Chapter 9
THE BIG BANG THEORY TESTED
Red, White and Blue for Freedom
or
A Family Reunion
I
Roger had one last surprise. He was branching out, learning new crafts, and the Internet was serving as a generous assistant. Anything he wanted to know he found on the web pages and with little time, he began working on his final Missouri assault.
Roger was trying to maintain his power with this premeditated act. He could be secretive and strike without warning, and he imagined himself to be a shark, circling a busy swimmer’s beach. He had the time to hide from his enemies and he was consumed with arrogance. He would defeat them. He slowly sank into the quicksand of his great stress and began burning all his bridges.
Blood pumped through his veins and an adrenaline rush so filled him, that he felt like a contestant in an ironman competition, running up the last hill. He whistled as he worked and felt driven, as if some super force was directing him. He was no longer just a man called Roger. He was immortal. He knew this final act would make him infamous for all of history. He would join the ranks of all the other great deliverers of destruction. He would be barbaric in his devastation, on as great a scale as was within his power and knowledge to be.
Roger knew he was preparing for a possible death trap. A willingness to sacrifice everything for his own epitaph made him absurd and irrational in protecting his own survival. What had been important before was folly now. His greatest works, so cherished, his previous intrigues, only amateurish after tonight.
The corruption of Roger as a man was complete. He had taken a long road, confronting and choosing several crossroads that had led him to this time, this place. His self protective instincts would be a sacrifice on the black alter of egocentricity. Roger had never identified with anyone else in his lifetime. His narcissism,
fuelled by a total lack of empathy, had made possible the tendency to dehumanize others for his own purposes.
Roger’s double lives were over and he became one with his destiny. If Roger had looked into a mirror, he could have been witness to the true face of depravity. Nevertheless, for Roger, feeling it was enough.
Roger’s isolation had fed his fears and the blackmail letters had fired the furnace of what he was capable of becoming. There was great irony present in Roger. By creating abject terror in others, he was imprisoned by it himself. His omnipotent god complex and desire for vengeance on others had led him down the path to becoming a pathetic devil, living in torment.
II
“Maverick, don’t forget to bring my fireworks,” Casey reminded his friend over the telephone.
“I won’t, I have them in the truck. Tell your mom I’ll be over soon.”
Alice watched Casey hang up the telephone. “Who were you talking to?”
“Just Maverick, I wanted to make sure he brought my fireworks.”
“You like him, don’t you Casey?” Alice asked.
“Sure, he’s a good person,” Casey replied as he ran to his room to get ready for tonight.
Alice was chopping celery, olives, and broccoli for her pasta salad as she gazed out the window. Yes, he is a good person, she thought. A man she would like to know better. A man you could count on to do the right thing. Alice had not met many of those.
Casey was thinking about Anne as he tied his shoes and pulled up his socks.
He wondered what she was going to do on the holiday, and he hoped she would not
be alone. Casey felt a great sadness for his new friend. He wondered who her
family and friends were. Maybe she did have someone he did not know about, but
he doubted it. She never mentioned anyone else. “Women need other women,” he said aloud and laughed at his statement. That was one of Gran’s lines. She might be alone today too. Life was a scary place, Casey decided. It was too easy to be lonely.
Suddenly, Casey was so filled with oppressive solitude that he laid down on his bed and soft, warm tears ran from his eyes. He was feeling the greatest singleness he had even known and it was not his, it was someone else’s. It was heavy in the mind of someone gone totally mad.
III
Clint and Cherie, tired of avoiding each other and the topic most prevalent in their minds, gathered in the living room. They had both been doing a lot of thinking. Clint did his best thinking in the shower. Maybe it was the solitude or the soothing sound of the water falling, but whatever it was, it had brought him to another crossroads.
Cherie had also burned her brain in fractured thoughts. What to do, how to proceed? Cherie was ready for a meeting of the minds with Clint.
“Do you know what today is?” Cherie asked him.
“Yes, the 4th of July, the day we set for the money drop,” Clint replied, thinking he sounded like a gangster in an old movie.
