Lightning
Greg Strandberg
LIGHTNING
A Sanders McGee Adventure
Greg Strandberg
Big Sky Words, Missoula
Copyright © 2014 by Big Sky Words
Written in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Connect with Greg Strandberg
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Table of Contents
1 – Morning
2 – On the Scene
3 – Off the Point
4 – The Call
5 – The Terror
6 – Gathering Evidence
7 – A Plea
8 – Watery Acres
9 – The Gas Station
10 – A Sighting
11 – A Slippery Slide
12 – Pooling Resources
13 – Oh No!
14 – Lightning
15 – After the Storm
About the Author
Preview of Fire
Map of San Diego, California
1 – Morning
Sanders McGee put the rolled-up $2 bill in his nose and got down to business. The cocaine went up his left nostril and then to his head. His eyes went wide and finally the day could get started.
“Yo, Sanders!” a voice yelled, banging on the bathroom door. “Hurry your ass up – we gotta get rolling.”
Sanders wiped the cocaine residue from the top of the toilet paper dispenser and smeared it on his upper gums. He flushed the toilet for good measure then ran the tap for a second while sniffling. A moment later he opened the door.
“Can’t you do that shit at home?”
Sanders looked at Donny and frowned. “Shit ain’t there then.”
Donny frowned further and turned around. “C’mon…and don’t forget your badge.”
Sanders was the one frowning this time. He pulled out his San Diego Police Department badge, affixing it firmly on his left breast.
“C’mon,” Donny said again, turning back to look over his shoulder, “there’s been another lightning strike, this one just a few minutes ago.”
They were walking down the hall and out the door a minute later.
2 – On the Scene
“What do you make of it?” Donny asked, staring down at the charred and blacked body of one Mrs. Sheila Henrickson, an elderly lady that’d by all accounts been doing nothing more than watering her prize-winning tulips…so far at least.
“She was struck by lightning,” Sanders said with a sniffle.
Donny looked up at him, his brow furrowed. “You still got that fucking cold?”
Sanders sniffled again and wiped at his nose. “Won’t go away, sarge.”
“Yeah,” Donny said as he looked back down at the charred corpse, “your eyes are all fucked up too.”
Sanders raised a brow to that, but said nothing. Instead he turned around to survey the scene. They were in Linda Vista on Osler Street, near the Tecolote Canyon Natural Park. It was a pretty nice neighborhood, but otherwise there was nothing special about it. The houses all had manicured lawns and long driveways and the migrant workers that usually would’ve been tending the grounds were suddenly nowhere to be seen.
There were four squad cars and a meat wagon and…fuck!
“Captain Meyers,” Sanders said, looking down at Donny.
Donny looked up from where he’d been poking at the charred remains of Mrs. Henrickson with his pen. He frowned more than he did for Sanders.
“Fuck,” he said quietly under his breath as the captain approached, his lapdog Lawrence close on his heels. Captain Meyers had a pot belly and the habit of continuously hiking up his belt and pants to compensate for it. His ever-present toothpick was in his mouth and twirling away when he reached them.
“What’s the story here, Sanders,” Captain Meyers said when he was close enough to be heard.
“Looks like another lightning strike, captain,” Donny said a moment later, after Sanders had done nothing more than pretend he hadn’t heard.
“Is that right,” Captain Meyers said, walking up to Sanders and giving him a smile. “Is it?”
Sanders looked out the corner of his eye at Donny, who was now frowning furiously and muttering silently. It was no surprise to anyone that Captain Meyers was the most racist and chauvinistic prick on the force, and that any black officers like Donny weren’t even worth his contempt.
“Well?” Captain Meyers said again.
Donny shrugged. “Looks like it was lightning, sir…same as yesterday at the beach in LA.”
“Good…good,” Captain Meyers said, then turned back to his deputy, Lawrence. “I’ll want a full report on this later, the cause, the circumstances, the motive…everything, you got that?”
Captain Meyers may have been looking off at nothing but he was speaking so Lawrence would record and Sanders would understand. What was known to everyone, however, is that it would be Donny writing that report, which would then be recorded on Captain Meyers’ calendar as to-be received on a certain date or immediate termination proceedings would begin, with the officer on unpaid leave of course. It had been a tactic the captain had used before and used well, and it’d resulted in the San Diego Police Department going from about 50/50 white and black to more like 80/20. Donny was just one officer in that 20% that Captain Meyers meant to get rid of, and bullshit reports were one way of doing it. It was no surprise Highway Patrol applications were up 400% this year.
“Got that all…Sanders?” Lawrence hissed in his typically venomous way. It was how Sanders expected a snake at a county fair would sound after it hadn’t been fed in a few weeks.
Sanders sniffled and nodded and looked at his feet, the surest way he’d found out yet for higher-ranking officers to leave him the hell alone. Once again it worked wonders, and the stork-necked and spindly Lawrence muttered something under his breath about ‘incompetence’ and walked off.
“Fuck,” Donny said when the captain and his crony had gotten back into their car and started to pull away.
Sanders shrugged again. He wasn’t much in the mood for anything, other then heading down to the West End and getting his drink on and a lot of other things as well.
