“My daughter is in there,” he said, pointing to the faculty lounge. “With him.”
“My sister Jamie’s inside the building too. He threatened to hurt her,” I told him.
“He’s got ten of us stationed at different places in the building; teachers, staff, we all have guns. One of us at every exit. He made some kind of arrangement with the police, no one gets hurt if no one gets out. If we let anyone leave, he’s going to blow up the place. He’s somehow fused some of the exits shut, must have done this during the night. He’s booby-trapped windows. The police are aware of everything. He’s broadcasting all of this to them using the school’s security system. He has a list of demands, which he is going to give one of us, and as soon as the police respond to him, he promised to release everyone.”
“How do you know this?”
Ferguson made this sour face. “We’re on live with him now,” pointing to my headset. “And the police can hear us too.”
“Do we know his demands?” I asked.
Ferguson shakes his head, just keeps shaking his head. He knows nothing.
“How do we get out?”
“We can’t at the moment, police orders. Nothing to upset the balance. They are bringing in a hostage negotiator.”
“Something’s got to be done,” I said.
“So now do you understand, Crash?” boomed the voice on the other end of my headset.
“WHAT?” I yelled back into it.
“You need to convince everyone to get away from the doors. Tell them to go, single file, to the auditorium.”
“David, what do you want?”
“Tell them that they need to get to the auditorium.”
I yelled this to the crowd, and absolutely no one moved.
“Fire the weapon.”
“No way.”
“Fire the gun, Crash, or I’ll level Jamie’s classroom.”
“I’m not shooting anyone.” As I said this, a bunch of people quickly backed off the doorway, many on their cell phones, all chattering, some screaming at the possibility of me using a weapon. The noise was cutting into my brain, draining me.
I looked outside, and there were dozens of police cars, not only from our town but from all over the county, and EMS trucks and fire trucks. The street around the school was sectioned off. Professionals only. And every last cop, every last firefighter, every last EMS technician in the county had a view of me standing there in the archway and handling a weapon.
I realized at that second that I was probably in the range of some sniper.
“Dave,” I said as calmly as possible. “There are cops everywhere. If I use the gun, they will probably shoot me. You gotta stop this.”
“They’re listening now. They know you’re just following instructions.”
“I don’t care. I’m not doing it.” It also occurred to me that he could totally be lying to me. They may know nothing.
“You have ten seconds.”
OK, with all of the fucked-up things that I did with my friends in high school, I have never fired an actual gun before. Easy enough when you’re playing Xbox or PlayStation. But I was holding a real gun and an antique at that. It was heavier, thicker than I had imagined, and it felt oddly off balance, not at all like the fake arcade weapons I was familiar with. Who knew what was bound to happen if I actually fired it?
“Aim it down,” Ferguson suggested.
“What if the bullet ricochets and hurts someone?” I asked.
But then, there was no point, because there was an explosion coming from the second floor.
And an announcement over the PA system.
“Will someone please tell Steven Crashinsky to be more cooperative?”
Burn’s words echoed in the halls as I raced up the stairs to get to the room where my sister was. On both ends of the hall there were staff members holding rifles and wearing headsets. I wondered how Burn selected them and what he told them to convince them to do their jobs.
“For your own safety, don’t take any chances if you want to live,” Burn was saying over the loudspeaker. “Stay in your classrooms. This will all be over in a few hours.”
I got to the hallway in the B wing. Mr. Booth was there. He waved me forward; apparently he knew that I would be coming up.
I ran down to Room 211, looking for Jamie, still carrying the rifle. I was there in seconds, and there, inside the classroom, was the entire drama group, mostly staring out the window, which was heavily wired and taped, although I did not see any sign of explosives. About thirty kids, half seniors. Including Christina. All in a panic.
“Say hello to Christina for me.” Burn on my headset.
“Where’s Jamie?” I shouted back.
“Don’t you know?” he answered. “You’re her brother. Don’t you have enough interest in her life to know which classes she has, who her teachers are, when she’s supposed to deliver her report . . . on the endocrine system?”
“I’m done with this, David,” I said, and even as I did, I searched the room for the camera. Exactly how was he doing it?
“WRONG!” he yelled back. “We’re just getting started. It’s going to be a long day for both of us, because you are my messenger, Steven.”
Here’s the thing. At that moment, I couldn’t remember where I’d heard that before, that I was his messenger. It just rang out in my brain as being important.
Instead, I thought back to the poker game again, and I knew, I totally knew that there was no reason that I couldn’t beat him at his own game again. And “game” was a perfect choice of words, because he was making me feel like I was inside a video game that he had developed specifically for me. Was it possible that this whole setup with him rigging the school with explosives was all for the purpose of forcing me play this game with him?
I thought back to elementary school—was this some kind of unfinished-business thing for him?
