by B. C. Tweedt
He exhaled and opened his eyes to the full extent of the chaos. Men and women were screaming, fleeing in all directions from gunfire that seemed to come from all sides. Some victims were pushing at the metal gates that had been erected for traffic control, preventing escape. Others were helping the wounded over the metal gates, while those in shock were huddled down, peeking out from the wooden pews arranged in rows facing the now-empty stage. Smoke still hovered, pushing in and out of the crowds, obscuring their vision.
Greyson pulled on the horse’s reins and rubbed again at his eyes, clearing them to scan the scene.
BAM! BAMBAMBAM!
Fresh screams erupted from the crowd as most dropped to the grass, covering their heads. And suddenly Greyson could make sense of the scene. Several men – no – more, dressed in hunters’ camouflage and wielding rifles, had surrounded the area. Several opened fire again, aiming toward the front of the stage where there was a wooden barricade of pews that had been upended for better cover. Popping up from the pews were heads wearing sunglasses.
Secret Service.
They returned fire with their pistols and the terrorists ducked, cowering behind whatever cover they could find.
Greyson had come up behind a pair of terrorists who still hadn’t seen him. A quick debate took place in his mind, but his fingers were already moving. The slingshot snapped and the ball smacked into the back of a terrorist’s head, sending him crumpling to the grass. The man next to him turned out of panic and looked behind just in time to see Greyson sitting tall upon a horse, staring him down from between the two ‘Y’ handles. Greyson let go and the man collapsed to the ground, clawing at the metal ball where his eye should have been, screaming in pain.
Greyson breathed deeply, hatred sparking in his watery eyes, but clouding with remorse. He felt a bite of guilt in his conscience, watching the man writhe, but he swallowed it down. How could they do this? Some on the left side of the stage were blindly shooting into the crowd. This is insane. They deserved whatever he could do to them. It had to be stop–
BAM! A bullet slammed into the burning hut behind him, just feet to his left. He jerked the horse into action just as a volley of bullets burst the side of the hut into splinters.
“Yah!”
Horse and boy flew around the outer edge of the amphitheater, pierced through a column of smoke, and disappeared behind another hut. A terrorist turned toward them, waiting for them to come into view. He would soon have an open shot to take the police horse down. His finger pressed against the trigger.
But the horse had stopped and taken a few steps backward. Greyson peeked around the corner.
ZIIIIIIIIIIP!
The ball smashed into the man’s teeth, sending him twisting to the ground in pain and anguished groans.
Greyson quickly scanned for more enemies and then rode on, staying on the outskirts of the stage area as more and more citizens came out running and screaming. The streets had become even more chaotic as some rushed to carry wounded away, others doused fires with big containers of soda or whatever water they could find. People – bloody, mangled, hysterical – were everywhere. More were streaming from the buildings, which had caught fire, setting off the alarms and sprinklers, bringing the people into the chaos of smoke and bullets. Outnumbered policemen, Red Cross medics in golf carts, and volunteers were desperately trying to help, calling out instructions, directing people to one place or another, but most would not listen. Even some terrorists had fled from the stage area and were shooting in the air, urging others to get out of their way. But no Sydney.
Have they already taken Sam? Have they killed Sydney? Where are they?
He swung the horse around and set off toward the back of the stage. Swerving around a downed golf cart and jumping a low single-chained fence, they trotted toward the corner of the stage.
“Freeze!”
Greyson yanked the horse to a stop and found the man’s face, peeking around the corner. He held a pistol toward him. He wore sunglasses.
“Get away from here!”
Secret Service. But good or bad? How many had turned besides Agent Murray?
Well, he thought, he hasn’t shot me yet.
“Have you seen a girl? About my age, named Sydney?” he shouted, trying to control the fidgety horse. The sounds of gunshots and alarms echoed around them.
The man stepped out a little further to check for terrorists. “No. Now get out of here and hide or you’re going to get yourself killed!”
