"That'll go away, too, and shouldn't ever come back." She sighed. "I guess if we can heat a little water we can wash ourselves off but I didn't bring but one set of bedding. I figured it was only a couple of days. Best we can do I guess is wash 'em in the sink when my head slows down. They'll still look awful but at least they can be used."
By the early afternoon both were feeling much better, although the after-effects lingered on in upset stomachs and generally feeling drained. Sam, perhaps because she'd cleared her stomach, seemed to get over it faster than Charley, much to Charley's chagrin, although the mental effects of the binge were dwelling inside the fugitive.
"So what do I do now? Go to San Francisco or Greenwich Village or somethin'?" Sam muttered unhappily. "'Cept I don't wanna go to any of them places."
"Oh, come on, Sam. Like, you never even tried it with a boy. Hell, I been pretty straight lately myself but I'm no saint. I got all sorts of urges and attractions and most of 'em I don't let out unless I'm high or drunk or whatever, but some I do. Don't you see? That's what's happened to you. You been so scared of letting go, lettin' your hair down when you had it and, well, sinning a little. You're scared you won't be the Virgin Mary and you're not. Nobody is. You're almost scared of makin' friends or gettin' into a little hell raisin' and that's got it all bottled up inside. I don't know if you really swing that way exclusive or not and I don't think you do, neither. You don't have the experience yet to know."
Sam sighed. "I always felt I should'a been a boy, that somebody screwed up someplace. I never felt comfortable around boys 'cept my dad, of course. Even my voice wasn't no girl's voice. But when I was naked in front of that store window I kinda liked what I saw mere, too. Fact was, for the first time in my life I liked me as I was, if that don't sound crazy."
Charley shook her head. "I understand."
"But it didn't change nothin'. I still felt the same towards you, and when you not only didn't turn me in but picked me up and went to all this trouble it was like, well, you felt somethin' for me, too. And since we been together I felt, well, safe."
Charley hesitantly chewed on her lower Up, thinking hard, then said, "And you don't see the connection? It's been buildin' up inside you and it scared you, that's all. When I went away for the whole weekend leavin' you alone around the house you had your shadow man. When you looked at yourself in the mall and turned yourself on you got panicky and had another dream. I bet almost all of 'em happened after something stuck in your mind about your own feelings or me. And since we been together there's been nothin'. Don't you see, Sam? Them dreams, them voices, they're not real. They come for you when you get hung up and feelin' guilty and all. They're in your head, that's all. They're scarier even than what you're really 'fraid of so you don't think about that no more."
Sam thought it over. "They're so real. And the thunderstorms-they're real, too. Thunderstorms at high altitude here in the middle of winter."
"Yeah, I guess the storms are real, but they're real with you or without you. It's not like they never happened before-I heard the weather guy on the radio. Come on, Sam! Lotsa folks are scared by things that don't make no sense. Me, I'm terrified of spiders and I ain't too fond of tall buildings, neither, even when I'm inside 'em. You step on spiders and leave 'em outside to catch flies and I bet back in Boston you went in lots of tall buildings and never thought 'bout it. You got thunderstorms which I always thought were kinda neat and exciting so long as you was lookin' at 'em from inside someplace. You just put your storms and your fears together and it still wasn't enough. Your shadow man didn't come durin' no thunderstorm, did he?"
For the first time there was a glimmer of doubt in Sam's mind. "You really think so? That this was all for nothin'? But everything was so real."
"I guess it can be. But it's out in the open now, at least between the two of us, and I don't care. You told me and showed me and I didn't run screamin' away or nothin'. Look, you go home, you see a shrink. Your mom's into all that liberal cause shit; you'll wind up gettin' one that'll say just what I'm sayin', I'll bet you. We won't tell anybody else about it." She was thinking furiously now. She'd hooked the fish and didn't want to let it slip away. "Maybe we'll go off to college together. How's that sound? We'll room together and raise a little hell ourselves."
"But you hate the idea of college!"
"Well, like maybe I can stand it with a good friend, huh? It'll freak out our parents but they'll love it. Come on-what do you say?"
