by B. C. Tweedt
Greyson’s horse spun and snorted, crazy from shock; he tried in vain to rein it in. “Whoa! Good boy! Whoa! Easy buddy!” But it continued to rear up and down, up and down, panicking.
Greyson was too occupied trying not to fall off to notice the redhead jumping from the trailer.
WICK-CHAP! The whip struck the horse’s flank. Suddenly it was a wild bronco, speeding out of control into the remnants of the building. Greyson could no longer hold on as the horse kicked him from the saddle straight into the middle of the debris with a crash.
Pain shot up his back from where he had landed on corners of boards, and despair gnawed at his heart, knowing that he’d been so close to Sydney – close enough that he could see the fear in her eyes.
It had all happened so fast. What now? He lay on his back in the middle of rubble, his head spinning and his horse galloping away into a cloud of smoke.
He woozily watched its shape disappear as he propped himself up as if lounging at a beach. Even the breeze pushing at the dust particles felt like it was bringing humidity off of the ocean – perhaps a typical Iowan thunderstorm was coming this evening. But weirdest of all, he could hear the hiss of the waves coming in, licking at the sand.
Whiissssssh. Whiissssssh.
As the tractor taxi lumbered away on its path of destruction, he could listen closer. It no longer sounded like waves.
Hissssss. Hissssss.
The hisses were not in rhythm, and they were not coming from any water. They were coming from all around him. He gasped and froze like steel. The source of the hisses came to him as his eyes settled on the green and yellow sign that had collapsed in front of him.
Snakes Alive.
Chapter 20
“Are you okay?” The walkie chirped at him from where he had dropped it, several feet to his right. Slithering next to it was a scaly, twisted cobra as black as midnight. It lunged at him, hissing and exposing its dagger-like fangs. But it had only been a warning. It continued to hiss, rising up to his shoulder-level with its characteristic neck-hood at full spread.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
Greyson’s teeth chattered and his fingernails dug into a board underneath. He didn’t want to move a muscle – but doubted he could, even if he wanted to.
“Greyson! You have to get out there! There’re snakes all around you!”
Oh, really?
The cobra glared at him through its evil, slitted pupils. Greyson’s eyes could not avert from its trance even though he could hear the slithers and slides of more snakes – perhaps hundreds making their way through the wood underneath him – churning the panels and boards with their thick, rope-like bodies. They were emerging from the planks everywhere.
What do I do? What do I do? I got to do something!
He finally broke eye contact with the cobra, and ever so slowly, he inched away. But when he heard what he was inching toward, he froze again. A sharp, thin warning siren – he knew it was a rattler even though he couldn’t see it. A bite from one of those would put him down – permanently. He could feel its fangs sinking through his fragile skin and muscle, injecting its poison.
He shuddered. He was stuck on a lost island in an ocean of snakes.
“Help! Greyson!”
He snapped to attention. Sydney.
“Sydney? Sydney! Over here!”
The snakes faded from importance and he peered to his left and right. Nothing but smoke. A fire had broken out and the smoke was thicker and black. It swirled over the rubble. He glanced behind him, but Sydney was nowhere to be found.
“Sydney!”
And then came an echo. “Sydney!” A girl’s voice. A mocking voice. “Oh, Sydney!”
The redhead emerged from the smoke ahead of him, laughing – a twisted, forced laugh. “Is that your girlfriend’s name? Are you worried about her?”
A geyser of anger rose inside his heart sending a surge of energy to his limbs. He pushed himself off the boards and stood tall and defiant on his island of debris. Cracking his neck, the glare he sent her way matched the intensity of a cobra. If he had a neck-hood, it would be fully extending its warning.
Her fingers massaged the whip at her side and pulled it out of its coil, letting it snake out on the grass like one of the many snakes escaping into the grassy perimeter.
“Greyson…” came the walkie. “Remember the window at Morris?”
RedHead eyed the walkie but just smiled.
“Get ready to do it again…”
WICK-CHAP!