“Yes, so soon, we have to go through with it, dog or devil, we sent the letters,” Cherie said. “If we don’t show up at the park, someone else will find the money in the trashcan and we will be out our $20,000.”
“You think we can just ignore the warning of that dog creature, because the more I think about it, the more certain I am that that was its purpose. I think it wants us to leave that murderer alone.”
Cherie stared at Clint and just had to disagree. “I don’t think that at all. I think the dog was the murderer. You know, like a werewolf or something.”
Clint could not resist that remark, “So all this time and you solved our mystery. It’s a werewolf.”
“Well smarty, what do you think it is?”
“Something worse and real. Not an old Gypsy tale to frighten away town’s people. That Rottweiler was evil I tell you. It was rancid, so vile, that no person should have to witness it.” Clint leaned back and unconsciously ran his fingers through his newly whitened hair.
“Seeing something like that could make a man’s mind go insane.”
“Well you didn’t did you? You’re still here, living off me and we are both broke. Soon, my credit card bills will arrive. I have to go and get that money.”
“Would you sell your soul to the devil for money?” Clint asked his sister in all seriousness.
“Say it was not a demon warning you and you run. Are you willing to pay that price?”
“I don’t have a choice and neither do you. I don’t know everything that’s scored against your soul, but I am realistic enough to realize, I’m not joining the family of saints.” Cherie looked down, thinking about her action of smothering Dot, matricide. Was there another crime worse than that one? She wondered.
Clint reflected too, about the time he pulled that clerk in front of him for protection from the blast. No, he admitted, his soul had dulled over the years from a pure white to a tainted gray. Again, Clint felt he had driven to the next crossroads, and there he idled.
“Well make up your mind because ‘time’s a wastin’ and we need to make plans. How are we going to handle this tonight?” Cherie stared hard, willing him to go along with her scheme. She had a lifetime of practice in manipulating her younger brother and she opened her full arsenal now. “Coward,” she whispered.
“Yes, I think I am a coward,” he answered, surprising her. “A weak loser of a man, because I am going to follow through with this crazy intrigue. I just hope I can accept the consequences.”
“Oh fiddle, the only problem you’re going to face is how to spend your share of the money,” Cherie jeered. Relieved she had gained his assistance, she continued. “You need to go buy a large, green trashcan. We’ll get there early and you place the can by the tent like you work there, or something. It couldn’t be easier.”
Clint nodded and Cherie continued, “Then we just find a good place to keep our eye on the prize. We know what the Heckleys look like, so when the drop is made, we just pick it up.”
“As simple as that?” Clint said. “What if they chase us, or follow us to the truck?”
“I didn’t think of that, I can’t be responsible for all the planning. You take a gun with you and if they try to stop us, you do society a favor and shoot them.”
“Right there in front of a park full of people, you want me to commit murder?” Clint felt sick again and fought the urge to put his head down between his knees.
“It won’t come to that. The Heckley murder machine doesn’t want to expose itself.”
“Then we just go home, good neighbors, because then they are going to know who we are.” The more Clint argued, the surer he was that this whole plot was a terrible mistake.
“We’ll send another note, saying if anything happens to us, we have proof in a lock box.” Cherie was so tired of carrying the burden for this blackmailing scheme; she began to think that she should get seventy-five percent of the money. “Anyway, after this is over, I’m heading for KC and the slot machines. I’m going to triple my cash.”
Clint did drop his head on hearing that line and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He should have been sobbing.
IV
Anne arrived at the park in the early afternoon. She felt a strong urge to be there, but did not understand why. Better to be early than late, she settled in for the day’s events. In the past, Anne hated going anywhere like this alone, but today she felt at peace. She was so sure that she was traveling on the right course, that calmness descended on her like gentle snow on her shoulders.
