Thunderland (36 page)

“Keep that thing away from me,” he said. Fear thickened his throat, like mucus. “Don’t let it touch me.”

Mr. Magic chuckled. “My goodness, you are trembling. Why are you afraid? We are friends, Jason.”

“Just keep it away.” Looking from the snake-centipede-thing to Mr. Magic, Jason stealthily reached behind him and grasped the doorknob. Escape was his only option. He didn’t know where he could escape to in this strange world, but he obviously could not trust Mr. Magic. Previously his friend, he had become a demon.

“Do not fear me, my friend,” Mr. Magic said. “I will not harm you. Unless, of course, you give me reason to do so. But that will not happen, will it? You will be a good boy, yes?”

“Yes,” Jason said, and twisted the knob and tore open the door.

Whip-quick, the creature leaped off the floor and bit him.

The cookout ended around eight-thirty. The leftovers were divided among friends and relatives, lawn chairs and picnic tables were packed away, garbage was bagged and tossed into the Dumpster, and the stereo was turned off and returned inside the house.

Linda was glad to be going home. She enjoyed cookouts, but putting them together was so much work. She was exhausted. After she and Thomas helped clean up, they said their final good-byes to everyone, and Thomas drove them home.

Night had fallen over the city. Kids playing with firecrackers crowded on sidewalks and congregated in the streets, creating enough bangs, shrieks, and pops to match the sounds of a nation at war. Like devotees making a pilgrimage, families laden with coolers and blankets trudged toward the park to watch the citywide fireworks display, which would commence at nine o’clock.

Driving, Thomas glanced away from the road and looked at her. “Okay, we haven’t really talked about this yet. Give me your honest opinion on Jason’s story.”

She was glad that Thomas had brought up the subject of Jason. Jason was one of the few subjects she could discuss with him without feeling angry and bitter.

“I don’t know, Thomas,” she said. “It sounds unbelievable, and Jason has always had an extremely vivid imagination. On the other hand, he and his friends have been up to something the past few days, like I’ve suspected. They’ve been spending the night at one another’s houses every night. Don’t forget, someone really did give Jason the bike, too. We don’t know who’s responsible. “

“But a spirit?” Thomas said. “A spirit that’s running around killing folks? Come on.”

“We haven’t called his friend’s family yet. If
they tell us that the kid really is dead—and I pray that he isn’t—that would be a strong sign that Jason’s telling the truth. I don’t have their number with me, but it’s at home.”

“Then we can call them when we get in. I prefer to believe that Jason’s making up this whole story. Maybe he’s doing it for attention.”

‘Jason’s not like that, Thomas. Besides ... something weird happened to me recently.”

“What happened?”

“I got a call,” she said, “from a child. The kid sounded younger than Jason, but he talked as though I were his mother, and he taunted me about some things that only Jason could know about. Then he invited me into the backyard to ‘play with him.’ I didn’t go out there, but I looked out the window. I saw someone in the tree ... then a ball floated out of the tree, toward the house.” She shivered. “I moved away from the window. A couple of minutes later, when I looked outside again, he was gone, and so was the ball.”

“That’s some strange shit, Linda.”

“You’re telling me. That’s why I’m inclined to believe at least part of what Jason is saying.”

Thomas rubbed his chin. “All right, I have to admit that something weird happened to me, too.
I
got a call the other night.”

“You’re kidding,” she said. ‘Was it a kid?”

“No, it was a woman. She had a memorable voice—very sexy, I have to say. And she knew things about me and you. Even crazier, she knew about my umm ... affair.”

“She did?” Linda stared at him. “I didn’t know about it, and I live with you.” Her anger came back in a hot rush. She drew a breath.
Don’t get sidetracked,
she reminded herself. They were talking about Jason and these bizarre incidents, not their marriage.

“That’s not all,” he said. “After I hung up on her, she showed up in the backyard. She was butt-naked, baby. She tried to get me to come outside, too. Of course, I didn’t. I went back to bed.”

“I can’t believe all of that happened and you didn’t tell me about it,” she said.

“You didn’t tell me what happened to you, either.”

“Touché,” she said. “I didn’t want to admit to myself that it had actually happened. I tried to convince myself that I was daydreaming.”

“Same here. I was half convinced that I had dreamed the whole damn thing, so I didn’t bring it up. But since our experiences were similar, in a way, there must be a connection.”

“Yes, there must be,” she said. “But I’ll be damned if I know what it is. We’d better talk to Jason as soon as we get in. We need for him to tell us everything.”

“Agreed. I can’t see how any of this stuff would connect and make sense, but he might know something that could tie it all together.”

Thomas turned onto their block. Sitting on a slight hill, surrounded on both sides by towering elms, oaks, and maples, their modern two-story home looked deserted. The black windows stared blankly into the night, and the porch lamp was off. Was Jason here? Or was he on his mysterious mission?

Linda reached above her and pressed the remote control clipped to the sun visor, opening the garage door. As Thomas pulled into the garage, she saw Jason’s bike leaning against the wall. He was here. Good. She was anxious to sit him down and clear up this strange business.

