The Doom Stone - Paul Zindel, ebook
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Doom Stone, The-Zindel, Paul.THE SIGHTINGThe stones and the nightmare were waiting for Jackson Cawley as the landrover raced toward the storm. Thick, twisted trunks of oak trees lined the road, their branches reaching high across like fingers of hands straining to pray.There had already been warnings that nothing would go smoothly on this journey. Jackson's charter flight from New York had landed in London during heavy rains and violent turbulence. The Heathrow terminal was mobbed with spring break travelers, and it was past six by the time Jackson had made it through Customs and linked up with Sergeant I'lllman, his ride to Salisbury.I'lllman found Jackson to be a good-looking fifteen-year-old with shaggy brown hair and intense green eyes who did nothing but ask questions: Will I be staying near Stonehenge? Are there mounds filled with ancient human bones? Did high priests perform blood sacrifices?The stocky sergeant smiled. "I'm no expert on Stonehenge. There will be guides there who can tell you the whole history when you take a tour," he said, carrying the boy's canvas suitcase to the landrover. He opened the door on the passenger side. Jackson got in, took his suitcase, and swung it behind him to the backseat. As Sergeant I'lllman slid into the driver's seat, Jackson noticed he was wearing a gun. "Are you on special assignment?" Jackson asked."Yes," I'lllman said."Did you ever have to shoot anyone?"Sergeant I'lllman smiled. "Not lately." He started the landrover and drove out the airport exit. After several miles he reached the M3, and followed it for a good distance until turning onto A303 west.It took a spectacular thunderbolt to halt Jackson's questions, which had begun to center around the lan-drover's two-way radio. The last of the shattered sunset slid down beneath the rim of dark, huge clouds mushroomed at the horizon. A strong wind rattled and shook the branches of green willows along a stream.CLICK CLICKJackson heard the sounds. "What's going on?" he asked.The sounds came faster, more furious."Hailstones," I'lllman said.Jackson had never been in a hailstorm. He watched the front of the landrover crust up with the falling ice pellets. They fell harder still, and in a few moments the road was a chalky white. The ice melted quickly.For a long stretch the roadway cut through a forest choked by thickets and twisting, thick vines. The headlights picked up red-and-white TANK CROSSING signs and a series of wooden stakes in the earth."What are those?" Jackson asked."Markers for the military territories," the sergeant explained. "Restricted areas."BAMThere was another crash of thunder as a crop duster biplane fled the sky and nightfall to land in a field. Here the shoulders of the road began to lift into eerie mounds, blocking the view of the countryside and making the road appear to drop into a long, open grave. Several miles later, beyond a hog farm and a sign for a gravel operation, the road rose onto a ridge with a breathtaking expanse of Salisbury Plain in front of them."I can take a slight detour up onto A344 if you want a closer look at Stonehenge," Sergeant I'lllman said. "There's a good view of it from there.""Great."I'lllman took a small northwestward road, then doubled back beyond a thatch-roofed farmhouse. He pointed. "Dead ahead."Jackson strained forward against his seat belt to see through the fogging windshield. There was another flash of lightning, and his heart crawled up into his throat when he saw the circle of massive stones. Stonehenge stood like a ring of giant sentinels.Closer, a thunderhead burst over the landrover. Suddenly Jackson could barely see the great stones between the sweeps of the worn, thumping wipers. There were no lights, no cars or tourists in the parking lot."Where is everybody?" Jackson asked."Stonehenge closes at five," Sergeant I'lllman said, his foot staying heavy on the accelerator."Closes?" That was like being back in the States and finding out that Mount Rushmore closes or that Niagara Falls gets turned off.The stones became framed by a sturdy chain-link fence that ran along the edge of the road. The rain was a deluge now, blurring everything. Jackson hoped for a bolt of lightning, a sharp wide crackle on the horizon, so he could see close up this monumental temple of the wind.The flash of lightning came, and in that moment Jackson saw the true enormousness of the stones. But there was something else. