Fire

by Alan Rodgers

  For that matter, how had they gotten these planes rigged together — how had they managed to get the missiles piggybacked to them? Did these people seriously expect them to function?

  Maybe they did.

  Ron thought of the blast in St. Louis that had knocked all of them unconscious — even though they’d been miles and miles from its center. Yes, the missiles were functional all right, even if they did look like something from a Rube Goldberg cartoon. Ron paused, turned. Looked carefully at the jet beside him.

  It was an enormous plane, even larger close up than it had been from a distance. At least a part of that bigness was the fact that Ron had never seen an airliner from this angle before — every plane he’d ever entered he’d got into by going through a steel-and-canvas-covered walkway — those accordionlike things that ground crews always somehow managed to attach to airliners. A house, Ron thought. The plane was a size of a house. And the missile on top of it? Nearly as long as the plane itself, so large that it took five heavy steel straps — each of them as wide as Ron’s chest was broad — to hold it in place. Each strap wrapped clear around both the plane and the missile, and bolts bound it home every foot or so.

  Up near the cockpit a thick nest of wires ran from the forward door to the missile’s warhead.

  These people had one man, at least, who could make these things work — even if he didn’t seem to know how to make them work as they’d been intended to.

  Which, when it got right down to it, might as well be irrelevant. How the things were rigged together was only important if knowing could help Ron to disable them. He thought about that for a minute. Thought about how he could possibly do anything to disable two dozen planes, by himself, and without a knife or a gun. Let alone anything that was really suited to destroying aircraft, like a small tank, or even a bazooka.

  He could try to start a fire. The airlines were always warning you not to smoke when you were on the ground in a plane. God only knew what would happen if the missiles caught fire; if even one of those warheads reached critical mass, Ron thought, it’d start a chain reaction that’s destroy half the Midwest.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t. What did Ron know about nuclear weapons? Not a damn thing. He had most of a BA from Mountainville State’s School of Business, and years of experience as a janitor. Neither one of those things told him anything at all about physics or mechanics or engineering. He was working toward a business degree, not one in the sciences.

  Still: there was another weak spot. One that was just as obvious and a lot less likely to bring on catastrophe.

  The wires.

  Right there, out in the open. Bolted to the steel fuselage of the plane. Secured against the wind, but not secure from vandalism.

  Ron took a running jump toward the wires. Managed, just barely, to get a secure grip. And climbed hand over hand toward the nuclear warhead.

  ³ ³ ³

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  CHEYENNE COUNTY

  “ ‘Mother of harlots,’” the old woman said, “ ‘and abominations of the earth.’”

  And Christine looked away, and winced. Tried to hide from her memory, but it wasn’t any use. She didn’t want to be ashamed of her life. Her other life. She’d sworn long ago that she’d never allow anything or anyone to make the path she’d had to choose a source of humiliation. And the fact that her past disgraced her hurt all the more because of that vow.

  “Yes,” she said. “I birthed him.”

  And said nothing at all for a long time after.

  They were walking again, now. Away from the road at an off angle — not following any marked path, but the line that they traveled was so direct that Christine suspected that the old woman was leading them someplace.

  The old woman was quiet for a long time, too.

  For all that Christine had been the madam of the house, and for all that her house did its business brisk and well, it had been years since she’d been with a man herself. She had grown old, and was long past desirability. And she was easy with the fact. When she’d realized that she carried a child, she’d known that it couldn’t be any ordinary child.

  There was no way she could have known exactly how extraordinary it was.

  At first she had suspected that the growth and blooming inside her abdomen was a disease — a cancer perhaps. Cancer of the womb. Maybe some disease even more horrible. Even if she’d never had a child herself, she knew pregnancy; over the years she’d nursed more than one woman through childbirth. And as the months passed she became more and more certain that it was a child inside her — until, finally, on that morning when the house was totally and utterly deserted, she felt the onset of labor.

  “You were the only one who saw him born,” the old woman said, finally. “You gave birth to him alone, without warning — and at a moment when your . . . home was empty. And once you’d given birth to him, he murdered you.”

  Christine shuddered. Images of the scene forced themselves back on her. Her own blood everywhere as she screamed at the top of her lungs — screamed and screamed and screamed, but there was no one to hear her. And the child . . . infant, soft, and vulnerable as any newborn she’d ever seen. And at the same time not vulnerable at all — not even remotely.

  “He’s at the root of it,” the old woman said. “Source and fountainhead of the evil that surrounds us.”

  “I know. I’ve known that since the moment I awoke.”

  She’d opened her eyes when she felt the child push free from her, and seen — a babe. And something else, too: something vile and powerful and inhuman, thirsting with the need for death.

  She’d tried to tell herself it was only the agony of birthing that made her mind’s eye see the foul thing where nothing but her child ought to have been. She’d seen women have visions and hallucinations, and she knew that pain could cause them. Even visions as foul as this one that seemed to overlay the head of bloodthirsty reptiles over the face of her own infant son.

