by A. R. Licht
The woman Kate had been following was staring at her now. She smiled and the woman smiled back. Just then there is a commotion up at the hospital. A man emerges through the double sliding doors, a blanket around his shoulders. An ambulance squawks behind them, startling Kate. It speeds up the hill and comes to a stop near the man. Paramedics get out, and rush to the man. They appear to be checking him out for injuries. Kate watches as they bandage his hand, then his head.
"Are you getting this?" She asked Waylon.
"Yes, ma’am."
"Look at the bullet holes in the police cars," she said.
Waylon nods behind the camera, "Already panned in on them."
"Good."
Ann is at her elbow, hands her a cell phone. "It’s Jack."
Kate puts the phone to her ear, "Hello?"
"Get the interview."
"Which one?"
"Are you dense? Get the survivor. The man. The expectant father. Make sure you ask him about his wife and the doctor. We want to tug those heart strings. Got it?"
"Yeah. Got it."
"No dead air. Don’t do it again."
"I won’t."
"Good, girl. You’re doing great. Give me back to Ann."
"Thanks."
She hands the phone back to Ann and turns to Waylon. "We need to get that interview."
"Hold your horses, we’ll get it," Waylon said.
"What if he doesn’t come down here?"
"One way in, one out. He’ll come down," Waylon said.
"What if he leaves in the ambulance?"
"Then we follow him to the hospital."
"Right."
She should have thought of that. She had been trained all of this in college. It must be the nerves.
The woman with the ombre hair looks antsy. She wants that interview too. It would truly make for a touching moment. The man survives, and will be reunited with his wife and newborn.
The paramedics release the man, Terry Berkus, she reminds herself. Terry smiles wide and walks toward a woman with his arms outstretched. They hug, Kate can hear them laughing.
The blanket falls from his shoulders, an FBI officer picks it up and replaces it, directing Terry and his mother toward the tent right next to the media.
Multiple voices shout his name, "Terry!" "Terry, how does it feel to know you are a hero!" "Terry! Is that your mom?"
Terry walks directly toward them and Kate doesn’t even think. She ducks under the tape and meets up twenty feet away. "Mr. Berkus, tell us how you survived."
She expected him to recoil, to say 'no comment'. Instead he smiles, side hugs his mom and allows her to stay. She can hear cameras clicking, feels every eye upon her. She ignores the sudden nausea, focusing on his answer.
"My wife, Joleen, I brought her in last night when she started having contractions. She was in labor for eight hours before our wonderful Doctor Bembenek did an ultra sound and found that our baby has macrosomia. That means the baby is very large because Joleen had developed that pregnancy maternal diabetes. So, Doc Bembenek, or Julia as she insisted we call her, scheduled my wife for a c-section.
"I’d been up all night, my hand hurt from Joleen squeezing it so much with the contractions. I knew I’d need my strength for the hours to come, so I left her for just ten minutes, just to get a sandwich in the cafeteria and then I used the bathroom before heading back up. While I was in there, that’s when everything..."
"It’s okay, take your time," Kate encouraged.
Terry’s mother squeezed his hand, looking at him with concern.
He took a few ragged breaths, then continued his narrative, "I was in there, washing my hands when suddenly the porcelain sink exploded. The bits of sink cut my hand up pretty good. I stood there like a fool trying to understand what had just happened when I heard screams out in the lobby. It sounded like the receptionist who’d just gave me encouraging words regarding Joleen.
"Then I heard banging, like someone was hammering really hard on a piece of metal. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! That’s when I realized it was gun fire. The bullet penetrated the wall of the bathroom, grazed my head, dropped to the floor. I guess I was lucky, I could have died right there in the bathroom.
"That is truly miraculous! Can you tell us what was going through your mind in that moment? Kate said.
"All I could think about was Joleen and the baby. But I was stuck. I couldn’t leave or they’d kill me. The only thing I could think to do was to call 9-1-1. I was whispering so the guys outside couldn't hear me on the phone. I told them, I think people are being shot, to come fast!
"They told me to stay on the line, so I did. I poked my head out at one point to see what they looked like so I could describe them, wanted to see how many there was. All I knew was that there were more than one and the one I could see looked to be no older than a teenager, acting like he thought the whole thing was cool.
"Then I heard the elevator open, ding! And someone threw something in it. There was a loud boom, the whole world seemed to shake. I think it knocked me out. The next thing I know, I’m waking up on the floor with the FBI helping me up."
"You are truly a lucky man," Kate said, not without feeling. She had been hanging breathlessly on every word.
