The Big Empty

A REIGN OF THUNDER-4

How much time passed would have been difficult to say: maybe it was only a few minutes—say, ten or fifteen—and maybe it was a half hour; regardless, when they at last climbed to their feet and walked to the officer’s car, they found him nowhere in sight. He had, quite simply, just vanished without a trace.

“But ... that’s impossible,” said Tess, shielding her eyes, scanning the horizon,. “He couldn’t possibly have walked that far—could he?”

Coup appeared troubled as he stood next to her and did likewise. “It’s possible ... but it sure as hell ain’t likely.” He looked at the patrol car, the door of which still hung open, and his eyes seized upon the shotgun—which glinted between the seats like black gold. “Maybe someone picked him up. But why would he leave in the first place? And why would he leave that just sitting there for anyone to take?”

He looked to where the keys hung from the ignition. “Not to mention the car itself?”

“There’s no footprints,” said Tess, examining the ground. She looked up at him as though she felt suddenly ill. “Nothing leading away. Just ours and his walking to and from ...” She paused, her lower lip trembling. “How is that possible, Coup? And not just him but—where is everybody else? Where are the other cars? How in ...”

And then she just broke suddenly and rushed into his arms, and they remained like that for several minutes, during which time he scanned the sky, and, to his deep relief, spied a passenger jet arching glimmeringly across the sky, its contrail just as white and reassuring as angel dust.

“Look, there, see,” He released her abruptly and spun her around. “We’re not in the Twilight Zone, after all. Hey, yo, Freedom Bird! We’re down here!” He waved his arms back and forth. “Give us a lift! Albuquerque or bust!”

Yet there was something odd about the plane’s trajectory he hadn’t initially noticed—or had he? For it truly was arching, which is to say it wasn’t crossing the sky so much as it was ... falling from it. Yes, yes, he could see now that was true, as he disengaged from Tess and paced through the scrub, tracking the jet as it curved gracefully in the sun— to finally plummet straight into the far hills, where it vanished like a specter in a plume of fiery smoke.

And then he was gripping the shotgun and trying to wrest it from its rack; but, finding it locked, had to search the car for a key: upon which, realizing there were none that would fit, he located a small button just beneath the seat and depressed it—freeing the weapon.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Tess as she tailed him back to the Mustang, but he ignored her until they were again seated inside, after which he turned to her and said, briskly, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but I’m doing it, okay?”

And it was on the tip of her lips to respond when they heard the sound: a kind of muffled whimper—something between a chirp and a meow—coming from outside. Coming from beneath the car.

“Oh my God, Coup. The cat ...”

“It was a rat, I think.”

“Whatever it is; it’s ... still alive. Listen.”

And he did listen—and quickly determined that, whatever it was, it was either in great pain or scared out of its wits.

And then they were both scrambling, out of the car and into the heat and glare, and what they saw next was something neither of them would forget—for it was both portent and prelude to everything which lie ahead.

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