(1995) The Oath (64 page)

Melinda was cowering by the corner of the ransacked hardware store. “The dragon’s not on our side,” she said, her voice quivering with fear. “He’s not on anybody’s side.”

Nobody else seemed to catch her words, but Bly did. He shot her a dirty look and then hollered his rebuttal to the others. “The dragon wants Benson; you all saw it! We gave him Benson and he’s taking Benson! He’s bought the deal!”

Melinda was silenced, but she did not change her mind. She said nothing more, but only shook her head no.

Bly hollered louder, “The dragon wants Benson, and I want him too! Benson’s the cause of it all!”

Kyle nosed his truck up against the two cars. The professor wouldn’t bash his way through here next time.

“All right,” said Bly, raising and waving his shotgun, “let’s go!”

Elmer and Joe took up the call, “Let’s go.”

Bernie was ready and stepped forward. But Paul wasn’t sure. “What for? You want to help that thing?”

Melinda found her voice again and shouted defiantly, “I’m not!” She pointed to Doug’s charred body. “The dragon wants all of us; can’t you see that?”

Kyle wasn’t sure about anything, but he was a great follower; he followed.

Andy had seen the ruckus and the fire from the north roadblock and come back to be a part of it. He was armed and ready. He was ready to follow Bly, and Andy’s buddies—those who were left— went where he went.

Then Carl came running from the south, his eyes popping out. “What’d I miss?”

“Come on,” Bly said. “The action’s this way.”

They were a fresh mob now, an armed gang ready to side with the dragon and erase the last vestige of the Trouble. They squeezed around the roadblock and headed across the bridge toward the towering, tangled mine complex.

STEVE’S HEADLIGHTS
illuminated a tunnel running under the huge company building. Was this the one? No. He remembered another . . .

He slowed just a little, looking back. Was the dragon following him? No sign of it.

His eyes came forward in time to see silver claws come over the wall up ahead on the right, up from the river below.

Steve hit the gas, hoping he could get past it in time. He had to keep that thing behind him.

Silver horns appeared, then the head came over the wall, the eyes blazing, the teeth bared, smoke puffing from the nostrils.

Claws burst through the windshield in a shower of glass and grabbed hold of the cab frame. The truck lurched and leaned to the right. Steve shifted down and floored the accelerator, steering left, dragging the beast along the wall as he headed for the tunnel. One huge eye glared through the window, and stinging smoke came through the windshield.

Thirty miles per hour, slowing, slowing; twenty miles per hour . . . The beast was dragging the truck to a stop.

The tunnel was coming up. Come on. Come on!

The truck reached the tunnel and squeezed in. The dragon held on, its arm going into the tunnel, until its body struck against the company building with a heavy thud.

The truck lurched to a stop, then went crooked in the tunnel, the tires spinning, shrieking, smoking.

The claws began to uncurl.

Steve let off the accelerator, then hit it again. The truck lurched forward, the claws slipped out, and the truck surged ahead down the dark tunnel, the roar of the engine resounding off the water-streaked walls.

Steve looked in the rearview mirror. A ball of fire filled the tunnel and then a horned, golden-eyed face came through it, closing the distance.

The truck shot out of the tunnel like a torpedo and into a wide expanse where Steve saw loading chutes, piles of ore, an old railroad bed. Now he remembered: This was the old railroad loading yard. There was a huge articulated loader parked at one end, a pile of rubble, and a slightly bent sheriff’s patrol car lying in a heap before the big bucket—Yes! Steve remembered Levi driving that thing through the pile of debris, clearing away the barricade that blocked the tunnel!

Yes, there was the old railroad tunnel. He circled the loading area in a wide left turn, looking for it.

Over his left shoulder Steve saw the dragon burst from the passage he’d just come through. The glowing retinas locked on him.

There was Levi’s tunnel! Steve drove just past it. He slammed on the brakes and ground to a halt in the gravel.

The dragon was coming at him, flames already huffing in small billows before its jaws, the orange light reflecting from the scales on its face.

He slammed the truck into reverse, stuck his head out the window to look behind, and backed into the tunnel. Faster, faster. He was barely able to see in the dark with only a half-melted taillight. He flipped on the left turn signal, and it flashed against the tunnel walls, giving him intermittent glimpses of where he was going.