She walked around the fairgrounds and watched the planned events. There were kid’s sack races, a pet parade, and a wood-chopping contest. There were several small stages set up around the grounds and each held a local band. The music flowed from polkas to country, Mexican dance numbers to string quartets, solo singing artists, and kid’s bands. There were clog dancing exhibitions, men’s best legs contest, and an ugly truck show. What so surprised Anne, were the large number of children and young adults participating in the greased pig chase and the bathtub races. She had thought kids were too jaded, with all their electronic equipment and hip music, to join in such old-fashioned entertainment. They looked like they were having the time of their lives. She enjoyed the bathtub on wheels race. There were four runners and a bather to steer the water-filled tub on wheels. The time and trouble it took to build these contraptions and haul them to events surprised and delighted Anne. She felt like one of them, as they pushed, laughed, and screamed their way to the finish line.
Anne ate a foot long hotdog, pink cotton candy, a sticky candy apple, and a bag of popcorn. She thought she should feel sick, but she felt wonderful and alive. She laughed at the pets in their homemade costumes, watched the tent where the kids got their faces painted with designs, and took a nap under a tree on her blanket.
Not sure, where she was supposed to be, she wandered the grounds, taking note of the layout. On one side of the park, the ground, fireworks display was constructed. There were steel frames, covered with explosives, formed into the statue of liberty and the American flag. There was also an outline frame of the White House, or at least that’s what she thought it was supposed to be. The area was roped off for security and further down the field, stood the first aid tent. She stopped there and noticed they were selling bottled water. She meant to come back here often, as she was getting very thirsty covering so much distance on foot.
Anne wondered at her feeling of contentment and understood for the first time in her life, that she was on the right track. She felt her soul and it sang to her, reassuring her that she was fulfilling her destiny.
V
Maverick, Alice, and Casey were all leaning back in their chairs, thinking they would never be able to eat another bite of food again.
Maverick had over-shopped and Alice had prepared every salad she knew how to make. No one wanted to hurt or offend the other, so they just continued to eat, until it was impossible to go on.
Soft music was playing in the background, and everyone was satisfied with the silence at the table. It was comfortable just being together and no one wanted to get up first and break the peaceful comradely. Finally, Casey pushed back his chair and asked, “Can I be excused? I want to see my fireworks again.”
“Sure, look them all over and think about which ones you want to save for last,” Maverick answered before Alice could comment.
“Really Maverick, you shouldn’t have bought him so many. They must have cost a lot of money.” Alice smiled at her date, thinking how nice he looked in his casual jeans and striped shirt, rolled up at the cuffs.
“No, they were all on sale. Everything tasted great but I ate too much. I’ll have to start exercising again,” Maverick answered, returning her smile.
“You look just right to me,” Alice said before she could stop herself. She reluctantly stood and began clearing the table. “We better watch the time, Casey promised to meet Rosa and her girls at 7:30 tonight.”
“This day went too fast,” Maverick lamented. “What do you want me to do?”
“You can load your truck with the items I have ready by the front door. I tried to pack light; the cooler is just for sodas.”
“Maverick, I want to help, can I mom?” Casey asked dragging his sack of fireworks behind him.
“Sure, and Casey you stay with us every minute tonight. No running off with Mia into that crowd. Understood?” Alice asked, always fearful of her son’s fate.
“Don’t worry Alice, I’ll watch him,” Maverick covered and Casey smiled up at him. “This boy won’t leave my sight tonight, I promise.”
VI
Clint felt self-conscious dragging the trashcan across the grass and sitting it beside the first aid tent. “Have you figured out Oh Mastermind, how we are going to keep other people from filling this with trash?”
“Let them, they’ll be room for the money and if it gets full early, you can empty it,” Cherie countered.
Clint always felt like he was playing a game of chess with his sister. She always had white and he was left to block each move with black.
“Did you make sure the truck was full of gas, in case we have to get away fast?” Cherie asked, checking her schedule. She had written every move down, like a grocery list.
“I’m not answering all those stupid questions again. Tear up that list you idiot. Did you write ‘blackmailing procedures’ on it?” Clint questioned, starting to doubt this entire night’s plan.
Cherie blushed and started tearing her paper into small pieces.
“Here, let me be the first to use the trashcan.” She dropped the fragments inside the tall, green plastic can.
“We’d better find a good place to hide and watch, I brought my binoculars,” Cherie bragged.
