Thunder Road

by Thorne, Tamara

  He drove, watching Justin’s headlights approaching, knowing that, no matter what, he was not going to swerve. Sinclair had said this was to be a battle between Good and Evil, and Carlo believed that, and knew that if Good was to die, it would take Evil with him.

  He roared past Marie’s place, watching the oncoming headlights grow larger and larger.

  Suddenly the lights flicked out. Carlo’s foot eased off the gas pedal briefly, then grimly he increased his speed. An instant passed and he caught the sight of the approaching car in his own headlights. At that moment Justin began flashing his brights at him, off and on, off and on. Carlo squinted and grimly accelerated, holding the wheels straight, the car locked on its target.

  Five, he counted as the Mustang neared. Four. Justin flashed his lights once more, then left the brights on, headed dead at him. Three. He could see the youth’s grin through the windshield. Two. Caught in a time warp, he watched Justin’s grin fade, his eyes widen, saw him start to turn his wheel in syrupy slow motion.

  One! The world exploded in grinding metal and shattered glass and something flew out at him, suffocating him as the Caddy spun out of control, off the road, bouncing backward and down, finally coming to a halt half in a drainage ditch.

  The air bag deflated and Carlo sat, dazed, for a long moment, then carefully moved each arm and leg, found that the only real pain he felt was still from the wound in his side.

  The car door wouldn’t open and he could see that trying the passenger side would be useless: The entire right side was crushed. Shakily he pushed himself out the open window, down onto the ground. After a brief rest, he rose and climbed out of the drainage ditch, his legs weightless and rubbery, barely obeying him.

  Justin’s car was a smoking heap of mangled metal resting on its roof, twenty feet farther onto the desert floor. Carlo walked to it unsteadily, smelled the gasoline in the air. He squatted down by the window and came face-to-face with Justin Martin. The boy was alive, staring at him as rivulets of blood streamed into his eyes from the cuts on his face. A chunk of glass was stuck in his cheek, and Carlo reached over and pulled it out.

  Somehow the boy’s hand came up and grabbed his wrist as a twisted scarlet grin creased his face. “Good driving,” he said. “Get me out of here.”

  If you were a devout Catholic, I would tell you he is a demon, the son of Lucifer. Carlo stared into the cruel, soulless eyes and recognized the evil that Sinclair had spoken of.

  “Get me out of here!” the boy rasped angrily.

  Carlo twisted out of his grip and stood back, his eyes on the gasoline dripping from a broken fuel line. You will know what you have to do when the time comes. Sinclair was right: He did know.

  Grimly he pulled the robe off himself, then dug in his jacket pocket and brought out a pack of matches.

  Justin’s eyes widened. “What do you think you’re doing, you fucking asshole?” he squawked.

  He has already caused great pain, and he will continue to do so until he is stopped. Barely aware of the hot tears coursing down his cheeks, Carlo threw the white robe on the ground near the fuel leak, sopping up gas, then stretched the sodden cloth out as far as it would go. All the while Justin cursed and demanded his help.

  Carlo stood back and opened the matchbook, tore one free.

  “Get me the fuck out of here, you motherfucker! Now!”

  Carlo struck the match. “Good-bye, Justin,” he whispered, and put it to the cloth.

  He turned and ran, throwing himself in the ditch just before the explosion. He waited, then looked up, saw the fire, the billowing smoke. For an instant he saw Justin’s burning arm reaching out the window, then it was consumed by flames.

  He turned and climbed out of the ditch, onto Thunder Road, knowing that he had done the right thing. He looked up at the compound a mile away and began to run.

  141

  Tom Abernathy

  AS THE POLICE CARS SLOWLY DROVE PAST CARLO, TOM HEARD A loud pop and a bullet ripped into his arm. Shocked, he nearly toppled from Belle, but quickly regained his balance and turned to see Hannibal Caine running at him, waving a pistol. Instantly Tom took aim and shot the gun from the man’s hand.

  Caine yelped, shaking his hand, then clamped it protectively under his other arm. Behind him, Apostles were streaming from the church. Caine turned to face them. “He is not Death,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Does Death bleed?”

  Beside him, Davy had pushed Eldo Blandings off his saddle and had drawn his gun. Alex, also flanking him, had done the same. Glancing back, he saw that Marie had her weapon trained on the guard at the gate, who was reluctantly opening up again to let Moss and Al inside.

  Tom turned back to Caine, readying his lariat, then paused, looking up at the steeple. The cross bearing James Sinclair pushed slowly upward until it was in its customary position on top of the steeple. The brilliant white lights flashed on. The shell-shocked Apostles all turned to look at it.

  Tom pulled the mask off and dropped it on the ground, then pushed the hood back. “The way I see it, mister, you’re a cold-blooded murderer,” he told Caine. Around them, robed figures were gathering, listening, dazed looks on their faces as they divided their attention between him and the figure on the cross. Behind him, he heard the gates open and Moss’s voice saying, “Cassie, oh God, Cassie,” and Cassie saying, “Moss,” real soft. Things were going on back there, the wounded being loaded into the cruiser, but that was none of Tom’s concern. This man was his only business at the moment. Marie, stocking mask discarded, hair blowing in the wind, was beside him on Rex, staring down at Hannibal Caine as well. Somewhere, something exploded, but Tom paid no attention.