“Get your fucking head out of the clouds, Sanders,” Donny said, breaking Sanders from his reverie, “we’ve got a full night ahead of us and I want you here with me, got it?”
Sanders looked at his partner of three years. Sergeant Donny Reeves was about as straight-laced as they came, but he was loyal as well. For Sanders that worked great. The fact that they both hated the corrupt department they worked for also helped. In other words, they put up with each other, and Sanders sniffled and nodded at his partner’s words while Donny just frowned and shook his head.
3 – Off the Point
Off San Diego’s Point Loma Don Harper and Leon Stand were reeling in a large net of Yellowtail.
“Get that side there,” Don called out.
“Tighten over there,” Leon shouted out a moment later.
The two went about their work, manning the small single-mast fishing boat by themselves. It was a lot of work for two men that should’ve hit retirement a decade ago, but with Don running the twin-diesel engines and Leon spotting the catch they made it work, and kept just above the poverty line in the process.
“Hurry it up, Leon…we’ve gotta storm coming in.”
Leon took his hand from the hoist and looked at the horizon. Sure enough, there were some dark clouds rolling in.
“They’re a good thirty minutes off yet,” he said while starting on the net again, which must have contained a load, so heavy was it.
Don shrugged and started helping once again. He just drove the boat and didn’t know a whole lot about fishing…other than it was boring as hell but paid the bills.
Lightning flashed in the distance, but neither man noticed. A few moments later a huge peal of thunder burst and rolled across the water, seeming to nearly tip the boat over with its magnitude of sound.
BOOM!
“Holy hell!” Don shouted, holding onto his hat as if the sound alone would’ve blown it away.
“Where the hell did that come from?’ Leon asked, his hands once again off the net-hoist as he started to look around.
Lightning flashed on the horizon behind them.
“I don’t know, but–”
BOOM!
Both men spun around at the sound. It had come from behind, yet been so clear it was eerie. No sooner had they jumped, however, than a flash came behind them again.
BOOM!
The two men jumped again, and again a crash of thunder came….and again…and again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The men spun around in fear as lightning flashed all around them and thunder beat overhead, deafening in its roar. A moment later the hair on the back of their necks began to stand up, then on their arms…on their heads.
“Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Leon called out in a trembling voice.
As if in answer from God Himself a bolt of lightning struck down right atop the hoist that kept the large fishing net secured to the mast, shattering it and dropping the catch back into the sea.
“No!” Leon shouted. “No, damn it, no!”
He rushed forth with open arms, as if he could somehow embrace the fishing net full of Yellowtail that was now sinking fast below the turbulent waters around them.
“Leon, no!” Don shouted, but it was too late.
A bolt of lightning came down and struck Leon clear on the top of the head and drove down with such force that the bolt split him clean in half. Don recoiled in horror at the cleanly-cauterized wounds caused by the lightning, and the strange look on the split-in-two face of his dear friend. He screamed and ran back toward the safety of the cabin.
BOOM!
Thunder broke, louder this time than any of the previous bouts, so loud it shattered the windows. Don put his hands up to his ears and yelled in pain. Ahead of him a bolt of lightning struck the door he’d been heading to, charring and melting the knob completely.
Don’s eyes went wide as he took his hands from his ears and looked down at them. They were covered in blood and he realized that he could no longer hear. He also realized he wasn’t going to live through this.
He screamed just as he felt that tingly sensation once again and his hair began to stand on end. He jumped from the boat just as a bolt the size of a giant’s arm slammed down into the craft and broke it into kindling. Overhead the sky roiled as if in delight.
4 – The Call
“You give me that money by Friday, Sanders, or I’m gonna get my lawyer to come to that shithole you call an apartment and put your balls in a vice and squeeze until they look like tomato purée, got that?”
Sanders instinctively took his ear away from the receiver, expecting the phone on the opposite end to slam down hard, undoubtedly causing a ringing in his ear that would last for an hour or more. He knew this from years of experience dealing with his ex-wife, but he still hadn’t quite gotten used to cell phones and the ‘end’ button. That little technological innovation had saved his hearing, he was sure of it, and thankful for that much. There wasn’t much else to be thankful for.
“How’d it go?” Donny asked a few moments later, returning to their desks in the Gaines Street Station, a greasy and smelly sandwich already beginning to stain his fresh dress shirt. Donny was a stickler for cleanliness and also a sharp dresser, but his eating habits and table manners left much to be desired.
“She wants the money by Friday.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
Sanders sighed and threw up his arms before leaning back in his chair. “What can I do? And why does it matter anyway?”
“Because she’s got Billy and Suzy and you want to see them and if you don’t pay her that child support you won’t.”
Sanders frowned. The truth was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“I’ll tell you want,” Donny said, rising up once again now that he was on the last bite of his sandwich, “why don’t I–”
“Sanders…Donny…”
Both men turned about to see Lawrence standing at the end of the station floor.
“Get your ass into Captain Meyers’ office right away,” he said.
Both men looked at one another before turning back to Lawrence. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Just go!” Lawrence said, then vanished down the hall.
