by Chris Jordan
Not knowing is killing me. It feels as if icy fingers are clawing at my insides. The way it did when they told me Jed’s plane was down with no survivors. An end-of-the-world sensation, as though I’m falling and falling and it will never stop. The vertigo makes me so dizzy I have to sit down on the grass and cry until my eyes are blind with tears.
Noah, Noah, Noah. I know he’s in there with all the other children, with his teachers and maybe even the principal, but in my head he’s all alone.
9. An Angry Blur
Whatever the cops know, they’re not sharing it with us. Not beyond “man with a gun in the gym.”
Most of what I learn is secondhand at best. An uncertainty that somehow adds to the fear. For example, Megan Frolich had her iPhone seized by the state troopers, with vague promises of getting it back once the images have been downloaded. So we have to rely on what she recalls of the pictures and the accompanying text message from her eleven-year-old daughter.
“I know what she was trying to say,” she insists, her normally pretty eyes looking like overinflated pink balloons. “Bd, that’s ‘bad’ and m-n, that’s ‘man’-s-t has to be ‘shot’ and c-o-p is ‘cop,’ that’s obvious. ‘Bad man shot cop.’ Then c-a-n-t and then m-v, must be ‘can’t move,’ right? And A-f-r-d is ‘afraid.’ I know it is! She repeated it three times. Afraid, afraid, afraid. Bad man shot cop. Can’t move. Afraid, afraid, afraid.”
The accompanying image, as Meg remembers it, is a slightly blurred snapshot of the gymnasium floor, as seen from the stands. On the gym floor is what appears to be a blue plastic tarp. Not lying flat, but jumbled, covering something. And in proximity to the mysterious blue tarp-that very disturbing blue rectangle-Meg recalls a young man who looked, she says, vaguely familiar. Someone local maybe. Meg hadn’t actually seen a gun in the man’s possession-only part of him was on-screen-but she formed the impression he was agitated.
“It was the way he blurred,” she says, trying desperately to grasp whatever meaning had been imbedded in the image. “An angry blur, does that make sense?”
We all agree that it makes perfect sense. An angry blur, a frightened girl. Afraid, afraid, afraid. We’re all afraid, frightened out of our wits, and the sense of anxious dread exuding from the cops-state, local, and county-doesn’t do anything to allay our fears.
We’re waiting, all of us, cops and parents, for whatever comes next. Wrestling with the awful notion that the world as we know it, our little patch of it, may be coming to an end. That from this moment on our lives will be altered. Unbearable. I’m gritting my teeth so hard my jaw aches. All around me desperate parents are calling family and friends, and it occurs to me, with a body-wrenching pang of sorrow, that I have no one to call. Jed is gone. I have no siblings. My mom died in her late fifties of breast cancer. My father, twelve years her senior, passed a year later. My old New Jersey homies have no idea where I am these days and I have to keep it that way. And my new, local friends already know about the situation at the school because by now the whole village has heard about it. Indeed most of the population seems to be on-site, milling around the parking lot and athletic field in a state of shock and anxiety.
This can’t be happening. Bad things happen to good people, I know that, but do bad things keep happening? Isn’t it enough to lose a husband so young? What will I do if something happens to my precious boy?
I somehow force my eyes to focus on the school. Noah’s school. It looks so peaceful. A cheerful little elementary school, carefully constructed of cinder block and brick to keep our children safe. A typical, totally normal public school found anywhere in suburban or small-town America. The main building is one story with a flat roof and plenty of glass to make the classrooms airy and filled with light. The boxy, windowless gymnasium at one end, higher than the rest of the building.
The gymnasium is where the bad thing is happening. Men in various uniforms swarm around the base of the gym. A wiry, long-limbed deputy from the county sheriff’s department begins scaling the wall, inching up a drainpipe like a black spider. As he hunches and turns I catch the white letters emblazoned on his padded vest.
SWAT.
Oh my god.
“Haley?”
