Sol Survivors | Book 2 | Nashville Nightmare

by Benton, Ken

  Then you'll begin to make it better, better, better, better, better... oh!

  Magic. Loud cheering burst forth from every occupied seat in the house. By fortune or misfortune, it coincided with more cannon fire outside the theater—which Sammy now realized might only be a thunderstorm.

  The most critical part had come, and it would be easy to screw up. Everything depended on the spectator response to the last stage of the song. Sammy didn’t want to appear as a dorky and presumptuous cheerleader. He made his way back to Finn and looked him in the face, as if singing to Finn and no one else. He also lowered his voice some, so that the roaring audience was forced to quiet itself in order to hear him.

  Na na na na-na-na-naa, na-na-na-naa…

  Finn responded in a positive manner and began singing the Hey Jude part with him. So it became a duet, and Sammy felt comfortable enough to increase his volume.

  That’s when he heard the first few spectators singing with him. Sammy looked out to discover that Arturo was one of them.

  Sammy went back to the piano plunking and raised his voice higher.

  Additional spectators joined in. When Sammy thought enough of them were singing along, he walked out to center stage again to sing, nodding at the audience appreciatively as he continued.

  Within another few lines of the refrain, everyone was singing it. Soon they repeated it with such abandon that the continuing thunder outside became a faint background noise. Sammy decided to work in a:

  Jud-ay Jud-ay, Jud-ay Jud-ay Jud-ay Jud-ay

  …between refrains. The audience fervor only increased.

  Arturo and Mort turned around in their seats. Mort even stood for a moment before turning back, a smile of amusement having bloomed on his face.

  Sammy decided to end the performance during the expected lifespan of that smile, which wasn’t long. He walked backwards several steps, half-turned to Finn, made eye contact with him and nodded while noticeably slowing his singing pace for the last line. Finn caught on and stopped playing. Sammy stopped singing after a final, slower Hey Jude and bowed his head, remaining standing in place.

  It took the crowd longer to catch on. They sang the refrain several more times by themselves, gradually lessening in volume, before stopping.

  Then they all cheered wildly. These people were genuinely joyful at this moment in time, something which also had a short life expectancy. But one of the two contestants’ life expectancy was even shorter. Maybe both.

  “Step forward, you two!” Arturo said standing and clapping. “Come on over here.”

  Sammy and Finn smiled at each other. Finn even put a hand on Sammy’s back as they walked to the edge of the stage. Arturo sat back down next to Mort.

  “Tell me rabbit, how do you think you did?” Mort asked.

  “I can live or die with it,” Sammy answered.

  “How appropriate,” Arturo said amongst some cheering. “How appropriate!”

  “What I mean,” Sammy explained to Mort, “is that I’m happy with it. No regrets.”

  “None?” Mort asked. “Not even with the way it started?”

  “Well…” Sammy shrugged. “I’ve never sang in public before. I found that some … improvisation was needed, for me, at least. If I had started the song better, who knows if it would have gone like it did? I’ll take my chances and submit that performance as my best effort. All of it.”

  More cheers, which abated when Mort began giving his response.

  “That’s a smart way to view it, I suppose. Because it started off terrible, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. What you call improvisation might have been seen by some as a brilliantly-planned orchestration. Now you’re telling me it merely worked out that way, which means you got lucky. And I know you had to deal with unexpected distractions. That’s just the way it goes around here. There is more than pure luck in the way it turned out for you, I believe. You had to think on your feet again, something you appear to be good at, like a true rabbit. It was a risky song choice.” He glanced at Enzo and Daniel on the side of the stage. “But as I was saying, sometimes you have to risk everything to win. Let me finish by telling you I enjoyed the act, and in addition I appreciate the skilled manner in which you gradually sold the audience on it. That was very professional. You should indeed be happy with your performance. Please take two steps back.”

  “Yeah it was,” Arturo said clapping again. “And yeah you should. Thank you. Thank you!”

