Darkly The Thunder (27 page)

Sand smiled and said nothing.

“It works, Sand. It's fitting together. But I won't drop it. I promise you that. If they did it, I'll find out. And they'll be punished.”

“If they did it, and if you find out, will they die?”

“Goddamnit, Sand, the law doesn't work that way, and you know it.”

“How unfortunate for the innocent.”

“Sand, you told me a few days ago that you and Robin were planning on leaving this area. Are you leaving alone?”

“To be sure. I shall be gone within twenty-four hours. Probably sooner than that. I will probably never ... well, shall we say,
personally
bother you again. Not in the flesh.”

“That is a damn strange remark, son.”

“And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.”

“I'm familiar with Poe, Sand. Boy, you are taking this very calmly. That worries me.”

Brahms played in Sand's head. Lovely. Bits of Alice's Adventure in Wonderland came to him: I'll be the judge, I'll be the jury. I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.

Sand laughed just as the phone rang. Watts was suddenly aware of that strange sensation filling the room. Heavier, stronger than he had ever felt it. It was not evil, Watts thought, then thought himself a fool for thinking it. But it was . . . dark, he finished in his thoughts.

Sand hung up the phone and slowly turned. “That was Carl Lee on the phone, Captain. Robin's mother went berserk. They have her in restraints at the hospital. She is to be transported to a private mental hospital.”

“Dear God,” Watts said.

The Force whispered to Sand. Sand smiled.

Watts heard the whisper. Dismissed it as the wind. The thought came to him: Nevermore.

He shook his head. “Where is your friend Morg?”

“Like me, waiting. We shall be ... leaving together.”

“Where are you two going?”

“After a time, to a place that is quiet. Sort of. It's not that far a journey. There, we might ponder the mysteries of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.”

The Force laughed. Something very nearly tangible moved in the room. Sweat broke out on Watts's forehead.

“Is the house too warm, Captain?”

“Weird,” Watts muttered. He sighed. “When are you two leaving, Sand?”

“Soon, Captain. But the time of our final departure will be up to you. I shall leave you with this bit of philosophy from Baudelaire: There exists only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. Do you understand that?”

“Not really.”

“It's very simple. To know, to kill, to create.” Sand smiled. “You will, I believe, Captain, soon experience all three.”

Watts grimaced, shook his head, and walked from the house. He called over his shoulder, “Good-bye, Sand.” He closed the door, strangely relieved to be out of Sand's presence.

“Very good,” the Force spoke to Sand. “You are a very intelligent young man. Now we'll see to it that justice is truly served.”

“I'm with you.”

The room rocked and pulsed with heavy laughter.

Sand and the Force began speaking to each other, switching from one language to another. Morg came in through the back door. He stood for a time, wondering who his friend was talking to. Sand noticed him and fell silent.

“My man got it,” Morg said.

Sand smiled. He pointed to something only he could see, and said,
“Il est toujours sur mon dos
...”

“Speak American, Sand. I can't understand a damn word you're sayin' ”

“Yet,” the Force said.

Morg looked around him.

“But your time is only minutes away.”

“Buzz off!”

The Force chuckled.

Sand told Morg what Watts had said.

Morg waved his hand and cussed. “Them rich shits is lyin,' man. There wasn't no fight. That was a put-up job to get the heat off Marlson and his bunch. Marlson and them others stopped at a beer joint over the pass. They was pretty shook up. Talkin' about bein' in a fight and all that. 'Cept there wasn't no fight, nowhere, that night. It was all put-up, and that's firm.”

“You have their names.”

“You know them.”

“Yeah. Marlson, Branon, Lenton, Jeffery, Murphy, Center, and Alexander. Bruno took care of Murry.”

“Right. My pal says if you want to crack one open, it's Jeffery. He's a real fish, scared out of his gourd.”

Morg stood for a moment, listening in amazement as Sand spoke in a language he could not understand, and to a ... whatever the hell it was, that he could not see. Morg shivered as laughter rang out. But it did not come from Sand.

Then the Force spoke to Morg. “I have reviewed your future. You have none. You are now able to converse with us.”

Morg looked wildly around him. “I know I ain't got no future. What's that got to do with the price of potatoes?”

The Force laughed. “I like you. You're crude, but I like you.”

“Morg,” Sand said. “Which one did Robin mark?”

“You talkin' to me or that . . . other thing?”

“You.”

“She mauled Jeffery. Sand, you still got that spare piece?”