It’s my librarian friend Helen, crouching in the grass, reaching out to touch my tear-soaked chin, a look of sorrow and concern on her open face. Next thing, we’re hugging and it’s all I can do not to call her ‘mom,’ the sense of maternal concern is that strong.
“Easy now,” she says, trying to comfort me. “They’ll get them out. It will be okay, you’ll see.”
“You think?” I respond, trying to smile.
“I heard it was Roland Penny. He’s harmless, Haley. Roland would never hurt the children.”
“Who?”
“Roland Penny. Kids used to call him ‘roll of pennies.’ Local boy. The cops have pictures from inside. Cell phone images. They recognize him.”
I want to believe her, that everything will be okay, but something in me can’t. Something in me expects the worst.
“Someone got shot,” I say. “That’s what we heard.”
Helen nods. “They think it was poor Leo Gannett. He’s been chief for years and he’s got a long history with Roland Penny, from when Roland was a kid.”
Just listening to her, my heart starts to slow, approaching something like normal. “How do you know all this?”
Helen smiles, her eyes crinkling with affection. “My sister’s boy, Thomas. He’s with the State Police Emergency Response Team. That’s him over there by the ambulance. Isn’t he a handsome boy? Listen to me, Haley. They’ve got it under control. They know who they’re dealing with. That’s what Thomas says and I believe him.”
“They’re going to start shooting, aren’t they?”
More men with SWAT lettered on their backs, a whole team armed with deadly looking rifles is assembling near one of the emergency exit doors.
“Not unless they have to,” Helen assures me. “They know about all the children, Haley. They won’t risk hurting the kids.”
“What does he want, this crazy man? What does he want?”
Helen shakes her head and sighs.
10. Can You Help Me Occupate My Brain?
Nobody warned him about the smell. Pack a hundred and fifty little kids in a gymnasium, scare the pee out of them, and you get these nasty, eye-watering fumes. Roland has been to the old Yankee Stadium exactly once in his life, on a church-sponsored outing for troubled youths, and the stadium lavatories smelled a lot like this, overflowing with urine and puked-up beer. No beer stink today, so it could be worse. And if the little brats are weeping and wailing-and many of them are-he can’t hear a thing, thanks to the Black Sabbath tracks bruising his eardrums. Turns out to be a good idea, the iPod, providing a useful soundtrack to events that have been ever so carefully orchestrated. Helps him concentrate. Leave the earth to Satan and his knaves. Yeah. Go Ozzy.
As to the plan, so carefully conceived by The Voice, so far so good. The essential action, taking out the cue-ball cop, had proved even easier than Roland had imagined. He’s destroyed the man thousands of times in his imagination, sometimes roasting him alive, but this had been as simple as raising the weapon and applying the slightest pressure on the customized trigger. What with the music pumping through his earbuds, he never even heard the pop. And old cue ball went down like a puppet with cut strings. Roland was expecting him to be blown backward, like in the movies, but the reality was he simply dropped where he stood, dead before he hit the floor.
True, there was a disturbing amount of blood, but Roland managed not to obsess on that, and whipped the blue tarp out of his handy little cart, covering both the body and the blood, exactly as he had been instructed. Out of sight, out of mind. Besides, it felt really good, knowing his old nemesis was no longer in the world. And when he saw the stricken looks of shock and horror coming from all those little faces in the stands, and the teachers recoiling in fear, man, he got pumped. What I’m talkin’ about
, dude! Carpe diem like the book said. Seize the day. Make it your own. Establish who you are and what you desire. Ignore all contrary voices, tune them out, find your inner voice and concentrate on what you want. Visualize it. Make it so.
And he’d done it, he’d made it so. Told the stubby little principal to take the chains and padlocks he’d provided. She had followed his command, chained the exit doors, and then when a glimpse of defiance flashed in her beady little eyes, he promptly cuffed her with the late cue ball’s own official cop cuffs and commanded that she sit down, shut up, or get tarped. After that she was compliant, didn’t have the courage to look him in the eye.
“Listen up, toadstools! Anybody moves, I open fire, okay? And when the clip is empty, I detonate the bomb! Did I mention the bomb? No? Well, I got a bomb. And it’s really cool. Fifty pounds of C-4, which is enough to turn you all into jelly beans!”
