The Last Hero (Book 1): Ultra

by Blake, Matt

  I found myself looking back at her as she kept her hand on my arm.

  I found myself looking into her eyes and smiling.

  I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her right then that I was going to the party. Because I could feel it. I could feel the warmth in my chest. I could feel that sensation that they always tell you about in movies. The sensation where you just know someone is interested.

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d ever been as happy as I was at this moment right now.

  And then I heard a few blasts, a few screams, and saw a man with a rifle firing into the crowd.

  Just meters away.

  8

  I looked into the eyes of the gunman and tried not to real-shit myself right there and then.

  People threw themselves past me, hurtled away from the sounds of the blasts. The screams were getting louder inside the stadium as word of the attack spread like wildfire. On the field, I noticed the players had stopped playing, and were running away too.

  Everyone was trapped. Trapped under the grips of the attack.

  A gunman attack, right here at the soccer game I just so happened to be at.

  I felt arms punch into me. Heard the screams getting louder. The gunman, who had a weird plastic black mask over his face, didn’t seem to be targeting anyone in particular—just pointing his gun at whoever he could, shooting them down. I could smell the smoke from the gun, feel the heat from the bullets. My throat was filled with the taste of vomit.

  I wanted to do something. More than anything, I wanted to help. No doubt everyone in this stadium wanted to help.

  But I knew that I wanted something more than to help.

  I wanted to disappear.

  To get the hell out of this place.

  “Kyle, quick!”

  I heard Damon’s voice. It was muffled, mixed in with all the shouts and screams. I turned around, saw him and Ellicia were now the other side of me. They were making their way down the row towards the exit. But so many people were trying to get through that exit that it looked compressed as though they were being crushed into a can like sardines.

  “Come on!” Damon shouted.

  I couldn’t move. My knees were locked. I felt myself shaking all over. The memories came flying back. Memories of my past. Memories of the day of The Great Blast. The sound of the explosion ripping across Staten Island. Then the sounds of the screams—the screams of those who’d lost, the screams of my mom and dad as they found my sister.

  I looked back over my shoulder.

  The gunman was looking right into my eyes. Rifle raised.

  I wanted to stay put. I wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground.

  But I couldn’t.

  I had to run.

  I ran as quickly as I could down the row and after Damon, Ellicia and her friends. I heard the gun fire another few times, but I didn’t feel anything smack into my back so figured the gunman must’ve shot at someone else.

  I got to the end of the row. Reached the mass of people trying to squeeze their way into the gate and get out of this place. It was chaos in the middle of these people. I could hear crying. The mass of people was so thick, everyone crushing against each other. I tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t; I was stuck with the crowd, being dragged down those steps and into the turnstiles. I tried to move, but again, I couldn’t. We were flowing. Flowing, like water.

  Flowing, unable to breathe.

  Head spinning.

  Chest tightening…

  I heard more gunshots behind us. Heard screams right beside me. I tasted something in the air. Something rusty. Like blood.

  And I knew it was blood. I knew right away that it had to be blood. But I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to accept that this gunman, for whatever reason, was firing at people inside a soccer stadium.

  As I was dragged further down the steps and into turnstiles, towards the exit gate, I felt tears start to roll down my cheeks. If I’d just stayed at home, then this wouldn’t have happened. If Damon hadn’t booked for us to go to a stupid soccer match—something we never did—then we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be caught up in this.

  I thought about calling Mom. Telling her I loved her. But I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I’d call her and blabber on at her to get down here and help me, which wasn’t fair on her to hear.

  No. I was alone. Alone, even though Damon and Ellicia were just a few people in front of me. They felt so far away.

  I saw them battling their way down the stairs. The crowd of people thinned as they hurtled out of the exit gates. Damon and Ellicia reached it. They turned around, horror in their eyes. “Hurry up, Kyle!” Damon shouted.

  I could see that he wanted to wait. That he wanted to try and help me get out.

  But I knew that he couldn’t.

  It wasn’t safe for him to stay.

  “Please, man,” he said. I could see redness in his eyes. “Please… just hurry.”

  “I’m coming,” I said.

  It was already too late.

  Damon and Ellicia were out of the stadium.

  I thought I’d felt alone earlier, but it was nothing on the feeling I felt now. A coldness covered me. I felt disconnected, completely disconnected from anyone or anything that could help me. And it scared me. It terrified me. I just wanted to get out of here—just wanted to get out of here and get back home and never step foot outside again. Never.

  I battled my way through more of the people, desperate to take a deep breath. I could see the door getting closer. Hopefully, Damon and Ellicia would be outside, waiting for me. I’d be able to hold Ellicia’s hand, hug her, tell her everything was going to be okay.

  Because we’d been through this together. We had that in common. We’d both suffered here.

  I reached the bottom step when somebody walked around the side of the turnstiles.

  He was a dark haired man. He had a black mask pulled over his face, just like the gunman on the stands.

  Everyone on the stairs froze.

  It took a few seconds for anyone to realize what was happening.