He looked ahead, through the shattered windshield. No dragon. He looked behind and saw only the endless black tube of that tunnel.

Try and trap me again, come on. Let’s see you sneak up from behind!

How long was this tunnel? He didn’t want to go too far, but he had to go far enough—

There! Far down the tunnel he caught the weakest glint of silver scales blinking back the light from his turn signal.

He hit the brakes. The golden eyes reflected back the glare of his one remaining brake light.

First gear. The truck eased forward. Steady, steady. Steve kept his eyes on the rearview mirror. You coming, big guy?

In the weird stroboscopic effect of the turn signal, the golden eyes and glimmering scales seemed to gallop forward in violent lurches, closer and closer with each flash of light.

Steve hit the gas and shot forward, keeping an eye ahead and an eye on the mirror. Now he was just about matching the dragon’s speed. Good. He needed the time.

He hit the brakes and brought the truck to a stop just ten feet inside the tunnel entrance. He cranked the wheel, backed up, shifted into first, cranked the other way, lurched forward.

Now the truck sat crooked, totally blocking the tunnel.

The only way out was over the top.

He leapt from the cab.

Now the dragon was huffing fire with every breath as it ran up the tunnel, step-thump, step-thump, step-thump!

Steve ran back to the ladder control and could see the con- trol lever in the pulsing light of the dragon’s flames. With the slithering, stomping sound of the beast echoing all around him, he grabbed the lever and threw it forward. The hydraulic pump came to life with a whirrrr, and the ladder started to raise toward the ceiling. He eased the lever sideways and swung the ladder around, aiming it straight out the tunnel, then raised it some more, just high enough and no higher. Now the lance angled upward, the edge of the blade reflecting the flashes of flame from behind.

STEP-THUMP, STEP-THUMP, STEP-THUMP!

All set. Steve ran forward, squeezed around the truck’s fender, and ran into the loading yard just as flashlights, shouts, and guns came pouring out of the opposite tunnel. The light beams caught him.

“There he is!” somebody yelled.

“Benson!” came the voice of Harold Bly.

Andy Schuller, Kyle Figgin, Carl Ingfeldt, Elmer and Joe, Bernie, and Harold Bly fanned out to block all paths of escape, their guns and rifles clacking as they each chambered a round. Steve came to a halt. There was nowhere to go.

Then came a crashing and creaking of metal behind him. Bly and his mob were now looking past Steve, their eyes wide and white in the dim light.

Steve shot a glance backward and saw the dragon’s head lunge over the top of the ladder truck as the truck creaked and rocked under its weight. The front leg groped for a foothold; the stump banged and scraped on the cab. The scaled neck slid over that lance like a creeping python, the lance tip clicking over each scale like a stick on a picket fence.

Steve’s eyes went from the dragon back to Bly and his mob. They were frozen in a bizarre, silent tableau, their flashlight beams all focused on the huge beast trapped between that truck and the tunnel ceiling.

And here I am in the middle, Steve thought.

The dragon was incensed. It struggled and pushed to get over the truck. Clack, clack, clack-clack-clack, the scales passed over the tip of the lance as the dragon slid by, inch by inch.

Okay, Lord. What now? Steve asked.

The dragon got its shoulders through, past the truck, past the lance. In only a moment it would be free of the truck altogether. It would be out of the tunnel, into the open, ready to take its pick of the souls at its mercy. The lance was clicking over the scales just below the rib cage. A rear foot was on the truck cab.

Harold Bly found his voice, and it was shaking. “Don’t be afraid, boys. He’s ours . . . he’s nothing to be afraid of . . .”

By the way they were backing away and trying to remember what their guns were for, Steve sensed Bly’s words weren’t helping much.

Then Steve recalled Levi’s words: “When the dragon sees Jesus in you, he’ll back up. You’ll scare him . . .”

But is Jesus in me?

Clack-clack-clack, the scales moved over the lance. There was no time to wonder.

“Jesus . . .” Steve prayed as he turned and faced the dragon head-on. “Please be in me.”

Against all common sense, against an all-consuming terror, needing all the strength he could muster, Steve took a small, trial step of faith—toward the dragon. He planted his foot down—and waited. He remained alive, and strangely, he now found he had just enough faith to take the next step, so he did. Then he took another step toward the dragon. Then another.