“Oh that’s subtle,” Clint’s voice dripped sarcasm as they headed off to a group of large trees, a short distance from the tent.
VII
Roger had his own pair of binoculars and spied in great amusement, as he watched the arguing pair of extortionists drag the trashcan over the open grass. He was tempted to fire two clean shots through their treacherous heads. No, he had something better planned for them tonight.
VIII
Mia and her family were just arriving. A friend dropped them off in the parking lot by the first aid station. Rosa was still talking in rapid Spanish and Mia thought her mother appeared ten years younger after enjoying her day off.
Mia was jumping up and down, trying to see all the sights. She got a quick glance of the roped off area and screamed in delight at the ground displays. Their skeletons sitting in an open field ready to be outlined in glorious, sparkling reds and blues. Mia had never seen the low displays before and she pulled her mother along behind her running feet.
“Hurry momma, look at the stands,” She cried. Her sisters joined in and all of them began talking at once.
Mia turned around to gaze at her lagging family and noticed the big, black truck in the parking lot. It had a camper on the back and there was a man sitting in the driver’s seat watching the crowd. She thought it was the same truck she had seen driving around her neighborhood right before Yolanda disappeared. Mia felt guilty; she should have told Maverick about it. She had been jealous of Casey and all the attention he was getting. That was wrong. Maybe she should tell them tonight.
Now she was behind and her sisters were yelling at her, “Come on slow poke, hurry up.”
She gave one last glance back to the parking lot and thought she saw the driver starring right at her, a reflection shinning directly into her eyes. Mia caught her breath and ran as fast as she could run. She grabbed Rosa’s hand as her mother glanced down at her in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” Rosa asked, the happiness gone from her face.
“Nothing, nothing is wrong momma, this is going to be a great night,” she reassured her and Mia did not dare look back.
IX
Casey saw Mia right away. She was running with her family to the tent area, to the left of them. He wanted to catch up to her and yelled her name, “Mia!”
“Casey, she can’t hear you, they’re too far away and there are too many people here.” Alice stared down at his excited face and added, “Don’t worry she’ll wait, just like we need to wait for Maverick to park the truck.” The lot had been full when they arrived and Maverick was driving around searching for a parking spot. Alice was surprised the fairgrounds were this crowded. She had not been to the fireworks displays since high school and she could not believe how large the event had grown.
“There he is, I’ll go help carry something,” and Casey raced back to help Maverick who was loaded down with blankets, his personal pack of items, a cooler, and the fireworks.
Alice smiled, thinking she should not have brought so much stuff, but what a pleasure it was to have a man along to carry it all. “Sorry we loaded you down, give me the blankets,” Alice said.
“It’s okay I have them. Casey, can you carry the fireworks?” Maverick asked smiling down at his eager face. He seems just like an ordinary small boy tonight, no mystic sight, no oppressing feelings; he looks younger, Maverick thought.
The trio headed for the first aid tent and Rosa’s family. “Look there’s Anne!” Casey yelled and started racing off towards her. “Casey!” Alice called. “I was afraid he would run off, he never listens to me when he’s excited,” Alice complained.
“It’s okay, we can see him. Don’t worry so much, I told you I would take care of him,” Maverick reassured her.
“I didn’t know Anne was going to be here alone. I feel bad; I should have asked her to join us today.”
“We’ll ask her now,” said Maverick picking up the pace to greet the gang of friends gathered in front of them.
All the friends exchanged greetings and Anne was introduced to Rosa and her family. “And this is my best friend Mia, I mean, best friend other than you,” Casey stumbled.
“It’s nice to meet you all. I’m having a great day; you would not believe what I have seen so far.”
“What, what?” The children asked. As Anne bent down to tell them about the races, contests, and music, Alice held her breath.
Alice whispered to Maverick, “Anne seems so different tonight, so alive. I’ve never seen her look so carefree and happy.”
“Yes she does. She’s beautiful.”
Maverick felt an elbow in his ribs and burst out laughing. “Well, you started it.”
The group formed a circle near the tent and they began laying out their blankets. They used their coolers to hold down the corners and Casey began to show the girls his fireworks.
