by Jon S. Lewis
Pierce turned his head to look at Colt, and the Thule’s tail wrapped around his rifle before it ripped it out of Pierce’s hands and flung it into the trees.
“I’m going to kill you!” Pierce pulled out his handgun as the alien morphed into a boy who couldn’t have been much older than eight years old.
“Please, mister. Don’t shoot me.”
As Jonas watched, his face contorted with rage. His skin bubbled like water on a stove. Bones cracked. His eyes turned gold and his teeth became pointed. His armor broke at the seams, falling away as his chest expanded and his shoulders widened. The boy they knew was gone and all that remained was a Thule.
Jonas threw his head back and screamed, the sound echoing across the frozen landscape as he charged at Pierce. His tail undulated and his hands flexed as he raised his arms to strike. Pierce fired his gun, but the bullets bounced off Jonas’s scaled hide as though they were nothing more than beanbags.
“I always knew you were a freak!”
Jonas knocked the gun from his hand and wrapped his fingers around Pierce’s neck. With a cry he lifted Pierce off the ground, his eyes filled with madness as Pierce kicked and scrapped, trying to break free.
“That’s just about enough of that.” A tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a brown jacket with a gold star stepped out from the tree line. His voice was calm, but he was carrying a shotgun with blue sparks dancing across the barrel like miniature bolts of lightning.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Jonas.”
As Jonas turned to look at the man, his top lip curled back in a snarl. “But, Sheriff, he was going to kill Ezekiel.”
“He didn’t, though, so why don’t you do as I say? Put the boy down and let’s talk.”
“Jonas . . . is that you?” A second man emerged from the shadows, this one short and heavyset.
“Dad?”
: :
CHAPTER 33 : :
Sheriff Sutherland didn’t say a word as he drove through the winding country roads that led to the heart of Sanctuary, West Virginia.
According to the clock on the dashboard, it was just after 2:00 a.m. Colt sat in the back of the squad car with Danielle while a trail of sheriff ‘s deputies followed with the rest of Phantom Squad, including Jonas, who had transformed back into his human form. He’d wanted to drive into town with his dad, but the sheriff wouldn’t allow it.
Danielle’s eyes were dilated, her breathing shallow, and she was biting her fingernails.
“It’s going to be okay,” Colt said as he reached over and took her hand, but when he saw the sheriff staring back at them in the rearview mirror, he wasn’t sure.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
They drove over a bridge that spanned a wide river where the water rushed over rocks before it disappeared around the bend. Trees with naked branches sprouted from the banks, and in the distance they could see a church steeple silhouetted against the half moon. They passed an elementary school and then a park. Joe’s Bait Shop. Dairy Queen. A water tower. Everything seemed so normal.
Main Street boasted a barbershop and a diner, Sears Roebuck Co., a bank, and a Sinclair station on the corner. Sheriff Sutherland parked in front of the courthouse, where a stout man in a black overcoat and matching fedora stood at the base of the steps. His cheeks were round and red, and if he’d had a white beard and mustache, he would have been the perfect Santa Claus.
“How do you do?” he said after Sheriff Sutherland opened the back door. “I hear that you’re the young man in charge of this operation. Cadet McAlister, is it?”
Colt nodded.
“Excellent. I’m Martin Luther Cross, mayor of Sanctuary, and I believe you’ve met our fine sheriff, Orville Sutherland.”
“Yes, sir.” Colt accepted his hand, but he was confused by the reception. If the people of Sanctuary didn’t like visitors, why was he being so kind? Was he trying to keep Colt off guard, or had Jonas overreacted?
The mayor shook his hand vigorously. “I don’t mind telling you that Sanctuary doesn’t get too many visitors, particularly at this time of day. But I’ve asked Ethel to open up the diner and make us a pot of coffee and warm up some of that homemade apple cobbler. My wife has me on a bit of a diet,” he said, patting his ample belly, “but I think it might help calm our nerves. What do you say?”
“I appreciate the offer, but we need to get back,” Colt said.
“Well, here’s the thing about that,” Mayor Cross said. He placed his arm around Colt’s shoulder as though the two had known each other for years. “I’m afraid folks around here are a bit worked up. Now typically when someone stumbles upon our little town, we’re able to point him in the right direction before any harm is done. But I’m afraid you and your friends have learned a bit more than what makes us comfortable, if you catch my meaning.”
