A warm gob of spit splattered on the back of Hooker’s neck. The word from his silent mouth was similar, but not the same as spit. He didn’t even flinch.
The afternoon had started with strange weather and had just gotten weirder after the sun had gone down. It had not rained all day. It had just thrown the occasional spitball of warm sticky water. Hooker talked nasty at the lug bolt rusted onto the drum of the battered Impala.
Since the early hours, the weather pattern had been reversing the season’s ‘out to sea’ flow of the steamy Sacramento River air. The Central Valley, with its heat and rotting vegetation, created some of the skankiest smelling air. Luckily, the Sierra Nevada Mountains provided a downhill push that would normally drive the fetid air out through the San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific Ocean, where it would mix and push north and back out to the giant air mass of the Gulf of Alaska.
A large storm in the Gulf of Alaska was being pushed down by the dropping jet stream and becoming a driving force of stationary air. A matching or a possibly larger tropical storm coming from the north of Hawaii was being fed by a small tropical front storm pushing up from Mexico. The result was three air masses mixing into the witch’s cauldron of the San Francisco Bay. As always, with such a conflict, the riot of air got shoved into the bottom of the bay and over the greater San Jose area and as far north as Moffett Airfield.
On the mountainside of the Coast Range, the highway crossed over to Santa Cruz. The wet air hung there, trapped by the trees.
Hooker heard the gratifying groan of the rusty metal. The lug nut began to turn. The tired old Chevy was once again saved from the junk heap.
High above and almost thirty miles to the north, the Orion P-3 airplane watched the weather, as well as the infrared signatures, gathering at the target site. “Moffett control, this is Watch Eagle.”
“Go, Watch Eagle.”
“Be advised we have five more bogies entering the field from the southeast.”
“Roger, Watch Eagle, five more players from Sierra Echo. Will advise Dugout.”
All evening they had been monitoring the movement of warm bodies moving into the area. The count was now close to eighty. Everyone could feel there was another storm brewing. But this one had nothing to do with the weather.
Hooker removed the old tire and mounted the spare. He spun the five nuts on with his fingers and then threw them home by fan spinning the four-way wrench. After ten years of changing hundreds of flat tires, the sequence of one-three-five-two-four was something he did not have to think about, as his hand just automatically set-one skip, set-one skip, set-one skip, until he hit an already tight nut. Then he took one last creak on each nut, all the way around.
He stood and let the jack down. Grabbing the flat, he walked around to the trunk and threw it in. “Get this fixed or replaced in the morning, sir. In fact, we’re moving into the rainy season, and these tires won’t be safe. You really need five new tires.”
Hooker wanted to tell the man it would be almost cheaper to get a new car, but he knew many lived very close to the edge. Although this man might be able to afford the auto club, more than one new or retread at a time might bust his budget.
The woman scowled at the sky that had just spit on her. She hung close to her husband as he handed Hooker his auto club card. “We moved here from Shreveport just to get away from weather like this. Y’all get hurricanes here?” She looked north toward the bay.
Hooker was ever helpful, but he did like to get in a dig occasionally. “No ma’am, no hurricanes. We do get a couple of small tornados out on the flats or at the airports, but no hurricanes. We’re pretty uneventful around these parts—just the occasional earthquake now and then.” He smiled warmly. “We need them to knock down the old buildings to make room for new freeways.”
The old man smiled and tried not to laugh. He turned his head so he could enjoy the joking without being hit by his wife’s purse.
Hooker split the signed receipt and handed the man his card and yellow copy. “Y’all have a great night now. Ya hear?”
Hooker smiled as he stowed the floor jack. He overheard the woman speaking to her husband as he held the door for her. “Such a nice young man, but did you hear what he said about those awful earthquakes? I just don’t know about those earthquakes, Arthur.”
The man wore a large smile as he came around the back of the Chevy. Hooker, leaning against the side of his truck, returned the smile as the man shot him a two-finger salute. “That will give her something to worry about for the entire winter.” They both laughed.
The man opened his door. The woman looked across with a frown. “What were you two laughing about, Arthur?”
“Nothing, Gladys.” He closed the door and drove off.
Hooker licked his smile and looked with a jaundiced eye at the black sky. “If this keeps up, in four more nights, the dark of the moon won’t matter.” He wiped his hands on the red shop rag, threw it back in the side box and closed the door.