  Sammy and Finn backed up the requested distance to wait out another round of cheering.

  “And now it’s time to announce the winner,” Mort said. “Daniel and the cheater, come back out.”

  Mort and Arturo leaned and whispered to each other as Daniel and Enzo walked back to center stage. Arturo mostly nodded his big head in agreement. It first looked as though Daniel would be standing between Enzo and Sammy for the announcement, but they repositioned themselves so the two contestants stood on the inside—probably to keep the loser from being able to easily run.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The murmuring in the audience stopped when Mort held up a hand. That was apparently also the signal for Finn and Daniel to back themselves away, at an angle, separating themselves from the singers. The thought occurred to Sammy that they may be moving out of buckshot spread range.

  “I want to thank both of you for your heartfelt efforts tonight,” Mort began. “The truth is that this is one of the better shows we’ve actually had. You both ended up giving stirring performances. But as you know, there can be only one winner.”

  Sammy noticed Enzo looking back and forth between the two of them nervously.

  “This is a singing competition primarily,” Mort said. “But the person with the best singing voice doesn’t automatically win. It’s what you do with it that matters. This is why song selection is so critical. Both of you made interesting choices after we got past the horrid opening round, and both of your voices are about equal in strength. Therefore we’ve made our decision based on creative application, and have given considerable weight to audience reaction.”

  Mort paused, which ended up being another signal. Four gang members with rifles now filed into the empty second row of seats above the judges’ table, and took standing positions. They raised their rifles and aimed—two at Sammy, two at Enzo.

  Sammy looked back at Enzo. This time he noticed something he didn’t see before. There appeared to be an object in his left hand.

  A sharp object.

  Sammy opened his mouth to say something, but Mort continued speaking before he could.

  “Therefore without further ado, I officially announce the winner of tonight’s competition to be…”

  He hesitated for effect, but Enzo decided not to wait for the announcement and made a sudden lunging move at Sammy. The object in his hand proved to be a 7-inch shank.

  Sammy was not caught off-guard. He dove forward as Enzo attacked, rolling onto his back and then off the stage to the ground, managing to land on his good leg.

  Enzo corrected himself, leapt forward from one foot and jumped off the stage to pursue Sammy.

  But not before three of the rifles sent bullets thudding into his chest. He ended up slammed against the stage and sliding crumpled to the floor. The shank fell from his hand.

  Mort stood up. “Well, the cheater certainly lived up to his stage name, didn’t he?” He turned to the executioners, one of whom was now repeatedly pulling on his rifle lever in obvious disappointment over it not firing.

  “Drag him out to the courtyard,” Mort said. “If it’s raining, we’ll cook him in the rotunda. The rabbit is the winner.”

  Some cheering arose, but not as heartfelt as before, and Sammy thought he detected a certain amount of grumbling mixed in.

  Mort turned around again to face the stage. Sammy, still before him, inched his way closer to the table so he could ask Mort a question over the growing audience noise. Mort eyed his weapon in front of him, but gave Sammy a curious look.
r />   “Mort,” Sammy said trying to sound respectful.

  Mort raised his eyebrows.

  Someone in the audience yelled, “Let’s eat the rabbit, too!” More commotion followed as whoever yelled it picked up both supporters and objectors.

  “Yes, rabbit?” Mort replied.

  Sammy felt his face contort. “Did I … really win?”

  “Yes, you won. You’re still standing, aren’t you?”

  “What I mean is, were you going to announce me as the winner before he jumped me? Did I really win the singing contest?”

  Mort glanced at those who’d begun to carry out Enzo’s body before answering.

  “Not losing your cool and doing something stupid is part of the game.”

  “Please,” Sammy said. “It’s important to me.”

  Mort studied him in a surprised manner, as if he appreciated the genuineness of the query. By now a section of the audience had begun a chant in unison.

  Eat the rabbit! Eat the rabbit!

  Mort heard it, picked up his weapon, climbed on his chair and faced them, causing the chant to dissipate somewhat—but not completely.