Sand found the .45 and handed it to Morg. “You know we're gonna get our tickets punched, don't you?”

“It don't make a shit to me no more, Sand. I'm . . . kinda like you now. Got no place to go, and no one to care about seein' me, if I got there.” He smiled. “Well, one place, where she is.”

“I know,” Sand said gently.

Laughter echoed throughout the house as the hall clock chimed out the hour and then quit working, its mainspring broken.

Time had stopped for Sand and Morg.

Morg shoved the .45 auto behind his belt. Sand did the same with an identical .45. “You ready to go, Morg?”

Sand smiled at Morg's startled look.

“Man, I don't know no Frog talk!”

“You do now,” Sand said.

They started conversing in fluent French.

“All language is as one,” the Force told them. “But French is such a refined and gentle language, don't you think?”

“That goddamned thing's gonna get on my nerves,” Morg said.

“Au contraire,”
the Force spoke with a chuckle.

“Stick it in your ear,” Morg told him.

The men stepped out into a star-filled, moon-hung night, the storm having blown past. They walked to Sand's Mercury and blasted through the night, an almost visible current sailing along with them.

Carl Lee had sent his remaining daughter, Linda, to stay with friends. He had spoken with Watts. Now he sat in the den of his home and knocked back straight shots of bourbon.

He stilled the ringing telephone, listened for a moment, and then broke the connection by tearing the cord apart. He hurled the phone across the room, shattering it against a wall.

That had been the hospital. His wife had just suffered a series of strokes, one right after the other. Extensive brain damage. Chances of recovery: none.

Carl drained the bottle, then went into his bedroom for his pistols.

When the screen darkened, Watts stood up and walked to a boarded-up window, gazing out the gun slit. The others, sensing that he wished to be left alone, did not follow.

“What's with Colonel Watts?” Pat asked.

“He's preparing himself to die,” Bos told her. The college jock had matured a great deal over the past few days, making himself a promise that once out of here, he would knuckle down to more serious college work.

“Gordie,” Lee said, walking up to where the sheriff was sitting with Sunny, “what about the prisoners we have left in lock-down?”

“We're taking them with us. They're a worthless crew, but I can't just leave them here to die.”

“Do we chain them?”

“No. We'll get them out at the last minute. We tell them nothing until we're at the door.”

“What if they try to make a break for it?”

“That's their problem. If they step off that path Sand talked about . . .” He shrugged his shoulders and left it at that.

Lee nodded and walked off. Gordie waved Dr. Anderson over. “How is Robin?”

“She's much better. I told you she was a tough little girl.”

“Howie? Where's the Fury?”

“On the mountain,” the boy called.

The sheriff looked at his watch. “We've got about twenty-one hours left. Pass the word: before we leave in the morning, stash anything you want to take out in the knapsacks. Do nothing out of the ordinary. Those that normally remain here, do so. I'll get word to them when it's time to bug-out.”

Anderson nodded and walked away.

Sunny took Gordie's hand. “I'm more scared now than ever before,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I don't know what we're going to face, when we walk through that door.”

“Think of it as freedom, Sunny, and don't dwell on it. Look, we might not have much time to talk tomorrow. So let's get some things said now – not necessarily in their order of importance. I've fallen in love with you, and the emotion came pretty damned fast. You think you could be happy with a hick-town sheriff?”

She smiled at him. “Oh, yes, Gordie. I think we could be very happy together.”

“With Angel and Howie, we've got a built-in family.”

“They're good kids. I'm looking forward to raising them.”

“You're used to life in the fast lane, Sunny. Small towns can be very dull.”

“I've got a lot of books to write, Gordie. I think it'll probably take me about fifty years to get them all completed.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “You got a deal.”

 

 

“We're going to be cutting it very close,” Martin told the military commanders. “We've got to give those people in town every break we can afford. At seven o'clock tomorrow evening, we start evacuating out of here. And we do it with no fuss. Very quietly. Anyone who doesn't want to go, leave them.”

“They'll die,” it was pointed out by a three-star general.

“That is their problem. We're not here to hold their hands. Order them out one time, then walk off.”

“You're a hard man, Mr. Tobias,” the three-star said. “You ever think about running for president?”

“It has crossed my mind a time or two.”

“You've got my vote.”

Watts stood in front of the TV in the office. “Do it, Sand,” he said. “We're running out of time.”

I was born out of time, Al,
the words popped into Watts's head.

