Creatures of the Storm (44 page)

There was something
different now. In the last few days, they had moved with relentless
purpose, with an eerie and deadly efficiency. Now they
…
wandered
.
They fought whatever they happened to encounter,
and then moved on. There was still
frightening
power, but no purpose.
No intelligence.

Ken had hoped – hell, he
admitted to himself, he had
prayed
– that the destruction of the
thing
inside The Brothers would
cause the creatures of the storm to simply collapse in place and
die, as much as things like this could ‘die’ at all. Vampires hit
by the sun. Puppets with cut strings.

No such luck.
He had been right all along. They were more like
robots with damaged programs, but they were still energized
by…whatever it was that energized them. Still moving, but aimless
now. Lost.

Lost but still horribly dangerous.

Rose had been very quiet since the sun had
started to rise. Now she blinked suddenly, as if in surprise, and
put her hand to her breast. She unbuttoned her coat and reached
inside, searching and searching ... then pulled out a white box, so
clean in the midst of all the mud that it shimmered in the morning
light.

“What’s that?” Ken said.

“A gift from a friend,” she said, and smiled.
“Looks like it’s okay, too. I was afraid I’d broken it.” She held
it up and showed it to her dad. “Maggie,” she said.

His mouth dropped open. Then he turned it
into a grin. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said.

“Oh, I think you’ve been there, done that,”
Rose said solemnly. “But here, she wanted you to have it.”

As he took it, she popped open another
buttoned pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper folded in quarters.
“This, too,” she said, and handed it over.

Ken frowned in puzzlement and scanned the
single page. Then he sat down on a stone as big as a steamer trunk
and read it again, this time much more slowly. Finally he nodded
and handed the paper back to Rose. She smoothed it on her knee and
read:

…and below that:

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

It doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

Where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

Rise into the atmosphere,

And even if the whole world’s harp

Should burn up, there will still be

Hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your
chest,

And let the spirit fly in and out.

“That’s beautiful,” Rose said.

“A poet named Rumi,” Ken said quietly. “I
don’t know …” He looked up and out into the misty blues and
magentas of the new sky and shook his head. “I just don’t know,” he
said.

There was a deep,
rhythmic
thud-thud-thud
above and behind them. They turned together,
their backs to the Valle, and mounted the ridgetop. Rose was the
first to find the moving black dot as it circled towards
them.

It was a helicopter –
a
big
one. They
shouted until they were hoarse, jumped and waved, even Ken, on his
wounded leg. The chopper altered course sharply as soon as it saw
them and came closer.

“What do you know,” Rose said into his ear.
“We made it.” He turned his head to look at her, and so much welled
up in him, so many emotions…

He didn’t think he could talk at the moment,
so he just nodded.

“You think Mom is okay?” Rose asked. “I've
been thinking about her all night.”

“We'll have to see,” Ken said, trying to be
comforting, terrified of the truth. “I hope so.”

The chopper was closer now. They could see
the USMC logo on its side. It didn't look real to Rose. How could
it?

“So what happens next?” she asked.

He looked at the chopper, then looked back
over his shoulder at the glittering new lake and the bone-colored
creatures that danced and battled on its shore. He felt the sharp
corners of the hard drive in his pocket, and the pressure of his
daughter’s hand on his back. He shrugged.

“That,” he said, “is a very good
question.”

Brad Munson is a writer, editor, screenwriters and
marketer living in Southern California until they politely ask him
to leave, which could be any time now.