  “The rabbit won, legitimately,” he announced. “You all heard him sing. We have our supper tonight. Besides, shouldn’t we get one more show out of him?”

  “No!” someone shouted back. “Eat the rabbit!”

  Mort promptly aimed his weapon and pulled the trigger, confirming that it was indeed an automatic weapon when a short burst came from it.

  “You wanted more meat, now we have it!” Mort shouted.

  He was answered by a single gunshot from the seats. Mort’s body recoiled and his weapon dropped to the floor. Then he dropped to the floor, toppling his chair.

  “Hey!” Arturo yelled standing up, his own weapon in hand. “Get whoever shot Mort!”

  Three or four more gunshots discharged from scattered locations. Sammy ducked after seeing someone point a shotgun at him.

  That’s when gunshots also started coming from behind, up on the stage. Sammy turned to see Daniel standing there directly above him, the barrel of his pistol pointed straight down Sammy’s soul. Sammy flinched and tried to roll away again, but made the mistake of trying to roll over his bad leg. It refused passage.

  Daniel remained frozen in that position for another excruciating moment. He then fell forward like a tree. His large frame hit the stage with a thunder of its own, where it stayed, his lifeless head hanging over the edge, hateful dead eyes still fixated on Sammy.

  More gunshots came from the backstage area now, some at a rapid pace. They cracked over Sammy’s head on their way to targets in the seats. Return fire burst forth from many different sounding weapons. Screams also rose from the seats, sometimes simultaneous to the intensifying thunder outside. The chants of “eat the rabbit” had ceased.

  The mass gunfight that erupted in the theater began in utter chaos, but settled into something more orderly: backstage vs. the audience. The audience was larger in number, but pathetically less skilled. No more than two or three backstage guns were picking them off like a shooting gallery. Eventually, the pace slowed.

  That’s when Sammy heard his name called. He flinched at first, curling against the front row seat he’d taken cover behind—but then looked to the voice. It came from someone lying flat on the stage next to Daniel’s body extending a hand down to him.

  “Sammy! Can you move?”

  “Mick?”

  “Yeah, come on, man! I’ll lift you and we’ll crawl out. Joel’s covering us.”

  Sammy experienced a jarring awakening. Mick’s hand represented a ladder out of a deranged stupor to another world—the world he belonged in.

  Sammy pushed himself up from the ground enough to maneuver on three limbs, like a dog with an injured leg. More gunfire rang out from the backstage area at a rapid pace from what could only be Joel’s AR-15. When Sammy reached the stage, he took hold of Mick’s hand and propped himself up as far as he could on his good leg. Mick’s hand felt like a warm thermos of coffee on a freezing Washington-DC winter day.

  Mick did the rest. He grasped Sammy’s upper arm with his other hand and hauled him back on the stage in one powerful motion.

  “Stay down and crawl straight back!” Mick said to him.

  But Sammy felt something poking him in the ribs. He half-rolled and discovered it to be Daniel’s pistol. Shit! Sammy grabbed at it with both hands and pointed it upward, away from him and Mick, as if it were the still-animated head of a recently-shot cottonmouth snake.

  It was at that moment he saw the figure of another large man holding what appeared to be a short-barrel shotgun running hunched to the staircase on the side of the stage. If Sammy and Mick attempted to crawl away at his moment, they would be vulnerable to him. The stage stairs were likely out of Joel’s vision. Sammy pried the gun out of Daniel’s big, stiff fingers.

  “You go first!” Sammy said to Mick. “Then you can help cover me.”

  “Sammy—”

  “Just do it, Mick! I’m right behind you.”

  Another half-dozen rounds cracked over their heads from Joel’s weapon in fast succession.

  “All right!” Mick conceded. “Don’t dally!”

  Mick began sliding his way across the stage, bringing one or two gunshots from the seats and four or five from Joel in response.

  Mick’s rifle then also began firing.

  “Come on!” Mick’s voice shouted.