Ignoring the warning and shuddering a gritty breath of frustration through the smoke, Greyson kicked the horse into a trot to get a better view of the area behind the stage. He had to know what the Secret Service knew.
“She was with Sam! Have you seen Sam?”
The Secret Service man seemed to be struck dumb. Who is this kid? “They…they took him. And now they’re after the governor.”
Greyson looked past the agent at the chaos in the back of the stage. Overturned SUVs, agents’ bodies – but no Sydney. Agents were stationed, weapon-ready, behind the wreckage and covering the corners. The governor must have been close enough to warrant all the protection.
Suddenly, two white moving trucks and another black SUV came speeding through a side street from the right. The agent’s attention immediately shifted and he found new cover, aiming at the approaching vehicles. The other agents were shouting orders and shuffling their defense.
Skidding to a stop, one of the moving trucks parked behind an overturned SUV as the other moving truck and SUV continued on, swerving around the stage toward some other destination.
For what seemed a long moment, the driver sat staring through the windshield as weapons leveled toward him. Greyson held his breath, trying to control the horse as it whinnied and spun him around. It didn’t like this situation.
“Get out of here!” the agent yelled at him.
Just then the back doors of the moving truck slid open and a waterfall of men piled out carrying machine guns.
Time to go. “Yah!”
Greyson didn’t stay to watch the violence. He heard the shouts and the gunfire as they erupted behind him, but soon they had blended into the fire alarms and the clack of his horse’s hooves on asphalt. Unimaginable ten minutes ago, the horror surrounding him in sights and sounds threatened to tear him down from the horse – urging him to crawl into some dark spot and hide like most twelve-year-olds would. Every time he began to attempt to take in the situation, to fathom the death and pain and loss all around him, to beware the loss of his own life, it threatened to engulf him with fear.
But something inside of him would free him from the burden – it told him that thinking about the horror would do nothing to help anyone. It warned him that if he let the terror panic him, then it would win. But it couldn’t win. He had to stay alert and ignore the fear – he had to persevere, and do so with every ounce of strength he had. Only then, if he fell short, would he be justified in letting the terror win. But until he had spent all he had – everything – there was no reason to give in.
The choice was fight or flight, and he chose to fight.
There was no going back.
Chapter 19
“Don’t…move.”
Sydney lay on her side on concrete, grease, and old French fries, her back pressed against a wooden plank where the food hut’s cashiers had stood before they had fled for their lives. The hut had a little window air-conditioner, but it was hot, stuffy, and dark in the abandoned little shack.
“I won’t,” Sam whispered breathily back inches away from her face. He was lying down uncomfortably close to her on his side as well, still wearing his smart suit and tie. Sweat was running from his temples, down his cheeks, and stinging his eyes. He wiped at them and tried to blink away the sting, but it only made him want to cry.
Sydney tried not to stare at him, but his nose was almost pressing against hers. They had to stay this close. From this angle, the terrorists would not be able to see them through the customers’ window. The only
way they could be seen was through a small window of the side door. For now, the window was just a small, bright rectangle of light, resonating with shadows or a wisp of smoke, but no one had stopped to look in. Yet.
“Are we safe?” Sam asked, whimpering.
Sydney tried not to breathe too hard onto his face. “Yeah. For now.”
“What about my dad?” Sam’s lips were quivering and his chin vibrated, trying to restrain the tears. “Do…you think…he got away?”
Sydney eyed the window as someone sprinted past. Shouts and the pops of gunfire echoed dully through the wood hut. “Yeah. Of course. He has all the Secret Service looking after him.”
She couldn’t tell him what she really thought. Agent Murray had been Secret Service.
Sam nodded and closed his eyes as a mixture of sweat and tears poured from his eyes across his nose and cheek. He was so close, she could watch the drops crawl across his smooth skin, his nostrils bulge out and in with his sniffs, and the creases on his lips as they shook. The temptation to reach out, to pull him in to a kiss was tickling her skin. She could taste the salt of the tears, smell the scent of his deodorant, and feel the warmth of his body. A kiss would comfort him.