Roland is unaware that with the music blasting, he’s shouting in a way that makes him sound like a raving madman. A babbling, out-of-control psycho. But that makes him all the more effective. None of his captives doubt that he will kill again at the slightest provocation.
“So stay in your seats!” he shouts. “Don’t move! You want to use your phones, make a few calls, go ahead! Let ’ em know I got it under control!”
He raises his other hand, showing off the Sony TV remote he has cleverly modified, guided by The Voice. “See this! It’s a detonator! Tell all your friends! Press this button, we all go boom!”
Roland and The Voice had debated the cell phone issue when the plan was being formulated. At first Roland thought he should confiscate all the phones, take control of communication, but The Voice reminded him how difficult that might be. Many of the teachers would have cells, a lot of the kids might have them stashed, and texting made it easy to send messages without being obvious. One man couldn’t search all those kids and teachers, not by himself, and the whole purpose of the plan was that he do it alone, his own personal one-man show. Thus proving that he was ready to move on to the next level.
So the idea was, embrace the captives’ ability to communicate with the outside world. No need for Roland to use his own cell, or share his own identifying vocal patterns with the authorities. Let little Kelly or Timmy make the call. That way he can concentrate on managing the situation, not get distracted by some dippy hostage negotiator. Excuse me, Mr. Penny, would you kindly step into our telescopic sights? No way. The Voice was right. Let the communication flow. Concentrate on the plan. Execute.
And whatever you do, don’t look at the tarp, or what seems to be flowing out from under it.
“People think I’m insane because I’m drowning all the time!” he shouts, unaware that he’s singing along with the heavy-metal lyrics pounding into his head. “Can you help me occupate my brain?” he screams. “Oh yeah!”
He’s right. Everybody in the gymnasium, students and teachers, and staff, they all think he’s totally insane.
11. The Calculus Of Heaven
Noah is pretty sure what it means to be turned into jelly beans. That’s what happens when a bomb goes off. You get blown into pieces no bigger than jelly beans. Not that he intends to explain it to the other kids, many of whom are confused about what the crazy bad man said. Jelly beans? Is the bad man going to give us candy?
Noah is not even slightly confused by what has happened. He gets it. He understands that none of this is pretend. The bad man is not a funny clown; he’s a killer. It’s all very real. The bad man really shot the white-gloved policeman and then quickly covered the body with a blue tarp. The bad man made Mrs. K lock the exit doors, weaving bright new chains through the push bars. The bad man keeps waving his ugly black gun, alternating between making threats and singing along with his stupid iPod.
One other thing Noah understands. The crazy bad man is getting worse, more crazy. He’s shouting things about Satan being inside his brain. He’s raging about cell phones, and the importance of letting the whole world know what’s going on, and some of the other kids are madly texting, as if the act of communicating what the bad man says will save them. Noah isn’t so sure about that. He thinks the bad man might really do it. He might press the button and turn them all into sticky red jelly beans. Then all of them would go to heaven-or not-Noah hasn’t decided yet about heaven, whether it really exists or whether it’s like Santa Claus, to make people feel better. He likes to think of his father as being in heaven, but if his dad was really in a place like that, wouldn’t he find some way to let his son know? Unless there are rules, and Noah supposes there might be, rules about not talking to those left behind. Rules as complicated and hard as calculus. He knows calculus exists because Mrs. Delancey has a book about it in her desk and Noah sneaked a look, and to his surprise could not immediately understand the contents. Whatever it is, calculus is more than arithmetic, more than algebra, more than geometry-it’s all of them mashed together, making something completely different, but at the same time tantalizingly familiar. Differentials? What are those? The formulas and symbols looked intriguing, as if they might contain all the answers about everything there is to know, including whether heaven really exists.
More than anything else, Noah wants to live long enough to understand calculus, and have his mom read him a bedtime story, and get up and have breakfast, and go to school as if nothing bad had ever happened. So he’s thinking really hard about what to do. How to get away without being turned into jelly beans, or doing something that will turn Mrs. Delancey into jelly beans.