  Sammy was tempted to comply, but instead held steady in his new position with Daniel’s large handgun braced over his bulging calves.

  The shotgun barrel made its appearance, along with the top of a head. The barrel first pointed in Sammy’s direction, but then moved towards Mick. Sammy waited. A sizeable torso finally came into view over the top step, underneath the rest of the head.

  Sammy squeezed the trigger. This pistol, as expected, had some kick. Also as expected, the round that impacted in the upper torso of the shotgun wielder visibly jolted it. The human form fell from sight, leaving the shotgun barrel pointed sideways and no longer connected to a working brain.

  Sammy turned and began his frantic crawl, which was not as graceful as Mick’s. Refusing to relinquish his grip on the newly-acquired weapon didn’t help. He felt like a crab with a small fish in his claw scurrying away from a bigger fish which had just bitten off some of his legs, trying to escape before it could come back and finish its dinner. Mick lay on the stage before the curtain.

  Mick and Joel kept up their cover fire. Joel finally came into view from behind the crack in the backstage curtain, propped up higher than Mick on a box, only the barrel of his weapon protruding from the curtain.

  Sammy scurried past Mick to get behind the curtain, knocking Finn’s saxophone in the process and sending it spinning across the wooden floor. The box Joel was propped up on must have been the one with the instruments, hastily upended.

  Joel spoke his first words to Sammy. “Don’t’ stop!”

  He then looked up and said, “Mick, it’s time to go.”

  Sammy glanced at Mick to see him crawling backwards and staying low. Sammy resumed his painful and awkward forward contortions towards the far corner of the backstage area. Within another minute, Joel and Mick’s firing both ceased and within a matter of seconds Sammy felt himself being lifted by his armpits.

  “It’s your left leg?” Mick asked when he was upright.

  “Yeah.” Sammy winced and nodded.

  Mick, on his right, let go of him to turn and fire several more rounds blindly through the curtains.

  Joel pulled Sammy’s arm around his neck and wrapped his own free arm around his ribs in order to help him forward, carrying his left side as Sammy hopped on his right leg toward a back door he hadn’t even known was there.

  “It’s not that bad,” Sammy said to Joel. “I can limp on it.”

  “Too slowly,” Joel responded.

  The next thing Sammy knew, all three of them pushed their way out the door and emerge
d into a heavy downpour. Suddenly he was outdoors again. A flash of lightning welcomed them, brightening the street long enough to see no other people in the immediate vicinity.

  “Cross the street!” Joel said.

  With the rain in his face, Sammy didn’t mind Joel’s assistance helping him move faster. Mick jogged ahead and made soldier-like maneuvers checking the alleys between the buildings they moved through, as well as occasionally watching behind them. Sammy kept Daniel’s pistol firmly grasped.

  After putting two blocks between them and the hall, Sammy said to Joel, “You should help Mick. It’s better if we go slower and have three weapons at the ready.”

  “We’ll be at the river in one more block,” Joel said. “And do it then.”

  When they had gone that one more block, Mick suggested a different plan.

  “Let’s get under the highway bridge and wait this heavy rain out.”

  Joel frowned but nodded in agreement after looking at Sammy. Sammy was soaked, and beginning to shiver. Joel and Mick had windbreakers on. Sammy’s jacket had been confiscated by the hall gang, along with his backpack. Joel’s backpack did not contain an extra jacket.

  Joel let go of Sammy and watched him wobble while he removed his windbreaker and put it around him.

  “Hand me that,” Sammy said pointing at a metal rod on the ground.

  Joel bent down to retrieve it, but stopped to inspect its jagged metal end. The other end was wrapped in a grip handle. It looked to be a golf club, probably a driver, with the head broken off. He handed the safe end to Sammy.

  The distance to the highway bridge was still farther than it appeared. The three of them proceeded slower, with Sammy using the new crutch. Joel could now help Mick scout the areas they approached, including making a military-style arrival to the shelter of the bridge, by which time Joel was also soaking wet.