Her movements were so quick he hadn’t had time to process them. But she had swung the whip in the smoky air in a wide arc and snapped it - just a warning. She continued to spiral the whip like a beautiful ribbon, trailing through the smoke and around her entire body, waving high at first and then low and then out and behind and –
WICK-CHAP!
Another warning snap in the air before she brought it back to her body, contorting her torso as she spun it in figure-eights as flawless as a ballet dancer. Finally, she swung the end straight in the air and let it fall to her other hand, catching it and then slowly sliding it across her cheek, a crooked smile taunting him. She held both sides of the whip taut and bent her knees like a karate master, ready to attack.
Greyson waited for the next waft of smoke to pass before her eyes.
ZIIIIIIP!
The ball-bearing struck her forehead. She fell straight back, like a statue, her whip trailing her body to the grass. With that business taken care of, he turned to the cobra, put a ball through its head and grabbed the walkie.
Just then the rope appeared through the smoke to his left, a body length away.
“Grab on!”
The giant snake he had held crept up to his foot, its tongue darting out toward his heel.
Here goes nothing! Collapsing his weapon and slamming it and the walkie into his pack, he leapt for the rope and snagged it with both hands. With all the strength he had, he gripped the rope as it swung him to the left and the right. Thankfully, it held him as his forearms shook, holding his entire weight.
He could hear Nick’s screams from above as the rope had been tied to one side of the chair lift. Greyson’s weight had pulled one end down at a forty-five degree angle, tipping Nick into Sammy some fifty feet in the air, and getting higher. They gripped anything they could with white knuckles, watching the smoky landscape pass beneath them.
“THIS IS NOT COOOOOL!”
Greyson was swinging and twisting through the air as the rope took him higher and higher. He was now over a food hut and then Riley Stage. There were still some gunshots below and he couldn’t help but think he’d be a fun target, but no one seemed to notice or care. They were too busy shooting at each other to bother with the boy flying through the air.
“Let me down!” he shouted at the boys above.
“We can’t!” Nick shouted back, pushing against Sammy’s smooshed body to see Greyson. “We’d have to untie the rope!”
“Don’t untie the rope!”
“Wait,” Sammy said, slurping at his saliva as Nick seemed to be crushing him. “Untie the rope?”
“No! Don’t untie! Don’t untie!”
“Oh, don’t tie – untie!” Sammy smiled mischievously.
Little imp. Greyson shook his head and ignored him. He wouldn’t really do it, would he? But either way, he had to get down. And his chance was coming up.
“You could wait until we get to the end! A few more minutes!” Nick suggested.
“There’s no time!” He thought of Sydney still running. “See the RVs?”
“Yeah!” he yelled after finding them. “But they’re too far off our path!”
Greyson thrust his legs to his right and then pulled them back, watching the ground and smoke swirl underneath his feet. “Swing me! Hurry!”
Nick eyed the distance from the cables of the chair-lift to the rows of RVs.
“Ah, man!” Nick muttered as he grabbed the rope. “This is nuts!”
“Don’t touch my nuts!” Sammy screamed, grabbing at his backpack and glaring at Nick.
Nick rolled his eyes and pulled at the rope, getting in rhythm with Greyson’s swinging. They didn’t have much time. If they didn’t get enough swing, he’d never make the edge of the RVs. If he missed, he’d break his legs, his neck, or both.
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Kip had snuck to the top of the hill, constantly aware of the likelihood of an ambush. There were too many angles for him to check them all before advancing. There were windows and doors to each of the dozens of RVs within shooting distance; even the roofs and the undercarriages of the RVs could hide a potential assassin. His enemy had already shown the ability and weird creativity of hiding in a tree, there was no telling where he’d show up next.
“He has a gun!”
Another bystander spotted him and ran back into her RV. Kip ignored her. There were too many distractions now with the terror going on in the fair half a mile away. Many of the campers were out and about, watching the flames and smoke columns rise into the sky. Others gawked at the immense amount of flashing lights and sirens that had begun to descend on the fair, but had stalled on its perimeter. Though they were concerned about their loved ones in the fair, he was concerned about his loved one who had called for help.
