Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

  “We’re under orders to put the finishing touches on a training base not far from here. The government has spent a lot of money in this area, as you well know. We’ll just go on up to the base. We have MREs to last us a week. More supplies will be brought in if we need them.”

  “I think not,” Gordie said coolly.

  “Then you’d better have one hell of a good reason for detaining us, Sheriff.”

  “You think you’re immune from civilian law; is that it?”

  “You know better than that, Sheriff. But we are acting under orders from the government, and we all have high security clearances. If you’re going to detain us, I want the charges all spelled out, nice and legal.”

  Gordie smiled. “You have a radio with you, Major? Shortwave, perhaps?”

  “Whether I do, or not, is certainly none of your business, Sheriff.”

  “I just made it my business, Major Jackson. You want it spelled out? Okay. I’ve got two murders on my hands. I have some thing in this town that is making people and electronic equipment act nuts. Whatever it is just goosed you in the butt about five minutes ago, and did some titty-squeezing with your lieutenant and your sergeant. You saw it slap a boy down, rip the clothes off a lady, and knock one of my deputies to the floor. What I don’t need at this time, Major, is a lot of press types in here. You get my point?”

  “You can’t detain us, Sheriff; not with our credentials. But we might be of assistance if we stayed here.”

  Gordie walked to a window and looked out onto a side street. The view was somewhat less than awe-inspiring. With his back to the military people, he said, “You didn’t offer to stay.”

  Maj. Jackson thought about that for a few seconds, then smiled. “Sheriff Rivera, would you like for me and my people to stay here in town so that we might possibly be of some assistance to you and your people in the event of further trouble?”

  Gordie laughed and turned around. “Isn’t there some sort of federal law about active troops getting involved in local civilian matters without prior government approval?”

  “Yes. But if we are attacked, we certainly have the right to defend ourselves.”

  “That’s good to know. I don’t suppose any of you came armed?”

  “Sidearms.”

  “Lemmie out of this son of a bitch!” Hubbard screamed from the drunk tank just up the hall.

  He was ignored.

  “I would like for all of us to be brought fully up to date, Sheriff,” Jackson requested.

  “Of course.”

  “I have a question, Sheriff,” Kathy said.

  “Ask.”

  “Why don’t you just call in the highway patrol, or ask the governor to send in the national guard?”

  “I can answer that,” Howie spoke from the doorway. He was holding a wet cloth to the side of his face. The swelling appeared to be going down.

  All turned to face the small boy.

  “Go ahead, Howie,” Gordie said.

  “The sheriff doesn’t want to involve any more people than he absolutely has to. He doesn’t want to risk any more lives. He isn’t sure that any of us are going to live through whatever it is that is menacing us. And he isn’t at all certain that . . . that, whatever it is, call it a thing, would allow any of us to leave this area.”

  “Is that it, Sheriff?”

  “That about sums it up,” Gordie said with a sigh. He looked at Howie. “You’re a very smart boy, Howie. I have a hunch that you know, or think you know, more about this thing, as you call it, than you’re letting on. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so.”

  “Want to share it with us?”

  “Of course. Just as soon as I get it worked out in my head.”

  Country and western music suddenly filled the room, the music heavy with guitars and drums.

  “He came rollin’ out of Monte Rio, with blood stains on his hands.

  “Crazy Morg was with him, as they screamed across the land.

  “With their future all behind them, they threw their fates to the wind.

  “Sand, good-bye, Sand.”

  I HATE THAT GODDAMNED SONG! TURN IT OFF!

  “Screw you,” another voice was added.

  Watts had to lean against the table for support.

  The second voice belonged to Sand.

  Chapter Five

  “Mr. Jennings, you used to be called Ace, were you not?”

  Richard laughed that strange, hollow laugh. “Yeah, I did. A long time back.”

  “And you were friends with Sand? You were a part of that . . . club?”