5 – The Terror
“Take a look at this video,” Captain Meyers said as soon as Sanders and Donny and a few other officers were in the cramped office. The Captain nodded at Lawrence, who hit the play button on the video email.
There was immediately shouting and screaming and sirens and all manner of god-awful sounds. The video, however, was much worse.
“Is that shit for real?” Detective Solomon asked, his face screwed up in disgust.
“Sure is,” Captain Meyers said before turning to his deputy. “You tell ‘em, Lawrence.”
“It happened just this afternoon at Palomar Mountain State Park just north of Escondido and–”
“We know where in the cotton-pickin’ hell north Escondido is Lawrence, now get your shit together and get to the point,” Captain Meyers butted-in quickly.
Lawrence cleared his throat. “Yes, well…it was a day trip…from one of the area nursing homes, a chance for the seniors to get out and hear some live music for a change. Instead it turned into…well, this.”
Lawrence motioned at the screen again, which showed blackened and charred bodies everywhere, still-smoking walkers, and instruments with black burn marks on the brass.
“What the hell happened?” Detective Fletcher said with revulsion at the sight.
“And what the hell were they doing playing music up there, and in forest fire season?” his partner Sergeant Buckner added.
Captain Meyers scoffed and shook his head. “Damn ‘Echoes in the Park’ or some queer-ass shit…do it every year I guess. Anyways, they were up there and it’s in our jurisdiction and we’ve got to deal with it.”
“Why the hell isn’t Escondido dealing with it,” Sanders asked. His sniffles were gone and he meant to rectify that soon.
“It’s their jurisdiction, captain,” Donny said.
Captain Meyers gave Donny a sharp look. Not only had he spoken but he’d questioned his authority, two serious infractions. Donny was only saved from being written up or reprimanded right there on the spot when Lawrence began explaining what had happened.
“As far as we can tell storm clouds rushed in, faster than anyone can believe, although there were several eyewitnesses that claimed these clouds were miles away and over another mountain range one minute and then just over the tree line a minute after that.
“Baloney – clouds can’t move that fast.”
“That’s what I say, Sanders,” Captain Meyers said, “but even if they can’t and those folks were mistaken, it’s clear this is the largest lightning strike we’ve seen in some time…if ever.”
He looked around and nodded at everyone in the room, even Donny, looking for confirmation. Lawrence nodded back.
“It sure the hell makes the one person killed up in Los Angeles yesterday look like nothing,” Captain Mitchell said, an old veteran of the force and one that despised Captain Meyers, though never openly since they’d been partners in their younger days, “but it sure the hell don’t look like lightning could have caused all that.” He turned to Lawrence. “You’re telling me that there were up to 200 lightning strikes that took out a whole nursing home of seniors as well as a community brass band? I’m sorry, son, but I
don’t buy that for one second. This was a gas main explosion, plain and simple.”
“We’ve already got an all-clear from Pacific Gas and Electric,” Captain Meyers said. “Their lines are all intact, as are everyone else’s in the area.”
“Besides,” Lawrence added, “there’s nothing of that sort up in that park…we checked with the Forest Service and National Parks.”
“Well…shit, it just don’t make no sense!” Mitchell said in exasperation.
“I hear you there, Stan, I hear you there,” Captain Meyers said.
A quiet descended as the last few seconds or so of the video played out. Sanders was about to raise his voice and ask to be excused so he could go to the bathroom again when the door to the office opened behind them.
“Captain?” a young officer said as he nervously dipped his head in the door.
“What is it, son, what the hell is it? Can’t you see we’re having a meeting here?”
“I know sir, I’m sorry, it’s just that…”
“Well spit it out, son!” Captain Meyers nearly shouted.
“There’s been another lightning strike, sir.”
“Where?”
“Well, that’s the thing sir, they’re…everywhere.”
“Everywhere, what the hell…”
Captain Meyers trailed off as he felt a tingling sensation, and then the hair on the back of his neck beginning to rise.
“Outside,” Donny said, pointing at the window with the blinds drawn.
Captain Meyers nodded at him, something that was completely out of character and just showed how flummoxed he really was. He slowly walked to the window and grabbed the thin cloth cord, turning once to look back at the others for reassurance before pulling with all his might.
The blinds rushed up and showed a dreadful sight. Outside were the blackest clouds any had ever seen, their darkness crowding out the light of day. And from them sprang bolts of lightning, stark yellow and white shafts that came down and struck the earth second after second after second. And they were getting closer, a lot closer.
6 – Gathering Evidence
Sanders swung the door inward and immediately saw Jones.
“What the hell’s happening out there, Sanders?”
Sanders nodded at the evidence room officer and quickly closed the door behind him. Jones had been bobbing his head to and fro in an attempt to see out into the station proper, but when Sanders closed the door he locked onto the detective and narrowed his eyes.
“Something’s happening, Jones,” Sanders said quietly as he sidled up to the evidence counter, the open part that wasn’t fenced off.
Jones leaned down. “Sounds like there’s a fucking war out there.”
“You’re never gonna believe it Jones, but it’s lightning…hundreds and hundreds of bolts of lightning, each striking down outside.”