As he stood on the running board to get into the cab of the truck, his neck received one more gob of salty gooey spit. He froze and wiped it off. Leaning out, he looked up. “Really?”
High and to the north, a young airman sat at a desk monitoring infrared scanners.
“Moffett control, this is Watch Eagle.”
“Go ahead, Watch Eagle.”
“We have what appears to be the formation of seventeen approaching from the northwest. I say again, diamond formation inbound from the northwest. They are about half a click out from the playing field and holding.”
“Roger, Watch Eagle. Diamond formation of seventeen bogies, inbound, from November Whiskey. Will advise Dugout.”
“Also, be advised, we are twenty-eight minutes from bingo.”
“Roger, Watch Eagle. Night Hawk Four is on the ramp and will be on station and coordinating with you in under twenty.”
The naval petty officer made a log notation and called forward to the pilot. “We will be relieved in about twenty.”
“What is the count?”
“It’s at ninety-five and growing. It looks like they aren’t going to wait until Thursday night. It looks like the war is tonight.” He looked at the digital clock above his electronics board. The clock stood at twenty-two-fourteen—still an hour and forty-six minutes until midnight.
Forty miles to the south and five thousand feet lower, the phone rang on the credenza behind Dolly. Her eyes closed, and the muscles around her large heart tightened. Her phone never rang because it was someone nice wishing her a wonderful day.
She swung around and picked it up on the third ring. “Dolly.”
“Dolly, it’s Danny.” He sounded terrified.
“Danny, breathe honey. I’m here.”
“Five minutes ago, Sweets was getting ready for work. Suddenly, he is on the floor.”
“Ambulance is on the way, honey.” She was snapping her fingers at Dina. It sounded more like a gunshot in the dark room.
“I don’t need no ambulance. You need to call Hooker. Sweets is running his mouth about Hooker and Armageddon and the world blowing up and dead bodies flying through the air and flames everywhere.” He drew in a loud breath. “You need to get ahold of Hooker, and you need to do it now.”
“I’m on it, Danny. You take care of Sweets.”
She held the phone with her finger on the disconnect button. She let it go and dialed Willie. She let it ring five times and hung up. She grabbed the lollypop microphone off the credenza and checked to make sure she was on the right channel.
“Willie, if you don’t pick up right now. I will come pull your manhood up and out through your throat.”
She counted the seconds on her fingers. Her thumb and index finger were out, and the middle was twitching.
“Sounds serious, Dolly.” The voice was wrong.
The voice came across on the auto club night radio.
Dolly keyed the mic. “Willie, use the mic hanging behind your head.”
The female voice came out of the proper speaker. “Dolly, I tore them all out, and we’re rebuilding the cab. What can we do for you?”
“Is she running? And is Betsy loaded and in her holster?”
“We are out testing her now. Stand by one.”
“Betsy is ready.”
“Hooker is out past The Cats on a flat tire he just finished. The meat sauce is hitting the fan, and he will need Mae. Can she go to war, Maddie?”
Willie came on the radio. “We’ll meet him at the diner.”
“10-4.”
Dolly turned the selector to the shop line in the new truck.
“1-4-1?”
She waited. She knew if he was outside the truck, he would still have the outside speaker on.
Box returned from the office from a visit to his sandbox. He sat looking at his resting place, bouncing around and uncharacteristically moving and working. He grumbled.
Dolly didn’t have time for an argument and snapped her finger at the desk. He blinked and silently ascended to the top of the desk, a new place for him. He felt the leather writing pad and then lay down. He would watch the hard work from a comfortable position.
“1-4-1?” She demanded and looked across to Dina.
Dina shrugged. “He cleared the tire ten minutes ago.”
“Was he close to Henry’s place?”
Dina plugged in a cord. “Teresa, is Hooker there?” She leaned back and nodded. “Yell through the door for him to slap those cheeks and pinch it short because he has a 9-9-9 call.” She listened and then pulled the cord.
They waited. Dolly watched the large hand on the big schoolroom clock tick to the seven. One hour and twenty-five minutes until midnight.
“1-4-1.” The radio crackled.
Dolly scooped up the lollipop and keyed the mic as she brought it to her. “9-9-9 Hooker. Meet your party at the diner. Be safe, but don’t spare the gas. Don has already paid for it.”
Dolly could hear the truck starting as Hooker held the mic keyed. “What’s going on, Dolly?”
