Thunderland (39 page)

Jason,
he thought, hoping his final, desperate message would reach his grandson by some kind of telepathy. He loved many of his family and friends, but he and Jason shared a special relationship, and he yearned to send the boy one last piece of his heart before he left him.
I want you to know that I’m proud of you. Remember that forever
...

Thomas and Linda reached the garage. Along the way, they found nothing to suggest that anyone had invaded their house; neither did they find any clues indicating where Jason had gone. Cold sweat had begun to soak Thomas’s shirt. The longer this disturbing ordeal lasted, the higher his anxiety climbed.

He was grateful to have Linda beside him. The touch of her warm hand on his arm gave him strength. He held up the .38; she held up
him.

She flicked on the garage light switch. Large fluorescent tubes blazed into life.

The incessant clamor of rain, wind, and thunder echoed in the large chamber.

Their cars, his Buick and her Nissan, sat seemingly undisturbed in their spaces. Shining a flashlight through the windows, they checked inside each vehicle. Both of them were empty.

They got inside the Buick. Thomas removed the cellular telephone from the glove compartment.

“What’s the plan if the phone doesn’t work?” Linda said.

“It’ll work. It isn’t connected to the house lines.”

“True. But what if it still doesn’t work?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that. Why are you worried about things that won’t happen?”

“I’m a writer, remember? Always wondering ‘what if?’ is second nature to me.”

“Okay, well, try not to worry. Everything’s gonna be fine. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

He pressed the phone’s ON button. The green power light on the handset brightened.

“See?” he said. ‘We’re in business. What’s his buddy’s number?”

She had written the phone numbers of Jason’s friends on a slip of paper. She read one of them to Thomas. He punched in the digits and pushed SEND.

Before the line could ring once, the power indicator blinked out.

“No.” He checked the battery, found it properly connected to the phone. Once more, he pushed ON. But the green button remained dark, and the handset issued only flat silence.

“This is nuts,” he said. “How can it malfunction? It worked a second ago.”

“Plug it up to the car’s battery and see what happens.” She handed him the device to connect the phone to the cigarette lighter.

He plugged in the cord. The cell phone still did not work. Fearing that the car battery might be dead, too, he twisted the key in the ignition. The Buick started.

“I don’t get it.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any damned sense.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with these phones,” she said. “But I say we stop wasting time trying to use them. Let’s go to Darren’s house. His place is closer than Mike’s. We might find Jason there.”

“Good idea.” He shifted into reverse.

When they backed out of the garage, rain avalanched onto the car with a jarring crash, blurring the windows. Thomas clicked on the windshield wipers. But the wipers could not keep up with the frenetic rainfall.

Linda turned around in her seat, gaping. “This is incredible. Any minute now, we should see Noah’s Ark.”

“Tell me about it.” He backed down the driveway and into the street. “I’ve never seen it rain like this.”

She switched on the radio, presumably to muffle the roaring downpour. No noise came from the speakers. She raised the volume, changed from station to station. Nothing but silence.

Driving carefully, he said, “Something must be wrong with the communication systems around here. No phones, no radio, and probably no TV, either. A communications breakdown.”

“How could that happen?” she said. “All of them operate independently of one another. They aren’t gathered in a single building that could be blown up or something.”

“I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s the storm, maybe it’s an alien invasion, or maybe God got sick of our noise and decided to shut us up for a while. Linda, I have no idea, and I don’t really care. I only want to get our boy.”

“That makes two of us. Drive faster. “

“I can’t go any faster. These streets are like rivers. This isn’t a powerboat. “

Immense wings of water sprouted from the sides of the Buick as it parted the churning lake that had flooded the road. Hard rain pummeled the car like a hail of bullets.

In
no time, visibility had been reduced to zero. He drifted to the curb and parked.

“We can’t drive in this,” he said. “We have to wait until it calms down.”

“Let me drive,” she said.

“It’s too dangerous. Your vision might be better than mine, but driving in this weather isn’t safe. If we wait five or ten minutes, it’ll probably have slackened off some.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Linda, please.”

She grabbed his arm. “No, think about it, will you?
What if it doesn’t?
We’ve got to have a plan. Jason’s life might depend on how fast we act.”

“Come on, we aren’t in one of your books. You’re getting carried away.”

“Am I? Whose idea was it to bring the gun?”

Looking at her, seeing the determination on her beautiful face and the sharp intelligence in her eyes, made him remember why he loved her so much. She would not sit back and allow things to happen to her. She had to plan, initiate action. He never would have wished to change anything about her, but at that moment, when he felt confused and so worried he thought he might shit his pants, he wished she would just shut up.