When they entered the kitchen and called for Jason, he did not answer.

Thomas headed upstairs to Jason’s room. Downstairs, Linda searched for a note, thinking he might have departed without taking his bike. She found nothing.

“He’s not in his room.” Thomas came down the steps. “Did you find a note from him?”

“No.”

“I wonder if he came home when he left your dad’s house. He said he felt that he was running out of time, remember?” Thomas ran his hand through his hair. “Shit, I wish I had listened to him.”

“I’ll call his friend’s parents,” she said.

She read Mike Johnson’s phone number off the list of numbers tacked on the Peg-Board beside the wall phone. She had punched in three digits before she realized the line was dead.

“Thomas, pick up the phone in the living room. This one isn’t working.”

Nodding, Thomas left the kitchen. From the other room, he said, “This one’s dead, too.”

Thunder rumbled. A whooping gale thumped the walls, snuffled at the edges of the windows. Chilled and not certain why, Linda hurried toward the living room and Thomas. He met her in the hallway.

“It’s probably pointless, but I’ll check the phone upstairs,” he said.

“I’ll go with you,” she said, not wanting to be alone, and unable, too, to understand her onset of anxiety.

In the master bedroom, another telephone sat on the nightstand. As Thomas had guessed, that one was also dead.

Another club of thunder hit the night. It was the most powerful crash Linda had ever heard; the force of the reverberation actually knocked her off balance. Gripping the dresser for support, she peered outside a window. The sky sagged under the weight of heavy, oil-black thunderclouds. Lightning throbbed against the backdrop of the heavens, resembling the luminous veins and arteries of some huge, otherworldly beast.

She turned to Thomas. “The storm could have knocked out the phone lines.”

“I can’t recall that ever happening,” he said. “The electrical lines, sure, I’ve seen that. But the phones? That’s a new one. The storm started only a couple of minutes ago.”

‘Well, what else could it be?”

Thomas did not answer. He glanced at his watch.

“The second hand’s stopped,” he said. “Check your watch, Linda.”

She looked at her Timex. It read 9:14, and the hands were frozen.

“Mine has stopped, too,” she said.

“Good Lord,” Thomas said. “I don’t believe this.”

“You’re thinking of what Jason said earlier, aren’t you?” she said. “Something about it being dangerous when the clocks stop and thunder rumbles.”

“Exactly. I don’t know what any of it means, but I remember his advice.” He opened the closet and removed a wooden case from the top shelf. He opened the box.

Inside, a .38 gleamed darkly.

“A precaution,” he said when she looked at him questioningly. He carefully took the revolver and several bullets out of the case. “Jason warned us to arm ourselves. I don’t know who—or what—we’re up against, but we’d be crazy to ignore his advice.”

“I guess that now you believe everything he said.”

“This is some strange shit, baby. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m clueless. I don’t
want
to believe Jason’s story, but it looks like he was on the money.”

“I hope he was wrong. Judging from what he said, someone might try to attack us.”

‘We’ll be ready.” He loaded the ammunition in the revolver. Ordinarily, the sight of guns made her nervous, but she was grateful that he was prepared. She wished she had a gun of her own, though she had no idea how to use one.

“What’s our plan?” she said.

“Get to my car phone. Call his friends. If they can’t give us any answers, we call the cops.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

Like God clapping His mighty hands, thunder blared.

A gust screamed—a haunting, humanlike cry.

Then a fury of rain hammered the house. Clattering, splashing, and hissing, it was most intense cloudburst Linda had ever witnessed.

Clutching the .38, Thomas went to the doorway. While Linda waited near the bed, he ducked outside and checked both ways.

“All clear.” He returned to her. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. The longer I stay here, the more worried I get. I know something’s happened to that boy. I don’t want to waste a second messing around.”

“I’m right behind you,” she said.

They moved outside the bedroom and crept toward the stairs, Linda searching in every direction for a threat she could not name, in a house that seemed nothing like the place she called home.

Brains neither heard nor felt the portentous thunder when it first struck. Sitting on his bed, he paged slowly through a family photo album. He stopped and stared for long stretches of time whenever he found a photograph in which Shorty appeared. His grief, as potent as it had been that morning when he had seen Shorty’s baseball cap spin out of the supernatural hole, had rendered him oblivious of the outside world.

In every picture, Shorty seemed happy. Although he had been photographed in a variety of places—in front of a roller coaster at Six Flags Great America, near a heap of gifts at Brains’s tenth birthday party, eating barbecue at a cookout a few summers ago-his cheery, easygoing nature had been captured flawlessly in each photo. Except for Brains’s own memories, nothing reminded him so poignantly of his missing cousin.

No. Not missing cousin.
Dead
cousin. Because Brains had not witnessed Shorty’s death, part of him harbored the hope that he was still alive, maybe trapped in some corner of Thunderland. But it was only dumb, childish optimism. Mike’s body had been discovered downtown, near Northern Road. He was dead.