Darkly The Thunder (29 page)

“How prosaic,” the Force whispered. “Come along, young man,” it urged. “You still have some distance to go.”

He dragged himself upward, higher and higher, mangling and bloodying his hands on sharp rocks. The pain in his chest became almost unbearable. He crawled on. He was almost to the shimmering, misty lights.

Then his strength failed him. He could go no further. For the first time in his life, the young man gave up.

“Oh, the hell with it,” Sand muttered, blood from his lips staining the ground. He pressed his face against the coolness of mother earth. “What's the use?” he questioned the night. He laughed, a grotesque, blood-spraying vocalizing of dark humor. “You can tell everybody you were right, Dad. You said I'd never amount to a hill of beans.”

“Your father was wrong,” the Force told him. “Your father judged everything from a materalistic point of view. He was, and always will be, afraid to challenge the system. He is a narrow-minded, bigoted, cowardly little man. He is everything you were not. You know the value of beings, including God's lesser creatures. Someone had to do you harm before you would think ill. You did not expect more from an animal than you did from humankind. Every good and bad point is recorded.”

Sand raised his head as all pain suddenly left his broken body. His world was very clear and bright. The lights of towns widely separated shone below him. “You couldn't break me,” he spoke to society. “You never made me beg. And you couldn't make me conform.”

“Was it worth it?” the Force asked.

“You bet your ass, it was.”

The Force laughed.

A few hundred yards below Sand, Watts and Mack stopped as the sounds of the laughter reached them.

“What the hell is that?” Mack asked.

“I'm not even sure I want to know,” Watts replied. “Come on. He might be still alive.”

“What if he is, Al? What are you going to say to him?”

“I'm going to apologize.”

The laughter of the Force faded into a chuckle. “Rebel to the end, right, Sand?”

“You got it.”

“Very well. Lift your eyes upward.”

Sand turned his head and looked. Robin was standing a few yards away. He smiled at her. “I love you, Robin,” he spoke to the shimmering image before him.

She was so beautiful, so fresh-looking and lovely. She was peaceful, dressed in a garment of sparkling, misty colors. She seemed to be... he struggled for the word. Fluorescent. She returned his smile.

And she held their son. But the boy had grown, as if time had somehow hung suspended for Sand, and flown for them. The child laughed and waved at his father.

Joey was there, holding hands with Tuddie. Morg and Jane stood beside them. None of them appeared to be touching the ground; but instead seemed to drift slowly about, smoothly and effortlessly. Their movements fascinated Sand. He reached out to touch Robin.

She laughed and moved away. “Oh, no, Sand. Not yet. It is not yet permitted.” The child laughed with its mother. Robin's voice was deeper than Sand remembered. Hollow, almost spiritual in tone. She seemed to be speaking from a great distance. “You have to make up your mind to join us, Sand. We've waited for such a long time. Finally, we got permission to come down to join you.” She held out a small hand. “Come on, now, honey. It's time. You've run out of time, as you know it.”

“Wait for me, Robin,” he gasped. “Wait for me.”

Morg said, “It ain't half-bad once you get used to it, man. It ain't that real good place; but it ain't that bad place either. You gonna have some talkin' to do, but you can do it. Come on, Sand. We got a lot of catchin' up to do.”

“You've waited so long?” Sand whispered. “I don't understand.”

“You will, my old friend,” Joey said. “Come on over, Sand. You made your point. We all did. It's done.”

“Not yet,” Sand muttered.

Tuddie smiled at him, her blonde hair all sparkles and multicolored hues. “You never were one to give up, Sand. But it's over where that small part of you still lives.” She pointed. “There is the door, and there is the path. Take the door, and follow the path.”

Sand looked at Jane. The beatnik girl said, “There is no need to fear death, Sand. For the word is a contradiction. You'll soon see that.”

“I'm not afraid of anything,” Sand managed to say. He could hear the footsteps coming up the mountain. And he knew it would be Al Watts. “Just give me a minute.”

“He's talking to someone, Al,” Mack said. “Jesus God, who is he talking to?”

But Watts chose not to reply to that.

“Just one more minute,” Sand pleaded.

“Your time stopped hours ago,” the Force whispered.

Sand looked into the distance and could see the lights of Willowdale and of Monte Rio. Painfully, he turned his face toward the twin cups of light shining through the night. Just before infinity took him winging into the unknown that humans fear and animals accept as a part of living, just before Sand joined his wife and son and friends, slipping through that misty curtain to stand on the shores of the dark river, the young man tried very hard to speak just two more words to the lights below him. The profanity would not form on his bloody lips.

He was at peace with all things.

He smiled, curving bloody lips. He thought: if You are doing this, would You just cool it for a minute, please?

