“You goddamn right I disapprove of it.”
“It was not the CIA’s idea, Mr. President,” the man from State said. “It was mine.”
“May we have some coffee, sir?” the Chairman of the JC’s asked.
“Of course, you can. Ring for it.”
The president sat in silence until the men and women were served coffee and the room was secure. “Why?” John Marshall asked the group. “Why must we lie to the people?”
“To retain the status quo,” the Speaker of the House said.
“Now, what the hell does that mean?” the president snapped.
“If I may be so bold,” the DCI said. “I think it means that there are many more ignorant people in the world than there are intelligent ones. I personally think the plan is a good one because our computers – since the Secretary informed me of this plan – have shown that the majority of the world’s population simply would not, or could not, cope with this knowledge should it be made public.”
“It would be even better if there were no survivors,” a man spoke from just outside the main group seated around the president.
John Marshall looked at the man. The President of the United States said, “Fuck you.”
“It was just a thought.”
“Not a very good one,” the president said. He cut his eyes to the secretary of state. “All right, tell me what the leaders of the countries we have brought into this matter think about your plan, and don’t hand me any crap about your not having spoken with them about it.”
“They agree with it,” he said simply. “It was unanimous, John.”
The president exhaled softly. “We’ll have a problem with that fool governor out in Colorado.”
“No, we won’t,” the speaker assured him.
“There is a little matter of a deal we made with a dead man.”
“Saunders,” the attorney general. “I can clear his name without those tapes being made public.”
John Marshall said, “Lies, deceit, half-truths.”
“The economy would collapse, John,” the secretary said.
“What?”
“People would stop smoking, drinking, behaving frivolously. They would stop spending money on hundreds of items – some of them big ticket. Think about it, John. With the absolute fact that a hereafter existed, with heaven and hell proven to be real, there wouldn’t be a sinner left in the world . . .”
“Oh, bullshit!” the president said. “That’s all crap and conjecture. I’m a Christian; I just said bullshit. I told that asshole,” he pointed to the man who opted for no survivors from Willowdale, “to get fucked. I know now that heaven and hell are real. I still plan on taking a drink before dinner and swearing when I get mad. What’s the matter with you people?”
“John, you’re a very educated man. A reasonable, rational man. The majority of the people even in heavily industrialized nations are not that well educated, or informed. If you think the great unwashed is a thing of the past, you’re badly mistaken.”
The president looked at his watch. “The balloon goes up in about fifty minutes. You gentlemen better be a hell of a lot more convincing during that time than you have been so far.”
The director of the FBI took a thick computer printout from his brief case. “I think we will be, Mr. President.”
“All communications with the town are now down,” Martin Tobias was informed. “They’re on their own in there.”
Martin glanced at the luminous hands of his watch. “Thirty minutes to drop. The Fury?”
“Still on the mountain.”
“Let’s get out of here. Tell the gawkers and preachers and the press we’re backing up another mile.”
The order was given to security, and the troops began clearing the area.
“Sir,” Larry said.
Martin turned to face the younger man. He held a communique in his hands. His face was tight. “Yes, Larry?”
“Everything’s been changed, sir. Orders of the president.” He handed Martin the directive.
Martin read, a look of displeasure moving across his face. He resisted an impulse to rip the paper to shreds. “It won’t work,” he finally said, carefully folding the paper and slipping it into an inside pocket of his jacket. “I understand why they’re doing it, but it won’t work.”
“I don’t understand it at all,” Larry admitted.
“Many things, son. The president’s inner circle – of which I am a part, unconsulted on this matter, however – don’t want the preachers of the world to have any more power than they already wield. If all this,” he waved a hand toward Willowdale, “were to be made public – i.e., that is to say if the truth were told and the tapes made public – it would prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God and heaven and hell really exist. The preachers would run the world. Ours is an hedonistic society, Larry. All that would change, and the economy couldn’t take such an abrupt blow. Hundreds of thousands of people could conceivably be thrown out of work. And that’s just in the United States. The impact worldwide would be staggering. See what I’m getting at, Larry?”
“I think so, sir. Preachers are very powerful and persuasive. Instead of money going toward personal pleasures, it would instead flow into the coffers of the churches. Theoretically, places like Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, to name a few, would be ghost towns. The beer, wine, and liquor industry could, again theoretically, be wiped out. People would rededicate their lives to Christ, and instead of using their money to see movies, sporting events, buying nonessential big ticket items, they would give their money to the churches, to charities . . .” he trailed that off. “But, sir, if that were to happen, that would be good. It would help the homeless, the elderly, the sick, the abandoned, the environment, the animals.”
Martin’s smile was a sad one. “But big government doesn’t work that way, son. If there was peace on earth, what would happen to the millions and millions of men and women making a living in the armed forces? The men and women who earn their living in the defense industry? If all nations were at peace, the unemployment rate would bury the nation. Not just this nation, but all around the world.”
“But, sir, if we do this thing, we’re going to be lying to God!”
“Cling to the faint hope that God will understand, and is truly a forgiving God.”