“According to Danny, Sweets is on the floor, foaming at the mouth and Armageddon is arriving four days early.”
She could hear the blare of a horn from what was probably a cut off car. “Who am I meeting?”
“All the help I hope you need, honey. You’ll know them when you see them.”
“10-4. Show me 10-97 in eight minutes.”
Dolly raised her eyebrows over her wide eyes as she looked at her girls. “Don must have bought himself one hot engine. Well, it will be broken in by the time he hits Winchester Boulevard.”
She snapped her fingers at Karen. “Check the PD roster.”
The woman looked up and over as she scanned the roster. Her eyes knew where to look for which officer. “Podel is off tonight.” Officer Podel was the least liked officer in the South Bay, and he always seemed to have a hard-on to write Hooker a speeding ticket that would knock him off the street for at least a month.
Dolly smiled. She keyed the lollipop. “Hooker, the poodle is locked in the garage tonight.”
She got the ‘chink-chink’ of a double-tap on the mic key. She could sense that if Hooker had been driving south of the hundred mark on the speedometer, he wouldn’t be now. It was now a wait and listen game—her least favorite kind of night.
She leaned back and patted her large chest. Box crossed the gap in one soft jump. The purr-box actuated in mid-flight.
Out on the interstate, eleven tons of giant yellow truck was roaring down the lanes that were clearing ahead of the garish red, yellow, and blue flashing lights. “How about the siren?”
Maddie looked up from the floor where the passenger seat should have been. “We were putting in a siren?”
Willie laughed. He downshifted through the new splicer transfer gears. They had slid into the lower gear before he realized it. “I guess not on the siren.” He rolled the large ivory Bakelite steering wheel as he followed Mae around the cloverleaf. The giant truck cornered like it was a slot car welded to the street. Willie smiled. He knew Hooker would love the new stabilizer bar now keeping the truck flatter in the curves. As he reached the second half of the curve, he rolled in a lot more power. The nose seemed to rise as the automatic exhaust dumps slid back with the higher pressure.
Maddie looked up. “Those work great. I couldn’t even hear the PTO run.”
“You should feel this new transfer gearbox. What a stroke of genius.”
“Why thank you, sir. A girl gets to read a little bit every once in a while.” Willie knew tthis was one librarian whose nose was always in a book, especially at home.
“What do you think of the extra horses?”
Willie upshifted and mashed the pedal down. The truck at eighty plus still seemed to lift as the enlarged power slammed into the rear end and was pushed to the asphalt.
The woman squealed with glee and clapped her palms like a little girl. “Oh, yes. Folks, we have a winner!” She didn’t have to see outside to know what the sides of the freeway looked like. She had spent too much time north of the hundred mark on motorcycles and cars.
Willie smiled as he backed the truck down to shy of the hundred mark. “If I was a crude man, I would say Mae West has had a successful nose job. Maddie went back to plugging wires into the new control panel. She stood up and stuck her head out the window and looked down along the undercarriage. She flicked switches. She sat back down and smiled. “Now, if we had music, we would have the fastest calliope in the world.”
“How about the floods?”
She flicked a switch and the four large high-intensity lights on top of the cab lit up the freeway wall-to-wall for over a mile. A car a half a mile away swerved and dove for the shoulder.
“How about the back ones?”
They both laughed at the thought of turning them on. Both had a warped sense of humor when it came to auto crashes. Both had their share separately from racing—and then their shared memory of the night they almost totaled the Granny car, as well as themselves, coming home from Monterey drunk, one night…
As they now raced down the freeway in San Jose, the ramp they needed was coming up fast. “Brace yourself.” Willie threw on the air brakes, and the world thundered as the air flowed into the diesel engine and provided backpressure. He romped on the brakes and started jamming down through the gears.
Maddie sat on the floor and watched the shifting and the clutch work. Their week without sleep had paid off. The system was smooth and seamless. She knew Hooker would love the fact they had trimmed the twenty-four original gears down to twenty, but had given him four hundred more horses, and added at least another twenty on the top end. They had also taken out the second gear shifter and replaced the main with what was known as a knuckle buster. All the shifting happened on the one handle.
She saw Willie stomp on the brake, drop four gears, his left foot still floating in the clutch, and she braced for the turn.
