by Matayo, Amy
Teddy lunges forward.
I leap to catch him and connect with his calf.
What the heck is he doing?
Chapter Two
Teddy
A woman screams. Feet rush by the door. I need to help. I can’t just leave them out there to die.
I lurch forward and reach for the handle to pull a few other people in here with me, but a hand slaps me away. I’m trapped in here with a stranger whose face I haven’t seen and whose intentions aren’t known. Maybe this is the killer. Maybe I was shoved in here to die. I reach for the handle again and get the same reaction.
“Stop slapping me,” I shout. All the benefits of celebrity can’t help me now.
“Stop trying to open the door, and I will.” A female voice threat-whispers in my ear.
“I don’t hide in closets.”
“You do now. If you want to stay alive, then be quiet.” She’s breathing heavily, same as me.
“Who are you? What is happening out there?” I whisper back, deciding maybe she’s right and silence is the best route. Still, until I have answers, I don’t take orders from anyone.
“I’m a security guard the arena hired to keep you safe. So starting now, I’m your personal bodyguard. Someone out there has a gun. If you want them to start shooting at us, by all means, keep arguing with me and open the door.”
The fight drains out of me.
My bodyguard? None of this makes sense. We did everything right.
“How the hell is someone shooting?” I ask. There are bag checks set up at every entrance to prevent this sort of thing. Full-body scans and random pat-downs. Even I have to go through them.
How did this get past anyone?
“How…?”
My head spins with a thousand questions, but I stop talking. My hands fist my hair and pull, the pain somehow grounding me to the here and now. I lean forward with my head in my hands, my back against the door. The walls are closing in. I’m trapped in here, and she’s telling me I can’t leave. For how long? It’s dark and cold and I think I’m starting to choke. I can’t breathe. It’s too small. It’s too dark. It’s too familiar. The walls are closing in until wood and paint and drywall are the only things I feel and smell and see. Claustophobia doesn’t have an expiration date, and mine is going on fifteen years.
Everything is falling apart on the other side of the door.
I’m falling apart in here.
* * *
Jane
My heart hurts from all the pounding.
My stomach is seasick from all the rolling.
My throat burns from all the not breathing.
I reach for my walkie to call someone, my chest caving in on itself when I hear it rattle like a screw has come loose from the inside. I growl low and harsh. Can bad things please stop happening? I push the button and press the device to my mouth and test it, knowing what I’ll find. Teddy Hayes is terrified, and it’s my job to calm him down. How am I supposed to do that if I can’t call for help? If I can’t calm myself down either? I swallow and attempt both anyway.
“Andy, can you hear me? Eric, come in.” Nothing but silence interrupted by faint bursts of static. I wait a beat and start again. “Andy, it’s Jane. Please give me your location.” More broken static greets me, not a single voice replies. My walkie must have broken when bodies smashed into me as I was reaching for Teddy. It fell to the floor as I hauled him over the side of that cage, but I managed to grab it before we ran under the stage.
We’re under the catwalk on the opposite side of the stage, but I don’t think Teddy realizes it. This room is meant for quick costume changes in between songs. I checked it an hour ago. There’s a white cotton shirt identical to the one he’s wearing now and a row of six water bottles pushed against the wall. That’s it for supplies. No air vent or outside access, and the door is locked and will stay that way until it’s safe enough to open. It could be minutes or hours from now, both of which already seem like an eternity.
The news is bad all by itself, but it’s catastrophic considering my cell phone battery is already lit up yellow and currently has no service. I try to make a call, but there’s a stadium filled with thousands of people, undoubtedly attempting to call for help. The screen spins but nothing happens. I turn the power down to the lowest level to save battery and keep my eyes on it, just in case the No Service status changes. After a couple minutes, the battery goes down another two percent, so I shut off the screen completely.
I’ve never felt as painfully inadequate as I feel in this moment, like a walk-on trying to make it in the big leagues. I have three years as a bodyguard already behind me, but none feel adequate against this. Concerts are my least favorite job, but every once in awhile, I’ll take them for selfish reasons. Case in point, this one. I only applied for this gig to score a friend’s new boyfriend free tickets to Teddy’s concert, which now seems like a particularly pathetic way to boost their relationship. Now I’m mentally scrambling for a way out of this mess. One that won’t have me headlining news stories as the person directly responsible for Teddy Hayes’s death.
Good lord, what have I gotten myself into?
“Is there any chance you have a phone?” I ask Teddy, putting as much authority into my tone as one can when whispering.
“No, I’ve never needed one onstage.” In the history of the English language, words have never had such a razor-sharp edge.
“Great. Mine has no service.” I try another call just to prove my point.
His breath comes out long and shaky. It’s interesting the way you hear things when sight has been stripped away. It’s black as ink inside this room, but I can’t afford to waste my phone’s battery for something as trivial as being able to see. The light may also give away our whereabouts, something I can’t risk.
“I always leave my phone in the dressing room. Right now, I’m regretting that decision.”
I take a deep breath, one filled with stops and starts. It’s hard to get any air when your lungs are squeezed in a vice. It’s made more difficult when you’re required to appear the brave one.
