The Secret: A Thriller (2 page)

I winced, and nearly pulled a muscle holding off an
I told you so!
about the prison. Still…“Why should we stock up?” I asked him.

“Some prisoners might have escaped. Word is, we’ll have to put the whole town on lockdown pretty soon.”

He spun his cart—full of fuel alcohol, rice, beans, and bottled water—and wheeled off with it. Rose and I stared at each other, then separated. Later at the checkout counter I saw she’d loaded her cart like Eisler’s.

I did too, only I included batteries and a couple of oil lamps. Along with the lard and the stuff Rebecca had wanted.

Lockdown? In what fantasy world was that legal?

And did Eisler seriously just decide to buy supplies for himself before letting the town know what was going to happen?

* * *

I
finished paying for my haul and saw Rose waiting for me by the door under a sign warning people to stay away from Henge Lake because it was—once again—infested by blue-green algae. Supposedly. I grinned, wondering how much truth there was to it this time. Jim Donovan, who owned Henge’s only steakhouse (overcooked sirloin and fries a specialty), had put up fake warnings at least once to keep people away from his ex-wife Joan’s marina. Theoretically this espionage might have impacted our two bait shops in town, too, only they both sold beer and a lot of locals could be counted on to spend any extra cash they had on another six-pack. So no harm, no foul—according to Jim.

Anyway. Rose probably wanted to extort some sort of commitment from me for the Founders’ Festival. But what the heck; I’d been at least a little sorry to miss it last year. Rebecca could stay home if she wanted to.

Besides, the rain was coming down pretty hard out in the parking lot. Might as well hang around inside and talk for a bit, I figured.

Lightning struck somewhere close as I got to her, and the lights flickered. “Wowie!” she said with a big grin. “Remember how we used to go out and dance in the rain, Ash? When you were shorter’n me?”

“I do, in fact. Look, about the—”

A bright flash, brighter than I’d ever seen, whited out my vision. I felt the thundering crash in my teeth.

Walmart’s lights went out. Somebody laughed. I blinked rapidly, shaking my head…and just outside the door, I saw two uniformed police officers walking toward us with empty carts. Heads lowered, moving with purpose. I didn’t like the look of it.

I glanced at Rose, then tilted my head toward them. “Do they really think people won’t notice? We should probably get out of here.”

She gave me her trademark frown, sized for a body a foot taller than her own, and nodded. As we left, the store manager was telling people they wouldn’t be able to purchase anything until the power came back on.

I waved goodbye to Rose, then kicked off my sandals and headed for the far reaches of the parking lot. Luckily the rain had eased up a bit.

Just past my truck sat Tim Sullivan’s Forerunner. Not quite pulled into a parking space—I guessed he’d stalled it somehow. Tim stood in front of it, his hood up, looking perplexed.

“Hey, Doc!” I yelled, then grinned at him. “See what happens when you don’t buy American?”

He flipped me off. Then: “I don’t get it,” he told me when I got closer. “I was driving along, the lightning hit, and my damned car died. Won’t start.”

I nodded, distracted, scanning the lot. “Tim? Look around.”

As he did, his eyes widened. At least four other cars were in similar straits. And out on the road, there were two separate accidents. Fender-benders, it looked like. “What the hell?” he asked.

The whole thing struck me as impossibly cool. “Did you see the lightning hit? That last big flash?” I asked. “Because I don’t think…”

Another bright bolt strobed the sky, and thunder followed soon after. I stood, wondering. What I was thinking made no sense at all. But on the other hand…

“Hey, Tim. Let me help you push that out of the way. Did you get your groceries yet?”

“No. Guess I can do that while I wait for Triple-A. Or—damn. I guess they’ll be a while, won’t they?”

I laughed. “Be my guess. Besides, Doc, around here they’ll just have to call Bernie’s Garage. You’d do better calling him directly. But he’s only got the one truck.”

He grinned at me. “Guess I’m still not used to your small-town ways.”

Sure, since he’d only been my neighbor for a decade. “Ain’t no groceries you can buy right now—the power’s out inside,” I told him in an exaggerated local-boy accent. “Let me help you push your un-American junk out of the way. Susie and the kids at home?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Hold on a sec.” I raised a finger, then climbed into my beat-up F-250. Holding my breath, and feeling ridiculous about it, I turned the key. With no drama whatsoever, the engine started. I climbed back down, leaving it running, and walked over to Tim. “Figure it out yet?”