Eleven tons of truck with more than half of the weight placed on the rear tires makes a very loud and ugly noise when you do a high-speed drift for a turn. Halfway through the turn, Willie dumped the clutch and mashed the fuel pedal. The driver tires lit up and smoked the asphalt in an effort to gain traction. He feathered the fuel, and all eight slowed down and hooked into the asphalt. For the first time in their lives, the front tires had six inches of air under them for over a second. The touchdown was smooth as the brightly lit, flashing truck roared down the street toward Stevens Creek Boulevard.
Maddie watched Willie’s face, and she smiled. She hadn’t seen him have so much little boy fun in many years. It did her heart good to see this from her childhood friend.
They swung around onto an empty Stevens Creek and roared down the yellow centerline.
The large clock on the dashboard showed an hour and fifteen minutes until midnight.
They slewed around at the driveway to the diner. The nose of the truck was out in Winchester Boulevard. Willie jammed the shifter into reverse and stomped on the fuel. Mae’s tires burned rubber up into and halfway across the deep parking lot.
Candy’s head snapped up at the counter. She watched the familiar giant yellow truck pull backward into the parking lot. She had never been assaulted by all of the flashing and waving lights. The red, blue, and yellow were everywhere. The tires were lit from inside the tire wells, and the colors made it look like the truck was on fire or a mechanical beast from hell.
As the truck rocked to a standstill, a smaller truck crashed up onto the parking lot. It parked at the back next to Mae West. Candy smiled to see Mae still waved from the driver’s door on the giant truck.
She started toward the door as she washed her hands in her apron.
Hooker jumped out of the smaller truck and ran toward Mae’s driver door as it swung open. He jumped in and closed the door. There was a brief moment, and then the rear tires lit up with smoke as Mae shot out of the parking lot and bounced heavily into the street. More rubber was left as Hooker forced the turn and headed north.
Candy could still hear the tires howling as the giant truck disappeared from her view.
She thought a moment and ran to the phone.
Manny turned down the guitar music they were listening to as Stella answered the phone.
“Hello?’
“Mama, you better call your sister. Hooker just traded trucks and raced out of here in Mae like the devil was driving.”
Stella looked over at Manny. “Thanks, honey. We’ll keep you posted.” She hung up. She drew her upper lip into a tight roll and bit down. As the lip slowly slid out between her teeth, she looked at Manny. “It’s going down.”
She leaned against the counter. Her mind was a mass of thoughts. One thought came through clear as Ma Bell could make it. She smiled as she looked over at Manny. “She called me Mama.”
To the north, the giant yellow truck skidded around the corner and lined up on the freeway entrance. The engine roared, and tires howled as the smoke poured from the wheel wells as if the devil himself were trapped there. The fire and brimstone smelled more like burned rubber as Hooker leapfrogged the gears and exploded onto the freeway.
Willie was teaching from his position in the sleeper part of the cab. “Now when you shift again, you will go back to first as you turn the whole knob right. This puts the splicer into the upper set, and you flick the lever back forward, so you are in the lower side of the upper set. Now you have ten more.” Hooker listened to the engine and then made the three-move shift. The gears did not grind, and it all moved smoothly. He mashed the fuel down more and leapfrogged the next shift. As they slowed and made the large cloverleaf from the 280 to the northbound 101, Hooker could see it was all clear.
Mae was only a yellow flash of paint as Maddie had shut down the lights for now.
Hooker reached for the microphone that should have been behind his head. “Sheets of rain on the street.”
Maddie offered the microphone from the dark corner she had been sitting in.
Hooker gave a double take. “Maddie?”
The woman chuckled from the dark floor where the passenger seat was missing. “Just think of me as your flight engineer.”
He watched the highway and keyed the mic. “Dolly?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Do we have any contact with the base?”
“We’re working on it right now, honey. We’ll get you patched straight through.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
“Just remember, this Wednesday night you’re bringing Candy.”
Hooker frowned at the jump in topics. Candy was also something not allowed in the dispatch. Dolly’s home-cooked food was dangerous enough for the occupational hazard of massive weight gain. “Candy?”
“Cute, scrawny little blonde with no neck but bones?”
“Candy? My Candy?”
“Yes, dear. Your Candy.”
Dolly put down the microphone and resumed petting the purring chest warmer. She had a self-satisfied smile on her face. She nuzzled into Box. “Yes, sir, Box. We’re going to shake things up a bit... and it’s about time.”