Gordie checked his watch, then lifted his walkie-talkie. “Now!” he said.
Maj. Jackson began detonating the explosives he and his team had planted around the town. Gordie and the others began lighting fires. In minutes, the entire town was covered in thick, black smoke.
The Fury swirled about, screaming. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? WHAT IS TAKING PLACE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU GODDAMNED GREASEBALL?
“It’s working!” Howie said, taking one last look at his computer screens. “The Fury can’t see through the smoke. It can’t see through the smoke!”
Dean literally jerked the boy out of his chair and shoved him out the back door, Sunny and Angel and a few others ahead of them. They made it outside the building, just seconds before it exploded as the Fury unleashed its rage.
Watts lifted a bullhorn to his lips. “Over here, you pompous son of a bitch!” he shouted.
On the other side of town, Mack lifted a bullhorn and shouted, “No, over here, you great big ball of shit!”
The plane carrying the neutron bomb was right on schedule, minutes away from the target.
The Fury howled in rage, flashing its mass from one end of the town to the other. Maj. Jackson and his people were throwing smoke grenades, as fast as they could pull the pins and hurl them.
All began moving toward the alleyway and the door.
All except Mack and Al Watts.
Capt. John Hishon ran across the street, momentarily exposing himself in a area that was thin with smoke.
All that was left of the captain were the soles of his boots, blackened spots on the concrete.
A deputy ran from a burning house, and the Fury spotted her. She
was ripped apart, arms and legs torn from her torso and flung hundreds of yards. She mercifully passed out moments before death took her, silencing the screaming.
The sheriffs secretary broke under the strain and ran hollering down the middle of the street, stumbling and screaming and crying through the smoke. She was picked up and hurled into the air. She impacted against the water tower. She oozed down the outside of one leg of the tower.
Beyond the barricades, many of the reporters refused to leave.
“What’s going on in there?” the bureau chiefs from the West Coast yelled to a soldier running for the trucks. “By God, somebody better give me some answers.”
A minicam operator handed his camera to Andy. “Here,” he said. “Stick this up your ass, and see what kind of pictures you get. I’m leaving.”
“You’re fired, you bastard.”
“But I’ll be alive.”
The cameraman jumped onto the bed of an army truck and left the area.
About half of the reporters left. Many, seeing the barricades unguarded, pushed them aside and entered the up-to-now restricted area. They ran toward the smoke.
They ran into hell.
Preacher Willie Magee and Sister Adele put their feet to work and managed to reach their car, pulling into position behind an army truck.
Preacher Harold Jewelweed, a snake in each hand, ran toward the town. When he passed the city limits sign, the snakes were torn from his grasp and shoved down his throat. He died very unpleasantly.
Preacher Silas Marrner missed the last truck and was loping up the road . . . away from town. “Come on, feet, do your stuff!” he hollered, pulling up to the bed of a truck.
“Give me your hand,” a soldier yelled at him, holding out a helping hand.
“Are you saved, brother?” Silas yelled.
“Do you want your silly ass out of here?” the soldier questioned.
Silas grabbed the hand and was pulled aboard.
Several of the reporters realized that they had made a serious blunder by running toward the town. They tried to turn back. They ran into an invisible wall. No matter where they turned, trying to escape, they found they were trapped.
They looked up, hope springing in them as Al Watts and Mack walked up. “Can you get us out of here?” one asked.
“Not a chance,” Watts told him.
FOUND YOU, YOU GODDAMNED OLD MEDDLESOME COPS.
Watts and Mack ducked back into the smoke and disappeared.
“Who are you?” a reporter screamed the question.
MY MY. WHAT HAVE WE HERE?
“We’re members of the press,” a woman said, her voice very shaky.
DO YOU LIKE MUSIC FROM THE FIFTIES?
“What?” she asked.
TRY THIS: DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.
“What are you, some kind of a nut?” she asked.
She melted in front of the others.
They went running and screaming into the smoke.
“Step in here,” the voice came out of a shimmering mist in the alley. “Do it. Step in here. Quickly.”
Taking a deep breath, Dean grabbed Howie’s hand and stepped into the mist, Sunny and Angel right behind them.
The head of a deputy – mouth open in a silent scream – bounced off a wall and fell with a wet smack onto the dirty alley floor.
Lt. Kathy Smith, Sgt. Maj. Christensen, Sgt. Dixon, and Sgt. Preston stepped into the mist and vanished.
Maj. Claude Jackson tossed one too many smoke grenades. The Fury found him and tore him apart, scattering his guts up and down Main Street and sticking his head atop a light pole.
Megan LeMasters stepped into the mist.
“Where’s Gordie?” Bergman yelled at his partner.
“Right behind you. Come on.”
The two state investigators stepped through the mist and into the door, followed by the college kids and Robin and Ricky.
Lee Evans grabbed Jill Pierce by the hand, and together they disappeared into the mist.
Two deputies, Alan Hibler and Duane Hunt, dragging the two badly frightened convicts, walked through the mist.
