One Breath Away

by Heather Gudenkauf

  An anxiety-filled whisper greets me as I begin my ascent. “Is it safe?”

  I spin around, gun in hand, and instinctively raise it, then aim the beam of my flashlight at the source of the sound. It’s a young woman, her head poking out from a classroom door. “Police,” I order. “Don’t move.” She freezes, but relief floods her face. “Go back into the classroom,” I say, “and lock the door. Keep the lights off. This will all be over soon.”

  “My name is Jessica Bliss, a first-grade teacher,” she says in a rush. “Please tell my husband I love him.”

  “You’ll be able to tell him yourself,” I say gently, wondering if I will ever be able to say those words to anyone ever again.

  Chapter 91:

  Augie

  It is pitch-black in the closet so I use the backlight from one of the cell phones I grabbed off the floor after they fell out of the man’s pocket to see. My hands are shaking as I try to remember my mother’s number. All I want to do is hear her voice. I want to tell her how sorry I am about the fire, how everything was my fault.

  I manage to dial my mother’s cell phone number and the ring vibrates in my ear as I wait for her to answer her phone. “Hello?” Finally, I hear her voice, tired and small.

  “Mom,” I say, gasping for air as if my lungs are still filled with the smoke.

  Chapter 92:

  Holly

  I’m in that lovely space between consciousness and sleep. I feel no pain thanks to the morphine pump and I can almost believe that the muscles, tendons and skin of my left arm have knitted themselves back together, leaving my skin smooth and pale. My curly brown hair once again falls softly down my back, my favorite earrings dangle from my ears and I can lift both sides of my mouth in a wide smile without much pain at the thought of my children. Yes, drugs are a wonderful thing. But the problem is that while the carefully prescribed and doled-out narcotics by the nurses wonderfully dull the edges of this nightmare, I know that soon enough this woozy, pleasant feeling will fall away and all that I will be left with is pain and the knowledge that Augie and P.J. are thousands of miles away from me. Sent away to the place where I grew up, the town I swore I would never return to, the house I swore I would never again step into, to the man I never wanted them to meet.

  The tinny melody of the ringtone that Augie, my thirteen-year-old daughter, programmed into my cell phone is pulling me from my sleep. I open one eye, the one that isn’t covered with a thick ointment and crusted shut, and call out for my mother, who must have stepped out of the room. I reach for the phone that is sitting on the tray table at the side of my bed and the nerve endings in my bandaged left arm scream in protest at the movement. I carefully shift my body to pick up the phone with my good hand and press the phone to my remaining ear.

  “Hello.” The word comes out half-formed, breathless and scratchy, as if my lungs were still filled with smoke.

  “Mom?” Augie’s voice is quavery, unsure. Not sounding like my daughter at all. Augie is confident, smart, a take-charge, no one is ever going to walk all over me kind of girl.

  “Augie? What’s the matter?” I try to blink the fuzziness of the morphine away; my tongue is dry and sticks to the roof of my mouth. I want to take a sip of water from the glass sitting on my tray, but my one working hand holds the phone. The other lies useless at my side. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

  There are a few seconds of quiet and then Augie continues. “I love you, Mom,” she says in a whisper that ends in quiet sobs.

  I sit up straight in my bed, wide awake now. Pain shoots through my bandaged arm and up the side of my neck and face. “Augie, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m at the school.” She is crying in that way she has when she is doing her damnedest not to. I can picture her, head down, her long brown hair falling around her face, her eyes squeezed shut in determination to keep the tears from falling, her breath filling my ear with short, shallow puffs. “He has a gun. He has P.J. and he has a gun.”

  “Who has P.J.?” Terror clutches at my chest. “Tell me, Augie, where are you? Who has a gun?”

  “I’m in a closet. He put me in a closet.”

  My mind is spinning. Who could be doing this? Who would do this to my children? “Hang up,” I tell her. “Hang up and call 9-1-1 right now, Augie. Then call me back. Can you do that?” I hear her sniffles. “Augie,” I say again, more sharply. “Can you do that?”

