Children of the Thunderstorm
A novel by
Tony Vilgotsky
Prologue
Sitting on a bench in Highland Park, Benjamin Stern was murmuring swear words and shuddering during each stroke of thunder. The skies ruthlessly lashed him with water whips and Ben’s clothes were already wet to the thread – but he didn’t give a fuck. These old and shabby trousers, shirt and hat weren’t worth to worry about. Ben sat here already five hours away and he thought that this night may become his last night on Earth. His weakened organism hardly could stand this long cold shower. But Benny had no choice. It’s a fate of a homeless man.
Benny was trying to understand how the storm could come to this city. “It’s an unbelievable thing,” he thought “There are no thunderstorms in L.A.”. But surrounding reality did an opposite statement. The rain was hitting the ground like a Tommy gun, transforming it into liquid dirt. The wind was as much cruel, tearing down the tree crowns. Benny was a bit afraid of dying from the hit of a fallen branch. His friend, another vagabond named George, has perished this way last summer. Back then that wasn't a storm of course - George merely appeared in a wrong place while the park employees were sawing the deceased branches.
Ben looked upwards. He saw a web of branchy lightings in the dark skies. These lightings, enormously big, were appearing almost continuously. Ben was completely discouraged by their size. “Is this the end of the world?” he suddenly thought.
Clumsily trying to hide his last match from the rain, Ben made an attempt to light a roll-up. It was in vain. The rain has beaten the cigarette and matchbox out from his hands.
The space in front of the park’s entrance was empty if not to count several vehicles forsaken by their owners. Suddenly headlights blazed in the dark – another car came and stopped near the gates. Yellow rays have cut through the darkness and for the short moment they lit the bench with shivering Benny on it.
“These guys must be complete fools as they have driven here on the night like this.” thought Benjamin. But it seemed like “fools” were lucky tonight. The heavy rain has stopped, as suddenly as it begun hours ago. Like if God has remember about the leaking crane in the bathroom, went there discontentedly muttering and shut down the water. Benny pricked up his ears. Weird presentiment has crept into his soul - the presentiment that something extremely horrific is going to happen right now. He couldn't adequately explain it but... the silence that has reigned now over Highland, was, so to say, too silent. So silent that Ben could hear how two men went out from the car that just arrived.
(Run! You got to get away from here!)
An impulse of bodily fear has forced him to jump off from the bench. Ben threw himself under the nearest tree, straight into muddy puddle. His hairs have stand on end and teeth started to knock faster but already not due to cold. The fear paralyzed him. The most that he could do now was to hide under the tree, hide from the thing that arrived on this goddamned car. There was, Ben has instinctively felt, something absolutely nightmarish. The terrible guess has suddenly dawned him. He realized that the storm raging over the city several minutes ago was just a sign, an omen of this unholy advent. Benny hoped that he understood it not too late.
People near the car started to talk. Ben could distinctly hear each their word. Also he heard some frequent breathing which could belong to a small dog.
The voices of unseen interlocutors were quite different from each other. One of them, husky and nervous, obviously belonged to an old man. Another, oppositely, was young and joyful. The young man talked to the older one like if the latter would been his servant.
“Now you have some free time,” he said and his every word sounded like a blow of earth on lid of Benny’s coffin. “But please don’t think that now you can relax with young chicks in basin. It will be the time free from me… but not from our business.” After saying that the young man laughed.
“How soon do you suppose to…” the second man begin but stopped short at once.
“Be silent, buddy,” the young man warned him. “There are some things which should not be reflected verbally. I understood what you meant. And it depends from you. At least until I will gain enough strength.”
“Can I drive now?”
“Wait. Listen.”
(It’s a deal… it’s a deal… it’s a deal… it’s a deal… it’s a deal…)
“So what can you say, does it sound similar?” someone third suddenly joined the conversation.
“Who the fuck has said it?!” Benny has thought. “A dog?!”
“Damn, I like this voice.” continued mysterious “somebody”. “Perhaps I will leave it to myself. So, now you are free to go. Try not to worry about different trifles.”
