burning embers into the star-filled night sky. The object hit with enough force to throw burning wood on those lying idly by their bikes, and shouts and screams filled the night air as people jumped up and started brushing burning embers from themselves and each other.
It was the girl speaking with Jessie who saw it first. The mass that had been thrown into the fire was the gutted torso of Frank. The beard and long hair had already sizzled down to nothing, and the eyes had exploded from their sockets and were hanging, one on the right side of his head, the other on his left cheek. The blond girl started screaming the screams only professionals made in the movies.
The ground around the old fort started to shake and shimmer in the remaining light cast by the now dying fire.
Faster than they were able to follow, dirt around the adobe walls started to part and cave in on itself. It was like a child drawing a large circle with a stick and was scratching faster and faster, digging a deeper trench with every rotation. It looked and felt as though the flying dirt and sand were encircling them. Finally they reacted and started running for their bikes.
Jessie pushed the girl away from the fire, trying to guide her toward the bikes, but she stumbled and fell, then rolled the wrong way. That was when her screams turned from terror to real agony as she rolled into what remained of the fire.
'God!' Jessie shouted. 'Help me, somebody!' But the rest were busy running or getting on their bikes.
One biker had his Harley-Davidson quickly started and was moving toward a break in the adobe wall, but his front wheel caught in the depression caused by the swirling sand and he went flying over the handlebars.
Kneeling on hands and knees beside the girl, Jessie started to throw sand on her in an attempt to smother the fire. The others watched their companion who was thrown from his bike beyond the wall. The long-haired man was just starting to rise when the dirt parted about ten feet to his right and something unseen rushed toward him. The others screamed for him to run, but he was busy rubbing his knee and cursing. He was suddenly speared by something and pulled down. He was yanked so hard the others heard his back snap. His legs and arms were jolted into the air as his entire body disappeared into the earth. Then the terrifying tide of sand and soil rushed at those who had watched their friend's death in horror, exploding the lowest portion of the adobe wall upward as if dynamite had been placed under it.
Jessie had managed to put out the flames that had engulfed the girl, missing the horrible spectacle outside the adobe walls. She now lay on the ground moaning in shock and pain, burned the entire length of her once young body. Her long blond curls were burned away and she was left with what looked like burned and charred plastic against her scalp. He grimaced as she hissed and looked up at him. He mouthed the word
Without warning, the fire and the girl vanished. The only trace that there had been a fire was the line of smoke and a few floating embers rising out of a large rip in the earth. They were now, except for the setting moon, thrown into total darkness.
Jessie heard the other men and women screaming as they were pulled under the surface. What was happening? Caves? Mine shafts? That must be it, the ground was caving in. Jessie thought for a second about the ghosts of old, long-dead soldiers, but then the real cause of the terror of that night showed itself for the first time. It rose in front of him. Dirt, rocks, and desert grass slid from its armored back as it was framed perfectly in the yellowish glow of the low moon.
Jessie was sitting slack-jawed on his bike, his mind unable to comprehend what he had just seen. He didn't really feel the animal slice him in two. It did feel however as if he had been hit with a rather large pillow. But he did think just before dying that it was amazing, his hips and legs were still astride the bike as his torso was first lifted into the air, then plunged into the earth. His legs tipped over with the motorcycle, trapping one twitching leg under the heavy machine, and even those items were eventually claimed by the new master of the valley.
A few minutes later, the desert was still and quiet again. The old adobe fort once used by the U.S. Army to chase renegade Indians had again become a silent witness to another massacre in this forbidden piece of land, and a few more ghosts joined those already there.
When I look up to the skies, I see your eyes, a funny kind of yellow.
--'PICTURES OF MATCHSTICK MEN,' STATUS QUO
TEN
Gus had walked in a dream state since the strange sounds of the night before. He stopped and removed his sweat-stained fedora and looked around him. He was on an old trail he hadn't used since maybe '64 or so; he couldn't recall the exact year because his mind was firing in all directions. He imagined his brain as a distributor cap with its wiring heading to all the wrong plugs. The incline was steep and the rolling rocks of past avalanches had kept most prospectors away, most of them afraid of being pinned or hit by boulders larger than most houses.
The old man replaced his hat and wondered for a moment just what he was up to. Where was Buck? The sun was starting to peek into the mountains and was stealing the cold night air. He shook his head as he tried to convince himself to get his old ass back down the mountain and find Buck so he could at least get his morning coffee and maybe a biscuit or two. He actually took two steps back down the mountain when the sobbing came gently into his mind again. A child's crying--that was when he remembered exactly why he was climbing. He was doing so because some kid had been lost up there and he had to at least try to find the child. It was up to him to get the child out of whatever fix he or she was in. The cries lasted at least a full three minutes this time before they ceased. The old prospector stopped again, more awake than he had been the previous times he had heard the strange sounds in his head. This time, unlike the others, he became aware of a feeling other than sadness. As he looked up the old trail, he became frightened, more frightened than he had ever been before in his life.
'What in the hell is wrong with you?' he asked out loud to himself, looking around him as if something were lurking,' hiding behind one of the large granite boulders lining the old trail.
Suddenly he felt depression sinking in like a brick hitting him in the head, all at once feeling lost and terrified. Gus looked around the area where he was standing and nothing looked as it had before. The rocks had somehow become foreign to him; the dirt under his boots was somehow alien. His eyes widened as he desperately searched for something recognizable. He looked at the dark purple morning sky and the tip of the rising sun. This terrified him even more. Good God, what was wrong with him? It was as if these natural things were strange and foreign.
Gus turned and started back up. Whatever was wrong, he couldn't wait. He knew that. Something or someone was calling to him; he knew that beyond a doubt, and though he didn't understand why or how he knew, he was needed in the worst way. As he climbed, one strange sentence swirled through his mind that added to his confusion, repeating over and over,
He shook his head trying to clear it.
'Destroyer,' Gus said aloud as he looked toward the sunrise, and it was never more welcome than it was this day, because that
Robert Reese was trying to hold his bladder in check. He had squeezed his eyes shut tight and was hissing between clenched teeth as it had been five long and agonizing minutes since he had begged and pleaded for them to let him urinate. The three men from the club whom Reese had seen on numerous occasions before this awful day had just looked at him and continued playing the same card game they had been playing all night. He had not seen the tall blond man in the eight hours he had been here.
'Come on, man, I have to piss, goddamn it!' he said, trying to keep his voice from having that whining tenor to it.
A heavy set man with a decidedly singular eyebrow looked over and spit his toothpick out, and it landed in