Sam thought hard about it. "I really want to believe it, Charley. But what if I go back and it all starts again anyway? They'll get me sure, mthen, and you better believe I'll be grounded for months."
"And if you don't? Where you gonna run, Sam? Sure, you look and can act like a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy, but ten years from now you're still gonna look fifteen or sixteen. Nobody'll hire a kid that young with no ID, no background, no experience, no family. Nobody you could ever trust workin' for, anyways. You can't even get a job for the minimum at MacDonalds, for Christ's sake, without a Social Security card, home address, parental permission, you name it. Only thing you could do would be to turn yourself back into a girl with everything hangin' out and sell yourself."
"I-I couldn't do that."
"You get hungry enough or fall into the wrong hands and you damn well will, or you'll die-and what's the difference if your shadow man kills you or you freeze to death hitchin' or starve to death in Denver? Hell, you can't even drive. There's bastards out there pickin' up boys for the last ride, you know, and if they find out you're a girl they'll find your body in a ditch someplace years from now if ever."
"But what if my dreams are real?"
"They're not, damn it, but real or not they'll follow you and you know it. You don't face it, it'll get you. I can just see you hitchin' on some warm day in the middle of nowhere when t thunderstorm comes up. There you face it alone. Back we face it together."
"Charley, I-I really want to believe you but I have to know. Before I can go back, I just have to."
Charley looked out the window. It was a clear sky, only a few high wispy clouds, but the winter sun was coming close to the horizon. "Then let's face them now, huh? All night if necessary, or until we freeze our tits off. Together."
Sam looked suddenly nervous as Charley pulled on designer jeans, a lavender cashmere sweater, her calf-length boots with high, thick heels, then got her fur coat. "Put on your boots, coat, and hat and we'll see just how nasty this all is. If they're so hot to find you, then they should accept a call."
"What?"
"If you love me, or think you love me, then you'll do it. For me."
"But-what if they come?"
Charley sighed. "Well, if you can conjure up a storm it'll show there's some ESP or that kind of stuff and if you can do it here you sure as hell can convince other folks. Besides, didn't you tell me that you thought you sent it away from the mall? If anything really shows up, push it back."
She didn't really believe any of this, but clearly Sam did. It was better to play the game out.
"Come on," said Charley. "Prove to me that you can screw up this pretty day."
They walked down the dirt road until they cleared the trees, Charley leading. She wanted as unobstructed a view of the sky as possible, convinced that there was no way to imagine storms or demons in a sky like this. There was a chill in the air but it wasn't unbearable, partly because there was almost a dead calm; the sky pale blue with only those high, thin, wispy clouds and nothing else visible as far as they could see.
"Here. This is far enough," Charley said firmly. She stopped and looked around. "Well, I don't see no shadow man and I don't see no storm clouds. If you can conjure up anything in the here and now then you got a hell of a power."
Sam looked uncomfortable, feeling vulnerable, but she was unable to back out at this point. "So what do you want me to do?"
"Call 'em. Just look up in the sky or towards the horizon and just sort of like think them to come. Just tell 'em, 'H
ere's Sam Buell! If you want me come and get me!' Do it over and over for a few minutes and see if anything develops. Either it works or it don't. If it don't you're home free."
Sam looked up at the very pale sky with perhaps no more than an hour's light left in it. She had real problems with this because she was not at all convinced that it was all in her head, but, damn it, Charley was right She had to know, and this time ' somebody else was watching, too.
She stared at the clouds, took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and thought, hard, Who are you? What do you want with me? I'm sick of naming from you! If you want me come here, now, and have it out, or get away forever and let me alone!
She tensed, then after a few moments opened her eyes. It all looked the same. Nothing had changed. She felt, suddenly, very emotional, even angry, and tears welted up inside her. "You bastards!" she screamed at the sky. "You storms and shadow men! Come and get me! Now! Or the hell with you!"
Very slowly, the wind began to pick up. The temperature was certainly dropping, at least in wind chill, and what had felt pleasant at die start now began to feel pretty cold. Still, nothing else had changed and the wind was more natural than the calm had been.