He started to guide Colt toward the Blue Moon Diner across the street, but when Oz tried to follow, the sheriff blocked his path.
“You don’t want to do that,” Oz said. “Two arms or six, I’ll break ’em all just the same.”
“Is that so?” Sheriff Sutherland smiled in a way that made it look like he hoped Oz would try.
“I’ll be fine,” Colt said to Oz. “Just make sure Pierce doesn’t do anything stupid.”
: :
CHAPTER 34 : :
The Blue Moon Diner wasn’t very big. There were six booths, three on either side, and a counter where four more people could sit, read the paper, and drink a cup of coffee with their cobbler. The Penguins were singing “Earth Angel” in the background while a woman with gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses poured coffee into two porcelain cups.
“Sit anywhere,” she said as she placed the coffee back on the burner and wiped her hands on her crisp white apron.
“Thank you, Ethel,” Mayor Cross said. He removed his hat and coat and looked around the room as though he was surveying his options. Colt wanted him to pick something in the back of the diner, away from prying eyes, but the mayor slid into the booth next to the front window. “How is this?” he said as he threw his tie over his shoulder.
“Fine, thanks.” Colt felt the eyes of the townspeople boring into him as he took his seat across from the mayor. Everything had happened so fast, and now he found himself wondering if he should have listened to Oz and reported the randoms right away.
“Here you are,” Ethel said as she gave each of them a cup of coffee and a heaping plate of apple cobbler. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe some vanilla ice cream to go with it?”
“That sister of yours is going to be upset enough that I’m eating the cobbler, particularly at this time of night. Or morning, whatever it is,” Mayor Cross said with a wave of his hand. “I better skip the à la mode.”
“What about you, young man?”
“No, thank you,” Colt said.
“Well, if you need anything, just holler. I’ll be in the back making biscuits.”
“Will do,” the mayor said, not wasting any time as he dug his fork through the crumble of brown sugar, oats, and butter and into the soft apple filling. “Wait until you taste it,” he said as he chewed. “It’s heaven on a plate.” He took another bite and licked a crumb from his lip before he dabbed at his cheek with a napkin.
“Now,” he said before taking a sip of coffee. “Let’s get the hard part out of the way, shall we?”
“Sure.”
“As you can see, Sanctuary isn’t your average town,” Mayor Cross said. “We’re what you might call a social experiment. You see, the Thule of this town represent a segment of our society who believe in peace and harmony. So when our brothers joined forces with Hitler’s Nazis back in the thirties, we fled Germany and settled in the United States.”
“You’ve been living here since World War II?”
“Yes,” the mayor said. “But there have been Thule on your planet for centuries.” He waved his hand. “But that’s not the point. What you need to know is that we’re what you would call a secret society
, and we protect that secrecy vigorously.”
Colt stopped midbite, knowing full well that the mayor was threatening him. “We don’t want to give away your secret. It’s just that we think we’ve found the spot where the Thule plan to open their gateway.”
“Yes, Jonas told me a bit about that,” Mayor Cross said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fascinating, but I’m afraid he’s mistaken.”
“He said the tests verified his research. If the Thule are going to use Sanctuary as the launching point for their attack, there’s a good chance everyone who lives here is going to die.”
“So what would you have us do? Leave our homes and try to live among people who revile us? Who would rather have us dead?”
Colt could smell the sadness on the man. It was so different from the rage that he sensed with the warrior Thule. The mayor was a person just like him, or like Glyph or Lohr. Sure, he took a different shape, but it was obvious that he cared about the people he served.
“Jonas said you have a portal that leads back to Gathmara.”
The mayor nodded. “We convert thermal energy from a hydroelectric power plant to keep it open. In fact, Jonas’s father—Dr. Hickman—designed the plant himself.”
“You need to shut it down.”
The mayor stopped before he took another bite of his cobbler, his jaw slack and his brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
“The Thule—well, the bad ones, anyway—they’re going to use it to power their gateway.”
“Even if that was true, I’m afraid I can’t make that decision alone.” Mayor Cross took a last bite of his cobbler before he dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “The entire town will have to vote, and I don’t see that happening until tonight at the earliest.”
