by T J Payne
Eyes glanced frequently from the wall of weapons to the various exits.
The sounds of whispering could be heard, and although Amy couldn’t make out the exact words that people were saying, she figured that every group must be strategizing for their own survival.
Amy kept quiet, but she made a plan in her head. She wouldn’t rock the boat. She wouldn’t be the first to break ranks. But if things got ugly, she and Mariko would grab her parents and run. They’d race to their room, barricade themselves in, and plan from there.
Because her parents and Mariko were the only people Amy trusted right now.
She pretended to wipe her nose with her napkin. As she brought the napkin back to the table, she calmly set it on top of a knife. With a subtle, almost dainty motion, she slid the napkin and knife into her lap.
She looked around to make sure that no one noticed.
That was when she saw them.
She saw the balcony door swing open.
She saw the bride and groom step out.
She saw them raise up bows, nock arrows, and take aim.
Her dad was the closest to her; Amy threw her arm around him and pulled him below the table. “Get down!” she shouted, although her voice was so weak that it barely carried.
Mariko, who had been sitting completely still the whole time, now showed that her statuesque posture was actually her way of winding her internal spring tighter and tighter, readying herself to leap to action at a moment’s notice. She dove under the table.
Candice, meanwhile, continued sitting, trying to make sense of the scene.
Amy heard the fluttering sound of arrows flying through the air and thudding into their target. Big O’s calm, authoritative voice cut off and was replaced by a gurgle — the sound of a man trying to scream but finding that his lungs were filling with his own blood.
Yells rose from the crowd.
Chairs toppled as people dove under their tables.
Amy reached up from the ground, grabbed her mom’s wrist, and pulled her down to safety.
It was tight — seven adults crammed together beneath a circle of wood. They pressed up against each other and pulled their legs in, not wanting an inch of their bodies to be exposed.
Amy found herself squished against Big O’s wife. The woman seemed to know her husband had been shot, but she sat there, clutching her knees against her chest. She didn’t seem to know if it was her duty to go out into the line of fire and help him or stay hidden. Amy put a hand on the woman’s knee, gently communicating that she should stay.
The arrows flew rapidly. Their fletching caused a soft sound of rippling air as they sped down from the balcony before embedding in a table… or a shoulder blade.
From her position, Amy saw guests fall to the floor, screaming as they gawked at an arrow that had appeared in a leg or chest. Some of the injured continued crawling for cover. Others squirmed on the ground where they fell.
The faces of the wounded, initially bright red from screaming, quickly turned pale. Their blood oozed out over the black-and-white checkerboard floor, only to be trampled and smeared by the frenzied feet of people seeking shelter.
Amy could hear Caleb and Lilith laughing.
“Check it out. I call this ‘The Legolas,’” she heard Caleb say moments before three arrows sailed out from the balcony in rapid succession.
“This is ‘The Robin Hood,’” Lilith responded. Her bowstring twanged and Amy soon heard three arrows simultaneously thud into various tables.
The arrows rained down in a steady stream.
Caleb and Lilith barely seemed to be aiming now. And they certainly didn’t seem to be running out of arrows anytime soon.
The injured writhed on the floor.
Amy watched one man try to drag a woman under his table. The woman screamed in delirium, incapable of assisting in her own rescue, as she grasped the arrow sticking out of her left hip.
Another arrow sliced into the man’s forearm as he reached out.
The man let out a yell and withdrew his hand.
“Was that you, Curtis?” Lilith called out. “Whoopsie-daisy.”
Amy needed an escape plan. She kicked off her shoes. She made eye contact with Mariko who did the same. Candice had worn flats, which was good. If they had to make a run for it, it would be easier without heels.
She looked toward the ballroom’s entrance.
Their table was centrally located. It would be a long run to the door. She might be able to zig-zag. Caleb and Lilith seemed to be well-trained with a bow-and-arrow, but they couldn’t be that well-trained. To hit a moving target? She liked her chances.