  “Yeah. From the beginning to the end. The Pack. That’s what the city police hung on us. It stuck. Willowdale doesn’t have a city police department anymore. The sheriffs department handles all that now.”

  “The pack? From wolf pack?”

  “Probably. They hung it on us after a bad fight.”

  “With whom?”

  “A bunch of college boys – rich kids – from over the pass. A town called Monte Rio.”

  “The resort town?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Can we skip ahead, Mr. Jennings? Hit the high spots?”

  “Just like a reporter, Sunny. You don’t want to know the whole story. You don’t want to know why somebody did something. All you want is the gory part of the story.”

  Sunny chuckled with no small amount of irony. Trouble was, he was right. “All right, Mr. Jennings. I can take all the time in the world to get this done. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Time is something we don’t have much of. But we can get it down, I think. But we’ll do it Sand’s way, Sunny.”

  She shook her head and said wearily, “Whatever, Mr. Jennings. May I use your bathroom?”

  “Sure.” He pointed. “One right down that hall.”

  After using the toilet, she washed her hands and face. She noticed several magazines and a newspaper on a stand by the commode. She picked them up. Everything was old, dated 1979. She looked in the medicine cabinet. All the prescription medicines were years out of date. She closed the mirrored cabinet door and stared for a long terrifying moment. She had to cling to the vanity to keep from passing out. Bite her lips to keep from screaming.

  She had no reflection in the mirror.

  The college kids smelled it, before they saw it. Then they rounded a curve in the gravel road and came face to face with the source of the horrible odor.

  Piles of dead cattle and sheep. The stinking mound was completely blocking the road. The animals had been torn apart, heads and legs and entrails tossed in all directions. Sandy turned her head and vomited.

  Paul took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. He said, “We’re going to have to climb over the animals, people. It’s the only way out.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Bos protested.

  Paul fixed him with a hard look, and then gave them all a hard choice. “It’s either that or we go back to the ghost town and wait until help comes.”

  With a grim look on her face, Sandy wiped her mouth, took a drink of water from her canteen, and moved toward the mound of stinking death. Slowly, the others followed.

  The wild shrieking brought them all to the feet, running toward the drunk tank. Gordie yelled for someone to get the kids out of this section of the building, and not to leave them alone.

  He slid to a halt on the concrete floor and stared in horror at the sight before him.

  Hubbard was being squeezed against the bars; already the bars had crushed his shoulders and hips, the bones breaking and sticking out, the blood squirting. The front of his head was being slowly crushed, the skull indenting. His screaming ceased as his brains oozed out of his mouth and ears and nose. Broken teeth fell from his mouth and clicked wetly on the floor.

  The broken and crushed remains of Hubbard the hardware man slopped to the cell floor.

  FOR EVERY EVIL UNDER THE SUN

  THERE IS A REMEDY OR THERE IS NONE

  IF THERE BE
ONE, TRY AND FIND IT

  IF THERE BE NONE, NEVER MIND IT.

  The voice howled with laughter.

  ISN’T THIS FUN? THIS IS MORE FUN THAN DANCING ON SOMEONE’S BLUE SUEDE SHOES.

  Gordie leaned against the brain- and blood-splattered wall opposite the death cell. He felt the ooze of gore through his shirt and pulled away from the wall.

  Maj. Jackson looked at the gory mess in the drunk tank and lifted his eyes to the sheriff. “You want to try to evac the town?”

  “Let’s try it.”

  DON’T.

  “How do you propose to stop us?” Jackson asked, feeling sort of silly talking to the air.

  EASILY, TOY SOLDIER.

  “I don’t think you’re that powerful,” Gordie said.

  THEN GO TO YOUR OFFICE AND LOOK OUT THE WINDOW TO THE STREET, GREASEBALL.

  “What are you going to do?”

  HAVE FUN.

  Jackson caught Gordie’s eyes and shrugged. “Do we have a choice?”

  “I guess not.”

  FOR ONCE, YOU’RE RIGHT.