Karen raised her arm. “Yes, sir, we will be routing you in a moment. Here is Dolly.”
Dolly leaned around, and her fingers danced on the keys of her large phone. She hit the red button and spoke into the air. “This is Dolly. Who am I speaking to please?”
“This is Gunnery Sergeant Cokacheck, ma’am.”
Dolly frowned at Karen and Dina. They both shrugged.
“Gunny, did your mother give you a real name?”
The man laughed. “Yes, ma’am. But it’s worse than Cokacheck, ma’am. You can call me Gunny or just Dan. It’s short for Arachapodanacheck.”
“Oh, crap.” She looked deadpan with a mix of zombie at the other women.
“Yes, ma’am. That’s what my mama always said the nurse said.”
Dolly chuckled silently and shook her head.
“Dan, what can you tell me is going on out there? Wait, first... where are you?”
“Ma’am, I am in what we are calling the Dugout. I am the heart and soul of ground zero. We are the control center under the home plate. Everything is now routed through me.”
“Are you allowed to fill me in?”
“First, I need to walk you through a series of security questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Who was the first black CHP officer in the South Bay?”
“Micha Robinson.”
“Is he married?”
“Tall drink of water named Bobby Sue.”
“Where is she from?”
“Somewhere around the Okeefenokee Swamp.”
“Close. It was the Ochekala. Just for that, you get two more hard ones.”
“Where in the heck is the Ochekala Swamp?”
“I ask the questions, ma’am. Next question. Who owns and runs San Jose?”
“I do.” Her patience was running thin.
“Where is the only place to be for dinner on a Wednesday night?’
“If I don’t have my clearance by now, it’s a table you will never sit at.”
“Yes, ma’am. You were clear when you got my sister right. My brother-in-law Micha speaks of you like you’re a goddess.”
Dolly smiled. “Dan, we’re tying you in direct to Hooker’s private radio. We will back feed you constant to his other radio, so you two can have as close to a full-time conversation. Hooker, are you there?”
“Go, Dolly.”
“We’re feeding Dan through your sideband but picking you up on the private. You now have Dan constant.”
Hooker downshifted for the off-ramp. “Dan, I’m getting off at the lower gate. What’s going on?”
“Hooker, we now have over a hundred and eighty bogies showing across the zone. There is a large loose and not so loose cluster out on the end of the old airstrip. We only have minimal eyes on the area, but based on what we see and the disbursement of the infrared signatures, it looks like a confrontation of two factors. This action just started about forty-eight minutes ago. There is no violent movement yet, but the sides are definitely being drawn.”
Out on the airstrip, the factions were more heated than those in the Dugout could ever know.
The Mouse stood in the center of a swirling sea of bodies who all knew tonight there would be a massive change in the structure of their lives. She watched the tall man dressed in black. Unlike the other bodies circling in this caldron, he was wearing cowboy boots.
“You dare challenge my authority when you can’t even greet the earth with the skin of your feet? What have you done, Raven, joined the Other World? And now you want to bring it here?” She could hear many members of the tribe hiss, breathing with open-mouthed disdain at the mention of the outside world.
Raven preened in his killing clothes. Tonight, his knife would once again taste the blood of a woman. He slowly moved in an arc in front of the glowing Mouse. “You have become weak, Mouse. You have accused me of consorting with the Other World, but it is you who has been doing so.”
He called out without turning his head. “Turtle, did you watch her here just a few nights ago with the man who kills with silver?”
The voice oozed from out of the dark. “Yes. They were here, Raven.”
“And what did she do, Turtle?”
“She kissed him.”
Raven smiled—the smile of a prosecutor during the Inquisition. “She kissed him.”
“He is my brother. I can’t kiss my own brother?” She turned as she followed the Raven’s slow strut. “Who are you to talk about right and wrong? You have been driving a car—a machine.”
“Lies!” he hissed. “You tell lies to cover your heresy of consorting with an Other World man with silver in his killing stick.”
She seethed. “Swallow. Where are you, Swallow? Tell us about riding in the car with Raven as he went about killing people.”
The child walked into the circle of conflict and stood silently. Raven stepped behind her, petted her hair, reached down, and hugged her. “She has nothing to say to you. You are nothing to her. You are like dirt under her feet, and she will drink of your blood and suck the marrow from your bones.”
“She won’t speak because she is afraid of you. You rule her through fear, not because you care about her.”