But she couldn’t. He was fragile, scared, and so was she. The honk of a horn and the sounds of vehicles startled her as they passed close by. They were looking for him. And something told her they wouldn’t leave until they found him.
“You’re the key, Sam,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and rubbed them again. They were red and pleading.
“You’re what they’re after. And we can’t let them get you. You’re the key.”
-------------------
“Sydney!”
The tumultuous crowd had barely thinned in the minutes since the blast. “Sydney!” Greyson called again with no luck.
Turning the horse in circles, Greyson wiped at the soot on his cheeks and took his hat off for a moment to wipe his arm across his forehead, revealing a white streak of flesh where the hat had been covering his skin. He fitted it back on as he peered into the mayhem of the street, eyeing the shapes through the smoke.
Some fifty yards away, he spotted the white moving truck, the SUV, and several terrorists all running in the same direction. He couldn’t see where they were going, but if Sydney and Sam had escaped, that’s where they’d be headed. He heeled the horse and it set off in a quick cantor.
Clopclopclopclop!
“Greyson!”
Through the barrage of loud noises, he swore he heard his name.
“Greyson!”
Did that come from…above?
He looked up – astonished. There was Nick and Sammy sitting next to each other on the Skyride, moving slowly in his same direction. Sammy was holding up a black, rectangular object.
“Catch!”
And suddenly Sammy had thrown the object underhand.
Greyson panicked for a moment, tugging at the reins and almost toppling from the horse, but the throw had been perfect. It smacked into his palm, stinging his flesh, but the package had arrived.
He smiled, his white teeth sticking out in contrast to the black film that had smeared onto his face. He pressed the walkie-talkie to his cheek as he kept up the cantor toward the terrorists.
“Nice throw!” he shouted into the walkie. “I’m glad you guys are alright!”
Sammy smiled a goofy grin from above, giving him a thumbs-up.
Nick’s voice crackled through the walkie. “Same here! Have you seen Jarryd?”
“Not yet! How about Sydney?”
There was a slight pause as he heard Nick gulp and shudder a breath for his brother. “Uh, yeah. She was running with Sam! Agent Murray was chasing them. They hid in a food hut – French fries I think!”
Greyson lowered the walkie, letting the information sink in. She was alive. He almost choked up, but he gulped it down.
“Where, Nick? Where is she?”
“You’re headed right toward her.”
-------------------
Nick pointed at the hut from the chair lift above, though Greyson’s horse had already passed them at a much faster pace. Sammy sat next to him, somehow unaffected by the violence happening underneath their feet. This was their second lap on the SkyRide and already they’d seen more violence than an action movie. And it was all happening to real people. Nick couldn’t imagine the pain and suffering being inflicted. The bombs had knocked him off his feet, but he’d been twenty feet away from the nearest one at the time.
Luckily, the bombs weren’t made to kill people. He wasn’t a demolitions expert, but he’d read a few books on terrorism since Morris. These explosions had mostly made a big boom with lots of smoke – but the casualties had been relatively low from what he’d seen and read about bombs used in terrorist attacks. They weren’t filled with metal shrapnel to purposely inflict gruesome injury, and the explosions had been high when they could have easily been directed lower. Greyson had been right about their main purpose – a distraction of pure terror on a large scale.
Somehow after the explosions he’d managed to snag some walkie-talkies from an information booth and make his way through the mayhem to the SkyRide, intent on fulfilling his mission. As if Fate had ordained it, Sammy had already been on the SkyRide, riding it since the horseshoes championship, for over an hour (he’d said it was lap 12). He’d even packed rations in his backpack. Most of it was nuts of some variety, but there were also a dozen hard-boiled eggs he’d snatched from the Agricultural Building’s free samples and even a few funnel cakes.