  Gordie walked into the big room that housed the waiting area, up to the circular desk that housed dispatch. He looked at Mack. The old deputy was scared, but holding on.

  “Mack, go to our tach frequency and advise all units to start setting evacuation routes and procedures. Alert civil defense. Notify the school and the fire department. Get the principal up here to the office right now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dark, evil chuckling filled the big room. DO YOU LIKE SURPRISES, BURRO-BRAIN?

  Gordie looked around him and waited.

  LET’S BOOGIE, BABIES!

  A series of explosions rocked the town, followed by booming laughter. All the phone lines lit up. When the callers were calmed – as best the deputies could – units were dispatched to the various scenes of destruction. Gordie rubbed his face with his hands when all units reported back by radio.

  “A grain elevator blew up just south of town. An eighteen-wheeler loaded with food was blown off the state road north of town. Here in town, to the east, Adamson’s little store no longer exists. West of here, William’s service station exploded. Deputies and firemen are looking through the debris now, for survivors. And bodies,” he added.

  AS THE DAYS GROW LONGER,

  THE STORMS GROW STRONGER.

  The wild laughter that followed the children’s rhyme gradually faded.

  “Showing us that it can do just about anything it wants to do,” Watts said.

  “And warning us, I suppose,” Jackson added, “not to try any evacuation.”

  Gordie picked up his cowboy hat. “Let’s go see the damage. Then we’ve got to have some sort of town meeting. Lee, see if you can get in touch with the mayor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What in God’s name are you going to tell them without putting everybody into a blind panic?” Captain Hishon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gordie admitted.

  “And after you do tell them?” Watts asked.

  “I don’t know that either. Hell, I don’t even know what it is we’re fighting.”

  He turned and walked out the door.

  “I’ve done some brushing up on hot rod jargon of the 1950s,” Sunny said, attempting to put a calmness in her voice that she certainly did not feel. She was shaky from her experience in the bathroom, but was trying very hard to convince herself that Richard, for whatever reason, was playing tricks, mind games, trying to scare her away. “Were you people outlaws?”

  “Absolutely not,” Richard stated. “There was not a criminal in the bunch. We never had any serious trouble with the law until about a year before the bottom dropped out. But when it did drop, all hell broke loose.”

  He laughed at that, and Linda smiled. Sunny did not see one bit of humor in it. But she was getting some clues, and prayed that she was wrong.

  “Sand is the best friend I ever had in either world. I love him like a brother, and always will.”

  I’m not believing this! Sunny’s mind was working furiously. It’s a trick.

  “Perhaps telling is too slow,” Richard said. “Maybe you should see for yourself.”

  “What kind of game are you playing, Mr. Jennings?”

  “No game. Relax.”

  Sunny experienced a heavy sensation; she thought it must be like jet fighter pilots feel. Several G’s. The smell, that sickly-sweet funeral-home odor became stronger. She tried to fight the feeling of motion, or travel. In her mind, she hoped, the room began to tilt. She suddenly felt as if her inner clock had stopped, and then been reversed.

  “Do not be afraid,” a voice entered her head. The voice was not Richard’s. “No harm will come to you. I am the Force.”

  Thunder cracked.

  It didn’t take long for Gordie and his people to get the picture. Whatever they were facing had enormous power. Power enough to strike at all corners of the town simultaneously And there wasn’t enough left of whoever got in its way to body-bag.

  Dr. Craig Anderson shoved his way through the crowds – and they were curiously silent and well-behaved – and walked up to Gordie.

  “Nothing,” the doctor said. “There isn’t enough left of the bodies to make a positive I.D. on any of them. Oh, before I forget.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The hands and eyes and lips have now returned to the coolers.”

  The doctor’s eyes held a dozen questions. But he kept them to himself. Gordie knew he was waiting until they could speak privately.

  “How many dead, Doctor?” Watts asked.