Meanwhile the bad man rages at them.
“I see a black moon rising and it’s calling out my name!” he shouts, bobbing his head and pretending to strum an air guitar like on Guitar Hero. Then the bad man seems to correct himself, like a funny skip on a DVD. “Text the world, I want to get off! They’ll be coming round the mountain, boys and girls!” Then, shouting so loud he spits: “Don’t move! I swear to the prophet, I WILL BLOW THIS BITCH!”
Now he’s waving around the detonator button, pointing at it with his gun as he grins, showing all of his small yellow teeth. He holds the pose for a few beats, as if he knows that his picture is being captured on cells.
“Noah?”
Somehow Mrs. Delancey has slipped along the bench and is beside him, a comforting presence, a still point in the chaos of fear and confusion that radiates from everybody in the gym, including the bad man. She pitches her voice for him alone, her mouth a mere inch from his ear. “I want you to go and hide,” she whispers. “Hide in the air duct, Noah, like you did before. Can you do that for me?”
“I’m scared to move.”
She hugs him. At this moment, in this place, she smells like home. Like flowers and bread and home. And so he doesn’t want to leave her side. Doesn’t want to risk doing something wrong. Something that will make the bad man press his crazy button and send them all to heaven.
“Listen to me, Noah,” Mrs. Delancey says in her beautiful, lilting voice. “He’s not focused on anything but himself. All you have to do, slip down through the space between the benches, like you did before. He won’t be able to see you. Hide, Noah, please? For me? Hide in the air ducts, okay? I’ll come to find you when all this is over.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. Now go.”
As the bad man raises his fist, shaking the detonator and screaming something about children of the grave, Noah slips under the bench, through the narrow gap, into the stands. Into the familiar geometry of the supports and trusses that hold up the benches. The last time he did this, slipped away into the space under the stands during an assembly, he got in a lot of trouble. Mrs. K was really upset with him then, told him he might have been injured and nobody would have known where to look for him. Noah thought it was pretty funny, the way he’d run along under the benches, tugging at dangling feet to make the girls giggle and shriek. Mrs. K didn’t think it was funny at all and his mom had to come to the school and take him home. But that was last year. Things were different l
ast year. He was younger then and he didn’t have Mrs. Delancey. Mrs. Delancey who understands him, and wants to save him.
Hiding in the air ducts sounds like a really good idea. It will be snug and cozy in there. Noah discovered the attractions of the ducts last year, when he brought an adjustable screwdriver to school, removed a metal grate, and then shinnied around on his tummy, just as he’d seen in the movies, where air ducts were often a means of secret escape. The big difference was that the ducts at school were way too small for anybody even slightly larger than he was-Matt Damon wouldn’t ever fit, no way!-and they didn’t really go much of anywhere useful. Retreat a few feet and you ran into a fan, baffle, or filter system. So basically they were good for hiding in the classroom and making spooky echo noises to amuse your classmates. This is the booger monster and I’m coming to get you ooh ooh ooh! Even Mrs. K couldn’t keep a straight face when she marched him to the office. Booger monster? she had said, breaking up. Where do you get this stuff?
What Noah knew from his previous experience, and what Mrs. Delancey obviously knew, as well-there were a couple of fairly large duct openings under the stands. Part of the circulation system for the sock-smelling gym. He hadn’t attempted to access the ducts at the time-it was too much fun tugging on dangling feet-but once he climbs down to the floor beneath the stands-there’s pee dripping down from the benches, ick!-he makes a beeline for the wall, locates one of the ducts.
The duct is, like all the others, covered by a metal grate. The problem is, he no longer carries the adjustable screwdriver. Because of his previous ‘behavioral problems,’ the screwdriver set has been forbidden. Too much like a weapon, they said. He might poke out somebody’s eye. To which his mom had said all he needs for that is a pencil. Wrong answer. For a whole week they didn’t let him have pencils and he had to fill in the answers with a crayon, like a baby! And his mom was so mad she cried.