Oddest of all, he had a rope and brick he’d been hiding from the SkyRide operators. When he was out of view, he’d lower the brick down with the rope and swing the brick at a nest in one particular tree where he said the squirrels lived. He wanted revenge on them for stealing his second blue ribbon.
For now, Sammy and Nick stayed fixated on Greyson, riding toward Sydney. Panicked pedestrians wisped by his horse left and right, an ambulance zipped behind him, and a cop tried to direct him the other way, but he was on a straight line toward his girl, surging through the smoke and debris. There would be no stopping him.
“You see that?” Sammy asked Nick, laughing.
“Yeah,” Nick said with a deep breath of wonder.
“His horse just dropped a load!”
----------------
Sydney had to plan their escape, just in case they were discovered. There were doors on both sides of the hut and the main customer window as options. The window would not be fast enough – there was only room enough for one of them to crawl through at a time. And they’d have to get up and over the counter. The door to the right would exit onto the street. Not the most ideal location, but it would have to do, because if they were to be discovered, the terrorist would be –
Her heart jumped into her throat. A man’s face was glaring through the window. “They’re in here!” the man shouted.
“Sam! Get up! Run!”
The terrorist burst through the door like a bear as they were scrambling to their feet. He grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her and throwing her against a far counter.
“RUN!”
Sam had stalled at the second door, staring back at her in fright, but her scream pushed him back out into the sun. The terrorist was stuck between chasing him and dealing with her. His right hand hesitated at the pistol holster on his hip, and his hesitation was his downfall.
Sydney’s hand found the handle of a deep fat fryer full of French fries that had been frying for way too long. Swinging the handle at him like a tennis racquet, the soaking fryer slammed into him, spraying him with boiling hot oil and burnt French fries.
The terrorist screamed and wiped at the oil as it burned into his flesh. Sydney glanced at his dissolving skin and burst after Sam.
------------------
Greyson spotted Sam first, sprinting from a food hut into the street toward the congested Walnut Square. Several terrorists were alread
y chasing after him, and the moving truck and SUV that had passed them were reversing down the street.
But where’s Sydney? He felt for Sam, but he would be captured. He had to be. It was Sydney that he had to find.
And just at that thought, he saw her small frame jump from the hut. She covered her eyes as they adjusted to the bright. She was searching for Sam and calling for him.
“Yah!”
He kicked the horse and it set off in a gallop. She was only forty yards away.
“Sydney!”
He would swoop in, snatch her onto the horse and get the heck out of the fair. If Fate were on his side today, the terrorists would be too absorbed in finding Sam that they wouldn’t give chase.
“Sydney!”
Clopclopclopclop!
She disappeared into a maze of huts and rides and he pulled his horse onto a sidewalk for a shortcut.
Clopclopclopclop!
And then he heard it. The sound was getting louder and louder, but there were so many sounds that it was difficult to discern which was important or not. But the sheer volume of this sound strengthened its importance. He recognized it but could not see it. A tractor taxi.
“Greyson?” came the buzz from the walkie. “Tell me you see that.”
“See what?”
He could hear the metal squeaking and grinding like the trailer was bouncing around behind it, out of control, but the sounds were coming from his right. There was nothing to his right but a building.
And then there wasn’t a building anymore. The wood splintered and exploded in front of him, sending a shock wave of dust and glass into his horse’s flank. The horse reared up and whinnied as the giant tractor taxi crashed through, crushing and churning the wood debris as it continued its wayward path of destruction. Greyson caught a glimpse of the driver resting against the steering wheel, passed out or dead.
The trailer begrudgingly followed the stray tractor, now empty of passengers save one lone girl who grasped a rail with a steel grip, an evil grin plastered on her lips as if she were enjoying the ride. Her curly red hair wisped across her face in the breeze as the trailer pulled her past Greyson.