  “Hard to tell, Colonel. Mr. and Mrs. Adamson, for sure. They were in the store, as usual. Maybe a couple of customers. Two men for sure at the grain elevator. Dr. Shriver is working over there. The truck driver and his helper are scattered all over the place. One man for sure at the service station. But taking into account the savagery of the initial implosion, there will probably be more.”

  “Implosions, Craig?” Watts asked.

  “Yes. Everything initially blew inward. Witnesses say the truck, the entire rig, was just sucked inward, and then scattered like a tornado hit it. The truck driver and helper were literally crushed like tomatoes, and then flung out with the bits and pieces of the rig.”

  “An implosion and explosion?” Gordie asked.

  “I would say so, yes.”

  A man grabbed Gordie’s arm and jerked him around. “We elected you sheriff, Gordie. You gotta do something.” The man’s eyes were wild. “What are you goin’ to do?”

  Gordie evaded that. “Go home, sir. Stay in your home.” Gordie pried the man’s fingers from his arm. “I’ve ordered school dismissed for the remainder of the week. Keep your kids inside as much as possible. Don’t let them out of your sight.”

  A deputy walked up to Gordie and whispered, “The principal over at the high school said – when we informed him that it would be best if school was dismissed – and I quote, ‘It don’t make me a good goddamn if I ever see any of these little shitters again. Fuck ’em all.’ ”

  Gordie stared at him. “Principal McVay said that?”

  “Word for word.”

  “It’s a madman loose, isn’t it, Sheriff?” a woman hollered.

  “Quite possible, ma’am. Now let’s break this crowd up, and you all go home, please.”

  They all noticed that the majority of the crowd all turned as of one mind and walked off. Only a few chose to linger and rubberneck at the carnage. The deputies shooed them away from the scene of destruction.

  “Strange behavior,” Dr. Anderson observed. “Very strange. Only a few showed any emotion at all. Only a few cases of excitement. No hysteria at all.” He looked squarely at Gordie. “When do we talk, Sheriff?”

  “Right now. At my office.”

  Anderson’s coffee remained untouched on the table. He had listened carefully, his facial expression clearly mirroring his disbelief, as the men and women told their stories.

  Then Gordie took him into the cell block
that housed the drunk tanks. Lee lifted the blood-soaked blanket that covered the crushed and mangled body of Hubbard. Craig had already noticed the blood- and brain-splattered walls.

  The doctor opened his mouth several times to speak. Each time he closed it silently. Finally he sighed and shook his head.

  Gordie waved them out of the cell block and back into the main room.

  “All right,” the doctor said, facing the group of men and women. “For the sake of argument, I’ll accept everything you have told me as truth. Now then, what is this thing?”

  “We don’t know,” Gordie said.

  “What does it want?”

  “We don’t know that either. And yes, we have asked it. It answers in nursery rhymes and riddles and singing.” All songs that are at least thirty years old, that thought suddenly come to Gordie. That’s got to mean something. But what?

  Clearly, the doctor thought the sheriff was nuts.

  Although he didn’t say it, his eyes spoke loudly enough.

  Watts picked up on the man’s feelings. “If it was just one or two of us who heard it, Craig, you’d be right in thinking us a bit loony. But we’ve all heard the thing.”

  Mack called out, “Sheriff, Blanco Five reports a group of young people, college age, coming down on the ghost town road. They’re about a mile from Ed’s cafe. Four boys and four girls. They’re all bloody as a butcher and pretty well shook up. He’s requesting two more units to help bring them in.”

  “All right, roll them. Bring the kids here. How’d they get bloody? An accident?”

  “No.” Mack chose his words carefully, in this day of scanners and people listening to every word the cops say. “The same thing that’s been giving us a little trouble.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Now what?” Judy asked.

  “We’ll soon find out.” Gordie turned to his chief deputy. “Lee, get that meeting with the mayor and city council set up. Right now. I want them here in ten minutes. Go.” He turned to Dr. Anderson. “You stay for this, too, Craig. You can check out the young people as we bring them in.”