“Help!”
There it was again, in the RV trailer to the right, precariously leveled on the top of the hill with cement blocks and thick boards. She was in there, and he had to assume that the assassin had already found her.
He peeked in the windows in the back, and checked underneath with weapon drawn, but he didn’t check closely enough. He overlooked something.
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SnakeSkin had grown impatient. It had been several minutes since he’d gotten word that one of their targets had escaped. He was needed back in the fair. But he had wanted to do one more thing before he left, and this FBI Agent had been too slow. It was wise to be slow – but not wise enough to spot the small charges he had placed on the RV’s support beams.
SnakeSkin had wanted to wait until it had gotten inside with the weak woman, but at this pace he’d have to wait another two minutes. He’d be late for the other party already taking place without him.
So instead of waiting, he curled his crusty lips in a sneer and squeezed the detonator.
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Greyson was swinging wildly; he missed a tree by a foot going backwards, smashing through its leaves, and then careened forward at a speed he could only achieve with the help of the boys above.
The wind whipped at his eyes, but his instincts took over. His fingers and forearms were burning, begging to let go. And he did.
For a long moment, a silent world engulfed him as he seemed to hang in the air. He didn’t flail, but the air pushed at his shirt and shorts, rippling them over his suspended body. His momentum carried him on a perfect trajectory, but without enough speed.
Greyson braced for impact.
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Kip never really heard the explosives go off. The sound instantly blasted his eardrums so that they rang in a high-pitched whine as shards of cement smacked the RV behind him. He squinted through the smoke only to see the RV with Gloria in it tipping toward him. The whole massive vehicle was collapsing on him, sending its shadow over his surprised face.
He didn’t have much time to react. Out of instinct, he dove under the RV behind him just as the one tipping smashed into its side. With a sickening crunch of glass and metal, the next RV slid free from its support beams. Suddenly the RV that was protecting him from five tons of aluminum began to tip away from him, down the steep hill.
They were going to fall like dominoes.
Readying himself against the dirt, Kip waited for just the right moment. The creaking and groaning of metal screeched to a crescendo, and the moment came. Kip scrambled to his feet and vaulted toward the toppling second RV just as the first crushed the ground where he had been and continued its roll down the hill.
He grabbed at the second RV’s undercarriage and snagged a pipe. Its momentum launched him up as it continued its accelerating roll. As the underside became the topside, he managed to find a foothold, standing on top of it. For a moment he felt a wave of satisfaction, but the moment passed too soon. The second RV continued its path, sending him sprawling toward the third RV further down the hill as the next domino took the colossal impact.
Kip’s body slammed into the top of the third RV as it began to tip as well. His hands grasped at the metal, but it was too smooth. He was being tipped toward the fourth RV, but he’d fall in the gap right between them.
With adrenaline flowing, he forced his legs beyond his normal flexibility and pressed into the roof with both feet, springing himself toward the fourth RV’s roof. He smacked into its side, his feet bursting through a window, but his torso found the top. Pushing himself up with a laborious grunt, he finally stood on a stable roof. But the crashing hadn’t stopped. The dominoes were falling faster behind him, and now there were three of them.
He jumped the gap to the fifth as the fourth crunched and rolled. Then the sixth and the seventh, leaping again and again as the metal monsters wreaked havoc behind him, sending glass shards and sparks into the plumes of dust that trailed the avalanche of RVs.
Finally, when his knees were about to give out, he felt he had enough distance to jolt sideways. He sprinted along the roof, watching the dominoes behind, and jumped to safety in the dirt road as the eighth and ninth RVs crashed into the bathhouse with a magnificent explosion of wood and metal.
Kip took a few breaths to recollect himself, trying not to dwell on the near-death experience, but to think ahead – at the edge of present and the future. And then it suddenly came to him.
“Gloria!”
He burst toward the wreckage, hoping for a miracle.
