One Breath Away

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “Get back in the room,” the man said coldly, pointing the gun at Evelyn, who scurried back inside. “Stupid,” he said upon reentering the classroom. “You are all just making this take a hell of a lot longer than it has to.” He walked purposefully around the classroom, leveling the gun at each student and finally stopping just behind Mrs. Oliver. She felt the barrel of the gun lightly skim the back of her skull. “Just stay in your seats, stay quiet and this whole thing will be finished soon enough.”

  Chapter 39:

  Augie

  Beth and I creep to the classroom door and my hand shakes as I move to twist the doorknob. I’m afraid of what we’ll find out there. “Which way do you want to go?” Beth asks as her head swings right, then left as she looks down the long hallway.

  “P.J. and Natalie are in Oliver’s room, upstairs,” I say. “Let’s go up there.” I nod my head toward the closest set of steps, which still seem like miles away. We have to pass two classrooms and a bathroom before we can reach the staircase. Plenty of places for a maniac with a gun to hide.

  “Okay,” Beth says, and takes a step out of the classroom. When she realizes I haven’t started to follow her, she reaches out and takes my hand in hers. It is as cold as mine, but strong, and in an instant I feel better and I find that my feet are able to move. We hunch our shoulders and take small steps as if that might keep us from being seen by anyone. We make it past the first classroom, not even bothering to peek inside its window. We try to move soundlessly up the steps and when we reach the top I slip on something. I let go of Beth’s hand and land with a thump on my butt. I put my hands to the ground, trying to push myself up quickly, but find my fingers touching something wet and oily. There isn’t a lot of it, but it looks almost black in the darkened hallway. Somehow I just know it’s blood.

  “Are you okay?” Beth looks down at me. I try to wipe the blood from my hands on the floor tiles, but that doesn’t help much so I wipe my fingers on my jeans.

  “It’s blood,” I whisper. A low moan comes from Beth’s mouth and I know she’s thinking of her father and I’m thinking of Mr. Ellery.

  “We would have heard a gunshot,” I remind her, and she nods frantically as if agreeing with me will make it true. “Should we keep going?” I ask, and she continues nodding.

  Our classmates have probably already gotten long, too-tight hugs from their parents. They are probably being driven home to their warm homes where their mothers will cry thankful tears while making them their favorite dinners. Their dads will sit next to them on the couch and make them tell, over and over, the story of how Mr. Ellery disappeared and how they knocked out the window screen, and shake their heads knowing how different this day could have been for them.

  I know this because it is exactly what my dad did on the day of the fire. After he took P.J. and me back to his house and we showered and put on old T-shirts and sweatpants that belonged to my stepmom, Lori. After P.J. fell asleep and my dad carried him into the small extra bedroom and after Lori went to hide away in their bedroom, which she did a lot when I was around, my dad and I sat on the couch together. He wrapped his arm around me and I laid my head on his shoulder. It felt like years since I’d done that. I told him all about the fire and the smoke and the terrible smell. One thing I really love about my dad is that he doesn’t try to fix everything; he can just sit and listen. I guess he doesn’t feel like he has the right to tell me what to do. He isn’t around all that much and having P.J. tagging along just complicates things.

  “Augie,” my dad said to me after a while, his face serious and almost scared. I felt my stomach drop. My dad was never scared. He was always the one who was smiling and laughing. Mr. Sunshine, my mom said, but not in a nice way. “Augie,” he said again, as if buying time to find the right words. “Your mom is going to be in the hospital for a long time.”

  “I know,” I answered. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to sit on the couch with my dad and watch some dumb TV show.

  “I want you to know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want to.” He squeezed my shoulder and I relaxed. This was just what I was hoping he would tell me. “Lori and I have talked about it. We’ll fix up the extra room however you’d like it.”

  I felt a quick stab of panic. “What about school?”

