“If he calls for back-up they might decide to search the whole school. We can’t hide. Let’s make a run for it. If we go all the way to the back of the school it’s as far away from the cafeteria as we can go. We can get out through the locker room door. If we can get across the football field and into the woods, we should be okay.” Moses nodded and gestured for Denny to lead the way. As they made their way through a maze of halls, Denny heard the sound first: sirens. Back-up was on the way. They ran; getting out was now far more important than staying quiet. They cut through the gym and into the locker room. There were no windows in the locker room, or on the exit door. If the other police car decided to check this side of the school first, they were dead. Denny took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The coast was clear. Moses jammed a rock under the door so it wouldn’t slam shut, and they were on their way. An unlikely pair, if ever there was one, to be sprinting across a football field.
They reached the edge of the woods without incident. Taking cover in a stand of pines, they bent to catch their breath and look for pursuers. They could see occasional flashlight beams cutting through the darkness, but no indication that they were headed toward them. Moses seemed to be having trouble catching his breath, but he was first to motion for them to keep going. Denny made his way through the trees until he came across a small path. He turned onto the path leading away from the school just as the lights came on. The exterior lights in the parking lots were first, then the loud pops indicating the field lights were being turned on. Denny glanced at Moses as the football lights began warming up, and he didn’t like what he saw. Moses was laboring, his face etched with the look of fear. Not fear of being caught, but a deeper, more instinctive fear. The fear of death. He had his right hand up to his left shoulder, and he was staring at his left hand as he clenched and unclenched his fist. When he saw Denny staring at him, he shook his head and thrust his chin forward, meaning to keep going. Denny nodded, but veered off the path again, through some thin brush and a small row of hedges. He had to get Moses safe, but couldn’t risk the trip back home just yet. He had an idea. He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and placed it down carefully under a small hedge. “You stay here. Wait ten minutes, then keep going straight through there,” Denny pointed through the bushes. “You’ll come out on Briarwood Road. Wait in the bushes there until you see a car flash its lights, that’ll be us.”
Moses looked mildly dazed. He was still having trouble breathing. He nodded and sat down next to the backpack. “Ten minutes. Through the trees, flashing lights,” he panted.
Denny frowned, unsure if leaving him behind was the right thing to do or not. He made up his mind, unable to come up with a better choice. He turned to go but before he could take a step a hand clamped down on his ankle. Moses was looking up at him with an expression Denny couldn’t quite read. “Tell your mom I loved her. Even though I did such terrible things. I left her to think I was dead.” He paused to wipe a tear from his face, still sounding like he was trying to breathe through a thick blanket. “Tell her, Denny, please?”
Denny felt his own eyes filling up, but shook his head. There was too much left to do. And he couldn’t do it without Moses. “Tell her yourself.” And he turned and ran into the darkness.
(75)
Jake McCauley sat staring at nothing. Seated in his ratty old recliner in his dingy apartment, there wasn’t much to look at anyway. He brought a can of beer to his lips, realized it was empty, and let it drop to the floor next to the chair. It wasn’t his first, evidenced by the clang it made against the other dead soldiers on the floor, but he knew it was his last.
In his other hand was the camera Jake had left on the bar. He raised it up to examine it again, but in reality he was examining his inner thoughts. Chris was right, Chris was always right; now that he knew the truth about what he saw, he could no longer play the helpless trauma victim. It was time to move on. Fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. He smiled, a tight-lipped expression that most would have taken for pain. They would have been right.
He got to his feet unsteadily and placed the camera on the end table. Rays of bright sunlight filtered through the blinds, highlighting the dances of the dust motes. From the apartment below, the bass of hard rock music vibrated the floor under his feet.
It was Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” Christ, was that the only album he had? With a final look of longing at the camera, he stepped onto the shaky stool and slipped the noose around his neck. He’d known since Chris stalked angrily out of the Hat that this was how it had to be. There was no way he could face that thing again. There was no way he could drink away the shame of being unable to face it. This was the only way.
His heart raced in his chest and a dagger of despair ripped through his gut when he realized that he was too much of a coward to go through with it. Sobbing with the regret of a child who missed going to the circus because he hadn’t cleaned his room, he reached up miserably to undo the noose. And that small movement combined with the countless beers was enough to throw off his already tenuous balance. He felt himself reeling, then overcompensated by shifting his weight too quickly. He was terrified and relieved when he felt the stool kick out from under his feet.
He struggled, clawing at the rope, his instinctual will to live momentarily winning over his desire to die. Very quickly, his oxygen-starved brain shut down those struggles.
He wasn’t sure if the song was still playing or it was only echoing in his head, but he knew time was, indeed, running out.
As he spun slowly in a circle of impending death he found himself facing the small table with the camera on it. His last thought was that the lens looked like the eye of that beast and it was mocking him, even now.
(76)
Denny crashed through the woods blindly. Stray roots grabbed at his ankles while branches tore at his clothes and skin. Still, he ran. He broke through a set of bushes and literally tumbled onto Briarwood Road. He scanned the street quickly as he got to his feet, making sure nobody saw his grand exit from the woods. Of course the street was silent. Many of the houses were in complete darkness. Bluish light flickered from a few windows where late-nighters or insomniacs used the television to keep them awake or to help them sleep. Denny got his bearings and set off at a run.
At Father McCarthy’s house, Denny noticed a light still on as he hurried up the front steps. He could see McCarthy through the bug-covered screen door, fast asleep with a book open on his chest. Smiling to himself, he knocked loudly enough to disturb whatever peace McCarthy had found, scattering scores of mosquitoes, beetles and moths in every direction. When he saw McCarthy stir, he knocked again, this time more softly.
“Denny?” whispered McCarthy. “Come in, is something wrong? What time is it?”
Denny pulled open the door and slid in quickly so the bugs wouldn’t follow. “I need your help, its important. I need you to drive me to pick up my… a friend, then I’ll explain everything. Will you do it?”