“I know it. And I'm sorry for all the things I didn't do – back when.”

Watts sat down in front of the set. “Bring me up to date, son.”

 

VENDETTA

 

Allen Jeffery did not live on campus. He had a nice apartment off campus – compliments of mommy and daddy – in a secluded complex. When he looked up from his TV, he looked into the cold, hard eyes of Sand and the equally hard-looking Morg. Allen fainted.

When he awakened, he was in an old line shack deep in the mountains. Moonlight streamed in through the broken windows and the holes in the roof.

Jeffery pulled himself up, sitting with his back to a rotting wall. “You won't kill me, will you?” His voice shook with fear. He stank of fear. “I didn't do anything to your wife.”

“You were there, weren't you?” Sand asked.

A sly look crept into the young man's eyes. “Why . . . no. As a matter of fact, I wasn't. I thought you knew that.”

Sand hit him in the mouth with a gloved fist.

Jeffery screamed and spat out blood. “Yes, yes! I was there. But I didn't do anything. It wasn't my fault or my idea. I swear it!” His fright overwhelmed him. He soiled his underwear. The smell of him filled the shack.

“You tell me what happened,” Sand said. “And you tell me the truth. Not that bullshit you people told Watts.”

The Force whispered the thoughts that were in Sand's head.

Sand replied in French.

“Yeah,” Morg said.
“Se taire
.” He laughed. “Man, this is wild.”

Jeffery's eyes were wide and scared. “What was that other voice?” he shouted. “Oh, God help me. You people are with the devil!” he screamed his fear.

“Oh, for pity's sake,” the Force said. “Why must I always be associated with that creature? No, no, young man. You are badly mistaken.”

“Then who are you?” Jeffery screamed as he pissed his pants.

“Why,” the Force breathed, “I am you. I am he. I am him. I am all things in all people. Even, regretfully, a part of such as you. I am many things to all people. I am old loves and old fears, old hates, and everything both good and bad. I am present in all people at all times. But especially vocal when death is imminent. You'd better tell all that you know of this matter. It would save you a great deal of pain.”

Jeffery fainted.

The deep timber was silent as Morg slapped Jeffery back to his senses.

In the line shack, a dark form moved amid the shadows. It was almost human in shape. Almost.

“I'll tell all that I know, if you promise you won't hurt me,” Jeffery spoke, his eyes darted from Sand to Morg to the flitting shape.

“Oh, my,” the Force whispered. “I believe he wants to strike a bargain.” The whisper became a howling roar.

Sand cursed Jeffery until he was breathless. A wild beast was uncaged within him. It leaped to the surface, crying out in an ancient tongue. Sand hit Jeffery in the mouth, slamming him against the rotted shack wall. The wall collapsed. Jeffery fell outside, Sand jumping after him. He picked the young man up and threw him back into the shack.

Sand stared at Jeffery. His eyes were not human. They seemed to glow. Even Morg backed off.

“I warned you,” the Force said. His form was becoming more definite to Jeffery.

“I know who you are now,” Jeffery said.

“Yes, you do.”

“All right,” Jeffery moaned. “I'll tell you.”

A wolf howled in the night. Sand smiled. The Force laughed darkly as thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Eight of us,” Jeffery said, then named them. “We took a blood oath to get you, Sand. I mean literally cut ourselves and mixed the blood. We all tasted it. We were frat brothers, you know.”

The Force snickered.

“We were rolling that afternoon, looking for girls and drinking beer and chasing it with whiskey. Two cars of us. We got drunk. Just as we were leaving Willowdale, we saw this souped-up Olds. Your car, somebody said. Somebody else said we ought to have some fun and scare your wife.” Blood dropped from his lips, plopping onto the floor, amid the bird droppings and rat shit. “I didn't know she was going to have a baby.”

“She was in her ninth month and in maternity clothes, you sorry bastard!” Sand yelled at him.

“But we were
drunk!”
Jeffery screamed.

“Stop trying to excuse what you did. Tell it!”

“By all means,” the Force said. “And do pick it up a bit, please. So far, it's all been rather mundane.”

Jeffery's eyes were wild as the Force became a recognizable shape. And it knew what it was.

Death.

“B ... Bill Marlson was driving the car I was in. He was the drunkest of us all, and he gets mean when he gets drunk. He's never forgiven you for whipping him that night. He's tried to kill you before. Did you know that?”

“He ran down Boom Boom, too, didn't he?”