That thought allowed me to think with some clarity. Christina and I hadn’t talked very much since Massachusetts, in part because we were both afraid that if Burn saw us together, it would trigger something inside him. And while he very much kept his promise to Roxanne during the time she was alive, from what I heard, Christina had been recently getting random texts that she never answered. It hadn’t escalated to the point of her contacting me or anything, not that I could have done anything about it. It wasn’t the time now to determine whether that was true, but it got me to thinking that maybe Christina could talk him down off the ledge, like his sister and my stepmom did in the past.
Mrs. Terrigano’s voice came over the PA system. “Please, children, for your safety, those of you in the front of the building, please head to the auditorium. The front of the building is not a safe place to be.”
My first thought was, could sweet old Mrs. Terrigano be in on this with Burn? But then it hit me that she was in the room with him, probably being forced to speak.
I couldn’t stop that feeling that I was missing something.
I thrust the headset at Christina. “You can do this,” I whispered to her.
At first she pushed it away. I covered the mouthpiece, mouthing the words, “You have to talk to him.” She waved me off again. Another whisper from me: “Christina. You can end this.”
I must have sounded superconvincing, because not only did she take the headset, but she did so with a confidence that I don’t think she knew she had, as if she were suddenly onstage, completely the performer.
“David. You’ve got to stop this now. You need help. This is not the way to get it. Please, I’m asking you as a friend.”
Her jaw dropped. She tossed the headset at me like it was a nuclear device.
“DON’T DO THAT AGAIN!” David screamed at me as soon as I put it on.
I guess I miscalculated.
I asked Christina what he told her.
“He said, ‘Christina, I’m not your friend. I have no friends. Put Crash on.’”
“That’s it?”
She looked around, in
search of the same camera that I had tried to locate minutes before. Then she motioned for me to step into the hall, which I did, and then she whispered, “No, that wasn’t it. He said that maybe we weren’t destined to be together at all, maybe we’re just destined to die together.”
Wow.
I was, no question, out of my league. This wasn’t poker anymore.
“What do we do next?” she asked.
And as if on cue, actually probably on cue, though I couldn’t locate the camera, Burn’s voice on the headset, “Next stop, Room 219,” he said. “Take Christina with you.”
And of course, he was gone again, and I had to explain to Christina that she was supposed to come with me. She waved me off.
“I can’t handle this.”
And I slowed her down. “Look at me,” I told her, taking her hand. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“Why should I believe you?” she asked.
“Because I came for you once already,” I told her. Even though that was technically a stretch, as in little white lie, because, if you recall, I only “came for her” because of Roxanne.
“Also,” I told her, “we have to follow his instructions or he’ll blow something else up.”
Room 219.
There was Jamie. She seemed to be expecting me.
“He just called,” she explained. “He wants the three of us to go down to the cafeteria.”
So there we were, the three of us, minutes later in the cafeteria.
“OK, we’re here,” I said into the headset. “Now what?” Again, I heard intense typing in the background.
“Now you wait for me.”
Another announcement over the PA, this time Connelly: “We need to have an orderly transition from the classrooms to the gymnasium and the auditorium. There will be pizza and bathroom breaks for the kids who need it.”
What the fuck was Burn doing, throwing a pizza party in the middle of his siege? And typical of Connelly having to pronounce the whole fucking word instead of just saying “gym” like a normal person.
And all I could think about was the exit, because while Ferguson said that a bunch of the exits were fused shut, I knew for sure that the one in the back of the cafeteria was still operational. Which meant if the three of us moved quickly, we could be out of there, which also didn’t make any sense because he left it completely unguarded.
And as if Burn was reading my mind, his voice returned: “Don’t even think about it, Crash. The door is rigged.”
So we waited, with me trying to keep both Christina and Jamie as calm as possible, while my adrenaline was making me feel like my skin was cooking. I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my forehead, which I quickly wiped away for Jamie’s sake, as I did not want her to know how panicked I was.
“Now what?” I asked over the headset.
“Now is where it gets complicated for you,” he said in a whisper. “No one has died yet.” He paused. “That’s about to change.”
“David, you can’t . . .”
“Shut up, Steven. Here’s the deal. Take three big steps to the right and look up to the camera, because you are being broadcast over the webcam to the police, so they can see you and . . . now, hear you.” I heard more typing in the background.
The camera here, like the ones situated throughout school, was a blue egg-shaped device that extended down from the ceiling. Until that minute, I always thought that those things were smoke detectors.
“Wave to the camera, Crash.”
I did no such thing.
“Wave,” came the immediate command. “Because I need to show the police how serious I am. To do so, I have to decide, do I kill everyone, a group of people, or just one of you?” He sounded absolutely sincere in this question, as if he was asking my advice.
“David . . .”
“DON’T INTERRUPT!” he shouted angrily. And then, after a pause, “I got to thinking. Why should it be my choice? I’ve been in no-win situations my whole life. But not you, have you?”
I didn’t think it would be such a bright idea to remind him about Massachusetts. But it made me think of his sister. If she was still alive, this wouldn’t be happening. So I wanted to tell him, yeah I have been. Instead I chose silence.