There wasn’t time to analyze or understand it, but his fear was gone now. He was looking that beast right in the eyes, and for the first time, he was not afraid.

The dragon was pushing, clawing, trying to get around and over that ladder truck, spitting and huffing fire in its intense anger.

With reckless abandon and a cry of war, Steve broke into a run, charging right under the open jaws of the dragon.

The dragon inhaled deeply, and then a blinding wall of flame blasted Steve off his feet, tossing him with the force of an ocean wave, carrying him along as he tumbled over and over and over. He could feel his arms, legs, every square inch of his body contacting the sharp edges of the mine waste and spilled ore as he landed and bounced and rolled in the fire.

Even Harold Bly ran for cover, joining his mob behind the big loader, cowering behind the huge tires and the monstrous front bucket.

The dragon clapped its jaws shut, cutting off the flame, and then it raised its head to survey its work. Small fires flickered and licked in a long, blackened streak on the ground. The air was murky with smoke.

Bly gathered the fortitude to snicker. “Heh, man, what a show! That Benson’s done for. He’s gone.”

Not quite. As they watched in amazement, a shadow emerged through the red glowing smoke in the middle of the yard. Steve Benson, dizzy and battered, struggled to his feet and looked around to get his bearings.

Before he knew where he was or how he was, flames hit him again, knocking him down. Head over heels, he tumbled then slammed flat into a wall as fingers of fire washed over him, scorching the wall black.

The dragon rested, the fire receded.

Steve flopped from the wall to the ground, flat on his back, feeling pulverized. All he could see was smoke.

Man, what a slow way to die! he thought. But I have to get up.

Slowly, deliberately, he got to his feet. Then he wandered, lost and blinded through the smoke.

Where’s the dragon? Gotta make that lizard back up . . . Jesus’ll take care of the rest . . .

Before he even knew where he was, flames hit him again, and again he went flying into the wall.

Just how long was this going to go on? he wondered.

He thought about Harold Bly, Andy Schuller, and all the others who had followed him. Weird. They tried to throw me to the dragon, and now what am I doing?

Slowly, painfully, like a boxer at the count of nine, he got his legs under him, straightened his knees, and stood up. Some of Bly’s men, wherever they were, shouted to one another in amazement. He hurt all over. He rubbed his eyes, his face.

He thought he heard sirens in the distance. Cops? Fire trucks? That would help.

The dragon’s eyes were watching him through the smoke. He stumbled forward, toward those eyes. Forward. Just forward.

The eyes were widening. The nostrils were flaring. That thing was sucking in air, building up for another blast.

Flames hit him again, and he lost sight of the world, lost feeling, lost awareness.

He woke up on his back in the hard, sharp-edged mine waste, the ground like a reeling turntable beneath him. One more time he found the strength to get to his feet, then turned right and left, looking for those eyes, those smoking, flaming nostrils.

There they were, clear across the loading yard.

He took a step forward, then he took another.

The eyes were locked on him. They seemed surprised.

Steve was surprised. He was still alive, on his feet, and—he looked at his arms, his body—he wasn’t burned! Not even singed! He looked up at the dragon looking back. He thought the dragon looked as stunned as he was.

Andy Schuller couldn’t believe his eyes. Nor could Kyle Figgin. Carl Ingfeldt squeaked, “How’d he do that?” but Joe and Elmer only looked at each other dumbly; they hadn’t a clue.

Bly was cursing under his breath, fingering his shotgun.

For a man who’d been dashed across a bed of rough gravel time after time and should have been a black cinder by now, Steve was feeling remarkably calm and resolute as he kept walking right toward that hideous beast. More of Levi’s words came to mind. Well, they had worked for Levi . . .

“GO ON! GET! GET OUT OF HERE!!”

That big head jerked backward, and the evil eyes widened with—

No. Come on. Really? Did he actually see fear in those eyes? Steve wondered. That huge, slithering, devouring monster was afraid?

So try it again, Steve! “GO ON! GET BACK!”

Steve didn’t realize how weak he was. Without warning his legs buckled, and he went down on his knees. Nope. No way. He’d been on his knees in front of this beast before, and he wasn’t going to do that again. He mustered his strength and got back on his feet, staggering, his legs like rubber.