He gave me a puzzled look, and the rain started coming down harder.

“Let’s push that thing!” I yelled over the noise. He nodded, and between us we got it moving. Fortunately the parking lot was fairly level.

Afterward we hurried into the cab of my truck. Before I said anything I pulled out my cell phone and checked its display. “Ha,” I told Tim. “I was right.”

Tim turned to me. “About what? What do you know?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that I know anything…but is your cell working?”

He took it out, looked at the display, tried pushing a couple of buttons, and showed it to me: Blank screen.

I showed him mine. Same thing. “Okay,” I said. “I don’t know about yours, but mine was charged. So…I’ve never heard of lightning doing this before, but I think what we got was a little bit of EMP.”

Short for electromagnetic pulse. Tim was one of maybe five guys in town I wouldn’t have to explain that to, so I sat back and waited to see what he’d come up with. He’d been fairly good-humored about all this so far…but the gaze he gave me now was bleak. “Ash. Maybe it wasn’t lightning.”

I mulled that. “Then…what?”

“Can you take us home? I’ve got a few beers we could drink while we talk about it. And I think we ought to check on our families. With the power being out and all.”

My gut clenched. I wouldn’t have believed the lightning could simultaneously knock out cars, phones, and city power either, but the alternatives were…“You seriously think someone did this
deliberately
? In
Henge?
” I thought about that, then glanced back toward Walmart—where I’d seen police officers coming in to stock up on emergency supplies. “Chief Eisler told me there was a prison riot.”

Tim frowned at me, then shook his head. “I don’t see the connection. But this is the first I’ve heard of a riot. And I’m on the list to call if they need help. Last time I spoke to anyone out there was—two days ago?—yeah, Thursday afternoon, when they wanted me to look at a couple of patients. But for what it’s worth, that was completely weird. Both guys were comatose for no apparent reason. And one of them had grabbed hold of a Bible and squeezed hard enough to break three of his fingers.”

“Jesus,” I said—then wondered if Tim would think I was trying to make a joke.

But he didn’t seem to notice. “This kid’s grip was still so tight I couldn’t get the thing out of his hands. I gave him a muscle relaxant, but some other doc showed up to take over, so I went home.” He shook himself. “I just got a strange feeling about it. It was as if…as if there there were something larger going on, like maybe they had a lot more cases. But—anyway. That was the day before yesterday and nobody’s said boo to me.” He looked at his phone again, then shrugged and put it back in his pocket. “Though I guess if they’re calling right now I wouldn’t know.” His brow furrowed. “Come to think of it, Ash, I need to check messages from my landline. People might be hurt out there. If whatever happened here affected the whole town, I mean.”

I wanted a better explanation, but Tim didn’t seem to have one and we probably weren’t going to figure this out sitting in Walmart’s parking lot. After a moment I backed the truck out of its spot, looking around the lot and trying to figure the best way to navigate past the various stalled vehicles. Then I glanced at Tim as we started rolling forward. “You know none of this makes any sense, right? A prison riot, a couple of comatose inmates, town clowns stocking up on supplies, either weird lightning or a possible EMP bomb…I mean, what the hell?”

Tim shook his head, then leaned back and settled into his seat. “Let’s just get home. Check on our families. Go from there.”

W
ith the storm continuing, power out apparently all over town, stalled vehicles on nearly every block—and clumps of people talking, looking worried, squinting at us suspiciously as we went by—it kind of felt like the end of the world.

Visibility came and went, from semi-clear to nearly none at all when the rain was pounding on us. Tim sat quietly while I maneuvered. Mostly I could drive down one side or the other of the streets—and some people had rolled their nonresponsive cars and trucks off the road—but several times I had to drive right through people’s yards. I waved and tried to look apologetic as we went, and I hoped nobody was both crazy and armed, even if our town
had
become a regional center for crystal meth production in the last few years. I didn’t want to mess up anybody’s lawn, but I needed to get home.

I slowed as I approached Tim’s driveway, but he tapped my elbow and pointed over at my place next door. Our front door was open. Rebecca and Susie stood out in the yard, in the rain, looking spooked. And very wet.

