Darkly The Thunder

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’m not disputing that, Sheriff.”

  “Gordie. Call me Gordie.”

  “Gordie. All right. Now this is important. Listen.”

  “Wait. My head is starting to hurt. I’m a cop, not a scientist. You and Howie get together.”

  The others listened as Megan and Howie talked. When Megan had reached the point she had made with Gordie, Howie said, “I understand that, Megan. Kinetic energy, due to its motion, is a gradually diminishing one as the velocity falls off, till the extreme height is reached, when the kinetic energy becomes zero.”

  “That’s true, Howie. As the body rises, it gains in potential energy, or energy of position, till at its highest point this energy is at its maximum.”

  “I know all that, Megan. And that there is an exact theoretical equivalence between K at the bottom and P at the top; and that at any point in the path, the sum of the energies is equal to that same number.”

  “What in the name of God are they talking about?” Watts whispered to Gordie.

  “Hell, don’t ask me.”

  Sunny looked at him. “That’s just basic knowledge, Gordie. They’re just feeling each other out. That change of energy they just discussed is a simple textbook case, pointing out one of the fundamental laws of physical science known as the conservation of energy.”

  Gordie and Watts looked at her as if she had suddenly grown horns and a tail.

  Megan and Howie heard her. “Hey, that’s great, Sunny!” Howie said. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  The computer keys in the gun vault rattled.

  “Sand,” Howie said, leading the way. The others gathered around him.

  Howie sat down and typed: Sand?

  The screen flashed: Joey.

  And Morg. Tell the kid I’m here, too.

  You just did, Morg. Now be quiet.

  “They must be doing that with their minds,” Megan breathed. “My God! I’m actually conversing with the dead.”

  Howie typed: Hi, Morg.

  Hiya, short-stuff. Look, don’t sweat this gig too much. We’re gonna help you.

  Howie grinned and typed: Okay, Morg. That’s good.

  Morg, will you stop mucking about? We’ve got work to do.

  I swear, Joey. I thought once we got here, you might start actin’ more civil. You just as bad as ever.

  “What the hell?” Gordie asked.

  Watts grinned. “Joey and Morg are at it again. You’ll see.”

  Howie typed: What is going on, Joey?

  Morg is pouting. He’ll get over it. He doesn’t have choice in the matter. Not where we are. Howie, listen. Work on this: the total amount of energy in any body may be neither increased nor diminished without outside influence, but it may be transformed without absolute loss into any of the forms of energy to which it is susceptible. That

  The screen suddenly went blank, and then dark, as if all power had been lost on the other side.

  Howie frantically typed: Joey? What happened?

  The screen remained dark and void of any words of reply.

  “What’s going on?” Maj. Jackson asked.

  “I don’t even know what they’re talking about,” Gordie bitched.

  “Well, that’s basic,” Megan said. “What he, it, Joey just said. That law of universal application. I don’t understand what he’s trying to tell us.”

  “I don’t either,” Sunny said.

  “Damn sure makes it unanimous,” Watts muttered.

  “Howie, would you print out all that Joey has told you?” Gordie asked. “Including the last conversation. I want to look at it.”

  “Sure, Sheriff.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sunny asked.

  “I don’t know Gordie read and reread. ”Just exactly what is a neutron, anyway?”

  “One of the elementary particles of an atom,” Howie told him. He was keeping one eye on another screen, watching for the Fury.

  “They are also readily absorbed,” Megan picked it up. “They are uncharged, with approximately the same mass as protons. A few neutrons decay into a proton, an electron, and a neutrino. Has a half-life of about thirteen minutes. That’s one of the reasons a neutron bomb is better, if that is the correct usage, than your conventional atomic weapons.”

  “But it’s still a thermonuclear device?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I see. Sort of. Alright. Was Joey trying to tell us that we don’t have to destroy the Fury? That we could instead contain it, maybe?”

