All around me, the traffic erupted with horns and shouts. I had left the Mustang blocking everyone.
But that, I realized, was good for me. Because the police were stuck back there on the highway. I heard the sirens screaming helplessly. I heard the police shouting over their loudspeakers: “Move out of the way! Move to the side!” Their voices nearly lost over the angry horns.
I didn’t look back. I ran. As fast as I could. Faster.
I felt every second inside me as it ticked away.
28
Bomb
Here was the scene on Stadium Road: Cars lined up at the entrance to the parking lot. Traffic backed up along the road, closing one lane, making the other slow. Pedestrians were entering the surrounding park, moving through the trees along the pathway. I could see the stadium through the woods. I could see the riverwalk and the river beyond, the slow-moving water glittering in the morning sun, the far hills draped in haze.
I could hear the sirens behind me. More than one. I guessed the traffic had made a path for them because I could hear they were on the move again, making their way off the highway, coming closer, coming after me.
I ran, fear squeezing my throat like a strangling hand. I could hardly think. I could only move. I could barely hope. I just ran.
I ducked off the road into the trees. I dashed through the small forest park toward the parking lot. I guessed that Mark and Nathan and Justin were up above me somewhere, waiting in the trees like snipers. But wherever they were, they were well hidden. I couldn’t see them. I didn’t have time to try.
I came to the edge of the trees, the edge of the parking lot. I pulled up, my mouth hanging open. The crowd. So many. So many people. So many people I knew. Kids and teachers I knew. People from my dad’s church and children from the Sunday school. Men and women who worked in the stores in town. Just about everyone in Sawnee and everyone in the nearby towns as well. I looked at them and I felt like there was a giant ball of fire in my chest, a ball of smothering smoke.
“So many dead.”
It was all on me. Saving them. All on me. Like something out of a nightmare where you have to run but you can’t run fast enough. How could I possibly run fast enough? How could I keep them from dying?
I forced myself to move. I came off the curb onto the parking lot pavement. I saw how the people were coming together at the entrance to the stadium. They had to show their tickets there, and the delay made the crowd bunch up and swell. Just the way they did in the diagram in Mark’s notebook. Just as Mark had planned.
I watched them, breathing hard. I heard the police sirens—very loud now. I glanced over and saw the whirling red lights through the trees—three cars, coming after me. If they arrested me now . . .
But what should I do? If I just started screaming, everyone would panic, everyone would run—just as Mark wanted, they would run down the exit paths where he was hiding, waiting with his friends to open fire on them.
I looked over the lot. Maybe I could find the bomb. Maybe I could move it somewhere. But I didn’t see anything besides the people and the cars.
Wait. The cars.
Suddenly I understood.
Parked at the edge of the lot, just where the path to the stadium began, just where the crowd formed and gathered into a growing pool of human beings, was the flashy black 1980s sports car that Nathan had been driving when he’d picked up Mark this morning. The moment I saw it, the moment I saw how it was placed exactly where the explosion was supposed to go off, I knew that the car itself was packed with explosives. It was rigged to go off in—I glanced at my watch—three minutes from now.
The police cruisers came screaming around the corner into the stadium entrance. The cars lined up there blocked the cruisers’ way. The police didn’t wait for them to move. They stopped their cars and got out. They started running around the other cars toward me.
I started running too. Tears blurred my vision, flew from my eyes as I ran. They were tears of desperation and terror. So little time. I had to move that car away from the people before it blew. I couldn’t let the police stop me. So little time . . .
I reached the sports car, running so fast I slammed up against the driver’s door, hard. I already had the Buster in my hands. I fumbled out the blade and went to work, forcing it into the car’s window.
My hand was shaking—my whole body was shaking—but I forced the blade to the lock. How much time was left before the explosion? Two minutes? Two and a half? I didn’t know.
“Do right; fear nothing. Do right; fear nothing,” I kept muttering through my teeth, my voice cracking, the tears blurring my vision. I was so afraid. So afraid.
I popped the lock.
“Yes!”
I yanked the door open.
“Hold it right there!”
The police. Shouting at me:
“Freeze!”
“Put your hands up!”
I looked up and saw the patrolmen charging toward me from the entrance. There were at least five of them now—and Sims too. All of them running at top speed, all with their hands on their gun holsters, ready to draw and fire.
And then, without warning: a gunshot. A loud, piercing crack. A sickening thud. A hole opened in the side of the sports car right in front of me.
My heart seemed to stop beating. My mouth fell open in shock. Someone was shooting at me!
The police saw it too. They halted and dropped down fast, scrambling to get behind cars for cover. They looked to the woods. One of them shouted: “Gun!”
The police started yelling at everyone, “Get down! Get down! Take cover!”
Even in my confusion and terror, I realized what was happening. Mark Sales or one of his friends was trying to stop me from moving the car away from the people, trying to stop me from ruining their plans. They’d only just missed me too.
Well, I didn’t give them time for a second shot.
I jumped into the sports car. I turned the wheel in my hand. It wasn’t locked. I didn’t have to cut the steering column. I went right for the ignition, working as fast as I could, babbling a prayer as I worked.