  A few seconds, as the man pulled a rifle from behind his back and started firing at the crowd.

  I spun around. Went to run back up the stairs, heart racing, feeling myself scream. But somebody pushed me down. And then I could feel feet smacking into my back, knocking the air out of my lungs, stamping down on my ribs. I felt something crack, and it knocked the wind out of me.

  More feet clambered down whenever I tried to rise to my feet. I thought right then, the taste of blood strong in my mouth, that this was it. This was how I died. Crushed in a soccer stadium. Nothing more than a body on the floor.

  And then I found the strength from somewhere inside me to stand.

  To push my way up back into the crowd, gunfire sounding from both directions.

  To hurtle past people, pushing my way through them, back up the stairs.

  I wasn’t sure where to go as I ran up the stairs. Wasn’t sure whether to try turning around or go back out into the stadium, where most people would be gone; try getting down on the field.

  But as I looked in front of me at the easiest possible destination, a bitter irony covered me. In all this chaos, in all this trauma, it actually made me laugh.

  The restroom.

  Of course I was running to the frigging restroom. Again.

  I ran around the side of the restroom entrance. Threw myself past the sinks. There were more people inside. All of them battling for a cubicle to hide in, for somewhere to disappear until the attack was over.

  I rushed for a door on my right, but it slammed and locked before I could get inside. I tried another, but that was locked too.

  Behind, I heard shouting. More gunshots.

  Shit. I had to be quick.

  I reached the last two cubicles, the hope in my body disappearing. I tried the one next to the end… but shit, that was locked too.

  I was about to give up when I felt the fin
al door on my right drift open.

  I looked inside it. Looked in at the white toilet, the tiny little area where I was confining myself to. Where there was no escape from.

  More gunshots nearby.

  I did the only thing I could.

  I ran inside the toilet and slammed the door shut.

  I fell back against the toilet. Sat there, gasping, sweating, heart racing. My teeth chattered. All I could see in my mind’s eye were those gunmen firing at people. All I could hear echoing around my skull were those gunshots.

  I tried to tell myself it was over. That everything was over. I thought about Cassie and begged her to make everything okay, to watch over me and make everything okay.

  I tried.

  But then I heard the footsteps strolling slowly into the restroom.

  There was silence for a few seconds. A couple of worried gasps from the people in the cubicles beside me.

  And then the person spoke.

  “Come on, little piggies. The big bad wolf is here.”

  A cubicle door smashed open.

  Gunfire rattled inside it.

  They were coming. They were coming and there was nothing I could do.

  9

  Time stood still as I stood in that restroom cubicle and listened to the gunman’s footsteps get closer.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see the cubicle around me. Like by not opening my eyes, there was less of a chance that I was actually here, somehow. That I might just wake up back home and realize this was all just one big messed-up nightmare.

  But I heard another cubicle door smash open. I heard more gunshots.

  And that sound, which made every inch of my body jump, reminded me that this wasn’t a dream.

  This was reality.

  Cold, hard reality.

  I tasted sick on my tongue. I wanted to throw up, the smell of the gunfire triggering my gag reflex. But through everything, it was that memory of Cassie dying in front of me when I was just eight that came to my mind. That memory of The Great Blast—the moment my life, my family’s life, changed forever.

  I felt tears roll down my cheeks, felt my body shake, and I prayed that Cassie could help somehow.

  Another door kicked in.

  More gunshots.

  How wonderfully ironic. Just days ago, I’d been mocked in front of the whole school for running to the restroom to get out of a football game. Now here I was, trapped in a toilet cubicle once again.

  Only this time, Ellicia wasn’t the one coming to the door. Mr. Preacher from history wasn’t the one coming to the door.

  The person coming to the door was going to kill me.

  I thought back to the time of the ULTRAs as the footsteps got nearer. I wondered if anything like this would be allowed to happen when Orion was around. He stopped loads of incidents like this. Terrorism ended the day Orion and the rest of the Heroes—the pre-ULTRA days—soared above the earth.

  But since the end of the ULTRAs, since the day of The Great Blast, the world was getting back to how it was again.

  This time, nobody was coming to help me.

  I felt every muscle in my body tense as the footsteps stopped right outside my door. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to go away and—

  A bang.

  A bang, to my right.

  The cubicle to my right flew open.

  They’d walked past me. They’d walked right past my cubicle.

  “Wrap it up, Scott,” a voice said. “We’re done here.”

  I couldn’t believe it as I listened to the men disappear. They’d walked away from my cubicle. One moment, I’d been sitting there, eyes closed, waiting.

  I’d felt a tingling sensation spread up the back of my neck.

  And then I’d heard a sound to my right. The sound of a cubicle door being kicked in.

  I stayed still. Stayed completely still for a few seconds.

  When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.

  The cubicle door in front of me was open. Wide open. It made my skin shiver.

  I hadn’t heard them kick my cubicle door down. And if they had, why hadn’t they shot me?

  Something wasn’t right. Something just didn’t feel right at all.

