Chapter Nine
Clouds of tear gas billowed through the streets, as the men and women in the sheriff’s office fought for their lives. Those manning the gun slits used broken-off chair legs and billy clubs and the butts of rifles and shotguns to beat back the mob of walking dead unaffected by the choking gas.
“Fire axes!” Gordie yelled. “Get axes and hatchets – machetes, anything that will cut! Lop off their hands as they stick them through the slits. Then burn the hands to destroy them.”
Lopped-off hands crawled around the floor like huge, pale, misshapen spiders. The college girls, along with Megan, Sunny, Jill, and Angel beat them into pulp with clubs, scooped them up with shovels, and tossed them into buckets. They carried the buckets into a back room, doused the contents with gasoline, and burned the smashed hands.
Still the onslaught from the outside continued.
A hand crawled up a desk, up on the lamp, and leaped at Judy, attaching itself to her throat. She fought the hand silently, unable to utter a sound. The dead fingers punctured her flesh and dug deeper into her throat, ripping and tearing veins and arteries. With each beat of her heart, long streams of blood shot from her ruined throat. She collapsed on the floor, dying. The hand jumped from the bloody mess, scurrying along the floor. Angel smashed it with a shovel and beat it flat as a pancake.
Those prisoners that were left overpowered the deputy guarding the door to the hallway and ran into the main room, eyes wild with madness and fear. Some grabbed for weapons, others grabbed at women, trying to pull them down to the floor, ripping at their clothes; one more violent rape before death claimed them.
And death claimed them. They were shot. There was nothing else Gordie and the others could do.
Howie sat at his bank of computers, monitoring the screens while chaos reigned around him.
I’m sorry, Howie, the words flashed on the screen. There is nothing any of us can do to help you . . . at the present time.
Sand?
Yes.
Why is God doing this to us?
God has nothing to do with it. He did not create the Fury. He did not create the Force. They were and they are. Robin has gone into shock. See to her. We’ll talk more later.
Howie stepped from his computer room into a blood-splattered arena of violence. He ran to Dr. Anderson and pointed to the room where Robin was huddled in a corner, her eyes wild with fear, her face pale.
“Sand told me,” the boy shouted.
The doctor nodded. “Go back to your room. I’ll take care of her.”
The shouting, screaming hordes outside the door broke off their attack and ran silently into the gas-filled night. Silence fell on those in the building.
NOW THAT WAS ENTERTAINING. OH, MY, YES. I HAVEN’T HAD SO MUCH FUN IN YEARS.
Gordie leaned against a wall, a bloody axe in his hand. His face mirrored his exhaustion. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, Fury. Personally, I didn’t see the humor in it.”
“It’s gone,” Howie called. “The main body of energy is centered around Thunder Mountain.”
The government technicians had also noticed the Fury’s move to the mountain.
“It must have some importance,” a scientist said. “But what?”
“The mountain has been studied from every possible angle,” another scientist said. “It was mined out before the turn of the century. There are no minerals of any significant amounts in the mountain.”
The men and women looked at each other and shrugged.
“Robin wasn’t as bad as she appeared,” Dr. Anderson told Gordie. “I’ve sedated her.”
“What are the odds of her flipping out?”
Anderson grimaced at the nonprofessional term. “As long as we can keep her mildly sedated, I don’t think that’s going to happen. You have to bear in mind, she’s been through one hell of an experience. She remembers meeting her dead mother and father. Really, she’s a damn tough girl.”
Gordie nodded and looked out a gun slit. It would be daylight in about an hour. In one way he was looking forward to it. He glanced around the big room, blood-splattered and body-littered. Come the daylight, they had to get rid of the bodies.
“Burn them,” Gordie ordered. “Behind the impound area. There’s no point in jacking around with body bags any longer.”
Soon, black stinking smoke was rising up into the air.
YOU ARE A VICIOUS LITTLE MEX, AREN’T YOU, GUNFIGHTER?
“I do what has to be done.”
ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS SEALED OFF ALL ROADS LEADING INTO THIS AREA?
“No,” Gordie lied. “I was not.”
THEY’VE EVACUATED ALL THE PEOPLE FOR MILES AROUND. THAT DISPLEASES ME, GORDIE.
“There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, Fury. Not one thing.”
THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE TRUTH. BUT SOMEHOW I SUSPECT IT IS. THOSE ON THE OUTSIDE HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS OF YOU POOR WRETCHES.
“Then we’ll just have to fight you with what we have.”
THAT’S THE SPIRIT, GREASEBALL. RAH RAH, SIS BOOM BAH.
“Shit on you,” Gordie muttered. He walked back into the office and said, “I’m going for a ride. Anybody want to tag along.”
To his surprise, Angel raised her hand.
“Angel, it’s dangerous out there.”