“Yes.”

“Why? She never hurt anybody in her life.”

“She was a friend of yours, that's why.”

“You all knew about that?”

“Yes.”

“And didn't going to the police ever enter your mind?”

“We belonged to the same fraternity,” Jeffery said. “Brothers don't rat on each other.”

“And these kind of assholes run the government and big business?” Morg questioned. “I'm glad to be leaving.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Jeffery asked, anything to buy a little more time.

The Force chuckled. “Oh, yes. He is. And so are you.”

“Go on, crap-head,” Sand told him. “Tell it all.”

“Bill and others . . . me, too, we fixed the brakes on that Jew-boy's car.”

“You admit being a party to Joey's murder?”

Jeffery licked bloody lips. “Yes.”

“Go on.”

“Your wife panicked when Bill began tailgating her, bumping the rear end of her car. She took off out of town. We stayed right with her. About eight or nine miles out of town, she cut off the highway and down a gravel road. Her car began fishtailing, and she went into a ditch. She got stuck. We stopped about a hundred feet behind and got out, all of us yelling and whooping and laughing. But we didn't mean her any harm. Then she got out of her car with that ... horrible animal!”

“Oh, my,” the Force simpered. “I do believe he's about to have a snit!” The shack rocked with frenzied laughter.

When the laughter died away, Sand said, “Tell it.”

“She stood by the car, crying, the dog snarling at us. It was getting late, but light enough for her to see what Bill and Wallace did. They exposed themselves to her – shook their peckers at her.”

The music began in Sand's head. The beast within snarled and howled and roamed about. The Force sighed in disgust. Morg spat on the floor.

“We all exposed ourselves,” Jeffery's voice firmed. “I know you're going to kill me, and I know what that other ... thing is in the room with us. So I'm going to say what's on my mind. She'd been giving it to you and all the other hot-rodders for years. Everybody knows about the orgies you people have. All the wild sex parties.”

“I musta missed out on them,” Morg said sarcastically. “You dumb little shit. You been seein' too many movies about hot-rodders and custom clubbers. Maybe some clubs do that, but none that I know of. You fuck with somebody else's old lady, you gonna get killed. That's the way it is, chump.”

Jeffery looked sick. “She didn't have to run up that hill, just because we shook our cocks at her. We weren't going to hurt her.”

“I ain't believin' this punk,” Morg said. “No decent human bein' does something like that to a lady.”

Jeffery shook his head. “I'm decent. I was just drunk, that's all. What difference does it make now?”

“None at all,” the Force told him.

“When she got to the top of the hill, she tripped and fell down. She landed on a small stump, on her stomach. She rolled off, screaming. We ... didn't pay her any attention. Didn't help her. Thought she was just doing that so we'd leave her alone. It was a game to us, that's all.”

“A game,” Morg whispered. He shook his head in disbelief.

“John Murry was the first to reach her. He began jumping up and down, acting a fool. You know, like in an initiation. John shouted ugly things at her. But we were drunk! You have to understand that.”

“I been drunk lots of times,” Morg said. “I never bothered no good woman. Least of all, not no
pregnant
woman. That's obscene.”

“All that is truth,” the Force said. “And it is being taken into consideration by those who judge.”

“And what about
me?”
Jeffery shouted to the dark shape.

The Force made a spitting, vulgar sound. “Everyone has some control over their destiny. So putting it into words that you might comprehend: you blew it, blizzard-head!”

Jeffery began crying, the tears streaking his face. “John stepped toward your wife. He was screaming filth at her. The dog jumped. It was awful. All of a sudden, John didn't have any throat.

“Charles picked up a big stick and hit the dog on the head. He walked over to your wife and began telling her what we were going to do to you . . . when we caught up with you. She was crying and screaming, saying the baby was coming.

“Marlson and the others laughed at her. Then he kicked her in the stomach – ”

“Who
kicked her!” Sand shouted the question.

“We . . . all did after Marlson did. She rolled over on her side. Blood was coming out of her mouth and nose. You have to understand, a court of law would, I'm sure. It was like . . . things weren't real. A dream; a play. I jumped around so much I fell down. That's when she clawed me. I never heard anybody scream the way she did. She grabbed at her chest and stomach. Her face turned blue. I saw my grandfather have a heart attack. I think your wife had a heart attack the same time the baby . . . came out. God, that was awful. I got sick. She was bleeding so badly. We ran down the hill and drove off.”