past in a murky blur.

  He patted her shoulder. “Great driving. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

  “Thanks.” She glanced at the rearview mirror. “But it’s not over. He’s coming.”

  He checked for himself. Sure enough, the guy rolled after them, far behind yet gaining.

  “You have any idea where we should go?” she said.

  “Not the police station. I honestly doubt anyone’s there.”

  “Me, too.” She passed a stop sign without slowing. ‘We’re on our own.”

  “How confident do you feel behind the wheel?”

  She shot him a look. “I’m not a meek little housewife, Thomas. You don’t have to take over.”

  “That’s not what I meant. What I meant is, do you feel you can shake this guy?”

  She sucked in a breath. “I can try.”

  “Good. Because that’s what I want you to do—shake him. I don’t see anything else we can do. If we can get him off our ass for a little while, we can hide out somewhere and cook up Plan B. What do you say?”

  She flew past another stop sign. “It’s a good idea. But we better start working on Plan B right away. I don’t know what kind of car that guy has, but from the looks of it, it belongs at the Indy Five Hundred.” She glanced worriedly in the rearview mirror. “Look at him.”

  He did not have to look. The fact that the interior of the Buick was suddenly awash in urine-yellow light told him enough.

  He unbuckled his seat belt. He took out the .38.

  She saw what he was about to do. ‘What’re you doing? Sit down.”

  “Don’t worry.” He pressed the button that rolled back the sunroof. “All I’m going to do is distract him with a few bullets, try to slow him down. Keep driving, and don’t make any quick stops or turns without telling me first.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it. From her expression, he knew she was not happy with his decision, but she would not fight him on it any longer.

  He waited for her to hook around a corner. Then, gripping the .38 in both hands, he squeezed through the open sunroof. He planted his elbows on top of the car.

  Cold rain and wind buffeted his face. The headlights of their pursuer’s car nearly blinded him. He squinted, wishing he had a pair of sunglasses.

  When his vision adjusted, he still could not make out any details of the driver. All he glimpsed was the shape of a head.

  He focused the gun on the driver’s side of the windshield. Praying that the Buick’s motion and the wind would not throw him off target, he fired three rounds in rapid succession.

  Golden sparks flared on the windshield, but the glass did not break—did not even fragment.

  The Stranger, though he must have been aware of Thomas’s attack, did not appear ruffled, either. His hateful sedan stayed on course, about twenty yards behind them.

  Thomas swore. Not only did the bastard have bullet-proof glass; he was as fearless as a kamikaze pilot.

  He aimed for one of the front tires.

  Before he could fire, Linda touched his leg. “Hold on, Thomas!”

  She swerved around a corner, tires squealing. He braced himself against one side of the roof. His stomach did sickeningly slow somersaults, and he feared the .38 would fly out of his hands, but when she completed the turn and straightened out the car, his nausea faded, and he had not lost the gun.

  The black car careened around the corner. It locked onto them once more.

  Focusing on a tire, he squeezed the trigger.

  Sparks showered the front bumper. He had missed.

  That came as no surprise. He had not visited a firing range in years. Hell, it was amazing that his first three shots had connected with the windshield. Under the circumstances, it would have been difficult for him to hit the side of a barn with a bazooka.

  He aimed again, trying to ignore the punishing wind and bright headlights.

  That time, the round ricocheted off the blacktop.

  Undiscouraged, he loosed another shot.

  The targeted tire ruptured with a bang!

  He shouted triumphantly, almost losing the gun in his glee. The sedan drifted to the side, the blown-out wheel flapping. The gap between them quickly widened.

  He slid back inside the car and refastened his seat belt.

  “1 hit one of the bastard’s tires,” he said to Linda. “He’s falling behind like he’s standing still.”

  She looked at the rearview mirror and smiled. “Thank God. I wouldn’t have been able to stay ahead of him much longer. He was too fast.”

  “Keep the pedal to the metal. I want to get so far ahead of him it’ll take him hours to find us.”

  “What makes you believe he could find us at all?”

  “He found us before, he can do it again. We can’t take anything for granted with him. Whoever he is, whatever he is.”

  The rear window exploded. Linda screamed, her hands flying off the steering wheel, and Thomas cried out and ducked down in his seat, though he had heard no gunfire. Fragments of tempered glass sprayed over them. Wind howled through the shattered window, sounding like the anguished wail of a hell-bound soul.

  Cautiously, Thomas sat up, glass sliding off his back. Linda, bits of glass sparkling like Christmas glitter in her hair, had recaptured the steering wheel in time to prevent an accident. Blood glistened at the corner of her mouth.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  She nodded. “I bit my tongue. But Thomas, how did he do that? I didn’t hear gunfire.”

  “I guess he doesn’t need a gun.” He searched behind them. The sedan was about a hundred yards away. The Stranger had used the moments during which they had been shocked by the exploding window to gain on them.

  “I’ll try to lose him again,” she said. She hung a vicious left, onto Northern Road.

  Halfway through the turn, two more explosions boomed.

  Without looking, Thomas knew what had happened. The rear tires had been destroyed.

  The Buick began to fishtail. Linda grappled with the steering wheel, straining to keep the car under control.

  Stores, restaurants, and churches floated past, shrouded in foggy blackness that made them appear to be figments of a dream. The black car charged out of the rain, gaining fast.

  “Go faster,” he said.

  “I’m trying.” She had pinned the gas pedal against the floor, but the Buick puttered along at only forty-five miles per hour. T
homas heard flapping rubber and grinding wheel rims ringing out, sounding like ominous music.

  The black car pulled alongside them.

  Thomas tried to see the driver. But the tinted window was opaque.

  He picked up the .38 off the floor. He aimed at the black glass.

  The sedan lurched sideways, slamming into them. The gun popped out of his hands, and he knocked into Linda hard, causing her to lose hold of the steering wheel. The uncontrolled Buick cut across the street, bumped over the curb, and rolled into the parking lot of a gas station, heading toward the self-service pumps.

  Frantically Linda hit the brake pedal, but too late. They smashed head-on into an island of gasoline pumps, splitting open deep ruptures in them, the front end of the car crumpling like an accordion. Thomas jerked forward, but the safety harness threw him back into the seat, preventing him from flying through the windshield. Linda, too, was saved by the seat belt.

  With the recklessness of a drunk driver, the black car crashed into the pumps at a nearby island. Gasoline squirted out of the burst fuel dispensers and splashed onto the caved-in hood.

  Gas also saturated the smoking Buick. The acrid odor brought tears to Thomas’s eyes.

  Linda forced open her door. “Come on! It’s gonna explode!”

  He went to open his door, but it would not budge. The collision with the stranger’s sedan had mashed it out of shape, virtually fusing it to the car.

  Linda had already escaped. She ducked back inside and grabbed his hands.

  “Hurry,” she said, pulling him out. Once he had got out of the wrecked vehicle, she wrapped her arm around his waist, he slung his arm over her shoulders, and they ran across the parking lot, away from the accident.

  Boom!

  A tidal wave of scorching heat shoved him forward. It pushed him faster than he could have ever managed to run—actually lifted him a few inches off his feet—and then drove both him and Linda to the hard, wet ground. The heat engulfing him was so intense, he barely felt the pain that flashed through his rattled body.

  Lying there, he wondered if he was going to die. He wondered if he cared anymore.

  Linda groaned. She crawled forward, away from the inferno.