  Then the infant had sat up and wiped the blood from its eyes — moving purposeful, agile, and direct as any adult — sat up, wiped the blood from its eyes. Looked at her, and seen what she’d seen in him. Leaned forward, reached into the birth canal from which he’d just emerged. And used his tiny fingers to tear open one of the great arteries inside her. Christine had felt the blood rush out of her all at once; three moments later the breath and life had faded out of her, and she’d died.

  The old woman shook her head. “He killed you because you could never mistake him for anything but what he is. And because there is vulnerability for him in the connection between you.”

  Christine thought of the infant. Thought of the man whose image she now saw, sometimes, in her dreams. She couldn’t begin to imagine any way that she could be a threat to such a man. “I can’t believe that,” she said.

  The old woman shrugged. “Nevertheless, it’s true. You’re right to know that if you confronted him alone he’d only murder you again. Still: you are his greatest weakness in this world. Any scheme to put an end to him requires you.”

  The road was out of sight now. The horizon was nothing but wheatfields in every direction but one — behind them and off to the left was the Lake of Fire, glowing brilliantly in an early evening lit otherwise only by the moon.

  “Where are we going? What is it you want me to do?”

  The old woman turned, looked at her. There was light enough for Christine to see her smile.

  “Soon enough,” she said. “Soon enough you’ll see.”

  ³ ³ ³

  LAKE-OF-FIRE

  Luke was hanging from the ceiling when he came to.

  Beside him was a man he almost didn’t recognize — it took him a long moment to realize that the haggard, beaten man dangling from the hook beside him was the same one he’d seen sermonize on television so many times.

  It took him another long breath to r
ealize that this was a man he’d have expected to be one of his captors, instead of a fellow prisoner.

  He was awake and alive, but when Luke looked at him carefully he could see signs of deep and grievous abuse; the man looked as though he’d been tortured to death again and again.

  Luke winced at that thought when he realized that it was more than likely exactly true.

  And wondered what Herman Bonner had planned for him.

  “He’s gone, now, I think,” the man said, “gone from this suite of rooms, I mean. He was in an awful hurry to truss you up. Kept saying something about the sound of gunfire. This room is soundproofed — no way to hear shooting when you’re in here, even if it was right out in the hall. You hear anything like that?”

  Luke’s eyes were blurry; he squeezed them shut, opened them again, cleared them a little.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I think I might have. Hard to say for sure.”

  “I’m George Stein,” he said. “I was trying to get out of here, before Herman brought you in. How are you? Up to trying to escape?”

  Luke grunted. “Luke Munsen. Yeah, I’m okay — give me a minute.”

  Dragged in a deep breath; another. Luke felt his head begin to clear. His sense of whatever it was he had to do next was still gone.

  Which meant that he had to think for himself. And maybe that was a blessing. All right then, he thought: I’ve got to get out of here. Before Herman Bonner could begin doing to him the things he’d done to the TV minister.

  And he had to do what he could to stop that man from destroying the world. Which was a little more obvious, even if there wasn’t any obvious way to set into the task.

  And he had to try to find Ron Hawkins.

  The last place he remembered seeing Ron was back at the airfield.

  The airfield that he could see from the window in front of him —

  And sure enough, there Ron was, crawling around on top of one of the pregnant jets, yanking wires and cables out of the missile’s warhead. On the runway not far from him were half a dozen men with machine guns. They looked as though they were hunting for him — as though they knew Ron was somewhere around, and knew what he was doing, but didn’t know exactly which plane he was on.

  Soon enough, Luke thought, they’d find him. It couldn’t take that long; there wasn’t much of anywhere Ron could hide.

  “I was almost free when I heard Herman bringing you in here,” the evangelist said. “Climbing hand over hand toward that hook — kind of hard with my hands dead-cold for lack of circulation, but I almost had it anyway. Had to let go pretty suddenly when I heard Herman open the door. Think I might have yanked my wrist out of joint when I did — hard to be sure with everything so numb.” He was looking around the room, his eyes scanning back and forth across the furniture and fixtures, as though he were searching for an idea. “Don’t know if I can manage that trick again. You want to try it? You ought to be able to — you’ve probably still got the circulation in your hands.”

  Luke looked up at the rope, the hook. Looked over at the other man. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “How bad are your wrists? Can you take a little extra weight for a few seconds?”

  Luke saw George Stein wince at the suggestion for half an instant before he frowned and nodded. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  And quickly — quick enough to keep himself from thinking about what he was doing and feeling guilty about it — Luke kicked up with both legs. Wrapped his knees around George Stein’s abdomen. Used the leverage that gave him to push his arms up to and over the hook that suspended him, freeing the rope —

  And then momentum deserted him, and there was nothing left to suspend him, and he fell to the floor all but head first. His left shoulder ended up taking most of the impact of the fall, but all the same his head hit the carpet hard enough to leave him stunned and dizzy for a long moment.

