Bill grabbed the cannon and ran to the front of the terrace, cycling another round into the chamber. He desperately needed to see what happened to his wife and daughter, and to Max. Just as he looked down, resting the barrel of the cannon on the lip of the wall’s edge, two men were walking Max out his front door. He was done shooting people for the day, and didn’t want Max’s encouragement to save him, not yet holding the weapon up to fire.
Max was already looking up and staring at Bill. Bill looked at him expectedly, fearful Max wanted him to shoot these two men, and held up a free hand, palm up, asking, what should I do? Max held his two palms at Bill and shook his head as if to answer no. Bill watched him walk to his Jeep, parked outside in front of the garage. They got in, Max in the driver’s seat, it started, and they drove away.
Not wanting anything more to do with the rifle, Bill let go of it, leaving it on the shelf protected by the wall. He bounded downstairs, out the door, fumbling with his lanyard and key, trying to lock it as instructed. Now frantic for news about his wife and daughter, he galloped to his house. He felt exposed, as if another dozen or so mass murderers with riles were going to rush into the street with guns blaring. His paranoia was thankfully just that.
When he was about to cross the front door threshold, he yelled out their names, “Lisa? Sally? Where are you?” He was half way down the hallway when four outstretched arms embraced him, squeezing him very hard. Like a blanket, their embrace and tears covered them with warmth and peace.
Lisa and Sally unleashed a fusillade of colorful descriptions of the preceding minutes. Bill said very little, holding tightly to what he had to do. For their part, Lisa and Sally never let on that they knew he had done something unsavory, and never asked. When they got to the part of Max’s abduction, surrender, and then Max’s final request, Bill jumped in, “Wait, he wanted to go with them?”
“They were quite insistent,” Sally answered, “But, it looked to me like he knew these people. They certainly knew Uncle Max.”
“Do you know what he meant about the book?” Lisa chimed in, having calmed down considerably, her curiosity now getting to her.
“No, I have no idea. Although, he did tell me he planned to give us lots of detail about his plans for us, but he certainly couldn’t have known about leaving us. Let’s go find out.”
Lisa looked past Bill to the dead man hanging out their dining room window, “How do we know they are all gone?” she finished, motioning with her head in the dead man’s direction. Her question felt surreal, as if she was asking how the china looked on the table of their dining room, when it was in fact a dead man resting in their window.
Bill turned, and stepped back, his mind catching up with his eyes. That explains one of the gunshots.
“I think there’s another outside the window,” Sally offered.
And that explains the second gunshot he heard. Bill’s mind ran through the events.
“Max seemed pretty sure that the others would run aw… that there would be no more, than those two.”
A few minutes later, after more hugs and a little more sharing of today’s events, Bill pushed the dead man through their window; the blast had done most of the work for him. Surprisingly, there was almost no blood in the house. All of the gore was on their windowsill, and outside.
The three of them, holding hands for comfort and protection, walked out back toward Max’s home, gingerly stepping around the dead birds that littered their yard, then around a greater number in Max’s yard. None of them questioned this, their senses numb from what they had already witnessed. Bill led, walking them through Max’s patio doors and towards the bookcase.
Lisa, bringing up the rear and letting go of their hand-holding chain, stopped and studied the small desk to their right, “Is that the desk Max talked about? Look, here is the book,” she said, holding up the book Max had overtly placed below the desk earlier.
She opened it so that all three could see, not waiting for a reply. It said in hurried script, “Sorry, wrong book.”
“No, it must be in his office,” Bill said reaching up to the top shelves of the wood bookcase.
“What office?” Sally asked.
36.
“I have to go pee,” Danny said meekly, interrupting Darla’s quite slumber.
She rubbed her eyes, and brushed some of her long hair behind her right shoulder, then stretched a little, working out the tightness in her leg from sleeping in one position for such a long time in their car.
“I really have to go,” now with more urgency.
“I heard you, kiddo,” Darla said as she opened the door to let in the sound of crickets and the heat of the day. “Why don’t you go there?” She asked, pointing at an area where the parking lot ended at a fence, protecting some heavily weeded field belonging to O’Hare.
“No, I want a bathroom,” Danny protested.
“Sorry, but you know how far the bathrooms are. Unless you want to hold it, you’ll have to go there.
“Fine, but don’t look,” exiting his door on the opposite side of the car.
She did just that, watching Danny walk to the fence, unzip his pants, and urinate on it, trying best not to act conspicuous, and not hit his shoes. She smiled at this, trying not to think about her next decision.
They had missed their flight by almost an hour. When they arrived at the airport after one in the morning, all the flights going out were cancelled, and incoming flights were only accepted because they had nowhere else to go. A pilot told her this, figuring he would be a better source of info than the peons at each flight counter. She found out that all airports were having communication problems and they could do little more than wait. Until further notice, all flights were cancelled. There was no place to stay. Every place she called was booked, and then they were having problems making phone calls at all. It seemed like the whole cell network went dead.
Without the ability to call, she tried texting her father, then Sally, then her grandfather, and finally Steve. It didn’t appear that any texts went through. Finally, exhausted from the driving, the late hour, and trying to negotiate a flight, lodging, and everything else, Darla gave up. “We’re going back to the car,” she announced to Danny. That’s when everything just stopped.
They had just walked past the TSA security lines, which were still large, even though the flights had stopped for almost an hour. Before making it to the exits, all the lights went out. The vast expanse of the airport went black. What was truly odd was the lack of light from anything. There were no headlights from cars right outside, and no lights from others cell phones either.
At first, most of the crowds were subdued, sort of a stunned silence, waiting for the lights to come on automatically as they would all expect them to. Darla and Danny both stopped their progression out as well, probably more curious than concerned. Then there was a scream, followed by another. Then a rush of footfalls, running, some tumbling. Panic fueled the crowd’s motion towards the doors, and the eerie ambient green light outside.
Darla and Danny didn’t need much motivation to start moving forward. Someone bumped into Danny, after tripping over the roll-aboard he was dragging behind him, almost knocking him down. Darla held tight and together they ran for the doors, holding hands and dragging their bags. Among the sounds of pandemonium behind them, Darla could hear Danny’s labored breathing. He was having an attack.