Mariko was also nimble enough to probably make it out.
But what about her parents? Candice and Roger couldn’t sprint. They couldn’t zig-zag, at least not with any speed.
Amy swore under her breath. She looked around for something they could possibly use as a shield.
The arrows stopped.
The panicked screams subsided, replaced only by the moans of the injured.
“Hey, Daddy!” Lilith called down. “Where are you, Daddy? Don’t you wanna kiss me on my wedding day?”
Amy heard a heavy breathing behind her. She craned her neck to look. She hadn’t realized it but Lilith’s dad, Mr. Foley, had left his seat to wrestle the cross-bow from Coach Sanborn, and in the chaos that followed, had evidently dived under the nearest table — Amy’s table.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Mr. Foley was a big man. He took up more space under the table than anyone else. The back of his heaving neck glistened with sweat. He had removed his coat at some point, and now, large wet patches had consumed his entire backside as well as under his pits.
“I’ll make you all a deal,” Lilith yelled out. “Whoever tells me what table he’s under gets to live.”
The DJ’s voice came out through the speakers. “You hear that, boys and girls? We got us an offer! Whoever tells the bride where her father’s hiding gets a free pass. Don’t ask me what happens if the father gives himself up. I mean, that would just be—” he pressed a button and a “cuckoo-cuckoo” effect sounded out.
“But here we go,” he continued. “This will be the easiest save of the night. Your freedom in exchange for the father of the bride. Offer expires in five… four… three…”
Amy felt herself going completely still. Everyone under her table did as well. Not that it made a difference, but somehow, it felt as though making a sound or moving a muscle would endanger them all.
“… two…”
“Over there! He’s over there!” someone shouted.
Amy looked. It was Angela, one of the sorority sisters, pointing toward Amy’s table.
“Sold!” said the DJ. “Let the record show, she pointed to Table Ten. Madam, you may exit the ballroom.”
Angela scampered to her feet and ran off.
“Thanks, love!” Lilith called out.
Suddenly, an arrow slammed into Amy’s table. Its point sliced through the wood and came within an inch of Mariko’s ear.
More arrows flew in. Most of them embedded into the top, creating loud thuds that echoed underneath. But some arrows found the weak spots in the wood and broke through a few inches, their tips coming perilously close to someone’s head.
Everyone crouched down, trying to move as far away from the tabletop as they could. But there was barely any space.
“Get out! Get!” Mrs. Crawford yelled. Amy watched her elderly third grade teacher brace herself on her back and kick out her legs to push Mr. Foley from under the table.
More arrows thudded into the tabletop.
“No, please, please,” he cried out.
Amy only stared. Somewhere in her mind, she heard a voice pleading with Mrs. Crawford to stop. But that voice never managed to make it through to Amy’s mouth. She tried to reach out and hold Mrs. Crawford back, but similarly, her muscles seized up and never seemed to get the message.
Thoughts bubbled th
rough her head. Another voice rose up inside her that insisted that Mrs. Crawford was right. Any attention that Mr. Foley brought to Table Ten decreased everyone else’s chance of survival. And, after all, this man had raised, had created, the monster that now rained arrows down on them all. Certainly, he deserved whatever happened to him.
But he was also a human.
A scared human.
And all he wanted was the shelter of their table.
In that moment, Amy felt herself retreating to a childhood place. She looked to her parents to let them make the decision on whether or not to allow this man to stay. But her parents looked right back at her. That same look that Candice and Roger had when they needed an app installed on their phones.
Amy was deferring to them, but they deferred right back to her.
In that moment of indecision, Mrs. Big O joined with Mrs. Crawford and together they gave a firm shove.
Mr. Foley rolled out from under the table.
He tried to claw his way back in.
Fffffft! A single arrow flew out and a moment later, Mr. Foley let out a scream of pain.
The arrow had struck him in the thigh.
“Sorry, Daddy! Did you get a widdle boo-boo?”