He continued to pet the child’s hair and rub her chest. “I care about my Swallow very much.”
“You only care that she will lie in the dirt while you jam your man stick in her ass. That is all you care about.”
“At least she is of our tribe.”
“Yes, she is of our tribe, but you are not. You are an interloper who preys on a child. Everyone else can see it. You can’t even mate with a grown female. She is only now having her first blood. I can smell it on her.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters because she isn’t even old enough to realize you’re only using her.” She looked at Swallow’s face. “Tell the tribe what you two have been doing since you came back from the other place. Tell them about riding in the car. Tell them how Raven isn’t really one of us but is just a killer looking to fill his own blood lust. Tell us, Swallow... tell us or be banished.”
Raven could feel the tightening in the small chest, the stiffening of the spine. He couldn’t allow her to speak.
His hands jumped to her head. One swift movement of his hands and her small head snapped almost completely around. The wet snap of her neck carried through the gathered tribe. He released the small body of the child, and it crumpled to the ground like a used rag.
“Where is your evidence now, Mouse?” He laughed. “Go ahead, ask her. You are the all-powerful witch. Make her speak.”
The Mouse forced herself not to react to the sudden death. She stood and listened.
If the Tribe was fractured before, it was now splintered. She knew for many, killing was only something one did as a last resort to eat. To others, the body of the tribe was sanctity itself, and killing Swallow was unforgivable. And yet there were those she knew who were ready to follow Raven no matter what.
“You killed Swallow so she couldn’t testify as to the killings. But I already know. You are a wanted man. Not a god, but a man. And you will, by your own actions, bring the Other World down upon us. They will root us out of our holes and hollows. They will take us and force things upon us no Tribe member should suffer.”
She pointed her finger like a sword. “You have done this to us. You have killed and done damnable things to the Other World and now here.” She spread out her hands at the heap of dirt, skin, and broken bone of what had been the little girl, Swallow.
The Mouse raised her voice as she shouldered the mantle of the high priestess for the Tribe. “We have all stood witness to the evil this man is capable of...” She could feel the Tribe moving in around the center of her and Raven. The storm above only mirrored the storm on the concrete. Her arms slowly rose as she drew in strength.
Her strength was coming, but from a few miles away. The yellow Goliath lumbered around the corner and lined up.
“Ok, I just turned onto the access. I’ll be there in under three. Pay attention and be ready for whatever happens.” He threw the mic back down toward Maddie.
Hooker swung onto the north end of the old airstrip. He was in sixth gear. He mashed the pedal to the floor, and the front end rose. He leapfrogged the gears up to sixteenth. Eleven tons of steel rolling at one hundred miles an hour is a scary sight in itself. He reached for the dashboard switches. “Crap!” he screamed. “Where are my lights?”
Willie’s evil laugh came from the sleeper. “Oh, we have better than the black-out sneak. Maddie, kill it all. Then when I say, I want only the runners.” They ran black for a few breaths. Hooker pushed the shifter into eighteenth and mashed the pedal past the hundred and twenty mark. The truck was now chewing up the miles of airstrip like it was about to take off.
Quietly, Willie watched familiar territory fly by. “Okay, give us the red and yellow solids on the undercarriage.”
He silently counted to three. “Add in the blues and start the red pulsing in the wheel wells.”
Hooker glanced over as he listened to Willie conduct a moving light show from hell. Willie shot him an evil smile. This was his payback for all the wrongs visited on him in his life. There was a lot of payback, and it would be more than just a bitch.
“I want the ring strobes of yellows.” The giant tow truck was rapidly closing on the end of the runway, and it was looking like an avenging archangel. “Give me the top strobes and rotators.”
Willie counted down, “Three… Two…”
Maddie giggled hysterically.
Willie laughed evilly from the sleeper. “Light us up, Maddie!”
They were a little over a half-mile from the end of the runway and closing fast when the entire truck exploded into a light show. The final touch was when Maddie threw the last set of switches and lit up the runway and everyone on it... all the way to and past the end. A hundred and eighty denizens of the night were full of fight a moment before were now suffering under the hot searing light of a midnight sun.
The charging incarnation was floating on a cloud of light. The thick night air was now dancing with wisps of multi-colored air. The halogen lights turned the phosphorus in The Mouse’s skin into a white flame. She stood with raised arms slowly turning toward her strength and salvation, embracing the light. Unlike sunshine, this light did not burn her skin.