Another gunshot cracked. The car’s rear window exploded, glass flying over the backseat.
I shouted out in fear.
I ducked down and kept working the ignition wires. The car started.
“Please!” I prayed, tears streaming down my cheeks.
I sat up behind the wheel.
More gunshots. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the police. They were ducked down behind cars in the parking lot, firing back into the trees, firing at Mark and the others. People were screaming, dropping to the ground, grabbing their kids and running to hide behind cars.
I glanced at the dashboard clock: 9:14.
One minute left.
I hit the gas.
The sports car roared to life. It jumped over the curb, heading straight for the stadium. I wrenched the wheel and the car turned, its tires throwing up turf. I pointed the front around the side of the stadium, toward the riverwalk, toward the river. I knew it was going to blow any second.
“Go!” I screamed in an agony of fear. I expected to be blown to bits any second.
The car shot across the grass. It bounced and jolted as it hit the pavement of the riverwalk. I never let my foot off the gas, not for a second. The car kept flying forward. Over the walk. To the riverbank. And then . . .
Then the car and the bomb and I were all airborne, flying through nothingness toward the water beyond. For an endless second the windshield was full of nothing but the blue, blue sky. My mind was full of nothing but red, red fear. I didn’t breathe. It seemed there was no more air in the world and no more time. And I so didn’t want to die.
Then the car hit the river. Instantly the water began pouring in through the back window, the one shattered by the gunshot. I knew I had only a second before losing the electrics so I buzzed down the front window, hoping to escape. No way. More water came rushing in. I tried to push through it, to get o
ut of the car. But it was rushing in too fast, too hard. I couldn’t fight my way to the window.
I let out a roar of despair, fighting against the tide. The car filled up and started sinking. The water poured in—a solid torrent that overwhelmed me. The car pitched forward and sideways. The water filled it, covering me. The last bit of air in the car was up in the rear. Even knowing the car was about to blow, waiting for it, expecting it as each second ticked by, I had no choice. I swam up and stuck my head into the air pocket, gasping for air. The pocket got smaller and smaller. It was disappearing quickly. I had to get out.
So much was in my head just then. My dad—my poor mom and dad—burying what was left of my body. Zoe. Her sweet face. Jennifer—poor Jennifer. All alone without her magic friend . . . Who would explain to her how I’d died?
The air pocket was shrunk nearly to nothing now, just about to disappear. The car was almost full. That meant the water wouldn’t be rushing in so hard anymore. I grabbed one last breath and plunged down into the water that filled the car.
I twisted around in the tight space, searching through the muddy river water to find the window. I could see the silt rushing past outside as the car sank down to the bottom. I found the windows and swam toward them.
I reached through, feeling broken glass scratching at my hands. I grabbed the edge of the car and hauled myself out through the window.
I craned my neck, looking for the light of the surface. There it was, falling in yellow-gold rays through the water. I swam for it, pushing against the river as hard as I could, trying, trying with everything in me, to get away from that car before it blew.
My heart thundered in my ears. My lungs strained in my chest. I wondered if I would hear the eruption, if I would feel the pain as it tore me apart . . .
And then, with a splash, I broke, gasping, out into the clear, cold light of day.
I didn’t wait. I swam for shore. The river’s slow but steady flow pushed me downstream, but it wasn’t far. A few strokes and I gripped the riverbank. My fingers clawed at the earth. I dragged myself out of the water. I stood up and stumbled onto the strip of grass beside the riverwalk.
“Stop right there, Hopkins!”
“Put your hands up!”
Dazed, drenched, I looked toward the voices. I saw Detective Sims and one of the patrolmen coming toward me, their guns drawn, the bores leveled at me, hollow and deadly.
Behind them, I could see other policemen in the parking lot. They had their guns leveled too—but they were pointed at the woods. And I could see Mark and Nathan and Justin coming out of the trees, their hands held high in the air.
There were sirens everywhere. Flashing lights. More police cars arriving on the scene. Mark and his friends were under arrest.
“I said put your hands up!” Sims screamed at me.
I started to laugh and cry at once. It was over. Over. I put my hands in the air, laughing and crying.
And the car in the river exploded.
There was a great gurgling roar—it sounded as if some monster were rising out of the riverbed. I ducked down, spinning to look behind me, and saw the surface of the river rise in a great flashing silver dome. And then the dome burst and the water flew out through the sunshine, the droplets sparkling like shattered glass.
Sims grabbed me and put his arms around me, shielding my body with his own. But it was only water that hit us. It slapped against us hard, a single cold wave of it. Then it was gone. Harmlessly, painlessly. Gone.
Sims slowly let go of me. I saw him staring at the water as its roiling waves settled back into a steady flow. Then he stared at me. I saw understanding come into his eyes. He saw what had happened. He knew.
He turned to the water again. I turned to it too. There were still tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Was anyone hurt?” I managed to ask.
I heard Detective Sims make a noise. I turned and looked at him. I saw that his eyes were filled with tears too.