Gordie looked at his watch. They were running late. The bomber would be dropping its payload in three minutes.
“I’m not going into the unknown!” Dr. Shriver shouted. “No. I won’t.”
He turned and ran into the street.
“Come back here, you fool!” Anderson yelled, as he pushed two nurses into the mist.
“Hurry!” Sand’s voice sprang out of the world beyond. “The door is about to close.”
Anderson and Gordie stepped through, just as Shriver was spun around like a mad top in the middle of the street. The doctor was picked up and hurled through a department store window; hurled all the way through the store, exiting out the back door, headless, his torso dripping blood.
“Over target in one minute,” the navigator radioed the pilot of the bomber.
The bomb bay doors were opened.
Al Watts and Mack stood in the center of the smoky main street, each with an arm around the others’ shoulders. They began singing.
“Onward Christian Soldiers! Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus, Going on before. Christ, the royal master, Leads against the foe . . .”
“Bomb is clear,” the navigator radioed. “Let’s get out of here.”
“... Forward into battle . . .”
SHUT UP, YOU GODDAMN BASTARDS!
“... See his banners go!”
I’LL MAKE YOU BOTH MY SLAVES AND TORTURE YOU TO DEATH. I PROMISE YOU IT’LL TAKE CENTURIES.
“Like a mighty army, Moves the Church of God . . .”
STOP THAT SINGING. I COMMAND YOU BOTH TO STOP THAT DRIVEL.
“. . . Brothers we are treading, Where the Saints have trod . . .”
DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.
“We are not divided, All one body we, All in hope and – ”
The explosion tore the tops off of mountains twenty miles away. Fire leaped into the sky so high that residents of Denver, seventy-five miles away, could clearly see the flames. Thunder Mountain exploded, sending huge boulders flying for several miles in all directions. The electrical storm that followed the merging of the two energy masses knocked out power for fifty miles.
The lightning storm that came seconds after the twin explosions was unmatched by anything ever seen by human eyes. Pilots as far south as New Mexico, as far north as Wyoming, as far west as Utah, and as far east as Kansas – who had been bitching about being grounded without explanation – stood in awe and wonder, their mouths open, and watched the lightning that ripped the skies.
The mountains trembled, and avalanches rumbled down both sides of the mountains surrounding the valley of fire.
“Holy Mother of God,” Martin Tobias muttered. He could feel the heat from the blasts from his position more than thirty miles from the site.
Larry Adams, avowed nonbeliever, fell to his knees and began praying. Not for any worldly possessions, but for the strength to hold onto God now that he had found Him.
Where Willowdale had once been, there was a very large hole in the ground, more than five hundred feet deep and over one mile across. At the bottom of the hole, objects were moving about, beginning their climb upward and out.
THE DOOR
The light on the path was so bright, it hurt the eyes of those who had entered through the door. On both sides of the path, objects staggered about in a swirling gray fog. Millions of voices babbled in a thousand dead languages.
Sand stood at the head of the column and counted.
“Uncle Sand!” Robin called from the rear of the column.
He smiled and waved to her.
“Where are mother and daddy?” she called. “Ahead of us, baby Guarding the door with some others. Come on, people. Remember, don’t leave the path.”
They began their walk, the sparkling mist that was Sand leading them.
Fingers that looked like sparklers jabbed out of the fog a
nd plucked at the sleeves of those who walked on the path.
“What . . . who are these people?” Bos called.
“Lost souls,” Sand told him. “Don’t be afraid. They can’t hurt you. They gather every time the door opens, even though they know they can’t get out.”
“Can they enter the path?” Howie called.
“No. That is forbidden.”
“Where are they?” Angel yelled to be heard over the enormous din of voices.
“At a very low level.”
“Hell?” one of the convicts yelled.
“No.”
“Then that’s for me,” the second con yelled. Both jumped off the path, into the swirling fog.
Their screaming was a hideous thing to hear.
“It doesn’t work that way, partner,” Sand said, looking to his right.
The screaming of the cons faded away.
“Where are they, Sand?” Jill asked the sparkling mass at the head of the column.
“Ten billion miles in space, spinning through galaxies and past worlds that no human eye has ever seen, or ever will see.”
“Dead?” Dean asked.
“No. You can’t die in here. You live forever. They will spin for all eternity.”
“That makes my head hurt, just thinking about it,” Angel said.
“That’s right, Angel. This is no place to make a mistake.”
“How long is this path?” Hillary called.
“In my world, thousands of miles. In your world, and you are still a part of that, not far.”
“What has happened back . . . in our world?” Kathy Smith asked.
“Willowdale is no more. But the merging of the energy masses has left some rather unpleasant visitors behind, I’m afraid. You were right, Howie.”
“Can you tell me what they are, and where they came from?” Gordie asked.
“No. I am not permitted to do that.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“If the door has not moved, and you don’t get deposited in the middle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.”
Martin had asked for, and was receiving, a division of troops from Texas. They had touched down in Colorado just moments before the bomb was dropped.
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