"Come on," Charley muttered. "My fingers are turnin' blue. Let's get back up to the cabin and thaw out."
Sam nodded, and they started back up the road toward the cabin. "I dunno if I feel happy or sad," Sam muttered. "On the one hand, this proves nothin'. They always picked the time and nine out of ten times it was after dark. Only the shadow man was daytime, and he only scared the shit outta me, followin', waitin'-until dark, maybe. Still and all, it's lookin' more and more like I'm really a nut case and that don't 'zactly make me wanna shout 'Hallaluja.'"
"Yeah, well, it proves something, anyways. Look, we'll do one more night even if we have to sleep on them sheets. If no thin' happens, then you come home with me tomorrow. Man! That wind is really pickin' up." She looked over her shoulder and up at the sky. "Oh my god!"
Sam froze just before the door of the cabin and turned to look and saw immediately what Charley was seeing.
The sky was alive!
The thin, wispy clouds were now suddenly in motion, rapid motion, and they were moving in a circular pattern around a broad arc of sky, moving outward to form a circular collection barrier around an invisible blue center, thickening every second, growing dense and ugly with every increase in speed. It was as if they were at the point where the eye of a hurricane formed, the motion violent and building all around them.
The circle of thick clouds now began to grow inward, toward the center, in a spiral pattern. Charley stared at it in sheer terror, for the first time experiencing what Sam surely must have felt. "Sam! Send it away!" she screamed as the noise grew and the ominous, distant rumbling of thunder sounded. "Send it away!"
"Back off!" Sam screamed at the sky. "Get away! I called you, I send you back! Get away from me!"
For a second the entire sky seemed to freeze and there was a momentary stillness that was almost as frightening as the spectacle, but then enormous claps of thunder answered the frightened girl and it started up again. "It's too strong! Damn you, Charley! Why didn't you believe me?"
Charley was too stunned and frightened for any rational response. Sam took her hard by the hand and pulled her. "Come on! Get inside the cabin! It'll give us some protection!"
They got inside as the storm continued to build. Charley was shaking and Sam wasn't much better, but she was more accepting of what was happening and trying to think fast.
"The car!" Charley muttered. "I'll get the keys! We can try and outrun it-"
"No! That's how they killed that-other-girl!"
"We can't stay here! It'll suck up this whole cabin and make pieces out of it and us!"
Even now the cabin was shaking and things were rattling and foiling all over the place, and Sam realized that Charley was right. They had no damned chance at all in here. "Under the car!" she shouted. "Ain't that where you hide if you get into a big storm? No storm cellar!"
Charley finally got some wits about her and grabbed her purse. "Not under! Inside! It's grounded!" There were sheets of rain coming down now, and wind so great it felt tike the cabin was going to shake apart, yet they both hesitated. Suddenly there was a horrible, gut-wrenching, tearing sound near the bed and a small section of roof just broke off like ripped by some giant hand.
It took both of them to get the door even open, and then they ran for the car. The storm itself had only a superficial resemblance to a natural storm now; it contained not only the grays of its violence but seemed to seethe with electrical power, pulsing like a living beast, each poise a different, color-crimson, violet, emerald green, yellow-there was no end to it.
Outside it was a sea of mud in a tropical storm; even the air temperature had warmed incredibly and it felt now like a muggy summer day. Sam made it to the car and had her hand on the door when she heard Charley scream and turned and saw her friend fall forward into the mud. Sam rushed back to her fallen friend and pulled her up. They both just made it to the car when a strong finger of lightning came down and struck the very area where Charley had fallen, sending up a short burst of smoke and mud.
They got inside the car and automatically locked the doors. Charley was a mass of mud and Sam was drenched. Charley had lost her purse in the fall and she disregarded the mud and pushed open the glove compartment knob. "There's a spare key in mere! We gotta get out of here!"
"No! Don't touch nothin' metal, not even the keys! Lightning strikes the car and you'll fry even if me and the car don't! You think it won't follow us no matter where we go anyways? If it can't get the wind to blow us over . . ."