  “How?” Megan asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m asking you.” He held up the printout. “I don’t understand any of this. Was he saying that we, as a people, could harness the force of the Fury?”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” Megan said. “But, no, it’s a good thought, but no. That would be impossible; our technology is not that advanced.”

  “It came from outer space, didn’t it?” Angel asked, leaning up against the doorjamb, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  Howie gave her a dirty look, then abruptly his look changed to one of confusion. “Well, maybe that’s not all that far off the mark.”

  “What do you mean, Howie?” Megan asked the boy.

  “Well, we really don’t know where it came from.” He looked at Sunny. “Has it told you?”

  She shook her head. “No. And I have asked it several times.”

  “Scientists hypothesize that certain heavenly objects are, in fact, collapsed stars,” Megan said. “They consist of immense numbers of densely packed neutrons.”

  “That’s it!” Howie shouted, startling them all. “That’s how it’s so powerful. It’s a neutron star. Listen, the surface gravity of a neutron star is something like one-hundred-billion times stronger than the surface of Earth. Let me back up. It was a neutron star. It evolved over the centuries into something evil. Megan?”

  “Yes. Perhaps. Howie, you and Sunny hear this: pulsar. A pulsar star, a stellar remnant, pulses off and on at the rate of thirty times a second. From its magnetic poles, the pulsar radiates beams of energy that span most of the electromagnetic spectrum, including, the radio and visible wavelengths.”

  Sunny said, “The Fury has, over the centuries, evolved into a thinking mass, and has also learned to refine the radio pulsations it still contains from its original . . . well, shall we say, place in the scheme of things.”

  “Yes,” Megan said. “Let’s start from that. Let’s assume, until proven otherwise, that the Fury is a stellar remnant. That meet with everybody’s approval?”

  Gordie looked at Watts. Both men shrugged. “Call it Harry, the Hairy Ape, if you want to,” Watts said. “Does this get us any closer to killing the damn thing?”

  “Maybe, sir,” Howie said. “If we may continue with this theorization, I would pose this question to those older than I: Why has this town, the county seat, never been able to keep a radio station on the air? Isn’t the town large enough to support one?”

  Watts walked to a boarded-up window and looked out of the gun slit. “That radio station was first put on the air back in ‘54, I think. Maybe’53. It never was worth a damn. Had a dozen owners over the years. No one was ever able to make a go of it.”

  “Why?” Megan asked.

  Watts scratched the side of his face. “Technical problems. No one could keep the damn thing on the air. You’d be listening to one record, and all of a sudden another turntable would start, that record overriding the one that was playing ... no matter what the disc jockey did with the control board. Weird things happened out there, too. Disc jockeys reported things levitating, ghostly sounds, all sorts of weird stuff. The FCC even agreed, due to the mountains spur-rounding the valley, to give it more power. That’s about a six-hundred-foot antenna out there . . .”

  Watts paused and faced the group. “The antenna?”

  “It certainly could play a part in this matter,” Megan said. “Where is the antenna located?”

  Watts smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile. “It’
s located up near the old ghost town of Thunder.”

  Howie turned as the computer keys clattered. One word was printed on the screen.

  Bingo!

  Martin Tobias and Larry Adams sat in the motel room and reviewed everything they had found in their car. Neither man had spoken for over an hour. Finally, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes, Martin broke the silence. “Mind-boggling!”

  They then watched the dubs of the videotaping. Both closely inspected the young men called Sand and Joey. Martin backed the tape up several times. It was depressing. He did not like to see such obvious talent and intelligence-such as that possessed by Sand and Joey-go to waste.

  Martin was also slightly amused at the expressions on Larry’s face. Larry was from an old blueblood New England family; everything right by the book. In Larry’s upbringing, there was a correct way to do everything, and that is the way it must be done. One simply did not fly in the face of accepted mores.

  There was no place for rebels.

  And Sand was a rebel.

  Larry had been appalled by the method of fighting used by Sand’s Pack members.