His mom said, "I am so proud of him. He did what he could to save his family, and I love him so much."
"Thanks mom," Terry said, and they embraced again.
Kate looked at Waylon, then back at the crowd behind the tape. They were eating this up.
"On behalf of ANB, I thank you for being so candid. I truly hope that soon you get to see your newborn child-"
"Sprout," he interrupted.
"I’m sorry?" Kate said.
"I nicknamed her Sprout," Terry said.
"That is so sweet. We wish you a happy reunion with your wife and little Sprout. I’m sure all of us want to see you reunited. We would love to meet your little one."
"I would love nothing more, thank you," Terry said.
An FBI officer motioned to him to follow, giving Kate a dirty look. She quickly moved back behind the tape hoping she wouldn’t get kicked out.
Ombre haired woman gave her thumbs up and a wink, Kate smiled back.
Kate watched as Terry settled under the check-in tent with an FBI agent and a police officer, both taking notes as the man talked. It struck her right then how odd it was that he had been allowed to say so much on TV. Wouldn’t they have stopped him right away? It is a crime scene after-all.
She felt pride, watching him, he looked like he would be a great dad. She wonders what Joleen looks like, maybe they would make a great interview couple later. She could already see them at their one-year-anniversary of the hostage situation, little Sprout bouncing on his knee with a teary-eyed Joleen looking on. She needs to make a connection with them to get their number before someone else does.
Another commotion up at the hospital magnetized her attention away. There were shouts, and some of the family members were upset. Kate’s mouth went dry, hoping that what she was seeing wasn’t being read right. That maybe someone had passed out in the heat, or had low blood sugar.
The man with the clip board was walking toward the congregation of networks all bunched-up like cattle in a pen. His walk was slow, like he was trying to debate how to deliver this bit of news.
Then he stopped not five feet away. "It is with great regret that I must give this news. Police have just completed their search of the entire hospital, and there are no survivors."
He let this sink in, while Kate’s eyes slipped over to Terry, still in the tent. His face falling. His mother holding him as he sobs.
Her words of hope just moments before, turning to ash in her mouth.
"What about the children? In the daycare?" The ombre haired woman said.
"They didn’t make it."
"The babies in the nursery?"
The man’s voice cracked, "No. No one survived. Not even Joleen."
There were gasps, then someone asked, "How man
y victims?"
"Twenty-seven."
"Were they dead before police arrived?"
"We are not sure, but we believe this to be the case. Please wait for a press conference to happen in two hours here at this spot. We will have more information then."
Kate turned away, feeling dizzy. She could hardly breathe.
Chapter 3
Alkin, North Carolina - April 6th
"I think I’m going to be sick!" Kate said, running toward the line of Port-A-Johns that had arrived sometime in the last hour. She barely makes it in time, throwing up what little was left of breakfast.
Giving herself a moment to collect her bearings, she wipes her mouth with a square of toilet paper, wishing for a sink with running water.
Everyone is dead; The children, the newborns, all of them. The worst of it being that the nursery had been wiped out. Then there was Joleen, about to give birth, and the twins, Luke and Duke... it was all too much.
Anger flared up like a solar outburst racing across distance and time toward the murderous teenage boys. What sort of madness is this world coming to?
She had chosen this job, the sort of career that shoved these horrendous acts into the faces of those reporting about them. In turn, she would be doing this to others- reaching out to them through their television sets- telling them to look, feel, but don’t react. Don’t take justice into their own hands.
Like the bitter tang of gun smoke, the bile rose up again, stinging her throat. She closed her eyes shedding tears, offering up a prayer for those who survived their dead loved ones. Crying would mess up her makeup, but that was alright. There would be more than enough downtime before the noon presser to do a touch-up. Better to break down now than later on camera.
It gave her chills to think of all of those dead bodies just a few hundred feet away, separated by brick and mortar and a thin plastic wall.
"You okay?" Waylon said when she joined him in the van. He was compiling the footage they’d taken since the last broadcast for Ann.
"I’m alright," Kate said, sliding into the driver's seat. She flipped down the visor mirror to apply a fresh layer of foundation. "Is it always this bad?"
"No. Sometimes it's worse."
"What could be worse than this?" Kate said, switching to mascara.
Waylon shrugged, "An entire city bombed in the name of war, women and children the only casualties."
Kate had to give him that, it was horrific by any standards. But, this is here, on American soil where people are free to have guns and live as they want, free to follow their dreams.
"We need to focus on the killers and where they got the weapons from," Kate said, putting the finishing touches on her eye makeup.
"I heard they had grenades," Waylon said, "It's what destroyed the elevator."