“I want to go to my house, just one more time. There are some things I want to get.”
Gordie waited as Judy’s body was wrapped in a blanket. Lee looked at the sheriff.
Gordie shook his head. “Burn it,” he ordered. “She’d want her body to be rendered useless, rather than risk having it used against us.”
Sunny took Angel’s hand. “I’ll go with you, Gordie.”
“As will I,” Bergman said, picking up an M-16 and tossing it to Gordie. He chose one for himself and moved toward the door.
“Wait,” Gordie said, holding up a hand. “Angel, what if your parents are there?”
The child stood a little straighter. “They aren’t my parents anymore, Sheriff. They belong to the Fury. I belong to God.”
Gordie smiled. “All right, Angel. We’ll take a trip to your house. And Angel, all of us here in this room belong to God. He hasn’t forsaken us.”
“No, sir. I don’t think He has either. I think He sent Sand to help us.”
Watts grunted. “God must surely like His warriors, then. As much as I liked the boy, I’d sooner have stuck my hand into a sack of rattlesnakes than cross him.”
“Wanna come along, Al?” Gordie asked.
“No. I think I’ll stay here and watch the TV. There are some pieces to the puzzle that I still haven’t quite fitted together. I think Sand will get around to it. I don’t want to miss any of it.”
“That’s why we’re taping it, sir,” Bos reminded the man.
Watts looked at the college student and smiled. “I hope you make it out of here, son. But I won’t.”
Everybody still in the room looked at the tall, straight, ex-head of Colorado state police. “What do you mean, sir?” Dean asked.
“Fury isn’t here, sir,” Howie called. “We can talk freely.”
“Gordie has the start of a pretty good plan for a bustout, when the time comes. Somebody has to keep the home fires burning, so to speak. I volunteered myself. I’m no hero, but I’ve lived a full life. And I won’t be alone. Another person here has volunteered.”
“You just had to go and flap your mouth, didn’t you, Al?” Mack spoke from behind the console.
“I don’t think we have much time left to us, Mack. I think it’s down to hours now. We’d best start gathering up materials, and getting Major Jackson and his people to give us short courses on these plastic explosives.” He held up a hand. “And I don’t want to hear any weeping and moaning about our decision. It’s firm, so keep your comments to yourselves. You ready to conduct a class, Major?”
Jackson nodded his head. “I’ll get the materials.”
“Gordie, honey,” the voice of a woman came from behind the welded door. “Please let us out. I love you, baby.”
Gordie took Angel’s hand, and together they walked out the door. Behind the steel door, his wife started cussing him.
The television clicked on. Watts took a seat. “I remember this,” he said. “Joey and Tuddie’s funeral.”
The others gathered around the set. “He’s doing it again,” Mack said. “Pulling events out of sequence. Why?”
“I think I know,” Watts said. “Watch.”
Joey and Tuddie were buried side by side. Joey’s parents – who had disowned him, his mother burning a yarzheit candle – did not attend the funeral. Robin was in shock and heavily sedated all the way through the ordeal. She went to stay with her parents.
Watts was at the funeral, in civilian clothes. After the ceremony, he walked a short distance with Sand. “What are your feelings at this time, Sand?”
“I don’t have any feelings. My guts are cold.”
Watts glanced up at Morg, sitting on a small knoll above the hallowed ground.
“What’s Morg doing, Sand?”
“Waiting.”
The Force chuckled darkly. The sky rumbled with thunder. But there was not a cloud in sight.
“Why did you just chuckle, Sand?”
“I didn’t.”
“All right. What is Morg waiting for?”
“For me.”
“Then what are the two of you waiting for?”
Sand stopped and looked at the cop. Darkness leaped from his eyes. The gaze gripped Watts, chilling him. “You wouldn’t understand, Captain.”
“Probably not,” Watts said after a sigh. He felt strange, as if someone else were listening.
“Oh, yes,” a voice spoke.
“Damnit, Sand!” Watts said, exasperated. “Who’s doing that?”
“We’re almost out of time, Captain. When you shoot, please shoot straight.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Sand?”
Sand walked away. Watts looked up at the knoll. Morg was gone. So was Bruno, Sand’s big quarter-breed wolf. Bruno howled. Watts shivered.
“Eerie,” Watts said.
“Oh, yes,” a voice whispered. “Quite.”
Watts looked quickly around him. There was not a living soul in sight.
A living soul.
Watts walked out of the graveyard. He resisted with all his might the urge to whistle.
The TV screen went dark.
“So what’s he telling us, Al?” Mack asked.
“The Force is going to help us, I think.”
Howie called from his room. “Come in here, people. This just popped up on Sand’s screen.”
They all gathered around and looked. The one word gave them all new hope.
Sand had typed: Yes.