  He didn’t let the dizziness stop him. He used his right hand to untie the rope from his left wrist. Let the rope hang from his right hand while he stood, wrapped his arms around George Stein’s waist. Lifted him up and off of the hook; set him on his feet and unbound his wrists.

  George Stein’s hands were cold and wet to the touch; when Luke looked at them carefully he saw that there was a blue cast to them.

  “You going to be okay? Think you’ll be able to walk — or run, for that matter?”

  George Stein rubbed his hands together clumsily, trying to bring the blood back into them. They didn’t seem to move very well.

  “I’ll manage. Can you get us out of here? Do you know your way around?” He paused, looking thoughtful. “The people here think I’m dead. We’d better avoid them — if I know Herman he’s told them to be wary of demons who come to them wearing my form.”

  Which sounded crazy to Luke. Didn’t really change anything, since Luke planned to get away as discreetly as he could anyway. He was an intruder, and if George Stein was a prisoner here then it was best he didn’t show his face either. He had to get both of them out of the building quietly, and then do what he could to help Ron.

  And then? Luke felt more than a little hopeless. They had to do what they could to stop these people. And make sure that they didn’t come back next week and start all over again. But for the life of him Luke didn’t have a clue as to how three men might accomplish that.

  Luke turned, walked toward the door. It wasn’t locked — which, it seemed to him, showed an especially stupid arrogance on Herman Bonner’s part.

  Stupid or not, it was a blessing, and he wasn’t about to complain.

  There was no one in the next room; it was empty except for a couch and a few chairs — one of which faced the dead grey screen of Herman Bonner’s terminal, staring out at Luke like a blind-cold eye. At the opposite side of the room the door still hung in pieces where Luke’s shoulder had broken it.

  “Come on,” Luke said. “This way. There was no one watching the door by the loading bay when I came in. If we’re lucky, there still won’t be.”

  George Stein didn’t say anything, but he followed Luke, limping a little, out through the broken door, toward the stairway.

  ³ ³ ³

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  CHEYENNE COUNTY

  Andy almost didn’t notice when the monster turned away from the road.

  He was way off ahead of the rest of them, chasing after the dog. Not doing a very good job of catching up with him, either. That dog was fast. Not that all dogs weren’t fast, when you tried to run after them. But old Tom was fast and tricky, too. You could fool him, if you tried real hard. A couple of times he’d fooled Andy, too, and that’d left the boy more than a little impressed.

  So, anyway, Andy and the dog were way off ahead of everybody else, when suddenly Andy looked back at the monster and the crowd of dead people who were following him. And what do you know: there they are, tromping off into somebody’s cornfield like a parade that’d lost all its good sense.

  Well.

  Andy harrumphed.

  You’d think, he told himself, that they’d at least call after me if they were going to change their minds about which way they were going.

  That was exactly what they were doing, too. Up and changing course completely. Not just turning off at a different angle. Before they’d been heading down the dirt road, going west, more or less, as far as Andy could tell. And now they were turning northeast, heading right toward that big glowing thing on the horizon.

  Andy didn’t like the feel of that at all. He didn’t know what could make a glow that bright and that big, but it wasn’t anything he wanted to get close to, that was for sure.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Wait up! Where the heck are we going?”

  No one answered and no one slowed down, not even for a second.

  So Andy went running after them.

  The dog followed him after just a little bit, as soon
as he figured out that Andy wasn’t chasing him any more.

  The other creepy thing was one that Andy noticed when he got close enough to get a good look at everybody.

  That Christine woman.

  She wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  So he went up to the monster, who was walking zombielike in front of everybody, looking like he was only half-way connected to the world. Tapped on his shoulder, and when that didn’t work, slapped on his shoulder until he finally turned to look at Andy.

  “So where we going, huh? And what happened to Christine?”

  The monster shook his head. We’re going to the shore of the Lake of Fire. Christine will find us.

  And hard as Andy tried to get him to say anything else, the creature just kept walking.

  ³ ³ ³

  LAKE-OF-FIRE

  There were half a dozen men guarding the loading bay doors when Luke Munsen and George Stein got in sight of them.

  Luke saw them as soon as he poked his head out of the stairway door; he cursed under his breath and pulled himself back into the stairwell. Remembered that George Stein was a religious man, and apologized.

  “The door is guarded, all right. And I heard voices in the hall too — coming from around the corner. We’re going to have to find another way out of this place — another way completely. You know your way around here, don’t you?”

  George Stein nodded.

  “Lots of other ways. Let me think for a second.”

  And stepped back for a moment, to rest his weight against the stairway rail. Which was a good thing, for that was when Luke looked up at the small eye-level window cut into the door, and saw three men with guns pass by outside in the corridor. He saw one of them turn and look into the stairwell; he only barely had time to move out of sight before it was too late.