  And then something else weird struck me, as the sound of the footsteps disappeared further from the restroom.

  I’d heard a cubicle on the right being kicked in. Only that was weird because there was no cubicle on the right. I’d been in the last cubicle. I was sure of it.

  I didn’t want to walk towards the cubicle door. I wanted to close it and wait in here until someone came in and saved me. The cubicle thing got to me, creeped me out. Maybe I’d just got caught up in the moment. Maybe I hadn’t run into the last cubicle after all. My attention was understandably elsewhere when the gunmen had chased me into the restroom.

  That’s all it was. Confusion. My mind playing tricks on me.

  I didn’t even consider that the glass smashing in my classroom and this had anything to do with each other. Not just yet.

  I held my breath. I could hear silence outside. Silence, and a few groans from fallen people. I didn’t want to move. I was shaking so hard that I wasn’t sure I could move.

  But Damon. Ellicia. My parents. They’d be worried about me. They’d be so worried. I had to get out of this place—to take any chance I had to get away.

  I took a few deep breaths—breaths I knew damned well might be my last. And then I walked closer towards the open cubicle door.

  Walking wasn’t easy. My legs felt like jelly. Every step I made, I was convinced my feet were going to just collapse underneath me, that my knees were just going to give way.

  But they couldn’t. They couldn’t because I had to get out of here. I had to get out of this stadium and had to get home.

  And I could never step foot near this place again. Ever.

  I reached the cubicle door. My heartbeat pulsated up my neck. I peeked around the side of the cubicle door. Looked for any sign of movement, any sign of life.

  The mirrors in the restroom were smashed. So too were some of the sinks. On the floor, bullets.

  I tried not to look at the blood.

  I wiped my forehead and then gritted my teeth together to stop them chattering. I thought about just stepping back. Going back inside that cubicle and hiding in there. I’d got lucky. Somehow, I’d…

  When I turned around to the right, something sent a shiver up my spine.

  I wasn’t in the cubicle at the end. I’d realized that much earlier.

  But I wasn’t even in the cubicle next to the end.

  I was right on the other side of the cubicles. Nine, ten cubicles, all to my right.

  I stared down at them, unable to get my head around what’d happened, unable to understand how I’d got where I was, when I heard footsteps approaching the restroom.

  I stepped back. Closed my eyes again. Stayed as still as I possibly could.

  “You hear something?” a voice asked.

  Silence. Then, “Thought I did. Never mind. Let’s get down to the field and get the hell outta here.”

  I listened to the footsteps run away again. I opened my eyes. I was convinced the speaker had been right in front of the open door of this cubicle. But then, they can’t have been. They’d have seen me.

  “Let’s get down to the field and get the hell outta here…”

  Those words echoed in my mind. I knew I had my opportunity to escape, my chance to flee. They were going down to the field, so I had to find my way down the steps and towards the door. I couldn’t stick around here. I couldn’t risk it, not anymore. I’d taken my chances as it was.

  I took a deep breath—similarly difficult as the last few I’d taken—and then walked towards the cubicle door.

  I didn’t look to my side. If I had, I’d have realized right there and then that something seriously weird was happening.

  I was in a different cubicle again.

  I just
didn’t know it yet.

  I walked past the broken glass, past the fragments of sink and mirror all over the floor. I kept my eyes ahead. I didn’t want to look around. Didn’t want to see the chaos the gunmen had caused.

  I just had to keep moving.

  I just had to get out.

  I stepped towards the exit of the restroom. Looked to the left. Clear. Then to the right. Totally clear.

  “Please,” I mumbled, my lips quivering. “Please.”

  And then I walked as quickly as I could over to those stairs.

  When I reached them, adrenaline spinning through my body, I was pleasantly surprised to see the door at the bottom of the stairs open. The exit. Nobody was guarding it. My way out was right ahead.

  I went to take a step when I felt something behind me.

  Felt… like I was being watched.

  I turned around, and every muscle in my body gave in.

  One of the gunmen stood opposite. He was looking right into my eyes. Smiling.

  His gun was pointed right at my chest.

  “Sweet dreams, kid.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath.

  The gunman pulled the trigger.

  10

  I felt the darkness surrounding me as the gunshot rattled through the air.

  I waited. Waited for the bullet to hit me. I could hear the gunshot firing at me as if in slow motion. Tears streamed down my cheeks, their saltiness hitting my lips. My body froze all over. In my mind’s eye, I saw Cassie; I saw her lying there in the road as the explosion of The Great Blast surrounded me.

  And then I saw Ellicia. The way she’d smiled at me. The way she hadn’t judged me. Despite everything that’d happened.

  I saw her, and in that millisecond since hearing the gun fire and the bullet hitting me, I wished I’d had more guts. More guts to tell her how I felt. More guts to stand up for myself. To be as strong as I knew I could be. Because I was strong. I was strong because I’d had to be with the upbringing I’d experienced. I had to be after losing my older sister.

  I waited for the bullet to pierce my skin and for the darkness to get a whole lot darker.