(It’s a deal… it’s a deal… it’s a deal…. It’s a deal… it’s a deal… with HIM)
The car door clapped up and for Stern it sounded like a new strike of thunder in the sky. The engine nastily roared and Benny’s imagination immediately drew a monstrous dragon. An auto, carrying away the old man, disappeared in the night. Benny left alone with an incarnation of an unbelievable terror. He started to chant Pater Noster but it didn’t help to banish the fear. Few seconds later he saw THEM – these creatures decided to walk through the park.
First he saw the dog. It jumped into the park through a hole in the fence, landed right in the center of puddle and raised a fountain of black splashes. Benny felt himself like if he was going mad. This dog was as same the spawn of evil as its master was. Pulsing waves of darkness were rolling from the hound directly to Ben and it made him feel like if his soul was ripped out from the body and placed into capacity of liquid nitrogen. It was very, very uncomfortable feeling.
“Damn, this fucking dog will find me.” Benny thought. “It will smell my fear, run up to me and gnaw my throat through. Or… God, no, what if the dog will point at me to HIM?!”
The dog really seemed like it has scented something. It stood motionless, slightly shaking the head like all dogs usually do. Benny never was afraid of dogs before. Sometimes he even has shared the shelter with them, being warmed by heat of several shaggy bodies. But this one was…
(not a dog… not a dog… the dogs are good!)
“Let me pass, Harm” the man merrily said and the dog obediently stepped away. Now its master appeared in the park – he got here through the same hole in the fence. Benny's legs already were nearly paralyzed from the cold but he continued to lie in his improvised hideout, trying to stay unseen for this terrible stranger and his dog.
“A beautiful night isn’t it?” said HE, addressing to his dog. Benny's heart started to beat faster when vagabond thought that the stranger would appeal to him. Meanwhile the dog has nodded his head and this time it wasn't a usual deed for an animal. Benny has gritted his teeth, trying not to shout.
“Let’s go, Harm” said the stranger and moved forward. The dog obediently walked beside him. They reached the point where Benny was hiding and vagabond has got a chance to see HIS face in the moonlight. HE wasn’t as young as sounded – not less than 35 years at least. The cheerfulness which was heard in his voice couldn't been read on his face. This face seemed to be carved from stone. The stranger had black hair and wore a leather hat. His glance and each of his moves were soaked with self-confidence. Despite he walked through liquid dirt, his feet didn't get stuck in it.
Benny was very afraid that they will see him but eventually he wasn’t noticed. “The nasties” as he began to call them, passed by without a single look at his side. Benny took a sigh of relief. Now there’s left only to wait while they will go away.
“I think no one would believe me if I will tell about it.” he thought. “Damn, there is actually nothing to tell. Did I see something scary or weird? Hell no! Just a fucking dude with a fucking dog. Guys will just laugh at me if I will share this. You got to see it by your own eyes to understand what’s wrong here.”
Unexpectedly the memoirs about past life have gushed over him. Seven years ago his wife and daughter died in the fire when their family mansion burned down. Ben was in the office back then. A neighbor informed him by the phone, what’s happened. Benny arrived home, took the last look in the eyes of his choked family and… went to exile, during the minute turned from successful businessman into a vagabond. By that moment he had only few hundred dollars in his pockets and forgot the fact that he owns large bank account and a pack of securities. Even for a moment he didn’t think about destiny of his property as well as about his own fate. Only the vague fear of divine punishment has kept him in this life. But now… now he got a chance to die without killing himself. So he did his choice.
Benny stood up and ran after the “nasties”.
“Hey you!” he shouted. “Stop, whoever you would be!”
The man stopped, turned around and looked at Ben. After few seconds he grinned contemptuously and pronounced:
“Bud. You may call me Bud.”
The dog named Harm took a look at vagabond too. Then it sniffed and turned away. “The nasties” continued their path without a try to attack him.
Benny was stunned. “So, I was wrong?” he thought, scratching his wet beard. “He’s just a normal man, not a devil? So he might consider me a mad man.”
Meanwhile Bud and his dog have dissolved in the darkness of night park.
“Unfortunately, I cannot prove the opposite.” said Stern to himself. “Am I really not a madman?” he moaned, falling onto his knees. “Didn’t I gone crazy seven years ago?”
It was his last thought. The silver sword fallen from heaven, broke his mind and cleared his memory. The man named Benjamin Stern didn't exist anymore.