I normally just pulled into our driveway, but today had turned strange enough that I wasn’t taking anything for granted. If we needed the truck we might be in a hurry. So I took a bit longer and backed in. Feeling ridiculous. But also spooked.

Sudden laughter from Tim, still sitting next to me: “Holy shit,” he said. “Look at that. Your Rebecca’s packing heat!” He jumped out of the truck and trotted over. “Everybody all right?” he called.

I shut off the engine and got out of the truck. Rebecca nodded to me, holding the gun’s barrel against her leg, then answered Tim. “So far. And we’re going to stay that way.”

“Tim,” Susie said nervously, “Rebecca says she saw a naked hairy guy looking through a window.”

Susie struck me as skittish at the best of times. But Rebecca wouldn’t say something like that unless it had happened. Also she didn’t typically stand around our front yard with a shotgun. Though…I did kind of like the look. My warrior woman.

I figured this was a bad time to bring up the fact that shotguns could rust, if you stood in the rain with them. I’d oil it later. “Back window?” I asked. “Our bedroom? He was in the woods?”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You’d think so. But no. In front of the house. He was on the roof, watching Abigail through her window.”

I’d been checking out the neighborhood, but now I looked directly at my wife and then at our open front door. Abigail was our nine-year-old. Blonde hair, green eyes, and a mean right hook for her age—but…

“Where is she now?”

“Right here, Daddy!” Abby called, and waved a hand from behind the door. She poked her head out after it, grinning.

I nodded and gave her the best smile I could manage, then went back to checking out the neighborhood. “Okay. Good job, girls. I’m proud of you. Both of you. So…did anybody see him leave? Which way?”

“That fucker jumped right off the roof,” Rebecca said. She lifted the shotgun. “I didn’t see where he went after that. But I’m ready for him.”

I believed her. Susie looked…skeptical, I decided. But I didn’t really care. “Tim?” I asked. “Do you want to go check out your house, make sure everything’s okay, then come back over here?”

I thought about that for a second, then added: “Maybe you should take the shotgun. The rest of us can stay together until you get back.”

Nodding, Tim reached for the gun. Rebecca let him take it. “Where are the girls?” he asked his wife.

“Oh, they’re fine,” she told him. “They’re at the high school. Rehearsing for the Scottish Play, you know.”

Tim frowned, but Susie didn’t seem to notice. “Robbie’s there too,” she told me. “Helping.”

Robbie was my 15-year-old son. My eyes met Tim’s. “Let me get a couple of things from our place,” he said. “Be right back.”

* * *

I
t took us nearly an hour to travel two miles to the high school. The thunder and lightning had mostly stopped, but rain fell steadily. When we got there we saw five police cars and two ambulances parked near the auditorium—where the kids should be.

I parked nose-out again. Tim and I walked up to the open front door. An older police officer, who’d been standing just inside, twisted around when he heard us coming. “Hold up,” he told us. “Nobody’s allowed in here yet.”

Up till that moment I’d been uncomfortable wearing Tim’s .45 in a shoulder holster he’d loaned me. I didn’t want to shoot anybody, and I’d been worried people might notice the bulge under my rain jacket. Suddenly, though, it quit bothering me. “Just here to pick up our kids,” I said easily. I kept walking. So did Tim.

The cop put a hand on his holster. “Chief’s orders. Nobody can come in.”

“This some kind of crime scene?” I asked, stopping about two feet from him. “Are the kids okay?”

“Everybody’s fine. We’re just…setting up a shelter. Because of the storm. You know,” he added, “with the tornadoes and all. It’s not safe out there.”

“Tornadoes,” I repeated. I guessed it was possible, but—

Tim spoke up. “Well, that’s fine. But we’re taking our kids home now.”

The cop glared at Tim, and I wondered just how fast the guy could draw his gun. Or
would
draw it, if we pushed him. Which it looked like we might have to do…then:

“Damnit, Ash,” I heard from behind me. “Are you following me? Are you just bored?”

I turned. It was Eisler, our Chief of Police. Again. “Hey, Mike. I guess this is what you were raiding Walmart for?”

Eisler scowled, but directed his words to the officer blocking our way. “Let ’em get their kids, Compton.”