  “Caine, you got on my bad side when you killed this lady’s sheep and dog. You made it worse by killing one of my mustangs. You defaced Mike Corey’s church and the homes of my friends. And then you kidnapped people, and after that, you shot them down in cold blood.”

  “I didn’t do any of those things,” Caine said. “My hands are clean. Eldo Blandings was behind those acts of violence. I tried to stop him.”

  “My ass.” Tom glanced at Marie. “I’m getting real sick of people who don’t take responsibility for what they do. What about you?”

  “Damned sick, Tom. You got a hole in your arm that he put there, and that makes me want to tie his tongue to his tonsils and use him to ream out my septic tank.”

  “Better’n he deserves. I was thinking more along the lines of a little public humiliation.”

  “Works for me,” Marie told him, eyeing the bald Apostle.

  Tom turned to Caine and raised his lariat. “Now, I’m a sporting man,” he said, “so I’m gonna give you a head start.” Caine didn’t move, so Tom nudged Belle and she lunged toward the man. Caine turned and ran. Tom waited a moment, then took off, letting Belle cut Caine out of the herd of Apostles, then going after him and bringing him down midstride. Tom jumped off the horse and started to hog-tie Caine, but his damned left arm wasn’t cooperating. Marie rode up and jumped down. “Want some help?”

  “You bet.”

  She finished the tie, then looped the rope over her saddle horn and let Rex drag the squirming Apostle over to Al Gonzales, who promptly shoved him in the back of his squad car.

  Marie pulled off her robe and tossed it on Caine, then walked back to Tom and crooked her finger at him, evidently wanting to say something in private. He bent down, and that’s when she kissed him, square on the lips.

  “Alex!”

  “Carlo!”

  Tom and Marie turned to see Alex dismount and run to meet the fortune-teller as he walked through the gates. The two fell into each other’s arms, inspiring Tom to go for seconds himself.

  Then something happened. The hairs stood up on his arms and neck, even some on his head. “What the hell?”

  “I’ve felt this before,” Marie began. “Come on!” She grabbed his hand, and they led their horses back to Alex and Carlo. “You know what’s happening?” she asked Alex.

/>   Alex nodded. “It’s coming.”

  “Another quake?” What he felt now wasn’t like the feeling he’d had in the truck yesterday.

  “No.” Alex pointed at the sky. “Look. There it is.”

  Silence fell over the compound as the huge UFO and its two dancing satellites rose over Olive Mesa. The balls of blue-green light whizzed at impossible angles, racing out over the compound, circling Sinclair on the cross above the steeple. The monstrous object, dark except for a few blue and green lights, moved toward them in a stately manner. As Tom watched, barely able to believe his eyes, he felt tugging on his arm, and glanced down. Marie was tying cloth around the wound.

  “You were bleeding all over the place, cowboy,” she said gruffly.

  Normally he would have answered in kind, but this time he didn’t joke. “Thanks,” he murmured, and put his arm around her.

  Behind Sinclair, a slice of sun appeared, haloing his body. The UFO moved silently closer, and Tom could see that Sinclair was watching it.

  Finally it was directly overhead, blotting out the sun, blotting out the stars, erasing Sinclair’s silhouette. The thing was at least the size of a football field.

  Suddenly a burst of light from the center of the craft nearly blinded him. Tom put his hands to his eyes for an instant, then looked again. The craft had risen, and again the sun could be seen.

  And James Sinclair was gone, the cross empty.

  “I’ll be damned,” Tom murmured.

  “They did it,” Alex said. “The angels, the aliens, whatever you want to call them. They’ve written a new chapter for the Bible. Or perhaps it will merely be added to our folklore.”

  “Sinclair claimed he talked to God,” Carlo said softly.

  “Look at them,” Alex said as the ship rose higher. “They shape our lives and we don’t even know it. They shape our myths.”

  “Maybe they are God,” Carlo said.

  “Maybe they are,” she agreed.

  Standing there, his arm around Marie, Tom felt the hairs on his neck rise again as a chilly wind swept over them. He thought he heard the sound of hoofbeats in it, imagined he saw shadowy horses and riders galloping away down Thunder Road. But it was still too dark to be sure.

  EPILOGUE

  October

  ON THE HIGHEST RIDGE ABOVE RATTLESNAKE CANYON, TOM AND Marie sat on their horses and looked down at the park. The fort was the only original building still standing, and Cassie’s theater, one street of shops, the arena, and stables had already been rebuilt and another row of shops framed.

  Already the tourists were returning, filling up the campground and the stunt-show bleachers. Tom thanked his lucky stars he’d carried earthquake insurance on all the property he owned there. Between that and his own good luck with money, he’d been able to subsidize the rebuilding of the entire place. A bigger, better Old Madelyn Park would be complete by this time next year. It would not stay a ghost town for long.