  Larry’s idea of fighting-if one simply must engage in that barbarous practice-was to have seconds, put on the gloves, with a referee in the ring and refreshments ready when time was called, and fight like gentlemen.

  Sand’s method of fighting included no such niceties. Kick your enemy in the balls, and then stomp his damn face in was Sand’s philosophy.

  Larry finally rose from his chair and stretched. “How?” he asked. “Could such a person possibly meet with God’s approval?”

  Martin smiled. “Why, Larry! I thought you were an atheist?”

  “That’s assuming there is a God,” Larry quickly covered his verbal tracks.

  “Of course. Now, back to the business at hand; if we ever left it. Suggestions?”

  “What to tell the president?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think the president should call in our secretary of state, and the ambassadors from Canada, England, Mexico, and Russia, and level with them.”

  “Totally?”

  “Totally.”

  Martin nodded his head. “See that these computer printouts and video tapes are in the president’s hands today, Larry. Advise the motel manager that we are taking over this entire wing. Arrange for tight, very tight, security. I want a computer team in here fifteen minutes ago, with lines covering all bases, especially that boy’s computers. Go, Larry.”

  Larry paused at the door, a serious expression on his face. “You know when it’s really going to get interesting, Martin?”

  The older man waited.

  “When the preachers get word of this.”

  Martin suppressed a shudder. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. My God, they’ll be pouring in here by the busload.”

  “Yes. With many of them speaking in tongues and whooping and hollering and laying on of hands and snake-handling, and turning the entire matter into a carnival.”

  “Perhaps we could get one of them to heal the Fury?” Martin suggested with a straight face.

  Larry was startled for a moment. Then he smiled. “Of course, Martin. Surely we must ask.”

  Martin was on the phone to the president before the door had closed.

  “Look,” Hillary said, pointing to the TV. “Sand all bandaged up in bed.”

  “I thought we saw that yesterday?” Bos questioned. “I know we did.”

  “He’s asleep,” Pat said. “He’s dreaming.”

  “My God!” Leon breathed. “I can see the dream!”

  Sand was standing on the crest of a small hill overlooking a cemetery, watching a funeral service. Two graves had been dug, one smaller than the other. Rain ripped earthward in near blinding sheets, miniature silver shrouds from a blackened sky. A dog howled in the distance. Morg squatted about fifty yards behind Sand.

  “What is that . . . thing swirling around Sand?” Megan asked. “It’s almost human in form.”

  “Maybe that’s the Force Richard talked about,” Sunny said. “He said that when death is imminent, the Force is almost visible.”

  “And that the Force could probably stop the Fury,” Howie added, walking up to look at the screen.

  “Yes. But probably won’t this time.”

  The dream sequence faded. The TV screen darkened of its own volition.

  Watts shivered and wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

  “What’s the matter, Al?” Gordie asked.

  “I was at Robin’s funeral. And that,” he pointed to the TV set, “was exactly the way it was. Sand knew his destiny, and the destinies of his friends, long before they were played out. It’s eerie.”

  “Sit down, Al,” Dr. Anderson said. “You don’t look well.”

  Watts sat.

  “What Sand was telling us, Howie,” Megan said, “about the antenna on the mountain. Was he referring to the antenna – or the mountain?”

  “Or both?” Sunny added. “And why was Joey cut off the way he was? Did the Fury do it?”

  “No,” the boy replied. “I think a much higher power did that.”

  “God?” Jackson asked. The boy shrugged.

  “Perhaps there are some things they – Sand and the others – are not permitted to divulge,” Megan offered.

  “That would be my guess,” the boy said. “Sand and the others, those that followed him, were chance-takers, so I’ve concluded. They tried to go over the limits placed on them—where they are—and got caught.” The keys to a computer rattled. Howie ran to the computer room, the others behind him.

  The words on Sand’s screen read: You are correct in your assumption. We do have limits.