“It probably wouldn’t work now anyway.” Words meant to sound reassuring come out sounding defeated. Because they are. We’re screwed. Stuck in a six by seven space with no immediate way out. I say a quick prayer heavenward that this disaster ends quickly. What is going on out there? And who on earth is doing the shooting?
We sit with our own thoughts, too focused on listening to do much else. Outside this door, people are screaming, people are running, things are smashing together. All we can do is sit and listen and pray that a few are making it to safety. “You’re here to protect the concert-goers and Teddy Hayes and his band. Should anything go wrong, the closest person to Teddy needs to get him to safety. Understood?”
We’d all nodded in agreement, a silent pledge to do just that. The arena management hired me with that single expectation, and I won’t let them down. Still, it’s terrifying to feel powerless, especially with every blast of a gunshot. Every few seconds, another one sounds, and I feel Teddy jump. There’s no way to know if this is the work of one person or more. The only thing I know for certain is that this attack was planned. The moment I made contact with Teddy Hayes, I glanced back at my partner, Andy, as he shoved his body against the closest exit—I presume to help people escape. That door didn’t budge, not even an inch.
It was then that I knew: Some doors in this arena are locked. Maybe even barricaded shut. Not all, but definitely the ones closest to us. But it’s common protocol to keep doors easily accessible, maybe even slightly ajar during an event as large as this one. Insurance companies require it, venues demand it, artists insist on it. Encasing fifteen thousand people into a space they can’t easily leave is a nightmarish situation, not to mention a public relations nightmare most people couldn’t recover from. If not personally, then most definitely financially. I was here two hours before this particular show started, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this venue fo
llowed protocol. I checked several doors myself to make sure they could be easily opened. At the time, they did.
Someone broke through security and locked them.
“So, you’re my bodyguard?” Teddy breaks the long silence, keeping his whisper low. “I’ve never seen you before. I can’t even see you now, and I certainly didn’t see you before you pulled me in here.” He shifts, and there’s something in his tone. It sounds a lot like distrust. I open my mouth to reassure him that he can trust me to keep him safe, but he keeps going. “Where is Bill or Steve or one of my normal guys? I mean, no offense but you’re—”
He stops talking, and I roll my eyes in the dark. It isn’t distrust, it is a lack of confidence in my skill.
“I’m a woman?” Suddenly I want him to say that to my face. Just because he’s a rock star doesn’t mean he can talk down to me.
“No.” His voice is firm. “I was going to say ‘you’re a stranger.’ But since you’re the one bringing it up…”
I don’t push it. I deserve to be put in my place for the assumption, but it’s a line I’ve heard at least a hundred times before. It’s a man’s world, the one I’m working in. Personally, I’ve made peace with it. It’s the jerks on the outside that drag my insecurities front and center without asking permission.
Except this time, I’m the jerk.
I sigh. “Look, obviously I’m a woman. And I’m on edge, so I’m sorry I made an assumption. I swear I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe,” I whisper. And I mean it. If someone wants to kill him, they’ll have to kill me first. He’s silent for so long, it begins to worry me.
I can hear him biting a fingernail, and the mental image ushers in a softness I don’t often feel. He may be one of the biggest stars in country music, but right now he’s simply a guy who’s afraid for his life. After all, signs most likely point to Teddy Hayes being the target. There are two options here, neither one more pleasant than the other: either someone wanted to shoot up the arena for the fame alone, or someone wanted to be famous for killing Teddy Hayes. Either way, Teddy is the common denominator. Everyone in the audience is collateral damage.
“What about you?” he whispers.
I frown. “What about me?”
“Who’s going to keep you safe?”
His voice is so protective my heart snags inside my chest. In the three years I’ve been doing this job, no one has ever asked me that. Not even my mother, though I suppose that isn’t much of a surprise.
“I suppose that will be up to me as well.” I try a little laugh to mask the reality that I am currently falling a little bit apart, but it’s emotionless. What does it say about me that the slightest hint of care has me going soft? I can’t afford to be pathetic.
I straighten my back and press my ear against the door to listen. Things are quiet for the moment. I feel, rather than see, Teddy move closer to me. He must be listening as well, because his breath keeps feathering my cheek. Knowing we’re only inches apart has me suddenly thankful for the darkness.
“I don’t hear anything,” he whispers. “Do you think it’s over?”
No, I don’t. It’s the calm before the storm. I’m about to say as much when another gunshot cracks through the silence and says it all for me. Teddy leaps backward so fast that for a moment, I worry he’s been hit.
“Are you alright?” I scramble on my hands and knees to find him, frantic to make contact with something, anything. I manage to locate his thigh and grip it a little too hard. At least I think it’s his thigh. This is no time for timidity. I pat upward on his body, feeling anywhere and everywhere for a wound like I’ve been trained to do.
“I’m okay,” he rasps, clutching my hand to still my movements. “Physically, anyway. Mentally, I’m a freaking mess.”
I slump against the wall and fight tears without letting go of his hand. He’s claimed it so fiercely inside his own, I’m not sure I could anyway. With my other hand, I reach for my phone to check for service. Try as I might, I still can’t make the stupid thing work.