  My dad shook his head. “It’s on the way to Lori’s work—she can take you and pick you up. We’ve got it all figured out.” For the first time that day, my dad smiled big and wide.

  I let out a breath of relief. “P.J. and I will help out a ton,” I promised him. “I can cook and P.J. knows how to do laundry….” My dad’s smile dropped off his face, just disappeared. “No way!” I said loudly, and pulled away from his hug. He looked nervously toward the room where P.J. was sleeping.

  “Augie,” he said, like he was exhausted, like he was the one whose mother was burned in a fire and had everything he owned destroyed. “Augie, look at it from our perspective.” He rubbed his hand over his bald head and I folded my arms across my chest and scooted as far away from him as I could on the couch. “We like P.J., he’s a great kid, but Lori and I discussed it and we feel like it would be better if P.J. stayed with family.”

  “I’m his family.” I was trying with all my might to keep my voice down. I didn’t want P.J. to hear and I knew that Lori was hiding around a corner or behind a door, listening, waiting to see what would happen next. She was such a coward.

  “Augie,” he said softly, “he’s not my son.” There was nothing I could say to that, so I didn’t do anything but glare at him. I’ve got this great glare. Menacing, my friend Arturo tells me. It’s gotten me into and out of a lot of trouble through the years. “P.J.’s a great kid, but…” He held out his hands.

  “But what?” I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

  “But he’s not my son. You are welcome to stay here with us for as long as you’d like, but we have to make other arrangements for P.J.”

  “Why?” I asked. “He’s eight years old. He doesn’t eat much. He’s neater than any of us.”

  “You know there’s so much more to this than that.”

  I did know. I knew that my mom and dad separated soon after P.J. was born. I knew that my brother’s dark brown eyes and black hair weren’t from my father’s side of the family. But it shouldn’t have mattered. P.J. was just a little kid. “So you’re just going to throw him out into the street? Nice.”

  Lori finally stepped out from her hiding place. “We’re not going to throw him out, Augie.” I was taller than Lori and about twenty pounds heavier. I looked like her older sister. She was the complete opposite of my mother. Lori was boring oatmeal, my mom was Sugar Jingles. Lori didn’t say much but I got the feeling that she made all the decisions in their house. “We’ve called your grandparents.”

  “Grandma and Grandpa Baker?” I asked in surprise. My dad’s parents hated my mother and wouldn’t even acknowledge my brother. I couldn’t imagine them letting P.J. live with them.

  “No,” my dad said. “Your Grandma and Grandpa Thwaite. They are flying out tonight.”

  My mind was spinning. My mom didn’t talk much about my grandparents and I knew that she had some big falling-out with them way before I was born. Every year they sent P.J. and me a birthday and Christmas card with one hundred dollars inside. That was it. No phone calls, no emails, no summer vacation visits. “P.J. can’t go live with them. They like live in Iowa.” I said “Iowa” like it tasted bad in my mouth.

  “Like your dad said,” Lori reiterated, her hands resting on her stomach. “You are welcome to stay with us or you can go stay with your grandparents.”

  Right then it became perfectly clear to me. Lori was going to have a baby. I knew then that this was her master plan. She wanted to get rid of us. Replace me with her new baby. If Lori had insisted, my dad w
ould have let P.J. stay with them. With us. She knew that I would never send P.J. off to live in Craptown, Iowa, with strangers all by himself. Lori didn’t want P.J. or me to intrude on her new, perfect little family. The thing was, I’m mortified to admit, it sounded so tempting. To stay in Revelation at my dad’s. I couldn’t imagine leaving my school, my friends. Leaving my mom. To go live with people my mother didn’t even like.

  “We can live with Arturo or Mrs. Florio,” I said. “We can go into foster care until Mom gets out of the hospital,” I said, though the idea of it made my stomach sick.