He looked down at me, amazed. “No one,” he said in wonder. Then, for once, he smiled with both sides of his mouth. “Not a single soul.”
Epilogue
That’s pretty much the end of my story. There’s just one more thing I ought to tell.
It happened in late May, full spring, the afternoon. I was running. The trees were blooming with light-green leaves and the hills were green and grassy. The sky was blue with big, slow white clouds moving across it. And the air—I don’t know how to describe it exactly—it had that strange cool spring feeling in it, that feeling as if you remember something wonderful but you’re not quite sure what it is.
Anyway, like I said, I was running, training for track next year. It was going to have to be next year because the principal had canceled all the rest of the meets this year. He and the teachers and a lot of the parents figured that the kids in school were too traumatized about what had happened at the big meet to go on having track. They figured we were so traumatized that they kept sending therapists and doctors to talk to us. They kept making us have assemblies in the auditorium to discuss our feelings. Politicians gave speeches to us. And even some people on television yelled at one another about us. That’s how traumatized everyone figured we were.
In real life? In real life, mostly, it was obviously they, the grown-ups, who were the traumatized ones. We kids just figured we had to put up with our parents and teachers therapizing and talking and arguing until they all calmed down. They just needed time, that’s all.
Still, with track canceled, I kept running as much as I could so I’d be ready for next year when the meets started again. Sometimes I ran at the school track and sometimes over in the eastern part of town.
But this day, this beautiful spring day, I went running back up into the western hills, back up that dirt road that led to Jeff Winger’s barn, the road where I had seen Jennifer that time and where Winger and his pals had found us and beaten me up while Jennifer escaped.
I had stayed away from this place for several weeks. Somehow, for a while, I just didn’t feel like going back there. But then, this day, it being spring and so beautiful and all, I guess I just figured the time had come. It was just a place after all. Just a place where things had happened. It wasn’t haunted or anything. So back I went.
Running along there with the hills on either side of me—knowing the barn where Jeff had held his stolen cars was up ahead—knowing that the other barn, too, where Harry Mac had died was right nearby—I couldn’t help thinking about the whole thing again. All those kids were in some kind of detention now. Jeff and Ed P. had pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft auto. Nathan and Justin had pleaded guilty to attempted murder and all sorts of other stuff. They were all going to spend a lot of time locked away.
But it was Mark Sales who got the worst of it. He was going to be charged as an adult for a whole bunch of things surrounding the attack on the school: several counts of attempted murder, attempted use of an incendiary device—all kinds of things. If he was convicted—and he was sure to be convicted—he was probably going to go to prison for the rest of his life.
One of the therapists who visited the school said she didn’t think that was fair. She said Mark was just mentally ill like Jennifer was. She said sometimes schizophrenia runs in families that way. It was a genetic condition, she said.
I didn’t believe that. Or at least I didn’t believe that was the whole story.
Sure, Mark and Jennifer were both mentally ill—but Mark was something else too. Because even when she was hallucinating, Jennifer was a good person. All she wanted was to help and protect people. She was confused and sick and it was painful for her. But there was no cruelty in her, and no violence.
But Mark—Mark was different. He had all these horrible ideas in his head—about how the people in Sawnee didn’t understand his greatness and his power, how the little people had cheated him out of his championship, how they needed to be taught to be afraid, and how he was going to teach them by killing them, and on and o
n. So, okay, maybe Mark was mentally ill. But he was also evil. And those aren’t the same things at all.
Whatever he was, Mark had somehow managed to talk Justin and Nathan into following him. I guess they were the following type and didn’t bother to think things through for themselves. The three of them had been buying supplies for their big plan—guns and explosives and the car they used—from Jeff Winger, who’d been getting all that stuff from his criminal friends in Albany. When Jeff started asking questions about what Mark was up to, Mark threatened him, told him to shut up or he’d kill him. That’s why when Jeff found out Harry Mac was talking to the police, he told Mark because he was afraid Mark would think it was him doing the talking. Mark and Nathan and Justin killed Harry Mac—which made Jeff so scared, he didn’t tell the cops about Mark, even after they’d arrested him.
I was thinking about all that as I ran up the long, slow hill. And I guess I was lost in those thoughts because, all of a sudden, I got this weird feeling, like someone was watching me. I glanced back over my shoulder—and I was really startled to see there was a green pickup trundling along right behind me. Somehow it had come up on me without my even knowing it was there.
The next moment, the pickup pulled up alongside me and slowed to a stop. I stopped too and looked in through the window, breathing hard from my run.
At first I didn’t remember the old man sitting behind the wheel, but then the scrunched, round, wrinkled face and the dark, sparkly eyes came back to me. This was the same farmer who had come along this road before, when Jeff and his thugs were beating me up. He was the reason the thugs ran off. In fact, without him, they might have really done some serious damage to me.
The farmer’s shriveled old hands held on to the wheel as he leaned over and looked out the window at me. He chewed thoughtfully on his wrinkled lip.
“I know you,” he said after a moment.