“Clear,” Jack said. He ran to Lisa’s door and knocked three times. “It’s me, Jack.”
Rick and I crouched on either side of him, protecting the flanks. The man’s legs twitched. One shot had entered just above his left eye.
“Are you sure?” she cried from behind the door.
Jack leaned against it. “Open up. We know what’s going on.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure?” she kept repeating hysterically.
“Just open the bloody door. We’ve come to save you.”
After a brief pause, the lock clicked and the door creaked open.
“Come on guys—get in,” Jack said.
Rick backed into the room. I followed, closed the door, and locked it.
Five children, all around seven years old, huddled in the kitchenette area. Lisa looked terrified. She pulled at Jack’s sleeve. “Is it all happening again? Oh my God, is it?”
“If we stay calm, we’ll get out of this,” Jack said.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Who was outside? Did they come to kill us?”
“Probably,” I said. “You might see a bit more of it until we get clear.”
“We can’t move from here. It’s not safe for the kids.”
“It’s not safe to stay here, Lisa,” Jack said. “We need to find a safe place to hide.”
“People won’t find us here; we can keep quiet,” she said.
“If I wanted to find and kill someone, I’d look in the suites,” Rick said.
“We can wait here for half an hour,” I said. “Give them time to wipe each other out.”
“Get the kids ready to move in thirty minutes,” Jack said.
I heard a faint banging noise and put my fingers to my lips.
Somebody knocked on a suite door along the corridor and shouted. Then again, closer.
“Keep quiet—they’re not lingering,” I said.
Lisa sat among the kids and gave each one a reassuring rub on the arm. Jack, Rick, and I lined up behind a couch and watched the door.
Someone knocked on the next door along. Footsteps echoed outside. I took a deep breath.
“Come out—I know you’re in there,” Chip said. “Parade in five minutes.”
“He’s screwed,” Jack said.
I’d quickly grown to like Chip after finding him a warm man of integrity and action. GA had turned us into mortal enemies. I hoped he would move along and meet a swift end.
He banged on our suite’s door.
“Come out! I know you’re—”
One of the children screamed.
“Open it,” Chip said. “I’ll give you five seconds.”
The door shuddered three times. I imagined him outside, thrusting his large frame against it. I aimed at the center.
Two gunshots rang out. Wood splintered inward around the lock. The door boomed open and thudded against the wall. Chip stood in the open entrance and held his gun forward in a two-handed grip. The children screamed.
I pumped four rounds into his torso. A hot shell case from Rick’s rifle bounced off my cheek. Chip’s arms fell by his side. He jerked as the rounds slammed into his body, and fell flat on his back.
Lisa cupped her cheeks and gasped. I felt a lump in my throat but had to stay vigilant to the situation at hand. With the door broken, we were even more exposed.
“We need to get clear of the stadium,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Won’t it be like this everywhere?” Lisa asked.
“The main concentration of people is here,” Jack said. “We’ll protect you, Lisa. Staying here is suicide.”
“I’ll scout the way ahead,” I said. “Jack, you stay with Lisa and the children. Rick, bring up the rear.”
“Roger that,” Rick said.
The kids surrounded Lisa, and she gave them a pep talk.
I checked the corridor in both directions and headed for a fire exit between our two suites. Somebody screamed on a lower level. Lisa and the kids linked hands and formed a chain. I depressed the metal exit bar and shoved the door open. A shaft of late morning sunshine flooded into the corridor.
I scanned the immediate area outside the stadium while descending the concrete steps. The parking lot was deserted, and the golf course showed no signs of the madness inside.
The kids and Lisa stood against the wall of a brick building, perhaps a former security office. Rick and Jack joined me, and together we surrounded them in a defensive formation. A seagull obliviously flapped overhead as screams echoed from the stadium.
“Take us back to the marina, Rick,” I said, thinking water might be our safest place.
He nodded and led the way around the stadium, toward Flushing Bay.
Forty yards later, Rick crouched and pulled his rifle into his shoulder.
Jack and I knelt in front of the kids. Multiple footsteps slapped against the ground, heading in our direction.
Harris and three of his team, all with packs strapped to their backs, bolted out of an entrance tunnel.
“Stop or I fire!” Jack shouted.
Harris skidded to a halt, swallowed hard, and rested his hands on his knees. “Thank God, it’s you.”
“Get over here,” I said.
The group joined us by the wall. Two of them swept the surrounding area through their sights.
“We took your advice—shock to the head,” Harris said, trying to catch his breath. “Doesn’t look like many others did.”
“They probably didn’t even know about it,” Jack said.
“How’d you get away?” Rick asked.
“When the killing started, we headed for the nearest exit and ended up in the locker room.”
“The logistics women were strangling each other,” one of the men said in a French accent.
“We left them to it,” Harris said. “Hid in my suite till it died down. What happened to Chip?”
“We shot him,” Jack said.
“Did he turn?”
“Didn’t have a choice. It was him or us,” Rick said.
Harris sighed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Any ideas?”
“We came here in a cruiser, docked at Flushing Bay,” I said. “It’s not far from here.”
“What have you got in those backpacks?” Jack said.
“Emergency supplies. We grabbed what we could from the suite. Figured it could be a long few days,” Harris said.
“We share. Not a problem,” French said.
“You up for a boat trip?” I asked.
Harris nodded. “Sure, let’s get those kids to safety.”
“You four flank the kids; Rick and Jack can bring up the rear. Let’s move.”
A ground-level emergency exit banged open. A man in a chef’s apron staggered out of the door, holding a carving knife. He looked in the opposite direction. I raised my rifle. He slowly turned around. Our eyes met. He raised his knife and sprinted forward.
Before I had a chance to fire, multiple gunshots zipped through him, checking his run and peppering his dirty white apron with red spots. He dropped to his knees and weakly threw the knife in our general direction, before crashing face first on the road.
French drew a Glock from his hip holster, stood over the chef, and fired into the back of his head. I found his action chilling. The chef had already cooked his last stew.
“No pissing about— move!” I shouted.
We headed out toward Citi Field, the quickest route to our cruiser.
Harris, his men, and Lisa carried the children. Jack and Rick shuffled backward, covering our rear. I felt we were becoming too strung out, so we stopped below a concrete bridge to regroup.
“It’s alright, guys,” I said to the children. “We’re taking you somewhere safe. Who wants to go on a boat?”
The closest sniffed, wiped brown hair away from her face, and nodded. The landscape opened out to our right, where Citi Field dominated the skyline. I kept us between the trees at the side of the road, and we trudged through the long grass surrounding them.