“He is not,” the Force told him. “But I will give you the necessary seconds for your final salute to the world that birthed you and killed you.”

“Thanks,” Sand said to the voice that only he could hear.

“I think,” the Force added, “that you are going to turn into the proverbial pain in the butt.”

“Probably,” Sand agreed. Just as his mouth filled with blood, his lungs, punctured and torn, collapsed, just seconds before his heart stopped, Sand clenched his right hand into a bloody fist and extended his middle finger to the lights below.

“Fuck you,” he said. His final hail and farewell to a world that had birthed him one too many times.

He looked up and saw Watts and Mack standing over him. He spoke to them, and hoped they understood.

The sighing winds on Thunder Mountain became a shrieking cry; the mist became a shroud for Sand. The clouds moved in, covering him. His legs trembled and jerked, the coldness now moving swiftly, touching each part of him, finally stilling the heart.

His last conscious thought as the electricity left him was: I just wanted to be me. I just . . .

Sand's physical body died on the mountain, his field of force that would never die moved from him to join his friends. The clouds swept away, presenting a velvet sky pocked with diamond stars – luminaries that seemed to play a silent symphony over the mountains and valleys. A dirge for the fearful, timid beings who are content with the ordinary and do not care what might lie beyond the next mountain. But it was a cantata of rebirth for those few, who are ever fewer in number.

The hall clock in the empty house began ticking, its mainspring repairing as time directed.

Julie von Mehren had awakened when a strange force began humming, circling her bed. She rose, to stand by her window, watching the sky over the mountains.

“So he's dead,” the old lady muttered. “I'm sorry, Sand. I'm sorry.”

Captain Watts and Mack stood over the broken, bloody body. Both of them heard the words he whispered; neither of them, then, knew what he meant.

Watts shook his head and smiled through his tears. Sand's right arm was raised, propped against a rock, the middle finger still erect.

To Know, To Kill, To Create.

“What a waste,” Watts spoke to the night. He knelt down, opening the fist, erasing the obscene gesture. “You made your point, Sand. And, by God, I agree with you.”

Watts stood up just as something almost tangible moved in front of him. He would swear for years that whatever it was, was laughing. A victorious laugh, as if even in death, Sand had won.

The thunder began to roll.

“Captain?” the voice came from behind him.

Watts turned. “Yes, Gleeson?”

“Carl Lee killed two college boys about an hour ago. He just turned himself in.”

“You have the tapes all packed up, Bos?” Gordie asked the burly college student. He had returned to the office for one more check.

“Yes, sir. They're secure.”

He looked at his watch. It would be dark in about an hour.

“Is there anybody left alive out there, Sheriff?” Howie asked.

“No one, son. With the exception of us, it's a ghost town.”

In more ways than one, Sand's thoughts popped into his head.

I bet you weren't a Boy Scout, Sand.

Gordie chuckled. Why?

I can't leave them to die, Sand.

Can you tell me what?

I'll warn them.

Gordie explained what Sand had just told him, then looked at Dean. The reporter met his gaze. “Have Sunny and the kids in the alley several minutes before the deadline. Angel knows where it is.”

The reporter nodded his head. “I'll have them there, Sheriff. And that's a promise.”

“I know you will. Howie, where is Fury?”

“Still on the mountain, Sheriff.”

Gordie walked over to Watts and Mack and stuck out his hand. “I wish you boys would change your minds about this.”

Watts smiled and shook his head. “We talked it over, Gordie. We're staying and buying you people some extra time. Mack and me will be leaving now. No elaborate goodbyes for any of us, please. Just . . . good luck to you all.”

Without another word, the two men picked up knapsacks and walked out the front door.

Several in the room were silently weeping, both men and women.

“I liked those men,” Howie said, his voice husky. “I liked them both a lot.”

The boy shut the door to his computer room.

 

 

President Marshall rose refreshed from his nap. He showered and carefully shaved with an electric razor, then dabbed on aftershave and dressed casually He had sent his wife to their summer home for the duration of this . . . he smiled. What the hell to call it?

It would probably be referred to as an Incident.

He walked into his living quarters and rang for coffee. Along with his coffee, there was a sealed folder. When the porter had left, Marshall sugared and creamed his coffee, sipped, and then broke the seal, opening the folder.

He read it through and through, then read it again, becoming furious with each read. He hurled the folder across the room and swore, loud and long. He stopped swearing when a knock came on his door.

“Come!”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of State, DCI from CIA, the heads of Treasury, FBI, NSA, and a dozen more top level men and women.

The DCI spied the folder and retrieved it. “I gather you disapprove of the plan, sir?”

“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.