"Damn it, we got to do something!" Lightning was striking all around them with the regularity of a piston engine and the car was being rocked by the wind as if it were under assault by some powerful yet invisible monster.
"We hang on if we can! I had the dreams, remember! They can't keep this up real long! If they could they'd'a had me long ago! They ain't God-just the next thing to it!"
They both suddenly shrieked as a bolt hit the car and they could feel the electricity crackling in the air and even see it dancing around the hood of the car. A few loose metal objects-keys, an old film can, a loose part of a seat-flew up to the roof and stuck there as if magnetized.
The radio crackled and buzzed, although there was no automobile power being fed to it. Suddenly a clear voice in American English said, somewhat tinnily out of the speaker, "If you want to live, then calm down, shut up, and listen to me!"
"It's him!"
"Who? The one with the horns?"
"No! The other one! The one that thinks I'm a lab animal!"
"I'm moving the damned magnets on this thing by external force but I can't maintain it for long with all this damned storm interference, so listen up!" snapped the man on the radio through numerous and loud snaps, crackles, and pops.
"You called him. He'll never have you as exposed as this again," the voice noted. "He can't keep this up for long but he can hurl trees at you and smash in that car and overturn it and get you exposed before he runs out of steam. I want to save your life. You must believe that, and it's him or me. The other girl-I don't know who you are but he can't tell you apart in this mess so you're in this, too. Now, listen up! Hold hands, close your eyes! Lean back! Clear your minds as much as you can and will yourself to come to me! You'll feel the pull. Don't resist it-and don't let go of each other if you both want to wind up alive and in the same place!"
The car shook so violently that the entire left side rose a few inches and came crashing back down. There was a sudden, violent pounding all around and they saw the front and back windshields begin to crack under hail the size of oranges. Even the roof seemed ready to cave in, and the hailstones were like iron balls against the hood.
Charley looked at Sam in fear and anguish. Sam grabbed her hand tightly and shouted above the roar, "Let's do it! I don't know about him but it's better than a
ny chance we got here!"
It was impossible to ignore the terrors being visited on the car or suppress the fear, but, somehow, through it all, they both seemed to see something in their minds, a tiny point of bright light that grew larger and larger by the second. There was the sound of shattered glass and Sam felt pain in her teg, but at that moment the light, which seemed to be enormous and approaching them, somehow, reached and engulfed mem.
The sound abruptly ceased with a silence so deafening that it was in many ways as scary as the storm had been. Sam couldn't stand it; she opened her eyes, and almost immediately shut them again.
They were floating in air, in the center of the storm, with the swirling, charged, multicolored clouds of violent energy all around them as far as the eye could see, not only on all sides and above them but also below. There had been nothing, no place at all.
Sam opened her eyes again, and after a few moments of vertigo got used to it. She looked over at Charley and saw her friend's eyes tightly shut, lips quivering. "Char-leeeee . . . !" she called, the sound thin and echoing into infinity.
Charley was in the grips of total, unreasoned terror, the only rational thought in her head, going 'round and 'round in a never-ending loop, was God damn all fucking radio psychologists!
"Charleee . . . Open your eyes! It's-beautiful!"
"I-I can't!" But after a moment she did so, since she was suddenly hearing nothing but Sam's voice and did not feel any other sensations, not even wind. When she saw the maelstrom it almost took her breath away. She tightened her already solid grip on Sam's hand. "Are we-are we dead?"
"You're too damned filthy to be dead and I'm too wet!" Charley responded, the eerie echoes of their voices almost mixing in the distance. "I think we're moving, though. Down!"
It was true. The storm was no storm anymore, if it had ever been, but rather it seemed to be a long tube, or perhaps a giant funnel would be a better term for it. It had such a uniformity of broad bands of lighter cloud, or whatever it was, separated by thin bands of darker stuff that it was hard to really tell movement. Charley looked down once and decided she didn't want to anymore, but she could look straight ahead, at the bands, and when she had looked long enough she began to see, or thought she saw, a scene, a picture, that flipped every second or so to become slightly different, like viewing a movie one frame at a time.
When The Changewinds Blow Page 5