They made a peaceful scene, gathered together, talking, and laughing. Only a few observers were dismayed by their close proximity.
X
“What’s Anne doing here?” Cherie demanded. “Who are all those people with her?”
“Beats me. I didn’t know she had any friends,” Clint answered.
“Why, out of all the places in this park, does she have to sit by our trashcan!” Cherie was livid. “After all my careful planning, she would come in and ruin everything.”
“Not so loud, people are starring,” Clint scolded.
“What time is it?” Cherie asked in a panic.
“Pull yourself together, it’s just about time,” Clint answered.
“Concentrate on what we are here for, the money and getting away. This Heckley is a serious threat and we have to be alert and ready for anything.”
“You’re right, but damn, I wish Anne had not shown up to spoil everything.” Cherie could not move past her sister’s presence. She stared hard at her, wishing she would go away.
Just then, Anne turned on her blanket and looked right at her. Cherie tried to duck behind a tree, but Clint just stood there glancing over the parking lot.
“Get back you idiot, she’s looking this way!” Cherie yelled to her brother.
Clint glanced over and saw his other sister Anne staring at him. “To late to hide, she’s seen us.”
“Well of course she has, you wouldn’t listen to me!”
“It’s almost eight we need to do something. What if she comes over?” Clint asked.
Just then, Anne turned her back on the pair of siblings and started talking to her friends. “She’s going to snub us,” Cherie accused.
“Isn’t that what we want? Get control of yourself, I think I see the Heckley truck.”
Cherie lost interest in her sister and glanced around Clint to the lot packed with cars and trucks as far as she could see. “Where?”
“Near the front, the black one with the camper. He must have gotten here early to get that parking spot. I wonder how long he’s been here?” Clint was getting apprehensive. They had picked this spot, knowing it would be crowded. Could it be too exposed, too hectic?
“Is he in it?” Cherie’s voice sounded near panic.
“No.”
XI
“Casey, what’s wrong? Your face has gone white as a sheet,” Anne asked.
“I saw a man over there. The one you were looking at, I saw him before,” Casey answered in a small voice.
Anne glanced around at her group. They were all busy talking and not paying any attention to them. “Where did you see him before?” Anne asked in abject terror. Surely, Clint could not be the serial killer.
“Where?”
“At the gas station explosion. I was there, I wasn’t supposed to be, don’t tell mom,” Casey whispered and moved closer to Anne. “I went down to the Gas N Grub to buy candy and I was inside when the place exploded.”
Now Anne’s countenance had gone a matching shade of chalk. “Clint was at the explosion? Was he driving the truck that caused it?”
“How did you know his name?” Casey asked, studying her. “Do you know him?”
“Yes, I know him. Now answer my question.”
“He was inside the store, like me. When the pumps blew up, he…he grabbed the old clerk that worked there and he…he pulled him in front of himself, to protect himself,” Casey sobbed and wiped a tear from his eye.
Anne glanced over her shoulder at the sibling pair as they whispered and motioned with their hands in distress. Something was wrong, and corrupt. Anne stopped breathing as she saw a pair of red eyes floating over her family’s heads. She started to turn away, but resisted and for the first time in her life, she returned the stare full force. The red illumination of the eyes intensified until they were as strong as neon and Anne was amazed that no one else could see them. Anne felt another power inside her, like an offered right hand and she glanced down to see Casey holding her arm and he too, was staring at the pair by the tree. Together they locked their focus and for the first time both Anne and Casey saw the eyes float away. Anne gave Casey’s hand a squeeze and together their hearts filled with false optimism. Together, they had moved evil aside and both felt a fresh triumph. Then Casey flinched and Anne looked down as Casey tried to hide his hand. She grabbed it and opened his palm to see that the bite mark had returned, redder and larger than before. Casey was trying not to cry with the pain and Anne’s anger was
fuelled as if by nuclear energy as a hatred of this evil so filled her, she thought she might burst. Anne stared at Casey and nodded, trying to reassure him, but he could not get past the pain in his hand.
“What are you two so serious about?” Maverick asked. “What’s the matter?”