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a figure moving swiftly from the shadows of the stone circle and heading for the roadside fence.Jackson wiped the window and strained to see through the night and the rain. Three lightning flashes hit one after the other like a tremendous sky strobe. It was then he could see that it was a young man in a plaid shirt with a ponytail running toward the landrover. The lightning made the man's movements unreal, as though he were a flickering image on a movie screen. The man kept coming.In the next flash of lightning Jackson saw the young man's face twisting into a scream, his hands desperately reaching out toward the speeding land-rover. Jackson's first thought was that someone was playing a joke. He was used to all sorts of scams and insanity on the streets of Manhattan-but then, behind the terrified man, he saw a shadowy form coming fast, like a jungle animal closing on its prey.Another explosion of blue-white lightning.Jackson saw the shadow crash into the young man, hurtling his body against the fence with such force, the hair of his ponytail burst loose to fan out likesnakes on the weave of metal. The dark thing was behind the man, twisting his neck terribly, crushing the young man's face into the wire fence as the landrover flew past.Jackson found his voice. "Stop!""What?" Sergeant I'lllman was momentarily startled, his eyes fixed on the wet roadway ahead. "What's going on?" he asked, his tone quickly military again."Somebody's being attacked!" Jackson cried out, twisting in his seat to indicate behind them. "Some guy's being attacked by an animal!""Hold on."Sergeant I'lllman braked hard. With a single motion he spun the landrover around and crashed his foot back down on the accelerator. The tires burned rubber and finally gripped, and the landrover raced back toward the stones."Where?" the sergeant asked."There," Jackson said, pointing across the hood.The sergeant slid the landrover to a halt on the grass-and-clay shoulder of the road. "Wait here," he ordered as he leaped out of the car with his gun drawn and ran to the fence. Jackson knew I'lllman would be trained to act in emergencies, but he hadn't expected him to believe his report of an attack soquickly. Jackson jumped out of the landrover after the sergeant. The stark, raw smell of the storm socked into his nose and lungs."It was here," Jackson shouted against the wind, running his hand along the wire mesh as it glowed in the landrover "s headlights. He looked down expecting to see the young man's body crumpled into the mud. Lightning flashed, followed by a growl of thunder.There was no body of a young man.No animal.Nothing but the huge, towering stones bearing silent witness to the night.The sergeant clipped his gun back into its holster. "Come on," he said, putting his arm around Jackson's wet shoulder and starting him back toward the land-rover. "Your aunt is waiting for us."NIGHT SOUNDS.Sergeant I'lllman made a report to his base camp on the landrover's radio before setting off toward the town of Salisbury. Jackson was too thrown by the attack on the young man to catch all of Tillman's clipped army jargon. All he understood was that a couple of military police were being dispatched from the camp to check the area around the stones."You and your aunt are staying at Langford's Guest House," I'lllman said, turning left onto a narrow, heavily eroded street on the north fringe of town.Jackson brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Down here?" he asked, as the landrover hit deep into a pothole. A spray of muddy water flew over the fenders."This is where the army puts up civilian visitors," I'lllman said.Jackson glanced at the sergeant's eyes. They were red and squinted like those of a poker player playing his cards close to his vest.Jackson was used to secrets and unexpected events whenever it came to visiting his aunt Sarah on one of her anthropological work assignments. The summer before, she had invited him along on a fossil dig in India. They had had to sleep in hammocks at night to escape giant jungle rats that would climb into their stilted hut. His last spring break he had visited her in Ethiopia, where she had been hired by a university to help carbon-date a skull that had been nicknamed "Lucy's Sister." There he had had to wear steel-reinforced boots as a defense against leeches capable of needling into a human foot.There was a flash of lightning and he saw his aunt-a tall, strong woman with high cheekbones and worried eyes-waiting in front of the guest house.Dr. Sarah Cawley breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the landrover pull into the driveway of the dismal-looking guest house. She darted out into the headlights holding an oversized black umbrella."I'm sorry," she told Jackson as she opened the mud-splattered door of the landrover and leaned inside. "They called me from the camp and told me what had happened. Are you all right?""Sure," Jackson said. "Y-whay oes-day eargeant-ioSay illman-Tay ave-hay a-ay un-gay?" he added, which he knew his aunt would understand was pig Latin for Why does Sergeant I'lllman have a gun? Jackson's pig Latin was the most basic kind. He'd take the first letter of a word, move it to the end of the word, and then tack "ay" on it. Short words beginning with a v...
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