  When they’d bulldozed the mine ride, they’d found some of the missing bodies, and there had been the bones in Carlo’s old place as well. The murderer, Justin Martin, had been killed in a crash that Moss had never bothered to investigate.

  Someday Justin would probably become part of the Madland mythology, just like Olive Carmichael, the ghostly hitchhiker. But not for a long time. The wounds had to heal.

  The Apostles’ compound was a modern-day ghost. Empty now, under investigation, with Caine and Blandings and several others imprisoned, it still drew pilgrims who stood outside the gates and stared at it wonderingly, wanting to know if the Savior had really died again. That question wasn’t pondered much by the residents of Madelyn, but sometimes when Tom took a midnight ride, he stared up at the black velvet sky and wondered who the visitors had been, wondered about Sinclair, maybe because some of Alex Manderley’s stories had stuck stubbornly in his head. They’d even begun to insinuate themselves into his own campfire tales.

  After the eclipse, Alex and Carlo had stayed at the ranch for a few days, then one night Carlo took him aside and quietly told him he was leaving for good with Alex. Just last week, he finally sent a postcard from Peru, where Alex was working and he was studying: He had become passionately interested in UFOs from a metaphysical rather than analytical point of view. The card had a postscript saying that Eric had received his doctorate and was working at APRA. Tom was happy for Carlo, but amazed: He never thought the fortune-teller would hook up with anyone. But then, he never thought a lot of things would happen.

  Six weeks after Madland’s destruction, Cassie and Moss had finally married in the courtyard where Father Mike’s chapel was now being rebuilt. Eve was the flower girl, and he and Marie served as best man and maid of honor. Inspired, Tom had proposed to her that same night, and a month later, they’d eloped, slipping away to Lake Tahoe, telling no one but Davy.

  “What’re you thinking about, cowboy?”

  He looked at Marie and drawled, “Oh, about that time you about twisted Franklin Hank’s wiener off.”

  She punched him lightly. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Thinking about how nice the park’s gonna be. How nice it is that Carlo finally got himself a girl. How nice it is that I did. Come on down here.”

  Dismounting, he waited for her to do the same, then took her hand and led her to a shady spot. They sat down on the ground, resting comfortably back against the boulders providing the shade. She leaned against him, took his hand again, and fiddled with the ring on his finger.

  “You trying to take that back?” He looked at her from under the brim of his hat.

  “Just making sure it’s on real tight.” Marie slid down so that she was in his arms, her face shaded by his Stetson. He took her hand and rubbed his fingers over the gold band, then dipped his head down to kiss her.

  Before he got there, he lost his hat. He snagged it and put it back on his head. “Guess I’ll have to try that again,” he said, going in for the kiss.

  “That’s what I like about you, cowboy. You never give up.” She reached for him, pushing her fingers into his hair as their lips met. His hat went flying again, but this time he didn’t even notice.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  While Thunder Road is fictional, inspiration for Madelyn can be found in some real places. Throughout the west, you’ll find historic ghost towns, restored gold rush towns and wild west parks open to the public. Three locales made special impressions on me. One, Old Tucson Studios in Arizona, is a movie-set town turned amusement park. Another is Bodie, a once-notorious ghost town that has been kept in near-perfect condition near Mammoth in California. The third, and most important, is Calico Ghost Town, a real silver boom town that is part historical site and part amusement park. Located in the Mojave desert on the highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, it’s only a few miles from fictional Madelyn and provides visitors with history lessons, tours, stunt shows, and evening ghost tours of the best kind—no special effects, just stories and, sometimes, a glimpse of something inexplicable. The area around Calico is also known as a place where you might see strange lights in the sky on dark, still nights. For more information, visit Calico’s website, at www.calicoghostwalk.com.

  Thunder Road is not so much about aliens and other anomalies as it is about people’s varying views of such things. Much of my inspiration comes from the work of Dr. Jacques Vallee, who has written many books about ufology, folklore, and perceptions. Dr. Vallee sees a strong correlation between modern UFO phenomena and older folklorical stories, pointing out that the shape of our myth changes with the times. Thus, in the age of technology, earthly elementals are often converted into unearthly ones. The books quoted within Thunder Road, Dimensions, Confrontations, and Revelations, along with his many other works, may be found in libraries or by searching used booksellers online.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tamara Thorne is the author of numerous novels about all sorts of things that go bump in the night. A Fortean, she goes ghost-hunting as often as possible, always hoping
to encounter anomalies or at least expose a fraud or two. She is currently at work on a ghostly new novel based on a real southwestern haunting

  Tamara loves to hear from her readers and may be contacted via her publisher or her website, www.tamarathorne.com. There, you can subscribe to Drawn Quarterly, her free newsletter, post messages, or even write to her directly. Whether you want to recount your own ghostly experiences or just say hello, you’re always welcome to stop in!

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  Copyright © 1995 by Chris Curry

  This book was previously published under the pseudonym Chris Curry by Pocket Books.

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  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 978-1-6018-3031-9