No one answered him; neither was capable of speech.
XII
“Howdy neighbors,” Roger greeted the pair by the tree.
Both jumped and turned in startled terror. There stood Roger Heckley, the man they suspected of being a mass murderer. The man they intended to blackmail.
“What, no polite greeting in return?”
“You stay away from us,” Cherie warned.
“That wasn’t the point, as I saw it,” Roger replied. “I thought you two told me to be here.”
For the first time in his life, Clint understood the phrase, “stunned silence.” He could not think of a single word to say. How did you answer a man capable of murder on a huge scale? He head was bursting with questions, but all he could manage to utter was, “Did you bring the money?”
“Ah, right to the point,” Roger responded. “So you’re the little team that thought they could take me down. Well you’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that.”
“We have plenty of nerve, and we have proof of who and what you are,” Cherie hissed. She had taken a step backwards into the shade of the tree’s giant limbs. The sun was edging the horizon and the park was growing dark. He smelled terrible; Cherie thought and almost gagged, like a man that had not taken a bath in weeks. He was wearing wrinkled, soiled clothes, and an old kerchief around his crusty neck, and his boots were coated in mud. He looked like he had slept dressed and his face had not seen the gleam of a razor in days with untrimmed stubble growing peppered in black and white amongst the grime. His voice startled her and stopped her examination of him.
“Proof you say, photos, video?” Roger asked, interested in details.
“I saw you with that Mexican woman, right there in your back yard.”
“Oh, an eyewitness. Sometimes they don’t live to see the trial,” Roger threatened. He stared at his watch, a cheap black strap of plastic. “Why look here, it’s eight o’clock. I’m right on time.”
“Give us the money,” Clint said scrutinizing his adversary. Heckley was wearing a black knapsack, stuffed full to its maximum size. What did he do, bring it in one-dollar bills? Clint thought.
“Oh no, we are going to do this by the book. Your letter said to put it in the green trashcan, by the first aid station, at eight and that’s what I intend to do.” He checked his watch again and said, “It’s time. I hope you both enjoy your reward.” With that, he walked away and headed for the tent.
XIII
Anne noticed an unkempt man walking away from her siblings and towards the first aid tent. She had been watching their conversation for some time and everything was becoming clear in her mind. Anne no longer heard the sound of people’s voices, background music, or the politician’s loudspeaker speech. She understood what her siblings had done and what they were doing. It had come to her, as a slow, blurry video inside her head. She saw them cutting and gluing letters to paper as they sat together at their parent’s rusty table. She heard their conversation, as if by way of a short-wave radio, as they planned their scheme. Blackmailing a serial killer was the same as shielding him. Anne was horrified that they had gone so low as to sell their souls for money. But there was more, a time, ten after, ten after. She became attuned to one object, that knapsack.
Then another vile vision played before her eyes. One so terrible she was between vomiting and striking out. She saw children together, a Dumpster full of children, crying and trying to get out. Some were infants, while others had just learned to walk, and all of them were chanting, ”Throw the children away, away, away.” Anne shuttered and turned as pale as human skin could turn. She saw women, young girls, all dead, shallow graves with hands poked through, all of them reaching for assistance. Then she was filled with a presence so strong, she felt as if steroids had been pumped into her arms. It was the soul of Susan and she yelled, “You know what to do.” And suddenly she did. She knew as surely as a person trapped in a car, as it sank to the bottom of the lake, just one way to get out. Hurry, Hurry, ten after, ten after.
“Maverick, hold Casey and no matter what happens, you keep him safe,” Anne whispered in his ear. “And Maverick, see that pair by the tree and the man walking towards the tent?”
He nodded and stared into her eyes. “You get them for me, and for Yolanda and all the others.”
Anne heard his intake of breath and Alice asking, “What’s going on?”
Maverick grabbed Anne’s wrist and shook his head, but she looked straight at him. “Many people will die, there’s no time, do as I say,” Anne ordered as strong as any general on any battlefield.
“You don’t understand now, but you will later, all of it. Casey can show you the truck. Everything you need is inside it. And that pair by the tree, they are his blackmailers.” Anne pulled her arm out of his hold and turned for one last glance at her siblings.