Jones’s eyes went wide. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Well I gotta see this for myself,” Jones said, moving away from the counter and over to the door in the chain-link fence wall, “you man this station, Sanders – I’m countin’ on you!”
And with that Jones headed out the room and onto the main floor of the already-frantic police station. Flashes of light looking like a strobe going off assaulted the room for the brief few seconds the door was open.
When it’d closed completely Sanders hustled through the chain-link door and headed down the aisles of tall shelves stacked to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, miscellaneous file folders, and the odd lone item here and there. There was a stick of lipstick, a bloody fingerprint still on it; a nudy magazine with some kind of substance crusted onto the top; and a full-size horse head replica, much like that from the Godfather film.
Sanders had seen it all before and knew that once he was past the horse head he was where he needed to be. He stopped, put his hands up, and began scanning the labels of the boxes. Within moments he’d found what he was looking for, a box labeled “Sullivan Case,” and he pulled it out and set it on the floor.
He put his head up and looked around real quick. The coast was clear so he flipped open the lid and immediately saw what he came for – a large bag of cocaine, at least half a kilo. He grabbed it and stuffed it into his San Diego Police Department jacket. Under the coke was a huge bag of marijuana, and figuring that that would take care of the alimony he owed his wife, Sanders took that too. He closed the box and put it back on the shelf. Within moments he was back through the chain-link fence and heading toward the station door. His phone rang.
Sanders’ heart skipped a beat as he fumbled for the phone in his jacket, trying not to upset the delicate balance of drugs he had stashed there.
The phone kept on ringing – Sanders had never figured out voice mail – but at last he got to it and flipped it open and brought it to his ear.
“Sanders,” he said.
“Sanders, there’s lightning everywhere and Billy and Suzy are scared to death – do something!”
Sanders frowned. Looks like he’d be seeing his ex-wife sooner than he thought.
7 – A Plea
“There he is!” Donny shouted out when he saw Sanders come out of the evidence room. “Sanders…Sanders!”
Sanders was oblivious, or just ignoring him, but Donny kept up his pace and reached Sanders just before he’d reached the station’s front doors.
“You can’t go out there…are you crazy?”
Sanders shot him a crazy look.
“Er…sorry, I mean…fuck, Sanders…where you been?”
Sanders looked at his partner, and also Sergeant Bud Solomon behind him.
“I’ve got to get to Pamela,” he said.
“Pamela?” Donny said with his forehead scrunched up. “What the hell for?”
“This lightning, what the hell do you think?”
“Listen,” Donny said, “we’ve got orders from Captain Meyers to stay right here…already over at the Rancho Carmel station they’ve lost four men that went outside.”
“I can’t leave my kids!” Sanders shouted.
“Well, why the hell not?” Donny scoffed. “They’re inside with your ex, right?”
Sanders frowned. “No…no, Donny – they’re at the water park.”
8 – Watery Acres
“Stay back!” Glen Avery shouted, his ultra-tanned arms held out before him. “Stay back!”
Ahead of him was a screaming throng of eight- and nine-year-olds, the bulk of the YMCA summer swimming group that’d descended upon Watery Acres that afternoon. Of course the sun had been shining full blaze at that time and lightning hadn’t been flashing down all around them from pitch-black and roiling clouds, clouds that’d rushed in from nowhere.
“The changing rooms!” Chanel Sloane shouted, the only other lifeguard on duty at that time. She too had helped get the kids corralled and out of the water, but now they had to get them someplace. Watery Acres was hopelessly understaffed and the manager was deeply in debt – a park that should’ve had at least five lifeguards on duty had but three, and one of them was off getting lunch somewhere.
“C’mon!” Glen shouted, picking up Chanel’s cry, “to the changing rooms!”
The crowd of terrified and crying school kids allowed themselves to be pushed toward the changing rooms. Around them adults and teens and even a few old folks rushed about, trying to grab their things and get out of the water park. The four water slides still churned out their water and even the twisty raft river was still spitting out intertubes.
They reached the hard cinderblock changing building and the kids began rushing inside. Glen smiled up at Chanel, glad they’d gotten out of the worst of it, and also hoping he might finally get past third base that night. That’s when he heard a splash.
“God, they’re still up there!” Chanel shouted, pointing at the pool where the waterslides ended and the two children were now screaming and kicking and swimming frantically to get out.
Glen gritted his teeth. “I’ll get them!
”
He figured this was the right moment, like in the movies, and he leaned in to give Chanel a kiss. She turned her head just at that moment, however, and his lips met her ear.
“Oogh!” she shrieked, then turned back to see Glen’s face, beet-red.
“Ugh…”
“Just go!” she shouted at him in frustration and revulsion and just plain disbelief.
Glen sprinted off toward the spiraling cement pathway that led to the top of the waterslides, cursing himself all the while.
9 – The Gas Station
“Ah…fuck!” Sanders said, looking down at the red light that’d just shot-on on his dashboard. “Nearly oughta gas!”
