Thunderland (33 page)

Okay, if you’re so fast, get your ass out there.

He crept down the driveway until he had a clear view of the road. He peered right, left. No sign of the Stranger.

Maybe he had lost him. Or maybe the Stranger was playing with him, letting him enjoy a fake sense of security before he stomped him. The asshole loved to play games. He was worse than a bratty kid.

But Shorty sensed that waiting for something to happen would be a bad idea, so he got moving. After checking both ways again, and again seeing no one, he shot toward Brains’s.

He had Brains’s house—where lights shone—in sight when he heard the Stranger’s car, roaring louder than ever. He looked behind him. The black car screeched around the corner, in the same stunt-car fashion that it had earlier.

He pumped his legs hard, splashing through cold puddles. The Stranger’s hated headlamps found him. Shorty rode harder. He could not die, not here, not like this. He was too young to die; he had years and years of living left, and he had never treated anyone badly, so life could not be this cruel to him. God would have mercy on him and deliver him from this monster.

He bounced across a flooded gutter and jumped over the curb. Brains’s well-lighted home stood three houses away.

The headlights intensified, burning his back. He heard the car growl hungrily. He could not look behind him. He could only ride and hope.

He rode into Brains’s yard. He could feel the car at his back, the heat from its grille spewing like flames from the nostrils of a dragon. The porch beckoned, twenty feet away but seemingly much farther. He lowered his head, gritted his teeth, and forced every ounce of strength he had remaining into his throbbing legs.

When he was about ten feet away from the steps, he felt the car smash into the bike’s rear tire. Thrown off balance, he flew over the handlebars, sailed through the air, and smacked onto the hard ground and rolled like a crash-test dummy across the lawn.

He blinked slowly. His body was a snarl of pain. Blood, grass, and mud obscured his vision. He wiped his eyes with one scraped, bleeding hand ... and wished he had left the grime over his eyes.

The black sedan rumbled toward him.

He tried to scramble away but could not move. His body felt broken, useless.

He gnashed his teeth. Suddenly, he was not frightened anymore. He was pissed off at God. Why did he have to die like this?

As the car rolled over him, crushing the life out of his body, darkness enveloped him, and his enraged question fell on the deaf ears of a great void.

Jason and Brains sat on the veranda swing, waiting for Shorty to arrive. As they waited, they did not speak much. The death of an acquaintance, whether loved or disliked, influenced you to sit still and quietly contemplate life—and how abruptly it could end. Jason had seen many mysterious happenings, but death was the greatest mystery of all, and he could not understand why God had let Blake and his friends fall into that unfathomable void.

Immersed in those thoughts, he contemplated the wooden strips of the porch floor.

Brains tapped his arm.

Jason jerked up. “What?”

“Did you hear that?” Brains said.

“Hear what?”

Closing his eyes, Brains paused, listening. He said, “A weird noise. Like a jet flying somewhere far away, but different, somehow.”

Jason listened.

“I hear it,” he said. “What is that?”

Brains shrugged, but his eyes remained attentive. The noise grew louder. It sounded like an approaching airplane. An unusually loud airplane.

“It’s probably a military jet,” Jason said. “This is the Fourth of July, Brains. You know they have air shows and stuff today. I bet that’s all it is.”

“Yes,” Brains said. “You’re probably—”

A powerful gale arose, stopping Brains in midsentence. Cold and sharp, the wind tore across the veranda, whipping the bench from side to side and rocking the hanging plants. The odd, jetlike roar doubled in volume.

Jason and Brains jumped up. Expecting the worst, Jason looked at his watch. The digits ticked steadily.

They leaped onto the sidewalk. They scanned the crystalline blue sky. No airplanes flew overhead.

“What’s going on?” Brains turned in circles, gazing skyward.

“What is that noise?”

A premonition grabbed Jason’s stomach. “Shorty.”

Before Brains could ask what he meant, the roar escalated into an eardrum-piercing scream, the gust swirled like a mad dervish around them, and then Jason heard a deafening
whoosh!

Covering their heads, they dropped to the grass.

Less than ten feet away from the porch, a few feet above the ground, an invisible force ripped open an aperture in the air, as if the real world were merely fabric that could be torn apart. The otherworldly hole was a ragged circle the diameter of a garbage can. It pulsed and glimmered, the surrounding air charged with alien energy that raised the hairs at the nape of Jason’s neck.

Although fear prevented Jason from getting to his feet, he gazed into that supernatural portal, and it was like viewing a storm through a window. He realized that he was looking into Thunderland.

Beside him, Brains, too, stared raptly at the spectacle before them.

Just as Jason wondered if the Stranger might emerge from the hole and slay them, a Chicago White Sox cap whirled out like a Frisbee.

Shorty ...

Bile rose in the back of Jason’s throat. He tasted it, as bitter as grief, and choked it down.

The spinning baseball cap plopped onto the steps. Instantly, the shimmering door to Thunderland closed. The wind and the strange noise ceased. Silence reclaimed the day.