“I want to see how you will handle a no-win situation, Steven. You have the gun. Someone has to die. You can kill your sister; you can kill Christina, who, you claim, you hardly know; or you can kill yourself. If you can do this, I will let everyone go. If you can’t, if you put the gun down, I will blow the school away, every kid, every teacher, every member of the staff. Oh yeah, and me.” He was suddenly quiet.
“You have fifteen seconds,” he finally added. “Fair enough?”
“What’d he say, what’d he say?” Jamie, jumping nervously. Christina was looking at me as if she had heard every word and knew exactly what was going on.
I was down to ten seconds.
I looked at her, then back to Jamie.
I wasn’t going to kill anyone, I wasn’t capable of that, but the second I put down the gun, it was over for everyone else.
I needed to think quicker. Only I couldn’t think at all.
Five seconds. I wasn’t going to kill myself. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
Four. I thought to myself, does he really expect me to kill someone?
Three. It hit me. Burn was playing a game with me, I was sure of it.
Two. I raised the gun. Lifted it and pointed it at Jamie’s head.
“Steven, what are you doing?” Screaming in stereo, from Jamie and Christina behind me.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Steven, PLEEEEEEEEAZE!” Jamie, all panicked.
“IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT, BURNETT?” I screamed into the headset.
And just as I cocked the trigger, I heard him say, “Put the gun down, Crash. I didn’t think you could do it. Let them go.”
I reeled back from the pressure of almost firing the weapon. I mean, even though I had pointed it away from both of them, I couldn’t really be sure that it wouldn’t hit anyone if I actually pulled the trigger.
“Just like that?”
“Do you want me to change my mind?” he asked. “Send them out the back. But not you. If you go, I will blow up the exit and the school and take you and your sister and Christina and everyone else out along with it. Do you understand? You have thirty seconds.”
I motioned for both of them to move quickly to the cafeteria door, both of them looking at me like what just happened?, and I couldn’t tell them anything, because what just happened was me with a straight flush again.
I almost smiled, except for the screaming panic inside me.
“Go,” I told them. “He’s going to let you both leave.”
“Aren’t you coming?” they both asked.
“No,” I said. “I have to stay.”
OK, you’re probably wondering, hey, Crash, what was up with that? Well, I remembered something important. I remembered how Roxanne explained to me that Burn always obsessed about three people. The first was Roxanne and how he was always worried that she wouldn’t be around. And now she wasn’t around. And the second person was me because I was supposed to be some kind of messenger, whatever that was supposed to mean. The whole “messenger” thing finally hit me and as soon as I realized when I had heard the term before, that got me thinking about the third person.
Because the third person was Jamie.
Because he believed that he had to save her.
So I knew that if I aimed at Jamie, he would stop me. Thank you, Roxanne, wherever you are.
I hope the police understood my intentions if they were watching us, which I had to believe, because they would now know that everyone was at risk and that no one had died yet and that Burn was willing to let some of us go.
But not others.
He was back on the headset again, reminding me that, OK, I got my sister out, but I was still there, and there were still explosives an
d who knows what else and he was still crazy, out of his mind.
I could not believe that I stayed.
And he knew that I would; he said as much to me before I entered the building.
“Come down to the faculty lounge. Now. Leave the gun at the door. It’s time to come out of your stupor.”
It was 9:55.
Chapter Twenty-Five
How a Fox Is Always a Fox
Standing at the door of the faculty lounge, I waited, wondering if Burn could see me.
With Jamie safely outside the building, I finally had a second to think. And when I thought about it, I realized that I was as out of my mind as Burn was if I was voluntarily agreeing to enter the room where he was holding people hostage. Was anyone left who was so important to me that I would risk my life for them? Especially with a kid who once promised to kill me and who now built the ultimate killing machine, as in an entire school filled with explosives?
Not only that, but I wondered would they, any one of the kids left, risk their lives for me? No fucking way.
Still, one part of me still figured I could reason with him. After all, good or bad, we had history in a way that neither of us had with anyone else. Plus we had Roxanne—that had to count for something. He knew, he must have known, how I felt about his sister. He had to respect that on some level.
I was ready to go in. I could handle him.
Except . . .
I also started thinking about the other times, the “Revenge is sweet” times, when Burn somehow got it into his head that I was his sworn enemy, and I couldn’t forgive his absolute determination to keep his sister from me. He knew, he must have known, how much I hated him. Also, another part of me was sure that he had gone too far and there would be no way to reach him. Didn’t he live in a world that was different from the one the rest of us inhabited, a world I couldn’t possibly understand? Who the fuck was I to try to figure him out in a crisis?
That part of me, the voice in the back of my head, said:
Run, Crash. Run.
I held my breath, could feel my heart beating, not only beating but doing heavy metal drumrolls in my chest, so fast it hurt, and I could hear the sound reverberate in my ears.
Crash and Burn Page 46