  “Yeah,” she finally says. “I love you, Mom,” she says softly.

  “I love you, too.” My eyes fill with tears and I can feel the moisture pool beneath the bandages that cover my injured eye.

  I wait for Augie to disconnect when I hear three quick shots, followed by two more and Augie’s piercing screams.

  I feel the bandages that cover the left side of my face peel away, my own screams loosening the adhesive holding them in place; I feel the fragile, newly grafted skin begin to unravel. I am scarcely aware of the nurses and my mother rushing to my side, prying the phone from my grasp.

  Chapter 93:

  Will

  After the highway patrol, the wrecker and the EMTs left, Will was free to go. He couldn’t stand the thought of returning to his own home, not until his grandchildren were safely by his side, so he drove his pickup back to Lonnie’s. The snow had stopped and the roads were much better, but when he arrived Verna was nowhere to be found and the officer stationed at the café told him that he didn’t know if she had been notified about her son-in-law’s suicide. Though it will probably be little consolation to her, Will imagined that Verna and her family would prefer this outcome to Ray being the perpetrator in the school. Now he found himself once again sitting at a scarred, sticky table, drinking coffee, trying to pass the time. Shaken from the day’s events, he stared at the newspaper opened in front of him but he wasn’t able to concentrate.

  There was the rumble of tires and all eyes snapped to the window. Another school bus was pulling up in front of the café. “There are more kids!” someone shouted, and there was the familiar rush to the door to greet the children. He was pushing back his chair to join the group when his phone vibrated. It was Marlys. He knew he should answer it, but he wanted to see if Augie and P.J. were on this bus. He wanted more than anything to give Marlys the joyous news of her grandchildren’s safe return. His phone stilled and he joined the crowd at the window. His heart leaped when he saw Beth and Natalie Cragg step out of the bus and he searched each face for P.J. and Augie, but they were not among the children. In frustration, he elbowed his way toward Beth and Natalie in hopes of getting some information. He also didn’t want them to hear about the death of their father from anyone but Darlene or Verna.

  “Beth, Natalie,” he called out to them, and their eyes brightened upon seeing a familiar face.

  “Mr. Thwaite,” Beth cried, running toward him clutching her little sister’s hand. “Have you seen my mom or dad?”

  Will shook his head, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to reveal too much. “Your grandma was here earlier. You stay here with me and we’ll wait until she comes back. She knows this is where the kids are being dropped off.” Will guided them back to his table. “Have you seen P.J. and Augie?” Will asked, not able to hold the question in any longer.

  Beth and Natalie both nodded. “He still has them. In the classroom.” Beth can’t look at Will and began to cry. Natalie wrapped her arms around her sister and buried her face into her stomach.

  The room tilted precariously and Will grabbed a chair to steady himself. “Are they okay?” he asked, feeling the blood rush from his face.

  “I don’t know.” Beth shook her head and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “He let everyone go but a few kids. He said something about waiting for someone to come to him, then he would let them go.”

  “He hit Mrs. Oliver,” Natalie said tremulously. “He made Lucy go into a clo
set.”

  Will looked around in hopes of catching Officer Braun’s attention. Another child was animatedly talking to him and Will realized it could take a while before he got to interviewing the Cragg children. “Sit down and we’ll get you something to eat.” Will raised a finger and a waitress came over. “Order whatever you want, and I’ll try and call your grandma.” Will stepped away from the table and found a somewhat quiet corner of the café where he could make his call while still keep an eye on the kids. Verna’s cell phone went right to voice mail and Will left a brief message. “Verna, it’s Will Thwaite. Beth and Natalie are at Lonnie’s. They are safe. They don’t know anything about what has happened at their father’s home. Call me back.”