“But—”
The mayor raised his hand to cut Colt off. “The question is what to do with you and your friends between now and then.” He sighed. “Now I can tell you that the sheriff will want to lock you up, but I think that might be a touch drastic, especially since there’s more than enough room out at the Hickman place. As long as I have your word that you’ll behave yourselves, I don’t see why you couldn’t stay there.”
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CHAPTER 35 : :
Mrs. Hickman was standing on the front porch when the squad cars pulled into her driveway at four in the morning. She was wearing her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, and her hair was rolled up in curlers. She ran down the steps to greet her son.
“Mom, stop!” Jonas tried to wriggle free from her bear hug as she kissed his forehead and cheeks.
“Let me look at you,” she said as she held him at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Where’s your father?”
Jonas shrugged. “I think he went to work, but I’m not sure.”
“And you’re not hurt?”
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“Oh, pishposh,” she said, waving her arms. “Now the lot of you need to get inside before you catch cold. Go on now.”
She ushered them into the dining room where there was enough bacon, eggs, and pancakes for everyone to have seconds and even thirds.
“We just want to go to bed,” Jonas said.
“Not until you’ve eaten something,” Mrs. Hickman insisted. She filled each of their glasses with freshly squeezed orange juice and heaped food onto their plates. “Eat up now. All of you.”
They ate in relative silence, each of them too tired to argue and too nervous to sleep, knowing that both Jonas and Mrs. Hickman were actually Thule. Colt could tell Jonas was nervous since he refused to look anybody in the eye, and Pierce spent most of the meal scowling at him from across the table.
When they were finished, Danielle started to clear the plates, but Mrs. Hickman took them out of her hands.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You’re our guests. And besides, you must be exhausted after all you’ve been through. Jonas, why don’t you give your friends a tour? We have plenty of beds if anyone wants to take a nap before the vote tonight.”
“Nobody wants a tour,” Jonas said.
“Go on now,” Mrs. Hickman said. “Just do as I say and then you can sleep.”
“Fine.” Jonas rolled his eyes before he led them through the house, showing them the unfinished basement, the main living area, and the second floor, where there were three bedrooms and an office. “Sorry, but I’m not allowed to go in there,” he said as he shut the door—but not before Colt spotted a plaque that declared that Dr. Zachariah Hickman was a member of the Tesla Society.
There was another flight of stairs that took them up to an attic that had been converted into a media room, complete with a sixty-inch television, surround-sound speakers, a mini-fridge stocked with soda, an old couch, and some beanbag chairs.
“You got any video games?” Grey asked.
“Don’t you want to sleep?”
Grey shrugged. “Maybe later.”
“Help yourself.” Jonas walked over and opened a cabinet that had row after row of titles to choose from, on three different gaming systems.
“If I had a room like this, I’d never leave my house,” Grey said as he grabbed Zombie Exterminator 3 off the shelf. “Anyone want to kill some undead?”
“I’m in!” Ethan plopped down on a beanbag chair.
Stacy shrugged. “It’s not like there’s anything else to do.”
“We got room for one more,” Grey said.
“You’re kidding, right?” Pierce said. “You’re going to sit around here and kill zombies while we’re trapped in a town full of Thule?” He turned to Colt. “You’re our squad leader. Don’t you have a plan or something?”
“Take a look out the window,” Colt said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just do it.”
Pierce walked over and peered through slats in the blinds. An unmarked sedan was parked on the gravel beneath a streetlamp, and even though it was partially hidden behind a tree, he could see two figures sitting inside, one with a set of binoculars and the other smoking a cigarette. “Who are they?”
“Deputies,” Colt said. “They’re here to make sure we don’t wander off.”
“So what?” Pierce said. “We can’t just sit here.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“How about I get some sleep while you guys take first watch,” Oz said as he stretched out on a beanbag chair.
“Danielle told me that when Koenig tried to open a gateway at the Trident Biotech facilities back in Arizona, you used a computer virus to shut it down,” Jonas said. “What if I could get inside the server room at the power plant? Do you think you could do it again?”
: :
CHAPTER 36 : :
They waited until after lunch to put their plan in motion.
Jonas was nervous as he drove up to the guard gate at the hydroelectric power plant, but when the security guard saw who it was, he smiled and waved him through. Getting through the front door was just as easy.
“How long are you in town for?” the guard whose nameplate read M. Kunkel asked.