Slowly, he walked to the hat. He picked it up. It felt damp. He examined the tag. The letters written on there in black ink read
MJ

Brains looked at the cap, then at Jason. He said only one thing. “Mike.”

More than fifty relatives and friends showed up for the holiday cookout at Sam’s house. Sam gave them the run of his spacious home, but mostly everyone gathered in the huge backyard, where they socialized and enjoyed the smorgasbord of food: barbecued ribs and chicken; hot dogs, Polish sausage, and hamburgers; baked ham; spaghetti; macaroni and cheese; collard greens; green beans; black-eyed peas; potato salad; sweet-potato pie; chocolate cake; homemade ice cream; and much more—enough dishes to ensure there would be plenty of leftovers for the following week.

Thomas was a true soul-food lover, but he had not eaten anything. He was overwhelmed by the sight of all the people there, most of whom he had seen only a few times in the past several years. Like a fool, he had always allowed the restaurant to take precedence over family social affairs. Finally aware of how precious these occasions were, he worked the crowd as though he were a politician running for election, not interested in eating, deriving pleasure solely from renewing ties with old friends and family.

His enthusiasm didn’t rub off on Linda. She was solemn, almost as though they were having a family meal after someone’s funeral. She avoided Thomas in favor of the company of her relatives and friends.

He sighed.
Patience.
He would have to be patient and loving to the end.

He found Jason in a remote corner of the yard. Alone, Jason sat in a lawn chair, a plate of untouched food at his feet. He did not turn when Thomas approached.

Linda approached Jason, too. Her attention was riveted on their son, not on Thomas.

Thomas tapped Jason’s shoulder. “The food’s disappearing fast. And
I
haven’t eaten yet, either. You better clean your plate and get over there again before I do, or I guarantee there won’t be a scrap left.”

Jason remained silent. He did not look at him.

Thomas blushed. After he had neglected his son for years, what kind of response did he expect?
Hey, Dad, thanks for letting me know. Wanna race to the table? Last one there’s a dirty rib tip!
It was natural for the boy to be standoffish.

Linda touched Thomas’s arm and squeezed gently, as if to say
“good try.
“He smiled at her, but worry knotted through him. He wondered if they really would be able to draw Jason back into the circle of their family. Jason would turn fourteen this month. Many kids, eager for greater independence, started rebelling at that age. If Jason was already this far from them, Thomas was afraid to imagine how far he might drift in the future, if they did not pull him back. But pulling him back was a delicate, complex matter. If they poured on the love and affection, they might repel him. If they exercised a lighter touch, he might slip away. They had to strike the perfect balance. Linda seemed capable of doing her part, but Thomas doubted that he could fulfill his role. For him, fatherhood was almost foreign territory.

Nevertheless, he had to try.

“Since you’re not hungry, do you want to play volleyball?” Thomas said. “I see your cousins starting a game right now. I haven’t played in a while, but I’d be more than willing to play with you.”

Again, Jason did not respond.

Confused, Thomas glanced at Linda. She frowned. Stepping forward, she rested her hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Are you okay, honey?” she said.

Jason did not speak, did not look at them.

Maybe Jason was not being stubborn. Maybe his silence had nothing to do with them at all.

Thomas walked in front of him, kneeled so they were face to face ... and flinched when he saw the look in his son’s eyes. He had seen that look before. Ten years ago, he had seen the same look in Big George’s eyes when the physician announced that, because of his stroke, he had to retire from The House of Soul. It was the look of someone who had suffered a crushing loss.

What in God’s name could have happened to Jason?

Searching for evidence that would answer the question, Thomas noticed that Jason clutched a Chicago White Sox hat in his lap. Did it belong to him? Thomas knew little about Jason’s taste in clothes, and he had no inkling of Jason’s favorite sports teams.

What a poor excuse for a father he was. Even he and Big George had shared a love for the Chicago Bears. Knuckles as white as bleached bones, Jason gripped the cap in the manner of a tense child gripping a teddy bear.

“What’s wrong, Jason?” Thomas said.

Jason’s response was almost inaudible: “Nothing.”

Linda bent beside the chair, rested her hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Whatever it is, you can tell us. Talking about it might help.”

“It won’t help,” Jason said. “Because you won’t believe me.”

What a strange thing to say. Linda glanced at Thomas. Her apparent bewilderment mirrored his own.

Thomas pointed to the baseball cap. “Is that yours?”

Jason glared at him. “Do you remember buying it for me?”

‘Well ... no.”

“Then it’s not mine.”

“Your mother could’ve bought it.”

“She could have, but she didn’t. I don’t wear hats, and she knows it. Obviously, you don’t.”

Thomas cleared his throat.
Stay cool,
he reminded himself.
Be patient with the boy.

“Obviously, neither of you can see that I don’t feel like talking.” Jason glared at both of them. “Leave me alone. Please.”