  My dad sighed and Lori bit her lip like she wanted to say more but knew it wasn’t a good idea. “Augie, you don’t have to make a decision right this minute,” he said, reaching out for me, and I leaped from the couch away from his touch. I could tell I had hurt his feelings. Good, I thought. “You’ve had a terrible day,” he went on. “Get some sleep. Everything will look better in the morning.”

  “Yeah, right,” I mumbled, rushing to the bedroom where P.J. was sleeping and slamming the door so hard that it shook the walls and P.J. sat up straight in the bed.

  “What?” he cried out. “What happened?”

  “Shut up, dork,” I snarled, shoving him aside on the bed to make room, and then made sure he had the blankets tucked around him just the way he liked them.

  Chapter 40:

  Meg

  I can’t imagine why the girl didn’t come out of the school with the other students unless the gunman was in the room with them. That thought moves me away from the window and back to the parking lot where McKinney and an unfamiliar officer from a nearby town are patting down each of the students, taking down their names and passing them on to the EMTs, who wrap them in blankets.

  I’m out of breath by the time I reach McKinney. “How are we going to get all of them over to Lonnie’s?” I ask about the shivering, shell-shocked students.

  “School bus,” McKinney answers as the mammoth yellow bus appears, rumbling through the snow. “We’re getting all their info, names, parents’ names, addresses, phone numbers.”

  “Did anyone see anything?” I ask while I scan the group of teens, looking for a familiar face, someone that might open up to me.

  The chief shakes his head. “We’re just trying to account for everyone, make sure no one’s hurt. Doesn’t appear to be any injuries except for the girl who slipped on the ice. Just a lot of scared kids.”

  “I saw one girl just about to climb out of the window. I don’t know what, but something made her change her mind. I called out to her, but she wouldn’t come out.”

  “You think that the gunman was in that classroom? That might give us a place to start. This goddamn school is such a maze, it will take us forever to sweep when we go in.” Broken Branch School originally opened its doors in the forties and had an addition put on in the eighties. The building had many odd nooks and crannies, a perfect building for someone to hide in.

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head at the memory of the girl in the window. “She didn’t exactly seem scared, more like determined.”

  The chief closes his eyes and inhales deeply. He has aged in a matter of just over an hour. His face is windburned from the cold and an unhealthy red. His bright blue eyes are bloodshot and watery. “Will you make sure these kids get on the bus okay? We’ve got the sheriff’s department off-duty guys here and I need to get everyone up to speed. Hopefully the hostage negotiator from Waterloo will be on-site within the hour.”

  I watch as he walks away and toward the RV. He is trying to move briskly but the heaviness of the snow slows him down and I know that his arthritic knees must ache from the cold. The pressure he is feeling must be enormous. The community, the state and maybe even the nation will be talking about how he has handled everything. How this department has handled everything.

  As I direct the students onto the school bus, I ask each if they had seen anything. Most just shake their heads no and silently climb aboard. From out of the corner of my eye, I see a lanky boy with hunched shoulders and shaggy brown hair. Noah Plum. A familiar face to local law enforcement. Vandalism, underage drinking, driving without a license. A boy with way too much time on his hands and not enough parental supervision.

  “Hey, Noah,” I say. “Are you okay?”

  He looks at me with scorn. “Why do you care?”

  “I care, Noah,” I say in a low voice, trying not to draw attention to us. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

  “Yeah, adults are so worried about us. Even the fricking teacher left us all alone in there.” He snorts in disgust and tries to move past me.

  “Wait,” I say, grabbing his arm. “The teacher left you? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he spits, shaking my hand from his sleeve. “He fucking heard a noise, left the room and never came back. I bet he’s safe and sound at home right now.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so, Noah. What kind of sound did you hear?” My heart is pounding again. If it was a gunshot they heard, then we’ll have cause to enter the building immediately.

  “A pounding sound, like someone was jumping up and down above us.” Noah’s mouth twists into a half smile. “Asshole left us.”

  I relax a bit. Not a gunshot, but still. I can’t imagine a teacher purposefully leaving a classroom of students all alone when a gunman is wandering around the school. “What’s your teacher’s name?”