* * *
Only a few minutes later, a bloodcurdling cry sounds from outside the room, so close it’s as if someone is being stabbed only inches from us. The fear in my chest shifts until it’s lodged inside my throat. You train and train, practice responding to situations from one angle and another until you have your reactions locked tight and down to a science. But no one tells you that hypothetically being terrorized and actually being terrorized are not at all the same thing.
“What’s happening out there?” Teddy whisper-cries directly into my ear as if he’s afraid the sound might escape through the cracks if he attempts to speak any other way. He sniffs, and my grip on his hand tightens.
“I don’t know. Just please be completely still.” He doesn’t move or speak again. Neither one of us does. As determined as I am to protect him, I’m equally as determined to live. We’re both sitting with backs against the wall, breathing heavily and not breathing at all, terror making it hard for our lungs to fully function. He tightens his hold on my hand, and I’m oddly grateful. Until I have a handle on the situation...until I can grasp some meaning behind what is happening, I need something to hold onto. Something to keep my own sanity intact. Something to keep me strong instead of melting into a fear-laden puddle like I want to. Personal space doesn’t exist here.
“Did you see the shooter?” he asks. “Any idea if they’re acting alone?”
“They almost always act alone, but no, I didn’t see the shooter. I did see my partner trying to open an exit door close by. It wouldn’t budge. I personally checked that door before the concert, and it opened just fine.”
I feel his eyes on me, imploring and unbelieving. “You mean everyone’s locked in the arena with no way out?”
“Not everyone. There’s no way one person could contain this many people. But the doors closest to us were locked. A lot of people are trapped, and I still haven’t heard a siren or any outside noises at all.”
It isn’t an uncommon scenario, but I can feel the weight of his shock as it settles into his mind. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people trapped in this arena while a ruthless, attention-seeking asshole picks them off one by one, all of them here because Teddy Hayes sold them a ticket. If guilt had a shape, it would have two arms and legs and a head undoubtedly hanging in undeserved shame. Teddy didn’t do this, but I doubt anyone could convince him otherwise.
“I haven’t heard anything either,” he whispers. “Except for screams.”
Another gunshot ricochets through the air as if the shooter is mocking Teddy himself. Maybe he is.
Madmen don’t respect anything. Not money or power or even life itself. Certainly nothing as trivial as fame.
Fame means nothing if you don’t make it out alive.
* * *
A man’s wild, psychotic demands cut through the air on the other side of the door.
“Everybody down! Everybody down now!” The words are followed by a mass of shrieks and cries, and the energy inside this room shifts from twenty watts to a hundred in the span of a single heartbeat. A bullet pummels through the door and whizzes over our heads, and I clamp my hand over my mouth to trap all the sounds threatening to escape. He is here, and we are dead. No, we are alive. We are alive, but I can’t breathe. He is here, and he will find us, and he will kill us.
I barely remember my training.
Do your job.
Do your job.
The mantra doesn’t help one bit. This stiff shirt is choking me, so I unbutton the first two buttons and pull at the collar. That doesn’t help because it’s my throat. My throat is choking me, and I have no way to make it stop. Pulling at one’s throat only causes more problems, and I have enough to deal with right now.
I squeeze my hand into a fist, then press my forehead to the ground and remind myself to breathe. When did breathing become something one forgets? In. Out. Eyes closed. Eyes open. I’ve recited a different mantra in my head three times through before I
realize what I’m saying.
I am in charge, I know what to do.
I am in charge, I know what to do.
I am in charge, I know what to do.
I say it a few more times to get it in my brain, then stop when I think it’s taken hold. This isn’t the time to panic. I may not have faced an actual mass shooting before, but I have trained extensively for one. I would bet money that Teddy hasn’t, which means I need to get myself together now. I am in charge, and I know what to do.
“What should we do?” he whispers.
“We should stay very still and quiet until he walks away.” I let go of his hand and slide onto my stomach to peer under the door, careful not to kick anything or make a sound that might alert anyone to our whereabouts. The man is still screaming everyone down! like no one is actually listening, but I have no doubt they’re obeying. A pair of sneakers are right outside the door, directly in front of my vision, white leather and new as though bought and saved for this special occasion. I blink at them, alternately baffled by the man’s choice of jogging shoes and willing those same shoes to move away. Combat boots would have made more sense. The mind thinks weird things when under intense pressure.
“Well?” Teddy says.
“He’s still here. Don’t talk.” My words are a hoarse whisper. I can barely hear over the frightening sound of cries and my own pounding heartbeat. Guilt that I want the shooter to move away from us and toward the crowd eats at my conscience, even if this is my job. Fear twists my lungs into nothing but useless organs screaming for an inhale. Slowly, I try. Teddy inches closer to me, so close I can feel his chest and then his thighs as he settles into place. His breath lands on my right shoulder. It’s frightening to be inside this dark closest. I’m not even attempting to wear a brave face; no one can see it anyway.
“Should you try your phone again?” he asks. “Maybe you’ll have service now.”