With that, Anne sprang to her feet and fully exposed herself to the mind of Roger Heckley. The sight there horrified her; she glanced around at the huge crowd of people and then down to the blankets full of her friends. She saw horror in Casey’s eyes and knew he was getting the telepathy too. There was no more time. Anne saw Casey start to get up and Maverick grab him around the waist. It was going to be okay; he was going to be safe.
As Roger Heckley, in his last mad act of vengeance, dropped his knapsack into the trashcan, Anne swiftly moved towards him.
She thought she heard Cherie crying out, “Anne’s going to take our money!”
The minute Roger dropped the stuffed bag into the can, Anne reached inside and pulled out the knapsack and ran towards the open, roped off field. The last voice she heard was Casey yelling her name.
Anne was startled by the weight of the bag although she now knew what was inside. She had seen it all in Roger’s mind. She saw him sitting at a workbench, with boxes of nails and screws stacked high. She saw him hooking up wires to an alarm clock and strapping explosives around the bundle. It was an amateurish charge, improvised as he went, but it was lethal. Lying on the bench were printed instructions entitled “Anti-Personnel Fragmentation Devise, or How to Make A Homemade Bomb.”
Roger stunned by this stranger’s actions saw the destruction of his final plans. In an insane fury, he charged after her.
Anne ran faster than she thought she was capable of, she got to the rope and jumped over it like an Olympic hurdler. Out in the open field, set aside for the fireworks display, Anne headed to the vast empty pasture as fast as her legs could carry her. A woman, who never crossed a street without a “Walk” sign, Anne now moved in danger, with a boldness and sureness unsurpassed by the finest soldier.
She felt someone was following her and turned to see Roger Heckley in pursuit. He was several yards off and she felt immense pleasure in the fact that he was going to meet her same end.
The pipe bomb exploded, rocking the crowded public park as the device blew thunderous noise, debris, and shrapnel into the air. As the bomb detonated, the crowd witnessed a white flash, a huge puff of smoke, and then an orange flame. The ground under them shook, like in an earthquake, and vendor’s stands fell to the ground.
Panic set in, as the herd of spectators began to run in the opposite direction, away from a rain of shrapnel consisting of fragmented metal. Over the open meadow, projectiles poured down from a cloud over one hundred yards in the air. Almost all of the destruction was concentrated in the open field. Rivets of dirt puffed up, as if they were being hit by rifle fire. Small fires started in the dry grass, as explosive material fell to the ground in haunting yellow pieces.
The heat of the blast and the sporadic flames lit the ground fireworks display. All at once, the terror and fear of the explosion became a gruesome blast of red, white, and blue fireworks lighting the devastation below. The American flag seemed to wave in its
spiralling sparks and the sky grew oppressive with the strong smell of sulfur.
In the smoky haze, the view was terrible as people trampled each other running for cover. The emergency fire trucks and police cars held in reserve for the fireworks safety, now sped onto the edge of the field. Firefighters pulled heavy hoses towards the blaze as police cars drove in a perimeter around the blast, dodging falling debris. The planned bloodbath was averted, but there were several injured and two killed in the blast.
Only one group of spectators had not panicked and fled from the bomb. There, safe on their blankets, stood Alice with Maverick holding a sobbing Casey. Beside him swayed Rosa and her family, the small girls hugging their mother’s legs.
Over behind a huge, elm tree stood a pair, a tall, dark man, and a short, blonde woman; their faces lit up blank in total shock.
Maverick turned Casey into his mother’s arms and took his service revolver from his pack. He walked at a fast pace to the frozen couple by the tree and informed them that they were under arrest.
Their faces, now covered with shadows in the light of the flames, seemed not to see him, or register his presence. They just stared at the bombsite crater with opened mouths and blackened hearts. In their minds, a red vision haunted them. It was the face of a snarling Rottweiler. A creature that had come to claim his promised souls.
HE opened his jaws, inhaled both their minds, and swallowed them down into a pit as vile as his breath. They were now forever joined to the demon within.