  Will weaved unsteadily in and out between those families who had been reunited and those who still anxiously awaited news of their children, and sat down next to the Cragg girls. The waitress had brought the girls cups of hot chocolate and Natalie was blowing away the curling steam that rose above the mug. Beth slouched in her chair, staring sightlessly out the window. “You doing okay?” Will asked as he sat down. The girls nodded silently. “Did you know the man who came into the classroom? Have you seen him before? Can you describe him?” he said, leaning in so close to Natalie that he could count the freckles on her nose. Natalie cringed and Beth narrowed her eyes, placing a protective arm around her sister. Will pulled back, seeing how his barrage of questions had overwhelmed them. “I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “I’m just so worried about Augie and P.J.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Natalie took tiny sips of her hot chocolate; Beth nibbled at the French fries Lonnie brought over to the table. “He was tall,” Beth finally said. “With brownish hair. I’ve never seen him before.” She swallowed hard and glanced at her sister. “I was just so happy it wasn’t my dad that I didn’t take a good look at him.” Will busied himself with stirring a packet of sugar into his already cold coffee. He couldn’t bear to look at them. In a matter of hours, maybe minutes, they would learn that their father didn’t have the strength or the foresight or whatever one might call it to stay in this world for them.

  “He had on brown pants,” Natalie remembered, “and nice shoes.”

  “Well, when Officer Braun has a minute, you can tell him all of this. I know it will be very helpful.” Will wanted to leave. He wanted to drive over to the school, crash through the barriers that had been set up to keep traffic away and pound on the RV where Chief McKinney was sitting and waiting. Waiting for what? he wondered. For someone to get shot? He couldn’t leave the Cragg girls, though, not until Verna or Darlene got here. He looked around for Lonnie in hopes that he could replace his tepid coffee for a fresh cup, when he saw Natalie staring down at the newspaper that had been tossed carelessly aside when the bus arrived.

  “What is it?” Will asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s him,” Natalie said in excitement. “That’s the man.” Will followed the path of her small, slender finger tipped with bright blue nail polish to the newspaper and the black-and-white photo of a smartly dressed man with intense eyes and a hint of a smile.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded solemnly. “I’m sure.

  Chapter 94:

  Mrs. Oliver

  Mrs. Oliver, as much as she has tried to, couldn’t see this unfortunate situation ending well. The man with the gun had a manic gleam in his eye and had been muttering to himself, every once in a while saying, “It’s almost over now.”

  Her jaw was throbbing and two children were locked in the supply closet, and the three remaining children were terrified, so much so that Charlotte had vomited in the trash can. Mrs. Oliver had always been a woman of action. She had given birth to her first child while in teacher’s college, had three more children within a matter of six years, could change a flat tire, had once chased down a group of teenagers on skateboards that had knocked over old Mr. Figg outside the grocery store. She most certainly should have been able to handle this deranged interloper, but somehow couldn’t. Don’t do it, she could hear Cal whispering in her ear. He has a gun, Evelyn. For once go with the flow.

  Mrs. Oliver, most definitely, was not a flow-goer. By her calculations, she had one last chance to make things okay. She inched slowly toward her desk, the man being preoccupied with his cell phone once again, nervously tapping his foot and rubbing at his forehead. Evelyn, she heard Cal’s exasperated voice as her fingers reached for the stapler. It wasn’t the cheap plastic kind that cost $8.95 in the school supply catalog the teachers ordered from each year. This stapler was a heavy-duty MegaSnap industrial all-metal stapler circa 1972 that Mrs. Oliver had specially ordered. Her hand wrapped around the cool metal throat of the stapler, dithered for just a second before she heaved it at the man. She watched with self-satisfaction at the surprising strength of her sixty-five-year-old arm as it sailed through the air. If he had looked up a fraction of a second later, the man would have most certainly been felled by the stapler. Mrs. Oliver could almost hear her students twenty years later: Yes, a stapler. She overtook the man with a stapler, can you imagine? Well, they wouldn’t have to. The man did look up, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the stapler winging toward him and with no hesitation raised his gun and pulled the trigger three times, striking the wall closest to the closet door. Mrs. Oliver moaned at the sight of the damaged wall, terrified at the thought of how close the bullets came to hitting Lucy and Augie. The man glowered at Mrs. Oliver and with one swift punch struck her in the chest, knocking her to the ground.