The other denizens scattered into the safety of the night.
In the light, Hooker could see a dark figure grabbed her and flung her to the side. The dark figure started to defy the oncoming Goliath from hell but then decided to fight another day. Spinning on his toe, he reached out and grabbed at The Mouse.
She slipped through his hand as another figure raced by and seemed to slash at the taller figure. As the dark figure turned to chase the other man who had just slashed at him, Hooker was close enough to see the cowboy boots.
Hooker timed the end of the line. Stomping hard on the brakes, he whipped the steering wheel hard left, and then back right followed by three pulling turns. His right hand slipped the gears into neutral on its way to slapping the large red button actuating the air brakes all the way around.
The resulting side-slipping truck howled in a deafening anguished scream as all the tires locked in the slide and were forced to the concrete by the weight of all eleven tons of Mae. The sound spurred the runners to run faster than they had ever run before. To compound the crazy, Maddie flicked the one switch she had held in reserve. Gimbaled halogen searchlights randomly swept the area in a crazed pattern.
Hooker’s hand reached back along the back of the seat and pulled the short shotgun from its holster. The door swung open with the inertia from the stopping truck. Hooker slid down and away from the rocking truck. In the crazy lights, he saw the cowboy, now pulling The Mouse by the arm.
Hooker gave chase.
The still-healing wounds in his hip and thigh screamed at his attempt to run. He had no choice. Luckily, the tussle between the Cowboy and The Mouse was slowing them down. The two were running and jerking toward the gap. Hooker stayed back just enough to push them, but as close as he would need to be. He knew he didn’t dare take a shot. The dimes in his shotgun were entirely unpredictable after the first twenty feet or so.
Hooker could hear his sister screaming something at the Cowboy, and he slapped her across the face.
As she spun from the slap, he turned to face her. Dog raced down from the dirt ridge and reached out and slashed at the Cowboy along the lower back.
Hooker wasn’t sure what kind of knife or blade it was, but he saw it sliced open the entire back of the man’s shirt, causing the Cowboy to jump forward in pain. He spun, expecting to have to give chase. Hooker saw the empty scabbard on the Cowboy’s belt. He guessed Dog had stolen the deadly blade on the first pass.
Dog had slashed and stopped, and the Cowboy turned into the waiting blade. This time Dog sliced across the face. The Cowboy roared and chased after the mostly naked blond man.
The Mouse saw Hooker coming and regained her feet and flew like the wind ahead of him. Hooker gave chase.
As they neared the circle, time and sound collapsed. Hooker saw his sister hesitate. She watched where Dog was running and leading the Cowboy. Her hand reached out hesitantly as if to stop or at least guide Dog back to safety. She looked back at Hooker, pleading.
She knew enough about life and about death. She stepped on the end of the arrow. The red light was over the green light.
She ran.
Hooker stopped. He looked at where she was. He glanced once at where Dog was leading the killer. He jerked the shotgun up and down to cycle the first shell. He aimed at his sister. He then moved the end of the gun higher, and to the right. As the tiny red light came on, he squeezed the trigger.
The world in front of him exploded. He knew as the explosions raced forward Dog had led the Cowboy directly into the line of explosives. Dog had made a choice for himself, his pursuer, and for the life of the woman who was his everything.
As Hooker pumped the next shell into the chamber, he thought he might have heard a scream. He aimed high and toward the left. He pulled the trigger.
He pumped in the next shell and pulled the trigger.
He pumped in the next shell, aimed right again, and pulled the trigger.
He pumped in the last shell. He raised the gun and fired. It no longer mattered. He was spent.
He turned to run. The world turned into white-hot noise. The dark night became the center of the sun.
Something large had pushed him thirty feet before it bounced his body off the concrete. He landed twenty feet farther.
He never heard the sirens. He never saw the cars and fire trucks. He never heard or saw the helicopters. It was Maddie who finally found his body. It just looked like another one of the lumpy mounds of loose dirt.
She sat cross-legged in the dirt, cradling his head in her lap. The man in the bib overalls stood next to them, both holding to their own thoughts.
Willie blinked and looked around in the night. His sight lit on the buoy offshore a hundred yards or so away. He thought it was curious a buoy would have two colors of light on the same side. As he watched, the red light winked out. Only the green remained steady.