He frowned and began scanning the sides of the road. He was driving east down Friar’s Road, just along the San Diego River. Lightning was flashing about all around, but there were a lot of cars out and about still. Rain was coming down harder than Sanders had ever remembered, and already the streets were like small rivers. The main roads were still drivable, but many of the side roads looked like they’d swallow his ’70 Cougar whole.
He needed to get over to the bridge on Qualcomm Way but he knew the Cougar wasn’t going to be making it home or to his ex’s house on just fumes, and likely not even to the next block. He spotted a Super America gas station side poking up past the last of the Fashion Valley Mall and steered toward it.
It was one of those gas station and casino combinations, the same building housing both businesses in their attempt to sucker every last dime from an unwary populace. Sanders had never gotten much into any of that video poker or keno, but he knew many that sat staring into the machines hour after hour, night after night.
He pulled the car toward it and it managed to coast within three blocks of it. There was little traffic on Friar’s Road so he just pulled up on the shoulder and got out. It wasn’t he first time this’d happened so Sanders reached for the red plastic gas can in the back seat and started hoofing it. He got rained on hard but covered the distance in record time and rushed under the large canopy covering the pumps. Lightning flashed all about, but it seemed further off than it had been when he’d left the station.
Sanders still remembered the look on Donny’s face when he’d put his hand down on his gun, after Donny had put his own hand on Sanders’ shoulder while he was trying to turn his back and walk out.
“It’s alright,” Donny had called out just as Detective Solomon had walked up and reached for his own gun. Donny must have seen his eyes flick over to it for that fraction of a second, for he backed-off a bit from Sanders and frowned.
“Fine you dumb fuck,” he’d said, “you want to get your balls charred to a crisp then you go right ahead!”
“Donny!”
“Shut the fuck up, Bud!” Donny had said, never taking his eyes from Sanders.
He had bolted and made it to the Cougar despite the lightning striking down all around. It was off across the street mainly, across Linda Vista and near the university. That’s what he’d thought until a bolt struck right down on a squad car in the back of the Gaines Street Station, then one of its light poles.
He’d had the Cougar in gear and peeling out by the time the split street lamp came crashing down on a line of employee vehicles, Captain Meyers’ chief among them.
Sanders smiled at the memory as he put the red gas can down and pulled up the lever on the fuel tank, then hit the ‘Pay Inside’ button.
A voice crackled over the intercom. “Hurry up, pal – I’m shutting off the pumps.”
Sanders didn’t waste his breath on a reply, just jerked the fuel pump from its slot, stuffed it into the can, and began pumping.
“Five bucks oughtta do it,” he said quietly to himself.
Less than ten seconds later he’d gotten a little more than a gallon and was heading inside to pay.
“How bad is it out there!” the gas station attendant shouted out at him immediately upon his entering the door.
Sanders frowned as he walked up and slapped a crinkled $5 bill onto the counter. He looked up at the long-haired and pimply-faced young kid and shook his head. “It’s fucking bad.”
The clerk nodded. “Fuck.”
Sanders nodded and walked out, past the few anxious customers or people just trying to escape the storm. His cheap and worn down sneakers squeaked as he walked across the white tile floor and he noticed for the first time the puddles he was leaving in his wake. It really was coming down more than he’d realized he saw when he got to the glass doors, but there was nothing to do for that – anything he was feeling wasn’t half as bad as what Billy and Suzy must be going through at the water park.
He stepped outside, resolved to reach them.
BOOM!
A tremendous peal of thunder broke and rolled across the sky, sending waves of lightning cascading from it and dancing to the peripheries of the horizon.
Sanders threw up his hands right when the blast struck, as did everyone still gathered at the fuel pumps, which weren’t many.
Sanders felt a tingly sensation, like something was terribly wrong. He looked down at his arm and saw that all the small hairs there were standing up. Next he looked around and noticed that the hair of the people around him was beginning to stand on end. He put his own hand to his head and felt his hair standing up as well.
“Shit,” he muttered, then started scanning the sky while trying to press down his hair at the same time.
There was a flash of lightning in the distance, then another. They were on the horizon at first but with each subsequent flash they seemed to draw closer, to pull toward him, as if they wanted him alone and no other.
Sanders turned and ran toward the casino side of the gas station. The lightning was coming down across Friar’s Road near Mission Heights Park now, the bolts striking down with an eerie and disconcerting rhythm. He reached the wall and looked back.
“Get out of there, get back!” he shouted to the few people still pumping gas.
They ignored him, although it was clear they weren’t ignoring the storm. One man anxiously shook and rattled the gas handle as if that would make the thing fill him up faster. Another man must have muttered ‘fuck this,’ for he left the nozzle in one gas can, grabbed the other he’d already filled, and threw it into the back of his red compact Toyota truck before piling into the driver’s seat himself.
The lightning was coming straight toward them, the park now being struck. The small pond on the other side of the chain link fence from the road was now being hit, the lightning striking right down onto its surface and sending shimmering waves of blue and white and yellow electricity shooting forth.
“Move!” Sanders yelled again at the man still filling his truck.
Sense came to the man and he pulled the nozzle loose and flung it on the ground. He was an older man so couldn’t move too fast but still probably got going faster than he had in years. He was halfway into his white 4x4 when the first bolt of lightning struck the station.