Mrs. Big O and Mrs. Crawford had already filled the space he used to occupy, forming a barrier to prevent him from crawling back to safety. He might have been able to push through them, but an arrow plunged into the floor next to him causing him to give up on the table.
Instead, he rose to his feet and hobbled off on his gimpy leg.
He grabbed a chair and held it up as a shield. An arrow struck it. Then another. Amy watched as he backed up, frantically looking for any avenue of escape. The windows were closer than the doors and so he took the chair and threw it through the glass.
He pulled himself onto the window sill.
But the moment his wrist breached the perimeter, his bracelet beeped.
The arrows stopped. “Whoopsie,” Lilith called out.
The beeping intensified.
Mr. Foley scrambled down off the sill. His gaze darted from his wrist to the balcony. “No, no, no. I’m back inside. Lilith—”
In a flash of light, the bracelet blew his arm into a pink mist. The blast knocked him onto his side. He flopped around the floor, moaning out in pain. Several people in the crowd gasped and cried out, the explosion seemingly jarring loose a terror that they had been suppressing.
“Hazel! Oh, Hazel,” Lilith sang out. “Daddy needs you, Hazel. Don’t abandon him now. You were always there for him. When his wife was sick, you were so comforting and supportive. You kept him company. You helped him move. Where would Daddy be without you, sweetie?”
From her spot, Amy could see Hazel. She had curled into a ball under her own table, hugging her knees to her chest like a child in a lightning storm. She didn’t seem to be breathing, let alone moving. Her eyes weren’t looking at her husband who squirmed and moaned on the floor across the ballroom. She just stared ahead, seemingly at Amy.
But then an arrow thudded into the table above her and Amy saw Hazel jump. More arrows rained down. Hazel’s only response was to hug herself tighter as everyone else at her table screamed.
Hazel’s body suddenly lurched forward. Someone behind her had either kicked or shoved her. The poor woman was so in shock that she hadn’t braced herself at all. She didn’t have the strength to fight back.
And so, Hazel easily tumbled out from beneath the table and plopped face down on the floor.
Even then, she lay still, apparently hoping that Lilith’s vision might be based on movement, or something. That strategy lasted for all of two seconds before an arrow plunged into her shoulder blade.
Hazel cried out.
Another arrow struck her in the arm.
“Lilith, I’m sorry,” she screamed, her face pressed against the floor. “I’m so, so sorry. Please. I made a mistake. I never meant to break up your family.”
“Can’t hear you, sweetie. Please grovel louder.”
“I’m sorry!”
Another arrow struck her arm, almost in the same spot as before. She let out a whelp and sobbed into the floor.
“Hazel, run!” Amy finally shouted.
That seemed to awaken Hazel. She climbed to her feet. The arrows paused, as though Lilith wanted to wait and see how this all would play out. A little wobbly, Hazel stumbled around, looking left and right but seeming unsure of what to do or where to go.
“Don’t run in a straight line!” Amy yelled. “Zig-zag!”
Hazel took the direction well. Or, at least as well as her disoriented mind was capable of taking it. She staggered around in an objectiveless zig-zag, like a drunkard trying to walk a straight line.
An arrow struck the table beside her.
“Get out of their line-of-sight,” Amy called out. “Under the balcony where they can’t shoot you.”
Hazel did as told and ran to the bar beneath the balcony.
She threw herself against the shield that had risen to enclose the bar and pounded on the glass.
The bartended looked up. “What can I getcha?” he asked Hazel.
“Help me! Please!”
“I’m sorry. I only have drinks and melee weapons available. Can I interest you in a scythe? Or perhaps a mace?”
“Hazel? Oh, Hazel?” Lilith called out. Amy heard her shoes clanking against the metal staircase.
Lilith was coming down.
From her spot, Amy could see Lilith’s tight, silky wedding dress descend the stairs. Calm and purposeful steps. She reached the bottom, the ballroom floor, and scanned the crowd. Lilith’s face lit up with a broad smile that seemed to open her eyes wide with a crazed excitement.