“I brought an umbrella,” she said, pointing at the black umbrella on the floor in front of her. “I spotted another one in the backseat.”

“You want us to walk?”

“It’s safer than driving blind. Considering the road conditions, we might travel faster by foot.”

“How far away is Darren’s house?”

“About half a mile. Maybe a little farther.”

 He looked out the windshield. In the deluge, he could hardly see the front of the car, and the rain showed no signs of weakening. In fact, since they had left the house, it had stepped up its intensity.

“You win,” he said. ‘We wait a few more minutes. If the weather doesn’t improve, we’ll start walking.”

“Okay. I only hope that Jason, wherever he is, can afford to wait that long.”

Brains was going on the run.

If, as he suspected, the Stranger could place psychic tags on intended victims just as a game warden could put electronic tracking devices on deer, by staying in the house he was making it far too easy for the Stranger to get a fix on his location and wipe him out. Leaving and keeping on the move might improve his chances for survival. Admittedly, it was a weak, unreliable plan, but he did not know what else he could do. He had decided that taking action of any kind was better than waiting to die.

Thunder bombed the night. Wind-driven rain lashed the house.

Because he would be moving fast and perhaps recklessly, Brains removed his eyeglasses and replaced them with his contact lenses, which he wore whenever he played sports. He went to the walk-in closet in his parents’ bedroom and took out his father’s raincoat. He pulled it on.

His dad owned a pair of galoshes that looked as if they would fit, too, but he opted to keep on his basketball shoes. He had to stay quick on his feet.

A big yellow flashlight stood atop the oak dresser. After verifying that it worked, Brains slid it into the raincoat pocket.

He opened the bedroom door, checked left and right.
Clear.
He eased outside and crept down the hall.

At the head of the stairs, he stopped. A sour smell made him cough. What was that?

Blackness swallowed the bottom of the staircase. He flicked the stairwell lamp switch.

A thick tower of ink-black smoke floated at the foot of the stairs. Slowly a figure took shape in the vapor—no, took shape
from
the vapor itself, as though the entity were some freak of nature.

The Stranger,
he thought.
It has to be the Stranger.

Brains raised the gun.

The man that formed from the smoke was lean, and tall enough to play power forward for the Bulls. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, top hat, bow tie, and shiny black shoes. In
one frightfully large hand, he carried a black cane. A silky black cape billowed around him.

Was this really the Stranger? Was this the elusive entity that had terrorized them, the shape-changing beast that had murdered Mike and those kids? Was this really Jason’s long-time friend and confidant?

If the answer to all of those questions was yes—and it had to be—then this wild adventure had taken a sharp turn into truly bizarre territory.

The man began to climb the stairs.

His hands trembling, Brains cocked the .45.

“Whoever you are, stop right there, or I’ll shoot.”

“I am Mr. Magic,” the man said. His voice was deep, melodious. He ascended another step. “It’s my pleasure to finally meet the great Brains.” He chuckled.

Mr. Magic.
Jesus.
No wonder he was dressed like a stage magician. Brains would never have expected the Stranger to wind up being something like this. Not in a hundred years.

“Whoever you are, whatever you are,” Brains said. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Mr. Magic only smiled. He spread his long arms. “Then fire away, Darren.”

His voice was mellow, utterly calm. Water seemed to seep into Brains’s knees. Mr. Magic had transformed from a mass of smoke, for God’s sake. Would a gun really harm him?

Mr. Magic took another step.

Brains sucked in a deep breath and squeezed off three smooth shots. The first two rounds hit the guy squarely in the chest. The third struck his shoulder.

But Mr. Magic did not bleed—did not so much as wince. Brains might as well have pelted him with feathers.
Damn.

“My turn,” Mr. Magic said, and flung his cane onto the steps. The cane mutated into something that looked like a black snake, but it had dozens of miniature legs, bulbous eyes, and wicked-looking fangs.

Whatever it was, it had never been described in Brains’s science textbooks. Brains’s eyes grew so large, he thought his contact lenses might pop out.

Like an angry cobra, the creature raised up and hissed, its hateful glare fixed on Brains. It raced up the stairs.

Propelled by dozens of small, shiny legs, the snake-creature scurried up the steps toward Brains.

Brains didn’t try to hit the thing with a bullet. It was too damn fast. He turned and dashed to the nearest room, his bedroom.

Ice water gushed through his veins. The .45, his sole weapon, was basically useless. Jason had said that whatever you fantasized in Thunderland immediately became real, but Brains’s mind pumped so quickly he could barely think, much less summon the concentration to imagine anything that might stop Mr. Magic. His only choice was to escape.