It hit the canopy covering the fuel pumps, first one then another and then another. Sanders looked up with wide eyes as the roof of the structure began to smoke and then burn. The lightning continued to strike down upon it and then suddenly one bolt shot clean through, as if the storm had been pounding its way through, like a carpenter hitting a nail into a wall.
The bolt struck down on the ground near the gas can the man in the truck had left behind. Another struck down near it a moment later, then another. A spark flew up and must have landed just right for there was an explosion of flame, orange and yellow and red, so blinding that Sanders had to cover his eyes, and so hot he had to turn away.
The man halfway in the white 4x4 was blown clear to the passenger seat when the blast occurred, every visible hair on his body singed-off. He screamed and moaned at the second and third degree burns he no doubt had, but the storm was merciless in its fury.
Another bolt struck down, this one in a different spot for the hole in the canopy was now gaping. One bolt struck
the fuel nozzle the man in the 4x4 had left laying out and it ignited. The fuel pump exploded and then an instant later the one next to it. A chain reaction occurred all down the line as one fuel pump after another blew. The 4x4 had its gas tank catch and it blew sky-high a moment later, taking out the rest of the canopy. Overhead the sky rumbled in delight.
“Christ!” Sanders said as he watched the cars go up in a blaze of fire and gasoline.
He grabbed the gas can from where he’d set it down before heading inside and started moving along the wall of the casino, desperately hoping he’d reach the other side before the whole shithouse went up in flames. The driver of the red Toyota truck was thinking much the same, and also smiling that he’d made it clear of the canopy before it’d come crashing down. He was still smiling when a bolt of lightning struck down on the back of his truck and hit the gas can sitting there, instantly igniting it and sending the back of the Toyota up into the air in a gigantic fireball.
Sanders didn’t see that for he’d rounded the corner of the casino and was hauling ass to get behind it. It was at that moment the flaming truck landed, coming down just right on a fuel tank so that the whole underground pumping apparatus of the truck stop ignited, all 20,000 gallons.
Fourteen miles away the KGTV helicopter caught it all on tape as they were recording the storm for the late evening news. It was like a nuclear blast in its intensity and sent up a huge fireball for a brief few moments, one that would give no end to the pains of the editing room staff as they tried to edit the long and drawn out “Mother…fucker” from the pilot.
Back at the casino the blast had knocked Sanders forward twenty-seven feet through the air, depositing him on the small grassy boulevard near the dumpsters. Three feet to the right and his head would’ve been smashed like a melon upon the rubbish bins and five feet to the left he’d have been squashed next to the spindly oak tree there. As it was he lay on his back trying to catch his breath as the remnants of the Super America gas station and casino burned all around him. One small consolation was that he still had hold of the gas can.
BOOM!
Thunder overhead and then a flash. A bolt of lightning struck the spindly oak and cracked and split it clean in two. Sanders rolled from his back to his hands and knees and scurried the hell out of there as fast as he could. He made it to the dumpsters and shimmied under one, just as one side of the tree crashed down atop them.
“Jesus!” he said, eyes wide. Then the hail began.
10 – A Sighting
“We’ll never find him in this shit!” Sergeant Bud Solomon shouted as the hail pounded their windshield.
In the squad car next to him Donny frowned. Bud was all sly and cool and one of those cats that was always right. He shifted and slunk and sat uneasily in the seat now, and Donny knew he’d rather be anywhere else than looking for Sanders.
“Sanders is out here and we’re gonna find him.”
Bud scoffed. “I don’t know what the hell you see in that wash-up anyways.”
Donny frowned and bit his lip. If you only know, he thought.
Around them the rain was coming down mercilessly, and what’s worse, it was turning to hail. Torrent and deluge didn’t do justice to it, but that didn’t mean the lightning had stopped, although it’d slowed some. Now the main problem was navigating streets that were more like rivers.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about California’s drought anymore,” Donny joked, but Bud only frowned.
“We shouldn’t be out here, not when it’s–”
“There!” Donny shouted. “Sanders’ car!”
Sure enough, there was the beat-up old ’70 Ford, or what Sanders insisted on calling the Eliminator.
“What the hell’s it doing here…on the side of the road like this?”
“Knowing Sanders, I’m sure he ran out of gas,” Donny said while shaking his head.
Donny pulled over as the hail began to slacken-off and was getting out when he noticed movement ahead…someone coming through the hail. He narrowed his eyes. Sanders?
Sure enough, there was Sanders, a mighty bruise forming on his forehead, but other than that alright. Behind him slightly was some long-haired and pimply-faced young kid with…half his hair charred away?
“What the hell’s going on?” Donny shouted at Sanders, his earlier anger at seeing him take off from the station returning.
Sanders held up the red gas can. “You know how these damn 70s gas guzzlers are!”
“Shit,” Bud scoffed from the safety – and dryness – of the squad car.
“Hey, are you guys the cops, you gotta help me!” the man straggling behind Sanders shouted out.
“Who the fuck’s that?” Donny shouted.