"Where’d you hear that from?" Kate peered over her shoulder at her camera man, taking in his serious expression, the short black hair, his dark skin glistening in the rising morning temperatures.
"I have my sources," Waylon said, spinning in the chair to face her.
"Grenades. Like, military grade?"
"They didn't say."
"Where does someone go about getting those?"
"I don’t know, maybe from an army surplus store?"
"Aren't they illegal?"
Ann joined them just then, barely having to bend over as she climbed in the van, sitting on the other side of Waylon.
"Ann, did you hear about the grenades?" Kate said.
"Yes. We’ll have to look into how they got them, won’t we?"
"We were just brainstorming about that," Kate said, not showing her irritation at Ann's tone.
"They have a tent set up with food now," Waylon said, his head out the van door. "I think I’ll go over and have a look-see."
"Alright, let me know if there is anything good," Kate said.
"Want to join me?"
"Nah, I’m not hungry right now," Kate said, her stomach still trying to settle.
"Suit yourself."
After he left, Ann seemed to fill the rest of the space. It amazed Kate how such a small person could dominate the entire work van.
Kate watched as Ann sifted through footage, occasionally making comments like, "That was good," or, "You should have pressed more."
After twenty minutes she needed fresh air, suffocated by Ann and the low-grade headache at the base of her neck. She switches over to a pair of sneakers, not caring that it looked bad with her expensive business suit that she’d shopped hours for to find just the right one for her first national broadcast. She still couldn’t believe that out of the hundreds of people who’d put in for the job, she’d was the one to get it. Dressing sharp, looking the part had been a large part of it.
As soon as she pops out of the van, she catches sight of three ambulances lined up side by side, right up against the yellow tape blocking the road. The paramedics are busily prepping for the victims, moving sheets of tarp in the slight breeze.
Kate makes a bee-line for them, curious. A woman slightly younger than her looks up, "Hi."
"Hi," Kate said, returning the smile, "What are the tarps for?"
"You're from the media?" the woman asked.
"I am," Kate said, lifting the lapel off her chest for the paramedic to see.
"Kate Miller, has a nice ring to it. I'm Nancy," the woman said, holding out a gloved hand, then realized it it was gloved and pulled back, "Sorry, I'd shake hands but..."
Kate chuckled, "No worries."
Nancy turned, sweeping her arm over the road, "These tarps are color coded for S.T.A.R.T. Triage which is something we use to deal with a mass casualty incident. That means we sort people for rapid treatment based upon their physical presentation."
"Oh," Kate said, looking over the red, yellow, green, and black, "What do the colors mean?"
"Red means that the patient needs immediate treatment. Yellow is for delayed treatment. The green tarp means minor injuries, and black means, well, deceased."
Kate's eyes settled on the black tarpaulin, suddenly she felt flushed. Even the outdoors felt claustrophobic.
Nancy has been asked to help another paramedic to unload a stretcher, and when her back is turned, Kate takes off at a jog toward the main road. The reverse direction the teens had driven with the intention of murdering twenty-seven people. Not just any people, but those bringing new life into the world in a place that should have been safe.
She reviews what she knows about the hospital. It was built in nineteen-sixty-seven and was originally an office building. Why they would need one so secluded was beyond her. It changed ownership a number of years later and a woman named Susan Anderson had donated the building to a man named Stan Wingfield who’d served as the administrator ever since. He’d made it into the hospital it is today, hiring the staff himself.
Kate noticed that the void where the media had been placed at in the beginning was now full of vehicles parked in a line on either side of the hospital driveway. Busses, fire trucks, police cars, civilian cars, catering trucks, a flatbed, what looked like a forensics mobile unit, and two additional ambulances that looked like they'd come from the next county over.
At the end of the long hospital driveway, the main road is bustling with traffic. Alkin only has about four-thousand citizens, so this seemed quite busy for such a small town. Police cruisers with lights flashing blocked the path to any outsiders.
Kate stopped at the edge, looking in the direction of the town, thinking about what must have been going through the boy’s minds. Why would they do this? Mrs. Edler had mentioned they were listening to heavy metal music which was unfortunate because now it would be highly criticized that this could be inducing violence as it had been touted as such many times before.
She began the walk back, feeling like she was missing something important. Critical to the case.
She joined the throng still milling about the taped off area just in time to see the two ambulances she'd seen parked farther down the
line, make their way up to the hospital building. They hopped the curb on the left side of the building one at a time, turning so that they could back up behind the hospital. Kate assumed that they would be taking the bodies out the back side of the building so that no one would see them and be disturbed by the scene.