  “Don’t make me kill you,” the man growled, pointing the gun at her head.

  Chapter 95:

  Meg

  I hear the unmistakable sound of gunfire from above me. “Shit,” I mutter, and scramble up the steps. I thumb the mic at my collar. “We’ve got shots fired. Repeat, shots fired.”

  There is a crackle of static and Chief McKinney’s voice is in my ear. “We’ll be right there as soon as we can. Stay put, backup is on the way. And, Meg,” the chief says in a rush, “it’s not Tim in there.”

  I hesitate, my head is reeling. While I knew deep down that Tim couldn’t be the man, I can’t wrap my head around who could be summoning me to the classroom and needing a room full of hostages to get me there. I want to ask how he knows this, where Tim has been all this time, but there’s no time. “Ten-four,” I respond, knowing that I should stop and wait for reinforcements, but I continue upward. It must be my brother. Son of a bitch. All I can think of are those poor children and their teacher in that classroom. Despite the bitter cold outside, sweat trickles down my back and I wipe a bead of perspiration from my forehead. My breath comes in uneven hitches, and I focus on inhaling and exhaling in smooth, even streams. I move in long strides, peering in classroom windows as I pass.

  This wing of the school seems deserted and I know Mrs. Oliver’s class is the last room on the left. I hear a child’s inconsolable crying as I move closer. It’s the sound of great fear, terror, but not of pain. This particular child, at least, isn’t hurt physically. I pause twenty yards from the classroom, press my back against the wall and look back in the direction I came from, sorely missing the comfort of backup. I should wait for the tac team, but press forward.

  “I’m here!” I call out. My voice sounds too high, too unsure. “Is everything all right? I thought I heard gunfire.” There’s no response. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “No,” bellows a male voice. I don’t recognize the speaker. I want to try and keep him talking, see if I can figure out who he is before I step into that room.

  “I’m here, just like you asked. How many are in there with you?”

  No answer.

  “Listen,” I say, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. “I want to talk to you, but I need to know you aren’t going to shoot me the second I come in.”

  Again sile
nce. Then a child’s voice. “There are three kids and a teacher in the room. And the man. No one is shot. It was an accident.”

  I radio Chief McKinney. “False alarm, stand by.” And then to the man in the classroom, I say, “Okay, I’m going to walk in the room now. I’m alone and unarmed,” I lie as I slide my firearm into the shoulder holster hidden beneath my jacket and glance over my shoulder at the dark, empty hallway. Thinking of Maria and wishing I had the opportunity to talk to her one more time today, I take a deep breath, square my shoulders and step confidently into the doorway.

  Chapter 96:

  Will

  Will was still examining the picture of the man in the newspaper, the man Natalie insisted was the gunman, when once again his phone buzzed.

  “Yeah,” he said absentmindedly, trying to recall where he had seen the man before. The name beneath the photo didn’t ring a bell.

  “Will.” Marlys’s frantic voice assaulted his ears.

  “Marlys? What is it? Is Holly okay?” Will asked.

  “What’s going on there? Holly talked to Augie, said there were gunshots.” Will had to concentrate to understand his wife. He couldn’t make sense of her words. Holly, Augie, gunshots? “She’s hysterical,” Marlys said, not too far from hysteria herself. “The doctors had to sedate her. Will, what’s happening?”

  Will didn’t know what to say. He looked up and saw Officer Braun also talking on the phone. Their eyes met; Braun looked at Will with a mixture of pity and resignation and began walking toward him. In that instance Will knew that what Marlys was telling him was the truth. “I’ll find out what’s happening and call you back,” Will told his wife weakly, and then disconnected.