Her bow and quiver of arrows were now slung over her shoulder, their straps cutting a black line diagonally across her white dress.
By her side, she carried some sort of medieval hammer. The handle was two feet of thin, shining metal that tapered to a head with a blunt striking-face on one side and a barbed spike on the other. She effortlessly wielded it with one hand, keeping it ready by twirling it in small circles.
Rick — Caleb’s Army cousin — rose up from under one of the tables, grabbed a chair, and charged at Lilith.
Amy had a clear view of Lilith’s face. Lilith’s eyes narrowed, but her smile widened as the military-honed soldier ran toward her. He swung the chair, but she expertly side-stepped it. As Rick’s momentum carried him past her, Lilith swung the hammer.
It cracked into the side of Rick’s head, bursting the vessels in his eyes.
He wobbled on his feet for a moment and then crashed to the floor.
Before Lilith could revel in her kill, she had to side-step an axe swing from one of her uncles. She crouched like a snake ready to leap up and strike, but an arrow suddenly appeared in the uncle’s neck. Caleb was firing from the balcony, covering his wife.
More guests saw their opportunity to attack. Mostly the men. Several of them grabbed whatever weapons they could and charged forward.
Chaos overtook the ballroom.
“They’re distracted. Run!” Amy said. She grabbed her parents by the hands and bolted out from under the table.
They sprinted toward the ballroom doors. Plates clattered behind her as other guests left their hiding places to either run for safety or try to fight Lilith.
There were screams.
Falling chairs.
Feet trying to find grip on the bloodied floor.
Amy didn’t look back toward any of the commotion.
“We got people on the dance floor,” the DJ announced. “Let’s get this place swinging!”
He turned on some swing-revival song from the 90s. It only partially drowned out the commotion of screams and fighting. Amy barely registered that there was any music playing at all.
The only thing on her mind was the door. She was getting closer.
A swift rush of air brushed past her cheek.
An arrow. Shot from the balcony.
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br /> It thudded into the doorjamb as she threw her weight against the door.
Her weight sent her tumbling through the exit and out onto the foyer floor. A hand, probably her dad’s, grabbed the back of her dress and hoisted her to her feet.
Barely missing a stride, she ran.
CHAPTER 14
Amy led her family from the foyer to the front lobby.
The lights were all turned to full strength. The bulbs, no longer looking like dim, flickering candles, now illuminated the building better than even full daylight could.
The harshness of the light threw deep shadows against the animal heads that adorned the lobby’s walls. The eyes of the dead elk and bear seemed empty and cavernous — large pools of blackness that watched Amy and her family run.
Behind them, the screams and crashing of plates rang out from the ballroom. Amy heard more stampeding feet, as though a wave of fleeing humanity were about to crest and crash over them.
As they passed the front desk, Amy felt a chill. A stiff, mountain breeze. The front door had been propped open. The dark world outside awaited them with open arms.
Candice veered off, seeming to assume that the open door was their destination.
“Mom! No!” Amy said.
Roger grabbed his wife’s wrist and pulled her toward the grand staircase.
“Get to the room!” Amy said. It was the only place Amy could think to go. They could be safe there once they fortified the doors. Her dad might figure out how to get the bracelets off. Maybe they could implement Big O’s plan of getting to the roof and sending a distress signal.
If nothing else, they could have some protection. Some time.
Being away from the big group already felt safer. As the running loosened her muscles, Amy realized how tense her shoulders and back had been sitting at that table, surrounded by sixty or so people, any of whom might slit her throat to save their own life.
It was better this way. Being alone with family.
Amy led them up the steps of the grand staircase.
They stepped off at the hotel level and ran down the empty hallway. Amy swiped her bracelet at her room door.
No green light. No red light. No error beep. No nothing.
She jiggled the handle. Locked.