Sanders shook his head. “Damn gas station clerk…won’t stop following me.”
Donny narrowed his eyes and took on a quizzical look as he stared at the young man staggering toward them. He was pretty burned up on one side of his body, but whatever shock he was in was obviously stopping the pain.
“Where the hell’s the Dodge?” Sanders shouted over the heavy sound of the hail hitting the pavement.
“You think I’m gonna bring my own car out in this shit storm? You think I’m a fool?
“No, just Sanders,” Bud laughed from inside the patrol car.
“What the hell you have to bring him for, huh?”
Donny looked across the hood of the car at Sanders and held up his hands defensively and gave a ‘what the fuck do you want from me’ look. Sanders scoffed and looked over his shoulder at the clerk.
“You wanna ride to the freeway or what, Lenny?”
The clerk nodded vigorously, which looked weird with the hair and beard covering just one side of his head and face. Bud frowned but said nothing and a few moments later Sanders was slamming the passenger side door of the cruiser shut and walking toward his Cougar.
BOOM!
At that instant a terrible peal of thunder sounded, one that had all of them reaching for their ears. Sanders was forced to drop the gas can and even before it hit the ground a bolt of lightning came down. It struck the large street sign next to them, one of those towering highway signs that stretched completely over the road.
“Watch out!” Donny called, and dashed from the squad car as a terrible rending and shearing sound could be heard, the steel sign ripping from its base.
“Move!” Sanders shouted at Bud and Lenny inside the police car. Bud had managed to get the passenger-side door of the police cruiser open, but little else.
The sign was falling and on a dead path toward the car. At the last moment Bud managed to reach down and unbuckle his seatbelt before bolting to the side.
CRASH!
The sound of the huge steel pole crashing down on the patrol car was almost as bad as the thunder.
“Ah, fuck!” Sanders shouted as he stared at the crushed cruiser.
“Get out of there!” Donny shouted to Bud.
Bud’s eyes were wide and he was on all fours. He began crawling as fast as he could over the pavement toward Donny, then turned back. “Get out of there, you fuck!”
Sanders narrowed his eyes and then widened them – there was Lenny in the backseat poking his head up!
“Hurry the fuck up!” Sanders shouted at him, already rushing back to the Cougar and the gas tank. Within seconds he was emptying the red gas can into it.
“C’mon!” Donny shouted at Bud and Lenny both. “You’ll have to climb over the sign!”
Bud nodded and got up and took a running jump. He latched onto the top of the large steel pole and pulled himself up and over, then hopped down and was at Donny’s side.
“C’mon, kid!” Donny shouted at Lenny.
The big and burly clerk was scared, but he firmed up his resolve and set his face before starting forward. He was running and got up and took the jump, same as Bud, latching onto the top of the large steel pole and…
BOOM!
Thunder far off and then an immediate flash all aro
und. Lenny screamed and Donny and Bud both were forced to hold up their arms, the light was so bright. At his car Sanders dropped the gas can and started toward the door.
“Kid!” Donny shouted, taking his arm from over his eyes. He peered out into the hail and saw the smoking body of Lenny lying in a crumpled heap. He started forward at a fast run to see if he was still alive when another bolt of lightning struck right on the same spot, this time slicing Lenny in half. The legs and lower torso skittered across the pavement and came to a rest at Donny’s feet.
“Let’s go!” Bud shouted out, and grabbed Donny’s arm.
Donny allowed himself to be pulled along as his eyes looked on in shock at the mangled pieces of the kid’s body. Finally he tore his gaze away and turned to see Sanders in the Cougar, which was now idling right behind him.
“Get in!” Sanders shouted again, and as if to accentuate his words another bolt came down, this one striking a similar street sign further down the road.
It crashed down behind them as Sanders floored it down Friar’s Road and toward the Qualcomm Bridge just a short distance away.
11 – A Slippery Slide
“Hey, what are you doing!” Glen shouted.
The laughing and joking kids spun around quickly, the smiles vanishing from their faces.
“There’s a huge lightning storm – you’ve got to get down right now!” Glen yelled at them.
“Fuck you!”
Glen’s eyes went wide and his jaw became firm. Those little-shit eight-year-olds shouldn’t be talking to him like that!
“Why I’ll…”
He started forward but the three boys squealed and spun around and headed down the water slides.
“Fuck!” Glen turned about and looked around. He wanted to make sure there were no more of those young hooligans up here, mainly because he didn’t want to have to come back up again and check. Satisfied they’d been the last, he started down the small wooden steps that led to the waterslide landing and to the cement trail.
There was a flash out of the corner of his eye.
BOOM!
It was a terrible crash of thunder that forced Glen to instinctively pull his hands to his ears. He lost balance and fell to the cement walkway a few feet below, the wind knocked out of him.
It was while gasping for breath that he saw another flash out of the corner of his eye.
BOOM!
That one was close, too close and–
“Glen!”
There was screaming and now Chanel was calling him. Glen rose up.
“Glen, Glen…hurry…the kids!”
There was desperation in her voice, and desperate girls turned into grateful girls once they’d been saved. And Glen knew grateful girls liked to fuck.