  “Mr. Asshole Ellery,” he responds as he steps onto the bus.

  Ellery. The name is familiar but I can’t produce a picture of him in my mind. The last student settles into her seat on the bus and I climb aboard to give the driver and the officer that is accompanying them some last-minute directions. The bus is eerily quiet. Not how a school bus full of teenagers should sound. No raucous laughter, no switching of seats, no games of keep away with someone’s hat. Just silent, sad-looking children looking out the windows or at their own laps.

  “When you get to Lonnie’s, students may only be released to their parents or guardians. No one else. And make sure that each parent signs the sign-out log showing that they picked up their child.”

  Another sheriff’s deputy, a woman from the nearby town of Bohr, nods. “This is the real thing, isn’t it?” she asks in a whisper. “I’ve been involved in lockdowns, but nothing like this.”

  I’m about to agree with her when a small voice pipes up from the back of the bus. “Where’s Beth?”

  “What?” I ask. “What did you say?”

  “Beth Cragg,” a girl with glasses and curly yellow hair says worriedly. “She’s not here. She was in the classroom, but she’s not here.”

  “And Augie,” someone else says. “Augie isn’t here. She was right behind me when I climbed out the window. Where are they?”

  Chapter 41:

  Will

  The sky through the restaurant windows was marbled gray and the wind shook the panes of glass. The road that ran in front of Lonnie’s was deserted except for the ethereal furor of snow that rushed down the street.

  Will’s stomach was churning from the five cups of coffee he had downed and he knew he should get something into his stomach. He had phoned Daniel, who could only spare a few seconds to tell him about the calving; the mother was in some distress, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Will wondered if he would be more useful going back to the farm and helping Daniel rather than sitting there at Lonnie’s, doing nothing but waiting.

  Will decided to order a sandwich to soak up the vile black coffee bubbling in his stomach when through the large plate-glass window a glowing pair of headlights suddenly appeared. The café was silent, all eyes on the approaching vehicle, which gradually emerged, large and yellow, out of the blizzard. “It’s a bus!” someone exclaimed unnecessarily. The hinged door opened and a sheriff’s deputy stepped down followed by shivering, dazed f
igures.

  “Oh, my God,” a woman breathed, “it’s the kids.” A cacophony of gasps, chairs being scraped across the floor and the scuffling of rushing feet filled the air.

  “It is a bus full of kids,” someone confirmed.

  “I see Noah Plum and Drew Holder!” a voice shouted.

  “Donna, I see your Caleb,” came another.

  One by one, the trembling children were swept into the café by the wind, and mothers and fathers gathered them into their arms in tearful relief. Will recognized the children as students from Augie’s class and craned his neck in search of his granddaughter’s now bright red mop of hair.

  Just this past weekend, Augie found one of Marlys’s home hair color kits and locked herself in the home’s only bathroom, Will and P.J. alternately pounding on the door for her to hurry up, for what seemed like eternity. She emerged with a brightly hennaed head of hair, just like her grandmother’s, except that on Marlys the color looked like an elderly woman trying to look young and on Augie it looked like a purple plum setting atop her head. He had tried not to laugh, but he made the mistake of catching P.J.’s eye and the two collapsed in a fit of giggles.

  “I like it,” Augie said imperiously.

  “Mom’s going to kill you,” P.J. said, trying to keep a straight face. “Mom said coloring your hair is like drinking. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.”

  “She’s going to need a few drinks once she sets her eyes on you, Augie,” Will said through his laughter, and then quickly regretted his words when he saw the flash of hurt in Augie’s eyes. Holding her chin proudly skyward she left the room.

  When the door to Lonnie’s finally clicked shut, a few wayward napkins set aloft by the wind drifting noiselessly to the floor, and it was clear that neither Augie nor Verna’s granddaughter Beth were among the students, Will sat down heavily.