  Howie typed: Can you help us further?

  Perhaps.

  How are you monitored?

  The screen was wordless for a few seconds, then: That would be unexplainable to you. But does an eagle understand the winds that sigh around the mountain and any object that might be there?

  Howie laughed. “He’s still taking chances. It’s both the mountain and the antenna.” He typed: What is the Fury doing?

  Resting. Its strength was taxed by the enlarging of territory.

  Watts said, “Ask him if Robin and Tuddie and Jane are there with him?”

  Yes, the word flashed on the screen. All as well as could be expected. Forever. Talk to you later.

  Megan shuddered. “The endless enormity of it all is unnerving.”

  “Yes,” Watts said. “Those were my thoughts, too.”

  “At least we know there is life after death,” Bos said.

  “And we’re much closer to experiencing it than I would prefer to be,” Gordie added.

  Chapter Five

  The motel had filled up rapidly, with reporters taking one entire wing and government personnel taking another wing. It made the motel manager very happy when he discovered his motel would be filled to capacity indefinitely.

  It made him nervous when dark-suited men with suspicious bulges in their jackets started filling up rooms on the government side of the building.

  “FBI?” he asked one man.

  The man smiled. “If that’s what you want me to be.”

  “Secret Service?”

  “If it makes you happy.”

  “Forget I asked.”

  Martin Tobias walked to the newly set up computer room. “Have you established a link with the boy yet?”

  “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

  “Contact him.”

  Howie read the simple message and typed: You may be free and open with your messages. The Fury does not understand computers. It has absolutely no understanding of the concept.

  “This is a ten-year-old boy?” the computer operator asked.

  “So I’m told. Ask him how things went last night.”

  It was very quiet. Sand says the Fury is very tired and probably won’t regain its full strength for another ten to twelve hours.

  “Who i
s Sand, Mister Tobias?”

  “A dead man. Been dead for thirty years. He’s directing operations from the other side of the grave.”

  The computer expert from NSA twisted in his chair and stared at the chief of staff for a long moment. “Are you sure this isn’t a CIA operation?”

  “Positive. Ask the boy if they need anything.”

  Out, Howie typed.

  Martin smiled. “That’s a very brave little boy in there, Hank. Tell him we’re trying.”

  The teletype in the room began clattering. Martin walked over to it and read, a grimace on his face.

  “Trouble?” Hank asked.

  “In a manner of speaking. Willowdale was the lead story on every network’s morning news program.”

  “We’re in for it now.”

  WHERE IS MY SWEET CHICKIE BABY?

  “If you’re referring to Sunny, she’s resting,” Gordie said.

  GET HER ASS UP. I WISH TO CONTINUE WITH MY LIFE STORY.

  “Your wish is my command, your majesty.”

  SARCASTIC SPIC. I DON’T KNOW WHY I CONTINUE PUTTING UP WITH YOU.

  “Perhaps it’s because you’re really very fond of me?”

  Gordie was slapped out of his chair by an invisible hand. With the taste of blood in his mouth, he stared up into the air.

  THAT’S HOW FOND I AM OF YOU, MUCHACHO. NOW GET ON YOUR DONKEY AND GET SUNNY OUT HERE.

  “I’m here,” Sunny said. “Am I going to be bothered walking up the street to the newspaper office?”

  OF COURSE NOT. NOT AS LONG AS YOU DON’T DISPLEASE ME.

  It had been Sunny’s idea to use the newspaper offices for further interviews with Fury. The being had not objected to the change in locale. It had said that was a good idea, since it preferred being alone with Sunny.

  Sunny walked through the litter toward the newspaper offices, one block away. Bodies lay bloated in the street. Jill and Dean walked with her. All of them carried small tape recorders and notepads. And all of them tried to ignore the sights and smells of the dead.

  “We’re clear,” Howie called.

  Gordie thanked him and looked over at Watts. Watts waggled a finger at him, and Gordie walked over.