He raced down the cement walkway, determined to save the day.
12 – Pooling Resources
“What the fuck is…”
Sanders’ eyes went wide and he nearly swerved off the road as he looked over at Donny.
“Just…throw it under the seat,” he said quickly.
“This your damn…gym bag?” Donny said, pulling the tattered duffle bag out from under his ass.
“Just throw it down on the floor there, for Chrissakes!”
Donny didn’t say anything, just frowned and threw the bag to his feet then kicked it under the seat. Sanders sighed, knowing the coke he’d taken from the Gaines Street station evidence room was safe.
“How far we gotta–”
“Over here off Camino Del Rio,” Sanders said as he turned right off Qualcomm Way.
“There it is,” Donny said, pointing up ahead at the tattered Watery Acres sign. “You couldn’t send your kids to Splash Mountain or Six Flags?”
“On my salary?” Sanders scoffed.
“Maybe if you weren’t getting busted down in rank so often,” Bud said from the back seat.
Sanders gave him a dirty look through the rearview mirror but then the turn for the parking lot came and he took it.
Water Acres was a desolate affair, a rickety wooden park that’d seen better days and should probably have been torn down years ago, if not decades. The hail was starting to lessen into rain again and there were few cars in the parking lot.
“What’s with that bus?” Donny asked.
“God, don’t tell me there’s a field trip here!” Bud groaned.
Sanders didn’t say anything to that, just slid into a spot near the front gate. The three men quickly piled out of the Cougar and ran toward the gates, the rain beating down on them hard.
“I’ll take this path and–”
Donny’s words were cutoff as a scream cut through the rain. Sanders, Donny and Bud stared ahead with wide eyes as lightning bolts struck the top of the small hill that the waterslides came down from. Another scream and shout came, and their eyes jerked down to the pool the waterslides ended in, and the three boys that’d just shot out from them.
“What the hell are they doing swimming!” Bud shouted, and took off at a run toward the pool.
“Wait!” Sanders yelled.
“Hey!” another shout came at the same instant, and both he and Donny looked over at the building to their left, the changing rooms.
“Hey, we’re trapped in here!” the voice came again, a young woman’s by the sound of it.
“There!” Donny shouted over the rain, pointing at the door leading to the women’s changing rooms.
“See her,” Sanders said, and started running that way while behind him Donny took off toward the cement pathway winding its way up the hill.
“What’s going on here?” Sanders shouted out when he reached the changing rooms building. He could hear wailing and moaning coming from both sides and knew that most of the park’s kids had made it safely inside.
“We…we ran for shelter when the storm started,” the young woman, a lifeguard by the look of her Sanders figured, spluttered out to him.
“It’s alright, what’s your name?” Sanders said as he craned his neck over her head to peer back into the changing room. There looked to be a good thirty kids in there, maybe more.
“Chanel,” the frightened young girl said, who Sanders now judged to be not much older than the kids she was charged with overseeing.
“Who else is here…where’s your boss?”
Chanel shook her head. “It’s just me and Glen.”
“Glen…who’s that?”
“Glen is the other lifeguard. He went up to the top of the slides to check if anyone else was still up there. Then the lightning started to hit up there and…oh, God mister, do something!”
Sanders gritted his teeth and turned to peer back out into the storm. Bud was herding the three young boys out of the water while Donny had vanished up the hill.
“Listen, I’m a police officer, and so are those other two men with me,” Sanders said, turning back around to face the frightened young girl. “The best thing you can do now is stay here…right here in these changing buildings, alright?”
She nodded and peered up at him with desperate eyes.
“This storm can’t go on forever, and I can’t risk trying to get everyone back out to that bus out there.”
She nodded again and Sanders frowned and stepped closer.
“Listen, everything’s going to be alright, you just need to–”
“Daddy!”
Sanders spun around to see his daughter Suzy running up from behind him.
“Suzy!”
“Daddy!”
“Where have you been…where’s Billy?”
With a trembling lip Suzy moved past her dad and pointed up at the waterslide hill. A bolt of lightning struck one of the lamppost power boxes at almost the exact same moment and sent up a huge shower of sparks into the rain. The kids screamed.
13 – Oh No!
“Shit!” Donny said as he covered his head with his arms, a shower of sparks raining down on him. He looked up a moment later and saw that one of the lampposts had received a direct hit.
> “Fuck…are you alright, mister?”
Donny spun around and saw a young teenager with a lifeguard shirt on.
“Anyone still up here?” Donny asked, rising up and rushing up to the kid.
He shook his head quickly. “No…no, I’ve checked and–”
BOOM!
Thunder in the distance and then another bolt of lightning struck another lamppost, hitting its power box as well. More sparks rained down at them, but this time there was a screaming shout accompanying them.
Both Donny and the lifeguard looked over toward the newly-smoking lamppost, and the young boy running out from under it.
“Hey, stop!” Donny shouted, narrowing his eyes. He widened them a moment later, certain of who he’d seen. “Billy, stop!” he shouted again, and took off toward the small stairs leading to the waterslide platform.
He was too late – Billy bounded up them and was into a waterslide in seconds.