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Greyson held his breath as his feet neared the roof and then SMACK! His heels just caught the lip of the RV’s roof, and the rest of his body continued onward, carrying his flailing body toward the hard metal. He tucked his shoulder in a side roll, slapping his hands and knees against the metal until he finally came to a stop.
“Yes!” Nick pumped his fist in the air, collecting himself after the chair had jostled back to its original position.
Greyson huffed out a sigh of relief and pushed himself to his feet on the RV’s roof. “Come back around!” he shouted to the boys who would be approaching the end of the ride. “I’m going to need you again!”
Greyson peered back over the fairgrounds and his eyes stuck on the giant American flag on Expo Hill. Still tall and proud, it acted as if it was unaffected by what was happening below. And past the towering wind turbine and through the smoke it was churning into circular shapes, he could see the faint outlines of the campgrounds. For a moment he let his mind wander. Is Mom okay? Is Kip still with her?
Cascading smoke forced his eyes from the campgrounds to its source. Fires were still blazing and battles still being fought. Had Sam and Sydney escaped? Can they still be saved?
He had to get back in there.
“I need transportation!” he shouted in the walkie. “Do you see something?”
“Uh…besides what you’re standing on?”
Greyson looked down at his feet and smiled. He jumped down and ran to the front of the motorhome. As he swung open the door, he was greeted with shrill screams.
He startled backward. Three women and a man were huddled together, frightened. They stared at him with pleading eyes, the women sniffling and gasping for air. The man held the nearest one, protecting her.
“Sorry,” Greyson said. “Does this thing have keys?”
The man shook his head. “Hurry. Get in. Hide.”
“Hide? I…I can’t. Just keep down. They’re not after you.”
The man scrunched his brow, confused at the sight of the brave kid.
“Do you know where the keys are?” he asked again.<
br />
“N-no. They’re probably with the sellers. They have a tent in here somewhere.”
Greyson nodded. “Thanks.” He eyed the women staring at him from behind the seats and thought of his mother. “You’ll be okay.”
He closed the door on them slowly and ran through the narrow aisles between RVs and motor homes, looking for the seller’s tent or another motor home. He wasn’t the only one running around in here. Some were panicked, lost. Others were hiding in every nook and cranny, jumping at every sound. He found another motor home, but the door was locked. So was another, and he was already getting disoriented in the valleys of tall campers. He smacked one’s side panel out of frustration.
Perhaps he could find something else. Maybe one of the golf carts buzzing around. Or the pick-up truck he’d seen being raffled off. Like he had told Jarryd, he just needed something - anything!
“Greyson?” the walkie blurted. “Go back. To other side. I found you something you might like.”
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Jarryd woke up in a smoky haze. One moment he’d been heading to the animal barn, the next he’d been sent flying through the air, skidding on the cement at high speed toward the wall until…
And now he woke up. His head ached fiercely and he rubbed at it with sore hands. He looked at his hands and frowned at the long scratches. His entire body hurt as he rolled on his back with a pained sigh.
He tenderly checked all his parts. The important ones were all there and seemed to be functioning. But he could barely hear, and his eyes burned when he opened them.
That was rough. How long have I been out? He rolled his head to one side and squinted into the smoky streets. There were several motionless bodies amongst fiery boards and other debris. Many other people were running around – fathers pulling at kids’ arms, mothers pushing strollers as if in a race, and policemen with guns drawn, trying to direct people to safe places. It was as if he had suddenly entered the ruins of a war-torn city. And he was a casualty.
Ughhh.
He rolled to the side and then to his knees. He stayed on all fours for a minute, letting his rolling head steady. Beyond dizzy, he really didn’t want to stand. Hundreds of thoughts and questions jumped in his mind. What’s left of the fair? Are my friends alive? Is Nick alive? Why didn’t the bombs kill me? When would the ambulances come? What should I do? And suddenly it clicked. He might not know anything else about what was going on, but he did know this – he had to find Greyson transportation. It was his mission. Anything would work, but a horse – a horse would be perfect.